Active Member
I really hope that doesn't happen. I'm not too worried about it, because it was only one album so far that felt that way, but if the next one feels like another collection of b-sides, then I'm going to get a bit worried.Originally Posted by october_midnight
i'm too thin
No, I called you a snarky fuck because you responded to my post in a snarky manner. I have nothing against different opinions.
When I mentioned that, I tried to make it clear that it was just my interpretation. I was explaining the reason why I thought 10,000 Days fit perfectly into their discography. I wasn't trying to imply that it was their intent.All of the 'this album is their anger' and 'this album is their recognition of the anger' and blah blah. I'm sure when they recorded an album, it wasn't 'ok fellas, so this is the recognition of the anger of the last record'.
FATUM NOS IUNGET
I wouldn't go so far as to say they felt like b-sides to me, but I get the implication for sure. I guess it just could boil down to me wanting to be surprised and there's a total of about 30 seconds worth of material on 10K Days that I found surprising.
Administrator
I still really want to hear that.
Gilded Member
I completely agree; they've seen a change in mentality over the years, similar to the changes that went on as the Halos progressed into the 20s. I will agree that it does seem like a break in the trend they had going, but it was never said they had to continue in the specific direction they had been. Mastodon has been putting out element-themed albums since the beginning, but out of nowhere comes this monster of a curveball called The Hunter. There's no unified theme and most of the songs have insanely ridiculous names when compared to the story driven songs fans have been used to. It's their fifth album, and 10k Days was Tool's fifth album (counting Opiate). On that same note, the 5th major Halo was a significant departure from what the trend would suggest. I'm all for bands trying new things, and I've go an open enough mind to go with it when it happens. It may not result in my favorite material by them, but I still find things about it to enjoy.
I love that one, but I HAVE to follow it up with Right In Two. I really enjoy the complete shift of POV on the subject from one track to the next. Each one is about the same subject matter, but they are such opposing views. I like when a band can do that on any two songs, but to have them next to each other, as true complements is right up my alley.
My favorite bands are as such for this very reason, and Tool is most certainly one of those bands. The best part is when the band can seamlessly combine so many moods into one album. Even though 10,000 Days is comparable in style to all of their previous works (at times), I think it brings a fresh perspective on the music, illustrating the point Harry is making. I can almost see 10,000k Days as a redux on their past work. Vicarious sounds like it should be on Lateralus, except that instead of being a self-reflective look at the world, it's a critical examination of the very nature of people. Lost Keys and Rosetta Stone are reminiscent of Ænima, but rather than be self-reflective lyrics about relationships with people and achieving higher consciousness, it's a drug-fueled rant about aliens attempting to warn humans not to destroy themselves. Now of course, I'm talking about the lyrics here, but even the music, when reminiscent of their older material, has new elements to it that reflect changes in everyone involved.
That part gives me chills every time I hear it. You can hear the passion in his voice, wishing for something he doesn't even seem to believe in. It's the ultimate tribute and I think it's fucking beautiful. The guy writes a chorus starting with "Fuck your god," in a song about his mother, then goes on to pay tribute to her in this manner. It's stuff like that that keeps me interested in this band. It doesn't matter to me how they act, as long as their music continues to move me in the ways it does. Honestly, though, I haven't seen to much of Maynard being the condescending asshole he used to be. He was fine when I saw APC, even if he was barely visible and didn't talk a great deal. I'm not paying to have a one sided conversation, I'm paying to see them perform music. It seems to me, that's simply what they want to do and not be bombarded with idiocy because of it. To that I say "fair enough," because I don't think it should be necessary that if you are famous, you have to be in the spotlight. I don't have a strong desire to actually meet the people who make the music I listen to. Having a brief encounter with them just to say typical fan shit doesn't interest me at all. If it were a situation where I could actually talk to them like humans, then I'm sure I'd be interested but meeting them briefly seems pointless to me so I am not going to be effected if they are less than friendly to people. But, as I was saying, I haven't seen that sort of behavior coming across on stage. When I saw Puscifer, Maynard was very talkative and he talked to us like equals. He gave a little speech explaining the idea behind their stage setup, and it was a really great show.I really liked 10,000 Days though, especially the slow burn that is Wings for Marie/10,000 Days. I really get into the lyrics toward the end of 10,000 Days,
I just love the attitude behind those lyrics It took me quite a few litens to the album before that really stood out to me, but I listen to both songs in anticipation of that part every time. Also love The Pot. I'm hoping for a departure for the next album though. I kinda wish they'd do something a little more like Undertow in that those are mostly quick, brutal punches to the face as opposed to the sprawling stuff that they've been leaning towards the last decade.
I thought the same thing when I first heard the song and I think of that every time I hear it. It's not enough for me to think that they can't write anything new. It is just a brief part of the song and it's no worse than saying "Nothing can stop me now" in 5 songs on 3 albums, in 2 languages.
Last edited by Goldfoot; 04-17-2012 at 11:20 PM. Reason: Type O
Banned
Me too. Really really.
Banned
Just re-listening to Undertow for the first time in a while. Holy jesus what an album. Tool, plz make summot like this again. Call it "Under-ertow".
FATUM NOS IUNGET
Never said they had to once in there at all. But still, ow my feelings!
House Always Wins
Likewise!
On the debate, I like 10,000 Days but compared and with every other Tool album I'd say that it is my least favorite. I even like Opiate more.
Throbbing Member
After reading all the discussion here about 10,000 Days I thought I'd pop it in my car for my commute. Turns out I'd forgotten how great I think it is. To me its a great mix of Aenima and Lateralus. Lateralus was an experience for me when I first heard it, but eventually I grew tired of some parts, in particular the production that I find just a little too cold and clinical. 10,000 Days on the other hand sounds more alive and vital, perhaps a little rougher on the edges, but awesomely powerful in places. I also find Lateralus a little monotonous in places, 10,000 Day on the other hand has a lot more character in the tracks. Each one works as part of the album, but on its own too.
Meh, a little vague really, but yeah, I do still have a lot of love for Tool and Lateralus, but out of all their albums its the one that stays on the shelf, when 10k, Undertow and Anima and even Salival get regular plays.
Hairy Member
I haven't listened to Tool for a long time. I was a bit too young for their early stuff. I 'came of age', so to speak, roughly in between The Fragile & Lateralus, both of which were the first records to really blow me away and turn me on to music. Like others have said, the long wait in between albums pushed expectations to unreasonable levels, and at first I was let down by 10k days. But when I returned to it a few years later, I really began to appreciate it more. Speaking very generally here, to me their early records have so much scathing, almost tounge-in-cheek social criticism that seems to have re-emerged in the 1990s. Then they tried to move beyond that with Lateralus and its transcendental message. In the process they really upped their musicianship beyond just raw metal and into something beautiful. Then they went away for a while, and in that time 9/11, George Bush, and Iraq happened. I think those events, and their perceived lack of outrage by the public sort of brought them back to the social criticism seen on 10k days. But it was different than before. Gone was the optimistic effort of trying to shock people into examining their beliefs, which they (and others) may have thought possible in the 90s. I think 2006 for them was more of a lament for how passive things have become. That maybe they had accepted that it was impossible for society to change course. It seemed to me that was where Maynard was moving late in APC, during 10k days, and in a lot of the serious side of Puscifer. So with 10k days, they were able to combine this social commentary with the musicianship they had found during Lateralus. Maybe not the best of either during their careers, but the two elements combine to make a very powerful record, and the one I come back to more than the others. I'm not sure what they're going to bring for the next one, and I don't care, I've learned it's best to just walk away from these bands for a while, and to dial the expectations way back. I'm surprised and content to know that they are even still recording.
Active Member
Lateralus is great overall, but man i am in a huge minority of people who cannot fucking stand Disposition/Reflection/Triad. what a total snoozefest. I always read about people who want them to bring it back, meanwhile when they played that whole fucking thing back when they toured behind Lateralus, i was so bummed, as they could have fit 4 or 5 smaller songs in that time, and instead I just saw all the energy zapped out of the arena, and the rest of the show's time wasted away. i hope it's retired forever.
i'm too thin
You're a terrible person.
Anyways, more pictures from The Loft.
Active Member
"Reflection" and "Ticks and Leeches" are the only two songs on that album I'm not crazy about. I love, love, love, love "Disposition." That song takes me to another planet.
Edit (re: latest pics): Daniel Day-Lewis is playing bass?
Stubby Member
is he reading tabs off an iPhone?
Flaccid Member
Well like Maynard always says it takes 3 years for people to catch on and get everything that he has been involved with, it took 3 years for people to get TOOL, same for A Perfect Circle, and it will be the same for Puscifer. Yet I think that 10,000 days was concept album just like all the rest and the next album has a lot of material to live up to. I will still buy it regardless, and so will all of you if only for the album cover coolness!
tempus est umbra in mente
That's a pretty pretentious thing for him to say... I would assume he meant it sardonically. Otherwise, it just kind of sounds like he's saying "the music that I make is so deep that its brilliance flies over most people's heads, and eventually they manage to grasp it."
Regarding Tool, it wasn't uniquely alienating to audiences. It usually takes bands time to cultivate an audience. Three years is almost a minimum benchmark. When Aenima came out, the critics unanimously praised it and people went nuts overnight.
With Perfect Circle, that debut album was huge out of the gate, and they were touring sold out shows from the start.
Last edited by Jinsai; 04-30-2012 at 10:19 PM.
Gilded Member
I've never heard of Maynard saying that until pony's post up there. It actually goes against what I have heard him say, which is that people should get their own meaning from the music. There's no written lyrics that come with the albums because it's about the whole musical experience, not just the words he chose to sing over the other three playing. I prefer to think of Maynard as that person than the one jony is describing. As for it being a concept album, I have to disagree. They may have had a loose concept in mind when writing it, but there is no cohesive story that continues throughout the entire album. I wouldn't call any of theirs a concept album, according to the definition of what one is. A collection of perspectives, with a diversion or two, perhaps. That's really what all of them are, but I don't interpret them as telling any kind of coherent story*.
*I did rearrange the songs on Lateralus to form a story, but it completely changes the track order, and thus, not what the band intended.
Administrator
I agree with Jinsai here. It's completely disingenuous to say A Perfect Circle took 3 years for people to get. People were singing along to the songs when APC was opening for NIN on an MTV2 sponsored concert, before the album had even debuted. The first video was directed by David Fincher. The album debuted at what, #2? I think it was the highest charting debut for a rock band ever when it happened.
And Puscifer didn't take three years for people to catch on to it. It took them that long to make a solid album's worth of music. The first few releases by that band were a joke. You can not say with a straight face that "Cuntry Boner" is not a joke. You'd get partial credit though, if you said it was a joke that was not funny. As a fan of Tool and A Perfect Circle and of electronic music in general, I was primed to like Puscifer, but the first album was mostly crap. There were two or three good tracks on there, but most of it lacked imagination. I found it highly disappointing, the 'D is for dull' version was boring, the remix album blew, and I had pretty much written Puscifer off until the "C is for still making stupid album titles" EP, where it became evident that Maynard was actually putting real effort into the musical output of Puscifer.
10,000 Days has had more than three years to do anything different for me. I feel like Tool lost the plot with that one. While they had pretty much scrapped the comic relief from Lateralus, 10,000 Days had the whole band making a very serious face. And it had a thunderstorm in it. It rambled, and it needed to be reeled in. Tool is comprised of very excellent musicians, it would be a gravely sad event if they were to be diluted into a jam band. That album was a little bit like their website - there's this adolescent pretense of something cool there, but it's animated GIFs on a screen designed for 800x600 resolution monitors. My phone has higher resolution than that! I still remember when that Flash animation first appeared on their website, my computer at the time would fall to its knees trying to render that. I think it might have been a Pentium II. (Oh look, you need Flash Player version 5 to run DiSSECTIONAL, which is PROCESSOR INTENSIVE) And what's the point of going to toolband.com when all that's there are Blair's completely uninteresting ramblings?
I swear to god if the new album artwork is another rendering of The Invisible Man, I'm shutting down The Tool Hotline.
i'm too thin
A bit long-winded, but it gets interesting after all the hippy talk...
TOOL NEWSLETTER
APRIL, 2012 E.V.
TALES FROM THE LOFT
(PART ONE)
The loft in which the members of Tool create all of their music - spanning over two decades now - was known as "the loft" even before it became the starting point for the band's artistic complexity. Back then it was Danny's new digs - a grim brick structure in a seedy part of Hollywood where the Midwest transplant could play drums and prog-rock music as loud as he wanted. (Well, almost. The L.A.P.D. paid him numerous late night visits, and on some occasions Danny even opened the heavy bolted door to see who was ready to party.) When not pounding on the drums, there was a microwave oven to re-heat spicy Thai curries, and a vintage Pepsi cooler (with a self-contained refrigeration system) to keep plenty of beers chilled. Above a rickety makeshift bar, accessible by an even ricketier ladder, was a tiny loft where the future Tool drummer would crash out on a waterbed in the flicker of a television as mice (rats?) nibbled on his exposed bony toes. Having lots of time to kill on hot summer nights without any air-conditioning, the whitewashed interior walls were soon adorned with large reproductions from the Russian Suprematism art movement that were painted with staggering exactitude by Danny himself. Together with the geometric forms of Malevich and Lissitsky, strange aluminum foil creations hung from the ceiling, reflecting the glow of dozens of candles. Someday Danny planned to lay down a discarded carpet (along with other lofty ambitions), but for the time being the cement floor remained perpetually sticky from spilled Nukey Browns. This was "the loft" as I first knew the place. However, things would quickly change.
Given the amount of unused space, and knowing that there was earth right beneath the hard surface, it wasn't long before a certain small group of practicing ceremonial magicians moved their Lodge headquarters from another loft (this one above Frederick's of Hollywood) to Danny's new place. On certain nights, while seated within the Circle of Protection and Obedience, the practitioners carefully followed the strange requirements of various medieval grimoires. Anticipating changes in the neural-matrix during the Praxis, some were still a bit apprehensive of astral turbulence and unwanted tangential phenomena. If followed to the letter (meaning no haphazard substitutions or other liberties taken), the Barbarous Words of Evocation might result in a bountiful harvest provided by certain spirits brought to physical manifestation from the relativistic space-time continuum. To produce the desired result while manipulating hidden forces (i.e. intelligences) listed in the old grammars of magic, once rare ingredients were procured from a nearby occult marketplace, one merely had to understand exactly what are (and more importantly) what AREN'T traps for fools. "Coincidently', abandoned in the 'Frederick's' loft was a large circular wooden board that had been painted with sigils from the "Heptameron" (as appended to Agrippa's "Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy") which the current occupier had found amongst some junk left by the previous tenants. It seemed that someone (or something) was looking out for us! (Note: This still exists on the reverse side of Danny's Enochian "Sigillum Die Ameth" board - a talismanic stage backdrop that should be familiar to most Tool enthusiasts.)
When not meddling with the Goetia or other 'black books', entheogens were employed as visionary tools (often combined with ceremonial mechanics) to facilitate daring sojourns to the outposts of 'reality' and, hopefully, vivid encounters with the denizens that populated this hyper-spatial topography. These entities might include the various tryptoids, tikes, and mantids described by the psychedelic theorist Terence McKenna and other intrepid (or foolish) neuronants. And, indeed, at times, there were fleeting glimpses of those that existbehind the scenery: haunting tryptamine jesters with outrageously complex appliances, electric flesh guides, silver fire babies and vortices of jeweled phantoms. Did I mention the cartoonish squatamauders? Eventually, attempts were made to shatter certain biological safeguards via simulated death techniques in order to access the endogenous tryptamine dimensions, with the operations carefully timed to coincide with the plummeting brightness of the eclipsing trinary star Algol (Beta Persei). (Disclaimer: Don't try this at home, kids. Professional psychonants. Mindscapes closed. Otherwise, you just might end up as a Christian fundamentalist or, even worse, composing esoteric verses that billions of apathetic souls will never recite.)
Of course it is merely a coincidence that the exact spot were the magical rituals were once performed would be the future launching pad/rehearsal space for a group of musicians that would eventually incorporate occult principles and magical imagery in their artistic endeavors. Anything that may have materialized in the corresponding perfume of the Art was dutifully given the License to Depart (appropriate banishing procedures) in order to eliminate any potential mischievous, nay, dangerous residue. And this included shadowy apparitions from half-assed summons, aborted astral constructs, and any other aerial spirits that escaped the curse of chains due to ineptitude on the part of the Operators.
Other than a few monstrous sentinels to watch over things, and wall paintings of vibrant DMT entities, today there is little evidence of the "Lodge" days. Should a visitor to the building happen to glance up at the ceiling, he or she might notice the complex pulley system that was once used to hoist and lower wrought-iron chandeliers in which a multitude of green candles glowed in the hope of bestowing prosperity to all those involved in the Workings. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if the esoteric arcana worked? Or, if a crack appeared, and the Devil slipped through it?
Most Tool fans already know how the band that wasn't sure that it really wanted to be a band was created in the early 90s, and how the "loft" played a crucial role in its unlikely formation and enduring success. Although Danny was playing gigs with L.A. club rowdies, " Pigmy Love Circus", doing studio session work with Carole King, drumming with various sitcom in-house bands, and had adoted the persona of "Danny Longlegs" with the punk cabaret "Green Jello", there was still time to jam with a few others, though how serious these new guys were about playing music for a living was definitely up to question. In one way or another, all were involved in the film industry (or aspired to be), and it wasn't certain (even to themselves) exactly where their hearts truly lied.
Danny introduced me to Maynard while using his new space (located right next to Danny's) to gain access to the large brick building's roof. It was a warm spring night, and after a few leisurely cocktails some of my fellow Lodge Brothers thought it might be amusing to throw an arsenal of water balloons down on the dressed-up prom couples standing up through the sun-roofs of limousines moving slowly up and down the crowded boulevard. (Note: I had meant to add earlier that only very well-balanced individuals should ever attempt the ritual mechanics necessary for releasing post-mortem tryptamines during the minima of the Algol ternary.) Now, where were we? Oh yeah, tossing water balloons down on unsuspecting high-school couples. Direct hits there were, with expensive hairdos soaked, teaching these foolish youngsters that it's not safe to hang out of limos. Anyway, I vaguely remember that Maynard's new place looked like a habitat for exotic lizards. At the time, the budding world class multi-tasker was working as a pet-store chain's interior designer, but he had recently added falsetto background vocals to Green Jello's indie smash, "Three Little Pigs," According to Danny, his new buddy was "a DAMN good singer!"
As Adam, Maynard, and Paul D'Amour jammed in the loft, whenever a auditioning or potential drummer flaked, Danny would sympathetically fill in, charging each of the guys $6.00 an hour to help pay the rent and utilities. During this time, these jam sessions were usually described to me in less than flattering terms, although this was probably because Danny knew that I was a prog-snob, and his latest band was alternative metal. Despite whatever he had to say though, I actually had the feeling that he felt that there was a good chemistry with the new quartet, and that this just might be the group that he was diligently searching for. But could it really be that easy? Musicians who just showed up on his doorstep because he had available space? The exact right pieces needed to fulfill the drummer's dreams? Well, this was L.A., and those candles were green...
i'm too thin
It wasn't until they (I still didn't know if they had a name yet) had finished with afternoon rehearsals that my friends and I would show up at the loft with grocery bags full of cheap alcohol. Sometimes it seemed that we were losing more and more valuable partying space as the place was becoming cluttered not only with the equipment of Danny's new metal band, but with that of Pigmy Love Circus and Rage Against The Machine as well. On those long nights of reveling, sustenance usually consisted either of greasy Tommy's chili burgers, Thai food, or, my favorite, the chicken burrito combo (#5) from the open late "Shig-Shack." The "Shig-Shack" was actually a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint called "Dos Burritos" that we called "Shig" as a shortened form of the medical condition shigellosis due to the place's perceived unsanitary conditions. To be fair, however, the little diner has always received the high letter grade of "A" by inspectors of the L.A. Public Health Department. Even so, after consuming a burrito with a liberal dousing of the painfully hot (yet, shigalicious) hot sauce, one tended to pray to any god that would listen that Danny had an extra roll of toilet paper stashed away in that rumbling Pepsi cooler of his. Some nights we attempted to fire up the tiny Weber grill outside, but it wouldn't be long before everyone's eyes were stinging from the gassy, chemical fumes of glowing Kingsford, and the even more toxic bum piss that permeated the parking lot and dirty alleyway.
When the loft got too stuffy, there were drunken excursions to Jumbo's Clown Room, a Hollywood landmark of sorts where wannabe starlets and over-the-hill strippers pole danced as patrons stuffed dollar bills into their g-strings, and the more sensible merely applauded the burlesque. That's right, we were broke. No, actually, sometimes in the Jumbo's of old, one even felt fortunate that the previous night's brugmansia tea recipe (Tree Datura) had partially blinded some of those who partook of the bitter concoction. I knew that great jazz bands often played at a club called "The Baked Potato" over the hill in Studio City, but who in the fuck could afford to go there! What with the high cover charge and two drink minimum. At least there was no cover at Jumbo's.
Other field trips were taken to Mount Pinos in the Los Padres National Forest. From the high elevation with its glittering infinity of stars, we had fun with the dozens of geeky amateur astronomers with their powerful optics trained on distant celestial objects. I remember one illustrious and quite beshroomed Lodge Brother would politely ask to take a peek through a person's telescope, at which time he would shout at the top of his lungs, "FUCK!!! LOOK AT THAT SHIT!" He would then move over to the next guy's telescope and quietly ask if he could take quick look into the viewfinder? No matter what astronomical feature the telescope was positioned on and tracking, our smirking friend would once again (jokingly) shout, "GODDAMN!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT!" Soon, all of the geeks were inviting him over to show him the nebula in their own viewfinders, evidently oblivious of his mocking antics. SHIT!!! THAT CAN'T BE REAL! THAT AIN'T FUCKING REAL!!!
Often times though, we couldn't make it out of the loft's clusterfuck of a parking lot. Before the sun came up, we would actually spend hours moving and repositioning cars just so that one person could leave. And if some unfortunate soul parked their luxury car in the restricted loft parking lot because they couldn't find a space (or were too cheap to valet) on the boulevard, Danny's doorstep QUICKLY became a driving range with teed-up golf balls. I recall a loud, sickening thud as a Lodge Brother once sliced his shot directly into the door of a new BMW, much to the horror and utter disbelief of its owner and his fashionably dressed, attractive dinner date. Too bad he (or she) didn't read the signs posted?
Meanwhile, Tool (so that's what they were called!) began to play the L.A. club circuit, attracting an ever-increasing audience and thus gaining more exposure with each show. Though I personally only attended a few of these shows at clubs called "The Gaslight", "Raji's" , "Club Lingerie", and "The Opium Den (?)" , I was there when the band signed Ted Gardner to be their manager. I also happened to be at "Coconut Teasers" on Sunset when they got their first record deal with Zoo Entertainment. (Ah, the good old 72826-SATAN demo cassette!)
I still remember when, after the show, as the band members loaded their equipment into a rental van, Ted flaunted a twenty-dollar bill, handing it to one of the guys for all of them to go "get a cup of coffee." One of guys wanted to go to a nearby Denny's. "No one plans or thinks about going to Denny's", I chided him. "You just materialize inside Denny's. Hey, did you know that some Denny's used to be "Sambo's - before the chain was forced to close due to non-Qabalistically-based pressure and lawsuits from certain activists in the black community. How long do you think it took to make the changeover to become a Denny's? Maybe six hours? Five? Today, only one Sambo's is left, and not in a parallel continua, but in Santa Barbara." It was probably right then and there that at least one of the guys thought that I should probably someday write the band's newsletter.
Touring and record sales from 1992's "Opiate", and 1993's "Undertow" enabled Tool's skinman to add a few nice touches to the loft. First came a foosball table, and then a video arcade game. I think it was called "Tempest", but it might have been "Polybius." New carpet was laid down, with exactly who we thought it would be spilling the first beer (much to Maynard's chagrin). Out in the parking lot gleamed an emerald green beamer from the 1970's that actually started... most of the time. There still wasn't any air-conditioning in the loft - even performing on the main stage at Lollapalooza couldn't make that happen. However, the inside of the rusting Pepsi cooler had finally been emptied out so that the layers of viscous greenish slime that had accumulated over the years could be scrubbed clean prior to being filled with twelve-packs of imported beer left over from the rider. While drinking these delightful things we listened to cassettes of Buddy Rich threatening his band members with blows to the head if he heard anymore clams. There were also the taped prank phone calls of old friends from Kansas (similar to the Jerky Boys), the KKK rants of singer Johnny Rebel, and the schizophrenic paranoia of Francis E. Deck. If we ever got bored, sometimes Danny would turn out the lights and wail on a golf ball inside the loft's back room. Whenever this happened, I would immediately dive on the closest couch and cover my head with a cushion as the ball ricocheted for what seemed an eternity off the brick walls with their murals of non-Euclidian geometry.
Tool bassist Paul D'Amour often attended these gatherings, Danny having bonded with him during the tours. I didn't see much of Maynard at night, though any sarcastic wit was certainly appreciated (and I'm not being sarcastic). Adam also didn't hang out at the loft after band rehearsals, though he did occasional throw parties at his rented house in Burbank - a place where daily realities were veiled by layers of blue crushed velvet hanging over the windows.
One day I was invited by Danny to attend a party thrown by the president of Zoo Records. There would be plenty of booze and great food he assured me. Shortly after arriving at this mansion in Beverly Hills (or was it Benedict Canyon?), while taking Danny up on the free drinks and catered grub, the label honcho tapped a glass with his fork and began to tell everyone just how proud he was of Tool for achieving gold record status. What? I had no idea. Danny was so modest that he never mentioned this. "You have a gold record", I asked? "Yeah" he replied with a look of disgust while sneaking some food stuffed in a napkin inside his pocket. "No good bands have gold records, he added. So, that's why he didn't say anything. Suddenly, though, it seemed a bit strange that he was loading his pockets with left over food. Even so, I quickly followed his lead...
And then one early morning (4:31 PST to be precise) on January 17, 1994 (January 17 having long been a date of great importance to the Lodge), the dusty, piss-bespattered gold record award for "Undertow" that was hanging crooked in the loft's tiny bathroom was violently shaken from the wall and clattered onto the floor amid a deafening roar.
The Northridge earthquake had just occurred, and the old brick structure rocked and swayed in pitch-blackness for at least 15 terrifying seconds after the initial jolt. In the building next to the loft, Adam and his crew were shooting Tool's next video. When everyone finally made it out safely and gathered in the parking lot with frayed nerves, Danny couldn't help but wonder if this was the end of the loft? Was it up to code, or would it be red-tagged? Indeed, would another crack appear for the Devil to slip through?..
TO BE CONTINUED...
Active Member
I hate Blair.
i'm too thin
I usually do too, but I thought it was a fun little read. Nothing mind-blowing or anything, but some funny stories.
And this is surely good news regarding the progress of the album.
God is an American
I love Blair!
Gilded Member
How so? I'll admit that I only skimmed that whole mess (I wish you would've bolded the important parts), but it seems to me that it was all about the early days of Tool. I didn't notice anything about the next album.
FATUM NOS IUNGET
I hate Blair.
i'm too thin
Close, it was actually stories about the early days of the Loft. And the Loft is where they write all of their music.
And I didn't bold the important parts, because there were really no 'important' parts. Just stories about the early days of the Loft and its history. No news or anything.
Last edited by Harry Seaward; 05-05-2012 at 06:24 PM.
The Virus Inside
Someone earlier in this thread said it well... Something along the lines of...
I'm going to ignore everything that is posted on the official TOOL page until they literally say "hey everyone, here's the new album"
I am going to live by this philosophy from now on as well! Wake me when the album is out guys!
FATUM NOS IUNGET
Agreed. I'm not holding my breath. Caught the last hour or so of Blood Into Wine, and the part where Maynard talked about his musical excursions being more of his outlet for fun, but his real passion being his new wine endeavour really stuck out with me. I'm also by no means pissed about it. As long as he continues to make music here and there, and Tool still makes at least one more new album...the guy's in his 40's. He can do whatever he wants to at this point and I'm fine with it.
Hairy Member
please help!I still really want to hear that
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