page: 
 title: Who Needs A Record Deal?
author: Greg Heller

Tool Rock For Famous Faces In Los Angeles


Tool continue to be the hottest unsigned band in America, for the time 
being at least. Having fallen though a loophole in their contracts, 
first with Volcano, then with Zoo Records last year (a loophole that 
also left Matthew Sweet label-less), the downtrodden L.A. rockers are 
moving full speed ahead, backers be damned. As a minor war rages on 
between Epic and Elektra Records for the rights to the cult quartet 
(Jive Records has reportedly bought up their back catalogue), they're 
determined to show the fans that bands can exist and progress outside 
the industry.

Playing to an oversold Hollywood Palladium Thursday night, the first 
of only four stops on their West Coast club mini-tour, the group was 
in rare form, running wild through their brief history and reaffirming 
their spot atop the neo-metal totem pole.

On hand to witness Tool's glory were Rage Against The Machine's Tom
Morello (trivia factoid: Morello played with Tool guitarist Adam Jones 
in a high school band called Electric Sheep), Korn frontman Jonathan 
Davis (looking 50 pounds heavier) and the increasingly more visible 
Axl Rose, who hid beneath a beanie cap the whole night, causing some 
to wonder if the Gunner might be thinning out up top.  In addition to 
enlisting the harmonious assistance of Buzz Osborne from openers The 
Melvins for a bowel-bursting rendition of "Stinkfist," Tool brought 
out Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, hosts of HBO's hot sketch comedy Mr. 
Show, to introduce the song "Hush." Dressed as doctors, Odenkirk and 
Cross diagnosed singer Maynard James Keenan with something called 
"titilitus" prior to dressing him in a hospital gown and placing him 
in a wheelchair, from which he belted the song. Only a couple of new 
tunes were debuted, one of them thought to be called "You Lied."

Tool are also apparently hell-bent on getting in on the whole banned
t-shirt fiasco that's beset chums Korn and Marilyn Manson. For their
two-night stand at the Palladium, they've printed up a very limited
edition, scratch and sniff t-shirt depicting an older gentleman, 
rumored to be Keenan's father, um, wiping his backside while seated on 
the throne. The shirt reads "Tool Fucked The Shit Out Of Me At The 
Hollywood Palladium," and should make a lovely gift for the high 
school student in your life. Following this brief West Coast sojourn, 
the boys will get back to writing material for their next album before 
heading out with the OzzFest circus beginning July 4th in Kansas City, 
Missouri.
Posted to t.d.n: 03/29/98 23:52:38