As insanely corny as this sounds, I feel rather musically “connected” to Tool. It has been a relationship of many years, and I simply cannot get enough of them.

Y’know, the band that you can just spin their albums and you never, ever, get tired of them. I guess it goes a litlle deeper for me.

I have two main classifications for the music I like sans dance music. Those classifications are:

  • Bands that are so rock solid that it’s wrong and broken to listen to “tracks” from their albums — the only way to listen to them is to put a whole album on, end to end, and go through the journey that they (and engineers) have carefully laid out so as to create a whole story or journey
  • Bands that both write good albums, and good songs, and you can just kinda pick and choose

Typical inclusions of the first type are Tool, Metallica, Kruss, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, etc.

Typical inclusions of the second type would be Faith No More, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Pantera, Sepultura, etc.

I cannot remember who first introduced me to Tool, which is strange because I do remember the moments of introduction for almost all the other bands I like. I think it was Kokman, but I’m not sure. What I do recall is working for a client that was a good 50-80kms away drive every day, and simply playing Lateralus over, and over, and goddamn fucking loving it.

There are these defining moments (for me anyhow) that I specifically recall when first hearing a track — sometimes for the first time I’ve heard the band, and sometimes for one I’ve known for years. One excellent example of that would be when I first heard Guns N Roses for the first time, and the track was Paradise City.

I must have been in year 10 in highschool, and a mate cornered me in the morning as soon as I walked into school. His name was Cort Fidler, and he thrust upon my head some headphones and cried, “You have to hear this.”

Out came Paradise City into my ears, and I recall almost literally feeling weak at the knees when I heard Slash ring out that gorgeous arpaggio, through if I recall a genuine ’67 Sunburst Les Paul, out a Marshall head and straight into CDs everywhere. I will never forget that moment.

Another one of those times was about 2-3 years ago now I think. I was on a bus going to a company getaway up in Queensland when a mate, Ben Johns, cried, “You know how you love Pushit so much? You HAVE to hear this version.”

And so it was, headphones clamped on once again (only this time, a little more refined as I used my Sennheiser HD25’s ;)) and out came the version of Pushit as recorded on Salival. Oh, my, god.

Seriously… oh, my, god.

14 minutes and 15 seconds of pure, fucking, awesome.

I’ll never forget that moment either, thanks Ben 🙂