Posts Tagged ‘fascinating’

Retrospective: Tool Videos Directed by Adam Jones

Tool Dissectional Tool founding member and sole guitarist Adam Jones has received a tremendous amount of praise for his musical work, but the talent of the guitarist ventures far past the auditory. Adam Jones is also an accomplished animator, makeup artist and set designer, having worked on major flicks such as ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Terminator 2′ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 + 5′ among others. As Tool began to become more popular, Jones harnessed his talents to create official music videos for the band, which have remained stylistically unique and unmatched in terms of hypnotic quality for two decades. Whether or not Tool is your musical cup of tea, the videos directed by Adam Jones stand alone as not just accompaniments to a song, but as legitimate visual masterworks even if stripped of their music. Below are all seven Tool videos directed by Adam Jones. ‘Sober’ (1993) Adam Jones’ first visual creation for Tool was for ‘Sober,’ the band’s first video offering from their 1993 full-length ‘Undertow.’ Jones used his masterful stop-motion skills for the dark piece, and ‘Sober’ became the first in a long line of videos that purposely do not feature any of Tool’s band members and use bleak color schemes. Jones collaborated with Fred Stuhr to create the video, but for nearly a decade afterword, Jones took sole creative lead. ‘Prison Sex’ (1994) The second and final music video from Tool’s ‘Undertow’ album was crafted for the song ‘Prison Sex.’ Not only was the ‘Prison Sex’ clip a visual and conceptual achievement in the world of music videos, but also cemented Adam Jones’ talent as a video’s sole director. Despite the clip’s prowess, MTV actually banned ‘Prison Sex’ for what was considered to be disturbing imagery. ‘Stinkfist’ (1996) Tool began to earn legendary status as a band after the release of ‘Ænema’ in 1996. It must have been a difficult task to choose the first single from the record, but Tool went with ‘Stinkfist’ and thus, created another video. Purposed in heavily blue and purple, the clip showcases sand-based humanoids swallowing nails and strip their skin to reveal a contrasting layer. Although the video for ‘Stinkfist’ received heavy airplay on MTV, the music channel changed the title to ‘Track #1′ in an attempt to avoid controversy. ‘Ænema’ (1997) The title track for ‘Ænema’ acted as the muse for Jones’ final video coming from the record. The progressive theme of otherworldly human figures continued with ‘Ænema,’ with an added water concept reflecting the lyrical content of the song. Although the song’s visual accompaniment is yet another fascinating use of Adam Jones’ animation skills, the bleak and confusing nature of ‘Ænema’ leaves the viewer to create their own interpretation of the video’s meaning. ‘Schism’ (2001) Arguably Tool’s most popular and accessible song, ‘Schism’ was chosen as the leading single for the band’s 2001 masterpiece, ‘Lateralus.’ This next chapter in Tool’s videography used similar color patterns and humanoid figures from their earlier works, but ‘Schism’ is the band’s most lifelike clip to date. Although the track is well over seven minutes long, the demand for Tool allowed for the video to attain heavy rotation. There is nothing that sucks you in quite like a Tool video, and ‘Schism’ is no exception. ‘Parabola’ (2002) ‘Parabola’ is not only Adam Jones’ longest Tool clip to date (due to its inclusion of lead-in track ‘Parabol’), it is also his first foray into creating a Tool video with help from artist Alex Grey. The video features two suited human figures, reminiscent of the ‘Ænema’ video, cutting up fruit before vomiting up a black substance. A massive amount of interaction occurs throughout the short film, all moving towards the beautifully multi-colored discovery of the ‘third eye,’ representing a sense of enlightenment and one-ness with the universe’s collective consciousness. ‘Vicarious’ (2007) Tool’s most recent clip for ‘Vicarious’ is the sole music video from their 2006 album, ’10,000 Days,’ and is both slightly and massively different from the rest of Jones’ work. Continuing the use of slow movement, humanoid figures and the art of Alex Grey, Tool’s video for ‘Vicarious’ is their most colorful and technologically complex clip to date. The video’s infinite and almost 3D nature is a major trip in itself, but when accompanied by the music of Tool, your third eye suddenly seems unblocked and squeaky clean. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/tool-upcoming-album-more-than-halfway-done/” title=”Next: Tool’s Upcoming Album ‘More That Halfway Done'” align=”center”]

Baroness’ John Baizley: ‘I’ve Been Broken Down to the Basic Physical Functions of a 2 Year Old’

Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Since Baroness ‘ catastrophic Aug. 15 bus accident in England, the members of the band now find themselves in the rehabilitation process after living through a 30-foot drop while their bus was traveling at a speed of around 50mph. Thankfully, it seems that the incident will only act as a pause for Baroness instead of an ending, as explained to us by frontman John Baizley , who recently offered Loudwire an exclusive interview about the crash, his injuries and his recovery. In a conversation that bordered an hour in length, Baizley expressed his remarkable will to pass through the incredibly painful healing process, and hopes to be back touring with Baroness as soon as humanly possible. We’ll soon be bringing you the entirety of our fascinating dialogue with Baizley, who spoke in great detail about the rehabilitation process, learning how to play guitar again with a severely damaged arm, remaining a loving and attentive father + much more. In a small portion of our interview with Baizley, the musician and artist described his struggles with pain since the bus wreck and his intensive surgery to repair a severely broken arm and leg. “I’ve been living with it now for close to seven weeks,” says Baizley. “It’s a physical pain, a corporeal pain that won’t go away. I’m still not quite so far from the injury that I’m without pain. There’s a 16, 17-inch scar going down my arm that hasn’t healed yet. There’s a small army of metal pieces inside which are not only keeping me together, but are also beginning to react with the organic parts of my body. At the same time, it’s important for me, given he nature of my injuries, that I’m as mobile as I possibly can be. So I’m trying to move what doesn’t want to be moved. All the while, this stuff is trying to heal up, so there’s that pain.” He continues, “Along with that comes some very extensive nerve damage, which extends from the top of my shoulder all the way down to my fingertips. I essentially had all of the musculature and all of the nervous system removed from my arm for eight hours during the surgery. Once it was replaced, you’re dealing with scar tissue and you’re dealing with some parts which aren’t going to work again. The top half of my arm has no physical feeling to it anymore, and won’t. When I first came out of surgery, there was this very, very extreme and incredibly painful pins and needles feeling in my hand, which scared me at first because I was saying to myself, ‘Oh God, what if this lasts forever? What if everything I touch hurts?’” “I’ve been broken down to the basic physical functions of a 2 year old, and since the accident I’ve been trying to reclaim myself from all directions, and it doesn’t happen without pain. It’s still so fresh for me that I’m still waiting for the first moment of my life where just sitting here doesn’t hurt.” Stay tuned for our the rest of our extremely in-depth interview with Baroness’ John Baizley, where the accomplished artist goes into further detail about his injuries, the crash itself, how the experience affected his views on death + much, much more. Trust us, you won’t want to miss it. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/baroness-a-horse-called-golgotha-top-21st-century-metal-songs/” title=”Next: Baroness – Top 21st Century Metal Songs” align=”center”]

System of a Down’s Serj Tankian Offers His Take on the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election

Robert Sebree, Getty Images System of a Down singer and social activist Serj Tankian  offers many opinions in a new in-depth interview. Among the topics discussed is the 2012 Presidential Election. In the fascinating interview with American Rock Scene , Tankian went into detail about America’s current political structure. “Here’s the thing, if you want more choices you have to create more choices,” begins Tankian. “We need more parties and that’s been the case for many, many years … We really need a healthy left wing party in this country like the Green Party or — I’m down to start a socialist party because President Obama is not socialist. The republicans are calling him socialist and I’m like, “come on,” the guy made legislation where you have to buy insurance from private entities. That’s not socialism, there’s no public option. Most of his policies are centrist, just to the right of center, sometimes left of center. That’s not socialism, but apparently, America has no idea what socialism is.” Tankian goes on to speak about Republican candidate Mitt Romney. “Mitt Romney’s policies are, well first of all, he’s gone back and forth between so many different policies. First he supported health care in Massachusetts and then he turned a 360 and said, ‘I don’t like it anymore I was wrong. Everything I thought, was wrong, I repudiate.’ He’s just trying to get the right wingers on his side but ultimately they are failed policies of the past. It hasn’t worked for America. It’s left us in debt, it’s left us in wars. And the fact that he actually even said that he doesn’t care about 47 percent of America. I would f—ing toss him off the ticket now. That’s offensive. His answer was that it wasn’t a classy way of explaining it, he didn’t even refute it. He admitted saying those things.” Check out the rest of Serj Tankian’s interview with American Rock Scene  here . [button href=”http://loudwire.com/system-of-a-down-toxicity-top-21st-century-metal-songs/” title=”System of a Down – Top 21st Century Metal Songs” align=”center”]