#117 - 6th August 2024 - I know the pieces fit

My third eye just opened. Again. I know.

Probabaly not the last post on Tool. I joined the bandwagon quite late. While my prog endeavors started when I was 17, it took me easily another 8 years until I fully embraced the genius of Tool.

Talking about everything that‘s fantastic in their music will take longer than most people can concentrate these days. So here‘s a bullet list in no particular order and stopping super randomly:

- the drumming is out of this world. I‘ve talked Dave Grohl before, who is a different kind of great. Danny Carey is GOD.

- guitar sound is stellar and so are the rhythmic chops. There are techniques that I did not hear anyone else come up with, like the main riff in schism.

- bass sound is stellar (what a surprise) and so groovy, supporting the track brilliantly. This is a lesson on how to rhythmically serve a band so that everyone shines.

- the textures and ear candy and sound scapes!

- the rhythmical complexity that does not bother you. Everyone can learn to play a 13/8 but to make it groove? Different territory entirely.

- dynamics through playing as a band. They paint extended musical pictures - all of them, jointly. You cannot pull this off in modern music production techniques. If you‘re sitting in front of your DAW programming shit in boxes and grids, a lot can happen, but not this!

- the dark, disturbing, enlightening, deep lyrics.

- their live performances. I saw them in Berlin and in Cologne. Visual and musical masterpieces of concerts. And great live sound.

- you‘re not allowed to use your phone on their concerts