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Toto Covers Weezer's Hash Pipe

  • Published in News

Toto have recorded their personal interpretation of Weezer’s ‘Hash Pipe’.  The smoking rendition of the song is a direct response to the run-away success being witnessed globally for Weezer’s covers of the hits ‘Africa’ and ‘Rosanna’.

Toto’s guitarist Steve Lukather shares, “We were blown away at the response Weezer got doing our old songs.  They did a good job too, but we never saw hit records coming from it.  It was all started by a sweet 15-year-old girl named Mary. Then the ball started rolling.  They did two of ours and ‘Africa’ took OFF.  It seemed only right that WE - Toto did a version of one of their songs so we started digging around, listening to a bunch of their music, which I have grown to like a lot. My 30 something kids were flipped over Weezer recording two of our songs as they are fans and we picked ‘Hash Pipe’. The irony that we were smoking hash before these guys were alive was not lost on us, and the other is it has a killer melody and a great groove.  We wanted to do something that rocked.

We give you our version – with a little of our thing on it like they did their ' thing' to ours. It is an unlikely collaboration, but some of the best ones are unexpected. Thanks to Weezer, their manager Jonathan, and their fans as they have been really nice to us…and they didn't have to be. Now I guess we have to do some crazy mash up live someday. In the meantime, continued success.  Thanks to all and hope to meet someday.  Gratitude to the fans for embracing this fun little accident. Ours drops Aug 10th, and I hear KROQ is getting thousands of requests from the teaser we recorded the other day - who knew? Kudos to Steve Porcaro for running with this as the Producer."

Keyboardist Steve Porcaro offers, “Covering ‘Hash Pipe’ was an absolute blast. When I asked my neighbor, a huge Weezer fan which record we should cover, he rattled off about five of their biggest hits, but then he smiled and said ‘but there’s nothing like driving down the freeway at 80 miles an hour with ‘Hash Pipe’ cranked’.  That stuck with me when it came time to decide.”

Singer Joseph Williams cannot be reached at this time as he is too high on hashish, but previously when asked about ‘Hash Pipe’ shared simply, “Yeah.”

 

 

 

 

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Weezer – Weezer (The White Album)

  • Published in Albums

Opening The White Album I am overcome with that particular sense of apprehension that only putting on a new Weezer album can induce. Weezer's back catalogue is as mixed and unpredictable as it gets. It doesn't help that their fans are the most fickle people you will meet. They complain as much when Weezer experiment with their sound as when they don't. And all they really want is to recapture their lost youth and a particular era of music from the early to mid nineties.

The same could be said of the band themselves. Past attempts to recreate that sound have ended in failure,  and, after a dreadful run of albums in the noughties, a petition demanding that the band break up so not to damage their legacy any further.

There have been many 'returns to form' in the past two decades. After 2001's Green Album promised so much came Maladroit and Make Believe. 2008's Red Album divided opinion but was experimental, including songs written and sung by all four members of the group, and incorporated elements from other genres. The expectations for a creative revival were dashed swiftly and spectacularly by Raditude (2009) and Hurley (2010), respectively embarrassing and forgettable.

2014's Everything Will Be Alright in the End was hailed as another return to form. So one can only predict that the new album will be either forgettable or embarrassing if the same pattern emerges. Looking at the song titles, it's hard to escape the feeling that a group of middle aged men shouldn't be singing songs like ‘L.A. Girlz’, ‘Endless Bummer’, and ‘(Girl We've Got a) Good Thing’, Even if it’s ironic/ post-ironic/ fauxronic. The continuing state of arrested development can't be healthy for either the band or their fans. It is troubling that main songwriter Rivers Cuomo claims looking up local girls on Tinder as an inspiration for the album.

The good news is that it's not embarrassing. It's a bit of a grower. Cuomo has cited The Beach Boys so often as a major influence on the album that I expected ‘California Kids’ to be a cover but it’s their own tune. ‘Wind in Our Sails’ gets better with further listening. ‘Thank God for Girls’ is not as bad the title might suggest and is a fun, enjoyable romp with an emotional undertone. ‘(Girl We've Got a) Good Thing’ is the most explicit nod to The Beach Boys on an album that comes across more like the latter period Red Hot Chili Peppers than Brian Wilson.

‘Do You Wanna Get High?’ is as bad as the title suggests, bringing with it flashbacks of ‘We Are All on Drugs’ from 2005's Make Believe. ‘King of the World’ opens with some talkbox guitar and is a decent tune, if not a memorable one. ‘Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori’ starts with a nod to Nirvana, and Weezer’s musical roots. ‘L.A. Girlz’ is an awful dirge. It's like a punk-pop Beady Eye. There is supreme irony on the plodding tune when Cuomo demands in the chorus that the Girlz "Please act your age".

The piano lead ‘Jacked Up’ is much more interesting with Cuomo singing falsetto over a simple rhythm before the guitars return in the b-section building to a wonderful false crescendo. It's an unexpected twist on an otherwise predictable album; Weezer feint towards an explosive flurry of guitars only to reprise the gentle opening bars again. A little more of that imagination would have really benefitted this record.

In spite of its appalling title, ‘Endless Bummer’ is a great finish to the album. It's a mostly acoustic tune and when the electric guitars emerge to play some harmonies towards the end, they fit around the song rather than overwhelming it. The last two songs are the most un-Weezer-y on the album, the only ones that do not sound like a bunch of lads trying to be something they're not, and they are much better for it.

It seems a waste of talent for this band to simply be trying to repeat the same album that they did in their twenties. Even worse that they continue to fail at it. There are eleven songwriters enlisted from outside the band, which is surprising as there are two band members with no songwriting credits but proven ability in that department.

Weezer is a mixed bag (both the band and the album). Overall, there are some decent tunes on here. It’s not bad, just not great, but probably the first time Weezer have done two decent albums in a row for 20 years. Now that the slide in quality has been halted hopefully Weezer can find their form again.

The White Album is available via Amazon & iTunes.

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