The Lincoln Continental pulled up to the curb and a driver with eyes like two flying saucers told me to get in. I didn't wait to be asked twice. The name's Dirk Deafman. I'm a private dick, a shamus, and I cover the dirty pink underbelly of Rock 'n' Roll. It's a world where the young and the clueless run the show and Dick Clark signs checks in a penthouse somewhere; a world where jukebox heroes become legends in their own minds and sometimes yours, too. It's a lurid, nasty job, but somebody's got to do it.
Which brings me to the Queens of the Stone Age.
Ever since Rated R had exploded across every critics Top Ten, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri have been hailed as everything from visionary geniuses to dope fiends, Jurassic mystics to high-desert hessiers. The grapevine had it that the Queens lived like Turkish pashas out among the cacti and Joshua Tree of the California hinterlands, corrupting unsuspecting music fans with their decadent lifestyle and trance-inducing music.
When I'd first met these brothers in rock they were with a little outfit called Kyuss, pushing a psychedelic low-end growl that resembled nothing so much as Moby Dick with amplifiers. After a decade of drama, the Queens of the Stone Age were poised to take over an undeserving world. They had spent 1999 and 2000 crossing the globe, wowing crowds on every continent. Now they had returned to make the ultimate "Robot Rock" record of the 21st Century- Songs for the Deaf.
Month after month the sessions continued, sometimes ending so late in the evening that the dazed players actually met themselves coming in through the out door. And what had started as the Dynamic Duo of Josh and Nick began expanding as fast as the universe, if a little less predictably. Legendary Foo Fighter and Nirvana skin-pounder Dave Grohl was behind the drum kit. Moody crooner and Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan added his Lee Hazelwood-on-glue vocal stylings. And the list of celebrity luminaries didn't end there.
Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider from Eleven supplied keyboards, ebo and international flavor; Paz and Anna from the Perfect Circle camp supplied strings and even Dean Ween and Blag from the Dwarves were on hand to add insanity to the mix. Chris Goss from Masters of Reality also made an appearance, teaming with the QOTSA live posse (Brendon McNichol, Gene Trautmann, Dave Catching and the mysterious "Hutch") to add to the pin-eyed meandering that marks the Queens at their best.
- Courtesy of Universal
