Wear the Grudge Like a Crown

I've been working so damn much lately that it's really wearing on me. To keep myself going, I've been listening to stuff that I don't normally listen to, like really loud, really heavy music. (You know guys, eighth grade stuff, and ladies... well, you might not know.)

I find myself listening to a lot of Tool. I like their grinding guitars, building up to amazing crescendos. It's very layered, very textured, and very smart, loud, heavy music. (They have a sense for chords sometimes that can make my spine tingle.) It's also very dark, very angry, and very violent music, which fits me just fine right now. Why does working too much make me listen to Tool? Cause I'm pissed off.

This is interesting to me in several regards, because Tool invokes such strong reactions in me. I used to admire their technical prowess (they play in strange keys with very, very strange time signatures, yet they make it work), but I still didn't really like their music though because it was too dark and angry for me. (What changed? I'm not telling...)

Anyway, in the past couple of years I got into them a bit, and went to see them live in October 2001 at the Altel Pavilion. It was without a doubt the absolute worst show I've ever been to. I was immensely disappointed.

Why was it so bad? Well, let me describe it to you like this: Say I go over to your house one cold evening and stand outside your living room window listening to their last album Lateralus on a discman. The only thing I can watch is what you've got on TV -- all their nightmarish videos over and over (more to come on that). Make me stand out there for over three hours, and then make me pay over $50 for the privilege. That's basically my Tool concert experience. I couldn't listen to them after that for over a year.

How was it really? They played their music exceptionally well, so well that I couldn't tell that they weren't just playing the CD. There were no embellishments or deviations from the recorded version. There weren't even any mistakes! At least that would have been different from the CD. They didn't move. All I could make out was a few tiny little figures up on stage, holding guitars or standing in front of a microphone. But by far the worst part was that on the video monitors, which at most Altel Pavilion concerts show the onstage action, was their hellish stop-action video footage.

Now let me tell you, I absolutely hate Tool's visual aesthetic. I cannot be clearer or stronger on this point than this -- I absolutely hate Tool's visual aesthetic.

Maggots with human faces writhing on a dirty linoleum floor... Clock-work dismembered babies... Corpse-like humans pulling metal wire through various parts of other corpse-like human bodies, again and again. That was the worst part -- the repetition. I remember thinking, "this is what Hell is like." A ghastly, fiendish, but vaguely human scene of grotesqueness, displayed over and over, over and over. I was appalled.

I couldn't listen to them at all for over a year. To spite the awful concert exprience I had, a common mantra (by both me and the racoon fink) at a really good concert was "fuck Tool!" (Especially the Jane's Addiction show the next week! Damn!)

I think their videos, t-shirts, and album covers were a major part of why I hated them so much in high school and college despite respecting their music. After a few years of not seeing those images, when a friend gave me copies of their albums (sans covers) I could listen to them. I didn't have to see their album covers to listen to their music, and I was okay. I actually really enjoy their music when I'm in the right mood. I just can't abide their visual imagery. I didn't fully realize that until the show.

Okay, but was the show really that bad? You see, normally a bad show is still okay. I've seen a lot of good bands on off-nights, and I've also seen some just plain awful shows. Usually that's okay though, because that's the chance you take with live music. That's what makes it live. Even a bad show can be a great story. One of the worst shows (musically) I ever saw was one of the most fun I've been to, because of what my friends and I did to get over the music. The funny stories of talking to women (and striking out miserably), seeing freaky people, and getting way too drunk counter-balanced the music in that case.

However, this Tool concert had no redeeming qualities. I would have been better served by just staying at home and listening to their album. The crowd was simply stoned. They were just barely swaying, barely aware of where they were. I was expecting a crazy mosh pit of humanity, throwing their arms up and screaming, getting into this heavy, heavy music, but no, all I saw were vacant faces. Vacant, but not displeased. Maybe they got what they were expecting. How sad.

The other interesting side effect of listening to Tool is that I find myself in Beavis and Butthead-mode all day, which obviously is neither pleasant nor attractive. I end up walking around singing bass and rhythm lines under my breath all day. ("dadum da da da da dadum, dadum da da da da dadum dum dum dum...")

But, like I said, when I'm pissed off or working too much, Tool really hits the spot like no other. ("Huh, huh-huh... he said tool...")