Foo Fighters "Sonic Highway" documentary series on HBO

I think he begged them to be part of it. Their was an interview in Mojo with one of the producers when the POB reissue happened and they said Hawkins was a huge Dennis fan and they liked that his voice had similar qualities.

Kevin McCarthy 6 months ago

One of my favorite concert stories. Guy sitting in front of me wearing a RUSH shirt goes to get a beer grumbling something about "this drum solo sucks". He gets back after Geddy and Alex left the stage and the girl he is with has this look on her face like she's speechless. He just looks at her and shouts "What did I miss?"

tbh, i dunno how a rock star as big as Grohl could carry him/herself any better than he does. does he do some things that are offputting to some people? probably. but generally speaking, he seems nice/normal enough, gives good interviews, seems to care about the history of music and does more than his share of providing exposure to quality old musicians/producers/studios/whatever. to hate on the guy ... i mean, you can do it, but how many better targets are there out there? like, all of them. all the targets.

and i should note i'm not some ff superfan. i thought the first two albums were really good, that last one was pretty good, and i never really bothered w/ anything in between. 'wasting light' isn't perfect, but i don't see how you could describe it as milquetoast. parts of it slay pretty fuckin' hard for the seventh album by the world's fourth biggest rock band or w/e

I can co-sign on that, there are some straight-up jams on that record, and the three-guitar sound works.

Gonna try out the first ep of the show sometime this weekend.

I am 28 minutes through the 1st episode…

mucho mucho cliches…Foo dudes walking in slo mo, moodily…Grohl's earnest platitudes about sense of place in music…very very successful millionaire musicians talking about 80s hardcore in tones reminiscent of Paul kantner or David Crosby talking about the 60s (maaann). a lot of time spent on Albini so far…am reminded of this 20 years of tortoise thing I read where one of those guys was talking to Albini about remixes and house music, and the former being indignant or bewildered or a combination thereof…does the guy have any appreciation for anything that isn't G/B/D or anything not immersed in notions of "authenticity?"

although I note that those far Kanye is shown as a representative of great chicago music and that the DC one will talk about go go, this program reinforces Grohl's key thing: it's like the oppositional stance Albini and Mackaye had towards bigtime rock distributed by multinational corporations never existed. the only thing left is "rock music is played with these authentic tools. if it doesn't use those tools, it's false, joe walsh = naked raygun, and kids are being denied immutable truth and beauty if they don't do what WE did." never mind that that's what every 40-60 year olds has said about younger people since the beginning of time, and I really wish that there was (or I was aware of) more of a "fuck you old assholes" rebuke from musicians and fans in their teens-20s. Or maybe they don't care cuz they're too busy partying?

i dunno i can't fault someone for Believing that Rock Can Change The World when he was in the last rock band that changed the world

Joe walsh = naked raygun

I'm down w both of these tbh

While the web has flattened these things out some, I think anytime Chuck Brown, Bad Brains or Ian MacKaye gets on mainstream TV is a good thing. I don't have HBO and really won't look for this show, but I thought the Sound City documentary was pretty entertaining.

i dunno i can't fault someone for Believing that Rock Can Change The World when he was in the last rock band that changed the world

Wait, Dave Grohl was in Public Enemy? Huh.

He was Professor Grohl

Ha!
_______________

I think one angle to look at such a project is that this probably will introduce some good music and musicians to some people for the first time. I know as a total dweeb preteen, the first time I saw James Brown, heard Elmore James, Cab Calloway and John Lee Hooker was watching the Blues Brothers movie.

― earlnash, Saturday, October 18, 2014 10:29 AM (12 hours ago)

^^^this

ugh I hate music documentaries that spend all their time extolling how "important" certain music/musicians were or how "nothing was the same after ____", just all this empty rote hyperbole. Show me the performances, give me an interesting story, reveal odd details but don't make me listen to people rhapsodizing about how amazing going to a show was, or how incredible it was to hear x song, I really really don't care. That being said yeah it's nice to see Albini or Rick Nielsen or whoever, but the tone of this is so off-putting.

very very successful millionaire musicians talking about 80s hardcore in tones reminiscent of Paul kantner or David Crosby talking about the 60s (maaann).

the tone/sentiments expressed are very similar - the weird thing to me is that if you go to any major town these days, there is guaranteed to be a hardcore scene of teenagers/young folks doing pretty much exactly the same things that 80s hardcore did. But this was never the case with the music/scene of Kantner/Crosby, even in the 80s, that model/aesthetic just didn't transfer to new generations on the same scale.

But this was never the case with the music/scene of Kantner/Crosby, even in the 80s, that model/aesthetic just didn't transfer to new generations on the same scale.

― Οὖτις, Monday, October 20, 2014 3:41 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hardcore is a more easy to approach template, musicianship-wise

I'm sure that's part of it but there's also something that seems to be eternally appealing about it to a subset of kids, beyond the "anyone can do it" factor

Think its something to with it being the highest energy music you can do with guitar bass and drums that doesnt require more advanced chops found more in speed metal etc

God this is the worst fucking show ever. I vomited the entire way through and blood started shooting out my ass. Now I have a high grade fever I can't get rid of, seing these people talk about their " music" made me so angry I had to take a switch to my damn kids ass.

Terrible post

I actually think the form of this is kinda novel - looking at scenes and how they influence artists and the songwriting process etc. - but there are about 500 bands I'd rather see try their hand at it than the Foos. But then Grohl is the best-connected guy in rock, so...it's a chatch-22 of sorts.

no way in hell would i watch this show after seeing that sound city doc. boomer wannabes talking about how fucking magical their precious shit stained recording gear was + the worlds shittiest jam session ft. 70 year old dude trying to seem hip and with it = i, too, had to take a switch to my damn kids ass

Terrible post

Yeah yer right. Nobody bats 1.000

talking about 80s hardcore in tones reminiscent of Paul kantner or David Crosby talking about the 60s (maaann).

Is it getting as bad as classic rock radio and the Lefsetz worshipful approach? Not in tv commercials yet, and no Big Chill movie with Henry Rollins in it yet...Maybe soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oSFnotAmcoA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2jUOvxG7440

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SoSQwV0orzU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FM7PcYMH67c

Watched the first half of the first ep, which was fine, but when they were tracking at Electrical Audio and someone says something along the lines of "usually it takes us weeks just to record the drums" I literally said "what a bunch of pussies" out loud to no one but our sleeping cat.

haha yeah I lol'd at there whole established process "first we do drums for three weeks, then we do the bass for two weeks, then we do all the guitars" etc. way to make everything sound unbelievably boring

Dusty Springfield usta record one syllable at a time on occasion.

iirc ian mackaye said one time when he was listening to an evens song something like "oh man that hook you just did once, we'd have to repeat it a bunch of times". for a torch-bearing rocker with a sense of roots dave grohl sure has a lot of bloated corporate shit he has to do.

that paraphrase is dave grohl talking about the evens, to be clear

actually i think ian didn't give the name of the big arena rocker who said that to him but i can't imagine there's a lot of other arena rockers hanging out with ian so

Ooh special Foo Fighters club gig Friday in DC (this is their version of a $5 Fugazi gig I guess)

Fri Oct 24::
FOO FIGHTERS
plus a special screening of
Sonic Highways
$20 Mainstage / Doors at 9:00

$20 per ticket. $3 service charge. Cash only. Maximum of 2 tickets per person. You must bring your ID. If you are buying a 2nd ticket you must provide the person's name as it is stated on their ID. Tickets are 100% non-transferable and non-refundable. On sale Tuesday October 21 at 6:00pm at the Black Cat. The Black Cat is located at 1811 14th Street NW Washington, DC.

$20 per ticket. $3 service charge. Cash only

haha service charge AND cash only

quality service

The Black Cat Club is owned by the drummer of long ago Dischord band Iron Cross & other groups (who got Grohl to invest in the original purchase way back when) btw

xxxxpost, re: Grohl listening to the Evens, the thought of *him* sitting in a studio for a FF project and not being able to fight past all the frustrating bullshit squashes any hope I have for my own life

Batshit rant from the dude who signed Hootie making the rounds. He makes some bad points, but also some good ones, not least asking (iirc) why Grohl, a good guy with a strong understanding of the industry, the way it works, and the way it is antithetical to much of the music he purports to love (in this doc and elsewhere), seems to have no prob sucking away at the corporate teat in the most corporate way possible, even though he, of all people, is in a position to say know. Is it just that he is such a nice guy he can't so no to whatever's asked of him?

In ep one, I downright winced when, after they have this eureka moment of jamming the cord in the guitar pre-solo and causing this cool crackling fuzz sound, the guitarist dude admits his biggest concern is replicating it on TV, and all the other dudes chuckle knowingly. Because they all know they'll be slumming it up on some shitty TV shows soon enough, because that's just that they do, right?

Another question never answered (not that it needs to be, necessarily): why do they spend all this time extolling the skill and genius of Steve Albini, in his own studio, and then have Butch Vig behind the board?

http://tanteguerilla.com/bilder/produkte/normal/SST-Corporate-Rock-Still-Sucks-T-Shirt-white.jpg

xpost because there's no fucking way albini would produce them at this point? though to be fair with albini it's as much about him fetishizing his own "indie integrity" to a degree that's downright masturbatory as it is him having pretty good taste

I coasted through the first two episodes Saturday afternoon when good football was at a lull. Nothing remarkable and nothing offensive about either so far, but I'll be curious to see the Nashville episode. That shit's totally out of Grohl's element, so there should be some smdh lols.

xpost because there's no fucking way albini would produce them at this point?

Oh please, he'll produce any band who walks in there with a certified check and their own instruments.

don't think they actually wanted a song that sounds like albini recorded it anyway

Yeah, because it wouldn't ... sell.

Watched the first half of the first ep, which was fine, but when they were tracking at Electrical Audio and someone says something along the lines of "usually it takes us weeks just to record the drums" I literally said "what a bunch of pussies" out loud to no one but our sleeping cat.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, October 21, 2014 3:38 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yeah I lol'd at there whole established process "first we do drums for three weeks, then we do the bass for two weeks, then we do all the guitars" etc. way to make everything sound unbelievably boring

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 21, 2014 3:39 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean...unless you guys are clutching your pearls at overdubbing and think every band should be all FUCK IT WE'LL DO IT LIVE, that's just the practical no brainer way to do record rock music. unless you want to set up and mic drums and break them down again multiple times and waste a ton of man hours, or do a bunch of other instruments over a clicktrack before there are live drums recorded.

^ otm

xxxpost oh my well at least he'll take their money now even if he still probably grumbles as if he's too good for it and saves his aggression for (overrated IMO if not totally w/o merit) shellac records

croupier you're probably right

whoops i fucked up zee x's

xxxpost oh my well at least he'll take their money now even if he still probably grumbles as if he's too good for it and saves his aggression for (overrated IMO if not totally w/o merit) shellac records

croupier you're probably right

― blood on the peaves (slothroprhymes), Monday, October 27, 2014 1:42 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bullshit

which part?