Okay I thought I'd post up some interesting album trivia from Aenima and Lateralus for the Tool fans of the board. Also there is possible track references for 10,000 Days if the track listing is correct.
Ænima:
* North American pressings of Ænima had a lenticular cover. The cover art could be optionally replaced by one of two inside covers that also functioned with the lenticular cover. One was a touched-up version of Cam de Leon's Ocular Orifice painting, and the other featured a picture of a nude contortionist sitting on a carpeted floor in a position that can be seen as suggesting he is performing autofellatio, but his back is to the viewer and thus it is not confirmed what he is doing. This picture might be a reference to a sketch Bill Hicks had about autofellatio.
*"Die Eier von Satan" is a hash cookie recipe spoken in German. The title translates to "The Eggs of Satan," although "Eier" is a double-entendre in German as a slang word for testicles.
*The track titled "Message to Harry Manback" is according to drummer Danny Carey "a recording of the words of an uninvited Italian guest who came to Maynard's house one day. A so-called friend of a friend of a friend of Harry's ... Before we finally managed to figure out that nobody really knew him, he had already emptied the fridge and run up a huge phone bill. He got kicked out of the house." Harry Manback is a pseudonym for the real recipient of the message, presumably a past roommate of Maynard's: Hotsy Menshot of Green Jellÿ. [1]
*In Jungian psychology, the feminine aspect of a male that exists in the subconscious mind is called the anima, which appears in the dreams as a prominent female person. It is also the Latin word for "soul" or "mind" depending on context. (For females, Jung said an animus existed, which was instead male.)
*The lyrics in the song "Ænema" referring to Arizona Bay and its destruction is another allusion to a Bill Hicks gag.
Lateralus:
*Some time after Lateralus was released a minor flurry of interpretive activity arose around the album. In particular, Carey told an interviewer about Keenan's remark that the time signatures of the main riff in "Lateralus" (9-8-7) also represented a step in the Fibonacci sequence (the sixteenth step, as it turns out). This led some Tool fans to suggest that the tracks on Lateralus can be listened to in spiral-like orders: 1,2,3,5,8,13,4,6,7,9,10,11,12 ("The Fibonacci Sequence"), 6,7,5,8,4,9,3,10,2,11,1,12,13 ("The Lateralus Prophecy"), or 6,7,5,8,4,9,13,1,12,2,11,3,10 ("The Holy Gift"). These arrangements are rumoured by fans to produce different storylines for the album, although the band has said nothing official on the subject.
*The cover is translucent and flips open to reveal the different layers of the human body, including a spiritual layer representing vrajna, the transcendental wisdom of enlightenment or union with the divine. Partially obscured in the brain matter on the final layer is the word "God." The artwork was done by artist Alex Grey.
*"Eon Blue Apocalypse" is said to be about Adam Jones' Great Dane named Eon Blue, that had cancer and died, according to an interview with Danny Carey.
*The fourth track, "Mantra", was alleged to be a slowed-down recording of someone—possibly an old woman—saying "I love you". Keenan has since stated that the song is a slowed-down recording of one of his Siamese cats being squeezed. It has been noted that when the vinyl record is played on a phono player at 78 speed, the track actually sounds like a recording of a mantra being recited.
*The songs "Parabol" and "Parabola" are directly connected to each other, making the two tracks into one song in excess of nine minutes. A ten-minute long video was made for the song, but received little airplay due to its prohibitive length.
*The eighth track, "Ticks and Leeches", is rarely performed live due to the immense strain the song puts on Keenan's voice. They have performed it occasionally, however, with Keenan utilizing several distortion devices to minimize the difficulty of the song.
*On the ninth track of the album, "Lateralus", Keenan's vocals during the verses coincide with the Fibonacci sequence by syllable. (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8)
*Tool's releases seem to be fraught with production errors, particularly in getting the track names right. Just as "Salival" was initially released with several errors on the track listing, early pressings of "Lateralus" had the ninth track spelled as "Lateralis." The error was fixed in subsequent pressings.
*Supposedly, the tracks "Disposition", "Reflection", and "Triad" were originally all one track, as evidenced by their connecting names on the back album cover. This epic combination has drawn awkward comparisons to Pink Floyd's "Echoes," though little is similar between the two besides their length.
*The vocal on "Faaip de Oiad" is a recording of a hoax call from a 1997 conversation on Art Bell's radio program Coast to Coast AM. The caller, in a frantic tone, claimed to have been previously employed at Area 51 and stated that the true nature of aliens were that of "extra-dimensional beings" that have infiltrated the military establishment and plan to destroy the world's large population centers to more easily control the remaining humans. Supposedly, the same caller called back some weeks later to confirm the hoax. "Faaip de Oiad" is Enochian for "the voice of God." Described as Danny Carey's personal percussion piece for the album (as was "(–
Ions" on Ænima), he can be heard drumming intensely in the background along with sounds of static and various electronic debris.
*In the song "Lateralus," the line "as below so above and beyond I imagine" is a reference to astrology, specifically the Hermetic maxim - "as above so below" - the theory that the stars parallel everything in occurrence on earth.
*In "The Grudge," the song is written in 10/8 time and is another example of the wide variety of diverse time signatures employed by the band. The lyrics contain several references to astrology (specifically, the "Return of Saturn"), and to alchemy.
10,000 Days:
1. "Vicarious" (7:03)
2. "Jambi"
3. "Wings For Marie (Pt 1)"
4. "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)" (11:14)
5. "The Pot"
6. "Lipan Conjuring"
7. "Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)"
8. "Rosetta Stoned" (11:14)
9. "Intension" (7:21)
10."Right In Two" (8:56)
11."Viginti Tres"
Possible Track References:
*Vicarious means either "experienced or gained through someone else" or "done on behalf of others".
*Jambi is the name of a province of Indonesia.
*"Marie" is the middle name of Maynard James Keenan's deceased mother, Judith Marie Keenan.
*The Lipan are an Apache tribe, known as the "Tall Grass People".
*There are at least two well known people who go by the name "Hofmann": Dr. Albert Hofmann, the "father" of LSD; or Mark Hofmann, a prolific counterfeiter who murdered two people.
*The Rosetta Stone is a granite stone found in Egypt; the stone was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.
*"Viginti Tres" is Latin for "Twenty Three" - the number has a lot of historical, mathematical, and occult significance, as well as in American slang, where "23 skidoo" means to leave a place quickly.
Source for trivia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_(band)
I found all this pretty interesting and I hope you do too.
Nuttkace
Ænima:
* North American pressings of Ænima had a lenticular cover. The cover art could be optionally replaced by one of two inside covers that also functioned with the lenticular cover. One was a touched-up version of Cam de Leon's Ocular Orifice painting, and the other featured a picture of a nude contortionist sitting on a carpeted floor in a position that can be seen as suggesting he is performing autofellatio, but his back is to the viewer and thus it is not confirmed what he is doing. This picture might be a reference to a sketch Bill Hicks had about autofellatio.
*"Die Eier von Satan" is a hash cookie recipe spoken in German. The title translates to "The Eggs of Satan," although "Eier" is a double-entendre in German as a slang word for testicles.
*The track titled "Message to Harry Manback" is according to drummer Danny Carey "a recording of the words of an uninvited Italian guest who came to Maynard's house one day. A so-called friend of a friend of a friend of Harry's ... Before we finally managed to figure out that nobody really knew him, he had already emptied the fridge and run up a huge phone bill. He got kicked out of the house." Harry Manback is a pseudonym for the real recipient of the message, presumably a past roommate of Maynard's: Hotsy Menshot of Green Jellÿ. [1]
*In Jungian psychology, the feminine aspect of a male that exists in the subconscious mind is called the anima, which appears in the dreams as a prominent female person. It is also the Latin word for "soul" or "mind" depending on context. (For females, Jung said an animus existed, which was instead male.)
*The lyrics in the song "Ænema" referring to Arizona Bay and its destruction is another allusion to a Bill Hicks gag.
Lateralus:
*Some time after Lateralus was released a minor flurry of interpretive activity arose around the album. In particular, Carey told an interviewer about Keenan's remark that the time signatures of the main riff in "Lateralus" (9-8-7) also represented a step in the Fibonacci sequence (the sixteenth step, as it turns out). This led some Tool fans to suggest that the tracks on Lateralus can be listened to in spiral-like orders: 1,2,3,5,8,13,4,6,7,9,10,11,12 ("The Fibonacci Sequence"), 6,7,5,8,4,9,3,10,2,11,1,12,13 ("The Lateralus Prophecy"), or 6,7,5,8,4,9,13,1,12,2,11,3,10 ("The Holy Gift"). These arrangements are rumoured by fans to produce different storylines for the album, although the band has said nothing official on the subject.
*The cover is translucent and flips open to reveal the different layers of the human body, including a spiritual layer representing vrajna, the transcendental wisdom of enlightenment or union with the divine. Partially obscured in the brain matter on the final layer is the word "God." The artwork was done by artist Alex Grey.
*"Eon Blue Apocalypse" is said to be about Adam Jones' Great Dane named Eon Blue, that had cancer and died, according to an interview with Danny Carey.
*The fourth track, "Mantra", was alleged to be a slowed-down recording of someone—possibly an old woman—saying "I love you". Keenan has since stated that the song is a slowed-down recording of one of his Siamese cats being squeezed. It has been noted that when the vinyl record is played on a phono player at 78 speed, the track actually sounds like a recording of a mantra being recited.
*The songs "Parabol" and "Parabola" are directly connected to each other, making the two tracks into one song in excess of nine minutes. A ten-minute long video was made for the song, but received little airplay due to its prohibitive length.
*The eighth track, "Ticks and Leeches", is rarely performed live due to the immense strain the song puts on Keenan's voice. They have performed it occasionally, however, with Keenan utilizing several distortion devices to minimize the difficulty of the song.
*On the ninth track of the album, "Lateralus", Keenan's vocals during the verses coincide with the Fibonacci sequence by syllable. (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8)
*Tool's releases seem to be fraught with production errors, particularly in getting the track names right. Just as "Salival" was initially released with several errors on the track listing, early pressings of "Lateralus" had the ninth track spelled as "Lateralis." The error was fixed in subsequent pressings.
*Supposedly, the tracks "Disposition", "Reflection", and "Triad" were originally all one track, as evidenced by their connecting names on the back album cover. This epic combination has drawn awkward comparisons to Pink Floyd's "Echoes," though little is similar between the two besides their length.
*The vocal on "Faaip de Oiad" is a recording of a hoax call from a 1997 conversation on Art Bell's radio program Coast to Coast AM. The caller, in a frantic tone, claimed to have been previously employed at Area 51 and stated that the true nature of aliens were that of "extra-dimensional beings" that have infiltrated the military establishment and plan to destroy the world's large population centers to more easily control the remaining humans. Supposedly, the same caller called back some weeks later to confirm the hoax. "Faaip de Oiad" is Enochian for "the voice of God." Described as Danny Carey's personal percussion piece for the album (as was "(–
Ions" on Ænima), he can be heard drumming intensely in the background along with sounds of static and various electronic debris. *In the song "Lateralus," the line "as below so above and beyond I imagine" is a reference to astrology, specifically the Hermetic maxim - "as above so below" - the theory that the stars parallel everything in occurrence on earth.
*In "The Grudge," the song is written in 10/8 time and is another example of the wide variety of diverse time signatures employed by the band. The lyrics contain several references to astrology (specifically, the "Return of Saturn"), and to alchemy.
10,000 Days:
1. "Vicarious" (7:03)
2. "Jambi"
3. "Wings For Marie (Pt 1)"
4. "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)" (11:14)
5. "The Pot"
6. "Lipan Conjuring"
7. "Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)"
8. "Rosetta Stoned" (11:14)
9. "Intension" (7:21)
10."Right In Two" (8:56)
11."Viginti Tres"
Possible Track References:
*Vicarious means either "experienced or gained through someone else" or "done on behalf of others".
*Jambi is the name of a province of Indonesia.
*"Marie" is the middle name of Maynard James Keenan's deceased mother, Judith Marie Keenan.
*The Lipan are an Apache tribe, known as the "Tall Grass People".
*There are at least two well known people who go by the name "Hofmann": Dr. Albert Hofmann, the "father" of LSD; or Mark Hofmann, a prolific counterfeiter who murdered two people.
*The Rosetta Stone is a granite stone found in Egypt; the stone was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.
*"Viginti Tres" is Latin for "Twenty Three" - the number has a lot of historical, mathematical, and occult significance, as well as in American slang, where "23 skidoo" means to leave a place quickly.
Source for trivia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_(band)
I found all this pretty interesting and I hope you do too.
Nuttkace
