[8/25/00] - See what working 14-hour days gets you? The earlier news post about Maynard appearing on Conan should have said that last spring's APC performance on Conan O'Brien will air next Wednesday, August 30th. Nice one.

[8/17/00] - To clear up the previous post about Maynard and the Deftones appearing at the Summersault festival, it should have read "they will appear together at every show that the Deftones are playing at". Obviously, it won't happen at non-Deftones shows. Heh. All you David Fincher fans will no doubt find it interesting that Ed Norton, star of Fight Club and other films, was seen backstage at a recent APC show. Imagine Tool merged with Fight Club. "How much can you know about yourself if you've never had an enema?" Today is the official five year anniversary of this site transforming from the "home of the FAQ" to "The Tool Page." Big festivities had been planned, mainly including a complete redesign of this site scheduled to launch today. However, thanks to my crazy work schedule (MTV, kids - I'm subverting from within), the only anniversary present you get is irony: the first news post ever (from 1995) reads...

On the new album: word is "maybe in the spring." This means not for a WHILE.

[8/13/00] - Saturday night around midnight, CNN's World Beat program had an "About Rock-n-Roll" special, and while mentioning A Perfect Circle, showed a small interview snip featuring Maynard and Billy. While the interview didn't offer up much in the way of new information, CNN did get Billy and Maynard's names switched at the bottom of the screen. Maynard will supposedly be appearing with the Deftones at every show on the Summersault festival, performing their song "Passenger."

[8/6/00] - Though APC did not perform in Vancouver last week (word on the street is that Billy Howerdel's father passed away, though there has been no confirmation of this), Maynard did show up and perform "Passenger" with the Deftones, as he does on their album "White Pony."

[8/5/00] - All automated tasks on this site are temporarily unavailable due to a server misconfiguration, which will fixed as expeditiously as possible.

[8/3/00] - It's not really Tool news, but you may want to know that A Perfect Circle will not be performing on the first day of the Summersault 2000 Festival August 4th in Vancouver, BC as scheduled, due to a "family emergency." No further details are currently available. Sorry, Western Canadians.

[8/2/00] - Happy August! The July issue of Visions magazine features an interview with Billy and Maynard. Though related mostly to APC info, it does include a snip of Maynard talking about working with director David Fincher. Apparently our favorite vocalist has been offered the chance to read for Fincher in the future; Fincher's work includes such things you want on DVD as "Fight Club", "Seven", and the "Judith" video. Tapeworm, a musical project by Nine Inch Nails members Danny Lohner and Charlie Clousers featuring Maynard on a few songs, is reportedly releasing an album by the end of the year. Toby Cougar (insan_al_kamel@hotmail.com) has come up with a bunch of good info on Peach, Justin's former band. Their album "Giving Birth to a Stone" is scheduled for re-release here on September 12 on Beatville Records. Word is that a video will also surface alongside the album, to be co-directed by Adam and another guy who handles Tool's live graphics. The Opinion section works again, seems I only thought I had fixed it. All old posts have been moved to the old posts section. And yes, the hat comes from a clothing manufacturer called Toolshed. But we all know who had the name first...

[7/18/00] - The hat plot thickens. No sooner did I post about Mark McGwire wearing a 'Toolshed' hat on ESPN, than I get a torrent of email saying that Jason Giambi of the Oakland A's was ALSO wearing a 'Toolshed' hat on ESPN all weekend. While it's probably some random style thing going on nowadays, the amount of mail I've gotten from people suggests that maybe a 'Toolshed' hat of our own should get made (no, it wouldn't have a web address on it, come on now). Stay tuned for possible info. Thanks to Jose Sanchez (toolstarjm@hotmail.com) for noticing that Danny Carey is in the September issue of Modern Drummer magazine, in the Lessons section.

[7/14/00] - Happy Bastille Day! Fans who were at last night's APC show in London have written in that Maynard told them crowd he'd be back next summer with 'the other band.' (Hopefully he meant Tool and not Tapeworm). A bunch of people keep noticing that home run hitter Mark McGwire keeps wearing a 'TOOLshed' hat on ESPN interviews. I never made any hats for this site, and I definitely didn't give one to my close personal friend Mac. (But it would be neat if I had). I have yet to see a clear image of this hat; if you find one, let me know.

[7/9/00] - The newest issue of the Tool Newsletter came out a few days ago, though it seems to have only been made available on the official site. So it is available there, and in the Community section of this site (and here for you lazy slackers). Thanks to Josh (dkjasum@ipa.net) for the heads-up. Non-Tool plug: Tonight's episode of VH1's Behind the Music (Queen Latifah) was edited by yours truly (well, half of it). Knock yourself out.

[7/5/00] - Finally, server access again (a few days of lockout is always fun). The Official Site now offers the option of mailing each member of the band individually, so now you don't need to worry if your note got to them. Maynard offers up a correction on his recent "Next March" album release date comment; turns out at that Kansas show, his response to getting to crowd to ask in unison about the much-delayed record was in fact "Nice Touch." The vocalist also wrote in to clear the record about his recent description of Tool as a "side project," saying it was only a comment to get rid of a journalist. He continues: "besides, Tool has always maintained that we have lives outside of Tool. Tool is what we do when we get together. our separate and PRIVATE lives are far more important than Tool, APC, the Melvins, etc." He hinted that he would eat anyone who didn't believe him; so you probably can let it go. Elias (EilasIefilRuoy@aol.com) writes that Staind has been covering "Sober" live, and apparently intends to release a cover of the song on their next album. So maybe we will get more non-Tool-Tool before we get more actual Tool. A bunch of fans who attended the Werchter-festival in Belgium weekend have written in to say that they heard Maynard say on stage that he would "be back next summer" with Tool. Keep your fingers crossed.

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"Your pal" Kabir Akhtar (kabir@down.net)

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