I've talked about Tool on SeeingtheDark.com (and Sounds of Sagittarius and Song of the Day) before. In fact, it was only a few Christmases ago that I posted "Ticks and Leeches" as my song of the day. Maybe you haven't been around that long, and I've purged my archives since then, so perhaps this is "news": I'm a huge fan.
I don't like that word - it implies complete knowledge and compliance. As much as I like some bands, I'm never really 100% on them. I have spotty knowledge, a lot of lyrical themes irritate me, etc. I've played around a lot with the cognitive dissonance between what I experience of a band's music and what they are actually like as people or what their music might actually be saying. But, for the sake of simplicity, I've been a "fan" of Tool since 1998. I know their music very well, I've spent a fuckton of money on their music or concerts, I've gotten into heated arguments about their music, they're responsible for my favorite albums and some of my most overplayed songs, they've shaped my tastes and tolerances, they've had an unrivaled influence over what music I've listened to since discovering them, and so on.
Tool was my favorite band for a long time. I didn't question this much (didn't have reason to) until I got into Kyuss. But Tool has always been at the top of my list. Even when my interest in listening to them has faded, even when I've felt like I'd rather stab myself in the ears with a Phillips head screwdriver than hear "Sober" again, my respect has always maintained.
One of the ways I respect the band is through their ability to share other bands with the so-called mainstream (you can argue Tool isn't mainstream, and you could be right, but they're as mainstream as heavy rock/metal gets). I have newly discovered at least a dozen bands because of shows they've done with Tool, or covers that Tool has done, or from members of Tool going on to do other projects (we're really just talking about Maynard for me there). A few of those bands have led me even further down the rabbit hole.
In one case, I found Kyuss because of Tool's live cover of "Demon Cleaner". Kyuss resulted in quite a sequence of bands and has led me straight to where I am now. Would I be doing a stoner/doom-centric blog if I had not been so irritated early on in my Kyuss obsession that nobody I knew had heard or heard of them before? Probably not. I may have eventually heard Kyuss because of Queens of the Stone Age or Monster Magnet, but my interest would have taken on a different tone. Certainly I wouldn't have discovered Sheavy without liking Kyuss exactly when I did, and then where would I be?
Perhaps more importantly, Tool introduced me to Russian Circles. In 2007, they played some shows together. I looked Russian Circles up. I liked "Death Rides A Horse" and that was about it. Around that time I really, really wanted to go to more live shows and Russian Circles seemed like one of those bands I'd better interpret live. Sure enough, they were coming to Portland, opening one of the March Into Darkness festival dates. I bought a full pass to the fest. There, I was properly introduced to SubArachnoid Space, I met my once-favorite venue, I learned of the entity Nanotear, I was blown away by Red Fang (who led me to find Diesto, who is the main reason I saw Nether Regions early on, who is the number one cause of my name written in albums that come out in January), and, most importantly for the context of this post, I discovered the band Middian.
Now, I didn't see Middian live. They were playing too late and I didn't have a ride home so I had to catch my last bus. But I did look them up beforehand and listened to "Dreamless Eye" a lot. Middian's court dramas unfolding in internet discussion about them in 2008 led me to discover YOB.
My listening to YOB has, of course, paid off. In part, my interest in them eventually led to me joining up with Nanotear. Now I know what YOB's doing before any of you guys. It's lovely. For example, about four days before the rest of the world, four years into my history with YOB and fourteen into my history with Tool (the band that ultimately led me to discover YOB, in case you didn't follow all of that up there), I learned that YOB is opening for Tool on some shows on the East coast.
I find it strange and cyclical that I went down a musical path that basically looked like Tool > Russian Circles > Middian/Nanotear > YOB > Tool. It seems, despite the path I took, my initial respect for Tool would have led me to discover YOB anyway. Perhaps I'm being overly sentimental and not cynical enough about my fandom self-validating itself, but that's really cool. For having such a band open their show, I respect Tool all the more.
And also they need a good, relevant band to open for them when they haven't released a new album in going-on-six years and have no reason to tour right now.
Here's hoping that once the January/February leg is over, and Puscifer has finished their run, Tool comes through Portland and asks YOB to open the show. Cuz, you know, that might be pretty fucking fulfilling to see on our home turf.