I started the draft for this article 2 weeks ago and then took some time to digest the album without listening. Now, I'm finishing the article as I skim through some of the album's highlights and major tracks.


9/7/19

Finally...it's here.

It's hard to believe I've been squeezing as much energy as I have from the old TOOL albums. I first came to deep dive their records shortly after the release of 10,000 Days which came out when I was in high school. I fell in love. TOOL embodied so much of what I crave from my rock and metal bands. Heavy, broody guitar and bass work. Thundering drums with experimentation of dozens of other worldly percussion instruments. On one end, it's progressive (and often aggressive) songs that deal with the ridiculous and bizarre aspects of our social norms, DMT soaked alien abductions, and a whole host of other weird shit. On the other spectrum, the band in its more evolved stages (Lateralus/10,000 Days) create music that inspires feelings of ancient tribalism and transcendent experience. Long, beautiful composed tracks that invoke reflective head spaces for the listener.


Now, the band has finally settled years of time consuming legal issues and personal differences to deliver the next evolution of their collective vision. Thank the gods of metal, it is exactly what it needed to be. Each of the primary tracks spans over 10 minutes long, rewarding the listeners patience as they build to epic heights that take you on journeys of the mind and body. It's powerful stuff and hopefully marks the beginning of other future efforts from the band, who have shown they can shake off the rust and keep the machine rolling.


But is it a perfect album? Is it their best work? I think most would probably say not, although it is certainly a great TOOL album. If anything, I hope this new delivery will strengthen the band as they make the transition into the marketing and social aspect of the digital age the industry is operating now. All the musicians have grown over the decades and have successful side projects, but hopefully they can use this momentum going forward to create more as a group in the years to come. If the band does follow a path like that, I'm hoping it would be that resulting effort that will have the level of punch I'm looking for personally.


Yes, Adam Jones and Justin Chancellor's guitar work are as refined and sharp as ever, but a lot of the material can sound familiar to previous works. Analyzing Jones's work in particular, one starts to feel like some of his riffs and techniques are taken straight from works of Lateralus or AEnima and that many of the songs live in the same open D wheel house as most of their previous catalog. There's only so many riffs you can do revolving around F and D keys before they start to sound repetitive (the breakdown section of Invincible, for example, while killer in execution, is a rather simple, been-there-done-that riff). Several times after listening to the album I had the strange thought maybe they should try make an album in standard tuning to shake things up. This idea would be mostly heresy among the TOOL diehards, so we can pretend I never thought it, if it makes you feel better.


Maynard Keenan is on point with his vocals, having kept sharp with years of touring with Puscifer and A Perfect Circle. His lyrics carry the listener on to powerful resolutions and show the 55 year old can still deliver the goods.


Perhaps the most impressive musical standout to this album is the space the band gave legendary drummer Danny Carey to take the group along all the fast shifting, bizarre time signatures that populate Fear Inoculum. His unstoppable talent as a percussionist is more potent here than on any other effort. On almost every track Carey is given amble room to work off Jones and Chancellor's crunchy riffs, like on Invincible, 7empest, Pnuema, and Descending. Not to mention the far out synth and digital beat mania that occurs on interlude Chocolate Chip Trip. At every funky turn, Danny Carey proves why he is still king of the hill when it comes to powerful, progressive drumming in popular music and the percussion community world-wide. His endurance is second to none. It would be one thing to praise him for his abilities on the traditional drum kits alone, but Carey constantly reinvents himself with percussion tools from all around the world, bringing a breath of depth and culture to every track in strange and exhilarating ways.


I think Fear Inoculum will give fans years of audio greatness to digest, but hopefully the band can keep the train rolling, now that they know their fan base is still one of the most powerful in the industry and their work continues to be praised across the world. With the release of their entire catalog to streaming services, TOOL has now entered the digital age. Hopefully, they will dominate it and keep pushing forward as artists.

"Spiral down, keep going."
​

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed the article please like or share the post. I just released my photography & show notes from the recent Ty Segall performance at The Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles. Please feel free to have a look see! Check out more of TOOL's stuff at there website. 
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-Stefan

Road construction plagued my route from San Diego for half of the drive to LA. I had made the decision to wait to leave until after noon so that I could attend Jiu-Jitsu at twelve. Now I was close to regretting that decision. I closed out a Ty Segall album on my phone, Emotional Mugger, one of the first of the artist’s albums I had devoured several months ago since recommended to me by Abraham Partridge (who was just recently touring through California himself).   Tonight, I'll get to watch Ty Segall and the Freedom Band perform this very album, after the main course of the evening, a showcase of Segall’s latest work called First Taste, an album that had kept a place on the top of my music stack for the past month. A collection of diverse tracks that build upon an impressive catalogue that Segall has been cranking out at a rate that would make most professional recording musicians' heads spin, each proving in a unique way Segall should be on every rock purist’s radar.

​I get into town around 4pm and pull past the Airbnb I had reserved for the night. At the time I thought it would be a steal, as it was a short walk from the venue, inexpensive, and well-reviewed. It was also... a hostel.    I've stayed in the hostels before. In places like Aspen or India, but never one that was an Airbnb... In downtown Los Angeles... In something that might be called ghetto...   This was something that might be called a ghetto...   I won't specify the area, but it seemed a little rough to say the least. I parked my car and approached the gate. I entered the code and the door swung open. A girl with a bad haircut sat on the front porch of the white house with peeling paint. A row of a dozen tattered shoes lined the wall. The girl was drinking something in a brown paper bag. When she saw me, she seemed to fidget with her drink, as if she thought she might put it out of sight somewhere else but, having nowhere to relocate it, she simply sat with it in her hand.   “This the Airbnb?” I asked. I don't know why. I knew that it was. I just put in the code to get through the gate.   “Yep,” she replied.   “Cool,” I said.   I went inside and looked around. The blinds were pulled down. It was dark. Two guys sat on sofas in the living room, cell phones in hand. A series of “Yo’s” were initiated and I cautiously made my way to my designated room where I found another person's belongings sprawled out across my bed. I return my keys to the lockbox, canceled my reservation, and walked back to my car. I drove down to the venue directly, resolving to find another place to stay or make the drive back home at the conclusion of the show.   Like at the Shakey Graves concert I photographed recently, I was one of the first of a dozen listeners at the door. The Teragram Ballroom was a near-perfect size. My tickets were waiting for me at the call booth, which had been arranged by Pitch Perfect PR in Chicago for the nights event (a big thanks to their team). I received my wristband and made my way to the front of the stage.   While waiting for the opening act to start, I spoke with someone behind me. He had come from Vancouver on several recent occasions to watch Ty Segall perform. He had worked in the music industry himself a time, mentioning a certain record company he had worked with. The room was beginning to get loud and my head gently throbbed from a low-grade sickness I was overcoming. The weather in Southern California had shifted on two occasions this week and my sinuses were busted pipes and my brain felt like an overexerted balloon. A little bundle of pressure crowded my right inner ear. In truth I forgot the gentleman's name, but he shared with me that Segall’s newly recorded, First Taste was created without the use of a single guitar. I had to stop and think on that. I knew that the album utilized a number of interesting instruments, but surely I remembered tracks with the familiar six-string involved.   “Really?” I finally said. “Are you sure.”   He said it wasn't what I thought. There were double basses, dueling drum kits, keyboards, saxophones, flutes, strings, a mandolin, and some type of Greek or Japanese instruments, but no electric guitars. I made a mental note to investigate the album's production further. Toward the end of the night, I would have to abandon my front stage post when the band's performance of Emotional Mugger caused frequent and mosh pits and the thunder of amplifiers began to take a toll on my already drumming head. For these reasons I was unable to bid safe travels to the industry man whom I had spoken with.    Should the gentleman from Vancouver be reading this now, drop me a line.   After a bizarre duo opening act who slowed down and beat to death five innocent Beatles songs, Ty Segall and the Freedom Band came to the stage.

​It was an electric show. Segall surprised by spending the majority of the first set committed to his drum kit, feeding off the dedicated drummer who was a marvel to watch in his own right. This rolling duo of percussions was utilized not just for the album’s shorter interludes, but entire songs with Segall providing vocals on fixed kit microphones.   All the members of the Freedom Band (including Emmett Kelly, Mikal Cronin, Charles Moothart and Ben Boye, among others) showed an impressive level of talent, often switching basses for mandolins, keyboards for saxophones, and so on.   The band played hard and heavy through great album tracks like the beautifully harmonic “Ice Plant” with the refrain “Let your love rain down on me,” that drives into your head like a river side hymnal. It takes the listener down Abbey Road, and is a great example of the influences there, especially the English piano changeover recorded on the album.   “I Worship the Dog” for some reason sticks out as an album highlight for me. Here at the venue, I see the crowd jump with similar enthusiasm, as the mass of people head-bang to a song that has a reoccurring hum of what sounds like a kazoo, with a close out of space-aged flutes abruptly torn to pieces by the chords of an old church organ.   More accessible and subdued tracks like “The Arms” and the incredible catchy “I Sing Them” help break up the loud and the weird, while also showcasing Segall’s tight songwriting sensibilities. Even when he chooses to let loose an assault of off note flutes in the middle of a verse, I can't help but feel that such a decision works favorably for what the artist is going for.   “When I Met My Parents part 3” is more ambient echo chamber to take the audience to new heights. “Whatever” and “Radio” also touch on Segall's psychedelic vibes. Songs that stretch and breathe and put the listener into those far out head spaces. “Self-Esteem” is an unsteady drunken walk down a dark, spiraling staircase. The listener is going along, not sure what's coming next, and then the carpet is ripped out from under him. You regain footing for a time, but then you’re headlong down the staircase and discover it's just an infinite funnel falling into a black hole.   “Lone Cowboys” perfectly concludes the set, taking the audience on a slow ride through classic Western nostalgia, before erupting into a dance worthy tempo where Segall puts forth lyrics that connect my heart to feelings of longing to escape to a more subdued existence, which is ironic given the overall mostly fast and heavy album track list. It's a smart move the closes out the collective work and leaves the listener feeling satisfied.   No sooner does the band conclude their set do they begin the first track from Emotional Mugger. I stay to hear my favorite songs, including “California Hills”, “Emotional Mugger”, “Breakfast Eggs”, and “Diversion”, before the mosh pits become too bothersome, as my camera makes several close calls with the stage in front of me as I am shoved from behind. At this point, I am still trying to convince myself that I'm not going deaf and the sinus pressure in my head is just dopamine pulsing through my brain, but I decide to call it quits and slide out between people as the band pauses momentarily between tunes.

​Ultimately, I decided to drive back to San Diego, even though midnight is fast approaching. There's more road construction on the LA highways leaving. I put on a podcast and wait patiently for progress. Twice on the way home, I pull over to catch a short nap, as my eyes become inevitably heavy. It was a long journey, filled with a fair share of obstacles but, in the end, Ty Segall and the Freedom Band made it all worthwhile.
 
-Stefan 
 
Thanks for reading! If you're at Ty Segall fan please leave a comment below or on social media. Let me know what your favorite album is! If you enjoyed this post please like or share. To find out more about Ty Segall and his upcoming shows click here to visit his website.

"All feminists are full of shit." Bill Burr says barely half way into his set. A few moments later he laughs, "By the way this is going to be my last show ever after this comes out." It makes the crowd laugh too, because they, along with so many comedy purists, are in for the ride. Such a phrase, "all feminist are full of shit," should be a statement that floors an audience and brings a bombardment of boo's to the deliverer under most normal circumstances, but here at the Royal Albert Hall where Burr has shot his special, the majority of the packed out crowd seems to instinctively laugh at his blunt phrasing.   Why? Because they know the comedian is getting to something. He has a bigger picture that he needs to paint to shed light on the supposedly "sensitive" topics that have become hot button issues with society and has helped contribute to the dreaded Hollywood cancel culture. Burr has more to say than just on the surface, which is where most people are triggered and react emotionally. It's something that has forced numerous comedians and public figures to walk on egg shells, in fear that society might turn on them, possibly ruining their career.   This, as you can imagine, kills the blood flow for almost any creative or artistic expression an entertainer might want to put forth but, like Dave Chapelle, with his equally powerful new Netflix special Sticks & Stones, Burr is willing to step up and shed light on the cheap hysteria that still plagues our culture and, much like with Chapelle's crowd, it is incredibly refreshing to see such a massive audience applaud and laugh at what would normally shock and offend.   This gets demonstrated again in the set, in the middle of a #metoo type critique. Burr is talking about how phrases get picked up and championed by certain groups to levels that go too far. Things like #believeallwomen. Isn't this a little too far, Burr seems to ask. Are we supposed to just believe all women?  "What about <the one's that set your car on fire for not answering a text?"> he asks.   Then, he goes after how this type of thinking has bred strange anomalies like the male feminist. "Where the fuck did that come from?" Burr fumes, reminding sad, sex deprived men everywhere that they will never be able to relate to women so much that they could actually believe their own actions and words, no more than Burr can stand before them pretending to be a Black Panther. "I'm a Black Panther!" he yells, "Black power!" The crowd roars back.  He then digs deeper going as far as to say such tactics remind him of when he was younger, just trying to do anything he could to get laid. Being as agreeable to any women as he could just to get lucky.  "Just agree with her and maybe she'll touch it," Burr says in a goofy teenager voice, then, as a teen girl, "what were your favorite bits <from the comedy show>?" And again, as the young, horny boy, "I LIKE WHATEVER YOU LIKE! WILL YOU TOUCH IT NOW? DID I DO IT RIGHT?!"  In the middle of a point about sexual misconduct and #metoo rebuttals, the comedian flatly asks, "Do you know what's hilarious about sexual assault?"   Immediate laughs from most of the crowd. Again, this shows the intelligence of Burr's fanbase. They know he isn't talking about what is hilarious about sexual assault itself. Everyone knows that sexual assault is terrible, save for the minatory heinous enough to commit it. He is driving at what it is about society that has drastically changed the conversation around the topic and his crowds understand this instinctively.   Not everyone gets it though, as is shown when a heckler in the crowd demands Burr "ask consent" before having sex with a woman. Burr takes the fuel and uses it to deliver another potent point in the moment.  Whether it's about getting therapy, feuds with his wife, his love for Elvis, or giving up his murderous dog, Burr has a lot to put out there. In the last few years, he's put out some of the best specials in the business and the crowds continue to ask for more. Its guys like him that are keeping the art where it needs to be. Honest and in your face.  Check out Paper Tiger, now available on Netflix.

This week, I posted a video on Instagram and Facebook regarding this post. For about two months now, I've been starting my day with a nutritional powerhouse of a morning beverage. This "Super Coffee" is, in my case, actually more of a hot cocoa protein coffee fusion, as you will see from the recipe description below. 


This hot drink is amazing for whatever it is I need to do in the morning, whether it be training, a relaxed yoga session, writing a blog post, etc and is geared towards jump starting my energy levels, boosting immune and brain function, increase recovery time from training, and promote muscle growth.

In this post, I'll breakdown my steps and why each ingredient has found its place in my coffee cup. Give it a shot, adjust to your needs, and let me know what you think. If you use another beverage to start your day that you've found good success with, I'd love to hear about it in the comment section. Read on to learn all about my Super Coffee.

INGREDIENTS

-Ground cocoa nibs OR a few squares of extra dark chocolate
-Chocolate whey protein
-Coffee grinds
-Hemp protein powder
-Turmeric powder
-Sole water OR just pink sea salt
-Cinnamon 
-Grassfed butter
-Monkfruit
-Collagen Peptides
-Creatine 
-Ground black pepper
-Lion's Mane mushroom powder


Note: Ingredient measurements will be approximate. Adjust to your own needs.

I start by boiling water. Easy enough. Hold off on pouring the water just yet. Next, I start with ground cocoa nibs, which are whole cocoa beans that are bitter to taste but a great chocolatey treat for teas, coffee, on deserts, or just by the handful. I grind mine up all at once with my Ninja Blender, and then store the grinds in a large mason jar. 

I pour maybe a half to one tablespoon into the cup, this way I have some actual cocoa nibs in my drink at all time that I'll enjoy towards the end of my drink. I like to think it's constantly enriching my hot beverage all the while. 

Next, add a scoop of whey protein. Then, if your adding butter, drop in a tablespoon or so. I love butter in my coffee and do this to get fat calories first thing in the morning. It does wonders for the overall texture and flavor. This is my "cream" to the coffee, since I don't really use any true diary products to my drink. 

You can also go ahead and add a super small "splash" of sole water or a "dash" of pink sea salt. Sole water is made by taking a small to medium sized mason jar, filling it a quarter way with sea salt, and then filling the rest with water. Shake it and let it dissolve for one day. A little salt in the morning reups your electrolytes and kick starts osmosis in the body, as the positive ions in the salt reacts with the negative ions in the water and becomes more easily absorable in the body. Pink sea salt also has dozens of trace essential minerals. 

Add approximately a 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric. This is great for inflammation, immune health, and is generally regarded as a super food (much like ginger and garlic). At this point, I often add a small amount of ground black pepper to the mix, as this helps the body absorb certain minerals, turmeric especially, but I'm sure it helps for other ingredients used here. 

Add a dash your cinnamon for taste (and for the health benefits of cinnamon of course). I use about 1/2 a tablespoon of monkfruit to sweeten the beverage. Like Stevia, Monkfruit won't cause a spike in insulin (it has a zero score on the glycemic index), has antioxidents, and zero calories. Takes some getting use to but by far a smarter, healthier choice to sugar, which, on an empty stomach in the morning, is not what you want to put in your system. 

From here, I like to go ahead and save the last three ingredients and pour the boiled water onto what is in the cup now. Pssssssssssshh. That was the water going into the cup, complete with steam. Now, put in your steeper or coffee filter, whatever works for you and doesn't cause a mess, and place about 1 to 2 tablespoons of cocoa nibs in the basket to steep for...however long you like! I do about five minutes.

Still with me? Okay, now is the time I add my coffee grounds. I'm using Cavemen coffee for this recipe, but you can use whatever you like. I let the coffee steep 2-3 minutes, then dump the basket of cocoa and coffee in the trash. 

Next, I add the last three ingredients. Why do I wait to add them last? Well, maybe it's just my thinking, but I feel these ingredients probably breakdown at boiling heat, so I like to let the drink cool a little to get the most out of them. Maybe it doesn't make any difference, but it doesn't hurt to add them last, so I do. 

I put about 1 tablespoon of collagen peptides (for skin health, bone and joint function, and possibly muscle mass and heart health, among other potential benefits), followed by 1 teaspoon of creatine, then 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of Lion's Mane mushroom powder, a growing popular superfood with huge medical applications in Asian countires. As stated by Healthline, Lion's Mane "contains bioactive substances that have benefical effects on the body, especially the brain, heart and gut."

Using an immersion hand blender, I then blend all these ingredients together for about 30 seconds. Now, all you have left to do is enjoy your labors. Drink up, it's good for you!

-Stefan

​On a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience (ep. #1347) Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, spoke as one of the many famous figures who are gravitating towards Tesla automotive engineering and the technology behind these futuristic vehicles.

"What kind of car you driving?" Joe asks.

"I now have a Tesla X," Tyson replies.

He comments on how the vehicle has, "very high acceleration," a characteristic of the car that is as infamous as its auto driving features.

"There's no maintenance on it, no oil change...the only moving part is what your turning the wheels with. No pistons. Nothing."


"Cars really should have been this a hundred years ago," Tyson continued, "and then we would have had a hundred years of clever engineering to perfect that."

Rogan then went on to ask if Tyson had seen the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car.

Tyson, who reported he had heard of the documentary, reported he was only familiar with the history of the content matter in the documentary. "Electricity was all the rage a hundred years ago," Tyson explained. "'Let's electrify the cities!' There's Edison, there's Tesla...everybody wants to do everything electric, and the car had just come out. They said, 'let's do it electric.'"

"So this was not a new concept and it's unfortunate that more innovative thinkers hadn't been brought to task on how to perfect the electric car."


Joe Rogan, a huge car enthusiast and recent Tesla owner himself after a nearly three hour podcast conversation with Tesla creator Elon Musk, has since stated many times on his show that the vehicle is the best car he has ever owned and often mocks all other cars as "stupid" in comparison to the Tesla's efficiency, performance, and technological sophistication.

In his podcast with Brian Redban (ep. #1238), Redban asks his thoughts on Rogan's Tesla.

"It's preposterous," Rogan replied. "It's a fucking space ship. It's the weirdest thing I've ever driven in my life. It doesn't even make sense. There's not a single car that I've ever driven that's even close to as fast. Nothing. It seems like it's punching its way through a wormhole using alien technology. Like something Bob Lazar snuck out of Area 51."

"Do you like all the tech in it?" Redban asks.

"It's insane." Rogan replies. "That fucking car is the future. Tesla is the future."

More and more Tesla cars are making headway in popular culture, blowing the doors off what was conventionally thought was possible with a daily commuter. From autopilot capability, zero gas emission, almost no typical maintenance associated with traditional vehicles (excluding wheels), zero gas and fossil fuel emission, continues software and technology updates to keep the system current...everything points to this type of vehicle being the future of what cars could, and should, be. The two biggest questions that remain are, one, is Tesla sustainable as a automotive company, and two, how will the company effect other automotive giants who capture the bulk of the consumers in this space, especially in the coming age of electric cars as the standard. Time will tell.

-Stefan

What are your thoughts on Tesla? Have you driven one or own a Tesla yourself? Leave a comment below.