Behind the scenes
This is a an amazing glimpse behind the curtain at the Faith No More tour machine from Mix Online. It really is a must-read piece. Here’s a chocie cut from front-of-house engineer Michael Brennan:
“They are really enjoying the consistency and excitement of the shows and the positive reaction from the audience. I also think the band’s crew created a positive, professional environment for the band. There were many occasions when they were jamming at soundchecks. These jams develop into parts, and these parts turn into songs [that] end up on a record. They can’t help themselves.”
Angel Dust Pitchfork reviews
While none goes into the forensic expert detail that Ben afforded us, there are some great new Angel Dust features. Pitchfork have found a reviewer infinitely more conversant with Faith No More and music in general than their Sol Invictus reviewer to run the rule over the re-issues.
On The Real Thing which gets a 7.6 mark, Stuart Berman states:
“But while The Real Thing represents an important chapter in Faith No More’s history, there’s a reason why the album barely registers on the setlists of the band’s current tour: a lot of it is hard to extricate from its date of origin. And that’s a function of both its connection to a long-past funk-metal zeitgeist and the band’s own subsequent development. It’s hard to imagine any band, let alone Faith No More, attempting another song like “Epic” today, not just because of lingering associations between rap-rock and Rapestock, but the fact that the vocabularies of hip-hop and rock—once united by a shared affinity for booming breaks and crunchy riffs—have expanded and diverged in vastly different directions. “
And in a very insightful 8.8 review of Angel Dust that gets at the heart of the record’s enduring appeal, he says:
“What makes Angel Dust an eminently fascinating record is not the fact that a band on the cusp of greater success would deign to release an album with songs called “Crack Hitler” and “Jizzlobber” that were just as ugly and filthy as their titles suggest. It’s that Faith No More’s most wantonly subversive album is also their most gorgeously rendered.”
Angel Dust Loudwire interview
Loudwire runs a feature on the 23rd anniversary of that album which appears to feature fresh quotes from Bill Gould.
He says:
“We tried to make the music kind of perverted because we believed there was perversion in the art. We were looking for a little bit of push back, but we didn’t get any. I think sometimes when you’re really confident about something people don’t even challenge you.”
Midlife Crisis’ new middle bit
The best song from the band’s best album remains probably their best song live and it has been given yet another new smooth interlude in recent shows. FNM4ever as ever have excavated the story behind the new tune here.
The new snippet is ‘Strawberry Letter 23’ from The Brothers Johnson, which reached number 5 in the US singles charts in 1977.
Sunny Side Up on BBC 6 Music playlist
New Faith No More single/promo release Sunny Side Up has been added to the playlist of the UK’s leading and best music station BBC 6 Music.
New single from Sol Invictus @FaithNoMore now on the 6 Music Playlist! Congrats! Full list: http://t.co/qAYqBcM5QCpic.twitter.com/oLzU2SeJaM
— BBC Radio 6 Music (@BBC6Music) June 9, 2015
Mel, I’ve read this elsewhere, but also in the linear notes for The Real Thing re-release, there’s a quote from Matt Wallace saying that he fought tooth and nail for Patton to drop the nasally style and use his natural voice (Wallace could tell Patton had an awesome voice from Patton messing around in the studio). Patton refused, saying it was his style of singing. Apparently Bill Gould tried too. I can only speculate that maybe Patton got some coaching from Zorn during the recording of the first Mr. Bungle album as well as performing with Zorn. Or maybe Patton himself starting developing confidence/discovering the power of his own voice and range as The Real Thing tour went on (you can get a sense of it during those final TRT shows with early versions of “Caffeine” and “R.V.” being performed).
Regardless, Patton’s vocals on Angel Dust hit me like a ton of bricks back in the day (“Is that really him singing R.V.??” etc etc). Pretty awesome transition.
Yeah, that was surprisingly well written and on the mark.
I hate pitchfork but man, that was an awesome read!! Most of it hit the mark. I agree with the scores as well , well, almost.
I disagree about on Epic and Zombie, I actually think it and The Real Thing hold up really well, whereas Zombie Eaters does sound dated to me. I agree FOON holds up pretty good as well. I was never crazy about Surprise You’re Dead either, but when they played it in Detroit, it was a highlight for some reason. But as a whole, yes, TRT does not hold up as well as IY or AD and some of the WCAL songs. There are a lot of articles about Patton’s voice, but mostly it was that he just hadn’t really found all of his tones yet. You can hear his AD voice starting to emerge on the self-titled Bungle album in places, but for the most part that album is still fairly nasal. Also, he has said that he saw the FNM audience as a bunch of whiney, angst-ridden teenagers, so that what he tried to sound like. Matt Wallace said that he and Billy Gould tried to get him to just open up and sing.
I found this comment interesting:
“But while The Real Thing represents an important chapter in Faith No More’s history, there’s a reason why the album barely registers on the setlists of the band’s current tour: a lot of it is hard to extricate from its date of origin.”
You would think songs like “The Real Thing” and “Zombie Eaters” are more timeless than “Epic” and that’s the song they play live all the time. So the argument falls a little flat in my opinion. Same with “From out of Nowhere” which is still awesome live.
Also I have a question. The way Patton sounds on The Real Thing is soooo much different than on Angel Dust. I always wondered why Patton sounds so nasal on The Real Thing. It’s not so much a matter of age but the way he sings and pronounces words. He sounds like two complete different vocalist on both records.