Five years ago: Foo Fighters Wasting Light

Hard to believe that it's already been five years ago since Foo Fighters released the amazing Wasting Light. It was their seventh album and was released on this very day in 2011.

I've been a pretty big Foo Fighters fan since before I even knew it was Dave Grohl's band. I've really enjoyed their albums, but this one was pretty special, not least of all since one of my favourite artists, the legendary Bob Mould appears on the album. The album also marked the return of Pat Smear to a Foo Fighters record, his first since the magnificent The Colour and The Shape. The album was also pretty unique because it was recorded on good old analogue tape and produced by Butch Vig. Recording analogue forces the band to be a lot tighter than with digital because your ability to "fix" issues to make audio perfection is more limited.

Guitar rock is my thing, and this Foo Fighters album gets it right in so many ways. Relentless riffs, the classic Dave Grohl snarls and screams, Taylor Hawkins' pounding drumming, the three-guitar assault... It's all a recipe for a big smile on the front of my nodding head.

"Bridge Burning"

"Rope"

 "Dear Rosemary", featuring Bob Mould on vocals and guitar

"White Limo" totally sounds like it could have been on the first Foos album

"Arlandria"

"These Days"

"Walk"

Pic from Stereogum.

Foo Fighters' Foo Fighters is 20

It was 20 years ago today that the début, self-titled album by Foo Fighters was released. It was recorded solo by Dave Grohl on every instrument and vocal except for one guitar part on one song. I didn't even know that Foo Fighters was Dave Grohl's band / project when I first heard "I'll Stick Around" and decided to buy this album.

Foo Fighters is full of well-written, memorable tunes that expose and foretell the powerhouse musician and songwriter that Dave Grohl would become. It's a fantastic album that still gets heavy play in my library.

I hope Dave's leg is on the mend! Get well and recover so you can continue to rock out!

Here are my favourite tunes from this amazing début.

"This Is A Call"

"I'll Stick Around"

"Big Me"

"Alone + Easy Target"

"For All The Cows"

Pic from Amazon.

Something From Nothing - the first track from Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways

Foo Fighters' newest album, the Butch Vig produced Sonic Highways, comes out on November 10. The first episode of the accompanying HBO TV series launched this week. The first episode was on Chicago and this track is the feature tune for the first episode. The song is called "Something From Nothing" and it covers pretty much the full dynamic range of a rock song. I'm looking forward to this album and I might even go see them on their next tour.

Check it out:

The HBO series just started, too. Looks pretty cool.

Update: The Foos just released the proper video for "Something From Nothing", so here it is. It will look pretty familiar if you saw the first episode of the HBO series.

Pic from Facebook.

The musician comes first: Dave Grohl's SXSW Keynote Address

I don't post too much on the state of the music industry or conferences or speeches, even though I used to be part of the industry, and I guess, in some small way, I still am. Here's Dave Grohl at SXSW giving the Keynote Address. It's a funny, entertaining, inspiring, unflinchingly honest look at Dave's experience with the wondrous gift of music.

Dave fronts one of my favourite bands. Foo Fighters are a band that sound like what I always thought perfect hard rock with a good pop sensibility should sound like. It's probably in part because we grew up with the same influences. I even remember the sister of a childhood friend when she got a mohawk. And I loved 70's KISS. I even liked Foo Fighters before I knew that "the drummer from Nirvana" was Foo Fighters.

The main idea: the musician comes first.

Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein", the song that changed Dave Grohl's life.

What was mine? There were so many, but this one came to mind first. Manfred Mann's version of "Blinded by the Light".

And I can't forget KISS. I wanted to be Ace Frehley when I grew up. Here's "Shock Me".

Here's one of the tracks from the début Foo Fighter's album "This is a Call".

Wow, Dave. You've made me nostalgic and made me remember how much I love music. I think I'll dust off the guitar and start building some calluses.

The Grammy's part deux

I watched the second half of the Grammy's last night. Highlights for me were:

• Civil Wars thanking their "opening acts" and their cool, one-minute version of "Barton Hollow".
• Kate Beckinsale's legs.
• Katy Perry put on a cool, switch-a-roo performance with what I can only assume is her "kick him to the curb" song for her ex, Russell Brand.
• Adele was triumphant in an "under the microscope" performance. In a world that often wants artists to fail - like Lana del Rey on SNL - she put on a flawless performance that demonstrated why she deserved to sweep the Grammy's.
• Glen Campbell not falling off the stage
• Bon Iver not insulting the Grammy's, while remaining honest about the conflicted feelings he holds.
• And more Foos! And duelling guitars!

I don't write about the things I don't like so you won't get all that dirt and insulting, condescending attitude from moi.  No way, Jose.

The Grammy's didn't suck?!?

Is it just me or did the Grammy's not suck too badly last night?  The highlights for me were:

• Bruce Springsteen bringing a good performance that had a lot of energy. I still can't help from seeing Little Steven as Sil in the Sopranos, though.
• I do appreciate Bruno Mars' live performances when I've seen him on the awards shows. He shows obvious influences from vintage R&B and James Brown in particular.
• Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys' tribute to Etta James.  Man, can Bonnie sing and play that guitar with 10 tonnes of soul.  Nice!
• Jack Black getting a dig in on Bon Iver for "indie cred" while introducing the Foo Fighters who brought the rawk as they always do. And then the Foos won a well-deserved Grammy for Best Rock Performance.
• Rihanna is a guilty pleasure, so it's always good to hear and see her.
• And there's the new drinking game where you have to drink every time someone says or sings "Whitney". Too soon?

And I haven't even seen the second half yet.

Too bad the Juno nominations were so vanilla.

New Foo Fighters video and the return of RAWK!

Foo Fighters have released a video for "These Days" from their most recent album Wasting Light.  In related news, Dave Grohl told Billboard:

"I don't think there's anything wrong with rock at all. It's overlooked. And right now, the current musical climate is not unlike it was back in 1991, right before Nirvana got popular. The late '80s was full of over-produced pop that kids had nothing to grab hold of -- they had no way of connecting to this hair metal band singing about fucking strippers in a limousine on Sunset Boulevard. Who can relate to that? Then you had a bunch of formulaic pop songstress bullshit, and music was boring. And then a bunch of bands with dirty kids got on MTV and rock'n'roll became huge again. And I feel like that's about to happen. Something's got to give. It can't be song contests on television for the rest of our lives. It can't be the same playlists on every radio station for the rest of our lives. It can't be music made entirely by computers with people talking over it the rest of our lives. It can't go that way, it just won't.

I feel like as a musician and a part of this rock'n'roll scene, I have a responsibility to make shit real, to not think about all of that other bullshit, not think about making music for money or promoting music for fashion, the contests. My responsibility is to make shit that's real. Once you start doing the right thing, it will get better.

Someone asked me recently, "What do you think the problem with the music industry is?" I said, take the Adele record, for example. It's an amazing record and everybody's so shocked that it's such a phenomenon. I'm not. You know why that record's huge? Because it's fucking good and it's real. When you have an artist singing about something real and she's incredibly talented, it deserves all the rewards it gets, it's a great record. Now imagine if all records were that good. Do you think only one of them would sell? Fuck no! All of them would. If all records were that good the music business would be on fire, but they're not. A lot of people are promoting records that are just throw-it-against-the-wall-see-if-it-sticks meaningless bullshit. Everybody has the responsibility to do the right thing and promote artists that mean something."

Here's the video:



These guys might be the last band that would make me want to go to a stadium rock show.

Rock on, Foos!

Foo Fighters and Joan Jett don't give a damn about their bad reputation

Here's a cool vid of Foo Fighters with Joan Jett on David Letterman.  They beat the hell out of "Bad Reputation".  Joan still sounds awesome!

My favourite albums: Awesome and cool albums of 2010-2011: Top 30 Albums: My best of list

Since I didn't put up a post for my favourite tunes and albums of 2010, and since it takes me a while for things to grow on me, I'm going to be a little different than other music writers. I'm going to do "best of" posts for 2 year periods. This will allow me to be late to the party, and give albums extra time to germinate in my little brain. So this set of posts will cover 2010 and 2011.

One side effect of iTunes, smart playlists and listening to songs over albums is that I've really become a lot more of a "songs guy" over being an "album guy". I was more of an album guy back when I was buying vinyl and CDs in the 80s and 90s and I'd throw them on the turntable or in the CD player and listen to the whole things end to end.

That's my explanation for why my best albums list is so much shorter than my best songs list, anyway.

1. The National - High Violet
2. The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
3. Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This
4. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
5. The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever
6. The Whigs - In The Dark
7. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
8. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
9. The New Pornographers - Together
10. Les Savy Fav - Root For Ruin
11. Robyn - Body Talk
12. Hard Fi - Killer Sounds
13. John Grant - The Queen of Denmark
14. The Black Keys - Brothers
15. Army Navy - The Last Place
16. The Posies - Blood/Candy
17. The Kills - Blood Pressures
18. Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
19. Telekinesis - 12 Desparate Straight Lines
20. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
21. Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks
22. Stars - The Five Ghosts
23. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding
24. We Were Promised Jetpacks - In the Pit of the Stomach
25. Kasabian - Velociraptor!
26. The Naked and Famous - Passive Me, Aggressive You
27. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
28. Sky Larkin - Kaleide
29. The Thermals - Personal Life
30. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Check out the rest of my best of posts.

Foos with Bob Mould on Conan

Last week, Foo Fighters appeared on Conan with special guest Bob Mould.  Awesome performance of "Dear Rosemary" from the Foos latest, Wasting Light.  Love the front line of 4, count 'em, 4 freaking guitar players!



And if you haven't done so, I recommend reading Bob Mould's autobiography, See a Little Light.  It's a cool read.  Very insightful into the life of one of modern rock's most influential artists.

New Foo Fighters Album Is Amazing!

I became a Foo Fighters fan before I even knew that Dave Grohl was in the band, or more matter of factly, was the band. When I first heard "This is a Call" and "Alone + Easy Target" from the debut, I was hooked. The Colour and the Shape was probably my favourite of their albums, although they have many great ones.

They've recently released Wasting Light. It's a return to being produced by Butch Vig, and a return to analog recording. And it's a fantastically solid album. There are even some great guests including Bob Mould - the greatest Bob to ever live. And, of course, Bob's just published his autobiography See A Little Light which I'm going to have to pick up soon.

Here's a video of them performing the whole album. Pretty awesome. Enjoy if you can spend 49 minutes looking at a video. Hell, you can even put it on in the background and go about your business...



They also like to release funny videos, as I'm sure you know. Here's their latest, for "Walk"

Foo Fighters Covers

I'm not sure if Foo Fighters count as a guilty pleasure or not. I've liked them since before I knew that the band was led by the drummer from Nirvana. And I don't feel guilty for liking them. So my conclusion would have to be, no, they are not a guilty pleasure.

They like to do something I still like to do when I play music with friends. Perform a kick-ass cover. Especially if it's a kick-ass cover of a tune that might not have kicked ass so much in it's original version.

Here are some of my favourite cover tunes done by Foo Fighters. Here's them covering Wings "Band on the Run", Prince's "Darling Nikki" and Gerry Raferty's "Baker Street".







Their new album Wasting Light is out on April 12 and you can hear "Rope" here. Sounds good to me.