When Filter mainman Richard Patrick went into rehab in 2002, it marked the end of the industrial-rock band’s rad second line-up. That means it’s been about a decade since the Filter that made Title Of Record (super classic!) and The Amalgamut (epic!), and since then jeez I haven’t caught sight of Patrick’s old team like at all. Which is surprising, cuz drummer Steve Gillis is a stud (here) and guitarist Geno Lenardo co-wrote this phase of Filter’s biggest (here) and biggest-selling jamz (here).

Click to read more…

Remember when Scott Weiland’s drug use forced the ever-talented DeLeo brothers out of the spotlight during their prime years and they hired a guy that sounded just like Weiland to record under the moniker Talk Show? Me too. That was almost 14 (!!) years ago, and whilst going through my CD collection I took a little stroll down memory lane.

The whole Talk Show fiasco — which also included STP drummer Eric Kretz — happened a year after STP released Tiny Music… Song From the Vatican Gift Shop. If that album isn’t a favorite of yours (as it is mine, but, ya know, I get why if it’s not) it’s certainly the weirdest album of their catalogue… we can only speculate as to what would’ve happened if the DeLeos had been able to follow Tiny Music with another STP album right away instead of taking a break.

Click to read more…

I don’t think anybody with half a brain really ever believed that Scott Weiland was still sober. Sober people can take their coats off like a big boy, and Scott Weiland cannot. And sober people generally don’t fall off the stage and forget the words to, ironically, a song called “Dead and Bloated,” as their band mates exit the show “in apparent embarrassment and disgust.”

But that hasn’t stopped Scott Weiland from swearing up and down that he’s clean, and even writing a song about it.

So he probably feels at least a little embarrassed that STP bassist Robert DeLeo has now publicly admitted that Weiland is now “popping pills.”

Click to read more…

Amongst the more surreal moments of the Stone Temple Pilots’ show at the PNC Bank Arts Center this past Sunday – and there were many – was the band breaking into an extended jam of The O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” just prior to final encore “Dead and Bloated.” The moment was chock full of inadvertent gallows humor for two reasons:

1. It’s fairly clear that at some point in the past few months the DeLeo Brothers and Eric Kretz all got together and said “Fuck it, let’s just try to make as much money as possible before Weiland dies.”
2. “Dead and Bloated” is exactly the state in which someone unlucky will discover Weiland by the end of 2008.

Put more simply, Weiland – and STP – gave an unprofessional, sloppy, disorganized, sad, pathetic and embarrassing performance on Saturday night, seemingly fueled by little more than commerce and Weiland’s junk habit.

Click to read more…