Tool, anyone?

[BELETH the Mighty]

Who said that? Maybe they were on crack. Or they voted for Bush. The two are interchangeable.

[Seal_Tech]

Question who the hell is "tool" and what type of music are they?

[BELETH the Mighty]

Tool, well it’s kinda tough to define Tool. Wait a sec, I’ve got a dictionary here. Alright, it says:

Tool: (t - oo - l) The most totally awesomenest band ever to be conceived by man.

That’s all it says, but I’ll try to elaborate. Tool is technically, officially Metal. They are also considered Progressive Rock, and Alternative Rock. They are really none of these. They are called Metal because some of their songs are hard. They are called Progressive because many of their songs are longer than five minutes long. And I don’t know what son of a crack baby said they were alternative, cuz they sure as hell ain’t. Tool basically performs music of any hardness, tempo, and structure, the only thing their songs have in common is the low scale they base their riffs off of. Otherwise, you’ll really just have to download some of their music to know what they really are, because they are something different to every individual who listens to them. What they are depends on one thing:; Who are you? …I’m sorry, I seem to have answered your question in the form of a question, without answering the question itself. Oh well.

Another track that is necessary to your existences is the live, rare version of “Push it” From their album “Salival.” It’s 13:57 long, and starts with a message from the lead singer. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of music these ears have ever witnessed. If it does not change the way you look at music forever, then you must be a soulless pigeon.

Ooh, and another cool one: Track #69 on their Undertow album, “Disgustipated”. It starts off with a minute or two of the sound of goats crying, then moves on to a rant by the lead singer about the holocaust of the carrots. Then the drummer starts going insane and the band repeats “This is necessary. Life feeds on life.” For about 3 minutes. Then the listener is treated to the sound of crickets chirping for about 8 minutes straight. Then the final part of the song is a message left on the lead singer’s answering machine by his landlord. It involves little people, colors, and sticky substances. About 15 minutes long, and totally, seriously cool. Not really a song though. But still cool.

Ooh, and yet another great one: The final track on their Aenema album, “Third Eye”. It’s a 14-minute long song, and it’s a mind-bender. The first 30 seconds is a piece fo a skit from the band’s favorite comedian, Bill Hicks, about drugs and music. From that point on it’s a beautiful yet terrifying ballad. A masterpiece. I love Tool.

[BELETH the Mighty]

And in case I’m confusing anybody here, “Salival” was not only the name of the video DVD they put out, but also the name of an album of “extras” they put out to shut fans up in between the release of Aenema and Lateralus. You see, Aenema was released in 1996, and Lateralus was released in 2001. Waiting five years for your favorite band’s next album pissed some people off, so Tool just compiled some live tracks, i.e. Push it, and put it on shelves. The DVD by the same name was also released before Lateralus to shut people the hell up, and the two were for a short while sold in a box set, before it got sold out (it was one of those limited things) and was never seen again in stores.

[scott]

aka a collection of b-sides and live tracks for your pleasure.


And Third Eye is the best song on Aenema,or at least I think.It just switchs so much,it is sweet.

[BELETH the Mighty]

Indeed. One of Tool's main goals is to break the rock song formula of "verse-refrain-verse-refrain-solo-refrain". They've experimented with many different song structures, and don't limit themselves to how long their songs can be for radio. That's how you get the average song length for Lateralus being about 9 minutes long. It's also how when you listen to some songs like Lateralus, you'll notice that the song seems to go in to different phases. This is because they change the number of beats per measure TWICE during the song. That's why it was originally called "987", because it went from 9 beats to 8 to 7. And it didn't sound bad or interrupt anything. Genius, it really is.

[sajip]

mmm... TooL... they are the greatness.
i love their stuff, have for quite a long time. i've also gotten into A Perfect Circle, but only Mer De Nom; Thirteenth Step was kind of pathetic in comparison.
im quite excited that TooL is putting out a new cd in the next few years, although i still quite enjoy the wonderful sounds of Lateralus, as well as their CDs prior to that. i like the perspective they opened up to on Lateralus, a very spiritual, and very hard to find view of life. not the normal "life sucks" kind of thing, but very much so a celebration of humans and life and things like that. Though i still quite enjoy much of their older, angrier, and more tormented selections off of Aenema and Undertow.
Hopefully their next CD brings along with it a bit of the sound of Lateralus, but also further opens to new and unexplored territories of sounds and ideas to unlock our own minds.

[BELETH the Mighty]

Alas, someone who knows what they’re talkin’ boot. There was definitely a change from Aenima to Lateralus. There is the fact that their first bassist, Paul D’Avour, left the band in the middle of recording Aenima, which brought in Justin Chancellor. Maybe he had something to do with the transformation. Or maybe it was their following of Chakra. Who knows, but there’s now a lot more light in their music. Yeah, their previous albums were pretty damn dark, but in an interview Maynard said that “there’s a lot of light in our music, but you’ve got to go through more than muck to see through to it.” about the angry tones of Undertow and Aenima. But I’m concerned about their next album. Lateralus was such an epiphany that it’ll be pretty hard to top.

And you can get a copy of the Salival DVD from cdnow.

Yeah, it was my liking of Tool that got me in to APC. APC is a bit softer, but still very good.

They also got me in to Kyuss. On a whim I downloaded a live song of Tool playing Kyuss’s “Demon Cleaner” and fell in love. Kyuss. Desert Rock. Blues for the Red Sun. Sonic Destruction. Too bad the band stopped existing in 1995 though. Can’t find their stuff anywhere, possibly because maybe like 3 people know they existed. They were rather popular in Europe and Australia though. Too bad, cuz they kick ass. Their guitarist Josh Homme now sings and rocks for Queens of the Stoneage, and their former lead singer John Garcia sings for Slo Burn. Their bassist Scott Reeder would have been in Tool, but Justin beat him for the position at the auditions after Paul left.

Some totally awesome Kyuss songs to get:

Un Sandpiper
Demon Cleaner
Catamaran
Fatso Forgetso
Odyssey
Phototropic
50 Million Year Trip
Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop (I love that name)
Whitewater
Space Cadet

That shall be all for now. Christ, maybe I should just write a book and save you all the trouble.

[simplybeingloved]

i like tool artwork, you know like on their covers. They're video for schism (sorry i can't spell it) is pretty trippy. i used to sit in front of the tv and not move the first 10 times it came on. pretty trippy indeed.

[BELETH the Mighty]

INdeed, and yes, you spelled it right.

[NCC4748]

don't like tool!

[scott]

Are you saying you don't like Tool or that all of us shouldn't like Tool?

[BELETH the Mighty]

Either way he must be mad, or be a demon. Either one is fine.