I love SOAD... in the studio, I thought they sucked ass on SNL. My parents were watching it with me when I was visiting their house and when they were announced for BYOB I was like "Oh these guys are really good." Then they played and it was pure crap. Well, mom and dad they sound a lot better on their album...
Have listened to entire new album & it sounds nothing really like their 3 previous offerings. While it doesn't suck, it isn't amazing like Toxicity was the first time you heard it. I am sure I will love it after a few more spins. & I REALLY enjoyed Steal This Album....
mc mark, once you give Toxicity a good listen, check out their previous albums as already suggested. I guarantee you'll like them if you like Toxicity. Some of my choices from each album: System of a Down Suggestions Spiders - this song is a mixes a little melody with the edge they are known for. easily one of my favs Peephole P.L.U.C.K. Steal This Album Chic N Stew - catchy song that really sets the tone for this album Innervision Nuguns Mr. Jack - probably my fav from this album. "Put your hands up get out of the car. **** you pig!" Ego Brain Streamline - close second fav Listening to these again to pick out a few tracks. I stand by my previous recommendation to pick up Steal This Album after you get or even when you get Toxicity. You will not be disappointed.
I first heard them when I listened to "Chop Suey" off the Toxicity album. That song got me hooked. Their lead singer has incredible vocal range; it's pretty extraordinary. This is one band that knows how to rock out; their guitarists kick ass and they have a great drummer. My favorites: ATWA Chop Suey Sugar Bounce Deer Dance
I like System of a Down but....they look like they do a lot of drugs. Like, professional drug users that know every psychoactive drug known to man. 'Yeah man, I had a dream quest with the Piripkura, or 'Butterfly People' of the Amazon Rainforest. They have had no contact with white men in 150 years, but their shaman allowed me to transverse the metaverse with him for seven glorious nights. I had to be airlifted to the hospital after, but it was a lifechanging experience that everyone should try, man'
sounds like people i meet at campfires who tell me about burning man.. i still want to try qualuudes, mandrex, and datura.. i was hospitalized with kidney stones and had this stuff called dilaudid i had never heard of it and this stuff was the absolute sh*it
I listened to these over the past weekend. I was pretty excited when I heard there was new SOAD music...but I was a bit underwhelmed. I guess it can be hard to capture that same magic when it has been so long between working with people. Both of the songs sounded like lesser Steal This Album offerings, which is maybe my least favorite of their albums. Still, I'm glad they were willing to work together again and maybe it will turn into something a little more long term.
Agreed. Maybe it's not among the best but two songs and the band is better as a whole than in their solo efforts (Scars on Broadway, Serj Tankian, & John Dolmayan).
All things considered, their comeback isn't too bad. There's been bands who came back after a decade, crashed and burn critically and financially.
714’s were everywhere for a good long stretch. Your post reminded me of an article I ran across awhile back about Liberty Hall. I’ve posted it below. It mentions the Family Hand, were I used to eat, the Catacombs, a great club, and Love Street, where I went all the time. I did the light show at a dive right across the street from Love Street one summer. Just an incredible amount of great music was played at all those venues. I was lucky to be able to experience it. The reason your post made me think of Liberty Hall? I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band there for maybe $2. I was with a girl and waiting for the show to start when I ran into an old friend. The place was very noisy, of course, so after we greeted each other he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Open your mouth.” I said, “What is it?” as I opened my mouth. “714!” he replied as he dropped it in there. Then he put one in my hand, “For the chick. See you later!” Such great times. How I miss them. From The Houston Press: Live at Liberty Hall William Michael Smith APRIL 29, 2009 | 4:00AM As the bloom fell off hippiedom, Houston's musical landscape continued to evolve. Although clubs like Love Street Light Circus and the Catacombs became legendary, the fact of the matter was they had short lifespans. On March 4, 1971, Liberty Hall opened at 1610 Chenevert in a rapidly decaying area of Houston near where Toyota Center is today. While Liberty Hall would last only seven years, it became a storied venue. According to Mike Condray, one of the original owners, "In the late '60s, George Banks and I opened a psychedelic music venue called Jubilee Hall. That morphed into the Family Hand, a restaurant with live entertainment. "From there, Liberty Hall was founded in 1971 by Ryan Trimble, Lynda Herrera and I. It was Herrera who came up with the name." Built in the 1940s, the building was originally a church, but later became American Legion Post 391. "We opened with a rock 'opry' called The Earl of Rustin," Condray says, "an original stage show scripted by and starring Ragan and C.C. Courtney. It was a smash with Houston audiences and critics. It eventually garnered financing in Houston for a Broadway opening." Then the Hall swerved into six weeks of blues shows with the likes of Freddie King, Big Mama Thornton, Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker. "One of the Hall's historic moments occurred during that six-week blues series when we had the newly formed ZZ Top open for Willie Dixon and the Chess Records session band," Condray notes. "Billy Gibbons was so young and skinny, but he could already play." Liberty Hall found its true niche shortly thereafter: Emerging national acts would become its bread and butter. "Bruce Springsteen played his first Texas shows at the Hall in 1974," Condray recalls. "He sold out seven shows over four nights." Springsteen would later commemorate the venue in "This Hard Land," which appears on his 1995 Greatest Hits CD and 1998 box set Tracks: "Hey Frank, won't you pack your bags and meet me tonight down at Liberty Hall?" "The same thing happened with acts like Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffet and Jerry Jeff Walker," Condray notes. "We also booked Cheech & Chong, who sold out their four-night stand. Of course, tickets were only $2." Cheech & Chong also paid homage to Liberty Hall during the encore of their recent show at Verizon Theater, saying they not only loved playing the club, but that it was instrumental in their early success. Banks, who did the artwork for the 13th Floor Elevators album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye, decided not to invest in Liberty Hall because he was returning to architecture studies at the University of Houston, but he did paint the club's sign and was involved in printing tickets. "It was such a neat venue after our struggles operating Jubilee Hall and the Family Hand," Banks recalls. "We had people like Townes Van Zandt and Eric Taylor at Family Hand, but the space wasn't really made for music. Liberty Hall was proportioned just right and the stage and floors were wooden, so the sound was warm. It was a musician's dream." KPFT partnered with Liberty Hall to broadcast a series of "Live at Liberty Hall" shows. Many were bootlegged and are now for sale on the Web, including one of the 1974 Springsteen show. Liberty Hall seemed almost blind to genre, hosting acts like the Velvet Underground one week and Waylon Jennings the next. Ted Nugent, Tim Buckley, Roy Buchanan, Rory Gallagher and Bonnie Raitt all played the Hall; Jimmy Reed once joined Johnny Winter and his band for a show. Zydeco king Clifton Chenier played holiday dances and parties. Condray recalls one particularly amazing night. "In February 1973, the alt-country movement was very much in its infancy," he says. "It found some of its early roots at the Hall the night Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt sat in with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris." During that engagement, local songwriter Larry Sepulvado and his band the Sin City Boys gave Parsons and Harris some Sin City patches they had designed. Ronstadt requested a jacket and eventually wore it in a famous Annie Leibovitz photograph for Rolling Stone. "There were about 20 of us out there screaming in our Sin City jackets," recalls Sepulvado. The Hall also became a focal point for local progressive politics, hosting fund-raisers for politicians like future mayor Fred Hofheinz. "When the National Organization for Women held its first national convention at the old Rice Hotel, they chose Liberty Hall for a night out," Condray recalls. "Tracy Nelson sang, and leading feminists like Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and Sissy Farenthold also appeared onstage before network TV cameras that evening." By 1975, Condray saw the end approaching and left the ownership group. "We were in the low end of an increasingly competitive business and the neighborhood was just crumbling around us," he says. "I thought it was time to move on." The struggling venue closed for good in 1978 with a final hurrah by Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters. The building was converted into a twin-screen movie theater featuring Chinese films, but the movie house failed and the building was eventually demolished. Condray, though, is about to step back into the music business with a new venue off Highway 59 in Splendora. The name? Liberty Ranch. houstonpress.com
awesome story. if you can include year in context your stories are great. i assume early 70s.. where was the place? i missed that part. why doesnt some drug dealer type make 714?surely the blueprint is there. did you go to south main back in day? that area seemed bumping. did you go to rodeo in 70s? was that hype? seems like youve seen some great bands/ acts
