Line Out - Comments on Backwards Masking Unmasked! Who Is Jacob Aranza? http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob In the final chapter of his book Backwards Masking Unmasked, called "My Song", Jacob Aranza describes how he became so virulently opposed to rock music. When read on the surface it has a charm that makes you think this... Copyright 2008 Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:31:38 -0800 Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:59:06 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by flamingbanjo In my case, it was a series of cassette sermons by a preacher named (I kid you not) Marty Tinglehoff. It really turned me on to the idea of subversive subtext in rock music, which I continue to appreciate to this day. I mean, I didn't need some Southern Baptist preacher to tell me what Big Balls was about, but who knew that Hotel California was all about Satanism? And while I grasped Black Sabbath's scare-your-parents schtick immediately, I was still surprised to be informed by Rev. Tinglehoff that the seemingly cheerful, kid-friendly Beatles were peddling sin at every opportunity. Highly interesting.

I immediately went back and listened to all the music I'd just been warned about with fresh ears, listening for clever double meanings and yes, even occasionally spinning something backwards to hear if there really was a hidden message there. From what I could discern from Robert Plant's tortured backwards cries, Stairway to Heaven is not so much a hidden tribute to Satan as it is a paean to the life-giving properties of Echinacea.

I'd say by about the time I went out and bought my first guitar that the strategy had pretty thoroughly backfired.

]]> flamingbanjo http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818554 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818554 History Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:39:51 -0800 Comment by Katelyn I love the conversion stories that start with something like, "By the age of nine his heart was already gripped by Satan's claw. Then when he turned fifteen, Jesus-ah found him and everything got better." I don't even know what to say. Nine? and then... FIFTEEN? Fifteen year olds get passionate about one thing and then another. Except if that first thing is Jesus (a widely available drug), they get locked in by promises of eternal salvation and threatened by eternal damnation if they were to change their minds.

Religion should be a 21+ event, I'm increasingly convinced.

Go rock and roll though.

]]> Katelyn http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818594 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818594 History Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:07:21 -0800 Comment by defman23 What I want to know is, where is the minister now and does he still find Satan in music today? I sense a larger story here. 429 Bellevue Street...

]]> defman23 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818665 http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/10/backwards_masking_unmasked_who_is_jacob#c818665 History Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:59:06 -0800