Foo Fighters "Sonic Highway" documentary series on HBO

A couple of years ago:

Steve, your essay The Problem With Music and the Big Black tour diary still get referred to and reposted on forums. Do you feel vindicated or oppressed by their continued presence these days?
Steve: The Big Black Tour Diary was a lark, and nobody including me or the guys who first printed it [Forced Exposure magazine] thought much of it at the time. I guess as a snapshot of the kind of loudmouth I was at the time it has value. The “Problem with Music” essay was intended to be a warning to my peers in the music scene during a period in the ’90s when the mainstream music industry was poaching bands off of independent labels with regularity. I wanted to demonstrate that it wasn’t necessarily in a band’s best interest to get involved with a monolithic industry that had no respect for them.

The industry has changed pretty dramatically since then, and virtually all the figures are out of date but the principle argument, that the mainstream of the old-school showbusiness record industry is not operated for the benefit of the bands, holds up. Thankfully there isn’t much of that record industry left, so bands are almost forced to work in a more independent way, which means they are more efficient by default.

Do you have any deep thoughts on turning 50 earlier this year?
Steve: I need bifocals now but my cock still works. Still have my hearing, all my teeth and all my hair. I take the occasional nap. Can’t complain.

he doesn't play with hate speech to prove he can anymore

tell that to OFWGKTA

oh they'll tell themselves before too long, earl sweatshirt's already calling things "offensive"

lol whoops i was unaware of the albini vs odd future beef

earl has grown up more 2 years than the rest of his collective have been in their entire 20-years-and-change existences.

dude an albini-OF beef would be all of the lols

*more in the past 2, agh

it happened! i just had no idea

http://www.spin.com/articles/hot-beef-odd-future-vs-steve-albini/

after reading that I've got Neil Young's "old man" stuck in my head

oh WOOOOWWWWWW.

"n----ring everything in sight," hoooooly shit. how did i miss this? i was actually dumb enough to be paying close attention to OF members not named earl in 2011

http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/foo_fighters_is_the_dumbest_band_name_ever_says_dave_grohl

The DC episode focused on activism much more than I expected. More footage of Mark Andersen and Amy Pickering and others talking than of footage of bands playing

and then they ended apartheid

I did like the episode in general up until the point I had to listen to a foo fighters song and see terrible lyrics flash on my screen

Ha. I thought the music to that song was worse than Grohl's shoehorning in DC history and DC punk phrases into his lyrics.

He doesn't need me to defend him or anything, but in my experience Steve (and everyone who works at Electrical) is very pleasant, professional, and easy to work with.

Also, not to blow his rep or anything but he & I got into an argument (not really, but it's funnier if I say it was an argument instead of discussion) about the level of vocals in the mix of a song, with me saying they should be quieter and him saying they should be louder.

Irony!

I enjoyed both episodes of this show so far.

I admire Albini's work ethic and like a lot of the work he's done. Otherwise, his personal politics as expressed in public often seem pretty loathsome.

2 episodes in :

buddy guy + steve albini + ian mackaye + trouble funk + chuck brown

what the fuck is to hate !!?

this is a major tv channel giving time to music i never expected too see.

cynics be damned.

(that said, i would have loved a chunk more re waxtrax .. but hey .. )

dave grohl + buddy guy + dave grohl + steve albini + ian mackaye + dave grohl + trouble funk + dave grohl + chuck brown + dave grohl

what the fuck is to hate !!?

Waiting to hear reports about Buddy Guy doing the 'jam' portion of his live show, talking about his 'good friend' Dave Group, and the busting out a shredding version of "Everlong".

hopefully, decades from now, when dave gets his medallion from the kennedy center, someone will remember that it was he who brought Big Black to HBO

tbf this series has made me consider, for the first time, in depth, why I am so completely uninterested in the foo fighters discography

oh sure, someone else might have made a montage of chicago music in an HBO doc that included kanye, chicago (the band), muddy waters...but who other than dave would have said "wait. Where's naked raygun?"

hardcore would never have gotten its due from pay cable if not for dave

da croupier : yeah i hear you re DG .. but still ..

i have yet to see a major tv channel give any time to the crews that were given airspace.

i found the show informative and given his obvious major label power, DG lite/light.

(note : i am not a foo stan at all .. just that i found the tv show a lot more interesting than i ever expected)

even if you think the foo fighters are garbage, you have to acknowledge that dave is telling people who'll watch a hbo documentary about the recording of the latest foo fighters album about a lot of cool shit they couldn't find out about otherwise...i mean, without reading

albini saw his face on hbo and it felt good. finally. recognition.

dave is telling people who'll watch a hbo documentary about the recording of the latest foo fighters album about a lot of cool shit they couldn't find out about otherwise..

and the problem with this is ??

there's nothing Grohl is doing, here or otherwise, that some way cooler person of his stature could plausibly be doing in his place, so I got no issues. If it ain't him it would just be Bono, or Jack White, or Billie Joe, or I dunno, Chad Kroeger.

...but who other than dave would have said "wait. Where's naked raygun?"

That's cool and all, but he also could've/should've said, "Wait. Where's Green?"

xpost to be fair it would actually be worse if it was jack white

for all the blandness of his band's current sound grohl is sincere to a fault rather than a smug shitlord with a "realness of music" complex

exactly.
hence why i have no issue with this series.
as a neophyte for most of the topics covered (i was an nme affilated go-go fucker though), i care not re the carrier, as the message is done with a passion rarely found in major tv gubbins.

[xpost.]

[x-xpost : yup .. he may be a corp sucking arse, but DG is giving airtime to people who would never normally get such love]

dave grohl's cousin was so cool in the chicago episode

Wax Trax daughter used to a run a little high-end gift shop down the street from where I live.

If you watch the Muscle Shoals doc, the first voice you hear, iirc, is that of Bono. But anyone who thinks Bono's presence (passionate!) in a Muscle Shoals doc will actually send people to that music is nuts. As I said earlier, the notion that Grohl talking about Buddy Guy, let alone Cheap Trick, will get fans to listen to those acts is as crazy as the belief that Probot sent more than two or three folks in the direction of King Diamond. I do like how he is emphasizing the specific characteristics of how each city inspires or leads to the music made there. I can only assume it will end with a contemporary Los Angeles board room, with dudes in suits walking in slo-mo half-focus, because that is what I hear when I hear Foo Fighters.

If you watch the Muscle Shoals doc, the first voice you hear, iirc, is that of Bono.

indeed it is! that's why it took me a few weeks to finally watch it all the way through (and it was really good for the most part)

Also guilty of the Foo doc slow-mo out of focus walk cliche.

not seen the muscle shoals ep yet.

and to be fair, bonos presence would not be a negative ..

fuck.

even after over 10 years, i really am not an ilm'r

I have no real prob with Bono, but he has no place in that doc.

muscle shoals thing is a totally diff't doc mark

I can only assume it will end with a contemporary Los Angeles board room, with dudes in suits walking in slo-mo half-focus, because that is what I hear when I hear Foo Fighters.

That makes them sound like some Kraftwerkian dream, ie. way more interesting than they are.

for all the blandness of his band's current sound grohl is sincere to a fault rather than a smug shitlord with a "realness of music" complex

it's true, he's a sincere shitlord with a "realness of music" complex

"Wait. Where's Green?"

Possibly working on a new book with Rudy Giuliani?

100% agreed.

(think "shitlord" is a bit harsh, but hey .. )

xpost.

if you cap a documentary about muddy waters, cheap trick and steve albini with your lyric video for "something out of nothing" i get to call you a shitlord

dave grohl's cousin was so cool in the chicago episode

― u2 removal machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 28, 2014 4:52 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, i want a documentary series about various rock stars' cool cousins who turned them onto good shit when they were young

the cousin stuff was awesome - a documentary that was more about dave's actual evolution, without the attempt to include all aspects of the american musical experience (so no rattle & hum shit about how buddy guy's journey reminded you of your journey and then you made a shitty song with a "superstition" break), would be a lot less insufferable

yeah it will probably get no better than the DC episode just because it had such big personal investment and there was so much firsthand Grohl stuff to pin it to.

so far my favorite mildly embarrassing editing decisions are putting Razorblade Suitcase in the montage of notable Albini productions and the segment about how influential Dischord has been that concluded with a long, lingering clip of the Pearl Jam "Evenflow" video soundtracked by Fugazi's "Break"

croupier i'll always take someone being sincere about their dumb "music realness" shit (grohl knows he's a giant loser), rather than trying to act like it's not completely lame and is something to aspire to - and having the music press & a lot of cultural cache-stockholders buy into it for, idk, like almost 14 fuckin years

like we are only just now admitting that jack white isn't that good in and of himself and maybe not all of those stripes albums were either after a while

jesus it's not like i'm grabbing a pitchfork i'm just making fun of his bs

which of us is truly living up to the spirit of real american music, those who crack wise about the vanity of millionaires or those who note they've seen worse millionaires

kind of an excessive-force preemptive strike, my b

i have irrational levels of hatred jack white