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The (marketing) genius of Dave Grohl [St. Joseph News-Press (MO)](St. Joseph News-Press (MO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Somewhere between the Foo Fighters' fourth or fifth album, the Queens of the Stone Age's classic LP "Songs for the Deaf," the side project Probot and a stint with punk band Killing Joke, Dave Grohl became music's Tom Hanks. Time and time again, Grohl has shown he's more than capable of achieving anything he has a hand in, be it music, movies or TV. He's that guy everybody loves and that's not without some clever marketing. In a time when guitar-based rock music is stagnant, Grohl's the torch-bearer for rock traditionalists, espousing the importance of substance over style and warts and imperfections over gloss and expensive productions. Like Hanks, Grohl's best years are likely behind him (though I'm always glad to be proven wrong), if only because he's covered so much ground in his career that there are few leaves left to be turned over. But that's not stopping him from convincing people otherwise. For the past decade, the Foo Fighters have coasted nicely on being a legacy band. While I listen to most of their albums on repeat, it's a band casual listeners can depend on for delivering some killer singles without having to delve deeper. On the Foo Fighters' last album, the fantastic return-to-form "Wasting Light," the band hung its hat on the fact that it was helmed by famed Nirvana producer Butch Vig and that it recorded solely on analog tape, rather than straight to a computer. It was bit of a gimmick, but it paid off. The upcoming album "Sonic Highways" takes the concept a bit further by having the band record its eight tracks in eight different cities, with the lyrics taken from conversations Grohl has with a dream lineup of musicians for a coinciding HBO mini-series. While I'm sure the album will be a nice jambalaya of Grohl- penned earworms, catchy riffs and drummer Taylor Hawkins' fun, frantic beats, it's the lead up to the actual album that's been exciting. This week, Foo Fighters took a weeklong residency at "Late Night with David Letterman," not only to preview the album, due Nov. 10, and HBO show, premiering tonight, but to kick out some jams with groups like Zac Brown Band playing a live rendition of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" or Heart on the blazing "Kick It Out." Like the HBO show and similar to the previous documentary, "Sound City," Grohl has taken the time to not only promote himself and his band's new album but also the people who have inspired him. On the show, he travels to Chicago to talk about the rock scene he grew up in, chatting with musicians like Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, who will appear on the song "Something From Nothing," and going to Washington, D.C., to talk with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and President Barack Obama. He also focuses on the New York hip-hop scene and talks to Chuck D. and LL Cool J. For an artist who could sit back, collect checks and complain about how things have changed, he's more content to educate others about music's past while also pushing forward. He's connecting generations not through cynicism, but by threading the similarities together to show that there is more in common than some might have known. While there's no doubt that part of the show's reason for existence is to market a new Foo Fighters album, the other half, the music history part, will hopefully last well after the album is placed comfortably into the band's catalog. (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |