Lateralus booklet

Lateralus has some of the most amazing and original album cover art I’ve seen. You can flip through the booklet, and dig through all the layers of the human body. From the muscles right through to the bones and organs. (Those with a keen eye may have also found a particular deity hidden within the layers.) So you can flip through all the layers, but there is no skin. Why is there no skin? Why include all these layers, and not have a skin layer? Or is there a skin layer? The black slip case that the cd comes wrapped in. What’s that for?

The black slip case is the skin. You can’t dig through all the inner layers until you remove the skin. Some people listen to music only on a skin deep level. They look for nothing more than entertainment in music. Others go a little deeper. They try and find the structure of the music, find what is made of and how it works. They try and find the bones and muscles of the music. You have to dig past the skin layer of music the get to the muscles and bones. Just the same way you have to remove the slip case of Lateralus to get to the booklet.

Why is the slip case black, and the booklet so colourful? Tool have a rather dark exterior. People who know almost nothing of the band, or have never gotten past the skin layer, would call tool angry, dark, negative music. People who have only listened to Laterlus on a skin deep level often think of it as a very dark album. The slip case is black because the album appears dark on the outside, but once you remove the skin layer you can see all the brightly colored layers underneath. You can see that Laterlus is one of the most positive albums out there. And has some of the most complex bones and muscles around…

Cog

More cog photos.

Lucid dreaming

Last night I had a lucid dream. It was my second lucid dream so far. Some time in the middle of the night I woke up (really woke up) because I wad cold. I closed my window and went back to bed. Soon I felt my self drifting off again. This is where it gets weird. I could feel myself falling asleep, straight in to REM sleep (dream sleep). So I said over and over in my head “be conscious of the fact that you are dreaming”. While I was thinking this I felt my self fall further into this dream. It felt like I was up side down, spinning around really fast. Like I was trying to drill my head through my pillow. I was worried I was going to lose my lucidity in this whirlwind, so I keep repeating “be conscious of the fact that you are dreaming”.

Not to much longer and I was standing in a restaurant still thinking “be conscious of the fact that you are dreaming”. The next thing I thought was “holly shit. I’ve done it again. I’m lucid dreaming” The first thing I did was walk up to my friend Chris and tell him that I was aware of the fact that I was dreaming and that I could do what ever the fuck I wanted, and it wouldn’t matter. He said “wow that’s pretty cool” and sat down at a table. I was feeling pretty excited because the first time I had a lucid dream, I hadn’t had this much control. I wanted to do more with my lucidity, so I decided to change the seen. I started thinking about how I would like to disappear from the restaurant and appear somewhere else.

Next thing I new I was standing on a fire trail in some old growth forest that reminded me of tree hugging hippies. My lucidity was fading fast. I walked along the fire trail staring at the trees for a wile. Then I was standing in my bed room explaining to my mum that I was going to bed. I had lost all lucidity by this point. I walked over to my computer to turn it of before I went to bed. There was an instant messenger conversion window open. The background for the window was a pine forest covered on snow. The photo had a very blue tinge to it. There wore two medieval looking figures in the photo. Suddenly the all the text boxes disappeared and all that was left was the background, and I was in side it, standing on the snow. The figure on the right started stabbing a wolf in the head with a knife. The wolf was crying out in pain. The figure on the left started yelling something to the figure with the knife, who dropped the wolf and turned to stab the figure on the left instead. Then I woke up…

Radio

I was just driving home listing to the radio because I don’t have a CD player in the car. The radio station was playing some live recording of something that I wasn’t very interested in. A song finished and the vocalist started talking. He said:

“If I wanted to establish some kind of rock and roll credibility, I would say this next song is about hookers and drugs, but the honest to god truth is that I’m a nerd and this next song is about quantum physics”

Holly crap. That is fucking cool. The dude doing the performance was called “Moby”. I have no idea who he is and I can’t say his music is to my taste. But the fact that he writs songs about quantum physics, is just fucking cool…

Children Of Bodom

Just got back from Children Of Bodom in Sydney on Saturday….It…fucking…ruled… I was back stage for sound check. A roadie opened the back door to get something out of the truck. So I walked in and watched sound check. They all talk finish to each other its really cool but I have no idea what they wore saying. At the end of sound check, the roadie says “sorry mate, you have to go back out side now.” He was so cool about it. And the actual gig…wow… I was front center (absolute front center) and there was no barrier. So my ribs are fucked up from being crushed against the edge of the stage. It’s really weird not having a barrier. You’re so close to the band that it’s like going to watch a band play above you, not in front of you. These gyes really know how to play there instruments. There so technical. Watching Alexi’s fingers dance across his guitar fret centimeters from my face is some thing I will always remember. And the keyboard player… holly shit. I didn’t think it was possible to play that fast with one hand. I stuck my tong out at him and he laughed. They really are a band that is all about playing live. The new album is a bit different but it’s really good. I have had it on repeat since I got home. Im still on a high from the gig, everything is great at the moment......