If It's Too Loud...

Listening to Tool in 2001: This is making me smarter Listening to Tool in 2019: This is making me much dumber — pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) August 5, 2019 I remember not initially being into Tool when I learned of them in high school. Fully immersed in my R.E.M./Toad the Wet Sprocket-style alt-rock combined with a burgeoning love of electronica meant that I typically only hit up the WAAF-style stuff when I had exhausted the other radio stations. Furthermore, with basically no interest in metal, there was nothing significant to lure me in. “But Jeff, Tool is different ,” friends would tell me. Yeah, there were the heavier topics from Undertow and all, but allegedly Ænima was this sort of transcendent conceptual masterpiece that I really needed to reconsider even if I was sick of hearing “46&2” all the time. I don’t remember when the switch flipped for me exactly, but something definitely changed at some stage and I became a fan. Maybe it was the nods to...

So far, the line ups for the 2017 festival season have been... let's just say disappointing. With the exception of Shovels & Rope's High Water Festival , it just seems like every other festival has given up on even trying. Festivals aren't being curated anymore, it's just grab every band that you can. Plus, I don't even know half of the bands on the line ups, and even though we're old guys here, we're not THAT out of touch. Well, god bless the 2017 Boston Calling festival. Just when it seemed like they were giving up on the old guys and just going for what the kids ages 12-22 were listening to, this morning they released this line up. There are a ton of If It's Too Loud... approved bands, plus not only a mixture of old and new artists, but an actual diverse line up . No genre feels like it's just an add on: everything is equally represented (ok, maybe not country, but we can deal with that). Seriously, check out the line up below. Classic alt...