|
Following up the 1999 release of two albums, “The Maggot” and “The Bootlicker”, The
Melvins will complete their trilogy for Ipecac Records with the highly anticipated February
8th release of “The Crybaby”.
The band, one of the most uncompromising bands in recent history, is joined by an incredibly
diverse group of guest artists. This star-studded list includes Jim Foetus, Tool, David Yow
(Jesus Lizard), Kevin Sharpe (Brutasl Truth) , Henry Bogner (Helmet) and Mike Patton
(Mr. Bungle/ex-Faith No More and Ipecac Records mogul).
Read more details
26 November 1999 - Danny Carey the drummer of Tool is flying home to Kansas for Thanksgiving to participate in the 89th annual "Turkey Day Slaughter". The event takes place in a large field and one hundred wild turkeys are pitted against 100 men. The man that can kill the most turkey's with his bare hands wins not only a lot of local respect, but a lifetime supply of Cranberry Sauce from the Connurd Corp.
9 October 1999 - Performance Artists Osseous Labyrinth, will be joining Tool on stage during Coachella. Stay tuned for more information on these renegade poets of the mind, body, and spirit. Maynards side project "Perfect Circle" will be playing also at Coachella today (Saturday October 9th). For more information, you can visit the official Coachella Website.
16 September 1999 - Tool is working hard writing the new album and getting ready for the Coachella show where Tool will be headlining on Sunday October 10th. In other band news Adam Jones the guitarist got married last Saturday.
16 August 1999 - Maynards side project "Perfect Circle" is playing a show this Friday night at the Opium Den in Hollywood, California.
29 July 1999 - Radio station KROQ FM has announced Tool will be playing at the "Coachella" festival, taking place in the desert of Indio, CA on October 9 and 10. While not yet listed on their website, the radio ads insist Tool is "confirmed." Other bands said to be playing include Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Morrissey, and the Chemical Brothers. Also Tool's last album
Ænima has been certified double platinum, meaning over two million copies have sold.
27 July 1999 - The September issue of Alternative Press features an interview with Trent Reznor and other members of Nine Inch Nails. They discuss the long-unreleased "Tapeworm" side project, and mention Maynard as a guest vocalist on a "more electonicky with heavy guitars". Also, Chi from the Deftones is on record saying that a tour with Tool will "definitely happen" next year. Whether or not it actually happens is a whole other issue.
30 June 1999 - From the official Tool website: "The band took an extended weekend from writing music. Justin went to Vegas, Maynard went a pool party in Pheonix, Danny went and saw Rammstein with our friend Ryan McClemet and Adam played six shows with the Melvins in the Northwest. By the way, the comment that Buzz made about Adam just getting out of rehab and shooting heroin into Ozzy's dick during Ozzfest is a joke people !!!"
30 May 1999 - California's "Megastation" KROQ has voted TOOL as the #52 band in the 106 Biggest KROQ Bands of All Time. View List
May 5 1999 - Progressive metal outfit Tool is currently writing and rehearsing material for its long-awaited follow-up to 1996's "Aenima" and hopes to have the fruits of those sessions in stores early next year.
The band's management told MTV News that the band hopes to have its new material recorded by the end of this year and plans to have the still-untitled album in stores in early 2000. Between touring and an 18-month legal battle with its record label, Tool had little time to write new material. However, once the legal red tape cleared late last year, the band set about writing songs for the new record.
The band's management was also optimistic that the release of the album would not be delayed by the recent arrest of one of the band's members. A cryptic posting on the band's official website last week noted, "Someone in the band is in jail on criminal charges. We are not going to say who or why." Management offered no further details on the incident, except to say that it should in no way affect the recording schedule of the new album.
May 3 1999 - Tool drummer Danny Carey, Little Feat bassist Kenny Gradney, and actors Alan Thicke ("Growing Pains") and Thomas Calabro ("Melrose Place") played in a charity golf tournament Monday (May 3) in Tarzana, Calif. The event raised an estimated $125,000 for City of Hope, a charity that fights cancer and other life-threatening diseases, according to a spokesperson at the organization. MCA Records, Universal Music, BMI and Arista Records were among the sponsors.
May 1999 - Tool singer Maynard Keenan portrays serial killer Charles Manson in a photo essay in the May/June issue of the pop-culture magazine Pop Smear. The narrative to the story, in part assembled by Punk magazine founder Legs McNeil, is derived from 1969 court transcripts and testimony from Manson's trial. Keenan, frontman for the cerebral industrial band, is depicted on the Pop Smear cover in a pose reminiscent of a famous Life magazine portrait of imprisoned murderer Manson.
17 April 1999 - Another year, another Maynard birthday.
The Melvins, who opened for Tool for millions of shows, are scheduled to
release an album called "The Crybaby" this fall, destined to feature some
as yet unknown Tool folk as guest musician(s).
13 April 1999 - Maynard will be appearing (in photography) as Charles Manson
in a fumetti (a comic-book inspired story) in the May/June issue of
POPsmear magazine.
March 26 1999 - Statement from official tool site: "Someone in the band is in jail on criminal charges. We are not going to say who or why. Hopefully this mess will be cleared soon so that there will be no delay with the new album."
February 9 1999 - L.A. art-metal band Tool have written two songs for their long-delayed
follow-up to 1996's platinum-selling Ænima, according to their manager,
Ted Gardner. The band began working on new material after settling a
2-year-old lawsuit against its label last year, and current plans call
for the group to enter a studio within the next few months to begin
recording the still-untitled album. "Everything is done in pre-production
with this band," Gardner said. "They won't hit the studio until everything
is arranged and ready. Once they hit the studio, they'll go in for a month
and record right through." Gardner also said it was possible the band would
hit the road for selected dates in the fall if the album's recording is
progressing as planned.
January 1999 - On the 27th January 1999 Maynard guest appeared at a Rage Against the Machine concert on Jan 23. According to Rocktropolis, the club-size audience of about 400 or so saw Maynard appear on "Know Your Enemy".
December 1998 - L.A.-based art rockers to begin writing follow-up to platinum-selling
Ænima after Christmas. After a long-dragged-out lawsuit against their former label has been settled, the members of Los Angeles-based art-rock band Tool are making plans to get back in the studio to record a follow-up to 1996's platinum-selling Ænima.
Tool will begin writing songs for their still-untitled next album shortly after Christmas, according to group manager Ted Gardner."It should be finished by late fall," Gardner said. "I imagine it will be out in the last quarter of 1999."
Gardner said the group has yet to write new songs for the album or decide on a producer, but it has been given the go-ahead to begin developing its next project now that all legal roadblocks have been removed.
The recording sessions will follow more than a year of legal wrangling between the group and its former label, Freeworld Entertainment -- a disagreement settled Friday when an unusual, but not unprecedented, agreement was reached.
Under the terms of the new deal, some details of which were not disclosed, Tool have entered into a joint venture with Freeworld's successor, Volcano II. Although the terms vary from group to group, a joint venture between a label and group generally means that the act and the label split proceeds 50/50. A similar deal was negotiated by superstar metal act Metallica with their label, Elektra Records, in 1995. Metallica are co-managed by Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch, co-owners of Volcano II.
The agreement ends more than a year of inactivity for Tool, outside of a slot on this year's metal-tinged Ozzfest and the group's own subsequent headlining tour.
The L.A. band, led by charismatic lead singer Maynard James Keenan, filed suit in L.A. in September 1997 against their label, Volcano Entertainment LLC. The suit claimed the label did not exercise an option in the band's contract for its next recording in a timely fashion. The group later was countersued by Volcano's owner, Zomba Music Group, for $25 million for what that suit termed a wrongful attempt to abandon its exclusive recording agreement.
The case was postponed six times over the year. The two sides were last scheduled to appear in court Tuesday (Dec. 8). "If we hadn't figured things out by Tuesday, then it would have been forced to trial," Gardner said. Both suits were dropped as a result of the agreement.
None of the three principals of Volcano -- Burnstein, Mensch and Clive Calder -- would comment on the settlement of the dispute.
"It's been a long time coming," Tool's lawyer, Eric Greenspan, said of the deal. "Now everyone is ready to go make music. It's all about making music, not making lawsuits."
Greenspan would not comment on the specifics of the deal between the band and the label. He did say that it was indicative of Tool's unique position as a band with a rabid, and wide, fanbase that the agreement was structured as it was.
"Unlike the usual case in the music business, and to a lesser degree, sports," Greenspan said, "bands like this don't become free agents that often. And when they do it's in everyone's best interest to retain them."
The timing of the legal struggle was unfortunate for Tool in light of the strong sales of Ænima -- which includes such groove-metal workouts as the title track, "Stinkfist" and "Eulogy" -- as well as the group's high-profile slots on the 1997 Lollapalooza tour and 1998's massively popular all-metal Ozzfest.
While fans have been patient during the long spell between records, that doesn't mean they aren't hungry for new material.
"I think that most fans are aware of what's going on, and most of them understandably are upset and frustrated," said Rodney Lee, 18, an Australian Tool fan. The webmaster of "Blackvest's Tool Page," Lee said he felt all fans, "including myself, just want this case to be over with so that Tool can start recording their new album."
With the case behind them, the members of Tool are eager to get back to work, according to Gardner. "They're looking forward to getting on with their lives and making a record," he said.
March 1998 - While an invitation from Ozzy Osbourne might seem like a good enough reason to join a tour, Limp Bizkit said there's another reason they are hopping on board this summer's Ozzfest.
Speaking with our colleagues in the MTV Radio Network while playing the spring break edition of MTV's "Fashionably Loud," the band said the fact that Tool is on the tour this year is a big reason they decided to join Ozzfest.
"Tool is like one of my favorite bands," Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst told MTV News in an earlier interview. "I mean, they are beyond a doubt one of the best bands in the world. Whether you like them or not, you just can't help but respect what they're doing. It's phenomenal. They take you on a journey with every song, and it seems like it's perfect, you know? I really believe that when he says he sold his soul to make a record. They're out there. Something happened to those guys. They're special. There's something about that band." [Listen to Fred speak - 250k Audio]
Speaking specifically about the appeals of Tool, Durst raved, "Tool is the chills and the sound. I mean, they don't do anything but stand there. Maynard does a couple weird kicks with his foot, and you're just like, 'Oh my God.' You can't believe it. I'm really, really impressed by Tool since 'Opiate.' It touches me hard. I listen to what he says, and I believe in God, (Maynard) obviously doesn't. He has a problem with the religion thing, the organized religion thing. I don't think that I'm really into organized religion. I believe in God, but everything he says makes sense. You listen to his words, and you're like, 'Holy s**t, how did you write that song?' And he sings in ways that... like you can hear the influence of Maynard in the (Limp Bizkit) song 'Nobody Loves Me' in the middle, in the break-down in the middle. I actually copied the way he sings." [500k Audio]
Fred will get the chance to tell Maynard in person about his affinity for his band when Limp Bizkit and Tool join Ozzy, Megadeth, Sevendust, Coal Chamber, System of a Down, the Melvins and others on this year's Ozzfest which kicks off on July 3 at the PNC Bank Center in Holmdel, New Jersey.
|
