A month or two back, one of my guys at work turned me onto Molchat Doma, a Belarusian post-punk band from Minsk, formed in 2017, whose newest album Monument, was released this year on Sacred Bones Records. Probably because of introducing them into my youtube algorithm, yesterday afternoon I stumbled across a thumbnail for a post titled "1 Hour of Melancholic SovietWave" (HERE). Sovietwave? I immediately clicked on this, and the track I've posted above was the lead-in track, which in turn sent me looking for more by this band, Воскресная площадка, which so far I have been unable to find a translation for. In listening, so far, I'm fascinated, so I intend to explore this a bit more over the coming days (and nights; this music is perfect for after the sun sets).
Watch:
Friday night I finally got around to watching Edward Norton's Adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's novel Motherless Brooklyn. Wow. Fantastic film.
It's been at least ten years since I read Mr. Lethem's novel, and being that I finished my re-read of William Sloane's To Walk the Night yesterday, I moved directly into round two with Brooklyn. In cases like this, where I've read the book but not in a while, I'm never sure if I should watch the film first or re-read the book first, so once again, I'm just going to play it by ear. Either way, both are fantastic.
Of special note, the music for Mr. Norton's adaptation was done by Composer Daniel Pemberton, with contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Thom York, to name a few (although, as always, I feel like Mr. Yorke's voice is somewhat of an unwelcome sonic element in film scoring and composition, as it is so distinct and unmusical, it usually takes me out of the story immediately).
Playlist:
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
Ella Fiztgerald - The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol. II
Talk about an album that defines a year in my life. INXS's Kick was everywhere in 1987. I was eleven. I remember some stroke popular kid in my 4th grade class telling me in gym class how his father brought him home, 'the album all the college kids are listening to,' and brandishing the cassette. I assumed it was something stupid because this kid was my antithesis. However, I was wrong, it wasn't stupid at all. To this day, Kick and U2's The Joshua Tree still sound to me the way I physically felt at that time in my life, which is a really cool and kind of spooky thing, like my cells rearrange to some pre-recorded configuration when those sounds are re-introduced to my brain. No where is that more true than on this particular song.
Watch:
Keola Racela's Porno dropped on Shudder this past week. This is one I'd been waiting on for a while; I almost went to a screening at some point, pre-COVID (I think - that seems so long ago now, it's like some hazy, undiscovered country). Anyway, I'll be reviewing this one later today on a new episode of The Horror Vision, which will go up Monday, however, let me just say - I really liked this flick, and it had one of the hardest to watch scenes EVER.
Playlist:
Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Bölzer - Hero
The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic I Cenozoic
Sir Neville Mariner & Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Amadeus (Complete Soundtrack Recordings)
Opeth - Deliverance
Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1
The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST
INXS - Kick
Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power (1973 Bowie Mix)
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
I also spent an entire morning at work yesterday diving into The Black Tapes podcast. Can't recommend this one enough. I hooked.
Set up in a wonderful homage to Serial's first season, The Black Tapes deals with Paranormal Research and all the familiar hijinx - ghosts, demons, portals to hell. But the story is told through an NPR/This American Life kind of lens and because of that, it resonates in a very different way.
Card:
Threes and Swords - looks bad on the surface, but really, this is the cutting away of baggage in order to clarify and establish a firm foundation (fours). I've had two intensely productive days of writing and am clearing away a lot of the mental detritus that has had me clogged up these last couple months - fall out from world events, obviously - and am ready to end the year on the same mega-productive note that carried me through the first six months of it.
My cousin Charles is a huge Fleet Foxes fan, and although I've liked everything I have previously heard by the band, A) my most recent previous listen was quite some time ago, and B) they long ago fell off my radar. Until Charles messaged me about how much he loved the newest record, Shore. I gave this one a spin last week, liked it, and then did not return to it until yesterday, when Shore absolutely blew me away.
First, the way this record is recorded is gorgeous. There's some real craft here, especially with the vocals and the mixing. Robin Pecknold's voice is handled in a way that makes it feel enormous and intimate at the same time, no easy feat. The instrumentation and arranging is full but organic in a way that gives the depths of most songs a very layered, aquatic feel, so that the music washes over and submerges you. Given the title and cover art, this is most definitely intentional, and very much appreciated. I've always loved aquatic themes and 'flavors' in music, and that goes especially well with the songwriting on this record.
Watch
Holy smokes. Run, which should have been in theaters this past Mother's Day weekend, is on HULU now. I knew nothing about this one other than Sarah Paulson is in it - always a good thing - until my friend Jonathan Grimm texted me about how much he liked it. An hour and a half and some change later, I couldn't agree more. Don't watch any trailers, don't read anything, just WATCH IT! Wow. Co-writer/Director Aneesh Chaganty is definitely someone who I will be watching like a hawk for whatever he does next.
NCBD:
Isn't it nice when, every November, NCBD falls the day before a holiday made for eating too much and laying around reading? Yeah, it is.
So far, I adore this series, so let's continue on. I'm loving all the Autumn-tinted Horror in comics this year, three of them with new installments today!
The Plot is back and I am HAPPY! More dark, Ancestral Horror is exactly what this holiday season needed.
The Best of Raphael book from a few months ago remains one of my favorite comics since I was a kid - something about this oversized format. So of course, I'll be buying them all...
This last one is The Unkindness of Ravens #3. I'm digging this Sabrina-esque story, and realizing today that there's only one more issue, I'm unsure how this is going to wrap in a satisfactory manner.
Playlist:
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chamber Be Full
Nabihah Iqbal released a new single last month, and as anyone who has become as enamored with her debut (post Throwing Shade), 2017's brilliant Weighing of the Heart, would expect, it's pretty damn great. Airy, emotive, and a touch mysterious, with that raw bedroom quality Ms. Iqbal brings to her music, "Is This Where it Ends" was actually released a month before the bandcamp release Blue Magic Gentle Magic, which is all that is left of a second album she had been recording when her studio was burgled. ALL tracks were lost, with only barebones 'work in progress' tracks kept on the cloud, that can not be manipulated. Read about it and support Nabihah Iqbal on her bandcamp by double-tapping the widget.
Let's help this amazing artist find her muse in the face of this extremely crappy setback.
Watch:
I finally took my good friend Missi's advice and checked out Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein's Freaks on Netflix. Pretty damn god. Freaks isn't something you haven't seen before, but the way it doles out information, and how it starts cold and leaves you hanging, makes the film feel different, as though it's using tropes and a rather tired formula to do something with a bit more heart. Great performances all around, ESPECIALLY from Bruce Dern.
Playlist:
Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
Jucifer - نظم
Crippled Black Phoenix - Ellengæst
Pallbearer - Forgotten Days
Death Crux - Mutant Flesh
Card:
A recurring cycle for me these past few months - I touch optimization with sevens, then become weighed down by what the accomplishments - no matter how small - add to the process. Eights are imperfection personified, and distractions - welcome or not - are part of that.
From the new Crippled Black Phoenix record, Ellengæst, which dropped October 9th on Seasons of Mist. You can order the record HERE. Full disclosure: I haven't even heard this record yet. I have a bit of an interested/not interested relationship with this band, and I completely forgot this was coming out.
Watch:
I had the absolute joy of watching Josh Boone's New Mutants on Friday, and I have to say, I LOVED it. I talk about it on the latest episode of The Horror Vision, which will be on all streaming platforms, youtube, IGTV, and the little widget in the top righthand corner of this blog by the time you read this. In a nutshell - see it.
Playlist:
Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
White Lung - Eponymous
Young Widows - Old Wounds
Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend
Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Windhand - Eternal Return
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
System of a Down - Eponymous
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night
Etta James - Third Album
Card:
Completion. Full power. I realized on Saturday that, despite my mental lapses and sagging work ethic, I am very nearly complete with nearly half of the second book in the Shadow Play trilogy. The image from this card is a perfect representation of how I feel when I reflect upon that.
Glint, the first release from Deafheaven's Ten Years Gone live album , out December 4th on Sargent House. Order HERE.
READ:
For Halloween I did an impromptu re-read of Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park, which has become a book I read every couple of Octobers and never tire of. From there, I'd planned to begin Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse, a book my good friend and fellow co-host from Drinking w/ Comics and The Horror Vision gifted me a copy of a few months back. However, something steered me into another impromptu re-read, this time of William Sloane's To Walk the Night. I first read this one back in 2016, and found I already was chomping at the bit to get back into it. 75 pages or so in, it's every bit as great as I remember. Also, the narrator speaks a lot like Hunter S. Thompson - which I attribute era and region - and that familiarity adds a entirely new level of pleasure to the prose.
To Walk the Night was originally published in 1937, and as such, there are many editions of the book that have been published in the intervening years. The most recent I know of, and the edition I have, is in a volume titled The Rim of Morning, published by NYRB Classics in 2015.
The volume also contains the novel The Edge of Running Water, another fantastically dark, cosmic tale of restrained but utterly creepy Horror.
Playlist:
Naked Eyes - Promises, Promises (Single)
Tamaryn - The Waves
The Stone Roses - Eponymous
Stevie Nicks - Stand Back (Single)
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Bölzer - Hero
Steve Morse - Bliss OST
Card:
The 5 of Wands always leaves me scratching my head a bit - there are things about this card that suggest a level of discomfort or discontent with authority to me, and I wonder if that has to do with my recent re-engagement with world news (imagine that, throw out the clown and the news no longer feels like a sideshow). However, there's also something militant about this card, and it makes me wonder if perhaps that might not bode well for the coming restrictions civic leaders are no doubt going to have to impose as the population of entitled cunts that apparently make up a sizable portion of this country's population continue to act like spoiled children.
My follow Horror Vision host Tori recently turned me on to Bölzer. This album is fantastic! A Black/Extreme Metal band, I was floored to discover Bölzer is a two-piece! This record is fantastic, and mixing/mastering/recording engineers Victor Santura, Michael Zech, and the enigmatic D.G. really knew how to steer the band into a sonic space that more than makes up for any 'missing' instrumentation. I'd say the sound of this album, which really knows how to use an ample but still tasteful amount of reverb, is one of the fullest metal band sounds I've heard in a while. There's a definite 'space' to this recording, and it's big and dark and bold.
Podcast
A new episode of The Horror Vision went up last week. I've recently moved beyond just the audio component of the show, and started making extremely rudimentary 'videos' for each episode. The plan is to eventually make a more involved video, or - gasp - do something similar to DwC, but with that show slowly creeping back toward reappearance, where I'll find the time remains to be seen. Until then, enjoy us talking about the genre we love, and if you dig it, leave a comment and let's talk Horror!
Watch:
Tuesday after work I rented Jeremy Gardner's new film After Midnight. Produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead - Benson has a small supporting role in the film - Gardner wrote and co-directed this one, as well as starring in it. As it stands now, After Midnight will almost definitely finish 2020 as my favorite film of the year.
Playlist:
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
I did not find out about Chelsea Wolfe and Jess Gowrie's new band Mrs Piss until a week or two ago, and since, their debut Self-Surgery has become a record I simply cannot turn off. Available on the always great Sargent House, you can order the record HERE.
Watch:
Having just seen the original Castle Freak for the first time within the last year or two (Thanks, Joe Bob!), I'd read about Barbara Crampton's work producing a remake and became immediately interested. It's not often one of the original cast members in a seminal film take on such a labor of love, and the fact that the cast member in question is possibly the greatest Scream Queen of all time only adds to my interest. Why remake this film? I can only assume Ms. Crampton has good reason to throw her hat into the project, and judging by the trailer, we should have a new iteration of Stuart Gordon's somewhat odd modern take on the H.P. Lovecraft classic in just a few short weeks.
NCBD
First, the return of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's dark fantasy epic has become even more exciting now that they've announced Seven to Eternity will be ending in just three short issues. I love this book, and I've missed it incredibly.
We Live is an Aftershock book getting a lot of press. On a whim I grabbed the first issue last month, dug it quite a bit, and now I'm hooked. Love this cover on issue two.
A 'zombie book' that is very much not about zombies, Dead Day continues to make me smile.
Die! Die! Die! may be a book I've continued to read out of inertia, but that doesn't mean I'm not still enjoying it. "GI Joe but totally nuts" is really the only way to describe this one.
I mistakenly never added Jason Howard's Big Girls to either one of my pulls at Atomic Basement or The Comic Bug, and as such, it has been a pain in the arse to find since I picked up the first issue. If I hadn't stumbled across a copy of #3 last week, I would have probably given up and waited for trade, but since I'm only missing #2 now, I'm making the attempt to go monthly again, just to support Howard, whose art I adore.
And finally, this is a new one I'm considering picking up. A sequel to Vault Comics' Fearscape, which I did not read but keep hearing good things about, I thought I might grab the first issue of A Dark Interludeand the Fearscape trade.
This is definitely the biggest NCBD is a while. I still have storage concerns, but they've kind of taken a back seat to 'the passion' again.
Playlist:
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
The Clash - London Calling
The Bronx - Eponymous (I)
Fleet Foxes - Shore
The Foxies - Anti Socialite (single)
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Card:
Really, not necessarily a new journey or undertaking, as a direct indictment of how fucking lazy I have been of late. I just can't seem to get my discipline with writing back online at the moment; it's been a struggle now for the last few months, and I really need to do something about it
Last night, I showed K Julien Temple's Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury for the first time. This was my third time seeing it, first in probably ten years. It reminded me just how much I love the Pistols, a love that wasn't always there, but came on strong after readng Tour Manager Noel Monk's tour bio Twelve Days on the Road, which I have now slotted up for a re-read sometime in the new year.
Love them or hate them, Never Mind the Bollocks still stands as possibly the most pivotal 12 songs ever recorded.
Watch:
Along with The Filth and the Fury, this weekend we also watched Floria Sigismondi's film The Runaways, the 2010 biopic about the all-female rock band of the same name. I'd seen this one before, back when it first hit video. The Runaways was my first inclination that Kristen Stewart could act, and although the film still looks to me as though large chunks were edited out before release, it's a great story about an awesome band I don't listen to nearly enough. One of K's favorite groups, I've definitely picked them up more since we started dating, but I really need to dig in on my own.
Playlist:
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Pre-order the new album HERE, out February 26 on Ipecac Records!
Watch:
Friday morning I woke up and rented Bryan Bertino's new film The Dark and The Wicked on Prime. Great flick. I didn't 100% connect with it the way I had hoped, however, I probably had some pretty unrealistic expectations. That said, it's a very well made film, even if I did kind of think all the atmosphere and tension didn't quite "pop" the way it tried to. Definitely worth supporting, though, and Bertino is one of the best modern filmmakers working in Horror, in my opinion.
I also finally made it around to Benson and Moorhead's episode of this year's season of The Twilight Zone. "8" is great. I still don't dig the overall feel of the series, and as much as I dig Jordan Peele, he just doesn't have the same wry manner needed to fill Rod Serling's shoes, but I did like seeing an Octopus kill off a team of Arctic research scientists.
Despite my misgivings on the series, I'm glad someone's doing it, because anthology shows like this help employ a lot of filmmakers, and whether I watch them or not, it makes me happy they exist.
Playlist:
Opeth - Watershed
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To the Sky
Miserable - Uncontrollable
Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Fen - The Dead Light
Hoseback - The Invisible Mountain
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse
Card:
What I've been doing to myself again with writing. I did nail some important backstory in a scene yesterday, but I could have got a lot more done had I not kept flitting around, being distracted by menial tasks that totally could have waited.
The first official video from Mr. Bungle's The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny, which coincidentally, I just got done listening to at work before I clicked over to youtube and discovered this. Loving the record so far.
Watch:
For some reason, I have Aliens/Prometheus on the brain today, and I realized I've never watched these deleted scenes.
For my fellow Sabbath Lads. Ozzy has never sounded so serene.
Watch:
The season opener of John Favre's The Mandalorian was so chocked full of goodness that I thought, for a moment, I might explode. Thankfully, someone is doing something cool with Star Wars.
Also, now that I've restarted my Disney + sub, I'm really looking forward to Wandavision. So much so, I think I'm going to start re-watching the MCU from the beginning, filling in those gaps I've missed along the way. What stoked my excitement?
I feel like I am about to very much re-engage with Marvel.
NCBD:
Pretty light week.
A new series from Aftershock Comics, Miskatonic looks like it will pit J. Edgar Hoover's "Red Scare" against the seedy underground world of Lovecraftian Death Cults. How could I not want to read this?
The old reliable, every-month-is-better-than-the-last.
Playlist:
Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies
Opeth Deliverance
I found an excellent podcast recently that has become increasingly important to the research aspect of writing Shadow Play Book II and spent some time listening yesterday. Mexico Unexplained is a series of quick but amalgam of informative historical facts and subsequent conjecture, and it's fascinating. Go to their site HERE.
Card:
Patient and stable. Also, coming out the other side of that solitude we started today's post off with.
I'm not really a Beck fan. I mean, I harbor no ill will, and I say this in spite of the fact that I still stand by his 1996 collaboration with the Dust Brothers - Odelay - is in my mind one of the greatest records of the 90s. But other than that? Well, there's the odd track here or there that I'll catch somewhere and that makes me say, 'You know, let me give that guy's other albums another chance,' but it's always for naught.
But Odelay. FUUUAAAAHHHHCKKK. It's still brilliant. I'm generally not in the headspace for it, but when I am, well, once 'Devil's Haircut' kicks in, it always seems like I'll be listening to it for days. But that doesn't ever happen. I guess that's kind of the bane of albums you know so well and love so much - they become such a part of you that it almost feels redundant to physically go back to them too often. Yesterday was one of those 'Odelay' days, but this time, I decided to give the 2008 Deluxe Edition a whirl. The track listing is more than double the number of tracks on the original album, and although that sometimes annoys me, yesterday I fell into a beautiful abyss of some of the weirdest shit I have ever heard on what will always, in my opinion, be a pop record. Tracks like 'Electric Music and the Summer People', 'American Wastland', and the ominous Aphex Twin remix 'Richard's Haircut' left me slack-jawed. That said, no track made me marvel more than Inferno. It's just... junkyard broken computer funk perfection.
I might be listening to this one for a while...
Watch:
I've really been into Horror Short film lately. I started a new column on The Horror Vision where I'm posting some of what I'm finding, and metnioned a few here. Last night I found this one, and I thought it was extremely effective:
Playlist:
Low Cut Connie - Private Lives
David Bowie - Blackstar
Beck - Delay (Deluxe Edition)
Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Molasses - Mourning Haze/Drops of Sunlight (single)
Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse
Card:
There's hidden assets here somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure how to find them. Lots of disks lately, and money has been on my mind. Really feeling the need to leave LA, to buy a home, to try and remove myself from the shit show. It's in my best interests to begin paying attention to things I normally ignore - might lead to a Cha-Ching.
Pallbearer is a band I've dabbled in a bit, but who have never clicked with me. Until this past Saturday morning. Up early despite my best intentions to stay in bed, I made a big 'ol pot of joe and sat down to do some writing, fired up my headphones and somehow wound up listening to the new album, Forgotten Days, two times in a row and thus, cementing an immediate bond.
Order Forgotten Days from Pallbearer's Bandcamp HERE or from Nuclear Blast records HERE.
Watch:
Holy smokes. Magnolia is releasing a Zappa documentary:
Playlist:
Pallbearer - Forgotten Days
Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST
Orville Peck - Pony
Massive Attack - Blue Lines
Sir Neville Marriner and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Amadeus (OST)
Card:
A new beginning you say? Not entirely, but I like the optimism.
Thanks to Mr. Brown, one of the purchases I made on this most recent Bandcamp Friday was the newly released "Depends on the Horse..." album, recorded in quarantine. The records is probably the most ersatz of the Milkmen's, and feels a bit more like a B-side compilation. NOT A BAD THING. Dig the description from their site (use this link HERE. There's another Milkmen bandcamp page that keeps popping up when I enter their name):
"Actually... this volume of songs is the soundtrack to the first 36 episodes of the weekly program "Big Questions with The Dead Milkmen" which can be seen on The Dead Milkmen's YouTube channel. The songs were inspired by and created in response to challenges the Dead Milkmen made to each other on the program. Songs 1 - 4 are from "The 4-Track Challenge" episode (September 26, 2020). Songs 5 - 9 are from the Cover Challenge episode (July 11, 2020). Songs 10 - 13 are from the Owner's Manual Challenge episode ("Read the Manual", August 15, 2020). Songs 14 - 17 are from the Genre Challenge episode (June 6, 2020). And song 18 is the theme song from the show, composed and recorded by Dean Sabatino."
Here's one of my purchases. It's been a while since I posted anything by these folks, but they're Covers Vol. 5 is for sale on their bandcamp HEREtoday only and it included this little gem, which is one of my favorites from their ever-growing repertoire. You can also support Two Minutes to Late Night HERE.
Watch:
Yesterday I woke up with a splitting headache that lasted pretty much all afternoon, so I left work a wee early, had half an Inidca Pro Tab and dozed on the couch. While I flit in and out of sleep, the new, "WWII Haunted Nazi Boat" Shudder exclusive Blood Vessel played. I saw most of it, or at least to recognize its fun attempt at doing for Strigoi what Dog Soldiers is for Werewolves. I wouldn't say that I loved the flick, in fact, I'm not sure I liked all that much about it, but it's well made, if not exactly well written, and I'd definitely be interested to see what the creators do next.
After I'd woke and ridden out the last third or so of Blood Vessel, I hoped around and found a pair of Anthology shows I'd never heard of before and that were pretty good. Here's trailers, and I'll be posting a small piece on them over on TheHorrorVision.com later today.
Playlist:
Fen - The Dead Light
The Cure - The Head on the Door
Rollins Band - The End of Silence
Maggot Heart - Mercy Machine
Hall and Oats Greatest Hits
Opeth - Deliverance
Sinioa Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
For anyone who grew up on the Southside of Chicago in the 80/90s, you undoubtedly remember the more serious of the two Classic Rock stations at that time were 97.9 The LOOP and 105.9 WCKG, 'CKG as everyone called it. I found a lot of lifetime bands that way - Zeppelin, The Stones, etc., but there were also always Classic Rock artists - often ones who had gone solo after aging out of famous bands - that had a few songs amongst their singles that really resonated without turning you into a fan of the artist. My CKG Spotify playlist is kind of an odds 'n sods of such tracks.
A couple of these songs rank among my favorite songs ever, plus, they're fun. Double nostalgia - mine and that I inherited from older folks when I was younger, whose fervor rubbed off on me.
Card:
The Princess of Cups has the ability to make dreams come true. This is a concept I think most of us in this world have forgotten about, so it's nice to see it here now, when everything seems held hostage by one big question, and so many of my own personal 'plates' from this year are still spinning.
I fell back pretty hard core back into Beach Slang's 2020 album The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City. What a great record. Will in be in my top ten this year? I guess it's about time I start trying to figure that out.
Watch
I've always wondered why people don't use James Duval in more movies. I love the guy, and here, surrounded by C. Thomas Howell, Ray Wise and James Hong, well, looks like a slam dunk to me:
See what I mean?
Playlist:
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Protomartyr - The Agent Intellect
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny
Van Halen - 1984
Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City
Card:
Realization of false promises? Is this America's indictment? What's that mean for the never-ending side show currently stressing everyone the F*&k out?
Monday night was the first night I came home from work since the clocks went back. I'd gotten out late, and by the time I arrived home, the sky was already beginning to darken. K was still at work, so I threw on my headphones and took a nice long walk into the Dusk and listened to Yob for the first time. I mean, I'd given a song or two a whirl before, but the music hadn't really made an impact on me then, for whatever reason. This time though, I began with a song a friend recommended - Marrow, the final track on 2014's Clearing the Path to Ascend - and the timing couldn't have been better. Perfect.
NCBD
A lot of good stuff this week!
And yes, even the final issue of Batman/The Maxx: Arkham Dreams!
Playlist:
The Velvet Underground and Nico - Eponymous
Meg Myers - Sorry
Naked Raygun - Basement Screams
Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend
Kevin Ayers - The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories
Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn
New chapter in the Bret Easton Ellis serialized novel landed this week, and things are really beginning to get creepy. I'm really loving this as an addition to an already great podcast! Ellis' Podcast Patreon is HERE. In looking for an image to post, I found THIS insane little tidbit from a few months back. Ellis and Irvine Welsh writing a series together? YES PLEASE!
Also found out a friend of mine has been doing a BRILLIANT Quarantine Podcast called Cabin Fever. It began back in April, when all this was still fresh, and it's interesting to go back and hear other people's experiences as "essential" or "non-essential," and how either distinction affects their lives and the lives of the people around them. The cast covers everything: how they spend their days, how their roles have suddenly changed, what they're watching, insights into COVID, work, life, etc. It's all good stuff, and I've grown quite fond very quickly. Cabin Fever is up on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, here's widget:
Card:
Full disclosure: This post is scheduled to auto-post at 12:01 AM on Wednesday, October 4th. I'm writing this section, and thus drawing the card below, at 6:21 PM Tuesday, October 3rd. I have not checked in on the election all day other than one small peek at about 9:00 AM. What was the card I was hoping for when I did my draw this morning, saw it was addressing the election and thus, prompted me to draw two clarifying cards? This one, which I just drew from the Raven deck after a rigorous shuffle:
By the time you read this, maybe the results will be in. Maybe this will be erroneous, a moot point. Or maybe, the old guard will have, as indicated by the guard, imploded. One can hope.
Poignant words from an album I fell in love with in High School. This day will change things going forward. Unfortunately - and I hope to hell I'm wrong here - I'm preparing for either outcome at the polls today to bring domestic terrorism on a scale we've not seen before. Obviously, the preferred outcome is achieved and we step into a new chapter, but I believe the "Stand back, stand by" was meant to put orange's cronies on watch for this very day. Expect militarized action if he is tossed out on his ass, as he should be.
Of course, if the opposite happens, well, I guess we'll really know what kind of cuntry (and other cunt like tendencies) we live in, and how many bigots, xenophobes, and downright misguided people surround us. In that case, well, it's going to be a very long four years.
Watch:
This is more of a listen than a watch, but here's a great episode of Henry Rollin's KCRW radio show where Mike Patton is his guest. They get into some great stuff in this one:
In the actual category of 'Watch' however, my first non-US region Blu Ray arrived yesterday. If you listen to The Horror Vision, you'll know my cohost and good friend King Butcher swears by his region-free player, and I finally decided to listen to him. I jumped the gun and ordered several things from Arrow's Shocktober sale - the Hellraiser Trilogy Blu Ray Boxset and Bride of Renanimator - and then doubled down and picked up a copy of the Swedish release of Fede Alvarez's 2013 Evil Dead on ebay. I'd been planning to hunker down and pick up a region-free modified player this week, but LUCKILY, I did some reading first and found out that, joy of joys, the two Sony Blu Ray players I've had for the last several years already are region-free!!! Evil Dead arrived last night, I pulled it from the mailbox this morning upon seeing the notification, and popped it in. Happy to report - it works!
I LOVE Alvarez's Evil Dead - I count it as my second favorite among all the films - adamantly battle the idea that it's a remake (Tappert, Raimi and Campbell have all said all along it's not), and am psyched to finally own the extended cut.
I'm thinking I may leave work a little early to try and avoid any madness, come home and watch this one while encased in a 'womb of refer.'
Playlist:
Opeth - Deliverance
Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse
Meg Myers - Sorry
Foster the People - Torches
Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips
Apple Music Blackgaze Pioneers Playlist
Amesoeurs - Eponymous
Yob - Cleraing the Path to Ascend
Card:
I really read around on the Pull this morning, because here's the first card I drew:
From (source) "In a more personal view the Emperor might stand for a time of stability and structure, linear thinking and discipline. Yet we can't live without it, too many of those attributes will only lead to rational despotism and mental poverty."
Wow. On the nose for current situation. However, nothing to indicate which way things might go. (NOTE: I did not set out to direct my morning Pull at the election, that just happened.)
Next, in a classic Past - Present - Future Draw, I pulled:
For Past: Baggage - the Lust of Earthly result leads to a great weight that makes it impossible to get out from under. Yeah, the last four years I've increasingly felt that weight. Finally, for Future:
Hmm. From the Grimoire: "The Airy aspect of Earth. Pragmatism. Can be a bit of a cunt for matters pertaining to money and stability."
The Prince of Disks can be stubborn and ignorant when ill-dignified, which is something I only take into account when I'm having trouble deciphering how the cards in a Pull relate to one another, never in a one-card Draw. The Airy aspect of Earth, so strength in practical matters. This also implies a certain degree of trust-worthiness and inventiveness. Often, a good listener.
Definitely not our current problem's cup of tea, being a good listener.
Is this Biden? It fits some of what I know about him, but the 'stubborn and ignorant' are almost our current problem's calling cards, especially the 'ignorant' aspect. The card was not ill-dignified, so I have to hope that's not the case and we have a change in Guard (I was really hoping to draw XVI The Tower as the future card, but no so luck).
All this does is remind me that the cards are merely reflections of our inner psychology and how it rubs up against the collective unconscious and, perhaps, more 'cosmic' elements we don't really have a chance in hell of understanding in any literal sense, because they are not literal in nature. So what's the outcome? We'll have to see. Go Vote people.
