The Return of Stray Bullets...

image courtesy of Image comics.com

...is the topic of discussion in this week's Thee Comic Column on Joup. I am very excited for one of my all-time favorite books to be coming back in March!!!

Ransom Riggs - Land of Sleep

Ransom Riggs has made a short video about his home town of Engelwood, Florida. I really enjoy this man's videos and this one is no exception. As someone who has a certain voyeuristic interest in my own hometown, there's an appeal in watching an author whose work I love turn on a camera and attempt to get at what it is about where he came from that powers the person he has become.

The Flaming Lips - 2nd Cassette Demo, 1983

Again, via Exclaim!. This is blowing my mind - Kinda Gallon Drunk, kinda Butthole Surfers. And if you notice, I believe that is not Wayne on vocals but their original singer, Wayne's brother if I remember correctly. Details, including a list of stores stocking this 7 inch are here and there's another link on that Exclaim! link above.

Man Man - Head On (Hold On To Your Heart)

There are a lot of reasons to love the newest Man Man record On Oni Pond (13 of them in fact). This is probably my favorite of those reasons. Honus Honus has really developed a heartfelt mode of expression that really hits home with me and it's made the difference between Man Man being a cool, weird band I like to being something that moves me deeply and occupies a very consistent place in my heart.

Thank you Man Man!

Unreleased Talking Heads Live from CBGB's (via Exclaim!)

WOW. Thanks be to Exclaim! and Slicing Up Eyeballs on this one. Talking Heads playing an instrumental track David Byrne introduces as "Theme" during a gig opening for Television in 1976! Read more about it on Talking Heads fan site here.

The Callas - Diaster

Fuzz. Thick, thick fuzz. Mmm-mmm! This record made my best of 2013 list. It was produced by Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Grinderman. It is dirty awesome goodness.

Top Eleven Albums of 2013

image courtesy of father time

My top eleven albums of the year on Joup.

Yet Another New Track by The Neighbourhood! "Unfair"

These guys are really something else. Unless I'm miscounting, that's four new songs released after their full length, I Love You.

Keep 'em coming guys!

Year of No Light - Stella Rectrix

New on Debemur Morti. Year of No Light is a French instrumental collective and Stella Rectrix is the first new song released off of their newest record Tocsin. Deep and creepy. Perfect post-Christmas tunes.

B'zwax - Illusion of Size

Awesome new single by B'zwax accompanying this new Yak House film starring Dragon House. This track is available over at B'zwax's bandcamp at $Name Your Price$ so dig deep and support this awesome independent artist.

I was originally turned onto B'zwax instrumental hip hop stylings by technoccult with another number which I posted here. 

Kate Nash - I Hate You This Christmas

Via mxdwn. You know, if my friend Manny (RIP and I miss you this day of the year most of all sir) hadn't turned me on to Kate Nash like six years ago I would have thought she was a new artist based on this. I dig the song first and foremost because she's British, second because it's catchy, but what did it for me was FIDLAR scrawled on her guitar. Fucking awesome.

And that's Christmas folks. Merry.

Ransom Riggs - Hollow City Trailer #1

I keep forgetting to post these trailers for Ransom Riggs' sequel to the spectacular Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Hollow City is out January 14th and it's not soon enough as I feel as though I've been waiting for it forever! The first book is the story of Jacob, a young boy who has his world turned upside down after witnessing the death of his grandfather at the hands of what he believes to be a monster. This leads to an examination of his grandfather's things and a forlorn letter from a mysterious Miss Peregrine. Investigation of the letter leads Jacob to travel with his father to the tiny island of Cairnholm off the coast of Wales and it is there that things get really weird. The narrative is peppered with a fascinating assortment of freaky old time photos Mr. Riggs (who youtube, twitter and various other online enclaves are just loaded with awesome content) acquired from private collections and various out-of-the-way places and is an effortless and completely consuming story of peculiarity, Hollowghasts, time-distortion and coming of age. Soooo good.

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping

2nd greatest Christmas song ever, right after that Pogues. Merry Christmas.

The Pogues - Fairytale of New York

Merry Christmas with the greatest Christmas song ever. Makes me want a bottle of Bushmills and my Preacher trades.

Madlove - Left with Nothing

Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, Tomahawk, Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant and Melvins Lite has at least one other band than those I just listed, and it's Madlove. The group's 2010 record White With Foam is a grand rock album that reminds me A LOT of Faith No More's King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime record. Not sure why, there's no direct crossover personnel. It's just a tone thing. Start to finish White With Foam is amazing. I've been caught in its thrall again lately and brother, it feels GOOD.

Watch The Flaming Lips' Christmas on Mars

Via consequence of sound, who tell us we only have twelve hours while this is streaming free. I own this, it was a gift from Mr. Brown a couple years ago. The audio is amazing. The visuals are amazing. But unfortunately it has the worst dialogue ever. I mean really. I'm not talking shit. I do not like to spout negative shit online (I used to, then I grew up). I'm just saying. I'm telling you if you've ever had an inkling to see this you should, just be prepared. And try not to hold the dialogue against the Lips.

New Neighbourhood Track Silver from Forthcoming Record...

The Neighbourhood's I Love You is in my top 10 albums of 2013 (that list coming this week on Joup). The band's been busy, they released two newer songs over the last six months (here and here) and now in the midst of touring they've released this beautiful new number along with the announcement that a new record is coming in 2014. #000000 & #FFFFFF (or Black and White) is due "soon" according to the band. More deets on It's All Indie here.

Brand New - At the Bottom

After two rotations of God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me it's on to Daisy. Play this song really loud on headphones and it feels like it imprints itself onto your soul.

Brand New - Limousine

Every track is awesome and each one brings you deeper into the catastrophic embrace of the music.

Brand New - Millstone

When this album grabs me it does not let go for days and days and days...

This Week's Thee Comic Column...

image courtesy of comicbook.com

Is yet another outcry to convince those not currently reading Terry Moore's Rachel Rising to give it a shot! Read the column on here on Joup.

Jarvis Cocker - Cunts are Still Running the World

Sing it Jarvis. So true.

Stage Fright (1987) Trailer

I just watched this. Wow. That's not a good wow, nor a bad wow. Just a wow.

Don't view the entire trailer, just the first 40 seconds. You don't need anything more than that.

My Favorite Article All Year Anywhere

I know that's a fairly hyperbolic statement, but Tommy from Heavenisanincubator just killed it. The focus isn't so much on the actual music related, but on the aesthetics of our relationship with music via technology. Reading this gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling that analog does and made me want to run upstairs, grab one of the several dozen still shrink-wrapped Maxell C-90's in a closet and get to making a mix-tape. Now that's inspiration!

The link to the article is embedded in the image - just click, link and read! Oh, and listen.

Save Rachel Rising!!!

image courtesy of terrymooreart.com

Comic book fans and all those in love with a great story I appeal to you - Terry Moore recently tweeted that numbers on his amazing monthly series Rachel Rising - which begins with a girl waking up from her own murder and leads off a twisty path into some old school biblical witchcraft that goes on to incorporate the Salem Witch Trials - is towing numbers so low that, as Moore stated, when his legendary book Strangers in Paradise numbers sported similar numbers he ended the series.

@joe_hill I'm still on it but the orders keep dropping like the comic is bad. So frustrating. I ended sip when it got this low. Frustrating.
— Terry Moore (@TerryMoore) December 17, 2013

This can't happen people!

Now Moore wasn't stating that he was ending Rachel Rising, but the frustration and hurt was there. And it should be because not only is Rachel Rising an amazing book but it is completely INDEPENDENT - put out through Moore's own Abstract Studio. This post isn't an ad for a kickstarter or anything, I'm just imploring to those who read comics to drop into your local comic shop or hit up amazon and pick up the first trade or an issue or anything. Trust me - you will LOVE this book. The art is amazingly detailed B&W and the story is just getting batshit crazy while still retaining the 'sophisticated horror' element that a show such as American Horror Story conveys. And really, this new season of AHS is most definitely influenced by Rachel Rising, as it too revolves around Witchcraft (though to what degree I don't know because I haven't seen it yet).

Terry Moore is an icon - please give him and his wonderful book Rachel Rising a chance!

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Higgs Boson Blues Official Video

Had no idea that dropped. Possibly my favorite song on an album with all amazing songs.

The Twin Peaks Cast Recorded a 12 Days of Xmas

Mr. Brown, if you read this you just made my day good sir! Not the traditional 12 days you know, this is specific to Twin Peaks and is sung by actual cast members. And the kicker - it was apparently recorded for my beloved Kevin and Bean back in 1990!

Burial - Rival Dealer

Really digging this new Burial.

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar Teaser Drops...

...and apparently shows us nothing. I saw this last night and immediately had qualms about posting it because most of it appeared to be stock NASA footage, which is cool, but not exactly what anyone was expecting. However, upon careful consideration there are two reasons that have made me change my mind. A) I LOVE Christopher Nolan's films, esp. the ones that come between the Dark Knights (nothing against the DK's and yes, I realize this is not between them as the series is over, but you know what I mean, it's immediately after it so it kinda fits into that criteria). And B) There may be more in this teaser than I originally thought, so I'm going to mull it over a bit (there's a great annotation of some of the images over on space.com here). In the meantime, here's the synopsis that went with the trailer and that if nothing else is something that makes me salivate:

A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

New World Inferno (Via Brooklyn Vegan)

World Inferno Friendship Society have a new one coming out. This is another one of the great bands my wife turned me onto when we first met. I'd be lying if I said I'd kept up with everything they've done, but they're a great band and any new music by a great band is worth promoting as much as possible!

Read more on Brooklyn Vegan here.

Thee Comic Column #63 - Peter David's Fallen Angel

image courtesy of fantasticfiction.co.uk

Yep, Lee and her take-no-prisoners approach to redemption is the topic of discussion this week in Thee Comic Column over on Joup (here).

It's funny, I'm traveling this week, hanging out in Florida for the first time and I brought all of the volumes of the book I discuss with me on the trip, only to realize that DC never released a trade collecting the final volume of their original Fallen Angel run. This has left me unable to read the series as I'd planned - I'm stuck on a raft between DC vol. #2 and IDW vol. #1. Also as I talk about in the column I have all the DC in original issue format, however when I get home tomorrow I'm now going to have to really dig through my long boxes to find them.

Crap.

Still, the payoff will most definitely be worth the effort, as Fallen Angel is just one fantastic book!!!

CJ & Co. We Got Our Own Thing

Originally I dismissed this, but stick with it til the end and it gets good.

Chester Whelks Interviews Gloom Balloon on Joup

Chester Whelks conducts a fantastic interview with Patrick Tape Fleming of Gloom Cookie on Joup here.

Buy the Gloom Cookie record You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Disaster/Fix the Sunshine Parts 1-7 on their bandcamp here.

New Cynic!

As a high school metal head interestingly enough I pretty much avoided death metal at all costs. Sure, because of my girlfriend at the time I saw Deicide two or three times but into them? Not so much (awkward teenage sex to Dead by Dawn is NOT a good thing). Anyway...

Fast forward years later and Cynic's Focus (specifically the track "Textures") was my introduction to the idea that there were good bands that employed the gnarly 'Ghhhhaaaa' vocals. It's all about not relying on it but using it where appropriate. Patton did this and Cynic definitely did this on Focus, where the vocals ranged between the haunting female vocals, the vocodor-ed vocals I always thought of as representing some form of celestial entity and the snarling, spitting vocals more associated with death metal. These techniques fit perfectly over instrumental passages that - while I'm not a huge fan of the very solid-state sounding distorted tone on the guitars - move poignantly between sophisticated jazz, complex rhythmic prog and intricate metal.

And now there's some new Cynic.

Nothing - Dig

This new track by Nothing dropped in August and I missed it!!! Buy it on their bandcamp for .99 here.

Cibo Matto - MFN

Why did this band break-up in the first place? Viva! La Woman was fantastic and then Stereo Type A - I'll never forget when that album came out and we all just sat around floored at the maturation Yuka and Miho had achieved 3 years. I mean, Viva is fun, but Stereo Type is viable as one of the top ten best albums of the 90's in my opinion. Moonchild? Come on...

Anyway, Mr. Brown sent me the link to this video recently with a reminder that Cibo Matto's new record, Hotel Valentine, will be out on, appropriately enough, on Valentine's day 2014.

Nice.

Burial - Come Down To Us

Buy directly from Hyperdub here.

As much as I looove Burial's 2008 Untrue I have been lax in keeping up with his output - largely because there wasn't any for a couple years.

The Flaming Lips and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes - Do You Realize???

I've been on a HUGE Lips kick after reading Mark Richardson's wonderful 33 1/3 entry on Zaireeka. Great version of a song that I believe may be one of the greatest songs ever written - but that also always makes me cry so - as happiness does - so I'm careful with the exposure.

I know I'm tangenting here, but I've never done Zaireeka. I was at the BoomBox Experiment live in 1998, but have never done the home listening experience.

That's about to change.

I've got a xmas bonus coming soon and one of the few things I intend to purchase for myself with a part of that is Zaireeka on cd so I can finally get around to throwing some Zaireeka parties.

Geez, how many times in one post can I say 'Zaireeka'?

image courtesy of blog.kexp.org

SunnO))) + Ulver = Greatness!!!

How long has it been since Monoliths & Dimensions? 2009? I can NOT wait for this!!!

New Pixies Video - Another Toe in the Ocean

Just released! What more can be said about the Pixies continued reunion?

Queens of the Stone Age Live in the Studio @ KCRW

Even after recording/releasing the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live album do you still need proof that KCRW is America's greatest NPR station?

Above.

Burial - New Record Coming This Month (via Exclaim!)

I have to completely plagiarize Josiah Hughs from Exclaim!'s story from this morning and post this great news along with the same video he used because honestly I completely missed Burial's EP last December. So the above is from that and I'm tripping on new-old Burial music and the fact that two days after I just said to someone, "When the hell is Burial going to release something new?" I get this and then two weeks later I get more.

Exclaim has the full story here.

Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse - Down By The River

For my money Mr. Young is the best example of a 'simple' guitar player ever to walk the planet. Sparse, strategic and elegant, but harsh and dusty all the same.