Saturday, May 26, 2018

2018: May 26th 8:48 AM



I'm very late to Alkaline Trio. My friend Chris introduced me to their music a few weeks back and I'm surprised at how much I like it. At the time Crimson was released, I would not have been able to overcome my prejudices against anything that carried an air of slickly produced 'punk rock'. Now, I recognize this for what it is - good, fast rock with no agenda, politics or accoutrements. I'm loving this record - it's been a great sonic tool for writing.

Playlist from 5/25:

Danzig - Circle of Snakes*
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Chromatics - Cherry
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
David Bowie - Low
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I)
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.

I wrote just over 3K words yesterday, after a full day's work. Not too shabby. Today shooting for 4K.

I subscribed to Shudder recently, and have been digging the app's selection. Checking off a lot of longstanding,"I need to see that" boxes. Last night it was Adam Green's Digging Up the Marrow and Until the Light Takes Us. The night before was a new movie, Sequence Break. This is Grahamn Skipper's directorial debut; it premiered in LA last fall at BeyondFest and I had really wanted to go, but that didn't work out. Reminiscent of Beyond the Gates and eXistenZ, Sequence Break was a great watch, even if it was a little bit awkward at times (mainly just one character, the enigmatic man, was a bit off, a kind of contrived Deus Ex Machina that revealed the lines of the writing almost every time he appeared to catalyze events - there was a better way to do what he did). Still, I enjoyed Skipper's first film and look forward to his next. Definitely a fun watch with great visuals and some awesome Body-Horror elements, a la Cronenberg's mid-period stuff.



Card of the day:


The perfect Mother. Hmmm... perfectly fits what I'm writing, I'll leave it at that. Also, it ties directly into Mr. Danzig, doesn't it? Weird, since the bit below this with the asterisk is something I wrote yesterday in the morning, after listening to Circle of Snakes on the way to work.

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* Other than albums 1-3 and 7, my relationship of Danzig's records runs the gamut from begrudging to tentative. I'd not listened to this one in some time, and as much as I still enjoy 1000 Devils Rain and Skull Forrest, the production on this one is so fucking bad it actually makes me angry. I'm pretty sure in the case of opening track Wotan's Procession, the subpar guitar sound is a nod to the Black Metal of Norway, which I remember from seeing Danzig live for this album, was heavily reflected by his "Blackest of the Black' Tour lineup. But the rest of the record? No excuse, can't even hear parts of the chorus vocals on several songs, including the aforementioned Skull Forrest. Yo Glenn, hire a fucking producer, eh? Also, is Forrest purposely misspelled?

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