Share

cover art for The Paranoid Strain Orchestra presents: 9116--The Rock Opera, Disc 1

The Paranoid Strain

The Paranoid Strain Orchestra presents: 9116--The Rock Opera, Disc 1

Welcome to “Disc 1” of what, as far as we know, is the first ever two-and-a-half-hour podcast episode that is actually a full-on rock opera. Please note there’s a second “disc”--be sure you download that one, too.


We’ve been working hard on this thing for months now and are incredibly proud to share it with you. Thanks to Hellfingers, we have both front and back cover album art, as well as simulated record sleeve with lyrics, (front) (back). Easier to read, but far less visually impressive lyrics here. We’ve got credits there, and in the show itself, but we just want to make sure everybody knows who did this remarkable thing:



Daniel Arizona: The prime mover behind this whole idea, and the truly superlative songwriter who wrote the lion’s share of 50 great tunes.

Moisty: A blinding flash of musical talent and taste, it’s an honor to be in a band with him.

Turd Ferguson: The whole reason this album sounds as wonderful as it does, a great musician and perhaps an even better producer.

Lucifer Jones: A skilled and perfectionist drummer whose drive for excellence makes all of us do better.

Squonkus: Truly, this man and his saxophones are our secret weapons

QH “FJ” Guy: He’s got a weird speaking voice, but I’m glad we let him play the keys.


It is one of the great pleasures of my life to call these men my bandmates and friends. 


Also on the honor roll: Dana Unicorn, the reason people put up with the sound of my voice. The Chads, long may they reign; Mike Schmidt, the 40 Year Old Boy, and my favorite podcaster; The Big D, Some Guy, and I.RI. E, our excellent spoken voice cast; Frenchie St. Vino, Chad number 2, and I.RI.E, our beloved guest singers. Guerilla Studios and Myles Boisen, a fantastic place and person to record with. And once again, with feeling, Hellfingers, whose art is such a defining part of this show.


Thanks everyone for listening. See you in (about) three weeks. We need a little time to recover.



More episodes

View all episodes

  • 22. New! Unidentified--When UFO prophecy fails. Big time.

    28:33||Season 6, Ep. 22
    It's time for us to review one of the most fascinating after-effects of the UFO mania that followed the Arnold sighting. We'll learn how some incredibly lucky social scientists wrote a book about perhaps the world's first apocalyptic new age UFO cult, the Seekers. It's cognitive dissonance a go-go on this week's Paranoid Strain. We're skipping next episode for the holiday--see you in early January.
  • 21. New! Unidentified--The fascinating forgery of the MJ-12 UFO documents

    31:24||Season 6, Ep. 21
    The lion's share of today's episode concerns the weird story of the MJ-12 (or Majestic-12) documents, which first surfaced in the early 80s, and purported to trace the government's UFO coverup back to the Harry Truman administration. Only, like, they were fake. We also talk about cognitive dissonance in advance of our next big story, on the 1950s UFO cult The Seekers.
  • 19. New! Unidentified--Art Bell's time travelers and antichrists

    01:28:32||Season 6, Ep. 19
    Yes, this is part of our Unidentified UFO series, but it's also just a super-sized digression to share with all of you some of the craziest stuff Art Bell ever put on the air--the Time Traveler and Antichrist call-in shows of the late 90s and early 2000s. I hope you enjoy this very odd compilation as much as I enjoyed putting it together for you. Back to regular programming next week.
  • 19. New! Unidentified--From the High Desert...it's time for Art Bell

    29:07||Season 6, Ep. 19
    After a little housekeeping to wrap Roswell, we kick off what will be a regular visit to the library of the greatest conspiracy and weird stuff broadcaster in history, Art Bell. We'll hear how he shaped a young Jesuit, what made him so great, and how his show featured some of the most interesting Roswell stuff of all.
  • 18. New! Unidentified--Roswell--It wasn't aliens, dummies.

    31:43||Season 6, Ep. 18
    As the episode subtitle implies, we're gonna talk about why the Roswell "aliens" were almost certainly military test dummies. While we're at it, we'll explain why that's true in spite of the fact that those dummy tests didn't happen til years after Roswell. How? By explaining what science now knows about how memory works and--more importantly--doesn't.
  • 17. New! Unidentified--Roswell: The mortician's tale, and the little alien bodies

    28:36||Season 6, Ep. 17
    Continuing our skeptical look at Roswell, this time examine the story told by town mortician Glenn Dennis--a fascinating combination of real events, confabulations, and total crap. We also look into the eyewitness reports of little--well, not green men, but kinda orange? Anyway, eyewitnesses claimed they saw little dead aliens. But they didn't. We explain.
  • 16. New! Unidentifed--So, what really happened at Roswell?

    31:01||Season 6, Ep. 16
    We're back a week late, but I hope you agree it's worth it. Having heard the pro-UFO version of Roswell last time, we now seek to learn why so many dedicated investigators have looked into this situation and decided it's sound and fury signifying nothing. We've got a couple more episodes worth of Roswell stuff in the pipeline, and I look forward to sharing more with you in a couple of weeks.
  • Unidentified--Interlude

    04:50|
    Hey. We need an extra week coming back from summer, so here's a little taster of Dana Unicorn doing something silly to tide you over. See you next week.
  • 15. New! Unidentified--The Roswell incident (as told by an expert UFO believer)

    43:26||Season 6, Ep. 15
    This time, we hear the full story of Roswell--or, at least, the full story as it's told by those who are convinced that a UFO crashed there. This is audio captured during the great 2017 Paranoid Strain road trip, and we heartily thank Dennis Balthaser for allowing us to record and share his expertise with you. While we may disagree with his conclusions, we deeply appreciate his knowledge and his presentation. Next time: The skeptics get their turn.