The monotony of the recording studio revealed
January 22, 2014 5:41 PM   Subscribe

Unedited, raw footage (warning: nearly 4 hours) presumably recorded by MTV in 1992 of Faith No More during their recording sessions for Angel Dust (full album yt). Including unedited interviews with Mike Patton, Jim Martin, and drummer Mike Bordin.
posted by mediocre (42 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
With the full story never really being told, it is interesting to see Mike Patton make an offhand remark about how "our guitarist" and how he seems to be hindering the more adventurous genre hopping of their later albums in favor of the funk metal of their breakout album, The Real Thing. Particularly since not long after the intial promotional appearances and touring for Angel Dust, he left or quit the band.
posted by mediocre at 5:44 PM on January 22, 2014


Man, when I was 16, THIS was my album.
posted by Cosine at 5:46 PM on January 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


When I was 12 this was my album. Now I'm 32. It's still my album.

My all-time favorite, thanks for this.
posted by mannequito at 5:50 PM on January 22, 2014


Personally, I was more of a fan of The Real Thing at the time. Since in the years before its release I mostly listened to hip hop and thrash metal, and The Real Thing was the first and still greatest album to fuse the two genres.

Though as I matured, I came to appreciated all their albums on some level. Still prefer listening to The Real Thing over any other though. It is also an album unlike any other that I am terribly aware of that so heavily frontloaded its track listing with singles. The first four tracks were all singles.
posted by mediocre at 5:52 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


As much as I am glad they went in 30 directions on this album, my favorite songs are Caffeine, Malpractice, and Jizzlobber (ESPECIALLY Jizzlobber) which are the songs that rely most heavily on their problematic guitarist.

Jim Martin also had his own thing going on sonically which I think was massively lacking in the later albums, as much as I dig Trey Spruance (sorry boutcha, John Hudson...)
posted by SharkParty at 5:54 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


My only complaint when I revisit the album these days is the drinking fountains. Much shorter than they used to be.
posted by mannequito at 5:57 PM on January 22, 2014 [7 favorites]


"Everything's Ruined" is desert island material, if not the whole album.
posted by Dark Messiah at 5:58 PM on January 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Caffeine, Malpractice, and Jizzlobber (ESPECIALLY Jizzlobber)

No love for Crack Hitler?
posted by Cosine at 6:01 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


No love for Crack Hitler?

I'm not a gigantic fan of the songs where Patton does a cartoon character... although that part in Bungle's "Violenza Domestica" when he goes "MIA.... MIAAA!!!" is pretty awesome.
posted by SharkParty at 6:04 PM on January 22, 2014


Crack Hitler was up there with those, for me, but I have to agree with SharkParty - JIZZLOBBER IS THE LOBBEREST OF ALL JIZZES OF ALL TIME!
posted by symbioid at 6:04 PM on January 22, 2014


First link, 3:05 - the story of the cat and the Nordstrom's bag ...

worth the price of admission.
posted by philip-random at 6:08 PM on January 22, 2014


Angel Dust was the first CD I bought after buying my first CD player (a single-disk Kenwood model that was somehow nonetheless full-component width and height... oh man) - for a long time it was literally the ONLY album I could listen to!
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 6:09 PM on January 22, 2014


I always love to hear stories about that, the very first CD a person owned. One of those things that if I curated something like The Moth I would do a theme show about.
posted by mediocre at 6:12 PM on January 22, 2014


Hmm... all those horrible "Limp" bands kinda ruined Jizzlobber for me.

Has there ever been a band as neat as FNM who inspired this amount of truly terrible bands.
posted by Cosine at 6:15 PM on January 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


I always love to hear stories about that, the very first CD a person owned.

Ditto, and AD was my 3rd cd, after Bob Wiseman Sings Wrench Tuttle and The Odds first album. Funnily enough I still love all three.
posted by Cosine at 6:17 PM on January 22, 2014


I love this album. Going to sit down and enjoy this.
posted by arcticseal at 6:32 PM on January 22, 2014


First link ... worth the price of admission.

Patton's whole one-on-one interview is golden. I can't tell if he is trolling the interviewer or not. Anyone paying attention to his career knows that he is a fan of disco and sentimental crooners, but hearing him talk about how much he loves Paula Abdul and "this group, these two giant English guys ... what's their ... all "I'm sexy" ... Right Said Fred! Thank you!" and the interviewer laughing nervously, unable to tell if he is being serious.
posted by mediocre at 6:33 PM on January 22, 2014


I remember buying this while on my first international vacation, to England. I paid some number of pounds for it, which came to about 1.5x the price I'd have paid in the States. All because I couldn't wait another day for their newest, since I considered The Real Thing to be the best album of all time. Like mediocre's comment, my brain wasn't quite ready for the harsh cuts and quick changes that came with Angel Dust. I listened to it over and over because I really wanted to like it, but it never equalled The Real Thing to me (still one of my all time faves). Once the Mr. Bungle album came out, and I could see Patton's direction, I thought it was moving away from what I liked so much about The Real Thing.
posted by Metro Gnome at 6:38 PM on January 22, 2014


Has there ever been a band as neat as FNM who inspired this amount of truly terrible bands.

cream - the three piece bands that followed them were legion and although some of them were good, many were quite horrible
posted by pyramid termite at 6:42 PM on January 22, 2014


I actually wonder how much Patton digs autechre and venetian snares and the like...
posted by symbioid at 6:42 PM on January 22, 2014


He's had some musicians who were vaguely in that ballpark on his label... Kid 606 and Mouse on Mars plus probably some others I'm blanking on.
posted by SharkParty at 6:50 PM on January 22, 2014


I love FNM and saw them MANY times... I lost track. I think I'm older than the average responder in this thread. But I've got to say, the FNM/Helmet/Ministry show I saw was pretty awesome. Don't know if I can watch 4 hours of behind the scenes video though.

But then there's Mr. Bungle - a whole other thing but whoa...
posted by blaneyphoto at 6:55 PM on January 22, 2014


I've only seen Faith No More once, but it was during the infamous Metallica/Guns And Roses co-headlining tour with FNM as openers. Amazing lineup. At the time, I think that Patton was trying to distance himself from the comparisons between him and Cole Dammet. I think that most of the people ever made the comparison did so only from label-mandated promotional material like the original video for From Out Of Nowhere, The Real Things first single in which Patton does a lot of Kiedis-esque stage moves.
posted by mediocre at 6:56 PM on January 22, 2014


You've been reading my blog.
posted by cog_nate at 7:01 PM on January 22, 2014


But I've got to say, the FNM/Helmet/Ministry show I saw was pretty awesome.

I saw FNM / Helmet but Ministry wasn't on the bill. It was great although it was in a grand old theater full of built-in seats which is rough for a heavy show.

I actually won tickets for all my friends by dominating a Faith No More trivia contest and that was ages before I even heard of the Internet. I can't believe I used to just know things offhand!
posted by SharkParty at 7:07 PM on January 22, 2014


I can't believe I used to just know things offhand!

Heh, I used to be the dude that all my friends called when trying to settle a bar bet or just some piece of trivia that was bugging them was bugging them since I was their Cliff Claven as it were. Before the ubiquity of smartphones, it was one of the defining characteristics of my place in our circle of friends. But then everyones phone had a web browser and I was made obsolete, just like email has so replaced the postal service for casual correspondence.
posted by mediocre at 7:12 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ooo, an excuse to tell the story of the coolest thing I'll ever do in my life.

Album of the Year tour, Vancouver. I'm an audio engineering student. I decided for some reason to head down to the venue early - I can't quite remember why now. Maybe it was the girlfriend thing (coming in a second) or maybe it was just the tail end of adolescent music obsession. Anyway, I'm down at the venue hours before the show, hanging out around the back, near the tour busses. Finally there's a sighting of the band, as they start emerging from the busses and start heading inside. Puffy is the most approachable, and I rush over to him and mumble some bullshit about studying audio engineering and could I please watch their soundcheck? I'm sure he knew it was a pretext, but he invited me inside.

And then I'm inside, and I'm sitting by the sound desk wondering how the hell I managed to pull this off. My girlfriend at the time was under the drinking age in Canada, so I asked Puffy to add her to the guest list. He says sure, no problem. I get bolder, and request, "As the Worm Turns". He's non-commital. He takes off, he has stuff to do.

I watch Mike Patton play with someone's dog from across the room. We worshipped Mike Patton at the time; I mean to an embarrassing degree. He was the pinnacle of cool. And there he is, and there's no one between me and him, and ... I'm just going to sit here. The moment passes.

And I'm worried that Bordin is going to forget to add my girlfriend to the guest list. So I'm trying to figure out how to check up on that, and now here's a moment where Billy Gould is standing by himself. So I scoot over and kind of blurt out my concern, and he just latches onto the mention of Puffy, and is all, "Oh, Mike's backstage, go talk to him."

My friends, I chickened out. I had already asked Mike about it twice; I didn't want to annoy him. I just wanted to find the actual guestlist or someone in the know to make sure it had been passed on. Here I am with permission from a member of Faith No More to go backstage, and I pass.

I go back to my seat by the sound desk. Out comes Mike Patton again, and he walks over to a table across the room from where I am, and it looks like he's meeting someone to give an interview. And ... it's fuckin' Gord, man. I know the guy! Here I am, feeling like I've been hoovered up into some alien world, completely foreign to me, and the last thing I expect to see is someone I know. Gord's in my audio engineering program, and he's over there, interviewing Mike Patton - our hero.

And I'm thinking about summoning the courage to go talk to Mike, and I'm running variations on what I might actually say to him. And I was granted a moment of clarity, thankfully, where it hit me: there's nothing you can say to him that will matter to either of you. You will sound like an idiot, and he won't be interested. That's the only outcome. That's the only place this will end.

I'm keeping an eye on Gord and Patton while I'm thinking this through, and I see the interview is winding up. Gord shuts off his tape recorder, they stand and shake hands.

And I run over

and

ignore Mike Patton. Mike Patton is standing one foot away from me and I talk to motherfuckin' Gord. Like, "Hey, man, what the hell are you doing here?!" And in my peripheral vision I see Mike look at Gord, and look at me, and sort of shrug to himself and walk away.

It was brilliant.

And Natalie got on the guest list and they played As the Worm Turns. (typing this out now, I think I asked Billy to play ATWT, actually, when I approached him about the guest list). And I can't say for certain that they played it for me, but I did read online after the show somewhere that they played it because some guy requested it, so it seems like a reasonable assumption. I'm some guy.

But so also:

Because life is complicated ... I also did a horrible thing that night. And I could just tell the first story and not the other but I guess I feel the need to own the horrible bit as much as I can.

So because I got let in the back and never left, and because Natalie got guest-listed, neither of us needed our tickets, and we sold them, which was an added bonus to this unbelievable day I was having.

But the thing is: I had a friend who came downtown without a ticket in the hopes of somehow getting in. And I can't remember the precise chronology so I'm not quite sure how culpable to feel, but my recollection is that it after I had given a friend our two tickets to take back out and sell, but before they had been sold, it was relayed to me that Shane was outside, hoping somehow to see the show. And I think, to my shame, I made the decision that I'd rather get the money for selling the tickets than give one to him.

I think the truth is it was a bit more complicated than a decision of $45 vs. giving Shane a ticket. I think it was all relayed to me; I was told Shane was outside and I was inside and someone else was outside with the tickets and it was so easy to just do nothing and let the tickets be sold and be up $90. That is, I don't think I chose so much to act selfishly so much as I chose not to act which just happened to have selfish bonus effects. And I know now that while those things feel different in the moment, they aren't in effect distinct at all.

And maybe I'm misremembering. Maybe it was too late.

But I think I made a shitty choice for $45 and Shane, I'm so goddamn sorry I didn't do everything I could to get you in that show. It's not worth much but I don't think I will ever make a similar mistake.

(lastly, after proofing: Puffy apologized to me later for being burned out and tired and not much fun. It was like, "Fuck, are you kidding? I'm having the best time ever.")
posted by neuromodulator at 7:16 PM on January 22, 2014 [14 favorites]


(Bonus story from the same venue: I saw Portishead there and ended up having an extended conversation with Geoff Barrow over the barricade and a bouncer came over to shoo me away, and Geoff was like, "No, no, he's cool," and I didn't hear anything he said after that because I was just thinking, "I can legit claim Portishead thinks I'm cool.")
posted by neuromodulator at 7:22 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh man. I just realized that people on classic MTV look young to me know.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:31 PM on January 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Has there ever been a band as neat as FNM who inspired this amount of truly terrible bands.

I read a gig review of Faith No More after one of their Australian shows; "If someone has to do bombastic stadium rock, thank God it's Faith No More."
posted by Jimbob at 7:44 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Blaneyphoto, we may be in the same age range. I had opportunity to see FNM many times, and they were always the shit live. My friends who loved them on "The Real Thing" didn't have as much affection for "Angel Dust," while for me it was the better album and sealed my lifelong adoration of their music. Patton really came into his own, the songs are brilliant and devious, and it feels like a full band effort. I don't even think I could pick a favorite. "Caffeine"? "Midlife Crisis"? "RV"?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:50 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


This year I was at the airport in Rio de Janeiro when I became aware of a chilling voice that had been familiar to me since high school, saying, "Virig, flight 810 to Miami now boarding." I froze.

Wait, was that the Reagan voice from "Crack Hitler"?

I looked it up and discovered it was not Mike Patton imitating Reagan and had never been. Instead Faith No More had come to this same airport many years ago and sampled the most captivating voice in the world.
posted by steinsaltz at 8:08 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


sampled the most captivating voice in the world.
I like how in the transcript it can't decide on a spelling for her name. There's like, three different spellings.
posted by Redfield at 8:40 PM on January 22, 2014


Has there ever been a band as neat as FNM who inspired this amount of truly terrible bands.

Ha! Yes, totally guilty here, but not because I started a nu-metal band. This album made me learn how to play accordion.

Angel Dust was released when I was in high school, and it opened my ears to a lot of music; Kronos Quartet and Shostakovich, pentatonic and hijaz scales, etc. But the covers of Midnight Cowboy* and Let's Lynch the Landlord (released on the EP Songs to Make Love to) made me decide that I should try out the accordion, there was something about that sound that fascinated me. One day, I was talking to a musician friend of my parents, and told him that my favorite band used accordion on a couple of songs, and I thought it was a pretty cool instrument. He told me that he happened to have an accordion that he found at a garage sale, and he wasn't really playing it very much, and he would sell it to me for the same price he paid. It was incredibly generous and encouraging of him to do that.

So I got the accordion, and the first song I learned on it was Midnight Cowboy, repeating the melody on the right hand over and over as I struggled to get the coordination to play the chords on the left hand, and I eventually became a professional accordionist, and wow, that was 20 years ago.


*I later found out that Patton used a melodica, which would have been so, so much easier to learn, but at that point the die was already cast.
posted by Benjamin Nushmutt at 9:08 PM on January 22, 2014 [9 favorites]


They did inspire a bunch of shit bands. You can also hear stuff like Cardiacs and Killing Joke and Magazine in their own influences.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:56 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, I know this is a love-in for the band, but I've always wondered about their appeal. I heard them the same time all this other contemporaries were coming up thru the 90s and they always sounded so weak.

Even that hit that everyone knows was inscrutable to me. It surprises me that they are one of the bands remembered so fondly from the era.

No accounting for taste, I guess.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:18 AM on January 23, 2014


These guys don't hold up for me but I loved The Real Thing when it came out. I saw them at UEA in Norwich, England on Feb. 6, 1990 at the 1500-seat student auditorium and they were great. Three days later I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers in the same room ... crazy. I had been to a lot of metal/thrash shows by that time but if I remember correctly the RHCP show had the most stage-diving I've seen before or since. Basically a continuous stream of people leaping into the crowd for most of the set. A couple months later I saw Notting Hillbillies there and got to talk to Mark Knopfler, who told me to keep up the guitar playing and signed an album for me. Great year abroad ... also saw Hawkwind there. Oh, and the week after RHCP (Feb. 18) I saw Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter!!

Looks like the whole venue gig history is available online (scroll down).
posted by freecellwizard at 7:02 AM on January 23, 2014


Instead Faith No More had come to this same airport many years ago and sampled the most captivating voice in the world.

Possibly when they played Rock in Rio 2 in 1991, unfortunately the only time I've been able to see them and when they started playing NKOTB's Hangin' Tough in the middle of Epic.

Anyway, thanks for the post! I love their first two albums and this is a great window into their process.
posted by goo at 9:28 AM on January 23, 2014


To be fair Angel Dust is a pretty monotonous album, and Mike used to work the cash register at The Works record store in Eureka so he shouldn't complain.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:35 AM on January 23, 2014


You guys, I thought I was pretty much the only person in the world who loved Angel Dust. This post has warmed my ageing heart.

All of my friends at the time were listening to, like, Erasure and Depeche Mode and which was fine but discovering FnM and the idea of ANGRY music was a revelation for me. The Real Thing was also great, but the chaotic weirdness of Angel Dust was probably my first big exposure to .. the idea of an album as art, I guess.

I know what I'm listening to now!
posted by jess at 10:49 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Shit, I can't believe I forgot this Faith No More related anecdote. They were playing, Angel Dust tour, at University of Oregon in Eugene where I lived as a kid. It was either at an 18+ venue, or I couldn't afford to go or something, I can't remember. The day of the show, me and a friend went to a local arcade/pool hall that we frequented and there was a dude that looked EXACTLY like Jim Martin (glasses and all) hanging out with someone else we didn't recognize. Could have been a roadie, could've been the bassist, I don't know. We weren't sure, and didn't want to bug the man anyhow. So we played a couple Faith No More songs on the jukebox to see if there would be a reaction, my friend picked Midlife Crisis. I picked Epic. I distinctly remember this fellow who may or may not have been Jim Martin sort of sullenly shaking hid head as if to say "no" when Midlife Crisis played. And then after Master Of Puppets, my pick of Epic played and probably-Jim-Martin looked at us looking at him, smiled and laughed and nodded and said "Fuckin' A."
posted by mediocre at 12:29 PM on January 24, 2014


Christ, I just looked up the poster for that show I missed. Faith No More, Babes In Toyland, and Kyuss. I could kill myself for not sneaking into that show knowing that lineup.
posted by mediocre at 12:36 PM on January 24, 2014


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