The Foo Fighters' "The Colour and the Shape" was the very first CD I bought. I used to love to blast it at night on I-5, weaving through traffic. Well, that actually came later because in 1998 I was still driving a 1960's car which had only AM radio.
Speaking of Dave Grohl, his movie last year -- Sound City -- is awesome. It's a real labor of love and you can tell. I won't give away much but if you're the sort who likes documentaries about how pop culture things happen -- especially music -- you'll love that movie. It reminded me of "In The Shadows of Motown" and "The Wrecking Crew." Here is the trailer:
11 comments:
Use the word Foo and you sound like unix.
CL, perhaps a bit OT, but is the acetylation of the free hydroxyls in wood something one can do at home? If I could convert the free hydroxyl groups into acetyl groups that would modify the ability of the wood to absorb water and, if I could do it in a way that was safe for food contact, all the better. Repeat customers might be a good thing.
Talk to me, o knower of things chemical - and let me know if I need to have you on retainer.
Mustang?
I couldn't get into the Foo Fighters after Cobain's death.
I don't know if I didn't give them a fair chance or what. They just didn't instinctively coalesce as a new unit to me. I kept trying to hear the Nirvana sound.
When they did this song I thought they weren't serious... like Nirvana, I dismissed them, w/o ever really ever embraced them.
@Deborah: T-Bird
@Lem: We'll have to agree to disagree. I always thought Cobain was overrated.
The first CD I ever purchased (I think?) was The Cure - "The head on the door"
I no longer care for The Cure, but that album is still a favorite.
I like the guitar work in Everlong.
I like this band called Lord Huron. They are a studio band created on the computer. Usually- that for me is a total turn off.
I do not like studio bands or music. --like Katy Perry or Britney Spears-- of course that's studio pop. Yick.
But somehow, what Lord Huron has created feels good in my ears. They are not really musicians at all - but they are trying. If you see them live, they really are tryin. I'll skip the live and listen to the cd.
If something is created on the computer and it sounds amazing, it's like a guilty pleasure. right? It's all wrong. There's some shame involved. I'd say my musically preferences are smaller and smaller because of this fact. I don't hear much new on the radio that inspires me to run out and buy (download) a CD. I'd say on the whole I do prefer the musicians who can actually play and sing. A lost art.
Especially the male voice.
Nobody sings like this guy anymore. Harry has the sexiest vocals evah in da werld.
Musically = music. and others corrections too.
Lem, you're wrong about Foo Fighters. They're a great band, and Grohl turned out to be more interesting than Cobain.
That first Foo Fighters album couldn't have a band coalescing around a sound, however. It was all Grohl, working out things for himself in a studio, doing all the parts. Later members came and went, including the other guitarist for Nirvana. (Yes, there was another guitarist in Nirvana by the end. But I'm sure Chick can tell you more about Pat Smear than I can.)
But Chick, you're also somewhat wrong. Cobain was and is wildly over-rated as a guitarist. Rolling Stone Magazine, which has the advantage of being wrong at least two thirds of the time, rated Cobain ahead of Eddie Van Halen on a greatest guitarist list, for example. Cobain shouldn't have been on the list at all (it was a Top 100), and certainly didn't deserve to be in the top ten.
And he was a bit over-rated as a cultural icon, but that's the fault of the music industry and the music critics who are always looking for the next Elvis or Beatles, someone to make a clarion call to lead a new generation in a great awakening - and a great spending surge for music produced by the music industry.
But he was a good song-writer and performer. The music was very compelling and he helped put the capstone on a great rival of harder rock music that had been burgeoning since at least Appetite for Destruction came out. (Anything to kill hair metal.) Plus, we got another great Weird Al moment out of Cobain, and that should count for something. And his relationship with Courtney Love led to a fantastic album from Hole, Live Through This, which still sounds great 20 years on. (Just listened to it again a few weeks ago.)
Cobain was an awful human being, though. No question about that for those that actually look at his life with the rose colored glasses off. (Or on, if you're Pontius Pilot. I know it was the smell of rose oil he hated, but I always assumed it probably led to a hatred of all things roses.)
And yes, Sound City is a great movie. Caught it by accident late one night on, I believe, Palladia. It was compelling enough to keep my wife up late watching it with me.
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