Saturday Eye Candy: Dave Grohl

EYE CANDY WINKS AT
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’S COOL OLDER BROTHER

Dave Grohl

This coming Monday Dave Grohl will celebrate his 39th birthday. If you’d asked most folks back in 1992 during the full flush of Nirvana mania if they thought Grohl would one day lead a commercial megabeast that would open the 2002 Winter Olympics and headline major festivals all over the world, well, the answer would likely have been a snicker. Turns out, the veteran skin-pounder-turned-frontman is a rock survivor, capable of wooing the mainstream with the Foo Fighters while always lending a hand to smaller projects like Juliette & The Licks and Rye Coalition. For a guy that’s played with Mike Watt, Tenacious D, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie and Killing Joke, he seems remarkably down-to-earth and still utterly committed to whatever he’s doing. A blur of sweat and hair, Grohl is proof that middle age need not mellow one too much. In many ways, he’s become rock’s cool older brother, shepherding younger acts while trying to live up to legends like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Black Flag in his own bands. Saturday Eye Candy presents a choice sampling of Dave Grohl live moments as our way of saying happy birthday, dude…

We kick it off with a teenage Grohl drumming for D.C. hardcore band Scream.

Next, a trio of primo cover tunes performed with the Foo Fighters:

-Their take on Arcade Fire’s “Keep The Car Running”
-Banging out the Dead Kennedys’ “Holiday In Cambodia” with Serj Tankian.
-Fighters backing Jack Black on AC/DC’s “Back In Black” at an MTV pajama party.

Here he is with the Queens of the Stone Age doing “Avon” at the 2002 Glastonbury Festival and playing “No One Knows” at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

Here’s Grohl bathed in fiery estrogen as he drums for Juliette & the Licks in the studio and in the video for “Shake Your Blood” from his 2003 metal side project, Probot, where he’s joined by Motorhead‘s Lemmy on bass and Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed/Saint Vitus) on guitar.

Lastly, two nods to the band that introduced him to most people: Nirvana playing “Drain You” on French TV in 1994 and “Lithium” on the In Utero tour with Pat Smear of the Germs on second guitar.

And remember, you can eyeball video sweetness 24/7 with JamBase TV and JamBase Backstage.