The first band that I really latched onto in my adult life was Pink Floyd.  I have posted before a little about how I got introduced to them.  Suffice it to say, I am a really big fan.  The music I have on my playlist are excerpts from their Suedo-Rock-Opera The Wall.  To me, it is a very complex and moving album.  It is full of emotion and musical masterpeices.  It follows the life of the protagonist, Pink, as he grows up and decends into insanity.  Really, with a story like that how could you go wrong?

But seriously, it is a very well written and recorded album.  Some of the songs are considered to be the best rock songs of all time.  The album itself, two discs and 81 minutes long, remains the best selling-double album of all time and is on all sorts of “best of” lists.  To say that it is well produced is an understatement, as there are layers upon layers of things going on.

To give you a little taste of this I’ll tell you about two of the fun little “secret messages” contained in the album.  The first is a subliminal backwards recording in the middle of a transition song called “Empty Spaces”.  Played backwards it says “Congratulations. You’ve just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm…” and then someone in the background yells something about someone on the phone… really random.  The next one isn’t as random, I think that it was ment to really tie the whole album together.  At the very first of the first track you can hear a man say softly “we came in?” and at the very end of the very last song the same man can be heard to say, “Isn’t this where”.  So then if you could, you loop the record, and you would hear “Isn’t this where we came in?”  There you are… useless trivia.

Anyway, all tangents aside- or rather, one tangent to go- this band has everything I love about music.  Unfortunatly, they haven’t toured as a complete band for over two decades, so it is impossible to hear them preform live.  But there is a cover band called “Australian Pink Floyd” that is the premier cover band for PInk Floyd.  I was able to go a couple of years ago with Jenn and it was an awesome expirience.  And my lovely wife got tickets for us to go again this year!  I am soooooo exited.  They are playing most of The Wall in the first set and I am just really looking forward to it.

I tried to get some audio clips of the hidden messages so you can hear them, if you were interested, but I couldn’t find any online.  I might try to cut it together myself… I’ll try to do it if I have time.  Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy some of the tracks.

EDIT: I found a link where you can hear the “Isn’t this where we came in” pieced together.  It was on wikipedia (isn’t everything?).  Just click here

Well, as my friends and family can attest, I am not always as sharp as a nail. I had one of these moments just the other day.

I went through my day as usual. I went to the gym in my gym clothes (I pack my work clothes in my duffel bag the night before) and changed for work right after. I went through my day as normal, came home and took off my shoes right after entering my house. I had dinner with the family, and when I went to put my shoes back on, I noticed that my left shoe was from one pair, and my right shoe was from another…… done laughing?

In my defense, they are quite similar and there’s been a time or two when I’ve mistakenly picked up a shoe from both pair to put on, but I’ve never actually put them on. I am completely flabbergasted that I could go through my whole day an not noticed this. I even remember reaching down to adjust the tongues of both shoes and being surprised that one didn’t need to be adjusted.

To complicate the story, our children are very fond of throwing the shoes by the front door down the stairs and bringing them back up and doing it all over again. I’m pretty sure that my shoes didn’t get mixed up in between me taking them off and going to put them on again… but when I put the shoes on to take the picture for this post, they really didn’t feel right, and I’m almost positive that I would have noticed it when I put them on at the gym. But I also realize that I would probably think that they felt really weird just because I know that they are different.  Anyway, it’s a funny story and the mere possibility that it could have happened makes it worth mentioning, don’t you think?  Really the silver lining in this whole story is that I didn’t notice.  If I had noticed first thing in the morning, I would have been self conscious all day long, and in this case, ignorance is bliss!

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the different music I have going now.  It is exerpts from Pink Floyd’s The Wall , and I plan on giving a post on it next.  Hope you enjoy the change up!