Ultime Notizie

TOOL NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 2010, E.V.

While walking out of my local post office the other day, I heard a voice behind me shout, “Hold the door open!” Turning around I recognized none other than a smiling Evil Joe Barresi. “What’s going on, he asked? “Not much, just paying the $0.02 that I owed on my AMEX.” (Not to worry, I’ve a brass Zambini coin box for just such emergencies.) “So I hear that they’re back at”, the evil one laughed. Assuming that he was talking about a certain band, I mumbled some old forgotten words – probably just nonsensical gobbledygook from the Ephesia Grammata (or was it the Latin phrase Indocilis privata loqui?), before replying that “yes, indeed, the… process has begun in earnest.” “I heard a few riffs”, he then revealed as we stood in the sunny parking lot. “I haven’t”, I said in a low voice, “but I helped with the banishing rites, not to mention consecrating a few talismans so that the space was primed for the extraordinary.” Without offering so much as a piece of tamale bubblegum, Neptunian zazar, or even a mini Chick-O-Stick, he shook my hand and we said our goodbyes… knowing fully well that it was dangerous to be discussing such things, especially in a public place and in broad daylight… Crack Cronk Crooky!, the conjuring of parrots…
During our little talk, I forgot to tell Joe that I was also over at the loft signing books with Danny the day that they first got together. Assuming that they’d wouldn’t launch right into any ungraspable rhythmic feats, but would instead spend the afternoon getting to know each other again by going through the old set list, I left once the purple pen gave out (if not out of ink, then out of scintillations). However, before leaving, I did notice a few new additions. Next to a plethora of stompboxes that belonged to Adam was an ultra rare circa 1970s Maestro multi-effects box. The grand thing with a Sample & Hold feature that was designed in part by Bob Oberheim. Wow! Seeing it, I was thinking about what Al Dimeola had done with one all those years ago. I wondered what AJ might use it for… if anything (knowing he liked to place decoy multi-effects boxes in the room to fool people). And then there were several gamelan percussion instruments that Danny had found in some Indonesian treasure box. And, “Jesus Christ”, what was that? A water-gong! (that’s gong, with a “g.”). What the hell is he going to do with that?.. Thinking that I’d probably seen too much, I left… but not before hearing what sounded like the opening riffs to a heavy cover of Jimmy Durante’s “Inka Dinka Doo,” Sheer genius. Pyrzqxgl!..

Q & A TIME:

Seeing how we still get lots of email asking about the same subjects, let’s see if we can put a few things to rest:

Q: “What was the elusive cover that I heard about on the last mini-tour?”

A: Although I don’t know the name of the song (because I’m not that familiar with the band), it was a tune by THE GOD MACHINE. Having played it at one of the ‘dress rehearsals’ that I attended, it was later decided by the band not to perform it during the tour. The reason might have had something to do with the untimely death of the band’s bass guitarist, Jimmy Fernandez, who was a friend of Justin’s. A lot of people thought that the cover might have been a short version of Pink Floyd’s “On the Run”, but this mistake undoubtedly was due to a similar sounding patch/sequence on Danny’s EMS Synthi AKS.

Q: “Who is the voice of the doctor on “Blame Hofmann?”

A: The voice over of “Doctor Watson” was done by the band’s manager, Pete Riedling.

Q: “What’s this big thing we keep hearing about?”

A: The so-called “Big Thing” began after I hinted at possible new Tool websites. Having attended many dozen meetings about these sites, and having been involved in the design process for one of them, I believe eventually there will be major changes. As to when, your guess is as good as mine (well, almost).

Q: “What is the meaning of the upside down “Tree of Life” on the cover of Salival?”

A: With regards to the reversed Tree of Life diagram on the “Salival” box-set, CHAOS can be transformed to ‘COSMOS’ once the 10th sephirah (Malkuth) is tipped (inertia being the key) to its correct ‘Pre-Fall’ position at the vacancy of the both existing and non-existing 11th sephirah, DAATH (the so-called false sephirah, which represents “knowledge.”). This creates the IRREVERSIBLE perfected Tree. However, when we realize that Malkuth is also known as The Gate of Tears”, and even greater occult SECRET is revealed.

Q: “What is this puzzle in the artwork of 10,000 Days?”

A: Once somebody solves it, I’ll let you know. I didn’t think it was that difficult, but evidently it is. Either that or no one believes that there really is a puzzle and, hence, aren’t attempting to solve it.

Q: “What’s the voice on “Mantra?”

A: As I said years ago, it’s Maynard’s Siamese cat. Others continue to think that it’s a guitar effect by Adam, or Danny growling through a tube along with an Oberheim going through a vocoder, but put your money on a Siamese cat.

Q: “What does the Tool Army symbol mean?”

A: Although I’d rather not comment on that at this time, the alchemical praxis ingeniously concealed/revealed in a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky might hold a clue.

In more recent email, people are asking if the band received any royalties from “Parabola” being played for the orbit crew (specifically for astronaut Bob Behnken) of the space shuttle mission to the international space station (as NASA noted on Twitter)? Well, I don’t know about that, but the funny thing is that not many people know that when it came to Tool’s last record contract, when they saw in the fine print that the company maintained certain rights throughout the universe, negotiations were halted and lawyers on both sides called in because the band wanted the rights to their music on the planet Mars. When I was first told of this way back when, I thought it was funny, but that the only thing to come out of it was that they’d being paying the lawyers more fees for their services (who I could just see laughing while out playing 18 holes). Well, now it appears that maybe it was a good decision on the Tool’s part. Wouldn’t that be funny!