…Missing Opportunities…

Okay, I've put off listening to Tool for something like ten years. I really should have listened to Ænima in ’96 or ’97, but I didn’t. And I really should have listened to Lateralus in college. Man, that record would have put me through college. And it probably would have pushed me in a musically better direction than all the punk I was listening to. People have been telling me this for years and though I’ve come to really like Tool, I still have to defend my reasons for not getting into them in the first place. I’ll get to that.

Even though I’ve never been a fan, not until lately anyway, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Tool has actually been an influence on my own music more than a lot of music I’ve actively tried to copy. I can remember trying to play some riff I had heard somewhere, which turned out to be the introduction to the song Lateralus. The open drone string, the picking patterns, I can name songs I’ve written that sort of evolved from me trying to play this one riff and not knowing what it was.

I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that their music really is a fantastic and fortunate influence on a lot of recent heavy music – in performance but more importantly in production. They manage to make heavy both intimate yet grand, which I think is quite a feat.

Here is Tool’s one flaw as I see it – the reason why I couldn’t get into Tool despite all my fanatical friends – they’ve stuck themselves within something of a niche and won’t ever be able to play around outside of that niche. I’ve never been able to word that sentiment, and I hope that this time it’s clearer than all those other times I’ve tried to sum up that one flaw in just a few words – I’ve tried to use boring, but the music is very engaging. I’ve tried to explain it as a lack of versatility, of a tendency to ignore dynamic variety, an overuse of minor chords, and so on. None of these arguments, valid as they may or may not be (it’s true that they rarely play outside of minor chords but not that they lack dynamic variety), none of these arguments really sum up Tool’s flaw like the thing I wrote just now about the niche.

Tool has limited themselves to minor chords and certain ambient feelings, which isn’t a flaw unless they ever wanted to play something, um, uplifting. I think I have a deep-rooted fear of getting stuck in sameness (variety is the spice of life. Also, I still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up) that spreads into music as well. And along with a niche and a lack of expansion beyond the dark, minor chord progressions (always brooding, sad, angry, or stoned) comes a tendency to seem predictable. I mean, you almost know the limits of a Tool album before you’ve spun it once. You've got to get into Tool pretty deeply before you realize that there is actually some humor woven into some of the lyrics - there's no way to pick that up from the moods the songs create.

Kay. All that said, these guys are really talented. They spin tunes and moods together into this amalgamous, ethereal, totally organic experience. Not only that, but their thumbprint on rhythmic, heavy music is unmistakable. Several different people have tried to explain to me that their incredible performances are so intricate and orchestrated (one friend kept using the word “concise.” I think he meant “precise,” and I tried to explain to him that Tool is anything but concise). I wouldn’t go so far as using the word “orchestrated,” but I think “richly layered” is apt. Richly layered, as well as well crafted.

I think I’m trying to say that Tool would be my favorite bands if I wasn’t afraid of commitment. They're in the top ten, though.

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And no, I don't have 10,000 Days, though I might have heard bits and pieces of it here an there. I'll probably get it in five or six years.