{"id":3069,"date":"2005-06-01T12:08:46","date_gmt":"2005-06-01T16:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3069"},"modified":"2022-10-09T17:16:05","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T21:16:05","slug":"in-rambling-praise-of-dave-grohl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3069","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Dave Grohl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sadly, I am not as articulate about Dave Grohl as my siblings are. We all make up a passionate Dave Grohl fan club, but they can talk about the intricacies of his drumming in a way I cannot do. Brendan was into Nirvana before anybody else (you know, he was into Bleach<\/i> and Incesticide<\/i>) – his story of hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blasting through an enormous Virgin Records store in Paris<\/a> is one of my favorites of all of his tales.<\/p>\n

I’ve always had this weird overly emotional response to Dave Grohl.<\/p>\n

All I know is, I watch him thrashing about at the drums, and occasionally I get this weird lump in my throat. Why? Maybe because of the sheer joy in his every movement onstage. That joy is hard-won. <\/p>\n

If you listen to the Foo Fighters, one of the overwhelming impressions I get of the music is that of JOY. Joy in making music, sure, but also music that makes you want to get up and dance, thrash about, make out. “The Colour and the Shape” is the kind of record that you must play in the car, in the summer, with the windows cranked down, cups of ice coffee in the holders, hair whipping in your eyes, as you drive to the beach for a long day in the sun and surf. The Foo Fighters are not “heavy”, or “deep”. You might expect Dave Grohl to be harder <\/i>than that, more reserved because of all the chaos of Nirvana and Cobain’s death. On the contrary. The Foo Fighters burst onto the scene with such exuberance, such exciting melodies, good old LOUD rock and roll, with such a sense of teenage joy and release. <\/p>\n

Dave Grohl said, about “Up in Arms” on Colour and the Shape<\/i> (and I paraphrase, sorry, can’t remember where I first read it): “I just love the image of two teenagers making out on the beach listening to that song.”<\/p>\n

No pretensions! No “I am deep and tormented.” Just a flat-out expression of what music can be, and what, essentially, it is. Especially to teenagers.<\/p>\n

Dave Grohl was in a different place in his life when he was in Nirvana. Stoner slacker hippie boy suddenly became an enormous rock star. He doesn’t speak of it much, but when he does, the main impression you get is of a whirlwind. White-hot light, insanity, frenzy, everything moving so fast …<\/p>\n

It was nuts. They didn’t just hit it huge, they exploded. Nevermind<\/i> mania, mayhem, chaos, fame … It was CRAZY. <\/p>\n

Tori Amos, relatively unknown at the time of the release of Nevermind<\/i>, but starting to play small clubs with her own brand of weird non-radio-friendly music (at the time) … tells the story of being on tour. She had recorded Little Earthquakes<\/i> but it hadn’t come out yet. This was pre-Alanis, pre-Fiona Apple. There wasn’t really a place for Tori Amos in the scene yet. She knew that, but she had decided to go for it anyway. She had never fit in anywhere anyway. So anyway, she’s on this little tour, and she’s in Iceland. And she’s listening to the radio, and suddenly, she hears the most extraordinary song. Nirvana didn’t re-invent the wheel, there were a ton of bands starting up this new sound, going back to basics up in the Pacific Northwest. Soundgarden, Mudhoneys, Pearl Jam … I like them all. But … none of them wrote a song that sounds like “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. “Smells like Teen Spirit” LANDED in the populace like a bomb, that sat there for a second at everyone’s feet, before exploding. It’s an interesting phenomenon. It might be partly marketing, but I hesitate to put the entire chaos that erupted at the sound of that particular song onto genius marketing and a kick-ass video. It was the song ITSELF that landed. Anyway, Tori Amos said she was listening to the radio – and she heard “Smells like Teen Spirit” for the first time … and she suddenly knew. She was far away from America, she was far away from “the biz” but she knew, with the sound of that song, that her time had come. It was the kind of song that swept away the 10 years of radio music that had come before. It breathed a life and a freedom into the radio (for a time) and she knew that that new breath of life would open up a space for her as well. (She ended up recording a slow version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, her tribute to that moment.) <\/p>\n

Nirvana was THAT kind of band. There can only be ONE of that kind of band, at one moment in time. <\/p>\n

Of course, Nirvana culminated with Kurt Cobain blowing his brains out.<\/p>\n

After that, nothing was heard of any of them for a while. It was “The day the music died …” Grohl and Novoselic dropped off the face of the earth. Courtney Love took center stage, in her grief-struck in-need-of-anger-management ways. (I actually like her a lot. And Celebrity Skin<\/i> is a very good album.)<\/p>\n

And then an amazing thing happened. Grohl emerged a couple of years later, with this new band called The Foo Fighters. But here was the really<\/i> incredible thing (in lieu of the fact that Nirvana was all about the songs of Kurt Cobain <\/i>– songs which are undeniably great): Dave Grohl was the songwriter for FF. AND – he played the guitar<\/i>, not the drums. Those of us who loved and missed Nirvana were like, What??<\/i> And his singing! Listen to that singing!<\/p>\n

My favorite thing about Dave Grohl is how he screams ON KEY. Nobody screams like Dave Grohl. Okay, maybe Paul McCartney can. I have probably listened to “Monkey Wrench” well over 1000 times. And I never get over the thrill of hearing Dave Grohl scream the way he does at the end. <\/p>\n

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