Arizona Bay

Arizona Bay
Live album by Bill Hicks
Released February 25, 1997
Recorded November 1992 - October 1993
Genre Comedy
Length 65:56
Label Rykodisc
Producer Kevin Booth
Bill Hicks chronology
Relentless
(1992)		 Arizona Bay
(1997)		 Rant in E-Minor
(1997)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

Arizona Bay is an album by comedian Bill Hicks, posthumously released in 1997. It was released alongside Rant in E-Minor, marking three years since his death. The album's title refers to the hope that Los Angeles will one day fall into the ocean due to a major earthquake. Hicks contends that the world will be better off in L.A.'s absence:

Ahhh, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone...All the shitty shows are gone, all the idiots screaming in the fucking wind are dead, I love it...leaving nothing but a cool, beautiful serenity called Arizona Bay. That's right, when L.A. falls in the fucking ocean and is flushed away, all it will leave is Arizona Bay.

The music

Several of Hicks's albums are unique in that they feature background music, meant to enhance the album's mood. Such additions were made well after the initial recordings and are the product of Hicks's own musicianship.[2]

According to Kevin Booth, in the BBC documentary Dark Poet, it was during the early recording sessions for Arizona Bay, around Christmas 1992, that Hicks first started suffering from the pains in his side, which would later be diagnosed as pancreatic cancer. Upon learning that he had developed cancer, Hicks used his time to mix music into Rant in E-Minor and Arizona Bay, calling it his Dark Side of the Moon.[2]

Track listing

All music composed by Bill Hicks

  1. "Goodbye You Lizard Scum" – 3:52
  2. "Step on the Gas (L.A. Riots)" – 4:50
  3. "Hooligans" – 4:20
  4. "Officer Nigger Hater" – 5:27
  5. "As Long as We're Talking Shelf Life (Kennedy)" – 5:00
  6. "The Elephant is Dead (Bush)" – 1:57
  7. "Me & Saddam" – 3:10
  8. "Bullies of the World" – 1:22
  9. "Shane's Song" – 2:03
  10. "Dinosaurs in the Bible" – 5:45
  11. "Living God" – 1:05
  12. "Marketing & Advertising" – 4:38
  13. "Don't Talk for Me" – 1:40
  14. "Clam Lappers & Sonic the Hedgehog" – 3:02
  15. "She's Got a Broken Heart" – 1:09
  16. "Pussywhipped Satan" – 4:40
  17. "L.A. Falls" – 3:54
  18. "Elvis" – 8:05

Personnel

Pop Culture References to Hicks

The band Tool released a song, "Ænema", from their album Ænima (actually released the year prior to Hicks' "Arizona Bay" album), which repeats the theme of Los Angeles being drowned in the Arizona Bay. The song includes the lyrics "Learn to swim, see you down in Arizona Bay." Along with this, there is artwork inside the album cover showing a map of California before and after the earthquake. Other album artwork features Hicks himself cited as "another dead hero". Bill Hicks has always been a heavy influence on Tool's albums:

"Who's that talking at the start of "Third Eye"? - That would be the aforementioned Bill Hicks; those are snips of comedy routines of his, from "The War on Drugs" (off his CD Dangerous) and "Drugs Have Done Good Things" (off Relentless). In fact, on his CD Rant in E-Minor, he refers to the power that heavy doses of hallucinogens have to "squeegeed his third eye." [3]

The computer game Deus Ex, set in the mid-21st century, features a reference to an earthquake destroying Los Angeles in 2030 and creating Arizona Bay. [4]

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. 1 2 "Bill Hicks Biography page". billhicks.com. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  3. ↑ Tool FAQ
  4. ↑ Interview with Warren Spector
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