Blog Posts by Bill DeMain

Is the Devil tempting kids with backwards messages in rock songs? Or is that a daol fo yenolab? By MOJO's Bill DeMain.

In a second-hand book shop, I recently found an interesting little paperback called Backward Masking Unmasked. Written in 1983 by a youth minister named Jacob Aranza, it's an earnest and unintentionally funny attempt to expose the hidden Satanic messages in rock music.

For example, in the chapter called "Which Way Are The Eagles Flying?" Aranza condemns the definitive LA band as "occultic" [sic] and as "having had dealings with members of the Satanic church." He claims their song "Hotel California," an ode to devil worship, contains this startling backward message: "Yes, Satan organized his own religion."

As Aranza denounces subliminal messages that encourage everything from homosexuality to marijuana use, he cites the usual rock suspects--Zeppelin, Stones, Sabbath--as well as such unlikely ones as Hall & Oates ("They often impersonate women and attempt to come across

Summer, 1975. I'm 12 years old, walking along the boardwalk at Wildwood Crest. The pinball arcades buzz and clang. Kids scream as they ride the Jack Rabbit rollercoaster. The air is thick with cotton candy, cheese steak and vinegar fries. And ebbing and flowing behind it all, in continuously breaking waves of harmony, is the song "I'm Not In Love."

I don't know who 10cc is, but they seem to know exactly who I am. A kid who is discovering the opposite sex. The summer before, I still believed that girls had cooties, that contagious disease of otherness, to be avoided at all costs. Now suddenly, I can't stop staring at the hip-swinging parade of cut-off jeans and halter tops. And this leads me to thoughts of Sherrie Halsey. Blonde haired, blue eyed Sherrie. The prettiest girl in my 7th grade class. A month before, she wrote in my yearbook, "You're a great (and cute) guy! I hope to see you around this summer!!" Words that left me flushed, dizzy, confused.

"I'm not in love so don't forget

How do you keep illegal immigrants from Mexico out of the U.S.? The Department of Homeland Security has been looking for the answer in a song, finds Bill DeMain.

For years, the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to fix a pesky leak in the southern border of the United States.

Despite 18,000 patrol guards and an expensive arsenal of fences, trenches, dogs and motion-controlled cameras, they've failed to stop Mexican immigrants from illegally crossing over. Of the 12.5 million illegals living in the U.S. in 2007, 57% of them came from Mexico.

Recently, the DHS hit on what promised to be a creative solution to the problem: cautionary songs designed to convince the migrants to stay home.

They hired Elevación, a Hispanic jingle company in New York, to write and produce a five-song CD, entitled Migras Corridos. "Migra," the derogatory nickname that Spanish-speaking people give to immigration agencies, was chosen to throw listeners off the scent. "Corridos" is a traditional

"We will not appear unless Negroes are allowed to sit anywhere," the Beatles said in a press statement on September 6, 1964. Halfway through a 23-city U.S. tour, the group was looking ahead to their September 11th date at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, where they'd heard that blacks were confined to the upper tiers at public events such as concerts.

The next day, The Florida Times-Union ran a disparaging editorial, calling the group "a passing fad, perfectly fitted to the morals and ideals of a fast-paced, troubled time." Their sound was described as "high-pitched monotone." There was no mention of segregation, but it was clear that the paper hardly considered these "hirsute scourges of Liverpool" intelligent enough to comment on social issues.

"The Beatles were interlopers in the eyes of most people," says Kitty Oliver, a Jacksonville native who was one of a handful of black teenage fans who attended their concert. "They were nobodies, and strange on top of that. Especially in the

...And Usher smells of bug repellant. MOJO's Bill DeMain enters the arena of pop stars' scent.

"Are you ready to smell Mariah?"

This question comes from Ellen, the woman behind the fragrance counter at Dillard's. I'm here with my nose and notepad, and she is guiding me through the scented mists of pop star fragrances.

Mariah can wait. I'm still contemplating Christina Aguilera. Scent, of course, is a powerful memory trigger. Christina's Inspire whisked me back to 1985, when I worked as a delivery guy for a company called Rose Express. This is what my car smelled like after a day delivering roses.

Ellen confides that Inspire is "probably bound for Walgreen's." When celebrity scents lose their juice--average shelf life is 2-3 years--they're demoted from the department stores.

Linking celebrities to fragrances is nothing new. In the 1930s, Schiaparelli designed a perfume bottle to look like Mae West. In the 1950s, Givenchy created a scent for Audrey Hepburn. But it wasn't until the '80s

Flipping through an issue of Playboy from forty years ago, you find hi-fi ads that boast: "RCA Synergistic Stereo 10-inch woofers providegreater depth and clarity to the bass tones, giving them such power they canactually blow out a match!"

And: "Kenwoodmultiplies your pleasure with amazing sound performance!"

Typical of men'smagazines of that vintage, Playboywas packed with come-ons for speakers, turntables and tape decks. Thiswas a time when a man's stereo system was a measure of not only his taste forthe finer things, but his sexual prowess.

Even the hi-fi jargon carried a libidinous charge--"viscousdamped cueing," "gyroscopically gimballed mounting," "wow and flutter" and thealways-suggestive "10-inch woofers."

Of course, all that sensual wood-and-chrome technology hasbeen long swept away by the digital age. In our journey from hi-fi to iPod,we've willingly traded the plush for the portable, the sumptuous for the sleek,the full-bodied for the flat.

Beyond the kitschy fun and

If Louis Armstrong was alive today, he might send a note to swim god Michael Phelps saying, "Hey Pops, don't pay the press any mind. There's nothing wrong with a stick of gage to help a cat relax. And you deserve it. What you did in Beijing knocked Ol' Satchmo completely out. Here's to us sharin' some shuzzit together someday. Keep up the paddlin' Daddy."

Armstrong and Phelps may seem like strange bedfellows. Though born eighty-some years apart, both have brought glory to America. As they racked up their gold--records and medals--we thrilled to their achievements, lauding them as the best in their respective fields.

And then, just as their careers were cresting, they got themselves associated with the smoking of marijuana.

Armstrong's bust in 1931, outside Harlem's Cotton Club, resulted in nine days behind bars. When he was released, he was more popular than ever. There was no public apology demanded, or given. Of course, with slower-moving media, many probably missed the story

"Is Beyoncé/Sasha Fiercethe most boring pop star 'second life' ever?" wonders MOJO's Bill DeMain.

I Am. . . SashaFierce, Beyoncé proclaims with Marvel Comics flair on her latest album. Theworld's biggest pop singer shedding her skin to assume a new identity? On thesurface, a bold move--and, hey, we dig the nifty gauntlet.But listening to the music, it's nearly impossible to tell Sasha from Beyoncé.Maybe I'm missing the finer points in the lyrics, but I don't feel like Sashais doing something radically new, or giving me a deeper understanding ofBeyoncé. Which is what an alter ego should do.

Helpfully, Beyoncé has surrounded the album withpress soundbites like: "Iwouldn't like Sasha if I met her off stage. She's too aggressive, too sassy,too sexy! I'm not like her in real life at all."

Butthis defeats the purpose of having an alter ego. Peter Parker doesn't send adisclaimer to his arch-villain foes,explaining that really he's a nice guy but his Spiderman guise allows hisdarker side to