So there’s not really a need for a site like this proof of that point is that even I don’t get my Tool info via toolshed anymore.
(Though to be sure, all the old setlists on setlist.fm and much of the research on Wikipedia were built from the work done on this site over the years.) And while Tool lyrics were originally available only here - as emailed to me from Maynard two decades ago - now your search results are saturated with lyrics sites. Today there’s obviously Wikipedia and Reddit and Twitter for everyone’s information needs, and they’re all faster and more interactive and more adept than an old-school website for breaking news. The site evolved into a meeting place for fans, but for years it was a one-way information source people would send in info, and I’d post it if verifiable. No info was available online about their biographies, their gear, even their tour dates. I was a college sophomore when I started up this site, so there may be some nice symmetry here as things wrap up here at The Tool Page.Īlso consider: back when toolshed started up, it was a central depository for information about a band who had kept information very close to the vest. (A collective “wow” from us older stalwarts). Or this: if you are a college sophomore now, you weren’t alive for the release of Ænima and the heyday of Undertow and the “Sober” video predate your conception. (Sidebar: does anyone else think that’s shorthand for “Ascending/Descending”?) Consider: Led Zeppelin released the first seven of their nine albums in a ten-year span. Only the live recordings of “A/Descending” signal any progress.
But with today’s inauspicious anniversary, plus with today’s web landscape, I think it’s clear that it’s time to close up shop.Īt this point, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at the situation objectively. I should have made some kind of site shutdown post years ago maybe after Tool Madness, which was the last full-scale project here at toolshed - in 2011! For a long time, I may have been holding out hope that a new record was just around the corner.
The Tour section hasn’t been updated for recent shows, either there wasn’t even a post announcing the 20-year anniversary of this site. Obviously this site has been pretty quiet for some time there’s only been one news post since 2012, and that was an April Fools joke. In light of this, I’ll take this opportunity to make an announcement (a long overdue one, and perhaps a foregone conclusion or a moot point by now):
Or put differently, “Tool has not put out any new music for a full decade.” In fact, going back to Ænima, Tool has released only two albums in the last 19.5 years. Today is the ten-year anniversary of the release of 10,000 Days in North America.