TOOL NEWSLETTER MAY 2021 E.V.

TOOL NEWSLETTER

MAY, 2021 E.V.

By

Blair MacKenzie Blake

(Making better Scrabble players for 21 years now.)

With the 20^th anniversary of Tool’s LATERALUS having just passed, JUSTIN gave an interview to Kerrang (see link at bottom) about the “untold story” behind the making of the iconic album. In the interview, he mentions the track, “FAAIP DE OIAD”, but doesn’t give (or maybe doesn’t know) the whole story. I wrote about this many years ago and thought I would revisit it in this newsletter, along with the unfinished part (conclusion). So here goes…

Shortly after the release of Tool’s ‘Lateralus’ CD, late-night talk radio personality Art Bell began to receive thousands of emails from listeners informing him that their favorite band had used a sound-clip from his show on their latest CD. A few days later, Art obtained a copy of Lateralus and for the next week or so began to express an interest in doing an interview with the writer of the band’s website (me) or any of the band members themselves about their experiences at the perimeter of Area 51 and the connection with the last track on Lateralus entitled Faaip de Oiad. Sometime later Art sent me an email asking if I “and perhaps another” would agree to do an interview on his Coast to Coast AM program. I suggested to Art that Danny do the interview with me, as he was the band member that was the most knowledgeable on the subject, and because Faaip de Oiad was his personal piece on Lateralus. Due to problems in scheduling (the band was touring at the time), and the personal problems that were soon to plague Art, the interview never occurred. Art has since retired due to medical problems, but had the interview taken place, this, the untold story behind Faaip de Oiad, is what Danny and I would have discussed. With one exception. We would not have made the 911 connection (in relation to the Twin Towers tragedy for the obvious reason that it hadn’t yet happened).

I still receive a lot of email about the live version of the ‘hidden’ track, Faaip de Oiad that was performed during the latter stages of the Lateralus tour which, as I explained sometime last year, would most likely be included on the new dvd (no release date yet, I’m sorry to report). I also still get quite a few questions as to the precise meaning of the Enochian title, Faaip de Oiad (Voice of God), and the strange circumstances surrounding the frantic, some would say paranoid, voice that can be heard on the track from the Tool CD. Rather than answer all the emailers individually, I have decided that it’s finally time to explain how the piece initially came about, how the original idea was aborted to better fit with the Lateralus concept, and the truly bizarre coincidences surrounding both the original version as planned by Danny and myself along with the recorded version in which Danny utilized the voice on the “Area 51 caller line”, during which time a mysterious satellite outage abruptly knocked the ‘Coast to Coast AM’ radio program and various other broadcasts temporarily off the air on the night of September 11, 1997 (yes, that’s right: 911). First, let me clear up one thing once and for all.

Evidently there are a lot of Tool fans who still think that the words that can be heard on the track were written (and uttered) by MJK (some saying that it’s similar to “Cesaro Summability” from AEnima). This is simply NOT TRUE. The obviously distraught caller was real (whether he was perpetrating a hoax or not still remains to be determined, this despite the belief by many that this same person later called back and admitted to Art that he was in fact responsible for the deception).

In fact, for what ever reason, I had been recording the program that night, and it was my cassette tape that Danny used on the track. Those interested can probably listen to a copy of the original broadcast in the MP3 format that’s available via the Internet. This recording will also contain Art Bell’s voice, with his questions and responses that were edited out by Danny for use on Faaip de Oiad. For those who can’t quite make out what the caller is saying, here is a transcript (complete with verbal place holders) that was taken from the COAST TO COAST AM radio program hosted by Art Bell and transmitted from Pahrump, NV (near Area 51). There is one line in particular that will take on a new meaning in the upcoming text, but for now, read it in innocence.

TRANSCRIPT (9-11-97)

“I, I don’t have a whole lot of time. Um, OK, I’m a former employee of Area 51. I, I was let go on a medical discharge about a week ago and, and… [chokes] I’ve kind of been running across the country. Damn, I don’t know where to start, they’re, they’re gonna, um, they’ll triangulate on this position really soon. Ok, um, um, Ok, what we’re thinking of as, as aliens, they’re extradimensional beings, that, an earlier precursor of the, um, space program they made contact with. They are not what they claim to be. Uh, they’ve infiltrated a, a lot of aspects of, of the military establishment, particularly the Area 51. The disasters that are coming, they, the military, I’m sorry, the government knows about them. And there’s a lot of safe areas in this world that they could begin moving the population to now. They are not! They want those major population centers wiped out so that the few that are left will be more easily controllable.”

At that point, for about 30 minutes, the entire transmitting system went down. The network’s communication satellite, GE-1, lost 50 channels (including Art’s broadcast) possibly due to some EMP generator. The loss of communication (uplink transmitter) was believed to be caused when the “earth sensor lost lock”, meaning that it no longer pointed to the earth station. Unaware that he had been knocked off the air, Art continued to speak with the terrified whistle-blower over the phone for about a minute until, as he later told the audience, he heard a scream and the phone was disconnected. After some dead air, engineers at the network put in an old tape of Art interviewing Mark Furman (of O.J. fame). Finally, by using a 56k digital phone line, Art came back on the air live (although at this point, even his analog “hotline” went out, thereby cutting off any communication with network engineers). After the satellite outage, one of the first callers to the show was a person who claimed to be part of the Area 51 security force. He explained to Art that the network had been “pulsed” and that Art “would not hear from the [triangulated] caller again.” According to this person, those with Area 51 security were “professional cleaners” who “dig lots of holes in the desert” and “use a lot of acid.”Later on, I’ll be discussing a few speculations as to what might have occurred on that night of 911, and offer another possibility that, to my knowledge, no one else has yet considered.

Many years ago a certain reverb unit of Danny’s began acting rather strangely, emitting a sound that so fascinated him, that it inspired a song title. It was during that night, as Danny frantically rushed about the loft to sample the machine’s death-throes that I knew he would someday put the damn thing on a recording. But, like I said, this was many years ago. Moments later (the deed done) we were back up at the makeshift bar in the place, having a beer or twelve pack or two, and the whole thing was forgotten. Or at least I had forgot about it. When Lateralus was still in the writing/arranging stage, and it came time for Danny to start thinking about ‘his’ piece – something on the lines of ‘IONS’ from AEnima, but a bit more elaborate, I suggested that he do something using the Enochian (or Angelic) language of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley’s occult experiments with extradimensional intelligences (if that’s what they in fact were). Initially Danny seemed to like the idea, enough so that I quickly began to write out some verses in the Enochian language that he (or, better yet, Maynard) could vocalize. We thought that using a vocoder would create the most powerful effect (especially with the 20 frequency band Sennheiser VSM-201 analog vocoder that Danny owns, this being the famous model used by Kraftwerk and others{including the voices of the droids on the film Star Wars}, of which there are only a few [3 is the number that I’ve heard] in the world. (NOTE: the Sennheiser vocoder takes a carrier sound such as a synth waveform, etc. and articulates that sound with a person’s voice or other incoming audible signal that can analyzed via the 20 channels of band-pass filters to achieve unique sounds and multi-modulations).

Accompanied by the broken (?) reverb unit and with Danny’s various vintage synths, we thought the effect could be truly haunting. But things don’t always go according to plans. Although I had written the Enochian verses, there was a sudden push to get Lateralus finished, and the complexities of doing the track as it was originally planned were outweighed by other considerations. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the Enochian piece didn’t seem to fit with the rest of Lateralus. Having already given Danny my cassette copy of the ex-employee on the “Area 51 Caller Line” from Art’s Coast to Coast AM show, he decided to use it in the background of a piece he wrote using the noise of the “higher-evolved’ machine [i.e. defective reverb unit] he sampled along with some nice touches he added with his EMS Synthi AKS (another very rare piece of equipment). And so that’s what was recorded (at the loft studio) for the Lateralus CD. Now, if you think that the series of coincidences surrounding the “triangulated” Art Bell caller were strange, wait until you hear about what happened to me as I was working on the Enochian verses (which, at the time, Danny was still planning on using for ‘his’ piece on the recording).

This part of the story occurred in January of 2000, several days after the “Y2K” flop. I was back in the Midwest, in the small town of O’Fallon, Illinois, celebrating my mother’s birthday. After the holidays, I had a few days with little to do in my sleepy hometown before returning to Los Angeles. I would spend most of the day and nights in my parent’s house (before they moved) working on the correct pronunciations of my Enochian verses. I had several Enochian Dictionaries with me, and each contained a discussion and system (or guidelines) on how to pronounce Enochia, something that few if any occultists or language scholars know for sure. (NOTE: as with most systems of magick, the slightest error, whether with a Call, an invocation/evocation or the construction of a sigil, can be potentially disastrous to the operator.)

Among other sources, I had GMICALZOMA by Leo Vinci, a special edition of THE GOETIA translated by Aleister Crowley (?), THE COMPLETE ENOCHIAN DICTIONARY by Laycock and Skinner, A TRUE AND FAITHFUL RELATION… edited by Meric Casaubon and THE ENOCHIAN WORLD OF ALEISTER CROWLEY by Duquette and Hyatt (Ph.D). Working with another person who had a great deal of knowledge on the subject, we had previously decided upon which pronunciation to use for reasons which I shall not explain at this time. For three days and nights I practiced the Calls, or, to be more accurate, the verses that I had assembled, for that is what they were, each time without feeling or visualizing the slightest thing. In short, I wasn’t in any way attempting to skry in the Aethyrs or to summon the Enochian denizens, whatever they were. I was just trying to learn the pronunciation so that I could teach it to Danny, or Maynard, or whoever was going to sing/recite the verses through the vocoder. For those interested, the verses were: ENOCHIAN WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION: “TORZU!/ Arise! AAO HUBARDO TIBBP/ Amongst the lanterns of sorrow. TZAMRAN/ Appear AAF NOR MOLAP/ Amongst the sons of men IZIPOP/ From the highest vessels, FOARGT VRAN/ The dwelling place of the elders LUCIFTIAS PIRIPSOL/ In the brightness of the heavens.”

Having a plane to catch the next morning, I put away my notes and went to bed around 2:00 am. I had been sleeping soundly the other nights in my parent’s house, but on this particular night, I suffered (the word I choose to use here) an incredibly vivid and disturbing dream (if, in fact, it was a dream – I’m still not sure). This dream or vision seemed to involve something that was attempting to overpower me in some way. I tried to fight off the astral attack, or whatever it was that wanted me to surrender to it, but I felt somewhat paralyzed, with my flailing arms stuck, to use Whitley Strieber’s words, in “electrified tar.” The thing I saw is almost impossible to describe. It seemed to be some elaborate geometric construction, a bit like the qabalistic Tree of Life diagram, but somehow different. Actually, it seemed like a pyramid or structure of sorts that was composed of smallish beings, horribly clownlike and mechanized, who were juggling orbs of luminous multicolored energy in an extremely fast and deft manner. The whole thing was completely alien to my mind, and if it was attempting to communicate something to me, whatever it was I hadn’t the faintest idea. The motion of the orbs of ‘energy’, the strange geometry of the living construction, and the vividity of the unusual colors all made me feel rather dizzy. I remember suddenly waking up feeling out of breath, the colors of whatever it was still burned into my retinas. I thought I had suffered a nightmare, but I remember laughing to myself and saying in a faint voice: “Goddamn, that shit really works.”

What struck me the most funny was the idea of Enochian entities parading around in my parents’ house. After checking the time (It was around 4:20ish AM I remember) and scribbling down what I perceived, I soon fell back asleep.

The next morning, I woke up and had a friend drive me to the airport. On the flight home, I didn’t think too much about the dream or vision, about what caused it or what it might have meant. I was just glad to be going back to the warmth of southern California. After landing at LAX, I grabbed a shuttle van and within an hour was back in my apartment.

I remember that the first thing that I did was to turn on my Sangean ATS 818 cs radio (yes, I’m smiling too), to see who Art Bell had on the show as I unpacked and checked my mail and phone messages. Well, Art’s guests that night turned out to be two police officers from small Midwestern towns. In fact, they were from the very place that I had just returned from. I quickly realized that they were talking about some kind of major UFO event that had occurred in St. Clair County, Illinois and at approximately (I could justifiably say exactly) the same time that I suffered from the bizarre ‘dream’ that, perhaps, was the result of my experiments with pronouncing the Enochia.

As it turned out, officers from 5 towns just a stone’s throw from where I was (in O’Fallon) reported seeing the mysterious vessel. However, later, an officer from O’Fallon came forth and described his own sighting of the craft. Using his description has a reference point (and later seeing video reenactments on television), I determined that the object – whether some R&D military stealthy dirigible (or mundane Goodyear-type blimp) or a genuine unknown – had passed right over my house. With this information, the coincidence (?) of thing appearing shortly after ‘fooling’ around with the Enochia became even more curious.

Having given it some thought over the last 20 years, I think the Enochian connection was just a coincidence and what I saw – the strange creature-machine juggling colorful orbs of energy – was merely a dream of some kind. Yet, I can’t rule out the possibility that it was a prismatic effect of swirling colors on a panel at the rear of the triangular object (as described by one of the police officer witnesses) reflected on the sliding glass window next to the fold-out couch that I was sleeping on at the time. As for the verses that didn’t get used on FAAIP de OIAD, I used them as part of a prose-poem entitled “PARSON’S KRATER” in my book “IJYNX.”

https://www.kerrang.com/features/the-beauty-of-not-understanding-it-is-letting-it-stay-alive-tools-lateralus-at-20/