Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

I'm not entirely certain how Joy Orbison came to mind this past Saturday morning as I sat in bed working on another new short story, but once I hit play on this track, I was immediately transported back to the dim evening light of 2009, when I spent a lot of time bumping the single that had "Hyph Mngo" on one side and "Wet Look" on the other*. I don't know exactly how long it's been since I listened to Joy Orbinson's music, let alone thought of it, but I'd wager a decade isn't too far off. A quick search of Apple Music revealed Joy's been consistently busy over the last thirteen years, and I had a wonderful morning tapping the keys and listening to everything I've missed. 

* That's a misnomer - I didn't actually have the physical single, but the digital tracks.

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Watch:

I watched quite a few flicks this weekend. Here's a rundown: 

Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl brought in another stellar episode of The Last Drive-In this past Friday, which helped assuage my blues that Yellowjackets took the week off. First, a flick I'd never really cared for previously, Kevin Tenney's Witch Board:

 

I remember seeing the tv spots for this one during its original theatrical release in 1986. As a ten-year-old, those spots freaked me right the hell out, but the movie never made it onto my screen until 2011 when I bought a used copy at Amoeba Music. Needless to say, Witch Board fell extremely short of my heightened expectations, and I immediately gave that copy to a friend at work. I didn't think anything could make me enjoy this one after that, but I have to say, it's just a totally different experience watching a flick like this with the Drive-In crew. I still wouldn't profess to be a Witch Board fan, but I had a damn good time with it Friday.

The Last Drive-In's second flick was 1975's The Devil's Rain, which features Ernest Borgnine as a red-cowl-wearing Satanist. I love this flick, and it'd been a while, so even though I ended up falling asleep during it on Friday, I restarted and finished it yesterday. That ending!

Predating the Satanic Panic by just a couple years, this is the post-Hippie fallout in America in the 70s: It makes me laugh that so many people entertained the idea of large, active "Satanic Cults" operating all over the U S of A in the dark, psychic corridor following Peace, Love and Understanding. I feel like this movie spins directly out of that idea. 

Saturday I received a call from my Cousin Charles, who had just watched John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness for the first time. This made me realize I hadn't sat down with some Carpenter in a while, so I planned a double feature and kicked it off with Big Trouble in Little China:

 

I'm not sure there's a movie I know of that is more quintessentially 'Me.' I first saw Big Trouble in 86 or 87 -whenever it first hit VHS - and that put me at 10 or 11 years old and 100% in Double Dragon, Snakes Eyes and Storm Shadow, and any stories that included underground caverns and realms. BTiLC has ALL of that, and it shaped me in a way I'm still trying to tap into in my writing. 

I followed one Carpenter favorite with another, 1987's Prince of Darkness: In terms of John Carpenter's films, I always say Prince of the Darkness is my favorite, but the caveat I add is you have to just take Big Trouble out of the ranking - it's always going to win. The Thing and Halloween are both up near the top as well, but the mechanics of the story in Prince of Darkness always blow me away, as well as how effective the film is with such an obviously diminished budget from JC's better-known films.

Finally, Sunday afternoon I finally dug out my old DVD copy of Doug Limon's Go and showed it to K. Here's the trailer:

Maybe it was because I caught the tail end of K watching the Train Wreck: Woodstock 99 doc on Netflix Saturday afternoon, but I had the late 90s on the brain, as awful as they were. Anyway, this flick was introduced to me by friends after we got into a fight with a bunch of gangbangers at, where else, the Crazy Horse II in Vegas. I'm not a strip club kinda guy, but I've been to a few in my early 20s. This was by far the highlight, and not because it was a strip club, but because we literally had to run out of the club, jump a taxi line and steal someone's cab to get away in one piece. After all that, one of the friends with me remarked how much like a sequence in Go the whole thing was, and when I professed to not having seen the film, he showed me.

 

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Joy Orbison - Apple Essentials

Spotlights - Seance EP

Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Windhand - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Body Maintenance - Beside You

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

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European Doom

 

While looking around online for a vinyl copy of Mars Red Sky's 2011 eponymous masterpiece, I stumbled on yet another absolutely outstanding French Doom/Stoner band I'd not heard of - Witchfinder. Taken from their 2019 album Hazy Rites, you can order a super sweet bundle of gorgeous vinyl from these guys via Mars Red Sky Big Cartel Shop HERE. You can also order the anniversary edition of that aforementioned MRS record. I've got a very nice mail day coming up in a few weeks.

I have to say, so far France is my favorite exporter of Metal. Between Blut Aus Nord, and now these two bands, I feel an epic, otherworldliness in the music made there the likes of which, I've not heard elsewhere. All three bands are among the most unique and creative in their particular 'genres,' and I love the idea of old-world European creepiness informing their approach, sound and aesthetic. Just looking at the album artwork for Witchfinder, and hearing the band's incorporation of pipe organ into the music definitely lends their sound a darker sound than a lot of other Stoner/Doom bands. 

 

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Read:

I finally re-started Alan Campbell's God of Clocks, the third and final entry into his Deepgate Codex series. 

I really wish I'd been able to roll right from the first two books into this one, but that trip to LaLaLand interrupted that - I didn't want to carry a Hardcover with me on the plane, or around in my backpack as I walked all over L.A. The joke was on me, of course, as my friend Chris ended up gifting me several books while I was there, one of which was that Hardcover edition of Stephen King's Fairy Tale I just talked about reading a few weeks ago.

I'll not lie - I love Campbell's writing, but it's proving difficult to switch back from King. There's just something so pragmatic about Stephen King's prose. Talk about 'every man.' Campbell reminds me A LOT of Mervyn Peake, and as such, it takes a bit more time to visualize his descriptions. Not a bad thing, and definitely a good exercise for the ol' attention span, which took a bit of a hit of late. Not a big deal; I'll knuckle down and use God of Clocks to readjust my concentration, and that will help with several more of the books I have coming up in the next few months, probably most notably, Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange, which I'm absolutely frothing at the mouth to read.

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Playlist:

Druids - Spirit Compass (EP)

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

Fen - Epoch

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast S7E10: Mr. Misery 

Cartoonist Kayfabe - X-Men 273

Cartoonist Kayfabe - Hellboy: Crooked Man

Projexploitation 3615 code Pére Noël (1989)/ Ep 14

Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow - Eponymous (single)

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Ritual Caster - Gravity Cosmonaut

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Seven of Swords - Sephirothic Association is Netzach, which instantly conjures the word "Victory" for me.

• Eight of Swords - Sephirothic Association, Hod. Splendor. 

• King of Cups - or in Thoth-speak, Prince of Cups, the Intellectual aspects of Emotion, a conundrum if there ever was one. 

What's this all add up to? Well, I'd say having the two consecutive numbers in the same suit fall one right after the other implies Process, i.e. there's a formula. My creative juice runs best in an Ad Hoc, stream-of-consciousness that I've had to learn to wrangle, especially when it comes to Shadow Play Books 2 & 3, which I've outlined and am (trying) to write concurrently. Or rather, I was. That approach kind of became subsumed by those flaring, creative energies again, and things have become somewhat murky. I'm assuming this Pull is telling me to buckle it up tight, once again.

Pulling two consecutive cards like this, I think it's important to note that when you look at the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the path between these Netzach and Hod is the 27th Path, also known as The Tower Path, or in Crowley's words, "The Blasted Tower or House of God." This is a path where if you are ascending from the lower, Earthly realms, you must sacrifice, or learn to part with your ideas of the world, your "ego scaffolding" and begin to give yourself up to something higher. If you're descending, you must take the thrill and emotion of "Victory" and transmute it into something useful. In other words, the idea you think is great can only actually be experienced as great if you can wrestle it into a tangible form.

That's writing, to a "T."

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New Music from PJ Harvey!!!

 

From the forthcoming album I Inside the Old Year Dying, out July 7th on Partisan Records. Pre-order HERE. 

It's been a minute since we've had new music from Polly Jean. I listened to this multiple times in a row when it popped up in my feed last night, and each time the song opened a little bit more, like some dark, grueling flower. I love her music so much - no one else does to my brain and nervous system what Ms. Harvey does. There feels like a growing history in her work, as though each new record contains the sum total of everything that's come before, and I'm eager to hear this entire album.

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Watch:

Neon dropped the trailer to It Lives Inside yesterday:

 

I only needed to watch the first thirty seconds or so to know I was in. Trailers are beginning to be the bane of my existence. Exaggeration? Yes. Of course, but seriously, I can only imagine how much more I would have enjoyed Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise had I not been forced to sit through the trailer before every movie I have seen in the theatre since January. So many moments that might have won me over fell flat, so I'm taking action and abstaining from trailers altogether. I'll still post here, but that's it. 

Caveat: I'll still watch trailers for Marvel stuff because that tends to be all I watch of those anymore. It's with Horror films especially, I'm slamming the door. 

Back to the flick - bringing in Indian folklore is such an awesome thing. I've been thinking a lot about Remi Weekes's 2020 film His House and Pornsak Pichetshote's graphic novel Infidel - both use other cultures as jumping-off points and both rank among the most effective Horror stories I've experienced in years. It Lives Inside looks as though it will further explore bringing Horror from other cultures to viewers, and that's a lot more interesting than, well, just the same old Deadites over and over (sorry Evil Dead Rise - I'm your friend but I'm not sure I'd sleep with you).

 

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NCBD Addendum:

Just have to report back that Sins of Sinister: Dominion completely sh*t the bed. Not impressed; possibly the worst X-Event book wrap-up since the late 90s. 

The logistics of 'solving' the set-up of a timeline gone 1000+ years into the future under the widespread genetic influence of a narcissistic madman like Nathaniel Essex was so jumbled and non-specific, it felt rushed and loose in its storytelling and logistics. I would wager that the story ended up becoming so dense that it would have taken another three issues at least to actually write their way out of this; instead, we fall back on that annoying, "Quick, use your power in conjunction with mine and we can stop this." I'm exaggerating, but not entirely. Also, while I dig Mother Righteous and Rasputin IV, this series ends up feeling as though its sole purpose was to move them into the present-day cast, another annoying X-Trope I've personally had enough of for one lifetime. I know, I know - then stop reading! Well, I enjoyed more of this series and the Immortal/Red than I haven't, so this isn't so much a swearing-off as it is a "WHY?"

There were, however, a few genuinely cool set-ups in this issue, the biggest being the question of who is the Dominion if the 1000+ Sinister isn't? My guess is there's a Sinister who already retrieved his Moira engine and reset the timeline, making his (or her) way into the higher dimensional plane. Also, good to get Moira back into the action, though if she'll stay front and center or tuck back into the shadows is anyone's guess. I'm guessing the line, "This is my story" suggests the former.

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Playlist:

Dorthia Cottrell - Eponymous

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Holy Serpent - Endless

Windhand - Split EP

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland

Spotlights - Love & Decay

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

 Going to do this a bit differently today:

• King (AKA Prince in Thoth) of Cups - Sephirothic Association is Tipareth, always my shining star on the Tree of Life. This is the Airy aspect of water or where the Sword and Cup meet. Like sex, a joining of two halves to make a whole. Emotional depths must be honed by intellect

• The Emperor - Rules, albeit not malevolent ones, they're also brutal in their pragmatism. Nature. This infers strength, decisiveness to the point of instinct, and high energy.

• Seven of Swords - In Thoth, Futility. Overwhelming decisions that we see the two cards above prompt for a swift resolution. Difficult or not, to carry on we must make decisions quickly and continue our course.

I actually think this is meant as advice for a friend more than for me. Life is difficult, even the smallest decision can overwhelm, let alone the big, life-changing difficult ones. Employ the swift and brutal energy of nature, roll with the punches. You won't come out unscathed, but you will come out, heal, and carry on, that much stronger. 

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Death Folk Country

 

From Windhand singer Dorthia Cottrell's second solo record, Death Folk Country, released last week on the always fantastic Relapse Records. You can order a copy HERE. 

I'll admit that I don't know Dorthia's first solo record, 2015's self-titled, as much as I should considering I'm such a huge Windhand fan. In fact, I don't think I've listened to that one since it came out. I jammed Death Folk Country last week and it really hit the spot, and now, spending time with both records this morning, I can definitely draw a parallel: Cottrell's solo acoustic records are sort of to Windhand what Alice in Chains' every-other-album, acoustic EPs were to their proper albums. There's a strong vein of Cottrell's aesthetic that informs Windhand's sound and imagery, and those elements are on full display in these stripped-down arrangements of acoustic, peddle steel and the other various atmospherics touches Dorthia peppers these records with. As an artist, there is a bleak beauty to Dorthia's music - both in those aforementioned arrangements and in her vocals/melodies, and all of it ties together nicely into that over-arching aesthetic. 

Also, can I say that I love the album title Death Folk Country because I actually think that's a perfect descriptor for the music she makes in her solo career, and on this new album in particular? I guess I just did.
 

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NCBD:

Being that I was off work the last two days while K and I hung out in Dayton, OH, Wednesday feels a bit like Monday, and I'm starting my week with a pretty awesome NCBD. Here are my picks:

The final issue of the ill-fated Donny Cates, Ryan Ottley Hulk series. Most folks seem to hate this one, but I loved it and am sorry to see it go. Cates and Ottley took some HUGE swings here, and although Cates jumped off a few issues back, I feel like Ottley's done a great job maintaining the tone. Really hoping to snag this Skottie Young cover.

The end of Sins of Sinister. Despite what I perceived as a rough start, the Hobby Store SciFi of the last few issues has endeared SoS to me quite a bit. Up next for the X-Books, "Before the Fall." Not entirely sure what this will consist of, and I doubt I'll read all the titles, but there are a few that look as though they will interest me.

Being that I have not been reading the tie-in "Event" book, The Armageddon Game, I kind of feel like I've lost my compass for the ongoing TMNT series. Hoping that gets alleviated soon. 

LOVE this cover so much - total throwback to the earliest days of TMNT and, in a broader sense, early 80s indie comics in general. 

Halloween in the world of WTFPFH? Sign me up! This one's world is really starting to open up, and I'm curious to see more people and places through the eyes of characters outside the now-defunct Academy.

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Watch:

A few days ago, Bloody Disgusting posted the trailer for a new Slasher flick called The Curse of Wolf Mountain.

 

Some cool imagery here, and I'm definitely curious as to the story. That said, I'm not going to lie: when I see an indie flick - especially if it's a Slasher - that has people like Felicia Rose, Robert Englund, Bill Mosley, or in this case Tobin Bell and Danny Trejo, I become a bit weary. These good folks are genre icons who earn a considerable chunk of their living doing cameos in any movie that can afford them. Their names then bolster the perceived appeal of those flicks. Nothing wrong with any of that, except sometimes it seems like those flicks don't have a hell of a lot going for them besides the cameos. Wolf Moutain's trailer is ambiguous enough that I cannot properly "read" much about it quality-wise, so we'll have to wait for the film's release on May 9th to find out. That said, as I stated at the top, with some of what we're seeing in this trailer, Wolf Mountain has a very real chance of being a solid modern Slasher along the lines of Random Acts of Violence or The Ranger.

 

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Playlist:

Television - Marquee Moon

The Sword - Age of Winters

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle

Funkdoobiest - Brothers Doobie

Guordan Banks - Keep You in Mind (single)

NIN - The Slip

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

Gang Starr - Hard to Earn

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Windhand - Eponymous (reissue)

 

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Card:

When I travel, I always have my mini Thoth deck that Missi gifted me years back in my bag. However, when I went to do a Pull this past Monday from Dayton, OH, I couldn't find the deck. Now, I knew it was in the bag - this is a multi-compartment backpack, and I've become fairly convinced there's a portal to some small space dimension in the damn thing, so that items disappear, then reappear later. This was the case with the mini Thoth, as I found it yesterday while packing for our return trip. Anyway, this morning I felt like those cards had something to tell me, and when I pulled them from the small cloth pouch they live in, one card was turned over atop all the others.

The Ten of Disks can be a murky card on its own; are we talking about monetary wealth or amassment? Define wealth?  Most likely, as this is the Disks or "Earth" suit, however, there's more to Malkuth than just coins. Bearing this in my, next, I shuffled and pulled two accompanying cards to clarify the reading:

Swift action or, perhaps more appropriately read Conflict,  can be the deciding factor that helps achieve completion. 

Loud and clear - I've had a couple days off from writing, as there was zero time on our trip (that's not usually the case; I normally make time wherever we go), but I need to finish this short story I've had poised for completion today and get it submitted to the short story market it's intended for.

 

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A Slip of the Nun's Blade

 

This old NIN song from 2008's The Slip popped up in my feed this morning and it kinda hit the spot. I'm in Dayton, Ohio - a city I adore but don't make it out to all that much anymore. I spent a lot of time here in the late 00s, though, so seeing this track surface felt a but like the Universe giving me a thumbs up.

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Watch:

I watch Amoeba Music's What's In My Bag periodically, but special thanks to Mr. Brown for pointing me toward this episode with Seal. I'm starting the video at a particular point near the end; watch that and then start it over if you want to hear this beautiful man gush about Bowie, Alice in Chains and a host of other music:

 

I don't know very much about Seal's music. I avoided it a lot when I was younger and more limited, however, at some point, I realized you just can't argue with the greatness of "Kiss From A Rose." That led me to wonder about listening to some of Seal's full albums, which I haven't really done yet, and I'm not really in the headspace to do at the moment. I'll get to it eventually, though.

 

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Play:

I have become obsessed with Puppet Combo's Nun Massacre! This game scares the crap out of me. Here's Survival Horror Network's no-commentary walk-through; I won't be watching it, as I want to experience all this for myself, but I guarantee if you're a Horror Movie fan and you sit down, maybe ingest some mind-altering party favors and watch this in the dark with headphones or the sound up, this will affect you the way you want Horror Movies to.

 

Nun Massacre induces a paranoia that I really appreciate, and as I alluded to above, this game has the effect I long for back from the days when I discovered a lot of the Horror Movies I love now, but as an adult, very few new ones provide.

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Danzig - Eponymous

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?

The Sword - Warp Riders

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Judas Priest - Painkiller

Bill Withers - Apple Music Essentials

High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense

Chamber of Screams - Murder House (Original Puppet Combo Soundtrack)

Karl Casey - (White Bat) XX EP

QOTSA - Rated R

 

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RIP Prince - 7 Years Gone

 Eight years? And what's up with April? Jesus.

13 Evil Fairy Tales Dead Under 30

 

Greg Puciato has become one of the most interesting artists working in music today. Setting aside Dillinger Escape Plan as the legends since their retirement, Puciato has done dark electronic music with Telefon Tel Aviv's Josh Eustis in The Black Queen, Hardcore/Thrash with Killer Be Killed, toured as part of Jerry Cantrell's band, and all that and everything in between with his two solo records, both of which I adore. Now, he teams with more like-minded souls (from Every Time I Die and Fit For An Autopsy) in Better Lovers. What's it sound like?

It sounds awesome.

The first single dropped the other day and big props to Mr. Brown who sent it my way, as I totally missed it. No word on an album proper, but after seeing tour announcements yesterday, the smart money's on something coming down the pipes in the next few months, so there's one more thing to look forward to.

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Watch:

Last night at 7:00 PM K and I caught Clarksville's first screening of Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise. I had exceedingly high hopes - never a good thing going into a movie, let alone a new installment in a series I have loved for a very long time. But Fede Alvarez's entry in 2013 blew me away (still blows me away, in fact), and all I wanted from this was that same feeling of Deep Horror Intoxication 2013 gave me. Did Evil Dead Rise succeed?

Yes and no. First, I really enjoyed the film, and I think Lee Cronin did a helluva job. However, those pesky expectations tapped on my shoulder for the entire runtime. 

MY problem, not the film's. 

Evil Dead Rise is not as intense as 2013; don't get me wrong - this film is f**king intense, but Rise spreads its assault thin and only really explodes in the last act. Common for a Horror film, of course, and not something to traditionally detract points for. That said, I did feel the set-up of the characters - all of whom I loved - affected the film's pacing, so that Rise felt stretched a bit thin when compared to 2013, which sets its tone and story up so quickly and efficiently and jumps into the carnage so eloquently that it's just not fair to compare. 

Everyone in the cast did an excellent job and the FX are fantastic - like REALLY fantastic. The violence and gore felt a skosh subdued compared to Fede's, but I realize all these comparisons between these two films are unfair. I've always retained a staunch "Don't compare 2013 to the original films" stance, so surrendering to this prejudice here is hypocritical. Also, Tapert produced Rise and Campell and Raimi executive produced, so their fingerprints are all over this new entry. Bearing all this in mind, I think once I'm over the initial viewing, I'll see it again (next week), and have a deeper experience.

All in all, SEE IT IN A THEATRE!!!

            

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Read:

Yesterday, I finished Stephen King's latest novel, Fairy Tale. My good friend and A Most Horrible Library Cohost Chris gifted me a copy while we were hanging out in LaLaLand last month, and I tore into it on the plane home. This is the first new King I've read since 2010's Doctor Sleep; I say this not as a point of dismissal or obstinance, but to illustrate that, although I've loved every book by Stephen King I've ever read, I just haven't read enough of his work. I've always thought that eventually would like to read everything, but I rarely actually work on that. There are so many other authors I love as well, most considerably more "independent" than King, and I tend to fall sway to their work one right after the other. "First world problems" disclaimer aside, what a wonderful problem to have: how do I read everything I want to before I die?

Anyway,  all this talk is really just to set up the fact that I had no idea what I was in for with Fairy Tale. I should have guessed, because it's quite fantastic. 

The story remains rooted in its very human, very relatable characters and their lives dealing with grief and aging for nearly the first two hundred pages, and if that sounds like it might be too much set up, it's not. I could have read about Charlie, his father, Radar and Mr. Bowditch for the entire 600 pages. That story sets up the bigger picture, and once it gets going, there are quite a few white-knuckle moments in this one, and that's the kind of reading I really enjoy. The book is Epic, and as I've come to expect with Mr. King, his epics are among the most readable I've ever encountered. 

Add into the mix the fact that the chapters are illustrated by Nicolas Delort and Locke and Key's Gabriel Rodriguez. King mentions in the afterward - which was just as enjoyable to read as the damn book, if considerably shorter - that the illustrations were key in giving the book the feeling of, well, old Fairytale collections, and I tip my hat to him at the wonderful attention to detail here; it just makes the book that much more enjoyable.

In 2010 I read Doctor Sleep and loved it, and now, thirteen years have passed without my even realizing and Fairy Tale blows me away. I've got a pretty intense list of reading planned for the next few months, but when the decks clear, I'm penciling in more King. I always forget just how much I love his writing.

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Playlist:

Cartoonist Kayfabe - TMNT 7 with Eastman and Laird        

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Better Lovers - 13 Under 30

AAWKS - The Electric Traveller (single)

AAWKS - (Heavy on the Cosmic)

Clutch - Blast Tyrant

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Chile

Led Zeppelin - Presence

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Card:

Switching it up back to my original Thoth deck for today's Pull:

Creative breakthroughs can arrive at a destructive cost and often must be tempered by keeping one foot in the 'Real World.'

This feels like a nice little indictment of the creative process, or I guess more accurately, an acknowledgment that my work ethic is sound. I learned a long time ago not to mix heightened emotional or perceptive states with writing. Yes, both can be useful for ideas, but actual writing while intoxicated by either substances or emotions never produces sound work. Not sure why I'm being reminded of this now, other than maybe I just needed a nice Jungian pat on the back.

 

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New Music from The Ocean!!!

It's been a minute since The Ocean released something that really blew me away. I think that has more to do with me than them, but it remains a fact. 

These guys have been spearheading new corridors of Metal/Post Metal/Whatever since the early 2000s. I got hip to them kind of on accident, back somewhere around 2008 when I picked up Fluxion on a whim. The frenzied fandom that album birthed reached its zenith with the 2010's twin releases Heliocentric and Anthropocentric. I still consider those records to be the pinnacle of what Robin Straps and crew have achieved, however, that is not to say I didn't love 2011's Pelegial, because I did. 

When the group returned from a five-year hiatus in 2018 with Phanerozoic I, I was in an entirely different headspace, so while I've listened to and liked that record as well as its 2020 companion Phanerozoic II, they haven't quite moved the needle with me the way some of the previous records did. Watching this video, however, I'm blown away by the production and feel like The Ocean has something great in store for us once again.

This video is a HUGE step forward, and I can only guess that, with as ambitious a band as The Ocean has become over its now 23-year history, Straps and Co. may have grown to harbor visual ambitions accompanying their sonic ones. 

What would that look like? 

Well, I'm not entirely certain, but it would probably start with what they have released for the new song "Subatlantic," harbinger of the new record Holocene dropping May 19th on the band's own Pelagic Records. Pre-order HERE.

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Read:

Allow me a small if egregious addendum to my NCBD post yesterday. 

After acquiring and reading Nightcrawlers issue three, I was floored to find not only was the burning skull of Galactus in the issue, but my knee-jerk interpretation of the image was 100% incorrect! What we have in this issue isn't Galactus being destroyed in a swathe of cosmic fire, it's GALACTUS AS A SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE, or in laymen's, Galactus as a Ghost Rider!!!

Wow. Just wow. Hats off to writer Si Spurrier - the same guy who named the Black Knight's goat-headed servant Philip - and artist Alessandro Vitti for bringing this to life. Here's what I think is a preview pick from next week's Sins of Sinister: Dominion one-shot that appears to feature this awesome new version of the planet-eater front and center.

 

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Playlist:

Jackson Browne - Somebody's Baby (single)

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear Is a Cruel Master

The Ocean - Subatlantic (single)

High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

ZZ Top - Rhythmeen

Young Widows - Old Wounds

High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

Temperance is Art in the Thoth deck, and since the Bound Deck has become my staple and I've had to adjust back to the classic interpretation of the card, I've come to look at this one as a balance between Temperance and Art, Art being a more Bacchanalian pursuit. So looking at this spread, I'm seeing the balance between logic and heart as the achievement that will transform one of my projects (World often acting as nomenclature for the Worlds I'm creating, or Projects, to put a more definitive linguistic point on the matter).
 

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Set Galactus's Hiding Mask Aflame!!!

A little Wino and his friends in The Obsessed to start our day. This tracks slams; love it!

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NCBD:

My picks for this NCBD; another slow week, but that's fine with me. Quality of quantity, right?

Loving this series. The throwback to the excesses of 70s and 80s rock gods is always welcome these days. Especially when the story gives us rock gods that worship Satan!!! Also, although the story is slightly obvious in some regards, insofar as to where it's going, the overall big picture of what that will mean is delightfully vague. 

I didn't read the first two issues of the Sins of Sinister series Nightcrawlers, however, being that this is the final issue before the closing Sins of Sinister: Dominion one-shot brings the sub-series to a close, and being that I've grown to actually really dig this series, I thought I'd pick this up. Who knows? Maybe I'll grab those first two issues eventually, too. Either way, seeing Galactus's burning face behind Mother Righteous totally sold me on this "A" cover.

That's one of the really cool things about these Marvel "possible future" stories - the degree to which the creators can totally fuck with everyone and everything. I feel as though it used to be, at the very least, every possible future would have Logan in it. Not this time. And although I doubt very much we'll actually see a Galactus flambé in this issue, just the fact that they could suggest this on the cover makes me feel like a kid again.

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Watch:

 

After reading about Scott Walker's upcoming film The Tank on Bloody Disgusting a few days ago, I'm intrigued. Reviewer Meagan Navarro very specifically states, "So much about Walker’s narrative structure and stylistic choices evoke ’80s creature features," (Read Meagan's full review HERE). That very much makes me take the possibility of shortcomings aside and want to see this flick. I think back to James Wan's Malignant a few years back - it took a good thirty or so minutes of laughing at that film's shortcomings before I got what Wan was doing - he made a 70s Giallo, and went so far as to build in the associated shortcomings from that particular style/era of film. This 'authenticity or bust' aesthetic we've seen in recent years - I could argue Psycho Goreman has this to a degree as well - is fascinating to me; a real breath of fresh air. I love the idea of filmmakers saying, "It's not enough to just add synthetic VHS tracking lines to your film" - the equivalent of the "vinyl" audio effect that adds pops and crackles to an audio track - "you have to be true to the essence of what we think of when we think of those films!"

Anyway, I'm none of the theatres in my area are playing The Tank - Clarksville's Regal is pretty great, but it's not that great - so I can't wait to watch this on April 25th (thereabouts) when it lands!

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Playlist:

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

CCR - Cosmo's Factory

The Obsessed - Lunar Womb

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Kyss - ...  And the Circus Leaves Town

The Sword - Warp Riders

Bill Dogget and His Combo - All His Hits

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

In order to bring a project to completion, first emotional matters must be transformed into something useful through an act of Will.

Direct commentary on the process of writing. Well, the adage fits with any artistic endeavor, I suppose, but I'm applying it directly to my own process, which has begun to mutate for the better thanks to two separate but concurrent events. The first was Jonathan Grimm's three-day jaunt out to our new home. The guy is a self-made success with his art, and it's inspiring beyond almost anything I've encountered in some time. Maybe ever. The second came in the form of some thoughts on writing in one of the more recent This Is Horror Newsletters (which you can sign up for HERE and which is totally worth your time for the interviews alone, if not the contemplations of craft that sometimes come burrowed inside the missives).

What's that have to do with today's Pull? Well now sheriff, I don't rightly know. Pulls are not always straightforward. In fact, they're never as on the nose as my quick interpretations might make them appear. There's a lot of gooey ambiguity in the way they interact with the subconscious, and sometimes, you just contemplate the cards and see what associations they lead you to. Piecing it together - if you do - might take considerably more time. Hopefully, in the meantime, you've arrived at something useful. Like I just did.

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The Boogeyman's Milk Leg

 

Man, this track takes me places. Some of those places are imaginary, and some are memory-laden ephemera from the early 2000s. Despite being released in 2013 - the year Mr. Brown sent me this record that's taken ten years to fully gestate an appreciation for - something here really reminds me of the particular era of my life circa 2000-2004. I think it's because my first real exposure to jazz-tinted metal came during that time when my friend Hammerstock turned me onto Cynic's brilliant 1993 album Focus. Whatever the case, I played Habitual Levitations a lot in the year or two surrounding my exposure to it, but haven't really visited since. Turns out, it fits like a warm glove.

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Watch:

I didn't watch the first trailer for Rob Savage's upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman, and I'm not watching this one, but as usual, I'm posting it here for posterity's sake:

 

Nothing but good feedback surrounding this one, so I'll definitely be catching it in the theatre. I'm still searching for a new film to really scare the hell out of me; I know Evil Dead Rise is going to be an ordeal, or at least I hope it's going to be, but if this can accompany follow that as a genuine bone-shaking scary movie, then 2023 will be looking pretty good at the halfway point when The Boogeyman arrives on June 2nd!

 

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Read:

Although I won't be watching the trailer for The Boogeyman, I'm digging out the first edition copy of Stephen King's Night Shift I found at a Las Vegas thrift store ten years ago or so and re-read the story it's based on - also called The Boogeyman - for the first time in quite a few years. 

This was a FIND for sure, and the first time I'd read really early King. Although I discovered him in High School with The Gunslinger, then read a handful of his other novels, I never dug into his early short stories until I found this. I'm less than 100 pages from the end of King's newest novel, Fairy Tale, but I should be able to slip this quick re-read in just to prime my excitement for Savage's new adaptation.

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

The Sword - Warp Riders

Kyuss - ... And the Circus Leaves Town

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)

Godflesh - Nero EP

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

To arrive at the best decision, and truly be fair and uncompromised by emotion, you have to be honest about your emotions toward the situation. I have no idea what this is in reference to at the moment, so I will do what I always do in situations like these - leave the spread on my desk today, so it's always in front of me. Sometimes that's the best way to unlock something you're stumped on.

 

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Someone Put Something In My Drink

 

This past Saturday, April 15th was the 22nd anniversary of Joey Ramone's death, and I totally missed it. I guess I never before put together that Pete Steele died on 4/14 and Joey Ramone on 4/15. I'm a considerably bigger Type O fan than I am a Ramones fan but talk about legendary. Here's one of my favorite Ramones songs in tribute. 

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Playlist:

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Holy Serpent - Endless

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?

The Bridge City Sinners - Here's to the Devil

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4

 

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Mastodon

Telekinetic Yetis & True Detectives

 

Telekinetic Yeti's guitar tone is beyond anything I've ever heard before. I've been throwing last year's Primordial on here and there for the last year or so, and I dug it, but something happened this past week and I just can't live without it now. 

That tone!

I've recently begun playing guitar again after an almost eight-year hiatus, and as I run scales and modes and just generally fall in love with the instrument again, I'm listening to a lot of music specifically for tone. There's Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and this. Those are probably my three favorites at the moment. 

I've also discovered the band's 2017 album Abominable.  You can hear how they hadn't quite dialed in their tone and sound just yet, however, that doesn't prevent it from being another awesome long player! 

You can order Telekinetic Yeti's monolithic slab of music from their Bandcamp HERE, or, if you want vinyl like me, from Tee Pee Records HERE.

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Watch:

True Detective always revs me up and then ends up disappointing on some level. I mean, Season One is among my all-time favorite things, but I hate the ending. Hasn't stopped me from watching it nearly ten times since it came out, though. Season Two... well, let's never speak of that again. And I loved Season Three but it also ended so soft and convienent that it robbed some of the thunder.  

This new Season, however, has Iss López as show runner and, if I heard correctly, director. If you've seen López's film Tigers Are Not Afraid, you probably understand why I have such high expectations for this. Kind of the same high expectations I had for Season Three when they originally announced Jeremy Saunier would be series director. Saunier had some form of disagreement with showrunner/creator Nic Pizzolato (surprise), and bowed out after only two episodes. Pizzolato handled most of the directing for the remaining episodes, and I thought he did a mostly fantastic job, but I still wonder what that season would have been like if Saunier had been aboard for the entire thing.

Anyway, no hard date on the premier yet, but I'm betting August or October. Either way, I'm in.

 

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Play:

I had not played video games since the original NES - well, I did my fair share of DDR back in the early aughts - until I came across Puppet Combo and his game Glass Staircase. The game had a very Argento vibe, and Puppet Combo's love of 80s Horror VHS struck me as so endearing I couldn't say no. That was five or so years ago and although I bought it, I couldn't really figure out how to play it effectively on my computer. I was happy just to support them, though.

Fast forward to my birthday last year and I saw that Puppet Combo's newest game at the time, Nun Massacre, was getting a Switch release. I plunked down the money and ordered a Switch, bought the game, but ultimately became frustrated adjusting to its play peccadilloes and kinda forgot about it in my obsession with Game Kitchen's Blasphemous.

 

This is the newest game, and I guess it's only available on Steam, which is something I'll most likely never tap into. Still, wanted to spread the word and share this awesome trailer.

 

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Playlist:

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Telekinetic Yeti - Abominable

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?

The Sword - Age of Winters

High on Fire - Death is this Communion

The Sword - Gods of the Earth

The Sword - Warp Rider

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

         

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RIP Peter Steele

 

13 years... wow.

Dreaming of the Demeter

 

New music from Nabihah Iqbal's upcoming second record, Dreamer, out April 28th on Ninja Tune. You can pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Though I hated Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark enough that it made me kind of retroactively dislike André Øvredal's previous flicks I'd seen and liked, I recognize my tendency to overreact to things like this. 

 

 

 

My reaction to Scary Stories isn't that different than, say, the reaction I had when I read the first issue of Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin, way back in 2005. Shortly after reading that, I gave half my Sin City issues. I don't really regret that, but it's extreme, I'll admit. In recognizing that, I've been meaning to rewatch The Autopsy of Jane Doe again, and now that the trailer for his The Last Voyage of the Demeter has landed, well, I am cautiously optimistic!

This is apparently an adaptation of a single chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula - how cool is that? 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Valley of the Sun - The Chariot

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

The Sword - Age of Winters

The Sword - Gods of the Earth

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

Steve Earle - J.T.

Lord Buffalo - Tohu Wa Bohu

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Clutch - Blast Tyrant

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

         

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

 

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Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me

 

Ghost gave us an Easter surprise by announcing a new five-song, all-covers EP due out May 18th on Loma Vista Records. You can pre-order HERE.

These between album EPs the band releases are generally hit or miss with me; I love 2013's All You Need is Ghost - not so much with 2016's Popestar, which had one of my favorite tracks from the band (Square Hammer) and a bunch of fascinating covers, most of which I just don't ever feel the need to go back to that often (although their "Missionary Man" is admittedly pretty cool). One thing Popestar confirmed for me is that Tobias Forge's ambitions are boundless, and I'm fairly certain at some point in his future, he will craft a Musical that will catapult him into the even further reaches of success.

Juxtaposed against Popestar, Phantomine feels like it may split the difference; while I'm not familiar with "Hanging Around" by The Stranglers, I'm excited as hell to hear them do Television's "See No Evil,"  Iron Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera," not to mention Tina Turner's 80s Thunderdome anthem "We Don't Need Another Hero." I just don't know what to expect that one to sound like.

There's also a video for this track up on youtube, however, it's age-restricted and only viewable HERE.
 

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NCBD:

My haul for NCBD today:

I am SO excited about the return of James Tynion's Nightmare Country. The first arc made it into my Favorite Comics of 2022 list, and I have no doubt this new arc will continue the glory. The closest thing I've seen to having Sandman back again.

My growing fondness for Jeff Lemire's work prompted me to pick up the first issue of this new Phantom Road series and I thought it a great set-up for a Horror story.

Hot on the heels of my Sins of Sinister reread, the final issue of Storm and the Brotherhood will hopefully prove another total mindfuck.

X-Men Vs The Brood. 'Nuff said!

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?

Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me (single)

Kyuss - ...And the Circus Leaves Town

Holy Serpent - Endless

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

I'm having a lot of trouble interpreting this pull. More than I have perhaps ever had on any other. So I'm going to have to dig a bit. First glance, it feels like an acknowledgment that sacrifice can bring you to the threshold of change, but you have to be careful about the changes you make. 

 

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Cold Sweats in the Basement, Baby!

 

Jonathan Grimm drove down a few days ago and we had a fantastic extended weekend drinking beer, watching movies and bullshitting. Grimm is definitely a stabilizing force in my life, not to mention a huge influence, and his visit really supercharged my creativity again. We capped the evening yesterday driving to Nashville and seeing Lord Buffalo, Valley of the Sun and Church of the Cosmic Skull at the awesome Basement East. It feels fortuitous indeed that the first show I see in my new state was at this venue, because I loved it. Basement East reminds me a lot of my favorite venue back in LaLaLand, Echo Park's Echoplex. I'll be keeping their calendar firmly in mind from here out, as it's the kind of venue I'll take pretty much any excuse to return to, again and again.

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Watch:

Curious to see this entire film. I love the idea of teenagers playing with a makeshift "Hand of Glory," though I didn't watch enough of the trailer to see if it actually came off a "hanged murderer." Makes me want to dig back into some of my Arcana and see what Eliphas Levi or, perhaps more appropriately, Alan Moore might have to say about how stringent the cocktail that produces that particular Magickal accoutrement is.

 

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Playlist:

Etta James - (Third Album)

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night

Locrian - Return to Annihilation

Locrian - New Catastrophism

Godflesh - Nero EP

Behemoth - The Satanist

Etta James - The Second Time Around

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light

Various Artists - Jonathan Grimm's Stoner/Doom Spotify Playlist

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Holy Serpent - Endless

Bettye LaVatte - Scene of the Crime

Pigs x 7 - Viscreals

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Where this might normally make me think some form of unpleasant emotional change is jump up the road, I instantly read it as a lifting of my already generally unpleasant emotional state that dug in during my extended stay in LaLaLand and has left me off-kilter and unusually anxious since.

 

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RIP Vivian Trimble

 

Easily my favorite Luscious Jackson track from an album that is almost all 'favorite tracks.' 

I haven't even thought of this group in years; hearing about Vivian Trimble's death at age 59 immediately made me want to hear this song.

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Watch:

Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor's Cartoon Kayfabe has quickly become one of my favorite shows on youtube. I've spent a lot of time in the past two weeks hanging out listening to them interview a wide spectrum of creators, and when I woke up this morning and saw Richard Corben is their latest, I got pretty damn excited.

 

A living legend, Corben is. Super cool to hear him talk with these guys about the industry and what makes him "him."

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Playlist:

Bettye LaVette - Let Me Down Easy: Bettye LaVette in Memphis

Godflesh

Godflesh - Post Self

Crystal Castles - II

Luscious Jackson - Fever In Fever Out

         

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Immoral & All Seeing

 

I still find myself thinking about Wayne Shorter's recent passing. I'm by no means a huge fan; I say this not to distance myself from his work, but to respect those out there who are much more committed. Truth is, I started dabbling in Jazz when I was still a teenager thanks to Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, but I was way more into it in my twenties. Since moving, I've gotten back into many artists I've been away from for a while, but I still don't spin enough Jazz to be considered anything more than a passing fan. Yet, this music echoes inside me in a way nothing else does. I don't feel like a have a lot of room in my life for it, which is unfortunate, but Jazz is music that requires attention to appreciate, and as I've aged and the world has fallen apart and injected me with its anxiety, I have less and less attention; it's something I fight for on a daily basis. 

As I said upon Mr. Shorter's passing, there is something in his work - whether solo or his collaborations with Miles Davis - that sounds like a conjuring to me. It puts me in a very particular headspace, and in reflecting on his passing, I'm wondering if there is anyone making music today that might have the same effect. Or if the "Jazz Ritual" sound that Shorter and Davis - especially on Bitches Brew, Sorcerer and The All Seeing Eye - summoned into this world is all but gone now. I feel that's likely, as our world is very different from the one where this music was composed. If there were "Jazz Spirits" or "Demons" that came to this plane as a result, where are they now?

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Watch:

Wow. Now, this is an interesting idea:

 

I subscribed to the channel immediately, and plan on giving this a full go. I was pretty stoked just watching along for a moment, as the music, different voices and sound FX told the story.

          

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Read:

Re-reading Sins of Sinister from the beginning now, because my memory sucks. Also reading again because this week's Immoral X-Men really stayed with me.

            

The thing with the core of the X-Books now, and especially this Event and this issue in particular, is these are no longer superhero books. These are hardcore SciFi. I've talked about my love/hate with genre here before - I don't really go for big, tropey works like Space Opera or High Fantasy, primarily because I just feel like much of those corners of genre just repeat (and expand in some cases; credit where it's due) the most influential work that precedes them. I know there are a million people out there who would tell me I'm wrong, and that's fine. But I avoid those traditional genre lanes and look for stories that do their own thing. By the time we get to the events in Immoral X-Men #3, we're essentially in a deep-space salvage SciFi realm.

Deep-Space Salvage, or DSS for short, is the name I've finally arrived at in my head for those stories that pull me back into the kind of home-brewed, SciFi prevalent in 1980's Hobby Shops and indie comic books. Think TSR and old-school Guardians of the Galaxy. Think comics written by Bill Mantlo. A deep-space enclave where everything is old, rusted, down-and-out. It's the future but nothing is new, progress has flatlined or reversed, and everything is falling apart. That's where Kieron Gillen has taken us in Sins of Sinister.

There are no superheroes here - that's reserved for the regular Monthly X-Book, which anchors the line to its original intent. Instead, here and in X-Men; Red, S.W.O.R.D. before it, and partially at work in Immortal X-Men, we have very meticulous, long-game genre stories that branch off into many different styles and territory, and S.o.S. is definitely DSS.

By the time we arrive at this last panel, page three of Immoral #3, you can see the filth and decay. You can also see a monstrously sized Exodus, now something much more than the mutant zealot we all know and love so well. This issue reminded me A LOT of Daniel Warren Johnson's Beta Ray Bill mini-series from a few years back, and like that series, Sins of Sinister is surprising me with how much I'm enjoying it overall, especially when I didn't read the entire thing (I have not been buying that third title, Nightcrawlers, although I'm thinking about going back and picking it up) or like everything I've read. 

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Playlist:

Gang Starr - Hard to Earn

Godflesh - Slavestate EP

Godflesh - Pure

Godflesh - Cold World EP

Godflesh - Love and Hate

QOTSA - ... Like Clockwork

High On Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye

Miles Davis - Live at the Filmore West

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Circumstances drift and Change rears its head. It will be tempting to interpret this change as negative, but the reminder in the cards today, me thinks, is that interpretation dictates the positive/negative aspect of change. Change is always good in some respects, it can just be mighty difficult to remember and 'see' that. 

 

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