Posts Tagged ‘jones’

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”]

Danko Jones Reflect on Extended Lifespan With ‘Too Much Trouble’ Book

ECW Press For Danko Jones , 2012 is a year of transition. While the band has been busy working up to the release of the new studio album, ‘Rock and Roll is Black and Blue,’ they’ve spent an equal amount of time reflecting on their past with their ‘Bring on the Mountain’ documentary and now the forthcoming book, ‘Too Much Trouble: A Very Oral History of Danko Jones.’ Singer Danko Jones and bassist John Calabrese spoke with Loudwire about what made this the right time to reflect on the band’s past and what the experience was like putting together two time-consuming documents. Jones explained about the timing, “It just seemed the right time and we could do it in two years or three years or five years, but it had been the fifteenth year of the band as a band and when you think of seven years being the average lifespan for a band, nowadays, we’ve lived it two times. And that was two years ago. We’re now on our seventeenth year.” The singer admits that they’ve seen some highs and lows and transitions with their audience, and he views the ‘Too Much Trouble’ book as a way of bringing it all together. He explains, “We gained a new audience in some places and our older audience [is still there], so this is our chance to bridge the gap between the people who found out about us in the last two or three years because we’ve had singles on radio and the people who were into us a long time ago and moved on or annoyingly asked, ‘Whatever happened to that band?’” It also turned out that the time for reflection worked out perfectly for the band, as they changed drummers and added Rocket From the Crypt skinbeater Atom Willard, thus starting a new chapter in their history. Interestingly enough, Jones admits in the book that one of his goals when they started was to tour with Rocket From the Crypt, but although that never happened, he’s thrilled to have the drummer from the band as part of their lineup. For Jones and Calabrese, seeing both the documentary and the book finally arrive completes the labor of love they started after their fifteenth year. “It took two years to make and two years to track down the over 70 people who are in the book,” says Jones. Calabrese adds, “It’s gonna be great because the book and the DVD, they stand alone on themselves, but it’s a great way to bring everybody up to speed.” The ‘Too Much Trouble: An Oral History of Danko Jones’ book just arrived in stores internationally. The band’s new album, ‘Rock and Roll is Black and Blue,’ follows on Oct. 9, and the ‘Bring on the Mountain’ documentary was released earlier this year. Stay tuned for Loudwire’s full interview with Danko Jones, coming soon. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/danko-jones-just-a-beautiful-day-exclusive-video-premiere/” title=”Next: Watch Danko Jones’ ‘Just a Beautiful Day’ Video” align=”center”]