Stone Temple Pilots

"The dissolution was celebrated by another Weiland arrest."

"Tiny Music" sounded quite good 7 or 8 years ago, anyway, and the earlier singles still sound OK to these ears.

I'm not too crazy about Core aside from "Plush," but Purple and Tiny Music are pretty good records. They've held up much better than a lot of their peers at the time, so I guess they get the last laugh.

I didn't like the No. 4 record aside from "Sour Girl," and the only song I know from their final lp is "Days Of The Week" and that's a nice pop tune.

Chuck is OTM about "Unglued" and "Tumble" - I'm surprised that they weren't included. I remember "Unglued" being on the radio all the time when I was a teenager.

Does anyone still actively follow them, though? I get the feeling this album will be like the Suede greatest hits album in the UK -- ie, it's not actually going to sell that much despite a good amount of the songs on it being huge at one point.

I don't think many people care about them right now, but they have a LOT of radio hits, and it's the kind of thing people will come back to later on when they get the 90s nostalgia. I'm sure in 20 years time we'll be hearing STP on classic rock radio, and that will be a boost for them too.

I think they may end up being the Grand Funk Railroad of their generation, though.

Heh. Nice comparison, that. (I think a similar situation will happen with Suede in the UK re: more nostalgia etc.)

Purple was one of those early 90s albums where modern rock stations played nearly half of the songs, even if they weren't official singles. (They did the same with Siamese Dream, Dookie and the first three Pearl Jam albums. Nevermind too, except I think I've heard every song off Nevermind on the radio at some point, except maybe Stay Away.)

STP are by far the most underrated band of the past 15 years, an injustice due entirely to bad timing. They always seem to be everyone's answer to why modern rock radio was ruined during the 90s. No one ever thinks to blame Candlebox or Collective Soul, only because they faded into obscurity a lot quicker.

This could be true. But why don't they blame Alice in Chains, or Nine Inch Nails, or Smashing Pumpkins (or maybe even Oasis)? None of whom ever did a song as good as Collective Soul's "Gel" or Candlebox's "Far Behind." (Okay, "1979" maybe was as good as the latter. But that's about it.) Hell, for that matter, why don't they just blame Pearl Jam, or even Nirvana? They *caused* it all, didn't they? (And Pearl Jam were at least as dull as any of the above.) (These are rhetorical questions, of course. I think I kinda know the answers.)

I think you're being unfair to NIN and the Pumpkins, Chuck. They were really different from the other bands and both had more of a unique sound. I don't there have been many bands who have aped the Pumpkins sound, and all of the NIN wannabes were more aggro and lacked that crucial Prince influence that makes a lot of Reznor's music bearable/interesting/pop.

Although NIN should be punished for that godawful Closer song (those horrible lyrics which made it so popular).

"Closer" is tremend.

Any group that could produce "Bad Time to Be In Love" has something going for it. On a similar note, I like STP's "Big Bang Baby," and...well, I guess that's it.

For those of you who hate NIN's "Closer," do you hate the song itself or the fratboy fan base it brought to "industrial" rock?

Grand Funk had a bunch of good tunes.

Collective Soul were really and truly the ass-end of empty 90s alt-rock.

As bad as Collective Soul were, I'd say the Gin Blossoms are more deserving of said title.

Re: The Gin Blossoms - I would say that they (along with Counting Crows and Sherly Crow) are more to blame for the popularity of things like Jon Mayer and Matchbox 20. They were one of the bands that the adult-oriented Modern Rock station format was built for, really.

I think Gin Blossoms recieved a similar fate to STP. They were simply a pop band (with some great singles) who were immediately slapped with the tag of "alternative" because they wore flannel shirts. They didn't really belong on rock stations, but they ended up there anyway, ruining a whole lot in the process. It's more their promoters fault than the band themselves.

The STP best-of seems really solid though, just based on how many of the MP3s I have from it (though it needs "Unglued"!!).

The Gin Blossoms' fate was similar to STP, at least in the era of Purple and Tiny music. By that point, they were far more pop oriented.

Wow, we just one of the few bits of genetic mutation that separates us!

My STP experiment was to put on "Greatest Hits" last weekend at the listening post at the Tower Records in Tokyo, listen to the first ten seconds of each song, and see what memories of my college years it would trigger. I listened to "Big Bang Baby" all the way through -- it's my favorite, by far. It's always good to work a gorilla suit into your video.

Yeah, that was it!

If NIN's "Closer" had been a quarter as catchy as, I dunno, "1999" by Prince or "Cars" by Gary Numan or a quarter as rocking as your average track by Big Black - hell, if Reznor came from Germany, which would have at least made his vocals amusing and weird, as everybody from Einsturzende Neubauten to Rammstein has proved -- I might have had a use for it. I was way past high school, so I really didn't care one way or another who their audience was. It was just a half-assed song by a half-assed band who didn't have the balls to be *really* pop. And thing is, I LIKE industrial rock. They just stunk at it. They weren't as good as all the bands they were ripping off, and they weren't as good as some bands (eg: Stabbing Westward) who ripped THEM off. (And oh yeah: "I wanna fuck you like an animal" is a dumb line.)

The "Closer" video contains my single favorite video moment--towards the end of the song, this seated older bald guy looks up at the camera with surprise and disdain. It's like half a second. I don't know why I love it so...

"Head Like A Hole", "Down In It", "Sin", "Terrible Lie", "Heresy", "Hurt", "Suck", "Gave Up", "Wish", "We're In This Together Now", "The Wretched", "The Fragile", and "Into The Void" to thread.

in that howard stern interview he says that he's clean but that he drinks. it's an old interview. but in a lot of later pictures/live footage he definitely looks like a drunk. i mean his face has that hardcore drunk look. and he talked like it too. also in the stern interview he says that he's sick of touring but he has to tour to make money to pay for everything. kinda the worst thing you can do when you're sick. be out there on the road forever. he needed a very long hospital stay.

yeah...the guy sold like TWENTY MILLION ALBUMS but i can't imagine there was much responsible money management in his life.

the letter is pretty hard to read but i'm glad they said it and didn't sugarcoat it. the sentence that briefly imagines him at home, barbecuing with his kids instead of dying along in a tourbus is just heartbreaking. having kids can really summon the best from you as a person, and it's so sad to think about addiction just completely canceling that out and not giving him a chance to be a dad.

on stern he said he needed to make $60,000 a month on the road to pay his bills.

i guess he was either lucky or unlucky enough to have the money to keep going as long as he did.

I wasn't even 10 when STP were on their peak (1993/1994?) and I wasn't really exposed to any of their music until the 'Sour Girl' single came along. It was also the only song I ever knew about them and based on that track alone I thought they were some sort of psychedelic band, not a grunge one. It reminded me of the first Porno for Pyros album and the first Smashing Pumpkins album (why did I knew about these albums and I had never heard of stone temple pilots? I don't know.) and made a mental note about hearing more songs from them which I never did.

yeah I was young enough where "sour girl" was the first time I recognized stp as stp

I was also deep into nu metal so I loved "no way out"

"Sour Girl" was the big STP single for me too, everything else was just glimpses of the garish older videos

Mary Weiland's piece was fucking brutal.

Relistening to all this stuff. Forgot that they jacked Lush for Big Bang Baby. Going to go listen to Lush now instead.

― how's life, Monday, December 7, 2015 6:59 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As someone who's never listened to Lush, what Lush song sounds like it? Because if there are more songs that sound like Big Bang Baby in the world, I want to hear them.

There's a piece in "Big Bang Baby" that cops from the chorus of Lush's "For Love," obliquely.

They are not the same vibe really, but I've cued these youtubes up to the salient parts:

https://youtu.be/G0gAxuvo5rc?t=1m40s
https://youtu.be/iYF7VFvzWGo?t=46s

There's a piece in "Big Bang Baby" that cops from the chorus of Lush's "For Love," obliquely.

Also, "Jumping Jack Flash"

No shit, really?

rufus - who is in the 8th grade - just told me that his teacher brought up pearl jam one day and asked the class - 18 kids - if they knew who pearl jam was and rufus was the only one who raised his hand.

which i guess makes sense.

played a show the other night and my friend's band opened their set with "Interstate Love Song," really brought a smile to my face

rufus - who is in the 8th grade - just told me that his teacher brought up pearl jam one day and asked the class - 18 kids - if they knew who pearl jam was and rufus was the only one who raised his hand.

This reminds me of when I was in 4th grade in 1980 and our teacher was super-upset about John Lennon being shot and none of us knew who he was and my memory is that this made her all the more stricken, like she was all alone with the news

aww, poor teacher.

i was 12 when lennon died. i remember being sad. and i remember going to a department store with my mom and in the electronics department all the televisions had john lennon news on them. just rows and rows of crying fans and distraught people being interviewed. that was media saturation before the internet.

Stuff like that makes me feel kind of glad for our level of jadedness.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/12/scott-weiland-died-from-an-accidental-drug-overdose-according-to-medical-examiner/

imagine Kurt accidentally overdosing on cough syrup and ambien in his van on the way home from a solo gig at trans pecos

I was also 12 when Lennon died. We asked our history teacher (probably in her late 50s or early 60s) to hold a minute of silence, and she didn't understand what we were talking about.

very sad for scott. saw them several times in the 90s and wish i could have figured out his bowie/glam lineage as a teenager. was it discussed in music press back then?

yeah, it became a pretty overt talking point by the time of Tiny Music.

Damn. Not exactly an uncommon party cocktail there.

dumb question but can someone explain that combination to me?

i dont really understand the ethanol, mainly

That's just booze, right?

Looked like a night of alcohol, ecstasy, and coke, but who knows to what extent. Also given his age and other health issues, yeah, that would probably be kinda risky.

oh i didnt know ppl drank it for kicks

i thought that was like hard times desperation like getting drunk on mouthwash

No, I'm sure he was just drinking booze, they just decided to use whatever toxicology language. Ethanol here basically means alcohol.

ohhhh ok duh

thank you!!

Seems like a lot of people who get into Heroin and kick it but still want to party do everything else they can to an absurd degree. It's ugly.

good god, "Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart" is an incredible fucking song.

i'm finally getting around to my own little retrospective and Big Bang Baby is really rocking me, that soaring bridge (second chorus?) w/ "take it away boys", TEARS i tell ya

i remember hearing WHFS premiere "Big Bang Baby" and it just sounded incredibly intense and perfect -- in retrospect the low budget video is fun and cool-looking but at the time it felt like this deflating antithesis of what the song felt like in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRjtLtLCpnk

tiny music is fucking good. "Lady Picture Show" !!!

Detailed new feature here:

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/6859089/scott-weiland-final-months-friends-family-talk-mental-illness-family-struggles

Does anybody remember the anono-band Art of Anarchy (Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, formerly of Guns N' Roses, Jon Moyer, formerly of Disturbed, and two nobodies)? Their debut album, which I never heard, had Weiland on vocals. Anyway, earlier this week there were rumors that Scott Stapp was going to be the new singer for Stone Temple Pilots, a rumor that was quickly shot down by the band...and now it's revealed that Stapp is, in fact, the new singer for Art of Anarchy.

This has been your daily Post-Grunge Meathead Radio Rock Musical Chairs update.

I saw the name and thought "Wasn't that the band with the singer from Filter?"

Which was actually Army of Anyone.

Which I had forgotten the DeLeo brothers were also members of.

Weird...

trippin on a hole in a paper heart fucking bangs

Had never seen this performance with Junior Brown before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4h-VtWwo3I

(it's not the greatest performance, but it makes me happy just the same)

Killer hat!

how much walking shoes worn thin would be acceptable?

I didn't realize they've now had two entire albums with their post-Bennington singer. Maybe they should have resurrected Talk Show instead.

this post came up randomly on my timeline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlQKPwmw_Zs

a different scott. really sad to think what happened to him after

i was reading a bit about him and had no idea he was actually abused as a child

Agreed. It's very sad to think of just how much he degraded in the span of 25 years. A cautionary tale in what addiction can really do to you.

When Weiland passed away, I made this post on my Facebook and this thread reminded me of it...

I am pretty sure that I did the first major interview with Scott Weiland. I was writing for Creem and the label flew me out to interview Stone Temple Pilots when they were supporting Megadeth in the midwest. I forget the itinerary but it involved flying into one place, traveling for a night with the band and flying back to New York, with most of my time being spent in Missouri.

I was able to use the hang time with the band to flesh out the story of the band coming out of the chute and breaking right when Sex Type Thing was starting to get massive radio play.

I have fond memories of the trip - drummer Eric Kretz was a really great guy, I introduced those West Coasters to the wonder that is White Castle (the tour bus stopped by and we ordered like 100 of them at my suggestion - with the unheeded warning that it was the only food that would give you a hangover, man did that bus reek the next day) and I got to hear an amazing story in catering from Nick Menza about the line of cute Asian groupies at the Japanese hotel room of Marty Friedman and how he needed an ice pack on his balls afterwards.

And of course, it was cool to be right in the middle of a band exploding into the mainstream living their dreams.

The key part of the story was breakfast in a Shoney's near the band's hotel with Weiland by himself. He let me pick the Shoney's because I used to work there as one of my earliest jobs when I was a teenager.

We had a really nice chat, which made up most of the piece if memory serves. At one point, we got onto what the whirlwind was like, what he would call success.

As if on cue, some dude came by the table to say hi to the singer. The guy mentioned how he played in a cover band and they were working out "Sex Type Thing" to add to their set.

After he left, Weiland turned to me and laughed and said "I think that's a sign you've made it, when someone in a Shoney's in Missouri says he's covering your stuff." Which would up being the endtro to my story.

The band wound up becoming huge. My guess is that the trappings of that success is one of the reasons he was found dead at 48 (just two years older than I am) on a tour bus yesterday.

I was never a huge fan of the band, personally - they had a few good songs but were more derivative than I cared for - but it was cool to be a small part in helping them succeed even if it seemed that Weiland kind of lost the path a few times there.

I hope that somewhere along the line he was able to remember what it was like when having someone in a midwest breakfast chain telling him that they were doing one of his songs was one of the coolest things in the world.

I did a big piece on him for Kerrang! just as Velvet Revolver was happening, got flown out to his studio in LA and got the whole spiel on his drug addiction and losing his family and almost dying and so on. The studio was lovely, but he'd thrown a bin at the glass between the control room and the studio and it was intact but shattered, and he'd spray-painted "fuck" across it. He told me he was clean and would never stray again, because he didn't want to lose his wife and kid again. But it seemed pretty clear to me that he was in no way okay. I was supposed to meet up with some friends in LA bands that night but I felt so depressed afterwards I cancelled and just took a long bath in my hotel room that night. He seemed so sad.

I think many would agree that “art school girlfriend” is the only really bad song on Tiny Music? Luckily, there is an Zep III-ish outtake on the deluxe edition called “Kretz’s acoustic song” that fits nicely in its place for your retconning purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOMdi8BEQkE