Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Mind Eraser, No Chaser (2009)
The supergroup is an interesting concept. Even though you can have musicians from great bands, there's no guarantee that they're going to make good music. A band may sound good in theory, but there are so many examples of supergroups that just didn't work.
But occasionally, these cobbled-together combos can work out. In this particular instance, Dave Grohl (who apparently didn't have enough to do), decided to put together a band with previous collaborator Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and rock legend John Paul Jones, who played bass and many other instruments with Led Zeppelin. Grohl, who was leading Foo Fighters and played on and toured for QOTSA's best album Songs for the Deaf, has famously been ubiquitous over the last 30 years since Nirvana abruptly ended. The first inklings of the group came in 2005 when Grohl mentioned in a Mojo interview that he wanted to work with Homme and Jones.
Fast forward a few years and the trio was touring behind an album that hadn't come out yet. Knowing the talents of the three band members, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Them Crooked Vultures, the supergroup consisting of Grohl, Jones and Homme. It was October 2009 at House of Blues in Boston and I went with my buddy Bob, with whom I had gone to see the first Foo Fighters appearances in 1995. It was a blistering performance and even though we had never heard any of the songs before, it was an incredible experience. Joined by Alain Johannes, the trio ripped through an 80-minute set of heavy rock jams that evoked Cream, Led Zeppelin and other power trios of the past.
The band's self-titled album came out in November 2009 and was an immediate hit. The real secret weapon of the group was Jones, who not only played bass but also provided clavinet, piano and slide guitar. "New Fang" was the first single, but I was a big fan of "Mind Eraser, No Chaser," a total crusher that includes a vicious riff and catching backing vocals from Grohl.
"Run along, face lift/If it kills, I got news, it ain't a side effect/Call it a reject or/A fuel injected, type corrected, teenage obstacle/All I wanna do is have my mind erased/I'm begging you, pleading you, stop coma-teasing us all/Drug company, where's a pill for me?/I call it mind eraser, no chaser at all/On permanent leave of everything/Law abiding dick riding fun police, leave us alone/Dulling the edge of a razor blade/What does it mean when the knife and the hand are your own?"
Some critics wrote that the band just sounded like Queens of the Stone Again, but that was a lazy argument because the singer was the same. In reality, JPJ provided a different element that set the band apart.
"Give me the reason why the mind's a terrible thing to waste?/Understanding is cruel the monkey said as it launched to space/I know that I'm gonna be your dangerous side effect/Ignorance is bliss, until they take your bliss away."
Unlike QOTSA, which would dig into a riff until it reached its inevitable rocking conclusion, TCV was more about the immense power of the rhythm section: Grohl and Jones provided a thunderous backbone that pushed the music forward.
The album hit #12 on the Billboard 200 and the band played a bunch of festival shows before Grohl and Homme went back to their day gigs. There was talk of a second album, but as of 15 years later, there's been no indication that another TCV album is coming. The band did reunite in 2022 for two performances in London and Los Angeles as part of the tributes for late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, but it doesn't appear that more TCV music is in the offing anytime soon. But I suppose you never know, although Jones is 78 now and I can't image he has a whole lot of heavy rocking left in him. Still, the TCV album is an example of a supergroup that delivered the goods.
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