The Gracious Two, weekly live podcast with Chad Gracey Options

[dangum]

Chad Gracey and John Rotolo are starting a live weekly podcast.


http://instagram.com/p/Cw0RsfArbCu/

[JonSnow]

The rot between Ed and Taylor was always festering. 717 was a complete disaster sans the cover song. Gracey had mentioned that Taylor was not a team player in the reunion, just looking for a gravy train and negotiated in bad faith on set percentages. He basically did power of attorney like things and Ed was still bothered by the 2009 fiasco.

These songs were worked on what 9 years ago now….. scuttled for the shitty produced 717

Imo, I think Ed needs to get together with some musicians who are from his peer group and just go on a songwriting retreat or something with them somewhere. My first pick would be guys like the DeLeo brothers from STP. I don't know if they'd have time/willingness to do it and I don't know if they'd even gel together well, but that's the general idea. Maybe Emerson Hart of Tonic and Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra? Adam Duritz? Idk... friends/peers/people he can get into a real creative flow with.

Whatever Ed, Chad, Chad, and Pat are to each other now, you know as well as I do that the reason those first four albums were so great was because of the creative flow between those four. It wasn't about flashy Nuno Bettencourt-style guitar solos, Mike Portnoy-complicated drum solos, or Victor Wooten bass hooks. It was about great fucking songs. Even if 717 had the best production... those songs were mid at best. And Ed has far better in him than fucking mid-level songs. Where's the guy who wrote "Operation Tyranny"? Or "Top", "Iris", and "White, Discussion"?

He needs real creatives around him to bring that level of song out of him, not flash-as-fuck session musicians who, technically talented as they may be, don't like to venture too far outside of learned scales, familiar paradiddles, and simple ass time signatures. Like Master Yoda says, "you must unlearn what you have learned."

/my2cents

This post has been edited by JonSnow: Jul 19 2024, 9:18 pm