Long before Adam Jones was Tool’s notorious lone axeman, he was a makeup artist/set designer for films like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. Though he left that budding career in feature filmmaking behind after joining Maynard James Keenan and Danny Carey in Tool, Jones went on to showcase his sculptures, animation, and direction in the band’s videos. Given this background, it’s no wonder that 30 Days of Night creator Steve Niles has teamed up with Jones for a forthcoming comic book series that mashes up TV and film franchise the X-Files with his previous 30 Days of Night series.

“[G]etting a chance to work with Adam Jones is amazing,” said Niles in an announcement last week. “He’s a pal, but I am also a huge fan of TOOL, as well as his video work for the band; not to mention the special effects he did at Stan Winstons before he became a rock star. He came up with the hook that really made this story come together.”

The X-Files/30 Days series, which will be co-written by Jones and Niles, is due out this summer. Meanwhile, Jones and his friends from a certain rock band are still pounding away in the studio.

It’s been four years since Tool’s last album, 10,000 Days, was released, and though singer Maynard James Keenan has been keeping busy with a side project (Puscifer) and documentary about his northern Arizona vineyard (Blood Into Wine), his bandmates have commenced writing the fifth chapter to their prog/math rock oeuvre.

Tool’s latest newsletter (via Corinne LGT) informs us that:

Members of the band are still in the process of writing new material (three days a week)… it shouldn’t be long before the dry-erase board is filled with a bewildering array of color-coded intros, progressions, agitatos, con sordinos, crescendos, diatonics, inversions, resolutions, transitions, variations, obbligatos, consonance, and endings – the arrangements that millions will attempt to down-load [sic] off the internet.”

Here are a few notable bits from today’s queue…

Here are a few bits from the queue that we better post before they become olds…

• Adam Jones, Tool guitarist and former makeup artist/set designer for the likes of Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, has teamed up with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp for a collaborative album, which they originally initiated years ago. The project had gone stale, but now that Maynard James Keenan’s busy making wine and touring with his side project, Jones and Fripp are back in action.
• Regina Spektor performed “Left Hand Song” on PBS’ Live From Lincoln Center recently with violinist Joshua Bell—whose album At Home With Friends contains the original studio recording. The song’s quite good and we love Regina around here, of course, but we also must agree with Sarah Vowell when it comes to violins in pop music. Either way, watch it here and make up your own mind.
• Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger posted a charity auction on eBay recently for his famous banjo head, which flaunts the inscription, “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender.” The proceeds were supposed to go to a nonprofit in Haiti, but Seeger has since changed his mind, opting to donate the famous piece of memorabilia to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame instead.
• Finally, some guy named DJ Lobsterdust mashed up the Raconteurs’ “Steady As She Goes” with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” and it just might be better than both of the originals.

Maynard James Keenan, of Tool and A Perfect Circle, delved into the current economic downfall while touring the Whole Foods chain to promote his winery, Arizona Stronghold. In an interview with AZ NightBuzz he talks about how his winemaking process is similar to songwriting, saying for both forms of art “you have to listen and look and smell and taste and touch and react.”

Keenan then gives his opinion about the future of America in light of the current economic downfall by citing a David Cross joke:

“I think we’re doomed (laughs). Sorry (laughs). But I don’t necessarily think that that’s a bad thing. I think we’ve fallen short. I’m not sure if you’re a fan of (comedian) David Cross…he’s being cynical of course, and he’s being funny, but he’s saying if electric scissors and Paris Hilton is all we’re going to do with our freedom, then we probably should have some of it taken away and start over. (Laughs). If that’s what you’re going to do with it, then you probably don’t deserve it… So perhaps an economic crunch will get people back to focusing on what’s really important and what really matters.”

The rest of the interview is here.