page: 
 title: Mainstream can't really get a handle on Tool's dour wit
author: JENNIFER CHRISTMAN 


    What kind of tool would Tool be?
    Not a hammer -- too uninteresting and obvious. Not a 
screwdriver -- too handy and uncomplicated.
    Tool would be more like a chainsaw -- deafening, 
disturbing and intimidatingly sharp.
    Most people have probably never heard a Tool song on 
the radio, which is just fine with the members who have 
managed to amass a loyal cult following through other 
means. It just adds more to the mystique that they've 
worked so hard to achieve with their videos -- moody mini-
movies that the members never appear in -- and the stage 
disguises.
    Like everyone else who appeared on the scene during the 
gloomy '90s, Tool sings of choking babies, condemning 
Jesus and hating Los Angeles, but they do so with such a flair 
and wicked wit that you might think they invented the angst 
genre instead of just burrowed into their own dark den in it.
    Tool's box, made of singer Maynard James Keenan, 
guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey and bassist 
Justin Chancellor, formed in 1990. By 1993 the group's gift 
for gloom landed them in the laternative rock category and 
landed them a spot on the third Lollapalooza tour. Undertow, 
the band's debut, went platinum while earning them 
comparisons with everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Pink Floyd.
    Tool spent several years tooling around on its less famed 
follow-up album, Aenima, which was still a success despite 
being released in 1996 when alternative rock was on its way 
out. the band co-headlined the 1997 Lollapalooza tour.
    Maybe Tool isn't so much a cnainsaw, as those behave 
quickly and immediately. Tool is more of a handsaw, one 
that produces at an excruciatingly slow pace.
    The next anybody heard of Tool again was in the form of 
rumors that the band was splitting as Keenan began working 
on a differnet project, a new band called A Perfect Circle, 
which released a successful debut Mer de Doms in 2000. A 
Tool B-Sides project, Salival, was released the same year.
    Tool's third studio album, Lateralus, finally was released in 
spring of 2001, putting an end to breakup speculation and 
putting the band in the No. 1 Billboard slot.
    As for the show, expect enduring sonic assaults, expect 
icky projection images and don't expect very much 
showmanship out of Keenan, who likely will stand in the 
shadows much of the evening.
    And expect the show to be opened by Tomahawk. The 
band was formed in 2000 by Duane Denison, formerly of 
Jesus Lizard, and Mike Patton, who, in addition to fronting 
Tomahawk, has fronted Mr. Bungle, Fantomas and Peepking 
Tom since the breakup of Faith No More in 1998.
    Maybe these guys are the real chainsaw on this tour.
Posted to t.d.n: 08/03/02 03:48:46