0:09

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of

0:12

Audio Judo. I'm Kyle. And I

0:14

am Matthew. And thank you so much for joining

0:16

us here on your podcast of music discovery. If

0:18

you're a fan of Audio Judo, you might enjoy

0:20

one of the other podcasts we produce as well.

0:23

Through Line, where host Christian investigates the common thread

0:25

running through an album. We'll be starting a second

0:27

season coming up very shortly. And Audio Judo Does

0:30

Jazz, where host Chris talks about the history and

0:32

stories behind some of your favorite jazz albums and

0:34

musicians. We'll be back for another season later

0:36

this year as well. All three of

0:38

the Audio Judo podcasts are proud members of the Pantheon

0:41

Podcast Network. If you're a music fan, there's something for

0:43

you on Pantheon with over 100 podcasts in the

0:45

network to choose from. So when you're

0:47

done listening to Audio Judo, go check out

0:50

some of Pantheon's other shows at pantheonpodcasts.com. That's

0:52

very critical, the S. The S is very

0:54

critical. Or else you just get nothing. I

0:57

think it's just a 404 not found. So

0:59

we've been covering some heavy albums so far this

1:01

year. We spent the first

1:03

section of season five last year talking about lesser

1:06

known records, trying to give some love to things

1:08

we'd like people to listen to. But

1:10

I think after a while, people want to go

1:12

back to a comfortable spot and just hear some

1:14

more information on albums that they love. And

1:17

that's what we are tackling in the first half

1:19

of the year, more known records that people have

1:21

loved for years. So our first one was Pink

1:23

Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. And

1:27

then we did a pretty deep dive on the Red

1:29

Hot Chili Peppers' Californication. Fantastic

1:31

albums, which did mega sales. For

1:33

this episode, we're looking into another huge

1:36

album, but in a different way. This

1:38

album sold a couple million copies of

1:40

its own, a respectable number, but not anywhere

1:42

near approaching the sales of Dark Side or

1:44

Californication. This album is

1:46

huge in its scope and its

1:48

influence and an album that defined

1:50

a particular genre or multiple genres.

1:53

We're talking about the 2001 album Lateralus by

1:55

Tool. And we're going to talk about this

1:58

at length, but the band had disappeared. for

2:00

about four or five years

2:02

due to a protracted label

2:04

fight and returned with this

2:06

hybrid of metal, art rock,

2:09

texturing, sonic dissonance. They

2:11

went away as something and they came back

2:13

with like puzzle music. It's math rock and

2:15

it isn't for everyone, right? I think that's

2:17

a bit of an understatement. This is a

2:19

band, I think a lot like early rush

2:22

that you either love or hate and it's

2:24

not something that you can readily convince someone

2:26

to start to love. Like if you were

2:28

sitting down with a friend and they aren't

2:31

already a fan of complicated music or metal

2:33

or music that makes you think, then I

2:35

don't think you're going to turn them in

2:37

your direction with this record because they won't

2:39

understand it. Listening to Tool can become like

2:42

a very religious experience or at least a

2:44

meditative one. It isn't necessarily for everyone is

2:46

what I'm trying to say. And that's a completely fair

2:49

assessment, I think. I definitely feel like

2:51

I might be one of the one-offs

2:53

here where I actually do fall in the

2:56

middle. I don't typically like Tool. I don't

2:58

listen to Tool very often but I don't

3:00

hate them. So I'm very in the middle

3:02

ground on this album. I think that they're

3:04

amazing musicians. I think this album is honestly

3:06

a masterpiece but it's also not something that

3:08

I'm like, oh I should put that on

3:10

and listen to it. It's something that I

3:12

kind of occasionally, you know, oh a track

3:15

or something will come up on shuffle. I'm

3:17

like, oh yeah, Tool. That makes sense and

3:19

it isn't for everyone and therefore reviews

3:21

on this album when it came out

3:23

were mixed. Well, we'll talk about it

3:25

later but some critics lauded its challenge

3:28

while others called it bloated and wanking

3:30

sludge or quote, mean

3:32

mongering for the fantasy fiction

3:34

set. That last one

3:36

is by Robert Christica, of course. I recognized.

3:39

Which just goes to show that he did

3:41

not dig any deeper than a first listen

3:43

and has no idea what this band is

3:45

really about because there's nothing on this

3:47

album or any Tool album for

3:49

that matter that borrows from fantasy

3:52

like Tolkien or something else like

3:54

Yes and Genesis and even Rush

3:56

and those bands, Dream Theater, borrowed

3:58

from fantasy. They didn't... borrow from

4:00

fantasy. That is not how they write.

4:03

So he's just typically and woefully

4:05

ignorant about music. And the fact

4:07

that he had influence really bugs

4:09

me. But either way, you

4:12

know, it sold a couple million copies,

4:14

produced some predictably wonderful and weird music

4:16

videos, won the band of Grammy for

4:18

best metal performance, and is continually placed

4:20

in the top whatever for best prog

4:22

albums of all time. And whether or

4:24

not it really is in the prog

4:26

genre is debatable. But before we talk

4:28

about Lateralus, let's spend a little time talking

4:30

about the band that made it, Tool. Yeah. You want

4:32

to go ahead? Yeah, I can start us off, I

4:34

guess. So the band formed shortly

4:36

after all of the members had independently moved

4:39

to Los Angeles in the mid to late

4:41

1980s. Paul Damore and

4:43

Adam Jones were both trying to break into

4:45

the film industry in LA. Minor James Keenan

4:47

was working as a pet store remodeler, which

4:49

I feel like is a very 1980s job

4:52

to have. Like,

4:54

I feel like that would be like an 80s

4:56

sitcom job. Like, what do you do? Well, I'm

4:58

an architect, and he's a pet store remodeler, and

5:00

we're living together. But in a women's dormitory,

5:02

ooh. Is that an episode of Bus and

5:05

Buddies? It could be an episode of Bus

5:07

and Buddies. There's also a pizza delivery driver

5:09

at the time, and a place called Satan's

5:11

Pizza. Sounds awesome. So

5:14

Minor met Adam through a mutual friend in 1989, and

5:17

after being impressed with Minor's vocal talent, they started

5:19

jamming together while they searched for a drummer and

5:21

a bass player. Danny

5:23

Carey, who played with musicians like Carole

5:25

King and pygmy love circus, happened

5:28

to live above Maynard. And after

5:30

an introduction between Adam and Danny facilitated by

5:32

Tom Morello, who knew Adam from high school,

5:34

he joined the band. Yes, that Tom Morello.

5:36

Yeah, that same Tom Morello. Eventually, the guitarist

5:38

for Rage Against the Machine. At this point,

5:40

Rage was what, 91, 92 when they formed?

5:44

92 when they first heard their first album out. So

5:46

it was right around the same time, yeah. This would

5:49

have been like 88, 89 when this was happening. Right.

5:51

A few years before that. Another friend

5:53

of Adam's introduced the band to Paul, and

5:55

the original lineup was formed. Yeah, so around this early

5:57

period, a name for the band was chosen when it

5:59

happened. What it meant Keenan replied with,

6:02

it is exactly what it sounds like

6:04

to Big Dick. it's a wrench in

6:06

we are with Your Tool is what

6:08

he says. it's a cell For two

6:10

years they played in around L A

6:12

and began to get some notice from

6:14

record companies and they signed. Eventually signed

6:16

a deal with Zoo Entertainment in March

6:18

of Ninety Two, that analyst opiate and

6:20

a P that eventually sold over a

6:22

million copies. It is not the tool

6:25

of now for sure, It is. Where

6:27

are his louder sastre, Not nearly as

6:29

refined or polished. As they would come

6:31

to be and what a lot of

6:33

people remember most about that was the

6:35

immediate controversy a caused even for a

6:37

metal album be as inside cover of

6:39

Cd had a picture of what looks

6:41

like someone having sex with a corpse

6:43

physicists the when in actuality it was

6:45

a photo someone behind a dummy of

6:47

a corpse taken in a in a

6:50

visual effects pioneer a Stan Winston studio

6:52

where Adam Jones had been employed with

6:54

Stan Winston. So the following year in

6:56

a one grunge an alternate of we're

6:58

Reaching their Zenith to release their. First

7:00

full length album Nineteen Ninety Three, Undertow,

7:02

and while Groans an Alternative are focusing

7:05

on the angsty and alienation of teenage

7:07

and early adulthood life's this was a

7:09

little angrier, a little more aggressive and

7:11

way more nihilistic Who are with song

7:14

titles like prison sex discuss the painted

7:16

and hit from the album Sober and

7:18

this was music of an entirely different

7:20

breed. The album went to number one

7:23

on the Us Heat Seekers chart, number

7:25

fifty under more Top Two Hundred. Eventually

7:27

would sell over three million copies. Even

7:29

more. than the album we're gonna

7:31

talk about today amp and in fact

7:34

it's often credited as being the reason

7:36

metal survived the groans and and pop

7:38

music arab the nineteen nineties because this

7:41

came along and it was so if

7:43

we if it was an album that

7:45

was actually capable of going head to

7:47

head with nirvana and pearl jam and

7:50

soundgarden in all these you know grunge

7:52

bands and it's stood out enough and

7:54

if it was not so wildly metal

7:57

that it was just like that hard

7:59

core the had to be like an underground

8:01

fan to get it. But it

8:03

was also not poppy and not

8:05

grungy, and it filled this interesting little middle

8:07

gap where there are not a lot of

8:09

artists from that time period. And because of

8:11

that, it shot through all of it and

8:13

succeeded. And I

8:15

read in two different spots, two different people

8:17

that said basically, this album is the reason

8:19

metal survived the 1980s and didn't just die.

8:23

So... I'd say that's fair. There were

8:25

a couple of bands around the same time, like

8:27

Helmet, couple bands that did survive that, that made

8:29

it a little bit different style,

8:31

but was definitely harder than grunge. But

8:34

they courted controversy wherever they went. The

8:36

album got pulled immediately from Walmart and

8:38

Kmart because the cover was a photo

8:40

of three nude obese women, one nude

8:42

thin man, and the band with pins

8:44

in their heads all over the place.

8:47

And once the album was pulled, they released

8:49

a new version of it with just a

8:51

giant barcode on it, suggesting that these places

8:53

like Walmart and Kmart were just interested in

8:55

commerce anyway. Not art, which is

8:57

totally true, but the statement is made. No,

9:00

Rolling Stone gave it three and a

9:02

half stars. And like most tool records,

9:04

the reviews were mixed across the board.

9:06

Some loved it, some loathed it. But

9:08

what we started to come to realize

9:10

about this band is that they didn't

9:12

really care what the critics thought because

9:14

the fans got what they did, much

9:16

like Rush again. They were making music

9:18

for the fans that loved them and

9:21

would follow them wherever they dared to

9:23

go musically and also for themselves because

9:25

that's the music they wanted to play.

9:27

And that makes a huge deal, integrity-wise,

9:29

if you're just like, I don't give

9:31

a shit what the critics say, I'm

9:33

selling records, I'm going to make it

9:35

this way. So in September 95, the

9:37

band had their one and only lineup

9:39

change as bassist Paul DeMort left to

9:41

pursue different musical interests. According

9:43

to Danny Carey, DeMort left because he really

9:45

wanted to play guitar and not bass. And

9:48

that spot had already been taken by Adam

9:50

Jones. So the band held extensive auditions that

9:52

included Eric Avery from the now broken up

9:54

James Addiction, but ultimately chose Justin Chancellor from

9:57

the band Peach, a band that had toured

9:59

with Tool. on the Undertow shows.

10:01

So the band's second album, 1996's

10:03

Anima, was released in September of

10:05

that year as the gestation period

10:07

of their albums continued to grow.

10:09

But the long wait only increased

10:11

the fans' craving for new tool

10:13

music, a phenomenon that would continue

10:16

over the course of their careers and take on

10:18

its own mythology and legend. When released, the album

10:20

jolted its way to number two on the charts,

10:23

selling 150,000 copies in the

10:25

first week. The triple platinum

10:27

in 2003 regularly appears on a

10:29

best of metal list and influential album list,

10:31

and again won the Grammy for best metal performance

10:33

in 1998. And it

10:35

was at this critical moment when

10:37

music was clearly changing out of

10:40

grunge and towards singer songwriters and

10:42

lighter fare that tool began to

10:44

establish themselves as the alternative. This

10:46

was the difference. The album

10:48

is strange. The artwork is strange, but

10:50

was clearly being put forward with this

10:52

album and every subsequent release is that

10:54

this was art. It wasn't

10:56

just music. There were other things in

10:58

play. The album cover that was released, or

11:01

the CD cover, had lenticular effects on it.

11:03

Every bit of that record is a piece

11:05

of work thought out and added,

11:07

much like the albums of my youth, albums like

11:09

Dark Side of the Moon or Presence by Led

11:11

Zeppelin, or other bands that toyed with marketing. This

11:14

was not just 70 minutes of

11:16

music, but a complete visual and

11:18

audio experience. Keenan was a visual

11:20

arts major. Jones was an accomplished

11:22

graphic designer and special effects guru.

11:24

Carey was heavily into the occult

11:26

and other hidden things, and it

11:28

all made for an atmosphere of

11:30

curiosity for the fans. What are they going

11:33

to do next? And the intrigue kind

11:35

of grew. So what happened next just

11:37

added to the fever. Tool's label, Zoo

11:39

Entertainment, had gone under and had been

11:42

swallowed by another company called Volcano Entertainment.

11:44

And Volcano decided to file suit against

11:46

Tool in 1998 for breach of contract

11:48

in which they said that Tool had

11:51

violated the terms of their deal by

11:53

seeking out other deals, basically shopping. So

11:56

Even though our company went bankrupt and

11:58

closed, the fact that you went looking

12:00

for the for another contract great live

12:02

sui is silly So Tool in return

12:04

countersued Volcano saying the volcano had failed

12:07

to utilize an automatic renewal clause in

12:09

their dealings that stated that they will

12:11

get a new deal automatically if they

12:13

hit certain sales numbers which they did

12:15

party said a lot of ports and

12:17

late Nineteen Ninety Eight and the band

12:19

signed a new deal in the summer

12:21

of that year, but the delays had

12:23

caused their damage While Chancellor carrying Jones

12:25

worked on new music and other projects

12:27

locally analyses scene and joined a new

12:29

band. A Perfect. Circle and was now

12:31

and enjoying success with them As into

12:33

the mix that at the beginning of

12:35

Two Thousand they fired their manager and

12:38

sued the band for back commissions and

12:40

back to court they went to stoke

12:42

the fires. The the label released a

12:44

box set called Salad L and Two

12:46

Thousand and it had the necessary effect

12:48

as the fans returned to the fold

12:51

and clamored for a new record. So

12:53

I in the January two thousand and

12:55

one they announced that new record and

12:57

they said were calling it system of

12:59

A solid. Assists the Stemmer and

13:01

Cephalon Encephalitis. Me I guess is

13:04

systemic in a cesspool. I always

13:06

put my too much Italians insofar

13:08

as a Cessna Bizarre know and

13:11

they also really swell a twelve

13:13

a song track. Titles again mean

13:15

a names such as River Christ,

13:18

Number Rest and several latest music

13:20

cool leases went to the other

13:22

pretty cool name and or something

13:25

if you are not old enough

13:27

to time. this was sort of

13:29

the beginning. of the era of them

13:32

illegal music sharing on the internet diverse

13:34

quite a few artists who were weirdly

13:36

enough these these bands that were very

13:38

much like in a fight authority and

13:40

go against the man's don't steal our

13:42

music success the society was at the

13:44

time you know when i was a

13:46

young man i was in high school

13:49

around this time i was like no

13:51

fuck these bands i'm still in music

13:53

you know ah you know what's in

13:55

metallic as give interviews from there you

13:57

know eight million dollar mansion i'm like

13:59

oh I had to downsize to

14:01

only two Learjets because I can't afford to

14:04

keep both of them anymore." And you're like,

14:06

fuck you Lars Ulrich. But

14:08

no offense to Lars Ulrich. That

14:11

was the younger Kyle. But

14:13

at the time, obviously, I was very much

14:15

in the, you know, no, screw these guys,

14:17

they're making tons of money. One thing that

14:20

you come to realize afterwards is, well, a

14:22

lot of those artists are not making the

14:24

money off of their albums. The albums are

14:26

enough to maybe get by. They make their

14:28

money off of things like concerts and tours

14:30

and, you know, all that kind of stuff

14:33

and merchandise and

14:35

endorsement deals, things like that. The

14:37

problem was, if you are not

14:40

selling a bunch of albums, you don't continue

14:42

to be a successful artist. And if you

14:44

don't continue to be a successful artist, nobody

14:47

wants to see you on tour. Nobody wants the

14:49

endorsement deals. So it's sort of a catch-22 thing.

14:53

Obviously, in certain ways, things have gotten a lot

14:55

worse because of streaming. In other ways, things have

14:57

gotten a lot better because a lot of that

14:59

middleman, you know, well, you need to keep

15:01

selling albums thing has gone away. You can just make

15:03

music for music. You don't get paid for it anymore.

15:06

You can just make music for music now. True story.

15:09

However, 2000, there were, you know, things

15:11

like Napster, LimeWire, places like that. Huge

15:14

file sharing networks where you could download pretty

15:16

much any album. Soon as Tool

15:19

announces this, file sharing networks blow

15:21

up. Every pre-release copy

15:23

of Tool's new album, you know, all

15:25

12 tracks are here, you know, and

15:28

people were just downloading them like crazy.

15:30

They immediately became some of the most

15:32

downloaded illegal bootleg tracks on those services.

15:35

And people started listening to them being like,

15:38

this isn't very good. Or actually, this is

15:40

a track that was like an unreleased track

15:42

from, you know, some other band. Just it

15:44

wasn't Tool. Yeah, none of it was Tool.

15:47

They were literally just faking it, because they knew

15:49

the 12 titles for the tracks on this

15:53

album. So they put together their own

15:55

album, random shit, and got people to download it.

15:58

And then, as a big fuck you, which I think is... amazing

16:00

in February 2001 Tool announced ha ha

16:02

that was all the ruse that

16:04

was all bullshit that's not what it's gonna be

16:07

called the album is going to be called Lateralus

16:09

and we're going to release it sometime soon so

16:12

in fact May 15th 2001 is

16:15

when it released yeah and this is

16:17

one of those albums where I actually remember

16:19

this album coming out mm-hmm a ton

16:21

of my friends loved this album that

16:23

whole summer the summer of 2001 I

16:26

probably heard this album two dozen times from

16:28

beginning to end because it was in people's

16:30

cars it was you know would go to people's

16:32

houses and it was playing in the background it

16:35

was just all over the place that summer yep

16:37

and it was again it was one of those

16:39

bands where up some of my friends really you

16:41

know tools the best band at their all have

16:44

you heard my nerds other perfect circle where this

16:46

is a middle my god you got no you

16:48

gotta you gotta smoke a joint and listen to

16:50

the perfect circle album and there's this song that

16:53

will just blow your mind and like it was

16:55

I never got there it was never something that

16:57

appealed to me tool was fine if it was

16:59

on it was not something that I was actively

17:02

seeking out that being said going

17:04

back and listening to it more actively to

17:06

do this episode and more I believe that

17:08

adult and digging into the lyrics and stuff

17:10

like that there is a lot of musicianship

17:12

here oh yeah there's a lot of talent

17:15

in this band and there's a lot of

17:17

very meaningful music on all of their albums

17:19

even their early one opiate

17:22

it's very good music not something like I said

17:24

I still don't think even after realizing that it's

17:26

not something I'm gonna put on all the time

17:28

sure very good music yeah the album was

17:30

recorded between October 2000 January 2001 in

17:33

Hollywood and what was first released it debuted at number

17:35

one on the builder billboard top 200 selling over 550,000

17:37

copies in the first week would

17:40

sell over 3 million which just goes

17:42

to show you that rabid fan base

17:44

again much like Rush your die-hard fans

17:47

are gonna are gonna show up to

17:49

buy it the second it's released and

17:51

account for those huge initial numbers because

17:53

everyone who is a fan wants it

17:55

immediately they won another Grammy Award

17:57

for best metal performance for schism in 2007

18:01

2016 it was named the best hard rock

18:03

album of the 21st century by Loudwire magazine.

18:06

But like I continually mentioned, the reviews were

18:08

mixed. Krang Magazine gave it A's,

18:10

they called it one of the best albums

18:12

you'll hear in your lifetime and Blender called

18:14

it Black Sabbath jamming Genesis at the bottom

18:16

of a coal mine shaft. Which

18:18

to me means absolutely nothing. That's

18:20

just word vomit. That's just garbage. But, you want

18:23

to talk about the artwork for a second and

18:25

then we'll wrap back around. Yeah, sure. Okay, this

18:27

artwork, a lot like Dark Side of the Moon,

18:29

could be an episode all by itself. Oh,

18:31

absolutely. Yeah, so Alex Gray is the

18:33

artist who created this cover and several

18:35

other covers for two albums. Alex

18:38

is an American visual artist who's most known

18:40

for the psychedelic art that he does.

18:43

But he also does sculpture, performance art, painting,

18:45

and a myriad of other mediums. He's

18:48

also made works for covers of other

18:50

bands like Nirvana. The Beastie Boys, Meshuga,

18:52

the String Cheese incident. He

18:54

works a lot with two things.

18:57

So one thing is like repeating

18:59

patterns and why can

19:01

I, I'm suddenly drawing a blank. Those

19:03

computer generated patterns that go into infinity.

19:05

Oh. It's a something sequence. I

19:07

didn't write it down. Damn. Anyways,

19:09

he works with things like that and

19:12

he also, his other thing is he's been

19:14

studying anatomy, human anatomy for years and years

19:16

and years. He frequently draws

19:18

humans as exactly as he possibly

19:20

can without their skin. He's

19:23

like a master of it. It's called

19:25

dissectional art. So

19:28

the cover is a human body in dissectional

19:30

art. The insert of the CD, which

19:32

was the primary medium for the album,

19:34

not vinyl, the CD was translucent and

19:37

several pages long. And each layer of

19:39

the artwork built around the last layer

19:41

until the body was complete. The

19:43

final layer of the translucent pages was the

19:46

brain and in the brain matter was the

19:48

word God kind of disguised within it, suggesting

19:50

that God is in our head and we

19:52

are God. And in order to

19:55

find God, one only needs to look inside yourself

19:57

to find him or her. It

19:59

is a call for prayer. personal introspection, which is

20:01

a lot of what Maynard's lyrics are

20:03

about. Self-assessment. The art is quite beautiful

20:05

and a little disturbing at the same

20:07

time. Alex Gray has been part of

20:10

Tool since this album, and it is

20:12

that marriage of visual art and music

20:14

that has kind of made their music

20:16

a transcendent experience for a lot of

20:18

people. They liken it to

20:20

the occult, and there is some of that,

20:23

but occult actually, the word, means hidden, not

20:25

satanic. It just means hidden. So where some

20:27

people see evil, many people see growth and

20:29

leveling up or developing as humans as we

20:31

try to learn more about ourselves. Like you said,

20:33

Alex Gray, he used to be a medical illustrator

20:35

for many years as a way to support his

20:38

art studio. So there's a blending

20:40

between science and psychedelia. He's a really

20:42

interesting dude. He and his wife

20:44

founded a church that features their artwork called

20:46

the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors, and

20:49

they have long been proponents of

20:51

the use of encygens or psychedelic

20:54

substances that are used in religious

20:56

experiences like peyote mushrooms or ayahuasca.

20:58

Cool. All right. The

21:00

artwork is fascinating. I actually, I have the

21:02

CD in there. I have the translucent thing.

21:04

It's just fascinating to look at, and everything,

21:07

nothing's left to chance. It's

21:09

very well thought out. Yeah. If

21:11

you're a fan of artists like Brum

21:13

Bear or Roger Dean, both have done

21:15

album covers for years, you'll get this

21:17

with no problem. Totally. Yeah. were

21:22

openly concerned about this episode because

21:24

the fan base of Tool is

21:26

notoriously meticulous about the band. Yes.

21:29

And what if we didn't get something right? What

21:31

if we think this about them or that,

21:33

and that just isn't the case,

21:35

and then they point it out to us. What

21:38

I know about Tool is that they only want

21:40

us to know what they want us to know,

21:42

and even that may be completely

21:44

incorrect. They like playing games with the media,

21:46

and I don't think that everything that we

21:48

think we know is really what we know.

21:51

Wow. Right? So

21:53

don't worry about getting it right, because all we can do is tell people

21:55

what we believe, and if it's wrong after that, so be it. I don't

21:57

really give a shit. Good, because I'm sure I got a lot of money.

22:00

a lot wrong. And you just can't, you can't

22:02

know and we'll be called out about something like

22:04

that's not what he said. It was not the

22:06

third word of the fourth album. He said this

22:08

and that means that I'm like, do you know

22:10

him personally? No, well then you don't

22:12

know any more than I do. That's very

22:14

interesting because I have a story at the

22:16

end of all of this. Okay. There's

22:19

a note I've got in here when we get

22:21

to the track by track and then a story

22:23

at the end of this that ties right back

22:25

into that like perfectly like we planned this. Yeah.

22:28

Yeah, so one other thing I want to mention about

22:30

the cover, the typography there is really

22:33

cool. It's obviously got a lot

22:35

of influences from like Hindu scripts. Yeah, for

22:38

ladder lists at the bottom. Yeah. And

22:40

the la, teh and ra are all connected with

22:42

big bars and then the lus is all connected

22:45

with one big bar. Two ol' across

22:47

the top is all connected with a big bar

22:49

the way that like a

22:52

Hindu script frequently is. I

22:54

think that it's very interesting because it almost doesn't look

22:56

like letters until you start to really focus on it

22:58

and then you're like, oh yeah, that's writing.

23:00

But it also, there are several songs in

23:02

this album that obviously have some kind of

23:05

influence from Indian

23:07

religion. Yep. And

23:10

Hinduism in particular. So I

23:12

thought that was a really cool choice. Yeah,

23:14

like I said, nothing's left to chance. Yeah.

23:17

So for me personally, I've been a Tool fan

23:19

since the Anima album. I know I knew Sober

23:21

pretty well and I liked it, but I just

23:23

never invested in that record for a long time.

23:26

It wasn't until Anima that I started to take

23:28

a real serious look into their music, but

23:30

even that was a little fleeting. Just

23:33

when they were getting interesting to me, they

23:35

disappeared for a while and my

23:37

life became way more complicated. I

23:39

more or less forgot about them until Schism showed up

23:41

on the MTV Airways and I started to hear a

23:44

little bit of it on the radio. I

23:46

remember seeing the video for it with all of its

23:48

stop motion animation and stuff and being intrigued at first.

23:50

But again, life got in the way. I had three

23:52

young kids at the time. And then while I was

23:55

at work in the summer of 2001, I

23:57

kept hearing a lot of the guys in the warehouse.

23:59

At the time, I was a human resources

24:01

manager for a big agricultural design and building

24:04

company. And all the welders in the warehouse

24:06

were blasting this album, and I was interested

24:08

at first. But again, things got complicated

24:10

because a few weeks later, 9-11 happened,

24:12

and music became secondary. Protecting

24:14

my family and living life in a much different way,

24:16

seeing the order of the day. And

24:19

around that time, I decided to go back to school

24:21

to pursue broadcasting and video stuff. So

24:24

in 2001, while I was at school, and because I was

24:26

one of the older students at the time, I was 29,

24:28

I made friends with a lot of the teachers instead

24:30

of the students. There was just kind of a

24:32

mutual respect at being later on in life. And

24:34

one of the teachers was a guy of about

24:37

38, his name was Scott West, who had been

24:39

a camera guy in Detroit for 10 years. And

24:41

he was super chill and very artistically driven with

24:44

this big worldly sense about him. He traveled a

24:46

lot, and he wasn't married and having kids, but

24:48

he was always busy. So I asked what his

24:50

deal was. And he said he gets

24:52

involved in these projects and just has no time. Projects

24:55

like this thing called Theater Bazaar. And I'm like,

24:57

Theater Bazaar, what's that? So in the

25:00

crappier parts of Detroit, used to sit the

25:02

Michigan State Fairgrounds. The Fairgrounds is where the

25:04

State Fair used to be, obviously. And it

25:06

used to have a coliseum there called the

25:08

Shrine Auditorium, where the circus used to be

25:10

held. And it was such a shitty

25:13

place to see a show. It was a metal building,

25:15

it was a shed, right? And the sound just bounced

25:17

around for days. I saw a ministry and helmet there

25:19

together at the same time, and I thought I was

25:21

going to die. It was just... So

25:24

across from the street from these

25:26

fairgrounds were these street of shitty

25:29

abandoned houses in Detroit. And Scott,

25:31

with several friends, bought three of them

25:33

for nothing, took the fences down in

25:35

the backyard separating them all. He

25:38

built this thing called Theater Bazaar, which was

25:40

this giant haunted house slash concert venue slash

25:42

freak show slash bar area slash anything goes

25:44

type of place that would take place every

25:46

weekend in October. So I said, wow, that

25:48

sounds cool. And he said, well, if you

25:50

and a few other classmates you could trust

25:52

want to come. If you shoot the whole

25:54

thing, I'm videoing. edit it, I'll let you

25:56

guys in for free and your dates too,

25:58

you can do what you want. I'll give

26:01

you a beer ticket so you can just

26:03

drink for free." And I said, oh, that

26:05

sounds all right, it's Halloween. So

26:07

we went in costume and shot a couple

26:10

of the acts and then we took turns

26:12

giving each other breaks and letting the others

26:14

roam around and get the whole experience. But

26:16

Heather and I were at the front of

26:18

the stage and out comes this weirdly hairless

26:21

chap, right? Dressed all in leather, piercings all

26:23

over the place. And he does this very

26:25

intense, very long fire eating act set to

26:27

this record. And while I was watching it,

26:30

all the pieces from this album started

26:32

to fall into place. There

26:34

was this communal feeling between the record and

26:36

the art and how it all worked at

26:38

the same time, that this music couldn't really

26:41

be listened to in parts. You took the

26:43

whole thing as a complete piece and I

26:45

got it. And I absolutely fell in love

26:47

with this record and everything else that they

26:49

have produced because there is a oneness

26:52

within it. It's hard

26:54

to explain. Sometimes it takes many, many

26:56

listens to unlayer the onion, but there's

26:59

so much development in these songs that

27:01

it's worth the investment. And I'm really excited

27:03

to talk about it because there's so much

27:05

in there. But that's my tool story. That's

27:07

awesome. And so, and

27:09

if you look it up, Theer Bazaar

27:11

used to be in their backyard and

27:13

then 10 years ago they moved into

27:15

the Masonic Temple in Detroit, the world's

27:18

largest Masonic Temple. They

27:20

were doing it for like eight weeks and

27:22

they had all these rooms and it's this

27:25

massive thing. They had to cancel

27:27

it last year because there was some sort of scheduling conflict. But

27:29

they've had like the great harvest, like it's

27:31

a, like a band that's almost exactly like

27:33

Gore. They do the same thing with like

27:35

costumes and masks and blood and shit and

27:38

it's everywhere. And it's

27:40

like, wow, that's a lot. It's

27:42

a lot of stuff. But it was a lot of

27:44

fun and it's cool. So they do it

27:46

and they have artists from all over the

27:49

world now that participate in it. So it's very cool. Cool.

27:52

So that's that. Do you want to do a track or a, take a

27:54

break and do a track? Yeah, take a quick break and we'll come back

27:56

and do a track by track. Sounds good. All right. See

27:59

you in a second. Today's

28:07

show is brought to you by Atomic

28:09

Podcast Services. Are you tired of spending

28:11

hours hunched over your computer struggling to

28:14

edit your podcast episodes? Do you want

28:16

more time to create instead of editing?

28:18

Well, we have the solution for you.

28:21

Introducing Atomic Podcast Services, a premium podcast

28:23

editing service that will take your show

28:26

to the next level. With Atomic Podcast

28:28

Services, you can say goodbye to tedious

28:30

editing tasks and hello to a polished,

28:32

professional-sounding podcast. It will expertly enhance your

28:35

audio quality, seamlessly remove background noise, and

28:37

ensure every episode sounds crystal clear.

28:40

But that's not all. As part of their

28:42

premium service, they will also help you with

28:44

ID3 tagging, scheduling, and posting of episodes, and

28:47

for a little extra, even create engaging audiograms

28:49

to promote your episodes on social media platforms.

28:52

There's even a discount if you subscribe

28:54

to their monthly services. With Atomic Podcast

28:56

Services, you'll have more time to focus

28:58

on what you do best, creating incredible

29:00

content. So why waste another minute struggling

29:02

with complex editing software? Let Atomic Podcast

29:04

Services take care of the technical side

29:06

while you focus on captivating your audience.

29:08

Visit their website at AtomicPods, that's

29:11

pods with a Z,.com to learn

29:13

more and book your editing session

29:15

today. Hello, this

29:17

is Matthew from AudioJudo. Are you looking

29:19

for additional AudioJudo content, stuff that will

29:21

make you laugh with an emphasis on

29:24

music? Then you need to subscribe to

29:26

our Patreon page. This is how you do it.

29:29

First thing, head to our site, patreon.com/AudioJudo. Our Patreon

29:31

site is the only place you're going to find

29:33

all the extras that we work so hard to

29:35

provide. There are Judo Chops, which are mini episodes.

29:37

There are bits that are taken out of episodes

29:40

for whatever reasons. Some bloopers, some full interviews with

29:42

artists like Steve Hackett from Genesis. We have three

29:44

tiers currently. There is the Shout It Out Loud

29:46

tier, which would only cost you a dollar in

29:49

the US. For that amount, you get a shout

29:51

out by name at the end of each episode.

29:53

For $5 a month, a little step up, the

29:55

Front Row tier, you get a shout out on

29:58

each episode, early access to full episodes. and

30:00

access to all the bonus content. With a

30:02

more significant investment, $20 a month, the

30:04

backstage pass tier, you get everything that is

30:07

available at the other tiers, a special personalized

30:09

gift from Kyle and I. Most importantly, after

30:11

paying for one year, you get to host

30:13

an episode of Audio Judo with me and

30:16

Kyle on the album of your choosing. We

30:18

have completed several of these. They're a ton

30:20

of fun. You can find the link to

30:22

our Patreon account on our website, audiojudo.com, but

30:25

if you can't find it there, it is

30:27

patreon.com/audio judo. Thanks for subscribing. And now back

30:29

to the program. Hey, this is Maya

30:31

Wynn from Envy of None and you're listening

30:33

to the Audio Judo Podcast on the Pantheon

30:35

Podcast Network. The

30:45

grudge. The grudge. So the lead

30:47

song opens with the sound of something mechanical.

30:50

I've never been quite sure what that sound

30:52

is in the background. It sounds like an

30:54

elevator to me. That makes sense.

30:56

That old manual elevator. Yeah. That kind of

30:58

whiny. Yeah. Before it

31:01

begins with this syncopated stomping March, and

31:03

it is a song like so many

31:05

of Tool's songs that is

31:07

about maturity and growth and how we hold

31:09

onto the things that are negative to bolster

31:11

ourselves up. The first line of the song,

31:13

where are the grudge like a crown of

31:15

negativity, right? There's an air of defiance in

31:17

this song. Like where in the grudge is

31:19

like a badge of honor. And then it

31:22

just continues with the next line, calculate what

31:24

we will and will not tolerate. It's all

31:26

very measured and dark, but the impetus of

31:28

the song is that is all of it

31:30

bad. We are unable to control it and

31:32

it ends up consuming us. And then you

31:34

get to the final line of the song,

31:36

obviously more, but the final line of the

31:38

song that is repeated many, many times is

31:40

let go. Right? Coming to a like

31:43

full circle, like you got to let go of all

31:45

the negativity. And just reading the words

31:47

to this first song tells me

31:49

that Krista Gowden never bothered to

31:51

go beyond because there's nothing fantasy

31:53

about this. This is about self

31:55

assessment. Yeah. I mean, that's kind

31:57

of the theme of this whole

31:59

album. There's all this imagery

32:01

of this religious imagery and astrological

32:04

imagery, philosophy, mysticism, science, alchemy, literature,

32:06

math, and it all kind of

32:08

blends together into this fascinating

32:11

piece of art that's much

32:13

much much deeper. Like you can just listen to

32:15

this and not pay much attention to it and

32:18

it sounds interesting. But if you listen to it

32:20

and pay more and more and more attention, it's

32:22

like you said, you learn more and more and

32:24

more every time you listen to it. Eventually, you

32:27

start to see how the whole thing fits together

32:29

with itself and even like, I'll bring this up again

32:31

to the end of the album, you could

32:33

repeat it. The way that the album ends,

32:35

it immediately rolls back into the first track.

32:37

It keeps going. Right, which it keeps going.

32:40

Yeah. And you just use like some of

32:42

the most critical words on this record. You

32:44

know the pieces fit because it comes up

32:46

again. And this

32:48

song, The Grudge, sounds like this. I'm

33:43

already saying it in the background, let go. That

33:46

scream is actually three separate screams by

33:48

Maynard edited together, but who cares? Yeah.

33:50

It's so primal and guttural that catches

33:52

your ear every time you hear it.

33:55

And there's tons of symbolism in the

33:57

song like every tool song ever, including

33:59

references to... the Scarlet Letterman, which is

34:01

a reference to Hester Prynne from the Scarlet

34:03

Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Which, I

34:06

gotta bring that up really quick. Because

34:08

it is one of my least favorite

34:10

English masterpiece books of all time. This

34:12

is part of the story that I'll

34:14

roll back down to in the end

34:17

here, but it is just... It fits

34:19

really well with this album. I'm happy

34:21

that they bring it up almost first

34:23

thing. It's in like the fourth line.

34:26

Yeah, if you don't know quickly, Hester

34:28

Prynne in

34:31

Scarlet Letter, she has an affair with a prominent member

34:33

of the town and must wear a red A on

34:35

her clothes, branding her and adulterer, shunning her from the

34:37

community. Maynard also references Clutch It

34:40

Like a Cornerstone. Cornerstone or foundation stone

34:42

or setting stone is the first stone

34:44

set in the construction of a masonry

34:46

foundation. Important since all other stones will

34:48

be set in reference to this stone,

34:50

thus determining the position of the entire

34:52

structure. The cornerstone metaphor serves

34:54

a dual purpose. It depicts the grudge

34:56

as a defining personal characteristic, holding everything

34:59

in place, but also suggests a burden

35:01

to keep it aloft. Fucking come on now.

35:03

Yeah. One of the most important elements of

35:05

the lyrical part of the song is the

35:07

reference to Saturn. Yeah, this was cool. I

35:09

did not know this one at all. Yeah,

35:12

Maynard often references astrological influences on his songs

35:14

and this one is no different. He uses

35:16

the line Saturn ascends, choose one or ten.

35:18

In astrology, Saturn has an orbital year of

35:20

29 and a half years. So when

35:23

you are born, you have until you are 29 and

35:25

a half until Saturn is in

35:27

the same place as when you were born.

35:29

And this is supposed to define your maturation

35:31

into adulthood or at least define a period

35:33

of growth. It kind of goes along the

35:35

same lines. I could not find I know

35:37

I've heard this before. I could not find

35:40

it anywhere. The idea that life comes in

35:42

30 year blocks. So the first

35:44

30 years of your life is you're growing, you're

35:46

becoming an adult, you're trying to figure things out

35:48

until about the time you're 30. And then the

35:50

next 30 years of your life is you figured

35:52

out that part of your life and you think

35:54

you know everything. So you're trying to make the

35:57

best of it and you're raising a family and

35:59

you're, you know, doing all

36:01

those things that we expect to happen in life, but

36:03

by the time you hit 60 you

36:05

begin to realize, I don't know shit, and

36:07

I'm now two-thirds of the way through my life, and

36:10

then the last 30 years if

36:13

you're lucky enough to live that

36:15

long, are you either accepting you

36:17

don't know anything and that you

36:19

have more to learn, or being

36:21

incredibly miserable because you don't realize

36:23

that and you spend all your

36:25

old age just being grumpy. I

36:27

know everything, I know nobody else,

36:30

that sounds familiar. So you're saying I only

36:32

have nine years left to figure out that

36:34

you enjoy the fact that I know everything?

36:37

Exactly, yeah and then immediately you either need

36:39

to realize you don't know anything or that

36:41

you know everything and you'll become incredibly grumpy.

36:43

Cool. Grumpier. Grumpier, I was gonna say. This

36:47

song was very weird, it brought back the

36:50

first time I re-listened to this maybe a

36:52

month-ish ago. It brought back weird high school

36:54

memories because I remember driving around in a

36:56

shitty car listening to it.

36:58

It sounds so great on my headphones because I'm

37:01

used to listening to it through

37:03

shitty 20 year old car speakers.

37:05

Tinny. Yeah, it brought

37:07

back great high school memories though. So,

37:11

Eon Blue Apocalypse. Yeah, named

37:14

after Adam's dog, Eon Blue, who sadly passed

37:16

away while they were working on this album.

37:19

It's an instrumental. And it kind of works

37:21

as an interstitial if you were, I liken

37:23

to these passages which are present on every

37:25

album since Enema as a deep

37:28

breath. The way that the grudge, the way it

37:30

builds and as intense as it ends up getting, these

37:32

little blips of songs are like breathers and it's only

37:34

a minute long. Here's a little piece of it right

37:36

here. It's

37:59

nice. Yeah, it almost sounds like it

38:01

would be like a little bit of the

38:04

soundtrack to a western. I can hear that.

38:08

I can hear that. So

38:14

the patient. I love

38:16

the word play in this title because

38:19

it could mean literally a medical patient

38:21

or someone who is being patient, a

38:23

group of people that are being patient.

38:25

And it is both of those things.

38:28

So while similar in sound to the grudge because the

38:30

chords I use are similar, the structure of the song

38:32

is a little different. Here we get

38:35

the slow build to the big crescendo, which

38:37

Neil Peir used to refer to as the

38:39

flying brick. I don't know why, he just

38:41

did. The song is written from the perspective

38:44

of tool lead singer, Maynard James Keenan's mother,

38:46

Judith Marie, who suffered a stroke in 1976

38:48

that left her partially paralyzed and wheelchair bound

38:50

and she thought she was being tested by

38:53

God and she thought she would be rewarded

38:55

for her fate. Now this is not the

38:57

only time that Maynard would write about his

39:00

mother this way. There's a song

39:02

called Judith on a Perfect Circle's first album,

39:04

Meredonam, and that version which predates this song

39:06

by about a year or two is much

39:08

angrier than this one. Yes, it is. The

39:11

lyrics to that one are, F your Lord,

39:13

your Christ took all you had and left

39:15

you this way. Still you

39:17

pray, never stray, never taste of the

39:19

fruit, never thought to question why. He's

39:22

pissed. And telling her that

39:24

she should be more pissed than she is. And then

39:26

he wrote about it again on the follow up to

39:28

Lateralus, 10,000 days. 10,000

39:30

days with the approximate amount of days his mother was

39:33

wheelchair bound from the time of her stroke to her

39:35

death. Obviously, this is a

39:37

very personal matter for Maynard and there's a

39:39

lot of resentment, of faith and anger towards

39:41

a God that would punish someone so faith

39:43

filled. And all of these, of course, are

39:45

ideas that I can get behind. The

39:48

approach he takes on this song though is

39:51

one of her undying patience, convinced that she

39:53

will be rewarded for her suffering and for

39:55

her devotion. It will just take

39:58

time. The lines, if there were no. no

40:00

rewards to reap, no loving embrace to see

40:02

me through, this tedious path I've chosen here

40:04

I certainly would have walked out or walked

40:06

away by now. Gotta wait it out. I

40:09

mean, how are you not impacted when you

40:11

read that? I mean, you could tell there's

40:13

so much good stuff in there and his

40:15

emotions, at least for me, are the most

40:18

feelable emotions in metal music. You know, there

40:20

are better singers who can hit higher notes,

40:22

but there's tension and love and anger and

40:24

hurt in his voice all at the same

40:26

time. It gives their music even more power

40:29

than it already has. There's

40:31

more gravity to it. And then just

40:33

listen to the music. Sounds like this.

41:07

So good. Yeah.

41:23

And like he does on the grudge

41:25

with the repeated line, let go, this

41:27

song gets the repeated line. Reminding

41:30

myself of this over and over

41:32

and over again, almost like

41:35

a mantra, which oddly enough is the name

41:37

of the next song. Who would have thought?

41:39

Mantra. It's another

41:41

instrumental. So like you said, it's kind of another

41:44

little interstitial to lead into the next song. One

41:46

of the things that I thought was very interesting

41:48

is the sort of sound in this. There's kind

41:50

of like a noise

41:52

that is Maynard squeezing one of his

41:54

cats slowed down a little bit. Don't

41:57

worry. The cat was okay. Because

42:00

I saw it on every site, emphasized

42:02

on every site I saw, gently squeezing

42:04

his cat. Gently squeezing his

42:06

cat. It sounds like this. Yeah.

42:10

It's perfect.

42:28

It's a perfect little song. I

42:31

love it. Skism.

42:35

Skism is defined as a split

42:37

or division between strongly opposed sections

42:40

or parties caused by differences in

42:42

opinion or belief. In

42:44

this song, lead singer Maynard describes the

42:46

effect a schism can have on a

42:48

relationship when the parties disagree and communications

42:51

break down. This was released a year

42:53

after Perfect Circle released their debut album.

42:55

The other members of Tool were kind

42:57

of unhappy that Maynard was dedicating so much

42:59

time to Perfect Circle, which is

43:02

the fundamental differing in the lyrics, if you

43:04

want to believe that. Maynard explains

43:06

that doing the same thing for Perfect

43:08

Circle that he'd done for Tool caused

43:11

a rift, caused some issues. So

43:13

that is one explanation I read for the

43:16

song. Another set of fans says this is

43:18

all about the church, and I think that's

43:20

a little too on the nose, because that's

43:22

usually where you will find that term used

43:24

in churchy stuff, you know, schisms. But

43:27

I like to believe that this is most

43:29

likely about the band and a

43:31

relationship. It would be a little

43:33

too uncharacteristic for Maynard to write

43:35

anything that only has one meaning

43:37

or interpretation. Well, that's the thing

43:39

about this song is there are

43:41

literally a million meanings to this

43:43

song. They do such

43:46

a good job, and you already mentioned this,

43:48

but they do such a good job of

43:50

leaving that interpretation up to the listener. Yeah,

43:52

there's never any one time where they say

43:55

it's specifically this. It is left open to

43:57

your interpretation, which I think is the ultimate goal.

44:00

of art. You create the piece of art,

44:02

you throw it out into the world, and you say,

44:04

what do you guys think of this? And then everybody

44:06

interprets it just a little bit differently, and

44:09

that's amazing to me. That's what makes

44:11

good art. And along with those

44:13

same ones that you already mentioned, a lot of people

44:15

have said this could be Maynard's crisis

44:17

of faith when he was a child, when

44:19

his mother was paralyzed because he was raised

44:22

in a fairly religious household that tried to

44:24

squash all his creativity. It could be dealing

44:26

with that crisis of faith. It could be

44:28

dealing again with his mother's crisis of faith,

44:31

her questioning whether she's actually

44:34

done the right thing remaining faithful to

44:36

God and her religious beliefs, even

44:38

though she has been tested so. There's a lot

44:41

of people, you mentioned

44:43

just general religion. There's

44:46

also been some suggestion that it could

44:48

be the schism between them and their

44:50

record label or the schism between them

44:52

and their manager because

44:54

it was obviously written around that same time. I mean,

44:57

there's so many interpretations here. It's crazy. Yeah,

44:59

I know that metal is supposed to be

45:01

dark and have all this imagery attached to

45:03

it. Bands who dabble with metal will get

45:05

you a lot of gods on high or

45:08

brimstone or castles or anything sort of medieval

45:10

that they could tack on because those seem

45:12

to be the things that get their crowd

45:15

fired up. But this kind of

45:17

writing is what excites me, to write a song

45:19

that is essentially about wanting to have better

45:21

communication with your partner and using the

45:23

same sort of imagery that you would

45:25

find in those other songs is absolutely

45:27

brilliant. He's talking about pieces of a

45:30

jigsaw puzzle, right? I know

45:32

the pieces fit. We start about to

45:34

relationship, like we all have strengths and

45:36

weaknesses, which by itself is great. And

45:38

then he describes the wreckage of their

45:40

relationship as mildewed and smoldering. And I

45:42

remember hearing that for the first time

45:45

and being like, damn, that's so

45:47

great. That

45:49

is so awesome. That kind of

45:51

usage of language is just so

45:53

meaningful and impactful. And the song

45:55

sounds like this. This

46:48

song has a very weird effect on me.

46:50

For lack of a better way to explain this, it makes

46:52

my brain itch. It's

46:55

something about the time signature and the

46:58

way that the lyrics match up with

47:00

it. If

47:02

I sit and listen to this whole song,

47:04

I have to stop right afterwards and walk

47:06

away for a second. Really? Because

47:09

if I just keep listening to more music, I'm

47:11

like, I can't get beyond this. I have to

47:13

go be silent for a minute. It really sells

47:16

something to me. You've got an itchy brain. I

47:19

was curious to find out too when we do this

47:21

because I've only ever really sat and listened to it

47:23

from beginning to end or listened to it in the

47:25

background or whatever. I was curious to know if a

47:27

clip would do that as well. It doesn't seem to

47:29

be as bad. That's good. I'm glad your brain's not

47:31

itchy at the moment. It's

47:34

a very weird thing. That's

47:37

happened since this album came out. It's just something that

47:39

I remember the first time hearing this, I was driving

47:41

a car and I was like, we need to put

47:43

something else on for a minute. That's so weird. I

47:45

had to switch to the radio and just be like,

47:47

what's wrong? I just need to clear my head for a second.

47:53

I was also a very successful single for them

47:55

as well. I got to number two on the

47:58

alternative chart and the mainstream rock chart. number

48:00

67 on the Billboard Top 100 stayed

48:02

there for a long, long time. Not

48:05

bad for some alt-metal progressive art rock

48:07

math rock guys. Also, I could not

48:09

find any evidence, but if they did

48:12

not sue Home Depot for

48:14

using the guitar riffs at the end of this song

48:16

and those commercials that they made in the mid-2000s... Really?

48:19

I mean, it sounds exactly the same to me.

48:22

But if they didn't, if they shouldn't,

48:24

they should have. My timing might

48:27

be wrong. Maybe the Home Depot commercials were first,

48:29

but I don't think so. No. As

48:31

for the bass hook, Justin Chancellor

48:33

said this, the twiddly schism riff

48:35

came from fooling around. I

48:38

just play as much as possible and I don't write

48:40

stuff down. So when I get a good idea, I

48:42

play it until I can't forget it. So

48:44

he's just sitting in the studio going... That

48:51

would be the twiddly stuff. The twiddly stuff. Parable?

48:54

Parable. Spelled

48:56

like B-O-L, bowl. Yeah.

48:59

So these next two songs, Parable and

49:01

Parabola, are kind of two halves

49:03

of one song. Parable is

49:05

the calmer of the two, but there are thematic elements

49:08

that are shared between them and there are also

49:10

quite a few lyrics shared with them as well. This

49:12

song and even the music used for it

49:15

is very womb-like to me. It's

49:17

gentle, soothing, and the lyrics reflect that.

49:20

So the lyrics he says at the beginning,

49:22

so familiar and overwhelmingly warm are the words

49:24

he uses and there's comfort there. And

49:26

I believe this song is about self-actualization.

49:29

The moment somebody realizes that they are

49:31

alive at all, the line that precedes

49:33

that is we barely remember what came

49:36

before this precious moment. And all of

49:38

us have that blank spot from birth

49:40

to whenever we form that first memory

49:42

that we can recall. And it's all

49:45

quite brilliant and makes me spend a

49:47

lot of time thinking about stuff. And

49:50

it sounds like this. I

50:03

feel pretty well

50:05

with you. I'm

50:23

so

50:26

good. Do

50:37

you have something about that? Are you ready to

50:39

move? No, I was just going to say, kind

50:41

of the same thing that you're talking about. Lots

50:43

of it suggests the common religious belief that life

50:45

is just this preparation for whatever's after it. And

50:48

then it leads, like you said, into parabola. Right.

50:51

This part of the song is very

50:53

much about now being alive. Parabola

50:55

is kind of a celebration of life, the

50:57

holy experience of birth and the unlikely opportunity

51:00

that we all share to be temporarily conscious

51:02

of each other in the world around us.

51:05

And the song kind of, it very much jumps out at you.

51:08

It has one of my very favorite tool grooves,

51:10

one of the rare times that Danny Carey falls

51:12

into the pocket for a while without going full

51:14

progressive, although he does that later in the song.

51:17

But the first part of it is so cool, and it sounds

51:19

like this. And

51:38

that's it for now. Thank you. Thank

51:40

you. So

52:02

good. Yeah.

52:18

Adam Jones absolutely killing it on the

52:20

guitar in this song. On the whole

52:23

album, but in this song in particular.

52:25

And it must be, I'm just listening

52:27

to it just now. It must have

52:29

been so fucking loud in the studio

52:31

recording that. It just sounds loud. Even

52:33

listening to it quiet sounds loud. That's

52:37

so weird. Right. One of the

52:40

most obvious references to math, here

52:42

obviously the name Parabola. Parabola is a

52:44

U-shaped thing

52:47

in geometry. There's some

52:49

interesting symbolism behind that though.

52:52

Sure. So the upward open

52:54

parabola looks like this. It's often considered

52:56

a religious symbol because it can represent

52:58

the womb, it can represent the

53:01

idea that you're cupping the

53:03

cup of Christ type of thing

53:05

in Christian religions. It can

53:08

also represent the ability

53:10

to hold your faith because it's

53:12

like a bowl. It holds your faith inside

53:14

of it. The downward

53:16

facing parabola, more

53:19

like that. Also has some other imagery.

53:21

It's open so everything falls back out

53:23

of it. So you're losing your faith.

53:26

It also has the idea of infertility

53:29

because obviously you can't grow anything

53:31

in it. It also represents

53:33

that sort of bell curve

53:35

shape that represents like life where you

53:38

eventually hit some point that's the highest

53:40

point in your entire life. Everything

53:42

after that will be down to kind of depressing.

53:45

Yeah, that's pressing. Yeah. Yeah.

53:49

Other interesting thing, parabola and parabola,

53:51

both obviously are references to parables,

53:56

little religious stories that everybody knows

53:58

that are ultimately the best. basis

54:00

for modern religions because they're little short

54:02

stories that you can tell to pass

54:04

on a moral religious

54:06

idea or lesson to all

54:08

of us stupid who without

54:11

them would just murder rape everybody. Apparently.

54:15

So. Yeah. Ticks

54:17

and leeches? Ticks and leeches. Containing

54:20

one of the finest in song drum

54:22

parts ever. Really? Yes. This

54:25

is a full scale indictment of the label that

54:27

sued Tool and was countersued by them and most

54:29

likely the music industry or at least the executives.

54:32

Yeah. This is one of the times

54:34

where, you know, we talked earlier about how they generally

54:36

leave the interpretation up to the fans and leave it

54:38

very open. Yeah. This is not one of those

54:40

times. No. It's like

54:42

a big arrow right here. Record executives.

54:46

Opening lyrical section should tell you all you need to know. Suck

54:49

and suck. Sucking up all you can. Sucking

54:52

up all you can. Suck and suck. Working

54:55

up under my patience like a little tick. Right?

54:58

I think he's pissed. He's a little mad.

55:01

And then the otherworldly howls from Maynard

55:03

in this song are just so intense

55:05

from the depths of his bowels. This

55:07

is him at his angriest. It's just

55:10

nutty. Sounds like this. Can

56:06

we just talk for a second about Danny Carey? Yeah, let's

56:08

do it. My God, he is so good. And

56:11

has been for a long, long time. He

56:13

grew up and he was raised in Kansas,

56:15

as is evidenced by the fact that he

56:17

always wears a Kansas Jayhawk jersey for every

56:20

concert. Always wears a basketball

56:22

jersey. Started drumming at a very early age.

56:24

And it's really fun to look into his background a little

56:26

bit if you have the time, because he

56:28

was so influenced by jazz and

56:30

the jazz greats like Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa and

56:32

Tony Williams, you wouldn't think that

56:35

would transfer to metal drumming. But

56:37

his use of polyrhythms in tools music is one

56:39

of the things that makes their style so unique.

56:42

And you can find him pretty much

56:44

like any weekend tools not on the

56:46

road, playing a bar called

56:48

the Baked Potato in LA. And

56:51

he plays with jazz people all the time

56:53

at the Baked Potato. He

56:55

just randomly shows up, plays, and it's

56:57

incredible the stuff that he does. It's

57:00

nutty how gifted he is. And I

57:03

don't think people appreciate so much what

57:05

he does. But it's also

57:07

really natural to watch him play. He doesn't look

57:09

like he's trying very hard. He just pisses off

57:11

the rest of us. It's like, why don't you

57:13

look like you're trying? He just

57:16

does it. Just do

57:18

it. So the title song? Lateralist,

57:21

right? Little track of the record is nine

57:24

plus minutes long. The radio

57:26

edit is almost six minutes long, and

57:28

yet number 18 on the alternative chart,

57:30

number 14 on the mainstream rock chart. Loudwire

57:33

magazine named this the number one metal song

57:35

of the 21st century. And

57:37

there's so much about this song. And I'll

57:39

sum it up in one word, Fibonacci. There

57:41

you go. And we move on. Sorry.

57:44

I'm just kidding. Part one, the song is

57:46

known for its distinct time signatures, corresponding lyrical

57:49

patterns, the time signature of the chorus of

57:51

the song. They change from 98 to 8878,

57:54

as drummer Danny Carey says it was originally titled 987

57:56

for the time signatures. Then

57:58

it turned out that... 987

58:01

was the 16th number of the Fibonacci sequence,

58:03

so that was cool. Now for part

58:05

two, I'm going to do something I never thought I would ever

58:07

do in my life. Quote Joe Rogan. No. In

58:10

an interview with Maynard, he said this. He

58:12

said he wrote a song to the Fibonacci

58:14

sequence. The Fibonacci sequence is a mathematical sequence.

58:16

It starts from one, the next number is

58:19

one, and the next number being two creates

58:21

the two plus one, which is three, continuing

58:23

in this mathematical progression. That's

58:25

how they found their chord progression. It began

58:27

linking up to the Fibonacci sequence. The syllables

58:30

Maynard sings in the first verse follow the

58:32

first six numbers in the pattern, ascending and

58:34

descending in the sequence. One,

58:36

one, two, three, five, eight, five,

58:38

three. Stupid

58:41

math, man. And then he descends back

58:43

down. But the fact that you

58:46

could actually figure this out and it was put

58:48

there on purpose just blows my mind. And while

58:50

it seems like it might be a bit of

58:52

a dark side of the rainbow goose chase, all

58:56

those things really do line up. And

58:58

it was not unintentional. For a band

59:00

like this, I don't believe any of it

59:02

is ever unintentional. I would agree. The song

59:04

sounds like this. Knowing

1:00:04

what we know about the math that backs

1:00:06

up this song, it's kind of ironic that

1:00:09

the lyrics and the theme of it are

1:00:11

about how human knowledge has to constantly expand

1:00:13

and needs to constantly grow, like the Fibonacci

1:00:16

sequence, right? Keep getting bigger and bigger and

1:00:18

bigger, but also they are

1:00:20

about how we will never be

1:00:22

able to find perfect harmony within

1:00:25

the universe. We'll never be able

1:00:27

to find the reality of that

1:00:30

repeating sequence. We have to accept

1:00:32

reality is random and chaotic.

1:00:35

Nutty, right? Crazy. I love it. And

1:00:37

there's more. Maynard said that in the

1:00:39

song, I used the archetype stories of

1:00:41

North American aboriginals and the

1:00:43

themes of or colors which appear over

1:00:45

and over again in the oral stories

1:00:47

handed down through generations. Black, white, red,

1:00:49

and yellow play very heavily in aboriginal

1:00:52

stories of creation. He does live in

1:00:54

Arizona, so those influences would line up

1:00:56

for him. Also, the line

1:00:58

in the song, As Above, So Below,

1:01:00

I Imagine, is from Hermeticism

1:01:02

or the Emerald Tablet, which

1:01:04

is often used in alchemists' work.

1:01:07

So, kind of back to the

1:01:09

alchemy thing in astrology. And

1:01:11

then add to the Fibonacci part, one thing

1:01:13

not mentioned in Rogan's interview is the shape

1:01:15

of a Fibonacci. Oh, the golden ratio. It's

1:01:17

a spiral. Yeah. So the last lines of

1:01:19

the song are spiral out, keep going. Much

1:01:21

like the mantras at the beginning of the

1:01:23

record was let go, let go, and now

1:01:25

it's keep going. This was all planned, and

1:01:28

the more you sit with it, the more

1:01:30

you listen to it and let it kind

1:01:32

of wash over you, the more it reveals

1:01:34

itself in those little nuggets. And

1:01:37

that was a nice taste for this song, but

1:01:39

I'm gonna do a full Judo Chop on this

1:01:41

song specifically. Oh, cool. So if you want to

1:01:43

hear more about how intricate this song really is

1:01:45

and the dedication to detail, check out our Patreon.

1:01:48

patreon.com backslash Audio Judo in a couple

1:01:50

of weeks. Subscribe to get for

1:01:52

five bucks to get the chops. Little is five bucks.

1:01:55

Yeah, you can do it. Just do it. Just go

1:01:57

do it. Go do it. Go do it right now.

1:02:00

Disposition? Disposition. The

1:02:02

next three tracks, disposition, reflection, and

1:02:04

triad, form a sequence that

1:02:07

when they perform this live, they perform these

1:02:09

in order with help

1:02:11

from a lot of other touring

1:02:14

members from other touring bands that

1:02:16

are with them, including Mike Patton,

1:02:18

Dave Lombardo, Buzz Osborne, Tricky, members

1:02:20

of Icy. Say some more. Yeah,

1:02:22

Meshuga, King Crimson, which

1:02:24

is super cool. I've seen a couple of the live

1:02:27

recordings of them performing it. It's awesome.

1:02:30

It is awesome. Disposition, I was going to say,

1:02:32

is almost an instrumental, but there are some lyrics

1:02:34

here. Much of this song is kind of wrapped

1:02:37

in a mantra, right? Maynard repeats the line, watch

1:02:39

the weather change over and over again. I

1:02:41

remember what I said at the beginning of this, that

1:02:43

listening to this record, even with the explosive bits in

1:02:46

it, is very much a contemplative

1:02:48

and meditative sort of thing. And you

1:02:50

kind of get wrapped in these four,

1:02:53

five-minute pieces where ebb and

1:02:55

flow, it just kind of moves back and forth.

1:02:57

And this song is very indicative of that, and

1:02:59

it sounds like this. All

1:03:43

three of these songs have a

1:03:45

very, obviously, Indian influenced sound to

1:03:47

them. Yeah, very Eastern vibes. Yeah,

1:03:49

and the themes of it also

1:03:51

fall right in line with a

1:03:53

lot of like Hindu teachings and

1:03:55

things. It's very interesting. It

1:03:57

is interesting. That song is just a... hell

1:04:00

of a setup for part two, which is

1:04:02

reflection by far the longest part of

1:04:05

the trilogy. But my goodness, there's so much said

1:04:07

in this song, right? Lyrically, the song

1:04:09

is about someone who has reached the breaking point

1:04:11

and seems on the verge of taking their own

1:04:13

life and thinking that they will find comfort there,

1:04:15

you know, in the nothing, because if there's nothing,

1:04:17

then I don't have to worry about anything anymore.

1:04:20

But then in his deepest, darkest

1:04:22

moment, the moon casts light

1:04:24

on him, and he has an epiphany that

1:04:26

the light is not his own, but shared

1:04:29

amongst all humanity and realizes that we are

1:04:31

all one and connected and includes one

1:04:33

of the best phrases of lyric I

1:04:35

have ever encountered in all the music

1:04:37

that I've listened to. And the lyrics

1:04:39

are so crucify the ego before it's

1:04:41

far too late, and leave behind this

1:04:43

place so negative and blind and cynical.

1:04:45

And you will come to find that

1:04:47

we are all one mind capable of

1:04:49

all that's imagined and all conceivable. So

1:04:51

let the light touch you so that

1:04:53

the words spill through and let the

1:04:56

past break through, bringing out our hope

1:04:58

and reason. I mean, come on, let's

1:05:00

jam that into a rock song for God's sake.

1:05:04

I had read a couple of places.

1:05:06

Do you think in this situation that

1:05:08

the person has actually done something to

1:05:10

kill themselves and they are dying when

1:05:12

they see the moon? It's very possible

1:05:14

that they change their mind because they

1:05:17

realize the oneness with the world. Hard

1:05:19

to say. Yeah, I kind of saw

1:05:21

it both ways, but yeah, which is

1:05:23

fair. I think it's again, multiple

1:05:25

interpretations. And while this may not be

1:05:27

a true concept record in the sense

1:05:30

that we know it, it is there in

1:05:32

some ways. Oh, yeah. He refers back to

1:05:34

the negativity in the song from the grudge

1:05:36

leave behind this place of negative negativity. In

1:05:38

other words, let go, which is what he

1:05:41

was saying. Yeah. And then the music

1:05:43

and it sounds like this. those

1:06:30

Eastern vibes too, like you were saying. And

1:06:33

going back to that, it also has this

1:06:35

theme that's very common in Hinduism between the

1:06:38

two sides, the Atman, which is

1:06:40

the true self, and the

1:06:42

Brahman, which is, it connotes

1:06:45

the highest universal principle, ultimate

1:06:48

reality in the universe. It's the

1:06:50

immaterial, efficient, formal, and final cause

1:06:52

of all that exists. It is

1:06:54

the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness,

1:06:56

and bliss, which does not change

1:06:59

yet is the cause of all

1:07:01

changes. Brahman, as

1:07:03

a metaphysical concept, refers to the

1:07:05

single binding unity behind diversity in

1:07:07

all that exists. And

1:07:10

although that is the highest level,

1:07:12

above that, there is also Parabrahman,

1:07:14

or Super-Brahman, that

1:07:16

which is beyond all descriptions and

1:07:18

conceptualizations. It is described

1:07:20

as the formlessness that eternally

1:07:22

pervades everything everywhere in the

1:07:24

universe and whatever is beyond.

1:07:27

Some deep shit. Some deep shit. There's

1:07:30

also a really interesting clanging noise in this

1:07:32

song that is Danny banging

1:07:34

some piano strings. That's about

1:07:36

all the info I could find about it. So I'm not

1:07:38

sure if when he was banging them, he was topping them

1:07:40

or bottoming them, or if they were just frodding, but I

1:07:42

couldn't figure it out, which it was. Brought

1:07:45

it back to a sex joke.

1:07:48

Yeah, you did. Very serious deep

1:07:50

thought. There's a sex joke.

1:07:52

You're welcome, everybody. Well, that's pure Kyle right

1:07:54

there. Pure Kyle. Triad.

1:07:57

Yeah. Part 3 of the

1:07:59

trilogy, obviously. Part 3. The

1:08:01

song is eight and a half minutes long,

1:08:03

but the last two minutes are just silence.

1:08:05

There's nothing there. The song itself is an

1:08:07

instrumental that allows the band to stretch its

1:08:09

legs in one last huge cacophony. And I'm

1:08:12

here for every second of it. After

1:08:14

all that lyrical juiciness and thought-provoking

1:08:16

phrasing, they just let it all

1:08:18

hang out right here like this.

1:08:35

The song is eight and a half minutes long, but the last two minutes are just silence. The

1:09:19

name here, Triad, is a reference to

1:09:21

the traditional rock triad, guitar-based drums. Because

1:09:23

that's what they do here. And it's

1:09:25

very interesting too that in that same

1:09:27

that we've seen throughout the album and

1:09:29

specifically in the last two tracks, this

1:09:31

is almost a Vedic chant, but with

1:09:33

instruments. Because they do that thing that

1:09:35

they do in the Vedic chants where there's repetition,

1:09:37

repetition, repetition, and then it shoots off and it's

1:09:40

on direction for a bit and then it comes

1:09:42

back. Repetition, repetition, repetition. It goes off in another

1:09:44

direction and then it comes back. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

1:09:47

I don't know if what kit Danny Carey

1:09:49

was using for this record when they recorded it,

1:09:51

but it sounds massive. It's

1:09:54

not big like a lot of drums. It

1:09:56

sounds big. And he

1:09:58

has a kit. that he only uses when

1:10:00

they, and he doesn't, I don't think he even tours with it

1:10:02

anymore, but he used to, when they

1:10:05

toured in the States, that was

1:10:07

bronze, is the heaviest fucking thing.

1:10:09

It was just a massive, heavy

1:10:12

kit. And it just, like, imagine

1:10:14

playing that in a sound check in an

1:10:16

empty arena, and just, oh my God. That

1:10:18

would be cool. Also, can

1:10:20

you imagine being the poor fucking roadie who's

1:10:22

like, you just grabbed the drum kit, and

1:10:25

you're like, ugh. You need eight of them,

1:10:27

eight roadies to move it, and a forklift.

1:10:29

And a forklift. And

1:10:31

the final song, ish, song, Phap

1:10:35

de Oed. The

1:10:38

album ends on a mysterious and

1:10:40

very tool-like note with the last

1:10:42

quote unquote song. First of all,

1:10:45

Phap de Oed means the voice

1:10:47

of God in a language called

1:10:49

Enochian. The

1:10:51

Enochian language was invented by Edward Kelly in

1:10:54

the 16th century. Kelly said this language had

1:10:56

been revealed to him by angels. And what

1:10:58

you're hearing on the track I'm about to

1:11:00

play is the actual recording from

1:11:02

an episode of the Art Bell Show

1:11:04

in 1997. Hey,

1:11:08

everybody,illy over here.

1:11:12

This is our main guest. Um,

1:11:20

though, we don't hear

1:11:22

it real loud. They will

1:11:24

hear usics onenn, and no

1:11:26

fault. Uh,

1:11:30

yeah. See,

1:11:35

if you, if you heard the, if

1:11:37

you hear, if you hear that call

1:11:39

without what they're doing to it, it

1:11:41

doesn't sound that freaky, but the drums

1:11:44

and that buzz noise, like, it's hysterical.

1:11:46

Yeah. Like, not funny hysterical, like, like,

1:11:48

whole shit. What is happening right now?

1:11:50

What's interesting too is Danny, if you

1:11:52

listen to him, he's playing to the

1:11:54

cadence of the guy talking. Yeah. It

1:11:56

matches up almost exactly. It's awesome. Yeah.

1:12:00

familiar Art Bell's AM radio coast to coast

1:12:02

show was wild. Yeah. My dad used to

1:12:04

listen to it all the time and they

1:12:06

used to listen to it somewhere at home

1:12:08

late at night in the dark and it

1:12:10

would be on and I'd be like, wait

1:12:12

what are they talking about? And my dad would be like, oh

1:12:14

this guy calls in every couple of weeks. He thinks

1:12:17

that aliens are actually hyper evolved alligators

1:12:19

from the planet Zorgon. And I mean

1:12:21

I was a kid but I'd be

1:12:23

like, what? What? I remember they used

1:12:25

to, I worked overnight

1:12:28

shift doing dispatch for

1:12:30

emergency road service for an insurance

1:12:32

company for a while right after we

1:12:34

got married. And it was in

1:12:36

Denver and there was a guy that would turn

1:12:38

this on overnight while we were just sitting there

1:12:40

waiting for shit to happen and I'm like, what

1:12:42

the fuck is this? What is

1:12:44

this? And he goes, this is Art Bell man. This is

1:12:46

all real. No it isn't. That's

1:12:49

a new world order. Oh no, not you.

1:12:51

New world order. Come on.

1:12:53

Yeah. That was what was funny to me too

1:12:55

was my dad would listen to it and make

1:12:58

fun of the people and so I'm like, oh

1:13:00

you don't really believe in this. He's like, I

1:13:02

think these people are probably seeing something and experiencing

1:13:04

something but it's not whatever the

1:13:06

hell they think it is. It's probably you know

1:13:08

nuclear powered planes that have crashed and shit. For

1:13:10

your dad it was comedy. For my dad it

1:13:13

was comedy. Not so much the

1:13:15

case anymore as he's gone that route

1:13:17

but still, you know. Alright.

1:13:19

So what you were listening to,

1:13:21

talk about Art Bell, it

1:13:24

was during an Area 51 themed

1:13:26

call-in program and a hysterical man

1:13:28

claiming to be a former Area

1:13:31

51 worker called in to warn

1:13:33

Bell's listening audience that he knew

1:13:35

about a series of impending disasters

1:13:38

and this is the source of the monologue

1:13:40

on the track and before the man was

1:13:42

finished speaking the Art Bell show mysteriously lost

1:13:45

all of its power for 30 minutes and

1:13:47

then several weeks later the man called back

1:13:49

apologizing for the hoax they think it was

1:13:51

him but it might not have been him

1:13:54

and the coincidental power outage has

1:13:56

never been explained about what happened.

1:13:58

Ooh to the mystery. Which

1:14:00

is even more interesting because I believe

1:14:02

because of the emergency backup systems that

1:14:05

have to be in place on things

1:14:07

like AM radio stations and the Immense

1:14:09

of a disaster. Yeah to cut power

1:14:11

to an entire radio station is Incredibly

1:14:14

difficult. Oh, yes. So I remember

1:14:17

that from my radio broadcasting class.

1:14:19

Yeah little Different

1:14:21

little weird, but this is the perfect way to

1:14:23

end an album by tool because you're like fuck

1:14:26

But why not because that's just who they are. It's esoteric.

1:14:28

It's weird to the very last second They're gonna

1:14:30

twist you around and go ha

1:14:33

ha we'll put this in here Yeah And to to

1:14:35

come back to the math again Like I said earlier

1:14:37

this you can if you listen to it and it

1:14:39

repeats back to the beginning It

1:14:41

does form a perfect circle. Yeah

1:14:45

78 minutes and 50

1:14:47

seconds. Yeah, they said that he had they have

1:14:49

79 minutes of music they could put on a

1:14:52

CD So he gave him 10 seconds of wiggle

1:14:54

room. I see what you did there by the

1:14:56

way Perfect. Perfect. So I want

1:14:58

to hear this story even I've been waiting

1:15:00

for the story So

1:15:02

should I buckle in you might want to

1:15:04

so going back to the scarlet letter So

1:15:07

that actually has a very important place

1:15:09

in my life for reasons that most

1:15:11

people would not have The

1:15:13

scarlet letter was the first time that I realized

1:15:15

that adults were full of shit and

1:15:17

they weren't really that much smarter than kids

1:15:19

They just had a lot more life experience

1:15:21

and that they were doing things out of

1:15:23

fear in some cases and out of conformity

1:15:26

And out of you know, because they were

1:15:29

basically being forced to because they couldn't change

1:15:31

the status quo So I

1:15:33

was in high school. We had to read the scarlet

1:15:35

letter for an honors English class that I was in I

1:15:37

had a habit of reading books really really

1:15:39

fast especially ones that we were not supposed to read

1:15:42

fast like read chapters one and two and we're going

1:15:44

to discuss them and I would Go home and read

1:15:46

the whole book and then come

1:15:48

back to class and my teacher would be like

1:15:50

so in chapter two There was this thing. What

1:15:52

do you think that's gonna represent? I've already know

1:15:54

I'd be like I got a guess but I'm

1:15:56

gonna say it's this thing The

1:16:00

nice thing about that was not only could I

1:16:02

read the book really quickly and then either slack

1:16:04

off for the rest of class or if I

1:16:06

really wanted to be a smartass, I could go

1:16:08

find other books that told me more about that

1:16:10

book. So when we read

1:16:12

the Scarlet Letter, I went off and I found, I tried

1:16:16

to find this again when I was doing my

1:16:18

research here. I can't remember what the book is

1:16:20

actually called, but it's a whole book about the

1:16:23

Scarlet Letter and how Nathaniel

1:16:25

Hawthorne wrote it and what

1:16:27

was actually like the reality

1:16:29

of the situation and what Nathaniel

1:16:31

Hawthorne said about the book and where

1:16:33

the character architect

1:16:35

came from. So it was basically somebody's dissertation

1:16:37

pulling apart the Scarlet Letter piece by piece.

1:16:41

So I read all that because I was like, oh, this is great. This

1:16:43

will make the test really easy for me. I

1:16:45

blew through both of those. Comes

1:16:47

time to start discussing the booking class towards

1:16:50

the end after we'd finished reading it and my

1:16:52

teacher says, so what does the Scarlet

1:16:54

Letter A stand for? And

1:16:57

everybody wrote, gives that same response

1:16:59

that you hear, well, at the beginning

1:17:01

of the book, it stands for adultery, but

1:17:03

then at the end of the book, it

1:17:05

could mean able. And

1:17:07

I don't remember exactly what

1:17:10

I said to my teacher, but I said something

1:17:12

along the lines of it can't

1:17:14

have any kind of universal meaning because

1:17:17

it has to be interpreted and means something different

1:17:19

to every single person who reads the novel. It's

1:17:22

literally the point of the novel is that

1:17:24

people see each other in different ways. We

1:17:26

judge each other based on the person we

1:17:28

think each other is based only on

1:17:31

the information revealed to us. And

1:17:33

there can't be one universal underlying

1:17:35

truth behind any of those judgments

1:17:38

because no two people can ever

1:17:40

be identical, nor can anyone truly

1:17:42

share a non-subjective truth with another

1:17:44

human being. And

1:17:47

the response I got was, oh, that's very thoughtful

1:17:49

and a little wordy, but it's wrong. It means

1:17:51

adultery. And then some people take it to

1:17:53

mean able by the end of the book. That's

1:17:56

what the author meant when he wrote it.

1:17:58

Really? She's supposed to? He's literally

1:18:00

to know what Nathaniel Hawthorne meant.

1:18:02

Yes. And I argued, how

1:18:04

can we know what Nathaniel Hawthorne truly meant this to

1:18:06

be? Because if it's really a piece of art, then

1:18:09

art is up to the interpretation of the

1:18:11

reader, not the writer. They can

1:18:14

put what they wanted to, they think they wanted to mean

1:18:16

in there, but it's going to 100%

1:18:18

be interpreted to people. I said, you know,

1:18:20

he subtitled this a romance. Why

1:18:22

doesn't the A stand for a

1:18:25

romance? Also, if the

1:18:27

intent that he put into it was

1:18:29

really that clear, maybe it's a false

1:18:31

flag. Maybe he's throwing that out there

1:18:33

for us to be like, ah, it's

1:18:35

adultery and able, but he really wants

1:18:37

it to mean something else to everybody.

1:18:40

I was wrong and told that Nathaniel

1:18:43

Hawthorne for sure meant adultery and they're

1:18:45

able. And that was literally, like

1:18:47

literally, so at the end of class, she said

1:18:49

this as the bell was ringing. And

1:18:52

I'm like, oh, adults are full of

1:18:54

shit. Yes. So they

1:18:57

don't really have any more real understanding

1:18:59

than we do. No, you were out

1:19:01

thinking her. Yeah. And

1:19:03

at the same time, I started to expand that

1:19:05

and think, okay, well, so if this is how,

1:19:07

you know, this is the first

1:19:10

time I'd ever realized this, like maybe it's not

1:19:12

exactly what the author intended. You have

1:19:14

to interpret this as an intelligent human being

1:19:16

as a piece of art. That

1:19:19

applies to everything. That applies to literature.

1:19:21

That applies to art. That applies to music.

1:19:23

That applies to writing. And that

1:19:25

to me is the perfect wrap up for

1:19:27

this album. I'd say so. I

1:19:29

mean, Tool put some meaning into their art,

1:19:32

obviously, but none of us can ever really

1:19:34

understand what that is. You know, like I

1:19:36

mentioned a few weeks ago, I was super

1:19:38

worried because Tool fans are very

1:19:40

devoted and they're very factual and

1:19:42

they have their own ideas of

1:19:45

what all of these songs mean. And we

1:19:47

probably interpreted all of these songs differently than

1:19:49

everybody else did. Of course we did. But

1:19:51

that's the whole point. Art

1:19:54

is subjective. You pick

1:19:56

out the pieces that you like and you

1:19:58

understand and you push all the others. aside and

1:20:00

then when you listen to it again you

1:20:02

pick out more pieces and throw shit away

1:20:05

and bring new stuff in. Yeah, that's what

1:20:07

I said. Like every time you listen to

1:20:09

it, it's revealing itself a little bit more.

1:20:12

Yeah. Like there's a little bit more there

1:20:14

and I, that's, yeah, I agree with you, 100%. It

1:20:16

was just the second, like I, cause I had never

1:20:18

paid really close attention to those lyrics and then the

1:20:21

very first time listening through this again and I'm like,

1:20:23

oh, the Scarlet Letter, well, well, well,

1:20:25

my old friend. My old friend. My

1:20:28

old nemesis. Nathaniel

1:20:30

Hawthorne. I'll get you. I'll get you,

1:20:32

Nathaniel Hawthorne, and your little dog too.

1:20:37

But you should tell us what you think.

1:20:39

Please. You should write me and

1:20:41

tell me, hey, stop covering these records. I want

1:20:43

to hear something else. Tell us what you think

1:20:45

the A stood for in the Scarlet Letter. Yeah,

1:20:47

ass. Ass. It's probably ass. But

1:20:51

you can get a hold of

1:20:53

us at our socials at facebook.com/audio

1:20:55

judo, or facebook.com/audio

1:20:57

judo, or instagram at audio

1:21:00

underscore judo, or you can send us

1:21:02

an email at info at audio judo.com.

1:21:04

We'd love to hear messages from you

1:21:07

and let us know what you think about Tool

1:21:09

or any other record we've covered or any other

1:21:11

record you want us to cover or whatever. Just

1:21:13

send your suggestions and tell us, tell us we're

1:21:15

full of shit. I expect that. And

1:21:18

then we have some shout outs probably.

1:21:20

We do. Shout out loud

1:21:22

to Diane and Simon C our UK consultant. Thank you

1:21:24

so, both so much. The front

1:21:26

row seats chair, Michael A backstage past here,

1:21:28

Christian S, David W, Kristen K, Michael

1:21:31

S, Scott K. Thank you all

1:21:33

so much. We appreciate you guys.

1:21:35

You are the reason we can keep making

1:21:38

this podcast. So it is very appreciated. Right.

1:21:41

With the you're the reason we can keep Randy out

1:21:43

late at night every couple of

1:21:45

Tuesdays. That's true. That's

1:21:47

very true. Also, the next couple of months

1:21:49

could be a little weird. I'm not going

1:21:51

to say anything more than that other than

1:21:53

they could be a little weird. But rest

1:21:55

assured, we will have episodes every two weeks.

1:21:58

So just. Standby for what

1:22:01

that entails but other than that we

1:22:03

look forward to talking to you again

1:22:05

in a couple of weeks until then

1:22:07

Bye, bye everybody It's

1:22:20

NFL draft season and that means it's

1:22:22

time to start thinking about fantasy football

1:22:25

Fantasy points.com features industry leading

1:22:28

experts and prognostic haters using

1:22:30

proprietary hand charted data Help

1:22:32

you score more fantasy points

1:22:34

Fantasy points.com is the place

1:22:36

to go for whatever kind

1:22:38

of fantasy football you play

1:22:41

whether you play fantasy football

1:22:43

Daily fantasy sports or do a

1:22:46

little bit of everything fantasy points

1:22:48

has the meticulously researched Content

1:22:50

to guide you to victory

1:22:52

and why wait for the

1:22:54

fall Fantasy points also covers

1:22:56

the new spring football league

1:22:58

the UFL join the guru

1:23:00

John Hanson Scott Barrett's Joe

1:23:02

Dolan and other massive names

1:23:05

in the fantasy football universe

1:23:07

with an exclusive offer Use

1:23:09

code pantheon for 15% off

1:23:12

any fantasy points package including

1:23:14

the all-in package with access

1:23:16

to every article Tool and

1:23:18

data nugget that fantasy point has

1:23:20

to offer That's fantasy

1:23:22

points.com and code pantheon for

1:23:25

15% off

1:23:27

at fantasy points fantasy points.com

1:23:30

Code pantheon score

1:23:32

more fantasy points