Faith No More: Angel Dust v. The Real Thing

Album of the Year is rad.

Listened to Angel Dust for the first time in years today and its a really great album.

yes

Can't be overstated. Perfect marriage of weirdness and pop catchiness.

I will never tire of Angel Dust.

http://youtu.be/Gx34APCro-U

The Real Thing also contains some songs I don't dig on; Falling to Pieces is way up on that list. It has the distinct advantage however, of containing one of my favorite fifty-percents of an album this side of Abbey Road. Starting with the title track and moving on through Underwater Love, The Morning After, Woodpecker From Mars and War Pigs. I go pretty nuts whenever I hear this. I'm going to go listen to it now.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Thursday, January 3, 2008 7:49 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Been so long since I've listened to this. Do people around here even recognize the greatness of the song The Real Thing?

I listen to Angel Dust all the time, still, and have for so many years. just a stone cold classic. Real Thing is great too, particularly Falling to Pieces. But I never warmed to any of the later albums.

The rare random band my wife and I equally love. And by "band" I mean these two records. Equally.

I don't remember ever starting this thread.

Angel Dust still my fav. Still love The Real Thing.

"Land of Sunshine" is such a perfect album opener.

Been so long since I've listened to this. Do people around here even recognize the greatness of the song The Real Thing?

― beachville, Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:49 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark

probably my fav track on the album actually

Yeah, The Real Thing is fabulous. Angel Dust is my favourite. King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime, with a bit of editing, could have been up there too.

this is a tough one because angel dust was v challenging for me as a middle school student and did a lot to broaden my musical mind

but on balance i think real thing kills it, there is not a bad track on there whereas it is easy for me to pick out flaws in individual angel dust tracks

angel dust has aged a lot better. i'll still rock out to the real thing but i don't know how i'd feel about it if i heard it for the first time now.

angel dust, no question. much more ambitious and largely successful.

patton still has that super-nasal thing going on the real thing too. was never too into that.

that's how i feel about the cookie monster voice songs on angel dust

I think "Angel Dust" may be "better" and more "ambitious," but I would be lying if I claimed I actually liked it more for those reasons. My honest response remains that I like both equally.

if there is one song that tips Angel Dust over the edge to me, it's "Kindergarten". jesus christ that song. the moods, the keyboards, the chorus, the staccato vocals.

i could listen to that shit on loop forever. and the guitar harmonies at the end is like...climax

the "Held back again" vocals always give me chills.....

this album I bought when I was 19 when I had started antidepressants for the first time and that combined with the sometimes depressive vibe the album gives off used to just fuck with my mood. once I got past that personal baggage this thing just wouldn't leave my player

Yeah, this was one of a handful of albums (alongside Badmotorfinger, Dirt, Psalm 69, the first Mr. Bungle, etc.) that were way too good at feeding my fourteen-year-old depressive moods and that I listened to way too much and that I've just in the last few years started learning how to approach without those associations.

listening to badmotorfinger is like being beaten with a sack of very tired led zeppelins

Tomahawk's first record is the perfect encapsulation of what Faith No More ended with, I don't think Patton's done another record quite like it. Love "Angel Dust" particularly " Jizzlobber".

I think Tomahawk's most recent album is very good, the most stripped-down and straightforward thing Patton's done for a decade plus.

Damn, forgot all about "Oddfellows". That is a great record!

King for a Day secretly has it over both of these records imo

I've tried so many times in the years since that album came out, but I'm still not hearing it. So I guess it's just a really, really well kept secret.

last time i listened to king for a day i realized it must've singlehandedly invented incubus

I'm with JiC on this one

King for a Day is great but the benefits of having Spruance are also a hindrance in that he brings more of the genre-splicing of Bungle into the mix. Which isn't bad, but "Star AD" and "Evidence", while I love both, are kinda kitschy in a way that Angel Dust isn't.

There aren't really even any songs I dislike from it, but I enjoy the highs of Angel Dust more.

(though there is "Midnight Cowboy" and "RV", so.....)

King for a Day secretly has it over both of these records imo

― Whiney G. Weingarten

The issue with KotD is that it crosses over into simple genre parody too often, which is less interesting no matter how well done those parodies might be. On Angel Dust it's more like each individual song combines several genres to create something original. The more enduring songs on King for me are the ones that attempt that, such as the title track, Ricochet and Last to Know. Something like Evidence is fun and very listenable, but not as exciting as their more experimental hybrid tracks.

*KfaD, I think I'm getting it mixed up with Match of the Day.

yah I don't get the criticism of KFAD here it's a perfect record

Album of the Year is also a really satisfying listen.

Much of KFAD is very good but too often it's like Patton and Spruance weren't quite finished purging their Bungle-fied juvenilia. While Album of the Year isn't as good an album overall as KFAD, it's more consistently good (and I might go so far as to say that FNM, as much as I love them, never put out an album as consistently good as California).

(I was writing that before I saw the previous post, so I guess discussing Album of the Year was just the logical next step in this convo.)

California and Angel Dust are my only two serious contenders for best Patton album.

Everyting on AotY is at least decent, but it only has three of four really great tracks.

Mit Gas is the next runner up imo

I'm impressed by all these different viewpoints.

Many People Have Different Perspectives on Mike Patton's Recorded Output: Should You Be Afraid?

Let's gossip: I think it's fucked up how Mike treated Trey at the end of Mr. Bungle.

I think I'd be more afraid if everyone was in agreement re: FNM, Tomahawk, Peeping Tow, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Lovage, solo, Zorn stuff, et al. They're sort of designed to defy consensus.

+ all the Secret Chiefs stuff + live shows post California is much better than anything Patton has done.

Hey Kurt - how did Mike treat Trey? curious...

Favourite Patton:

Mr. Bungle - California - Would kill to see a documentary on this illuminating the weird tape methods they used.
Mondo Cane - S/T
Fantomas - Suspended Animation
Faith No More - Angel Dust

King For a Day... is my favourite FNM album at this stage.

The story goes: Mike wouldn't talk to Trey directly and wanted all communication go through Greg W, former Jello Biafra/AT biz dude and the guy Patton founded Ipecac with. Trey didn't want to do business through Greg and wanted to do things like they always have (they are all childhood friends). This caused a huge fight and Mike, when asked about the future of Mr. B in Rolling Stone, said some pretty mean shit about Trey.. he is a self centered egomaniac or something. Trey handled it in the press with much more class.

Trey: As time wears on you find out who your friends are, and who they aren't. Mike and I always had the best working relationship imaginable. Really, very very good and fruitful. There are other things in life we see differently. I don't think those things are irreconcilable at all. But when you get used to having things your own way, and certain people around you resist the "natural order" of becoming subordinate to you, you may start nursing resentments. Even lashing out at them and calling them egomaniacs etc. for not assuming the position. I think in my case it was too painful for Patton to realize that where there are no subordinates there is no insubordination. Like most of us, Mike tends to begin the process of deciding whether or not he can afford to discard a person's point of view altogether, rather than facing certain difficult facts of life. So to answer your question, there was never any big mess between he and I specifically. The general dysfunction coming from being expected to silently endure more and more of this emerging top-down/top-dog order-barking thing he'd taken to just ended up getting really tiresome for everyone involved. In a band, strong personalities need to know where to draw the line on this kind of stuff. Anyway, since it wasn't going to happen, I was the idiot who started to draw that line. I admit I had more emotional involvement in the process than would be neccesary for a non-robot, having poured comparatively ridiculously copious doses of my blood into the project. Patton's subsequent resentment towards me is a fairly predictable outcome. You don't stand up to him and stay off the shit-list. A bummer, yeah, but its essentially a self-protecting reflex action - something I don't really feel a need to hold against him too much. He has his way. It won't change. And after all why should it? This method works well for him overall -- who am I to question it? I dare say it's even part of his charm. (we are a nation of pathological narcissists after all!). Whatever. Really, I feel fondly about the time we spent making music together, and feel we did some great things. And, while I am diametrically opposed to it on a human level, over time I do appreciate the clarity of his cut and dry approach: how black and white it makes things. You're either in the club, or out of the club. Unfortunately, I have to say I do prefer life as an excommunicate from that kind of 'friendship'. I know he prefers it that way too. I'm sure both of us would agree it was a good run, though.

Patton: “We could have probably squeezed out a couple more records but the collective personality of this group became so dysfunctional, this band was poisoned by one person's petty jealousy and insecurity, and it led us to a slow, unnatural death. And I'm at peace with that, because I know I tried all I could.”

To be honest I would not know whose side to take on that without more inside knowledge - they both say more or less the same thing about the other in different ways (Trey somewhat more magnaminously, granted).

it's definitely one of those "i wasn't there, i don't know" things for me, and they've worked together since then anyway.

Thanks for sharing that Kurt. Secret Chiefs rule hard live...it's a shame the only time I've seen Patton was Peeping Tom which was like the diluted version of everything that makes Patton good.

Only time I've seen Patton was in 96 with FNM, should probably keep it that way.

I've never gotten into Mr. Bungle, despite loving Faith No More and Zorn/Naked City. I just don't like Bungle's players that much.

Patton ended the show by simulating giving a blow job to the microphone for the last minute then just walked offstage.

The ultimate Mike Patton story is the one about the Farriss brothers from INXS ringing him to ask if he wanted to be their frontman for their upcoming tour. He replied that he would do it on one condition . . . that he be allowed to re-enact Hutchence's death on stage every night.

As for FNM themselves, listened to them a fair bit back in the day (early 1990s) because I had a friend at the time who was hugely into them, but I'd imagine a lot of it hasn't dated too well.

but I'd imagine a lot of it hasn't dated too well

IDK. Every now and then I go back to the hits and I find it surprising how well they hold up. That combination of erasure + funk metal should be a train wreck but the way they embrace every hook that's available is really overwhelming. Really, they overwhelm you with hooks.

I've never gotten into Mr. Bungle, despite loving Faith No More and Zorn/Naked City. I just don't like Bungle's players that much.

You've listened to California right? Far and away their most cohesive (and least frenetic) album. One of my two fave Patton records, along with Angel Dust.

I saw them live in September of 1992 (with Helmet opening) and they were great - I remember them playing Europe's "The The Final Countdown" as they came on stage and all ran around doing calisthenics and my cousin fulfilled his dream of crowd surfing while they played "RV".

I've listened to KFAD and AOTY again for the first time in ages and they still don't do much for me - not terrible or anything, they just feel lackluster compared to the previous two and are kind of boring. It turns out I really like Jim Martin's big dumb riffs and that feels absent in both of these which feel more generic-metally to me, or sound more like Mr. Bungle in a way that I didn't want from my FNM records.

xpost I haven't listened to California since it came out, and I saw them on that tour. I remember it being kind of lounge music? Sort of more the direction of some of other Mike Patton's other projects. That is to say, I don't remember much of a metal or noise aspect to it.

California is fucking fantastic. it has "Retrovertigo", which is a weird power ballad. "Sweet Charity" does have kind of a seaside feel, but it's a great song.

there are definitely heavy moments on it. it's just less experimental than Disco Volante, but that's a relative statement. it was one of my favorite albums of that year.

To say it has a loungy feel is fair, but the dark weirdness is still there, albeit more subtly than on previous albums. Kind of a Blue Velvet vibe.

I just don't remember it at all, any more than I remember Lovage or Tomahawk (both of whom I saw live as well). However, I did like Fantomas, that scratched the weird metal itch for me.

Be interesting to hear your reaction if you do decide to listen to it again.

Listening to it now, and enjoying!

Didn't the KDAF era have a song called 'I Wanna Fuck Myself'?

this was a GG Allin cover version, and a good one at that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3vx8u7k6Rc

Speaking of Patton and (intentional) assholery, per the INXS anecdote (whether or not it is real). I remember hearing about them having a miserable time opening for GNR in Europe, culminating (supposedly) with Patton taking a shit into Axl's stage shoes or something.

(LOL it was supposedly not his stage shoes but into his orange juice carton! And the FNM camp has denied it, so oh well.)

Though I did find this catalog of him pooping and peeing on or in everything. True or not, esp. from a famed bullshitter, it's certainly ... gross.

http://www.faithnomorefollowers.com/2017/02/diary-of-shit-terrorist.html

I fell into some sort of wikipedia worm hole and didn't know that three members of the band were a third - Preston Lea Spruance III, Roswell Christopher Bottum III, and Charles Henry Mosley III.

I guess that's why they called him Tre

I've never gotten into Mr. Bungle, despite loving Faith No More and Zorn/Naked City. I just don't like Bungle's players that much.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 25, 2019 9:49 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah, see I'm something of a Trevor Dunn superfan, so it's the opposite for me (I really like Spruance too)

I still can't believe Jim Martin was in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

Station!

The ultimate Mike Patton story is the one about the Farriss brothers from INXS ringing him to ask if he wanted to be their frontman for their upcoming tour. He replied that he would do it on one condition . . . that he be allowed to re-enact Hutchence's death on stage every night.

― does it look like i'm here (jon123)

i feel like patton was just really into autoerotic asphyxiation

he also wrote that song "dead goon" for the first mr. bungle album

the only song from "angel dust" i have still in my library is "malpractice", i don't know if anybody ever talks about it but i listened to the whole album at some point between 2009 and 2016 and that song stood out as the highlight

Speaking of Patton and (intentional) assholery, per the INXS anecdote (whether or not it is real). I remember hearing about them having a miserable time opening for GNR in Europe, culminating (supposedly) with Patton taking a shit into Axl's stage shoes or something.

Patton's big thing back then was what he referred to as "shit terrorism". Find a hairdryer in someone's hotel room, take a dump in it, screw the front back on, then carnage would ensue the next time somebody switched the hairdryer on.

A very odd man.

Yeah, I became much less enamored of him as a personality the more stories like this I heard.

I posted a link to a full catalog of his tall tales. which may in fact be just that, bullshit.

It can't be a coincidence that the bands he is always accused of feuding with, like guns n' roses or the red hot chili peppers, seem like the biggest assholes of all time.

Has to be full of it cos most of those would be arrestable offenses

Good point, rock bands would never do anything illegal on the road.

Difference between "trashing a hotel room" and "giving someone an e coli infection".

Dave Matthews hasn't recovered from dumping shit and piss on innocent bystanders

And then there was the Chicago River Incident

Replacements used to put a dead fish in hotel ice dispensers, iirc. And God knows where they peed.

Speaking words of wisdom....