Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And it's Monday, the day of the week. We read
Speaker 1: back some messages from the mail bag. Rob if you
Speaker 1: don't mind, I'm going to kick things off today with
Speaker 1: this message from Mike, who wrote in previously about weird
Speaker 1: al and back masking. This was in response to some
Speaker 1: episodes that you and Seth did while I was out
Speaker 1: on parental leave. Um that we're about what ald you
Speaker 1: cover in these I know you talked about like playing
Speaker 1: records backwards and uh like I guess the Judas Priest
Speaker 1: rumors and all that. The big topics we covered were
Speaker 1: playing you know, the back mask gang and playing records backwards,
Speaker 1: so actual back masked content and then allegations of back
Speaker 1: masking the idea that oh, you know, the Led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: song has satanic messages and if you play it backwards,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um. We also talked about all
Speaker 1: these various tricks you can do in vinyl with the grooves,
Speaker 1: and uh that that was a whole other interesting area.
Speaker 1: But also we touched on some other things like having
Speaker 1: codes in music, um hidden images in musical data, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Anyway, uh So, this message is from Mike,
Speaker 1: following up on his previous message which we featured. Thank
Speaker 1: you for reading my letter about weird Al and backmasking.
Speaker 1: This was the one that mentioned weird Al doing backwards
Speaker 1: messages such as Satan likes cheese. Whiz Mike says, just
Speaker 1: follow up with some comments about the song Bob. I
Speaker 1: saw a weird Al at Carnegie Hall last month, and
Speaker 1: he told the story of where this song came from.
Speaker 1: Paraphrasing here. It was two thousand two, a palindrome year,
Speaker 1: and everyone was obsessed with palindromes. I wondered if I
Speaker 1: could make a song completely out of palindromes. So I
Speaker 1: looked up a bunch of palindromes online and when I
Speaker 1: put all the lyrics together, it was all just basically
Speaker 1: a random jumble, but it looks like it should mean something.
Speaker 1: That's when I realized I had written a Bob Dylan song.
Speaker 1: I think that's a little harsh on Bob Dylan, but
Speaker 1: but I get what you're saying. I get you a
Speaker 1: weird Al. Uh So, the song ended up being named Bob,
Speaker 1: which is another palindrome, and Weird l in his band
Speaker 1: put together the music as a style parody of Bob Dylan. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Mike includes a link to the music video
Speaker 1: as well as the lyrics. And I realized after I
Speaker 1: looked it up that I had seen this music video before,
Speaker 1: but I guess it's been a long time. So it's
Speaker 1: in the style of that that classic film version of
Speaker 1: Subterranean Homesick Blues where Dylan is like throwing off the
Speaker 1: Q cards that have like the words from the lyrics
Speaker 1: in them. And I'm not gonna read all the lyrics
Speaker 1: of the song, but there are some pretty good ones,
Speaker 1: So hats off to weird al he uh. He has
Speaker 1: some like a Madam I'm Adam too who hot to
Speaker 1: hoo to no lemons? No melon too bad? I hit
Speaker 1: a boot um. Let's see what were the other good ones?
Speaker 1: Rise to vote? Sir, do geese God? Do nine men?
Speaker 1: Interpret nine Men? I nod? Rats Live on No Evil Star?
Speaker 1: Won't Lovers Revolt? Now? Race Fast Safe Car? Rats Live
Speaker 1: on No Evil Star is pretty great? Like That's that
Speaker 1: sounds like it probably should be the title of a
Speaker 1: of a paperback science fiction novel from the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: Absolutely agree on one of the all time best Palin drums.
Speaker 1: Also some of the last ones there was a ufo tofu,
Speaker 1: we panic in a pew oozy rat in a sanitary zoo.
Speaker 1: And then the final couplet is is just chef's kiss.
Speaker 1: It's god a red nugget, a fat egg under a dog,
Speaker 1: go hang a salami. I'm a lasagna hog. And Mike
Speaker 1: finishes this message saying thanks, oh well, well thanks make yeah,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what we're hoping to hear from folks.
Speaker 1: Even more information about curious songs and hidden meanings, though
Speaker 1: in this case it's like the hidden meaning is also
Speaker 1: the straightforward overt me, which is kind of kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: May a moody baby doom a yam alright. This next
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Neil Neil Rights, and it says,
Speaker 1: Robin Joe, the discussion on hidden tracks from your play
Speaker 1: the Record backwards episode reminded me of one from Tools
Speaker 1: album ten thousand Days. This may be the most complex
Speaker 1: and creative secret track of all, since it required the
Speaker 1: listener to play it using two devices simultaneously. Let me
Speaker 1: explain there are eleven tracks on the CD, but in
Speaker 1: order to access the hidden track, one must listen to
Speaker 1: track three Wings from Marie Part one, immediately followed by
Speaker 1: track eleven Virginie Thrace Uh. These two songs flow into
Speaker 1: one another nicely and add up to one song that
Speaker 1: is eleven minutes thirteen seconds in length. That's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: But the crazy part is that track four, ten thousand
Speaker 1: Days Wings Uh Part two is also eleven minutes and
Speaker 1: thirteen seconds long. So in order to hear the secret
Speaker 1: track in its final form, one must queue up the
Speaker 1: track three, followed immediately by track eleven on one device
Speaker 1: and play those while also sinking them up to track
Speaker 1: four playing on a second device. When I learned this
Speaker 1: back in the day, I tried it with the CD
Speaker 1: player and a PC playing m P three's and my
Speaker 1: mind was blown. Thank you for all you do to
Speaker 1: keep my mind ever blown, yours, etcetera. Neil Uh, didn't
Speaker 1: the Flaming Lips have an album like this? It was
Speaker 1: this Zayrika or one of those that the idea was,
Speaker 1: you would like have four different CDs playing all at
Speaker 1: the same time in four different CD players. I well,
Speaker 1: I'm not super familiar with when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Flaming Lips. I'm basically basically only familiar with Yoshimi battles
Speaker 1: the Pink Robots, but I am well aware of this.
Speaker 1: Um gosh, it's kind of a I think it's more
Speaker 1: like a sort of a conspiracy theory. Uh With ten
Speaker 1: thousand Days, I'm I'm a little unclear myself because I
Speaker 1: to remember when when fans started talking about this, regarding
Speaker 1: ten thousand Days in the way it was kind of
Speaker 1: like you got excited and then it was a letdown
Speaker 1: because someone's like, there's a secret track, and you know,
Speaker 1: you were excited to hear it, and then they said, well,
Speaker 1: you have to build it yourself out of my playing
Speaker 1: on two devices. And then I did it once, probably
Speaker 1: in a very similar method, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's all right. Um, But I myself wasn't blown away,
Speaker 1: but I thought maybe the idea was pretty cool. And
Speaker 1: I actually looked back into it for the first time
Speaker 1: in many years when we're prepping up these episodes, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell I saw some like fan discussions where
Speaker 1: some people were saying, there's nothing to it and it's
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. Uh. So I'm I'm not sure. Certainly
Speaker 1: the numbers do seem to line up, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if that means that it is clearly a super
Speaker 1: hidden track, as it sometimes referred. I mean, if it
Speaker 1: sinks up perfectly, like if it's same tempo and same key,
Speaker 1: it seems like it could be hard for that to
Speaker 1: be by accident. Yeah, I mean I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: really analyze it a lot when it came out, and um,
Speaker 1: I just I had assumed it was intentional. But like
Speaker 1: I say, it looks like maybe there is some discussion
Speaker 1: back and forth on the matter, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's settled within the fandom. M hm. Also, it
Speaker 1: does mean really it's too difficult. I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: build my own track, and it also it seems like
Speaker 1: also it's like I shouldn't have to remix the music
Speaker 1: to find the secret. But I guess that's kind of
Speaker 1: like what the idea of the back masking is, like,
Speaker 1: force people to get in there and mess around with it,
Speaker 1: use the audio technology at their disposal. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which way it goes. Isn't it only
Speaker 1: fun if they make you do some work like if
Speaker 1: it the hidden track is just the last track on
Speaker 1: the c D? Is that yeah? Track that I mean?
Speaker 1: That was one of the interesting things that came out
Speaker 1: of that discussion with Seth in those episodes, because I'm
Speaker 1: I was mostly only familiar with CD hidden tracks, which
Speaker 1: was for the most part, just a matter of letting
Speaker 1: the obviously super long last track on an album run
Speaker 1: its full course, that sort of thing. He didn't actually
Speaker 1: have to work for it. But some of the Vinyl
Speaker 1: things that that we discussed in those episodes, the vinyl
Speaker 1: secret tactics, some of those do require a bit of
Speaker 1: skill to pull off, and there maybe a little more
Speaker 1: hidden in plain side. Well, I think that gets a
Speaker 1: referenced in the next message, So I'm gonna read this
Speaker 1: one from Dan. Dan says, hello Robert and Seth. Seth,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, this one's also for you. I listened
Speaker 1: to your two episodes on Backwards Recordings and I absolutely
Speaker 1: love them. I share Rob's annoyance with hidden tracks on CDs.
Speaker 1: I never understood the point of them, as I used
Speaker 1: to listen to CDs on my desktop computer through the
Speaker 1: Windows Media Player app, which would say in the track
Speaker 1: listing hidden track if the CD you were playing had
Speaker 1: a hidden track. Cool um. It was also a bit
Speaker 1: of a pain because if you wanted to make a
Speaker 1: copy of a CD for a friend and the hidden
Speaker 1: track took a long time to get to, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to fit it in on the c d R,
Speaker 1: as they only had an hour and ten minutes worth
Speaker 1: of space. A good example of this is the Deft
Speaker 1: Tones album Around the Fur, in which the song Deman
Speaker 1: starts playing twenty minutes after the end of the last
Speaker 1: song m X I don't know this album. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not familiar with this. Also, if you're looking for more examples.
Speaker 1: In a recent interview with Terry Gross, weird Al talked
Speaker 1: about how he recorded some backmaske songs on his early
Speaker 1: albums Okay. Similar topic has come up before, but yes, see,
Speaker 1: if you play one song backwards, it says, Wow, you
Speaker 1: must really have a lot of time on your hands.
Speaker 1: Another one says Satan loves Cheese Whiz. Finally, in keeping
Speaker 1: with the episode subject matter, I have a recommendation for
Speaker 1: weird howse cinema trick or Treat a heavy metal sploitation
Speaker 1: horror film from six about a dead heavy metal singer
Speaker 1: who sold is sold to Satan and it's brought back
Speaker 1: to life by playing his final album back Words. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it, but I remember Robert, Joe and Christian
Speaker 1: talking about it during an episode of Trailer Talk Ozzie,
Speaker 1: I guess that means Ozzy Osbourne has a small acting
Speaker 1: role as a televangelist, and to a lesser degree, Gene
Speaker 1: Simmons plays a sleazy radio DJ. That fits. Also, Glenn
Speaker 1: Morgan and James Wong from The X Files have writing credits.
Speaker 1: Might be worth consideration. Happy Crampus, Knocked Dan Ps, Demon
Speaker 1: Cleaner Rocks. I guess maybe the thing about the Kias song, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that came up, not so much a secret track, but
Speaker 1: I brought up how talking about annoyance with hidden tracks,
Speaker 1: about how on the c D for the Kaias album,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Sky Valley from the track Demon Cleaner is awesome,
Speaker 1: but it is the third song on the second track
Speaker 1: on the album, so it's like it only has I
Speaker 1: think three tracks in a hidden track, but track number
Speaker 1: one three songs, track number two three songs, track number
Speaker 1: three four songs, so it kind of keeps you from
Speaker 1: jumping around too much in there. Yeah. Yeah, Black Sabbath's
Speaker 1: first album was like that, and they cram a lot
Speaker 1: of songs into one track or or just called them
Speaker 1: one song even on the record. Yes, Seth brought that
Speaker 1: he may referenced y'all's discussion on Rusty Needles Record Club
Speaker 1: about about Black Sabbath, and Uh, yeah, I didn't know
Speaker 1: the full story in that either. I had run into
Speaker 1: that situation though, where if I wanted to play uh say,
Speaker 1: war Pigs, um, some versions of the album have war
Speaker 1: Pigs in there with a bunch of other stuff, so
Speaker 1: harder to zero win on the song you want if
Speaker 1: you were trying to listen to that song on your
Speaker 1: own terms. Oh but Trick or Treat, that was the
Speaker 1: main point. Uh six film Trick or Treat not to
Speaker 1: be confused with the with the more recent Trick or
Speaker 1: Treat film, which was also a lot of fun. But
Speaker 1: this one is very much a metal sploitation film, and
Speaker 1: I have been kind of eager to at some point
Speaker 1: cover proper metal splitation cinema on Weird House. Oh well,
Speaker 1: we could, we could certainly give that a look. I
Speaker 1: it's funny you're saying I mentioned this movie now. I
Speaker 1: can't remember if I've seen it maybe I have. Back
Speaker 1: when we were doing Trailer Talk, this was like a
Speaker 1: YouTube series we did. Uh. We weren't in the habit
Speaker 1: of all of us watching all the films that we
Speaker 1: would reference. Oftentimes each fist would watch one film, so
Speaker 1: we weren't really supposed to spend that much time with
Speaker 1: him anyway. It was like the show was supposed to
Speaker 1: be like fifteen minutes or something, so that was really cool.
Speaker 1: I think we were streaming that on Facebook video nice
Speaker 1: mats communicating. So yeah, I don't have a very clear
Speaker 1: memory of this film. I do remember at least watching
Speaker 1: the scene where Ozzy Osbourne is a TV evangelists. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a There are a number of metal splitation films
Speaker 1: from this period, some of which I've seen, some of
Speaker 1: some that I haven't. Uh, And there's oh man, there's
Speaker 1: some some wonderful stuff in there. Well. That could go
Speaker 1: on a list of great TV evangelist cameos. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other one I'm thinking of is in the West Craven
Speaker 1: movie Shocker, which stars Mitch Peleggie, another X Files connection,
Speaker 1: as a serial killer who does a an evil magic
Speaker 1: spell that turns him into electricity after he goes to
Speaker 1: the Electric Chair. That movie has Timothy Leary as a
Speaker 1: televangelist in it. Very nice. Just some comes to us
Speaker 1: from Daniel. Daniel says, I just listened to your two
Speaker 1: part episode on backwards masking and hidden info in music.
Speaker 1: I remember in the late eighties when there was the
Speaker 1: Satanic music uproar. My cousin had a you Tube record
Speaker 1: that our parents did not like. I remember the night
Speaker 1: they came out to our place to play this record
Speaker 1: backwards on my record player, as mine was the only
Speaker 1: one that would play backwards. They all set around listening
Speaker 1: intently for anything that sounded like any speech. After some time,
Speaker 1: there was a reverse phrase that sounded a bit like
Speaker 1: I believe that was That was that the album had
Speaker 1: to be forced burnt in my metal forge. What what? Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: My initial read on this was, I guess this is
Speaker 1: a forge just for burning metal albums. Um so I
Speaker 1: can certainly handle you two album. I mean it can
Speaker 1: handle some pretty heavy stuff, so you two is gonna
Speaker 1: go up like a matchstick. But anyway, my metal forge,
Speaker 1: it must be some sort of like metal working forge,
Speaker 1: I guess. But M Daniel does add uh quote. I
Speaker 1: had many weird things as a kid, I didn't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable with my forage being used to destroy my cousin's
Speaker 1: property against his will. I remember that night thinking how
Speaker 1: stupid it was. The I believe phrase was obviously coincidental,
Speaker 1: even to my ears, and anyways, what's wrong with the
Speaker 1: phrase I believe to a Christian. Nevertheless, I had to
Speaker 1: shut up or I would have been in deep trouble. Also,
Speaker 1: as a radio presenter and producer here in Australia of
Speaker 1: twenty years, I've done many of those weird tricks myself,
Speaker 1: especially time stretching, inverse fourier, the aphex twin trick, slow
Speaker 1: scan and narrow band TV frames and many others. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll definitely continue to listen to your show to yours, Daniel,
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, Daniel. Oh, yeah, it sounds like you you
Speaker 1: come from, uh maybe a similar culture to me. I
Speaker 1: I knew many kids when I was in middle and
Speaker 1: high school who got got in incredible trouble for like
Speaker 1: having a wage aboard and stuff. But I don't recall
Speaker 1: any terror about back masking in particular. I think maybe
Speaker 1: that was a little bit before my time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't remember any of this back masking stuff so much.
Speaker 1: In my like immediate um, you know, church environment growing up.
Speaker 1: That certainly was a kind of thing you'd see on
Speaker 1: TV and uh and maybe there were still reverberations of
Speaker 1: that moving along. But as far as you two goes,
Speaker 1: like you two was put forward is like this is
Speaker 1: the band you should listen to look at, like they
Speaker 1: would sing some of these songs in like church coffeehouse environments.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, the idea that you two, of all people, were,
Speaker 1: we're secreting away some sort of hidden satanic message is
Speaker 1: just so ridiculous. That is kind of sinister. What is
Speaker 1: he the edge of what is bono backwards? Oh no, no, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that sounds satanic. Yeah, it's like a it's like
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian deity worship worshiped by Alistair Crowley. He came
Speaker 1: up in those episodes. Crowley was into the playing stuff backwards,
Speaker 1: listening to music backwards, listening to language backwards. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's It's an interesting topic though, because what one of
Speaker 1: the things we keep coming back to, It's like so
Speaker 1: much of it is, especially in this example that was
Speaker 1: shared it here is if you listen to backwards audio enough,
Speaker 1: particularly backwards speech, you will find something that sounds enough
Speaker 1: like what you're looking for, you can't at least fall
Speaker 1: into the category. And that's just just how it goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're listening to singing that is basically
Speaker 1: speech and playing that backwards, you're still gonna hear some syllables, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and some of those are gonna fall together closely enough
Speaker 1: to give you an idea of some other phrase. But yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the just crazy things about it, not to
Speaker 1: just completely dive back into the whole topic again, but
Speaker 1: you know, some of these were like like accusations that
Speaker 1: like A C d C was including back masked um
Speaker 1: stuff and say Highway to Hell, where they're already like saying,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we're rocking for Satan, Like why would
Speaker 1: you need to hide anything in there? That's the forwards message? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also E C d C is not trying to be spooky,
Speaker 1: they're like they're like party boys. Yeah. And and then
Speaker 1: the other thing too, It's like, if you are going
Speaker 1: to hide something in the lyrics to for your song,
Speaker 1: just hide them in the lyrics. Like if you're using
Speaker 1: language again, you have all the tools of language at
Speaker 1: your disposal. You can just go wild with that. You
Speaker 1: don't have to have some awkward bit of phrasing that
Speaker 1: is somehow incorporated backwards in your music. Okay, one last
Speaker 1: message for today, uh Adam writes in with just a
Speaker 1: series of weird House suggestions. One of these I've seen too,
Speaker 1: I have not. The list goes Laser Blast, next one
Speaker 1: show Kasugi Theater, five, Dynamite, Shallon Heroes, and then Warrior
Speaker 1: from Shallon. Uh. Those second to sound like kung fu movies,
Speaker 1: I have not seen them, but always up for for
Speaker 1: a kung fu movie, especially a weird one. Laser Blast, however,
Speaker 1: not only have I seen many times. That was one
Speaker 1: of the first movies that we watched after we we
Speaker 1: we brought our baby home, uh a month ago, so
Speaker 1: my wife and I we watched it around Thanksgiving. Very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice. Yeah, that's what I've seen in MST three
Speaker 1: K form many times over the years. I've never watched
Speaker 1: it just straight up, So that would be that would
Speaker 1: be fun experience for Weird House at some point if
Speaker 1: that one checks out for us. So Leonard Malton gave
Speaker 1: it two point five stars, right. Uh. Yeah. The premise
Speaker 1: of blazer Blast, if you're not familiar, is that a
Speaker 1: sort of a young lad who likes to drive around
Speaker 1: in a cool wizard van Uh finds a piece of
Speaker 1: alien technology in the desert which attaches to his arm
Speaker 1: like you kind of techno leech, and begins to change
Speaker 1: him into an alien. So it allows him to blast
Speaker 1: bullies and other various enemies of his with uh supernatural
Speaker 1: or not supernatural, just high tech power. But it also
Speaker 1: turns him green. He kind of becomes a hulk. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fun flick. And Roddy mcdowal's in it, yea.
Speaker 1: And Eddie Deason from Greece. Oh yeah yeah, Eddie Deason.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's got a it's got a fun cast.
Speaker 1: There's somebody else of note. Um, Oh yeah, Dennis Berkeley,
Speaker 1: isn't it. He's the the big bearded man. Are you
Speaker 1: ready for some football? Yeah? That one? Okay? Should we
Speaker 1: wrap it up there? Yeah, let's go ahead and wrap
Speaker 1: it up. But we'd love to hear from everyone. Keep
Speaker 1: the messages rolling in as we roll through the holidays.
Speaker 1: Here reminder that Loostener Mail airs every Monday, and the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed our Core Science
Speaker 1: episodes on are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Monster Fact or
Speaker 1: Artifacts short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we
Speaker 1: do Weird how Cinema episodes. That's when we set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our audio producers for this episode. That
Speaker 1: would be Max Williams and j J Pauseway Uh. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
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