The Small Victories tour will finally reach the US this February. Adrian Harte, author of Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More, will be speaking about the book and signing copies, alongside special guests, in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Los Angeles
Tuesday 19 February | Booksoup | 7pm
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069
I’m delighted to say I’ll be joined by Faith No More’s long-time producer Matt Wallace for a Q and A discussion with audience questions, followed by a book signing at Booksoup. Booksoup is one of the largest independent bookstores in LA, and is located on Sunset Boulevard in west Hollywood.
San Francisco
23 February | Green Apple Books on the Park | 7pm
Green Apple Books on the Park
1231 9th Ave. (@ Lincoln Way)
San Francisco, CA 94122
The home of Faith No More will play host to a unique event. Adrian Harte will discuss his new book Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More with Faith No More member Bill Gould and special guests.
The event takes place in the Bay Area’s most well-known independent bookstore, and specifically in the store’s Green Apple Books on the Park store on
9th Ave at Lincoln Way.
Wine and beer will be served and books signed.
More details here at Green Apple
Sign up for the event at Facebook
Ironically enough, I made a comment on a thread on YouTube yesterday where I razzed a lady a bit through the lyrics of the song in question ( I believe it was a Fantomas video, but I’m not certain of the song title), replying “Shut Up” to a humorous comment she made challenging anyone to give her crap for being a die-hard Mike Patton fan. I also replied that it’s amazing that FNM and Mr. Bungle were ahead of the curve simply because they had a profound influence not only on musical contemporaries like Sepultura , Bjork , and Melvins, but they also influenced practically every “Nu Metal” band in the 00s from Korn to Limp Bizkit to Incubus and other artists ranging across several genres/subgenres of music during the past 3 decades plus. The best part is that Patton was breaking ground all over the place between 1998-2010 FNM hiatus and continues to do so today. The media pretty much cast him as the guy who sang on that one super popular song about 30 years ago (Epic by FNM obviously) so people knew who he was. He and most of his numerous collaborators over the years are far more talented than any contemporary popstar I can think of aside from maybe Michael Jackson, yet they are practically ignored by the fat cat ignoramuses that decide which beautiful, trendy empty vessels deserve to be rich and famous and then proceed to add them to the ranks of annoying popular entertainers. Not that FNM and other Patton related artists haven’t achieved at least occasional commercial success. The fact that someone as ubiquitous as Patton and ubertalented as Patton, FNM, Bungle, etc, etc, etc, etc…….
speaks volumes about how tone deaf, tasteless, and harmful to the concept of being artistically progressive and breaking new ground. They believe that only on narrow range of styles are marketable, so they basically repackage a conventional musical formula that is almost entirely written and composed by a few unattractive, middle age geniuses that receive a nice pay day,along with their name in small print somewhere, in exchange for at least giving the illusion that the songs are a personal piece of art belonging to the beautiful, famous , young corporate superstar, creating a fictional personal connection with their primary demographic of cool , High school girls and not so cool High School boys who are still young enough to bug their parents to buy them such things. It’s ashame, but perhaps alot of modern, challenging and interesting gurus like FNM and Patton are actually here to remind us that real art is supposed to make people think, not pander to impressionable young people.
I remember an interview with Bill and he was asked what songs he does or does not enjoy playing live anymore. I remember he liked playing Epic which surprised me…he definitely no longer enjoys playing Death March. But there are quite a few shows in the 2nd half of the 97 tour where they omitted Epic. They didn’t play it at the Chile show with Trey and there were a few 2015 shows they didn’t play it either, mostly when they played SI in it’s entirety.
The inclusion of “epic” in their set lists actually puzzles me – since for the most part the band normally doesn’t give into public demand and if anything would normally go against the grain – probably the bands most popular and well known song and i actually skip by it when listening them live and the only thing i like about the song is the end of the track when they include a sample from another artist.
If I were Jim Martin, and Mike, Billy and Roddy were calling me a Mama’s boy and insulting me in the Lions share of interviews, I wouldn’t have been a team player either. That being said, it seems to me that Martin was the creative catalyst during the Mosley era and The Real Thing. Patton really started to pilot the bands style and writing during the making of Angel Dust, and I think Martin took umbrage with that, and the teasing and ribbing the other guys piled on him when absent from band interviews (good natured or not) started to make him feel isolated. Once Patton became the brains behind the band, he felt that was the final straw. Call him stubborn if you’d like, but one certainly could argue that he was the victim of an incidental coup. He probably got annoyed by the silly slander the others were circulating, but if it was a band I started and the new guy was involved in my public hazing and that same new member simultaneously began governing the bands creative process, I would be a little jaded too. Make no mistake, I think the world of Mike Patton’s music and original approach to creating it. The band never had the unique direction or sound with Mosley singing and contributing. They were a bit monotonous and predictable in the beginning, and Chuck was a rapper with little in the way of vocal prowess. Patton could rap as well as Mosley, has an infinitely better singing voice, and he brought his chaotic yet intriguing artistic vision that he had honed with Mr.Bungle. He instantly added another dimension to the FNM sound that elevated them froFr weird, funky rap rock to diverse, influential genre benders that became legendary for following a smash album with the dark, demented collage of anti-pop that became the Angel Dust album and cemented their reputation of experimental, authentic underground gods. Still, I think Jim Martin gets alot of criticism for becoming disillusioned with his band becoming Mike Patton’s band. Mosley probably gets knocked a bit much for being inferior to Patton too. He was a steady frontman during the bands early emergence into notoriety. My guess is that his more conventional, team member approach was exactly what Jim Martin wanted from his bands frontman. Patton brought so much natural artistic vision, unique vocal talent, charisma, and ambition to explore uncharted sonic dimensions that made his influence on the band so profound, that Martin couldn’t wrap his head around it. Mosely complemented an already established formula, while Patton unwittingly brought a new and exciting formula that would ultimately transform the band into an entirely different beast.
Agreed. On live bootlegs, Jim does a great job of take a 1/2 measure he and there to add in a little solo fill. On WCAL, Midlife, Epic, he works in great little bits.
Listening back (to random where ever my finger lands at on the podcast scroll bar) a good example of Jim martins ability to insert on the spot solo brilliance was in phoenix 93 when pattons microphone died at the end of ‘midlife crisis’ and we got to hear what Big Jim brought to the fnm table. The band hasn’t been able to fill that guitar level of greatness. And it probably would have went unnoticed only for the malfunctioning mic. Maybe he consciously upped his game on recognition of the loss of vocals.
Wasn’t much of a dean menta fan (too animated) and although i like what jon Hudson brings to the band i think Jim Martins ability was just too good to top – pity he was so stubborn and not a team player
Can’t wait for some info about how these events went. I’m feeling fairly starved from FNM member related music. Nobody’s been putting any music out there for purchase. The last thing was early 2018 Dead Cross EP (which wasn’t all that good), Patton doing various background vocals on some songs, 1922 (which was good), and Roddy put a little experimental song on his bandcamp page. 2017 was better (Dead Cross album & Primitive Race album). 2019 could be good “Now We Are Timeless” by Imperial Teen and whatever Nastie Band releases…all still very far away…it mostly looks like all the interesting music is coming from other places for now.
These are some notes from the event on Saturday 23 Feb 2019, where Billy Gould and Mike Bordin joined the book’s author for a chat about Faith No More in San Francisco. The notes are my recollection of some answers by the band members to questions asked by the audience. I share them here in case they are of interest to other fans, as I doubt that there were recordings of the event.
On Epic: they included it in most setlists because it felt right, they didn’t get bored playing it. Moved the song to earlier in the setlist to avoid the sense of people waiting for it.
On Angel dust: they don’t feel is necessarily their best album, just one album offering a portrait of a specific time of the band, like any of the other albums. Mike said he prefers King for a day actually…
On Last cup of sorrow video: it’s one of their favorite videos (Billy)
On playing with Chuck versus with Mike Patton: music is played the same, no difference from an execution perspective
On Chile connection: Billy said many of the details in the book were new to him (e.g., the notes about Chilean author Alberto Fuguet). They also said they were in the end cool with Chileans spitting on them, Mike said he was happy to be at the back of the stage though… Billy mentioned Chilean band Como Asesinar a Felipes as one of the good new bands.
On being a San Francisco band: it’s unlikely that the band would be the same if it was based elsewhere.
On rotation of guitar players: the core of their creative process does usually not include guitars. Guitar players at some point want to play solo parts, which they don’t seem to appreciate much…
On jamming currently: they hinted they were jamming occasionally until recently, but the site they used in Oakland was flooded about a month ago.
It was a really cool event, good vibe, the band members are so down to earth and very accessible, which makes it easy for the audience to engage in a good exchange. Thank you Billy, Mike and Adrian for a great event.
P.s. it would be great if someone that attended the LA event with Matt Wallace could share some words here as well!