tool 2010

why would the grapes be from phoenix? isn't the vineyard in northern arizona? and the grapes originally from california?

the grapes are not from phoenix. maynard's vineyard (merkin) is in jerome and eric's is in page springs.

all of erics wines are grown in page springs. i think only the chupacabra of theirs has grapes from california. the goal is have have 100% arizona grown wine. thats pretty much what the areizona stronghold vineyard is. (eric's and maynard's joint venture)

can you even grow a grape in phoenix?

I mean, WHAT THE FUCK, AZATOTH?!?!?

  On 6/28/2010 at 8:58 PM, jules said:

  On 6/28/2010 at 7:53 PM, azatoth said:

anyone seen the documentary where maynard and some other guy talk about their wine making venture in phoenix? "blood into wine" i think it was called.

 

 

its not out on dvd yet, so i have not seen it. and the wine isnt made in phoenix.

 

 

That I haven't seen. I was just thinking you were talking about a documentary, or maybe it was just a MJK interview on youtube where he talks a lot about it and walks around the place. Interesting....

argh, got phoenix and arizona mixed up.

yeah i have that problem with Kauniainen and Helsinki

my brain thought arizona but my fingers typed phoenix.

"Raising Phoenix"

just doesn't have the same ring to it as

"Raising Arizona"

*waits for mcgriff commentary on show*

show was dope as fuck

i would elaborate but i can barely keep my eyes open right now, so tired.

please give us details when you come to. including what you the of the caducueus you had.

  On 6/29/2010 at 6:20 PM, jules said:

including what you the of the caducueus you had.

agreed

Not a fan of the wine, hopefully Tool's next record will be better than Maynard's wine...

  On 6/29/2010 at 7:48 PM, Atop said:

Not a fan of the wine, hopefully Tool's next record will be better than Maynard's wine...

really? i had several while in arizona. i brought home 10 bottles total, but that's caduceus, page springs and arizona stronghold combined. the only one i didn't really care for was the chupacabra. the rest went from average to amazing, imo.

Caduceus "Nagual Del Sensei" is really good. If you offered me a glass I would gladly accept. In contrast, if you offered me another listen of 10,000 Days I would jump out the nearest window.

lol 10,000 aint thaat bad, its not that fun to listen to either, by contrast wings for marie and the title track are really good listens I would never be disappointed to enjoy

  On 6/29/2010 at 11:13 PM, baph said:

Caduceus "Nagual Del Sensei" is really good. If you offered me a glass I would gladly accept. In contrast, if you offered me another listen of 10,000 Days I would jump out the nearest window.

Lol. Why? What's so bad? It's nowhere near as good as their other albums but it ain't bad either. Rosetta stoned is a top notch song.

The Pot really grew on me and yeh rosetta stoned is fun, hell the whole album is good.. but in comparison to AEnema/Lateralus it feels pretty disappointing, its pretty weird how I feel about 10,000 days but if everything felt as epic as wings for marie the title track I would jam to it hard.. I don't know its close to being amazing but falls really short and somehow feels really disjointed again compared to the cohesive flow of Lateralus. Some of the lyrics are kind of facepalm as well but not quite

What do you think Maynard's position was on the weirdly Christian lyrics throughout the album, was it some kind of joke, a homage to his mother that kinda just made him think they should do the whole like christian concept piece. I don't really understand his lyrical point of view/how much is just a fictional perspective concept album

It just seemed like Tool giving it a really half-assed shot and going through the motions musically, and so much of it was a fucking rehash of things they'd done previously. Fuck, even Rosetta Stoned, which is obviously a bit of a laff anyway but also the only genuinely intense moment on the album, lifts riffs wholesale from Third Eye.

And the pretentious filler shit was far above past tewl pretentious filler shit (Lipan Conjuring? Really? Followed by the terribly voice-acted skit in Los Keys? Really? And you're going to end the album on what amounts to an underdeveloped Lustmord cast-off?).

Part of the problem is just Maynard's public self-importance (or my perception thereof) and the fact that his lyrics went from being nuanced (and layered beneath a few layers of word play or irony) to mostly cringe-worthy.

They were my favorite band in late high school and early at university, and while I was trying not to put too much expectation on the follow up to Lateralus (which, in hindsight, is pretty overblown, self-important, and occasionally silly, but so fucking engaging in terms of dynamics and the intensity/dedication of the performances that none of that matters), but what I got seemed to me to be more of a commercial cash-in to the expectations of the hot topic set.

That's probably too harsh. But there's really nothing I like on that album, and I can't help it. Maybe my tastes just changed too much in that long wait between albums, but I can still listen to their earlier stuff and enjoy it.

The Christian elements to the lyrics don't really bother me, oddly, since it seemed like an attempt by Maynard to force himself into his mother's perspective and work through his feelings that way, without actually adopting/endorsing that perspective. But maybe not; I haven't listened to it in years and I don't want to now!

Edit: I wasn't trying to slag off tool with my first post; I've loved seeing them live on many occasions and I know they put on a serious show. I was, however, trying to endorse "Nagual Del Sensei": it's obvious Maynard's heart was in it for that one.

hehe I definitely see where your coming from baph even if I don't feel the same completely to that degree

Those are well calculated thoughts. I respectfully disagree that they mailed it in musically though. Vicarious is vintage tool all the way through even if it's nothing totally new. Wings is their most ambitious piece and I don't think they could have done that on any other album. I think that wings may be the downfall of 10k days. It is so big and so awesome it just destroys the flow of the record. Maybe it comes into play too early? I don't know. I find right in two quite brilliant as well particulary the build at the end.

I do agree 100% about the interludes. Lipan conjuring is a waste and lost keys would be cooler without the dialogue and shorter. I think the last piece was an attempt at sonically producing what the album offered visually. But it's still way pretentious.

As far as the religious stuff, Christianity has been a target/talking point for every single tool record at some point and apc and puscifer as well. There is much more of a left side/right side or duality theme way more prevalent throughout the album.

All in all I can totally see where you are coming from. My hope is that Maynard got all his silly out with all his puscifer stuff and the next tool record will be the business. I think far too many people take them way too seriously though. They have included large amounts of humor since day one and it makes up a huge chunk of what they are.

And yes that nagual is killer.

Wings/Days is incredible. Right in Two is great. Vicarious and The Pot are sorta fun. But it is a lame record considering what they're capable of.

Didn't help that MJK just doesn't have the patience to write with them. He said they just take too long making the music and he gets so frustrated that he just takes off and lets em go at it for a year or however long it takes them and then comes back to finish things off, by which time the songs are written.

So the timeline for 10,000 Days... They wrote Vicarious with Maynard. Tried to get the rest happening, Maynard lost his cool and took off. Danny, Adam and Justin wrote all the music for the rest of the record except The Pot. MJK came back and they wrote The Pot and finished off the album.

Not saying that he's the bastion of goodness in the band but they're just not what they used to be. Maybe if they were all equally involved again they would come up with something stronger as a whole. But then, it nearly killed them when they did Lateralus with equal contributions and they were on the verge of breaking up over it... So maybe this is the only way Tool can continue existing.

I think 10,000 days is great, but yes it is certainly not on par with other Tool albums. But that's like saying a nice sports car isn't as good as this other nice sports car b/c it doesn't accelerate 1.5 mph faster than the other (imo).

All the same, I think the songs are class, but it's just a really disorganized album. Maynard was going through intense emotional things with his mother's death and personal life, and always branching out into other projects and I think it really shows that the "band" was all there, but he wasn't really reeling in the whole experience and getting it organized/themed. From that tour, I never went and saw them on that tour b/c the people that i knew that saw them, and the bootlegs I saw on youtube, it just seemed like he was not trying hard at all and it was old hat. So I think that's reflected on the album a bit. BUt I think right in two and wings, and the pot are all great, rosetta is great too but just a little quirky with the intro.

blahza

I'm all for them doing a super synth heavy album.

  On 6/30/2010 at 4:04 PM, Greg Reason said:

 

 

So the timeline for 10,000 Days... They wrote Vicarious with Maynard. Tried to get the rest happening, Maynard lost his cool and took off. Danny, Adam and Justin wrote all the music for the rest of the record except The Pot. MJK came back and they wrote The Pot and finished off the album.

from what i understand, adam and justin jam all the time as does danny. most of the music comes out from that. this show is from 4 years before they "wrote" wings for marie

i don't know their creative process other than they get very very deep and explore evry aspect and avenue that they can go down. maynard layers lyrics over the top but im sure some of the music changes when he is involved. i dont think there is as much tension between maynard and the rest of the band as everyone thinks. he is a perfectionist and it seems like the others are as well so undoubtedly, they will bump heads.

Yeah I saw them do that in 2002. It was right at the end of the show before they played Lateralus. MJK had a much longer spiel at our show, said something similar to his rant before Pushit on Salival, "we want you to be comfortable and to close your eyes and allow yourself to go somewhere vulnerable".

The info I posted was from a giant interview with MJK from just after 10,000 Days came out. They collected that with a bunch of inteviews from the same era in one big issue of Revolver I think it was, either way the whole magazine was Tool only

Another interesting tidbit from those interviews was Adam saying how sacred Wings/Days was to them and they were worried that Maynard wouldn't come up with something good enough for it. They were all very relieved when he sang them what he'd written for it because they felt it fit perfectly.

edmonton here i come.