Stone Temple Pilots last night

[gbpfan1231]

dude, stone temple pilots was nothing more than lame derivative music ripping off pearl jam (most explicitly), but also soundgarden, alice in chains, and others from that scene. they basically ruined that whole scene by turning it into vapid top 40 crap. it would be a LOT easier to list prominent american bands that suck more than them than it would be to list bands that are better.

 

you probably think creed is one of the all-time great bands too, dontcha?

Isn't that his point?

[Azazello1313]

Isn't that his point?

 

no. it was poorly worded, but I was saying the list of bands that are suckier than STP would be a lot shorter than the list of bands that are better. ok, that's poorly worded as well. the point is they suck.

[gbpfan1231]

no. it was poorly worded, but I was saying the list of bands that are suckier than STP would be a lot shorter than the list of bands that are better. ok, that's poorly worded as well. the point is they suck.

Thought that was your point. Just read weird.

 

I was not a big STP fan until I got tickets to the show they played here at the local casino that was basically a wedding hall. The more I listened to them before the show the more I liked them. The show was awesome and they are one of my favorite bands right now. I would never say they are better than Pearl Jam but would put them ahead of Foo Fighters.

 

People who rip on them for ripping off other bands I don't understand. If the music is decent then it is decent and who cares if it sounds a bit like someone else. if it is good it is good and I for one like STP.

Edited August 28, 2008 by gbpfan1231

[Azazello1313]

People who rip on them for ripping off other bands I don't understand. If the music is decent then it is decent and who cares if it sounds a bit like someone else. if it is good it is good and I for one like STP.

 

and that's fine, but, for me, if someone wants to call a band one of the greatest ever, I am asking at a bare minimum for some originality.

[Chavez]

Cheap Trick opened up for them too, it was the concert of gimmicks.

Yeah, I totally hate Cheap Trick's gimmick of writing tight, catchy, Beatles-influenced music that is well-produced and more often than not f*cking rocks.

[Chavez]

Maiden is not American.

 

I don't consider the White Stripes a band and I think Jack White is a hack that accompanies the most boring drummer in the history of mankind. I believe the song-writing and structure is all around lacking.

Eh, I can see were someone thinks the Stripes lack structure, but when Jack White hits on a good song, he knocks it out of the park.

QOTSA lost a lot when they lost Nick Oliveri. They were on there way to being something amazing, but I lost interest when he left.

I'd say you should get ya mitts on Lullabies to Paralyze and Era Vulgaris and give them a re-listen - I thought the loss of Oliveri was a big blow but while the new stuff isn't as immediately rewarding as Rated R or Songs for the Deaf, it grows on you. The songwriting is still there, it just is a little more subtle; less of the grabbing onto a monster groove and riding it as far as it goes but still plenty of goodness.

[piratesownninjas]

dude, stone temple pilots was nothing more than lame derivative music ripping off pearl jam (most explicitly), but also soundgarden, alice in chains, and others from that scene. they basically ruined that whole scene by turning it into vapid top 40 crap. it would be a LOT easier to list prominent american bands that suck more than them than it would be to list bands that are better.

 

you probably think creed is one of the all-time great bands too, dontcha?

Thinks for the music lesson and history on music. You remind me of some of the jazz guys I studied with as far as your elitism goes. How exactly did they rip off Soundgarden or AIC? If you're going to run your mouth then let me know how they did it. I want your music theory to shine through on this. If you happen to hear similarities between bands you automatically assume that one band is ripping off another band. For a second consider that these bands grew up listening to the same things, and your early influences will always shine through one way or another. Big Bang Baby doesn't sound like anything PJ did. Lady Picture Show?

 

And nice Creed burn... Are you actually saying that Creed is on the same level as STP? You may not like STP, but to in a roundabout way to compare them to Creed is asinine...

 

thank you for finally saying something reasonably intelligent

Ass.

 

See, when I saw STP after Tiny Music, all Wieland did was hop around on stage and yell in to that damn megaphone. If I had paid for the tickets I might have been upset that they were so terrible. Cheap Trick opened up for them too, it was the concert of gimmicks. But, I'll take the novelty of a 5-necked guitar over a megaphone any day.

I never said anything about Weiland's live show. The Tiny music era was the peak of his drug abuse. You can never trust an addict to perform well.

 

and that's fine, but, for me, if someone wants to call a band one of the greatest ever, I am asking at a bare minimum for some originality.

Because everyone sounds like Scott Weiland And while we're at it, Dean DeLeo sounds nothing like Jeff Ament or Ben Sheppard. If you want to say Robert DeLeo ripped off anyone you'd be closer if you mentioned Jimmy Page. Chord structures, progressions and such, but a music elitist like you already knew that, right?

 

Eh, I can see were someone thinks the Stripes lack structure, but when Jack White hits on a good song, he knocks it out of the park.

 

I'd say you should get ya mitts on Lullabies to Paralyze and Era Vulgaris and give them a re-listen - I thought the loss of Oliveri was a big blow but while the new stuff isn't as immediately rewarding as Rated R or Songs for the Deaf, it grows on you. The songwriting is still there, it just is a little more subtle; less of the grabbing onto a monster groove and riding it as far as it goes but still plenty of goodness.

The White Stripes lack a lot of the things necessary to be considered... The drummer is novice at best, Jack White's guitar goes in and out of tune and they lack a bassist. I don't think White can hit pitches really well either, so he is at best, a hook machine.

 

One of my friends is a massive QOTSA fan and is always listening to the entire catalog. I just don't think Post Oliveri can touch the earlier version.

[Chavez]

The White Stripes lack a lot of the things necessary to be considered... The drummer is novice at best, Jack White's guitar goes in and out of tune and they lack a bassist. I don't think White can hit pitches really well either, so he is at best, a hook machine.

 

There are plenty of things you can jump on the White Stripes for, but "no bass player" is just stupid. Maybe if their sound lacked bottom or was "tinny", yeah...but having seen them live 3 times, they do just fine - they don't sound thin at all.

 

Aside from that, The Ramones and The Stooges both were novice musicians with guys who weren't "real" singers. They're OK by most measures. I'm certainly willing to pick out the weak songs on their albums but overall they're pretty solid. Heck, the lead songs on their last 4 albums were "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", "Seven Nation Army", "Blue Orchid" and "Icky Thump" which is a lot better than tons of bands do over a career.

[bushwacked]

The litmus test for rock IMO, is how well you can make a grove or masterpiece grove while keeping it simple and original. Stone Temple Pilots belong in the C/C- category, Jack White and old school AC/DC belong in the A/A- category.

 

Jack White's drummer sucks, but that only matters if you are a music snob. He has written some of the best R&B riffs in the last 10 years and will be recognized accordingly.

 

That is the best thing about rock. 1-2 mainstream guys come up every 10-15 years that make great music with 3 chords, while 99.999999999% of the rock music community can't do it.. Everyone else is worried about noodling and technique. Hence, listen to Winger and Van Halen.

Edited August 29, 2008 by bushwacked

[Cyclones]

The litmus test for rock IMO, is how well you can make a grove or masterpiece grove while keeping it simple and original. Stone Temple Pilots belong in the C/C- category, Jack White and old school AC/DC belong in the A/A- category.

 

Jack White's drummer sucks, but that only matters if you are a music snob. He has written some of the best R&B riffs in the last 10 years and will be recognized accordingly.

 

Agreed, BW. While STP makes for some good listening, the writing leaves much to be desired.

[piratesownninjas]

but that only matters if you are a music snob.

[bushwacked]

And the Bumbershoot bloggers weren't very kind to STP:

 

 

When the tour bus pulled into the backstage area, a cheer went up from the Mainstage crowd that had been waiting too long for Stone Temple Pilots. Five minutes later the band hit the stage, a half-hour late. They opened with "Big Empty," the song with the repeated refrain quoted in the headline above, and phone-cameras sprouted all over the place, held high to capture the stage action. The big, fancy video screen came on with fast-changing blotches of color as they went into the second tune, the much more powerful "Wicked Garden."

When the cheers died down after that one, lead singer Scott Weiland looked out at the massive crowd -- the biggest I've seen at this year's Bumbershoot -- and remarked how the festival had grown since he attended it with friends 18 years ago.

"In 1990 it wasn't much," he remarked, "just a bunch of freaks, really."

As the show went on, it became clear that Weiland was much better suited to the freaks in Velvet Revolver, the band he up and quit, with no warning, in March. He and the other original members of Stone Temple Pilots then got back together for the first time in six years and went out on tour, which ended tonight.

Weiland is still a powerful lead singer, and it's good to see him healthy after his revolving-door visits to rehab, but STP sounded old and dated, especially after Beck's show on the same stage the night before. I confess I couldn't take it for long and left as they were still on stage. I know, I recommended them in Friday's Ticket. Sorry about that.

 

Stone Temple Pilots got popular in the '90s when grunge did, but the band was always ripping off better ones. To this day, the Pilots steal whole songs from Alice In Chains, and Weiland steals his vocal inflection from Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.

 

Last night, I realized Weiland's shallow, destroyed voice isn't rich enough to actually sound like Vedder's, so instead he settles for sounding like he's trying to sound like Vedder. Twice as bad.

 

An amazing amount of people seemed to love what they saw and heard in Memorial Stadium, singing along and cheering for their hero in tight pants.

 

Do people seriously think he's a real rock star? Why, because he did hard drugs and lived to tell about it? Because he wears skin tight clothes and "rock star" stuff like satin vests? I'm baffled if Weiland's slithery, toned-down hippie-chick dance moves turned on anyone last night. To me, he was completely stock, working with an archetype I just don't buy. His band looked slick and played slick, intentionally doing stuff grunge rockers did without thinking, like hitting sloppy guitar harmonics and playing slow and slack.

 

Down to the cheesy Windows 2000 screensavers on the giant backdrop behind the band, everything seemed choreographed and (as Patrick said in his blog post) out of date, labored and deeply uncool. Ironically, stuff like this was why grunge started in the first place, out of contempt for overblown actors.

 

The uncoolest part of the concert was when Weiland & Co. tried a heroin-paced, minor key, space-traveler version of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." Unbelievably bad idea. Weiland actually scatted some lines, proving he was feeling it.

 

Watching Stone Temple Pilots rehash other people's dead ideas and come up with a few awful ones of their own, I wondered, "Can't we do better than this? Like, as humans?"

 

"Why?" Memorial Stadium seemed to respond. Everyone sang along to the '90s Pilots hit "Creep," one of the band's many songs about nothing.

 

I saw Band of Horses Friday night, they sounded great. Beck seemed disinterested and the sound was crappy.

[Azazello1313]

Ironically, stuff like this was why grunge started in the first place, out of contempt for overblown actors.

 

and that pretty much says it all.

[Ursa Majoris]

Thinks for the music lesson and history on music. You remind me of some of the jazz guys I studied with as far as your elitism goes.

Was it only me that found this really funny bearing in mind who the response was aimed at?

[jaxfactor]

One of the best STP songs ever. Totally unlike anything they ever did. What freaked me out when I heard this for the first time(when 4 came out) was the vocals. Sounded like the ghost of Jim Morrison, If you haven't heard this song before, give it a listen. I hope the link works: