Foo Fighters "Sonic Highway" documentary series on HBO

lol

"I can't believe I'm riding in Master P's actual tank! Lotta ghosts, man, lotta ghosts"

Who will he talk to in New York?

Lou Reed's corpse

new orleans will all be preservation hall jazz band adulation, i'm guessing

Dr. John typically gets trotted out for these things. one of the Neville bros too probably.

it will literally just be an episode of Treme with Grohl dropped into the Steve Zahn role

^^^^^^^^^SO FUCKING OTM, also the main reason why i could not abide an entire episode of treme ever

Im surprised at no Minneapolis

Regards New Orleans I would have liked Grohl to talk to Earl Palmer, but forgot he died in 08

in new orleans he shoots smack with eyehategod

careful dave! steve earle got shot on treme.

i know it was a shame he was just tryin ta play some real music from the heart

In New Orleans, Uncle Dave high fives drunken, misogynistic sexploits with Greg Dulli in his bar .

In New York , the first three fifths sees the Foos concentrate on GG Allin's last stadium show. Out of respect,the gurning drummer curls one out of the back of his mountain bike at the site of the Gas Station, where the Geeg was last seen. He hurls the results at some nearby donut eating cops.
Dave gets all sombre and reflective, before emitting a brutal two note scream. Him and the fuzz join forces to perform a scatty rendition of YMCA

croup i gotta call you out a billion xposts ago

that werent no Superstition break in "Something From Nothing" that was a Holy Diver break

:)

just watched the Chicago ep

cousin stuff got me so amped up. Going to a Naked Raygun show when you're eleven!!??? fucking yessss

also albini is great

i liked the buddy guy / bonnie raitt stuff but it felt a bit too collagey compared to the punk realness. like there was less of a clear personal connection from dave, he revered them but it's diff to albini or raygun etc

if i get to see some more stuff like that i'll even listen to these new songs
they are very foofighters.xls though, like it bums me out that these are the only kind of songs they do forever

like bust out some probot metal or jam with these other dudes yr band is kind of boring now dave sorry

i still kinda quietly like them
they just bum me out a bit

Dave's cousin is def highlight of the show

something is very "holy diver" but the funky clavinet thing definitely can bring stevie to mind

er something as in "something from nothing"

haha thanks for saying that because honestly i chose to let it go rather than listen to the song again

also won't listen to the album because i don't want pull quote spoilers from future episodes

(well that and it's a foo fighters album and it's not the 90s)

The only true things are death and Texas
A bordertown outlaw country axis
Toting their Teles like hardcore axes
Lifting us all up by feeling DOWN (like Steve Earle, noted country singer)!

Actual lyrics^

haha amazing

Man, Steve Miller's gonna be pissed.

god this austin episode is stupid

even in the austin episode a bunch of ppl admit houston was more important historically!

The longer this series goes on the more it is turning into Dave Grohl's "Rattle & Hum", the rest of the band barely seem aware of what they are doing or why.

"{insert town here} seems cool, I've never really been here before"-Pat Smear in every fucking episode

That said I will watch every single one of the remaining episodes

their "huh how about that" vibe is esp funny considering they've all been touring the globe for decades. is dave the only guy who leaves the hotel?

it's definitely gonna be a joke if the 3/5ths (4/6ths if you count the keyboardist from the wallflowers wikipedia claims is also in the group) of the group from LA doesn't get a little more attention in that episode

"hey can we mention sunny day..."

"it's in the montage, nate. do you mind i've gotta go interview ann wilson and krist"

It's amazing to me that after all these years Nate still holds and plays his bass like he's putting together an Ikea shelving unit in zero gravity.

In the Nashville episode, how can none of these morons recognize any of the pictures on the Opry wall?

even in the austin episode a bunch of ppl admit houston was more important historically!

Yup. The big secret is that up until the late '70s, most big Austin artists had to head out to Houston or DFW to record, and both of those cities along with San Antonio have deeper pedigrees of native musicians.

Not watching this, and I think I'm glad for that despite how up my alley the subject-matter might be. This band caused me a bit of confusion recently when I realized that they were a rare example of an artist whose music I find somewhere between completely forgettable and fairly insipid in its AOL overnormalization, but whose unusually-nice-guy persona I find fairly appealing. Then I read about the anti-vax and AIDS denialism above, and even if they weren't Grohl's personally - I'm not sure - that resolved the conflict pretty quickly. The soft-headedness I perceive in their music extends sufficiently to their personality/politics that even when they mean well, their impact threatens to be pernicious. So I don't need to bother wondering anymore if I'm missing something, musically. Not that I'm not tempted by their stadium lineup this Summer...

The descriptions of the show sound exactly like what I would imagine from them.

I think we can say that they are a no surprises band.

Grohl is so confusing to me. As much as he's a wannabe and annoying cheeseball, he has this lush history as a musician and fan, having been in his high school bands like Brain Damage, and then having gone on tour in high school, followed by living the dream of drumming for his favorite band and then joining -the- mainstream band of the early 90s, also being revered as an energetic drummer to see. So like, I can respect his TV series as well as enjoy it. I've been enjoying Sonic Highways a lot. I feel like I get to travel to a different city every week. I'm not much of a traveler, and this is cool for me, and also inspiring to get this account of stuff happening outside of Taylor Swift (no comment on his comment on her.) But why is he so --to use one of his favorite pieces of language, censored--effing content to make stupid music? Do they just not care? Is he just loving the shit out of being a frontman as his other TWO guitarists pick up for him? Is he just being a business man at this point? He's had enough experiences in the music biz (see: him leaving a broke Scream to join an up-and-coming Nirvana; see: him negotiating his own label to skirt something about contracts...) to know that it's about money. Is he using this documentary to connect with this longing to be authentic while he sells out on the side to survive? /hipsterrunoffesquerant.... ha. anyway, his musical stupidness has been causing me a headache as I try to defend Sonic Highways to my friends when I have no desire to defend his band. I've been tuning out during the last five minutes of each episode. But I do look forward to the showcase of these cities each week and at the start was pleasantly surprised about how little the Foos featured into each episode.

Well, yeah.

But why is he so --to use one of his favorite pieces of language, censored--effing content to make stupid music? Do they just not care? Is he just loving the shit out of being a frontman as his other TWO guitarists pick up for him?

The Foos are basically an incredibly well-funded and well-connected Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp. Rather than (to use a random example that popped into my head) use Rush's "YYZ" as an inspiration/jumping-off point and saying, "Hey, what else can be done with something like that?" and creating something new, they jump onstage with Rush and scream bug-eyed "OMG I'M PLAYING 'YYZ' WITH RUSH!" And their ambitions have never extended beyond the musical equivalent of getting their picture taken with their favorite bands.

The part where he interviews Roky was really cringey. He acts so smart for asking if he was influenced by James Brown then they cut to an old interview where Roky says that making it clear that Grohl was fed the question

Grohl is Ron Wood with Bono's ambition

I think Dave hired Taylor for his teeth
Brothers in Gums.

Foo Fighters have really made me respect Pearl Jam, another band boring in its stability that does a better job of balancing its punk background and diverse interests with its inherently conservative execution.

i dunno the last pearl jam album was launched off a ballad i swear to god sounded like "walking in memphis" can't say i think they do a better job of balancing so much as a better job of being avoidable

pearl jam isn't as inclined to engage in and promote Events

i'm super biased to pj but as a fan of both bands, foos to a lesser extent now, pearl jam is much more interesting *as* a band. it's not just the eddie show even though they're easily marketable as that.

with the foos it's basically always felt like "dave & his bros"...which i mean you have pat smear in your band and he still is just kinda one of the guys. dave seems to just absorb all the light

Despite my ribbing of the Foos, I still think Everlong is such a great song. It's so easy to play too with that dropped D.
Is Everlong a fan's fave or dismissed as too commercial or something?

I also think the first album was good

first album is great