Sad news from Blair this morning is that Adam and Camella’s beloved great dane Diablo passed away last night:
I just received the sad news from Camella that great dane DIABLO passed away last night (peacefully after fighting bronchitis). Most people should have the adventures that Diablo had during his lifetime. The big fellow will surely be missed on this plane of existence.
Ronnie sent me an email today pointing me to Alan Jones‘ website (Adam‘s brother). On the Bits page it mentions:
Doesn’t all good summer fun begin with some yard work? Doing some of that… but I did have some real fun in LA on my last trip. After getting all of my work done and closing a deal for Tool (GH4) I spent the last day of my trip in Catalina which is a gorgeous little island off the coast. The ferry ride is about an hour. I made some new friends with a Texas Ranger and his wife – Justin and Courtnie Chambers – and spent the day with Adam, Camella, Rynne, and Aaron Harris of the band Isis.
From that statement I’d now consider this a done deal, and probably one of the happenings Blair has mentioned in the last few months.
The rest of the article is well worth reading too. It confirms a couple of things Blair mentioned recently and talks about a golf day with Danny and King Buzzo.
That mentioned in the April (1) newsletter had NOTHING to do with the
all-Tool issue of “Revolver” Magazine, although at this time I am still
not able to disclose any further information about any decision made by
the band as to whether it’s a go or not. It’s my belief, however, that
if it is a go, this will most likely be leaked on the Net before I get
a chance to post it. Perhaps it already has been (I’m not really sure).
Also, with regards to my last ToolArmy exclusive, that involves an
entirely different project that is most definitely a go (Again, please
be patient).
The last ToolArmy exclusive, was Camella’s picture of the sunset, and the “good things are coming” line.
For me, this post would suggest that there is perhaps a good reason to expect some more tour dates. I can’t imagine some kind of recording would leak online before they would post news of it, and in the past tour dates have been leaked before they are officially confirmed.
The second project I’d speculate is some kind of change or update to Toolarmy, hence the Toolarmy exclusive. Maybe work is afoot to update the site. I guess we’ll find out eventually.
What do you guys reckon is going on?
According to an exclusive Toolarmy post:
Good things are coming… Be patient… Don’t speculate… Good things are coming… Just relax…
The post is accompanied by a picture take by Camella of a couple of deck-chairs on the beach, possibly sometime around sunset. I have no idea what this means. Should I or shouldn’t I speculate….
Butcher, featureing Adam‘s wife Camella, as well as Sasha are playing at the Knitting Factory in LA on the 16th of October. No word on who might be supporting the band, but apparently they will be debuting their new bass player. More details may be found on the Butcher website, though as I write this there are no further details than what I’ve already given you.
Alterati have posted part one of a two part interview with Lustmord. I haven’t listened to it yet, but no doubt it’ll be an interesting one.
Last night I was in town and was taking a look through the magazine racks in Borders when I found the latest copy of Metal Edge magazine, the one containing the interview by Bryan Reeseman mentioned in yesterday’s post. Despite the outrageous markup on the magazine due to it being an import, I forked over my hard earned cash so i coudl share some of it with my Fourtheye readers. Someone better buy me a beer at the BDO next year…
Anyway I’m not going to post scans of the article, since that would violate copyright, but I’m going to post a couple of excerpts I found interesting, and also post the magazine cover. The photo shoot for the mag has a astronaut/space theme, with all of the guys dressed in space suits. As usual Camella has done a great job with the photos.
Do you guys play practical jokes on each other?
MK: We haven’t lately.
DC: It’s been a while.
AJ: That’s not true. There was the kick drum face. We were in New Orleans, and Dan wanted to go see this drummer play. He’s played with Prince and Madonna, and now he’s on tour with his own rock band. We went down, and it was kind of a forty-ish crowd, very meat market. The guy was great. He’s a really good drummer, but he’s like 300 pounds and has a picture of himself….
DC: Airbrushed.
AJ: ….with sunglasses on his kick drum. So we thought “Man, that’s so stupid.” So we got two pictures of Dan, and at the next show we put them on his kick drum heads.
DC: I had never even seen them. I had no idea. I went through the whole show, and then a couple of people emailed me: “That’s cool, man, showing your pictures [on there].”
JC: Normally we fuck with our support band a little bit as well, towards the end [of the tour].
Funny how the talk about a forty-ish crowd at the show. Do they forget how old they are?
Do you guys shop at Justin’s bookstore?
MK: It’s a bit of a drive.
AJ: I tried but it was closed [laughter]
JC: A lot of people say that.
DC: “Be back in five minutes”
On Maynard‘s taste in movies:
AJ: ….I really love going to the theater.
DC: It’s always cool to see a movie on the big screen.
Unless it sucks
DC: I don’t care.
AJ: Ask Maynard. He saw The Crow. Twice. Talk about a practical joke. “Dude you’ve got to see The Crow. It blew my mind!” And we all went.
MK: I’m in the back, watching them all go, “You’re a fucking asshole! This movie is fucking horrible!” “Ha ha ha! Want some popcorn?”
AJ: We kept waiting for that moment for it to get good.
MK: They got me back. The fucking dickhead got me back.
AJ: I got you a couple of times.
MK: He told me to check out Billy Madison because it was really funny, so I rented it. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
Overall it’s a great interview, though more of an insight into the members of Tool and their personalities and tastes, rather than them talking about Tool and their music. If you see a copy, I’d recommend buying it and reading the whole thing.
Bastardometer from Toolarmy sent me his review of the recent Shred School session with Adam Jones (minus pigtails). Here’s what he had to say:
Adam was the last guy to give his presentation. After Herman Li (from Dragonforce) finished, Adam was up. They had a curtain that was behind the stage. I thought it was like any other stage were it was used for aesthetics, but they drew the curtain back and Adams rig was behind. He had one Diezel head with two Mesa cabs and his pedal board.
He comes onstage and tells everyone to come up and sit down in front. I was about six feet away. He said that he just played Bonnaroo in front of 80,000 people and he was more nervous now. He then set up his lap top and started up The Pot (a backing track with guitar removed) and played the whole song from start to finish.
He said that he normally doesn’t have Maynard in his monitors. Maynard is not the glue. Maynard swims on top of what the other three are doing, doing his own thing. He told us that he didn’t have any one thing planned, that he was just rolling with the punches, and that we should feel free to ask questions when we want. I asked about Danny and he went into a pretty detailed version of his injury. He told us that he had a lot of stuff to share. Art work, sculptures and props from video shoots as well as some new material that they had been starting to jam on. (He also made it clear that this may or may not make it onto a new record). He also mentioned that that day Tools lawsuit was over. Ending result was amiable. Both parties just walked away. (I’m assuming that this was the thing with Cam de Leon)
He started talking about how he and the guys work, were its everyone bringing in material and sometimes you have to let go of something you love for the greater good of the song. He started talking about how to play around with time. For example , he looped a part in 5 (intro riff to Vicarious) and let it loop through his Line 6 DL4 (for those who don’t know this is a delay pedal – Hellboy) and would play along with it in 7. He showed how it would would go out and come back into sync. Very cool, showed a few examples of this.
He then went into the whole sacred geometry bit we’ve all heard/read. Which led him into the Fibonacci Sequence, which led him into Lateralus. Justin came up with the intro heavy riff thats in 9,8,7. He started showing us 4ths and notes that are a half step from each other and played at the same time, which, led him into Stinkfist. So he started playing that part as well as bit after (Stinkfist 2:55-4:00)
He told us to not listen to anybody that trys to dissuade us from what we want to do.
“If you want to run a laundromat and surf all day. Open a laundromat on the beach.”
“Do what you want to do. Have it come from the heart.”He then started talking about Wings and how that was his favorite piece he’s ever written and how he was anxious about how Maynard was going to handle it. Said that you have to trust your band mates and that he’s glad he did because Maynard nailed it. Then he went int Ænima and played bits and pieces of that.
Questions about the videos came up and he said that they (both Vicarious and The Pot) should be out soon. When asked about the Live DVD his reply was “Sore subject”…whatever that means.
Then he had Camella (who looked stunning, by the way) start bringing in the props and sculptures and said that when he was finished that we could all take pics and check shit out. It was around this time that the Moderator said that Adam had ten more minutes. Adams retort was “I’m staying as long as I want”. We all clapped. So he showed us the Head from Schism, the one where the ear pops out. He showed us the little guy from Parabola (there were two of them) as well as the Executive from Parabola (it was bout 5’5″ tall) He also showed a bronze of the sculpture he did for the Peach album Giving Birth To A Stone. About 12″ tall. He also said that Alex Grey liked them and wanted to sell them in his store, which Adam was pleased about.
The jackass moderator came back and told Adam again that others needed to bail and that they wanted to give them the chance to do the signing sessions. Adam complied and started to put his gear away when I (and others) opened my mouth and asked him to play the new riff. He did and it had a similar intro thing as Vicarious did that went into a heavy part that was in 7.it was very cool and sounded (to me) like something that could have been on Ænima. It was very cool. That was pretty much it, to the best of my recollection – Adam would have kept on going if the guy hadnt have stopped him, which REALLY irritated me. Adam started getting into his groove. Camella was snapping pix pretty much the whole time so (hopefully) some photos will be placed up at TA.
Bastardometer also emailed me some photos. These were all taken from his phone, so they’re not great quality. He mentions he may have some more for us, and if this is the case then I’ll post them when I get them.
Ray Carney has recently interviewed Camella Grace (Adam’s wife) and she talks about many things, including Spiral Eyes, Butcher and working on the videos for the Tool live shows. Check it out at Alterati.