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"So you're free, but you cannot get away"
Class E
| Main Category: | Art Rock |
| Also applicable: | Hard Rock, Folk Rock |
| Starting Period: | The Artsy/Rootsy Years |
| Also active in: | The Interim Years |
ALBUM REVIEWS:
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A band so obscure even the All-Music Guide classified them under 'Electronica', despite the fact that Gravy Train have far less to do with Electronica than Mike Oldfield has to do with cock-rock. This time, though, the obscurity is actually quite explainable: Gravy Train is a band specially designed for being 'dug up' from among a hundred 'third-rate' ambitious ensembles of the early Seventies, although, to be sure, I don't actually regret digging it up. If anything, they're an excellent example for showcasing all that was right and all that was wrong with that epoch at the same time.
Stupid to say, but perhaps the most wrong thing was that there was so MUCH to do at the time many bands got their heads and minds totally whizzed up. You could go 'underground' and become an esoteric super-complex prog act, or you could appeal to the lowest denominator and go glam, or you could rally up hoardes of "rough boys" and go into hard 'n' heavy, or whatever. Many bands were able to carve out their own identity pretty soon, but obviously many more were not, and some were actually misled in their quest. Gravy Train, so it seems to me, belong to the latter group. They started out quite promisingly. If you have read my reviews for the better-known bands, you might have noticed that occasionally I give the highest ratings to - or, at least, favour a lot of - records released by bands not in their supposed "prime", when they're at their most idiosyncratic and well-developed, but to earlier records, the ones that already betray signs of individual approach, but would otherwise be viewed as 'immature' or 'compromising'. That's due to several factors: often, earlier records tend to be more energetic and 'innocent', not at all marred by the 'steady professional' touch that robs away the spontaneity and even humanity of the music. Also, earlier records tend to be more eclectic, because the band is still choosing its route, so if the players are talented enough, a diverse mixture of successful approaches might be expecting you. This is the case of Gravy Train - their debut album mixed elements of the Canterbury school, Sabbathesque heavy metal, Pink Floydish eccentricity and Jethro Tull militant folkishness together in one really intriguing pot. On the very first try, they had a steady base going for them - yet they never fulfilled the promise. Already the second album, (A Ballad Of) A Peaceful Man, while definitely not bad by itself, displayed a total lack of progression: much of the previous record's stylistic and instrumental experimentation was totally abandoned in favour of a simpler, yet far less interesting commercialized approach to prog-rock. And the last two records are essentially just generic hard rock - listenable and occasionally even memorable, but its existence is not quite understandable in the light of the gazillion heavy bands that were baking albums in the mid-Seventies. In the end, their pathetic 'undecidedness' actually backfired on the band - the interesting sound of their first album was gone, and the commercial success never really came. Nowadays, Gravy Train are but a minuscule footnote in the history of Seventies' music, and their records are really hard to find. That said, if you do occasionally come across these records, try to get a peek at 'em. Unrealised as their potential was, these guys had a lot of it. Instrumental-wise, they were quite the pros, particularly the band leader, Norman Barrett, with his active knack for first-rate riffs, witty guitar tones and Hendrix-inspired soloing. The vocal melodies were occasionally fascinating as well, except that you really have to adjust to Norman's vocals, the guy's got maybe one of the ugliest screechy rasps I ever heard in my life. Good thing it doesn't come across as obnoxious (see Dave Coverdale for that one). Really, I don't think I've ever heard one truly offensive Gravy Train number, even if occasionally the songs do get preachy and inadequate. I must say, though, I'm pretty iffed at these guys often falling prey to the cliches of Southern rock; as much as I'm partial to songs like 'Alone In Georgia', that's a trick that only maybe would work once or twice. It's pretty squirmy to have rednecky guys singing about the pleasures of country life and stuff, but it's absolutely ridiculous to hear that from a bunch of refined British guys who started out as one hundred percent art-rockers. Anyway, find out for yourself if you dare. Line-up: Norman Barrett - lead vocal, guitar; Les Williams - bass, vocals; Barry Davenport - drums; J. D. Hughes - flute, alto sax. Davenport left, 1973, replaced by Russell Cordwell.General Evaluation:
Listenability: 2/5. Hooklines
are present, but there's way too much monotonousness and stuff like that.
Resonance: 1/5. Nah. When they
DO try to capture my emotions, I'd prefer 'em not to do that.
Originality: 1/5. Only because
of the debut album which has an interesting and pretty unique synthesis
of styles.
Adequacy: 2/5. They were WAY
too overblown not to mention it.
Diversity: 1/5. Only because
of the debut album which sounds unlike the following three... these guys
had a steady workin' formula.
Overall: 1.4 = E
on the rating scale.
Year Of Release: 1970
Record rating = 10Their best. If you can endure lengthy pointless jamming, the weird "Sabbath meets Tull" sound is yours to cherish.
Best song: THINK OF LIFETrack listing: 1) The New One; 2) Dedication To Syd; 3) Coast Road; 4) Enterprise; 5) Think Of Life; 6) Earl Of Pocket Nook.
A minor classic hopelessly lost among all the innumerable "biggies" of the year 1970, it's also absolutely different from everything Gravy Train would do later, and too bad about it: no matter how much the group's limited following gushes over (A Ballad Of) A Peaceful Man or Staircase To The Day, I can easily see how Gravy Train couldn't make it to fame's top based on those albums. Their debut shows Gravy Train as a brave and daring underground band, heavily influenced by and derivative of other prog/hard acts of the time, yet actually trying to push the boundaries forward. Unfortunately, since the album bombed, the guys preferred to dump all the experimentation of these songs in favour of a smoother, more commercial sound later on, which totally destroyed their idiosyncrasy and forever nailed them as second-rate good-for-nothings.
So anyway, Gravy Train is, in many respects, a marvelous album, and the one not to be afraid to blow your cash on if you can trace it anywhere. It does take some getting used to, of course, because at first, my reaction was "what the...?", and it doesn't happen all that often, I tell ya. Regular rule number one says that if you don't get the main point of the record on first listen, you don't get it ever. And, well, that kinda bothered me, but then I realized that yes, Gravy Train actually completely lacks a main point, and maybe so much for the better. This helps the guys avoid the pretentiousness and overblown character of later releases. What this album is is a bunch of stoned British guys with a good sense of melody and rhythm trying to have some fun with their influences. That's all. But isn't that enough when you actually have talent? The world won't be saved by this band anyway. So, what are the influences? If I may be allowed to generalize (and who needs a review with no generalizations?), the main 'style' of this record can be reviewed as a mixture of Barrett's Pink Floyd and Canterbury bands like the Soft Machine. It's almost creepily evident even from the details: Norman Barrett is the name of the band leader, and the band themselves look eerily like the Soft Machine on the inlay photo. There's plenty of weirdass avantgarde jamming on the record, and a lot of bizarre and pseudo-psychedelic attitude as well, and one of the tracks is actually bluntly named 'Dedication To Syd', no less. On the OTHER hand, while there are few thoroughly original ideas on the record, Gravy Train get by sticking to the immortal principle - "hey guys, let's take this thing from this band and that thing from that band and see what happens". So the main instruments on the record are Norman Barrett's guitar and J. D. Hughes' flute. The former has an unbelievably cool - if always the same - tone throughout, the thoroughly distorted analogy of Clapton's 'woman tone', rather favoured by British guitarists of the epoch, such as Alvin Lee and some others, but 'dried out' even more, so that without actually being as brutally heavy as Tony Iommi's tone, it produces almost the same effect. That said, on a few tracks, like 'Think Of Life', Norman does get almost brutally heavy, so Black Sabbath probably were an influence. As for the flute, well you know the flute can be used in two ways and two ways only - you either go the Moody Blues route and make it all gentle and smooth and loving or you go the Jethro Tull route and make it all sizzly and rough and rocking. Hughes goes the second way, so that some of the flute riffs actually are undistinguishable from prime Tull. Apart from that, he occasionally plays a nice sax part. Now, what about the songs themselves? Much of this stuff rules. Barrett really has a knack for solid riffage; tunes like 'Think Of Life' will linger in your head for a long time - that flute/guitar interplay in the song's first part is unbeatable, truly as if Tony Iommi were meeting Ian Anderson (come to think of it, Tony Iommi did meet Ian Anderson, as any Tull expert will tell you, but at that time neither Tony nor Ian were playing in that way as of yet). The second, faster part of the song is pretty captivating as well, although the repetitiveness gets a bit stale. On another lengthy track, 'Coast Road', the guys apply their playing techniques to a piece of generic blues improvisation, which is as marvelous as generic blues improvisations get; Barrett shines in all his might, with perfectly fluent, inflammatory guitar solos and a beautiful mastery of feedback techniques - he's cleaner and more restrained than Hendrix, but dammit if I don't enjoy his soloing on here just as much as Jimi's soloing on a random blues cover. The sax and flute work is also masterful and add further punch to the jam. If there's anything to really get mad about on this record (and the following ones), it's the vocals. Barrett doesn't have a bad voice per se, but it's absolutely unfit for screaming your head off - it's raspy and whiny at the same time, and you have to be pretty vocally tolerant to enjoy that 'vocal feedback' pitch of his. I know I am pretty tolerant in that department, but even I had to stuff myself with tranquilizers and Alka Seltzer in order to adjust to the fella. And worse, he seems to revel in ugly vocal effects - the perfectly funny and well-written 'Dedication To Syd', for instance, is utterly spoiled by having the vocals double-tracked and one track played at high speed, so that you have Barrett's raspy vocal feedback in one channel and a stupid 'baby squeal' in the other one. All to that marvelous bassline that surely could have been used differently. And when they go 'I need you, so wonderfu-u-u-u-ul' on 'Enterprise', it nearly makes me throw up. At some points they simply get out of tune. And why the stupid whisper? Dammit. So the saving grace of the record, I'd say, is that most of it is actually instrumental. Including the lengthy 'Earl Of Pocket Nook' composition, sixteen minutes of proggish jamming with only a little bit of vocals in the beginning. Of course, it's pretty overlong - and also displays the band's Cream influences, because the jazzy tempo changes and the way they explore the different themes almost miraculously reminds me of stuff like Cream's live version of 'Spoonful'. But some parts actually rule, and it doesn't really bother me as such. Oh! The album was produced by Jonathan Peel, if the name of the guy tells you anything. This happens to be the band's main link to the "rockin' community" of the epoch - unlike other minor prog/rotts-rock bands of the time, Gravy Train were never really a revolving door act and stood pretty much isolated of the community. Which is of course weird considering all the influences of the album. Which I would really recommend you to track down if possible.
Year Of Release: 1971
Record rating = 9Who needs power ballads sung in an annoying voice? At least the hooks don't get on your nerves.
Best song: HOME AGAINTrack listing: 1) Alone In Georgia; 2) (A Ballad Of) A Peaceful Man; 3) Jule's Delight; 4) Messenger; 5) Can Anybody Hear Me; 6) Old Tin Box; 7) Won't Talk About It; 8) Home Again.
This is where the fans, for some strange reason, really gush all over the band, but I don't get it. As has been established, the debut album caught the band trying to experiment and establish an independent sound. This album doesn't see any experimentation at all! In fact, I bet you anything that even those few potential adepts who took a liking to Gravy Train in 1970 were quickly put off the record - once you put it on, the first thing that hits you in the face is a totally stereotypical soul ballad with Southern rock inclinations, 'Alone In Georgia'. None of that squeaky gloomy guitar tone: gentle flute and strummed acoustic guitar's the word of the day, and if you hated Barrett's vocals on the debut album, well, you're hardly in for a pleasant ride, as this time they're all over the place.
I kinda like 'Alone In Georgia', though, sappy orchestration and all. I just wish it had a different singer - Barrett does try to inject a healthy dose of emotion and passion into his singing, but there's simply something on the most basic of all acoustic levels that spooks people like me off. Otherwise, the song ain't bad at all, with a very strong vocal melody. Hmm, maybe it would be reasonable not to scream it all over the place. Maybe Tim Hardin or someone like that would have made a real gem out of it. Maybe not. Well, at least Barrett manages to hit all the right notes, and the complexity of the vocal melody makes that no mean feat. Too bad the rest of the ballads simply don't cut it nohow. The album's stupidly divided into a 'softer' and 'harder' side (on the other hand, it's hardly any more stupid than the near-rigid 'ballad'-'rocker'-'ballad'-'rocker' order of Staircase To The Day), and there's just so much unmemorable softness for one person to take. Who permitted the title track to drag on for seven bleeding minutes? Where are the fabulous riffs of yesterday? Why the generic chorus with female singers? I swear, it's songs like these that make me understand all the infamous Uriah Heep connotations, because my first exposure to the band was with their debut album and when I read all the 'if you like Uriah Heep you'll like this band' annotations I thought the world had gone crazy or something. NOW I pretty much understand that, even if '(A Ballad Of) A Peaceful Man' is still WAY too tastefully crafted for Uriah Heep to match it. It just lacks memorability. Slightly better is 'Jule's Delight', with elements of medieval harmonies this time around and another complex vocal melody which Barrett tackles with grace but I'm still trembling in my knees every time he raises his voice. But seven minutes, once more? The instrumental passages just don't amount to anything more than weak Moody Blues ideas' rehashments, for God's sake. Likewise, I'd rather listen to Gryphon than to Gravy Train if I want something like 'Messenger'. Look, the ballads aren't BAD. They all have potential, but somehow blow it in the wrong place, kinda like Bill Clinton blew HIS in the wrong place, if you know what I mean. There's so much effort on the vocals, and the vocals are the weakest link. When that blistering guitar solo comes on at the end of 'Messenger', it's a small moment of saving grace, but it's only one minute out of twenty minutes of balladeering. Good thing there's also the 'arder, moodier stuff. This is where the good old riffs make their reappearance and save the day. 'Can Anybody Hear Me' returns the Iommi meets Ian Anderson vibe, with a killer joint guitar-flute riff that welcomes back the Mean Old Hard Rock Vibe. 'Old Tin Box' is almost instrumental and tries to be funky - it fails, I think, but the hilarious sax riff sticks in your head anyway. And 'Won't Talk About It' is FAST! Well, not lightning-speed, but faster than everything else, with a really mean distorted riff and a really mean flute that sings in unison and all that, excellent hookline for sure. The best part of the song is the drumless introduction to the verses - what's that mean moody sneezy isolated 'POM' chord they use to mark the time while the riff is going on? Sometimes one note is enough to elevate a generic heavy rocker to something mystically engaging, and that's that. Simply the best song on the album, though, is the closer, 'Home Again'. Quiet and atmospheric, dark yet not overbearing, with a half-whispered vocal performance that doesn't irritate in the least, and a Tullish flute solo. The kind of song that I can't really point out as 'innovative', yet it's not like I could pin it as a rip-off of some particular artist. There's just something uniquely frightening about the delivery of the song, something unquietly disturbing - I guess it might be its positioning, a strong well-written number that doesn't get OVERBEARING for a second - not drastically 'soulful' like the first side, nor drastically 'angry' like the second side. Just a perfect moody conclusion to get you intrigued. So count this as weak 10/strong 9, anyway. And I hope the innumerable legions of Gravy Train fans who have been busy for the last thirty years decorating the walls of the subways with 'NORMAN BARRETT RULEZ' messages that have been pissing the shit out of common well-meaning passengers to the point of boiling over will forgive me for the few words of critique in the direction of the generic ballads and the ugly vocals. It just makes me a little bit angry that the band had so obviously sacrificed the interesting sound of their debut just to make themselves some more followers. And hence, all the dirty subways. Gravy Train fans should all be beaten up by PMRC members, to make way for perfectly decent parent-loving music. Napalm Death, for instance.
Year Of Release: 1973
Record rating = 7Atchoo... er, what was that? Overblown Southern rock? From a British band with ugly vocals? Spare me.
Best song: SEPTEMBER MORNING NEWSTrack listing: 1) Morning Coming; 2) Peter; 3) September Morning News; 4) Motorway; 5) Fields And Factories; 6) Tolpuddle Episode; 7) Second Birth.
Gravy Train took a year off and returned with this, to say the least, rather flaccid record that even the faithful fans tend to dismiss. And they're right about it, too. The sound is just not interesting AT ALL - seems like the further the band moves away from their debut, the more problems they hang on their back, of course, being careful to preserve the old problems as well. This is mostly straightahead guitar rock which (a) loses Barrett's interesting tone, (b) relies far less on the flute, and (c) as usual, extols, the ugly vocals a lot.
And that Southern rock influence continues to grow as well. Believe me, it's horrible enough when a band of rednecks tries to imitate art-rock (Kansas); it's nearly as horrible, though, when a band of obviously artsy-inclined gentlemen tries to imitate the rootsy stuff. This second birth just isn't nice enough. They should have known better than to screw around with their karma. I would describe this album as "a boring analogy of Traffic with a heavier sound". What I really want to say is that the album doesn't trigger particularly negative reactions while it's on, unless you're like me and you're instinctively rushing forward to release the vice grabbing Barrett's genitalia as soon as he starts to scream. But the tunes just aren't memorable, mainly because there's absolutely nothing to distinguish the band from legions and legions of similar hard-edged outfits. Well, maybe they're a bit more melodically interesting than most. I can't call these tunes BITTER generic - when they're assaulting my ears telling me "hey, we were actually worked over, we're worth our little weight in gold", it's not as if I were objecting. That still doesn't turn away from the fact that they're pretty boring, not to mention that the singing is as ugly as ever. There's a good ballad here, 'September Morning News', which actually has gentle and loving singing, but I gotta warn you that it sounds almost exactly like Lynyrd Skynyrd or somebody from that department. Quite primitive in the instrumental department, really, just has a nice warm chorus - I mean, it's not like if you were given a line of text that went "September morning news, you bring me down" and told to make a hookline out of it, like it would be thoroughly guaranteed that you couldn't fail, right? Well, Gravy Train do not - they repeat the line twice and through careful vocal modulation, a hook is born. I like it like that. Too bad it's by far the only true hook on the album. 'Morning Coming' kicks off the record in a pretty energetic way, even if the riff is quite blatantly primitive, but then it simply dies away and the main melody is non-existent. 'Peter' belongs in that wretched pile of Grand Funk/Bloodrock rejects that wouldn't even make it onto regular albums; one can only wonder how Gravy Train, a British band, could so perfectly capture the other side of the ocean at its most inept. If you're gonna catcopy someone, why Grand Funk? Why not Alice Cooper, then? Mmm... what else to say? Oh yeah, I nearly forgot that 'Tolpuddle Episode' is also a pretty nice ballad that holds up to repeated listenings - unsurprisingly, it's also a gentle humble acoustic ballad in its essence, which makes it, together with 'September Morning News', the true field in which Gravy Train can be somewhat competent and adequate. Why they haven't decided to reinvent themselves as Simon & Garfunkel instead of Grand Funk is beyond me. The other three songs, including the title track, escape me altogether. What I remember is that they're kinda long and kinda complex, and at times actually incorporate flute, but sound even more like weak Tull imitations than before (actually, I think it was 'Morning Coming' itself that ripped one of its riffs off 'To Cry You A Song'). There are balad elements and rocker elements in each of them, sometimes rising to stupid overblown climax, and ALWAYS with ugly ear-destructive singing. Oh yeah, I am now relistening to the title track, and it's just ridiculous to have Mr Barrett scream in such an annoying way, and then include predictable lameass female chorale harmony singing, when the music itself is so deadly dull and formulaic. Again, the Uriah Heep comparison is justified for the song. 'Motorway' and 'Fields And Factories' are supposedly lengthy epics with supposed meaning, and they have a few bits and pieces to be enjoyed, but in general, it's just the usual muddy production and boring instrumental/vocal passages. That's rock'n'roll for you baby, rock'n'roll as hollow pseudo-commercial product where individuality doesn't even begin to show through - and, of course, a typically Seventies' sound. Too bad. That's the big difference between a generic Sixties and Seventies product: it is possible to make a generic Sixties sound attractive, but the general Seventies' style, with its emphasis on "Big Powerful Sound", tackiness, pomp and quasi-deepness, simply becomes detestable when uncompensated with interesting innovative ideas. Granted, Gravy Train never had time to degrade to the level of REO Speedwagon or Foreigner, but they easily could have, given just a little bit more time.
Year Of Release: 1974
Record rating = 8The sound is made "profound". Big deal. Well, some deal.
Best song: BUSTED IN SCHENECTADYTrack listing: 1) Starbright Starlight; 2) Bring My Life On Back To Me; 3) Never Wanted You; 4) Staircase To The Day; 5) Going For A Quick One; 6) The Last Day; 7) Evening Of My Life; 8) Busted In Schenectady.
Maybe the only Gravy Train experience for the guys at the AMG was listening to the first fifteen seconds of the album, which is why they placed the band under the 'Electronica' category. Not that I blame them too much, but still, I personally have often been crucified for things far less significant.
Anyway, this record heralds more huge changes for the band. Apparently, this was their last conscious effort to become known to the general public - an effort of a win-or-lose nature, and unfortunately, they lost, and finally disbanded after the record's release in frustration over their own ineptness (my hypothesis). But the concern was mammoth-like indeed. The title of the album alone obviously draws associations with 'Stairway To Heaven'; surely, they thought, everybody would fall for the 'stairway' magic and grab it? The album cover, in stark contrast to the plain white sleeve of its predecessor, was painted by one extremely talented and versatile gentleman whom I won't even be naming because the style is immediately recognizable (hint hint: the same gentleman who decorated the epoch's most abominable album according to Rolling Stone). The album itself also features the only lineup changes in the band: the trusty Barry Davenport is gone, officially replaced by Russell Cordwell at the drum kit, but there's at least one other session drummer, and a couple extra session players to beef up the sound. And yes, the sound is beefed up through a significant reliance on synthesizers; the production is actually much fuller than on previous efforts, too. In all, they really went out of themselves to make the final product worthwhile. And, well, they failed. Okay, so it is better than Second Birth, but you really didn't need a lot to improve that stinkin' pile of boredom: just a couple memorable riffs and maybe one inventive stylistic idea. The stylistic idea here is to preserve both the rockiness and the "soulfulness" of preceding albums, but also it's to return to a slightly more 'artsified' style, with more instrumental passages than before and more aptly sophisticated passages. Occasionally, it works, occasionally it doesn't. It was a good idea poorly carried out blah blah blah say can you finish that review for me? I'm tired and bored. So fuck it, I'm just gonna concentrate on the two best songs, the ones that bookmark the album. 'Starbright Starlight', despite the pretentious and pleonastic title (I mean, starlight is starbright, right? Now you name a song 'Sunbright Starlight' and we're talkin'!), was really a major step forward in... in bringing the keyboards and synthesizers deeper to the core of hard rock. You could say that Rainbow owes something to these guys. Then again, nobody in Rainbow probably ever even heard 'em, let alone imitated. But fact is, there's this Synclavier or whatever (like the one used by Stevie Wonder on 'Superstition') dirty gruff riff going on and a couple of real guitar riffs accompanying it, and the melody sounds pretty cool as a result. I think I can't actually do without mentioning 'Busted In Schenectady' either. Oh wait a minute... yeah, I just looked up the name of that instrument in the liner notes. It's proudly proclaimed to be 'Cosmic Clavinet', played by J. D. Hughes. Huh. Imagine that. Anyway, same 'cosmic clavinet' is also played on 'Busted', which stands as a pretty straightforward piece of b-b-b-b-b-oogie (riff-based), then it slowly builds up towards a chaotic metallic climax, then it goes out - boom! - and is replaced by this ultra-cool funky jam where Barrett feeds his guitar through some weirdass amp (yeah, I know he's using a wah-wah pedal but there's more than just the wah-wah to this part, I tell you), and the air guitar appears in my hands. Marvelous funky jam that never got any serious appraisals but deserves all of them, a great way to actually go out, you know. The rest of the tracks I could live with or without, mostly, you know. It kinda bugs me that the album for the most part is structured strictly according to a "rocker" - "ballad" - "rocker" - "ballad" pattern, only breaking it once, because such a structure seems to whisper 'we're rigid, thus we're generic' in my ear, and it takes a whole lotta unbiased approach to get rid of the little smelly devil in my head. Anyway, 'Bring My Life On Back To Me' has an ugly screamed chorus, but in general is more or less a nice Southern-style ballad with good electric slide guitar work. The title track could be tolerable if it didn't convey Led Zeppelin associations; alas, it does, and it's also terribly monotonous (while we're on it, doesn't anybody actually suffer from the monotonousness of 'Stairway To Heaven' itself? Yeah, it's got the solo and the heavy part at the end, but as good as the acoustic riff it - stolen from Spirit or not - it's just a looooong part, isn't it? Ah, well, forget it). And out of the rockers, I could maybe only single out 'Never Wanted You', dumb as it sounds, as a relative melodic highlight. It's still a bit better than its predecessor and not a thoroughly bad way to go out. And hey! You might not believe it, but they DID go out! The band had the wisdom to understand that they would never make it big and actually dis-ban-ded. The band members then all died out of nervous breakdowns and drug addiction by the end of the year and were then immediately reborn as the current members of Limp Bizkit. Well, whaddaya want? I warned them not to screw around with their karma, didn't I?