Tools of Ignorance thrived in the Chicago area from the late eighties to the early nineties. They played diverse clubs such as The Thirsty Whale, Queen of the Midwest metal clubs, or the kinky-chic of the Exit, to Dreamers, the arty-bohemian slum palace.
That they were able to cross over so easily from one genre to another is a testimony to the fact that they rebelled against the traditional instrumental format of "guitar solo over band vamp." Their work emphasized arrangement, concept and rock band format in the tradition of The Ventures, although any other comparison stops there.
Referred to as "hard rock revisionists of note" in the book Rock And the Pop Narcotic (Carducci, 1990, 1994), Tools of Ignorance are mentioned in the same breath as Rush and Led Zeppelin. As Carducci explains, Tools of Ignorance had insanely boiled down the history of prog rock into written out instrumental sixteenth note holocausts.
It was written that a Tools Of Ignorance show left the audience exhausted both mentally and physically. Eventually word got out and after a while no band wanted to follow them because all the energy had been drained out of the audience before the headliner would even reach the stage.
Many bands claim the title of the worlds fastest band. To the Tools fast meant more than how fast you could feather an open "E" or how fast a guitar player can run a scale over band vamp. To them it meant how many notes, cleverly contrived could be played as an ensemble, per square inch and no one could do could cram in more. Another important ingredient is when they experimented with odd meter. It was very important that the audience could still bang their heads and find the pulse, which resulted in the novel sight of headbangers slamming in 7/8 time.
Tools of Ignorance disbanded in 1992 due to clashes with local booking agents who have an entertainment monopoly to this day and a failed record label that folded just before release. Instrumental music, already a niche market, had been devalued by the excesses of "fretboard masturbating" guitar players. Large record companies who were once interested now cast a leery eye on the whole genre and to this day instrumental music is not signed, not played, not promoted and almost not existing ...
It is in this market that Tools of ignorance are releasing a new CD titled "Opii".
The CD contains many previously unreleased tracks with some live stuff in there too. Stay tuned..............
