Blair has posted the July Tool Newsletter on Toolband, and it’s one of those “snoozeletters” that many of you like to complain about! It seems to allude to Tool moving a bunch of material (including recordings and demo’s) from one location to another. Interestingly Blair specifically calls out some of the newsletter “haters”:
Okay, that should be enough – forget about fusion jazz and fancy spuds for a moment. There IS something possibly of great interest to Tool fans, but I thought it best to start out with the usual stuff about the Baked Potato just in case certain people – the wrong people – happened to be reading this, with my thinking being that by this point they wouldn’t continue any further, and what I really want to say will remain hidden, so to speak, from them in the middle of just another Tool ‘snoozeletter.’ Hopefully, this has happened (they already stopped reading), and I can now tell you about something very strange. Well, hopefully.
Later in the newsletter he elaborates a little further on the materials being moved:
Inside the containers were Tool studio masters and slaves, ADATs, blank recording tape (?), and video and film footage, all individually labeled. Was this the footage that was taken many years ago for a possible live DVD? After the last boxes were loaded with a hand truck, I causally asked the band’s manager what was inside? “lenticular key-chains,†was the quick reply. Now, I didn’t need to be an expert on micro (facial) expressions to know that by using this ‘dangle’ there was something that someone was trying to hide. What these people didn’t know is that, before closing the door of the U-Haul, I took a couple of photos with my iPhone. If I remember to do so, I will post one or two of these on the ToolArmy site with a misleading caption (so not to be viewed by the wrong people).
Whether the remainder of the newsletter actually contains anything opf interest to Tool fans is open to interpretation (as usual). So prepare yourself a grilled chicken sandwich and have a read…
Update: I got an email from Blair explaining that the first paragraph isn’t necessarily aimed at the usual Blair critics, and more at certain inside people he wants to avoid seeing the “meat” of the newsletter. Think what you will of this – maybe there is something really important hidden here? Maybe Blair just didn’t want management to know he picked such an expensive lunch order?