Reviews > Scott Weiland
Scott Weiland: Doing What He Wants To Do (And Finally, It’s Not Heroin)
By Johnny Firecloud
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Washed up rocker drowning in his own excess? A middle-aged Axl disciple gone astray? One of the last great rock stars? Whatever you call him, Scott Weiland is a chameleon of many shades, and proves it in spades with Happy In Galoshes, his second solo effort. Despite being a notorious slave to the vein and having been fired from two chart-topping, Grammy-winning, platinum-selling bands for being a fuckup and a diva, the serpentine vocalist marches onward with the cocky swagger of John Holmes at a nude beach. As usual, it suits him well.
Weiland’s first solo offering, 1998’s 12 Bar Blues, got a bad rap- and rightfully so- it’s a goddamned mess. But there’s a pained, delicate elegance to it that still resonates after all these years. It’s a beautiful mess, shrouded in a haze of dependance. And damned if we don’t just love our fucked-up rock stars.
So where does that leave us? Well, put simply, Happy In Galoshes is a ridiculous album, but that’s not altogether a bad thing. It’s a chemistry-set explosion of artistic self-indulgence that proves the troubled singer is much better off the junk. I’ve got no idea if he’s actually dropped the needle or not, and this recent Rock The Vote PSA seems to indicate the latter. But Galoshes has the presentation and even keel of a stone sober album. It’s dynamic and more than a little fascinating, the sound of a man who’s climbed all the mountains and couldn’t be less interested in making a market splash anymore.
“There’s no rules, I don’t have to worry about radio playing it,” Weiland recently said in an interview. “At my age, I just do what I wanna do. There’s art and there’s commerce, and I’ve already accomplished the commerce part of my career.” Sellable sex rock it’s certainly not, and many a Velvet Revolver / Stone Temple Pilots fan will surely step right back out of these Galoshes, none the happier for it. But Weiland’s dedication to songwriting and arrangement is profoundly more colorful than its decade-old predecessor. He takes sharp lefts right out of the gate with the forgettable Brit-pop love jam Missing Cleveland. To be honest, it sounds like shit, and is a discouraging opener on an album I’ve already got an eyebrow cocked for. But I didn’t expect to like it all- this is definitely a Baskin Robbins type of record.
The production, done by Weiland and Doug Grean (Velvet Revolver, Sheryl Crow, Crystal Method) with select tracks by Steve Albini, sounds mostly raw and naked, serving Weiland’s supposed newfound clarity well. Killing Me Sweetly is actually a pretty fantastic slow jam- a soft cello under spanish sunset guitars and a sweet, loving melody. Big Black Monster is, somehow, more Gnarls Barkley than Weiland. There’s not a shade of STP or Axl’s old band to be found here.
It’s clear that Weiland’s riding his own wave this time around, playing with all kinds of fucked up colors and ending up on the impersonation side of the artistic scale. He does a great Costello impression on Blind Confusion (watch out for the chorus), twangs a little country Dylan on Tangle With Your Mind, and dabbles in straight-up choir boy on album closer Be Not Afraid. The swaying drunkenness of Beautiful Day carries Weiland’s delicate ascension to full Lennon impression, and two and a half minutes in, I’m tempted to check iTunes to make sure I’m not listening to the Beatles.
There’s more than a few self-sabotaging sections of songs on Galoshes that leave you wishing someone had reeled him in a little bit- whether it’s a chorus, breakdown or bridge, there’s something every so often that slips a wedge into the flow and drains the atmosphere. The digital bleepery and synth atmospherics fit nicely with Weiland’s delicate and slightly Yorke-ish falsetto at the onset of Crash, but the chorus ruins everything.
Arch Angel is a strange but heartwarming dose of feel-good Christmastime coziness. There are simply no excuses, however, for the steaming pile of Paralysis:
Adrian Young, Tony Kanal and Tom Dumont of No Doubt lend their talents to this one, which speaks for itself, I’d say. (After further consideration I feel the need to apologize for making this hot batch of ass the only sample sounds from the album- I’d stream more, but people can go to jail for that these days, from what I hear.)
As far as shameless self-indulgence goes, you don’t get much more of a living definition than track six, a devoted cover of Bowie’s Fame. With Paul Oakenfold, no less. Scott’s professed his Bowie love many times over the years, but the cover was entirely unnecessary. Ashes To Ashes or Panic In Detroit would’ve been much less obvious.
Weiland’s trademark vocal slither is unrecognizable on the somber dedication hymnal Be Not Afraid, rounding out a much more solid solo album than its predecessor.
Happy In Galoshes sounds like exactly what it is: an album by a guy who’s been to Hell and back enough times to know all the trackmarks landmarks along the way, is taking some time to stretch out his formidable musical versatility, and could give a shit about what you think of it.
- 01. Missing Cleveland
- 02. Tangle With Your Mind
- 03. Blind Confusion
- 04. Paralysis
- 05. She Sold Her System
- 06. Fame
- 07. Killing Me Sweetly
- 08. Big Black Monster
- 09. Crash
- 10. Beautiful Day
- 11. Pictures & Computers (I'm Not Superman)
- 12. Arch Angel
Anyone heard the cover of “Reel Around The Fountain” that Wikipedia says is on the bonus disc?
Great writeup!!! Thank you :) My first CD was Core and man has he been through hell and back since!!
The radio station is badgering me with Missing Cleveland right now. Makes me wish he’d never been there, so he wouldn’t sing that song. And that video is unwatchable, the guys a complete creep and him being all over that chick is almost as gross as the toilet scene in trainspotting. I would opt for the toilet scene, if I was the actress. But, I do feel I deserve some points because I’ve got a top just like the one she’s wearing. Yay for my fashion sense. It’s the only good thing to come of this entire subject.
Unbelievable, but Scott was WASTED on the AMAs tonight. He made an ass of himself, so it looks like he is on a train to somewhere- but for sure he is off the wagon….again.
All this Weiland hating need’s to take a break. For real. That was a very fair review of the album, though you should’ve waited to get your mits on the 2 Disc Deluxe Version. It does in fact have what is *IMO* a strong cover of, “Reel Around the Fountain”, and even a cover of “Some Thing’s Must Go This Way” by the now de-funct PaloAlto. The straight country crooning’s of “The Man I Didn’t Know”, where you can hear some Neil Diamond in his vocal style (I know Diamond wasn’t a country singer… just get the 2nd disc…). I’m a DIEhard Weiland fan. Have been since Sex Type Thing hit the Radio in September of ‘92. Seen him in all his “incarnations” (STP/VR/Solo ‘98, and have tix for this tour). I just don’t understand the hypocrisy I see from people on here. Phil Anselmo is so strung out on his pain med’s and mixing it with whatever else, yet he’s like the “de-facto” President of this joint. He could shoot up on camera during an interview and receive “props” from this crowd. Yet Weiland, who’s been off the needle for 7 years as of December 5, BUT does admittedly drink alcohol still, is everyone’s favorite whipping boy when it comes to the junkie thing. When he QUIT Velvet Revolver (Sorry, but Firing a guy who PUBLICLY quits two weeks earlier, doesn’t hold much weight with me…how anyone can report that split as Weiland being fired, when HE FIRED THEM onstage for all intent’s and purpose’s, is completely biased and irresponsible journalism). Anyway, Weiland is the dope fiend everyone wants to “just die already”, though he stayed off the needle while he had such wonderful friends and influences like Slash abusing Oxycontin, Rat Sorum abusing coke, HEROIN, and meth, and anything else he could get, and Duff abusing Xanax… but who get’s thrown under the bus as the junkie when they split??? The guy who hadn’t touched a drug while in the band… It’s also a popular sentiment that Layne Staley “Should’ve never had to die, while this jackass (weiland) is alive still…”. Well, as a huge Layne fan, I have to be a realist, and if your talking in terms of musical and entertainment value (which is the purpose these people play in our lives), Staley was already dead. You think he had any intentions of leaving that Condo on anything but a stretcher??? And that’s one place I have to give Weiland alot of credit. No matter what, unless he was jailed, Scott is working. He’s actively touring and making albums every couple years. He’s not “holed up” in his studio getting high til he dies, which he certainly could EASILY choose to do. (I’m sure his mothers recent bout with cancer, his brothers death from an overdose 2 years ago, and his wife leaving him for someone else DESPITE the fact he never relapsed- ALL of that probably leaves him prone to contemplating doing JUST that from time to time). None the less, He just released a classic album. A Double Album with barely a bad song. Even the song’s that were written up poorly in the review on here, and when I initially heard the album, I would’ve been in complete agreement… but after listening to them consistently for the last few weeks now, I can’t really find a single song that I skip out of the 20. His genre mixing and crossing and daliance with new wave alt radio rock…sometimes genre hopping several times in one song, AND MAKING IT WORK… So after that long rant to defend a guy who get’s unfairly whipped for his demon’s while others of the same mind are celebrated, I’ll just say that if the worse thing Weiland does is drink, then Keep on keepin’ on man. I know you shouldn’t drink if you’re an addict, but even addiction isn’t COMPLETELY black & white, and some people DO have grey area’s, and Scott seem’s to think he’s found his with the booze. Keeps him off the smack. Some people really just can’t be totally sober… not when their life goes to hell… so while you make Weiland out to be the big bad junkie, take a second to remember that he’s on the same train most of us are on, and it’s legal, so I say the man deserves a pat on the back for at the LEAST, being a bit more responsible about his getting wasted. So yeah, Weiland was HAMMERED @ the AMA’s. With a show like that, if you had to be there to announce Pink’s “Sober”, wouldn’t you have thrown a few down before you took to the podium!? Lord knows I would’ve…
Adrock, I love your response. I bought the CD a few days ago because I was intrigued after seeing Weiland on the Tonight Show. The song was pretty bizarre but I wanted to hear it again before forming an opinion. I’m starting to like it and listening through the CD to get familiar before I judge. There’s too much going on with the instrumentation and production and it first it did sound like a train wreck because there’s no distinct melody, but listen again and there may be some genius in the madness. Good for Weiland to keep on keeping on, after all of his troubles and knowing that people judge him for his addiction. I for one am glad that Weiland at least has enough work ethic to keep going and doesn’t waste away like Staley or overdose like Cobain. Someone’s got to entertain us former grunge fans nowadays.
Hey I have to agree with Becky Arock you rock. I, myself have been a weiland fan since Contraband came out, so I actually got to go back and hear all the STP and his solo debut in reverse. I have loved everything he has done I am going to get golashes today.