tool news


Info here is covered in / superseded by the FAQ, and may no longer be valid. It is provided only for historical interest.

- old news: march - april 1998 -

[4/30/98] - I'm at the tail end of school for the rest of my life, which is why updates are so nonexistent nowadays. The two broken new MP3's have been fixed, though, and a bunch more should hop in soon. Thanks for being so patient.

[4/23/98] - The MP3 archive continues to grow thanks to Duncan; check out selected songs from the recent mini-tour in the slightly-remodeled Audio section. (By the way, if these songs are ever released on CD, they will disappear from this site.) Old AIFF files have vanished off this site, the first old section to be deleted in who knows how long.

[4/22/98] - Wow I'm busy this week. So busy that Maynard's birthday slipped by last Friday before I could say anything. I didn't even check mail at all yesterday to find out that "Ænema" received two awards at the 7th annual Music Video Production Association Awards: Best Cinematography - James Hawkinson and Rock Video Of The Year - Third Eye Films. MTV News has some more info. Some files which make up this site (specifically the menu images) are moving to sucked.down.net, so you might (hopefully won't) notice a slight change in how the page loads. Should look the same.

[4/16/98] - The buzz is that Tool may actually play all the dates. Hang around until confirmed info comes in. Ahh, such fun.

[4/13/98] - An extra Mansfield, MA show has been added, and Tool looks to be playing. Although Tool is not playing ALL OzzFest dates, they are playing all the ones posted to the Tour section; I'm not posting the whole festival itinerary.

[4/11/98] - OK, so I caved; onsale-dates for all the OzzFest dates which Tool is scheduled to play are now posted to the Tour section, along with the most current tour itinerary. Keep in mind that Tool looks not to be playing the whole tour.

[4/5/98] - I don't have the time to keep up-to-date info posted regarding OzzFest tickets, though I will certainly keep date info current. I recommend keeping a watchful eye out, since tickets for the Mansfield, MA show go on sale this Saturday.

[4/3/98] - I'm not sure where the rumor started that OzzFest is Tool's final tour, but I wouldn't worry about it. When I first posted dates, I warned that they would likely fluctuate, and they continue to do so. Stay tuned, I'm working on getting actual dates up. May take a while. So Wednesday was April Fools' Day, and what fun it was. Here's the whole story. Though you know, the prank was only up for 23 hours on the 1st, and I'm still getting mail from people whose caches don't refresh too often; folks still hitting the joke instead of the front page. Makes me wonder if some folks think the News is rarely updated.

[4/2/98] - 23 hours of fun, and this year's April Fools' joke is over with. The event-in-review will follow.

[3/29/98] - Back in town, and what a weekend it was. As promised, both shows in LA were quite different. Lots of reviews have been posted to the Tour section; keep 'em coming, as long as they are reviews of the show you saw. I met a bunch of folks at the LA shows, saw two t.d.n shirts floating around, and that was quite cool. Briefly: the three mystery songs were all covers, no new Tool stuff surfaced. The two nights included all of the actual songs off all three albums except "Bottom" and "4 Degrees." Thanks again to Maggie Hammock for helping me out with everything this weekend. I'll post a full review soon. The posted OzzFest dates keep changing; it remains to be seen whether Tool will be playing all of those. Thanks to all of you for keeping me up-to-date. Seems as though everyone has their own version of the dates nowadays. The label rumor reported recently was just that; the court proceedings are actually expected to start around June. Some 1998 articles have made their way online at last. Lastly, I'm hundreds of mail behind, so if you don't get a reply, it doesn't (necessarily) mean you had a dumb question. Just kidding.

[3/25/98] - It looks like I will be at the LA shows, thanks entirely to Maggie Hammock (auspexum@mailexcite.com). See you there. Post reviews while I'm gone.

[3/22/98] - The "Third Eye" tabs have been fixed at last, as have a few other reported tab errors. Some folks are saying a distributor / label called Jive has picked up Tool and Matthew Sweet (the last acts from Volcano). If this actually is the case remains to be seen. Thanks to lots of you for pointing out the mistake in the OzzFest dates I was given. Holmdel, NJ is apparently not in Pennsylvania. Thanks also to Jeremy Gibson (ctgibson@prodigy.net) for pointing out that today is actually 3/22.

[3/20/98] - A school district in Michigan has banned Korn, Marilyn Manson, and Tool shirts, claiming they are "offensive." A bunch of kids have gotten suspended for engaging in such awful behavior. Yet again, Tool winds up the target of closed-minded folks, and in some questionable company. The Melvins have been confirmed as the openers for the shows next weekend. OzzFest dates have been circulating, including Tool on the bill. A rough list of these dates is posted to the Tour section; I'm going to leave it rough until the time comes closer and the dates are more confirmed. Limp Bizkit cites Tool's inclusion as their reason for joining the tour, so the story goes at our favorite news source.

[3/13/98] - Back with email access at last, and thanks to roughly fifty of you, I've found that Tool is in fact looking somewhat certain to be a part of Ozzfest, according to MTV and Limp Bizkit's onstage chatter. So now we have something to do this summer. I'm working on getting back to all of you who mailed me while I was away this week. Thanks for your patience.

[3/6/98] - Tool is rumored (what else is new?) to be part of the lineup of this summer's OzzFest tour. Last I heard, this is only a rumor, despite what the New York Times says. It's official, a Phoenix show has materialized. Tickets go on sale Saturday morning. Complete info in the Tour section. I'm going to be in LA for a bunch of days, so I don't know how much email access I'll have. Keep in touch with Shane or Greg if some Tool emergency arises (such as an Australian highway accident).

[3/4/98] - Lots of tour news. The San Diego March 29 show is now sold out. A radio station in Phoenix (KUPD) has been talking about tickets going on sale this Saturday for a show on March 28. They sound adamant about it, so it may well be the case, though I haven't heard any completely confirmed info (we all know how radio stations like to make things up). Porkspam (porkspam@aol.com) reminds me to post that this month's Modern Drummer says that Danny will be at the 1998 Modern Drummer festival / clinic. Good news for drummers. I have no info on dates, though.

[3/1/98] - Happy March! The answer to your question is ... no, I don't think the band gave any kind of acceptance speech at the Grammy's. Someone with nothing better to do has been forging mail from me, telling folks that "their mail has been forwarded to Maynard and thanks". For the record, I don't forward mail to the band, I don't use capital letters in email, and I don't group-reply to individual mailings all at once. If you notice a warning header in a piece of mail from "me", feel free to write me and let me know. Why people waste time like that is beyond me. I may have forgotten to mention a few weeks ago that the "Tori Amos Live in New York" RAINN release in Canada was only on video, not on CD. Thanks lastly to Ryan (polock@udel.edu) for digging the actual quote from the Daily Show appearance of "Stinkfist" up from their site: "And finally, the Grammy's have nominated Tool's video "Stinkfist" for the home safety lessons that it teaches. For example, If you're harvesting your own shoulder cheese, bottle it or put it in some type of sealed container or it will turn bad. End of story! Lastly, whenever you leave the house, always unplug the torso. Torso's not gonna like it but hey, if we did everything the torso wanted, we wouldn't get anything done."


(Tool)

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