An homage to the ’87 Max Headroom Incident

Continuing with the Max Headroom theme of Twenty Minutes (into the Future) and also inspired by the 90 seconds of airwave anarchy in Chicago on November 22, 1987. We bring you original music inspired by the notorious Max Headroom incident, a bona fide TV hijacking aka broadcast signal intrusion. It all transpired first on WGN – Channel 9 during the sports segment and then about 11:20 PM CST on WTTW Channel 11 – right in the middle of Dr Who – The Horror of Fang Rock. The coverage quickly waned as a mere three days later Chicago Mayor Harold Washington died.

Chicago’s Very Own

Alas, the FCC and FBI came up with nothing. The unknown video pirate was never found and the case still open. Perhaps the perfect crime in the pre-Internet days – no IP addresses and log data. Coincidentally, this was 24 years to the date of the assassination of JFK…hmmm…

The weird incident also inspired the recent movie Broadcast Signal Intrusion. Not to be out done Reddit is rife with out–there theories.

And so, we now present: Chi.TV.Max.Signal.Intrusion@199MHz

Dig it? Vote for “Signal Intrusion” here!

The Bliss Backstory

“Signal Intrusion” started off bassist Eric G’s jam called ClusterFunk that predated his joining The Bliss Machine; it was a bass and drums jam track. It was an infectious, funky and playful jam with his old drummer from a prior band which we had jammed to on multiple occasions…but deceptively complex.

ClusterFunk may resurface again in another tune – who knows?

Inspired a Movie

Broadcast Signal Intrusion is a film clearly inspired by the Max Headroom incident that happened in Chicago as well as they Captain Midnight incident.