Foo Fighters "Sonic Highway" documentary series on HBO

he's such a chill dude

Fave moment of whole series might have been pat saying la is the best place to live, with Dave showing clear disbelief before fleeing to the desert

Was certain that Dukowski or Morris would pop up in the LA episode, but I guess you can't cover every base.

Grohl should make a doc about forming a band, touring arenas and teaching kids about guitars. Talking heads should be all uncool butt rock: Styx, REO, Nugent et al.

xp The lack of Keith Morris was certainly surprising, since he seems to have a nose for documentary cameras over the past two decades. He was probably in the background somewhere, answering questions no one was asking.

You can't cover every base...when you'd far rather discuss desert culture than LA culture . Got the feeling if he didn't have a germ and Tay in the band he would have gone to Boston or Detroit instead

On the plus side: Pat's one line per ep.

Best one yet is in the Washington ep. when he's forced to look at Grohl's lyrics - "Wow.....that's a lot of fucking words..."

That was awesome
Agree ppl are being hard on the Foos

Also don't forget his stellar work on Songs For the Deaf by QOTSA, about the best commercial hard rock record of the 00s

Haven't seen the LA one yet but looking forward to the Masque and Hermosa Beach Bathhouse excerpts.
I was looking forward to the long segment of the fishing trip around Catalina Island with Keith Morris piloting the boat for Bill Stevenson and Milo Aukerman. With Dave rocking out on the deck

Has anybody heard Pat Smear's 'Ruthensmear' LP, released on SST in their pot fog days? It's not that great in its sub Bowie Ziggy and I'm not sure why I bought it.

Just to clear it up, I think Grohl is a good drummer. Not sure about him as a frontman but I appear to be in the minority. Plenty seem to enjoy.

Grohl is undeniably a great drummer, and a (mostly) good dude. The issue I have with the Foo Fighters is a guy with great instincts and for all purposes total independence churning out totally MOR corporate-alt that, were it not featuring Grohl, would surely be garnering fewer defenders. Adding insult to injury we get the great drummer's dedication to the totally rad, I mean, lame Taylor Hawkins as his proxy. And then you see them live, where the cheese flows so fast and freely it plays like self-parody to the point of patronizing. Buddy and FF template Bob Mould does the Foos so much better. More depth, better guitar textures, better (or at least funnier!) drummer, etc.

Oh without a doubt, to my ears, FF current output is an irrepressible DUD, given the aforementioned insight of their leader .
Each to their own

Oh man just got to the Joe Walsh part, hope Taylor recovered!

Also all the Rancho/stoner/Kyuss stuff is great!

Omg the lyrics to this song...

He's just going to be singing transcripts of interviews by the end of this thing

Also I love hearing this Joe Walsh solo that blew Taylor's mind, all these random pentatonic string bends

I love this show so much

I sat through the entire New Orleans episode last night. Damn this show is cheesy.

I actually thought that was one of the best ones, but it also made me want to slap Taylor Hawkins more than any other time in the series.

so strange that this band has been around for 20 years and evidently sold many an album but i cannot for the life of me name a single song by them or even characterize what they sound like. do they get played on the radio?

Part of the discomfort for me was that I felt like everyone was posturing, and everyone around Grohl was just being a kiss-ass.

xpost i cant speak for having the radio on of late bc i'm rarely in cars or places w/radios, but as recently as their last album release (2011) both new stuff from wasting light and the greatest hits like "everlong," "my hero," etc. would show up on boston rock radio

Well early on they definitely had radio hits that were relatively memorable. Based on what I've heard recently anything you may have heard lately is likely indistinct enough to be totally forgotten.

that might be it-- it just blends into the background.

It's so weird that the rest of the band are barely there, the assistant engineer gets more screen time than Chris and Nate (not counting the vid at the end of course) what gives?

i think the message is that while some of these guys have been chill enough to ride with dave for almost 20 years - they're riding with dave. the guy recorded the first album entirely by himself so it's not like it became a dictatorship, it always was one.

dave: "american cities...rich with musical history...

four of the six foo fighters: "hey, la! we're from there! can we..."

dave: "........the desert......there's always something that's pulled me to it..."

pat: "hey what about the germs, i think we were naked raygun big"

dave: "oh right, right, punk heroes...you, joan jett, sst, 80s underground i'm all about that....but the desert...ever heard kyuss...now that was cool...josh told me a story..."

taylor: "FUCK YOU I'VE BEEN IN THIS BAND SINCE THE 90s I'M MEETING AN EAGLE"

irl lols at that

New Orleans song was the most hilariously non-sounding-like-the-city-we-just-immersed-ourselves-in yet

Are the other band members (besides Taylor) always quiet anonymous plain dudes on purpose so they don't alienate the very large Foo Fighters fan demo of quiet anonymous plain dudes?

XP - Yeah, I was hoping for some crazy track with a bounce rhythm and some horns, then we get another pumped up Rick Springfield tune. *caveat* I only listened to the first 40s

ha yeah I turned it off too maybe there was a brass band breakdown at the end lol

Yeah but they made sure the camera panned across portraits of disappointed looking New Orealns legends during the video

xxxpost

The others come across very well on that Doc that came out a couple of years back, esp Nate.

i wonder if joe walsh was a compromise to keep dave from having to meet don henley

(well, yeah)

The others come across very well on that Doc that came out a couple of years back, esp Nate.

― Rita, Sue and Peter Gabriel Two (MaresNest), Tuesday, November 25, 2014 3:20 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's the AIDS denier

Really? I guess that must have been in the special features.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/02/foo-fighters-hiv-deniers

Mendel says he was won over by Maggiore's book, and passed it around to the rest of the band, which includes former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Mendel says that he would steer anyone considering an HIV antibody test toward Maggiore's group.

"If you test positive, you are pretty much given a bleak outlook and told to take toxic drugs to possibly ward off new infections," says Mendel.

With the other band members on board, Mendel aims to use the Foo Fighters' celebrity to get the message out to a broad audience. The Foo Fighters plan additional benefit shows, and have placed a banner ad on their Web site linking to Alive and Well. Mendel says that he does not have HIV, nor does he have any friends with HIV besides Maggiore, who has remained asymptomatic.

Watched the Seattle episode last night. Some genuinely moving parts, especially toward the end. And then, for no fucking reason at all, the mood shifts completely and Dave interviews Macklemore. WTF

haha wow ok glad I turned it off before that

Taylor Hawkins bums me out, but I bet it's kind of a bummer to be Taylor Hawkins.

Can't really think of another example of such a famous band whose drummer is not the best drummer in the band, besides maybe that one time Sheila E was one of Ringo's all-stars

Are the other band members (besides Taylor) always quiet anonymous plain dudes on purpose so they don't alienate the very large Foo Fighters fan demo of quiet anonymous plain dudes?
--Evan

weird to see that pat smear is now a relatively quiet anonymous plain dude, but he's rich, so that prob makes up for it.

regarding current foo fandom, this is so OTM it's not even funny ( ok it is funny bc I'm laughing)

Grohl just basically spilled the beans on The Daily Show that there will be a second season. Hopefully it won't be tied to an album, but of course it will.

Has this been addressed yet?

http://jezebel.com/dave-grohls-sonic-highways-systematically-erases-women-1666309945

I don't necessarily agree (maybe Hole weren't mentioned because - ultimately -- HOLE DON'T MATTER)...but just throwin' it out there.

Said article also features this line...

"Kanye West, an artist as complicated, heart-driven, and relevant as Nirvana ever was, is seen in a short clip at the beginning, near the credits, but is not mentioned thereafter."

Kanye West is complicated?

FOH

There have been a bunch of women on the show - heart, joan jett, dolly parton, emmylou harris.

Hole is/was terrible

Oh Kanye's complicated alright: http://gawker.com/which-giant-titted-anime-statue-was-kanye-west-obsessed-1667243236?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

That being said criticism of the show being conventionally rockist is obviously legit

"i wish there was more women in it" is more a than valid note, but the claim of systematic erasure in the headline doesn't really match the "sure there was heart but where's bikini kill?" tone of the rest of the post. not totally sure what the definition of "systematically erasing women" would mean, but i assume it would mean having even less than the token legends like dolly, joan jett, etc.

also hole was from la