Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace

It feels like I have been to this place before. The place I speak of is one of distrust, malcontent and utter irritability with the status of modern music review. It’s almost as if these writers (probably due to a corporate agenda) have to achieve a certain preconceived slant and could care less about the people portraying the art and more about the image. I base this hypothesis out of many modern reviews I’ve read but there is one in particular I’d like to run up the flagpole. Before I get to that, though, I will not (as a friend and colleague once told me) let the review in question get any glory - I will let them hang. I’m warning you now that this review will be much longer than my usual writing but I feel that there is much to be said on this subject.

In October of 2007, Foo Fighters released their newest offering entitled Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. Before I get into the dough of that bread, however, I feel it is necessary to briefly touch on the history and saga of Dave Grohl. Being a fan of the Foos since their pre-1995 humble beginnings (when Dave Grohl made a demo tape to attract other musicians that ended up being released as the Foos first self-titled album), I was actually never a massive follower of Nirvana. I liked them and I dug the raw feel of In Utero but I was never a huge believer. Since the haze of those Seattle days, Dave has arguably been the most successful musician that has moved from being a drummer to a front man.

Apparently, there are over a thousand people who check out BWC on a daily basis. It’s awesome to think that there is a readership out there that is devoted to dissecting truth with a spiritual (and often Jesus-based) world view. Unfortunately, so many people who know no better look to major magazines and releases to find the critical truth - Rolling Stone, SPIN, Pitchfork, etc. If you are a reader of the BWC or just a first time checker-outer, I hope you get the sense that BWC folks write from the heart within this publication. I hope that it’s understood that when I write the phrase “ESPG is a solidly constructed album and one of the Foos more diverse works,” I write that from the heart and I am not getting paid to type that. It just needed to be said. Let us dive into the proverbial pool, shall we?

On ESPG, Dave, Taylor, Chris and Nate take a varied approach to songwriting. Though Dave is in the lead (as per usual), you get the sense that the band is taking a deeper philosophical breath as they rock hyper at times but kick back mellow at others. “The Pretenders” is nowhere near one of the best songs on this album and honestly, I have no idea why Dave and the boys released this as their first single. There are some amazing tracks on this disc that gave me shivers the first time I heard them and still do to this day. “Long Road To Ruin” is a great rock-pop anthem that speaks of the long road ahead that we will all, most likely, make mistakes upon while we drive on it. “Come Alive” is one of the best songs I’ve heard in years and though it gets a little edgy and loud for modern trends (that mostly feature bands with a token female singer and xylophone), there is hardly a soul who can not relate to watching a friend or loved one dwindle on the tip of his or her true potential.

“Cheer Up Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)” is probably my favorite song out of the whole disc. It features everything the Foos do well - the harder guitar and drum edge but with a poppy, light tone that any listener could bob their head along with. The idea behind the song really speaks for itself - in an age where so many musicians thrive on an image of being sad, gothic and cosmetically downtrodden, Dave is speaking to the evils teenage influence that focus too much on the downside of life:

Stop using my confusion
Wait…Wait…
There’s a world out there
Don’t you deny me

The ill album review that I referenced earlier is one that surfaced directly after the release of ESPG in SPIN Magazine. In this disgrace of a review (and really…I’m being generous with that wording), the writer goes on to sloppily compare a few new songs on the album with older Foo hits from previous releases: ” ‘The Pretenders’ is ‘Stacked Actors’, even down to the lyrics decrying phonies; and if you’ve heard ‘My Hero’, you’ve got a good idea what ‘Statues’ sounds like.”

Wow.

The comparison of those tracks is so far off target that’s it’s almost as if this reviewer was listening to an entirely different album. Though there are some vague lyrical similarities between “Stacked Actors” and “The Pretenders”, the former is much more of a snapshot of the bleach-blonde industry posers whereas ‘The Pretenders” is about musical staying power amidst one hit wonders. The two songs, however, are actually quite different from a sonic standpoint. As far as the comparison of “My Hero” and “Statues”…I’m somewhat shoulder-shrugged. Everyone in the free world has heard “My Hero” - it’s a song that begins with a throbbing drum track and moves into a powerful blast of bass and guitar-throttle. “Statues” is a mellow ballad that Dave croons upon while playing piano.

Finally, the reviewer actually makes a reference to Dave Grohl’s career, thus far, as being “fantastically average.” I might take that statement a little more seriously if I believed the writer even had one decent listen-through to the album in question. Even people who despise Foo Fighters would never make such an asinine claim about the stature of Grohl’s career. In all honesty, Foo Fighters don’t write the best songs ever made and they would be the first ones to admit that. Amidst the smoke and mirrors of the musical marketplace, though, Dave Grohl has some depth and although it’s usually only hinted at, it is still there. Unfortunately, since the monster of Nirvana has been painted and pedestalized in such an unfair and uneven light, Dave has had to live with the burden of trying please old Nirvana fans and critics from day one. As the Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic once said, “Dave has had to find his way out of the jungle of Nirvana with a machete…but I think he has done pretty well.”

Often when I read these other nickel and dime review ‘zines, I can’t help but notice the missed target of finding out more about the personal lives of musicians and what makes them tick. I don’t know if Dave Grohl knows God - maybe he does in a way I’ll never understand or maybe he has chosen another road. Though major magazines wouldn’t see this as “good copy” and usually don’t care, I care and by leaving out the details of the following story in the mix of reviewing this album, I would be performing a massive disservice to the world of critical thought.

After years of listening to Dave Grohl’s music, what I can surmise is that he is someone on a valid search - sure, Jack Black is his buddy and Courtney Love hates his guts but he tries to stay out of the tabloids and believes in the value of people. In fact, the one green marker that the SPIN review actually got shallowly correct was the rating of “The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners” as a beautiful “bluegrass instrumental that is an oasis” of sorts. What the mediocre reviewer failed to engage, however, is the remarkable story behind that song which can be read about here. The story basically speaks of Dave Grohl helping two men who were stuck in the Beaconsfield Mine Collapse in Australia. Dave found out the miners were fans of the Foos and sent them mp3 players filled with Foo Fighters music and other tunes, offered them free tickets to a show and to meet them personally and ‘buy them some beers’, and then created that very song (while jamming on the night one of the miners came to a Foos show) and promised the miner that “it would be a song on their new record.” The new record would, in fact, be one entitled Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. (But you know - pretty boring, average story. No need to mention that in a major magazine.) Music always conveys a message and I’m not making Dave Grohl out to be a saint, but it is without question that he and the Foos have some pretty interesting things to say.