Frankie Freako

 

I'm not certain I actually dig this song—not that I think it's 'bad' per se, just not sure it's my cuppa—but this video is insane. This is my first exposure to Mörmaid, and after seeing it, I put their new album Pearlescent Dark on my Apple Music to give the entire thing a go. You can download the album from Mörmaid's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

I love Steven Kostanski.  After helping bring us one of the greatest Horror films of the past twenty years (The Void, Co-Written and Directed with Jeremy Gillespie) and Writing/Directing one of my favorite films of all time (Psycho Goreman), photos of him hard at work on a remake of Roger Corman's Deathdealer surfaced earlier this year. Then, he goes and drops a teaser for an entirley different film, one much more in line with PG than Deathdealer:

Did I mention Kostanski also headed the FX team that brought us the yoga kill in this year's In A Violent Nature?  I mean, his team did all the FX, but really, that's the one everyone's still talking about, whether you liked or disliked the film. All this, and he's still had time to finish what looks like a veritable practical FX bonanza called Frankie Freako? Steve baby, you are amazing, and I'm here for anything you have to drop on us.

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Plastic:

I'm having a tough time not ordering these new NECA recreations of the Universal Monsters as originally released by Burger King. I remember these from the 80s!

Honestly, I really could just settle for The Creature, but it's a set. Read all about it over on the mighty Bloody Disgusting HERE.

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Playlist:

Dead Milkmen - Quaker City Quiet Pills

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

JD McPherson - Undivided Heart & Soul

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Nothing - The Great Dismal

The Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Deadguy - Work Ethic

Big Black - Lungs EP

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Swords

• Seven of Wands

• Knight of Pentacles

That's a lot of Will. We have a concentrated effort of intellect that brings about creative completion (that's an announcement I'll be making next week), and a concentrated effort - what I'm reading as - to not spend the money on those Universal Figures I posted above. Okay, thank you Hand of Doom Tarot Deck, for putting a face to the inner voice I was set to ignore (really, that's all the cards do).

T. Rex - Jewel

 

If you've seen Longlegs, you'll probably be on the same page. I've been a T. Rex fan for years, but my exposure to the band never moved beyond Electric Warrior and my personal favorite of their records (that I'm familiar with), The Slider, which really helped get me through a tough month in LA last January.

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Watch:

Bloody Disgusting ran an article recently that introduced me to the Popcorn Fright Film Fest. Both a live event taking place in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and a virtual event, the fest runs from August 8th through the 18th and is stacked with awesome films. I'm seriously considering purchasing a virtual pass, and I'm looking through the trailers to try and assemble a priority list. Here's one that caught me right away:

Both Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald look awesome in what little of this trailer I watched. While I have not seen Writer/Director JT Mollner's debut feature, 2016's Outlaws and Angels, I'm very interested in it now. Also, Giovani Ribisi is credited as the Cinematographer on Strange Darling. How cool is that?

The Popcorn Frights Fest's website is HERE. Grab some tickets and maybe we can, I don't know, hang out in a virtual movie theatre.

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NCBD:

So, you'll notice I broke down and picked up one of the books I previously announced I was done with. Which one? NOT an X-book, I'll tell you that. Let's get into today's pull from Rick's Comic City in Clarksville:

A consistently delightful sequel to both the Army of Darkness Theatrical and Director's cuts, which in and of itself is a great reason to read. 

Finally! I'm going to hunker down and re-read The Nice House on the Lake before I jump into this new, sequel series. 

The Neo Novena saga comes to an end. I'm really hoping there will be more stories set in this world. 

Road Stories continues. Last issue was fantastic; interested to see where we go with Erika this time.

Yep, this is the one. I've decided to hang on and give this new Turtles book a chance. I'm just so invested in the continuity they built over the last 150 issues, it is difficult to abandon it now.

More Springer! You know, I think my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Shinabargar was on to something when he said that, working in a comic shop, he sees that sales on Void Rivals could use a regular dose of a character from one of the Energon Universe's more well-known properties. I think that's fine - whatever Kirkman and his team need to do to keep this book coming because I LOVE Void Rivals. I think this 100% stands on its own, however, if we need a regular dose of Springer or any other Transformer, no problem. Especially Springer - for some reason, I've always felt he was a bit left-of-center and a great fit for a deep space, non-Earth storyline.

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Playlist:

USSA - The Spoils

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Shellac - To All Trains

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Man Man - Carrot on Strings

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF (pre-release singles)

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Two of Pentacles

• XXI: The World

• 0: The Fool

Collaboration, as opposed to opposition, leads to what comes next, which is a new journey in and of itself. 

Sometimes the cards are so eerily straight forward, it's effortless to read them.

Frank Black Teenager of the Year 30th Anniversary Tour

 

Got my tickets to join some of my best friends in the world for Frank Black's Teenager of the Year 30th anniversary tour. Mr. Black even has Lyle Workman back! 

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Watch:

Damian McCarthy first impressed the absolute hell out of me in 2022 with Caveat, a direct-to-Shudder film about a man talked into wearing a harness in an old house on a small island in Ireland. The man is supposedly been hired by a friend to watch his niece, but there are all kinds of WTF surrounding that idea, and the film, for all its slow-burn tendencies, rapidly escalates into a terrifying dirge of haunted guilt and bad decisions that culminate in...

Well, read the book. Or, ah, watch the movie. 

McCarthy's new film Oddity was on my radar but just barely, and I was SHOCKED and delighted to find that it opened at our Clarksville Regal this past Thursday. 

So far, it is neck-and-neck with Robert Morgan's Stopmotion for my favorite film of the year. I would post a trailer, but no. PLEASE, go see this in the theatre (it will most likely be gone after this week due to Deadpool) and DO NOT read, watch, or listen to anything about it. Go in blind, and I think this will smack you in the gob the way it did me—so much so that I have tickets to see it again tonight. 

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Play:

I've had Playdead's Inside for a couple years now, and while I have played and enjoyed it, it wasn't until this past weekend that I really fell in love with this game. Described as 'dream-like' in all the solicitation copy I've come across, I have to say, that's the perfect description. 

 

A week or so ago, my good friend Maddie messaged me about this game, saying that she remembered I had mentioned it and that she had recently become enthralled. This had me pull the game back out and pick at it off and on for a few days. Then, this past Saturday, I sat down in a darkened room with a beer and Adam Egypt Mortimer's The Obelisk on my turntable and the way the game and the music melded... it was just incredible. I left the sound up so I could hear all the atmospheric sound effects - hurried footsteps through standing water, giant industrial cranes and elevators moving and clanking, explosions, and, yes, dream-like wind and breathing - and my consciousness just folded into this world. It was beautiful. 

I don't want this one to end.

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Playlist:

Fear - Live For the Record

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

Black Francis - Svn Fngrs

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Frank Black - Eponymous

Tomahawk - Mit Gas

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Irony Is A Dead Scene E.P.

Ministry - Rio Grande Blood

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

The Besnard Lakes... Are the Roaring Night

Adam Egypt Mortimer - The Obelisk

M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Concrete Blonde - Eponymous

Phil Collins - Face Value

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Wands 

• Four of Pentacles

• Six of Pentacles

The firey aspect of fire, pure white hot Intellect, stripped of all other human trappings. Here, it's being applied to Earthly matters, as we can see via the two Pentacles or Disks cards that follow. Four of Disks indicates stability, and the Six support or balance. What this tells me this morning is the balancing act I now maintain Monday - Friday may require an extra dose of reasoning to maintain. Not sure if this means this will be a heavy spreadsheet week (I'm only half joking and all cringe when I reference a spreadsheet in relation to the Tarot), or if I'll just have to side step emotional reactions to things that will require logical consideration instead of capricious emotion.

Man Man - Alibi

 

LOVING this new Man Man album, Carrot on Strings, which you can order HERE.

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Watch:

Holy smokes - Arrow Video is releasing The Last Starfighter on Blue Ray!

You can order the Blue Ray HERE. There's also a 4K HERE. I LOVED this flick as a kid. We didn't have cable but one of my Dad's friends did, and he used to record me movies onto blank VHS tapes that I would then watch over and over and over. The Last Starfighter was one of those, along with Predator, The Ghostbusters and Romancing the Stone. Somehow, though, it never made it into my adult collection. Going to remedy that real soon. 

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Playlist:

T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Various - Mulholland Drive OST

Liars - WIXIW

Man or Astro Man? - Live Transmissions from Uranus

Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante

T. Rex - The Slider

Angelo Badalamenti - Dark Water OST

The Besnard Lakes - ... Are the Dark Horse

Simple Minds - New Gold Dream

Hot Stove Jimmy - Theme For a Major Hit

T. Rex - Eponymous

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Cups

• V: The Hierophant

• X: Wheel of Fortune

Earthly fruition from a fleeting opportunity. I'll be keeping my eyes out for this one. I still try to take negative events - or, at least events I perceive to have negative connotations - and spin them positive. NOT always easy, but seeing this is a reminder to be on watch for something today.

RIP Bob Newhart

Sad news today, hearing about the passing of one of the funniest comedians of all time. I grew up watching the 80s Newhart show Newhart, and a couple years ago K and I began rewatching it from the beginning. We made it somewhere near the end of the fifth season before the preparations for our move across country knocked it off our radar. Here's a reminder it's about time to get back into it, as my goal is to get all the way through, so I can re-experience the greatest television ending of all time. 

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New Music and a DIY Synthesizer from A Place to Bury Strangers!!!

From A Place to Bury Strangers' upcoming album Synthesizer, out October 4th on Death by Audio. Pre-order HERE.

The INSANE thing about this pre-order is there's a version of the album that comes with the electrical component to turn the album sleeve into a DIY synthesizer! How awesome is that?

 

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NCBD:

My biggest NCBD Pull in a while. Let's dig right the f**k in!

What a salacious cover! Haha, this book has taken a really "off the rails" turn as of the last issue, and I'm here for it. Loving this cross-country journey with JC and his 'friends,' especially with all the weirdoes they meet along the way. Issue 6 really backed up my Shade The Changing Man: The American Scream comparison, and I'm happy to see where it goes from there.

Okay, going by the cover, we have A) Destro, B) the "Crimson Twins," and B) a metric sh*t ton of B.A.T.S. I can't think of a better formula for a Destro comic. After reading the second issue of Scarlett, I'm still not loving that book - but will definitely stick with it - but I am 100% ALL IN on Destro!

The final issue of Jeff Lemire's weird fiction opus to childhood, giant bug-men and, ah, crime. 

Again, this cover just sells the F*CK out of this one. Am I the only one getting a visual homage to old-school issue #73 here? That issue was the kick-off to the original "Cobra Civil War," and this issue's solicitation on League of Comic Geeks begins, "WAR WITH SERPENTOR!" Good things await. 

The final issue of what has turned out to be a very excellent mini-series that has me kind of rethinking my ideas about jumping off TMNT. I think I will be picking up Jason Aaron's new number one next week. 

Another final issue to what also turned out to be a total sleeper for me. Loved the tone of this whole series: the stakes are high, but there's a touch of comedy in the lining. Well-played Mr. Riser!

The end of another arc for What's the Furthest Place From Here? Thinking of re-reading this again from the beginning, but I guess that would be better suited before it comes back in a few months. I haven't seen any solicitations for its return, but there's no way this is the end. 

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Watch:

This looks like it might be this year's equivalent to Titane. Seeing this trailer twice now, 

I'm really excited about both the movie and the fact that, suddenly, Autuer Horror directors and the companies that distribute their films appear to be taking a much less revealing approach to cutting trailers.

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Playlist:

Tones on Tail - Everything!

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires: Live in London

Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation E.P.

T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Various - Mulholland Drive OST

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Two of Wands

• X: Wheel of Fortune

• Page of Swords

Partnership or duplicity? You can't struggle against the grain and hope to find out; you have to physically use your intellect—i.e., put it into action outside of your head—to root out potential deception.

Great. Another work pull. I hate that I've been absorbed into an uncomfortably corporate environment again, where everyone's actions are suspect. 

Nox Novacula

 

From the upcoming album Feed the Fire, out August 2nd on Artoffact Records. 

I'd never heard Nox Novacula before, but I'm digging both this song and the video. You can pre-order from the band's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Friday night, I finally saw Kathryn Bigelow's first film, 1981's The Loveless. 

Willem Dafoe's debut performance and you can pretty much see that he's going to be a force to be reckoned with. I LOVED this film and have to wonder if it wasn't also an influence on David Lynch, which kind of blows me away, as I'd always thought of Kathryn Bigelow's most important work coming after Lynch's, but this would definitely rearrange that. 

Also, hot damn is this a great soundtrack. Robert Gordon - who plays Davis in the film - lays down a Rockabilly extravaganza the likes of which I'd not heard before. There's stuff here that bridges the greaser/beatnik aesthetic, which kind of runs together socially a bit during the 50s before counterculture became driven by capitalism. 

Can't recommend this one enough, and it's currently included with prime. Would make a fabulous double feature with either Paris, Texas or, as I chose to do Friday night, Lynch's Wild At Heart. 

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Read:

I finally got around to reading Dan Watters and Lamar Mathurin's four-issue Cowboy Bebop series, which Titan Books published a few years ago. 

Really fun stuff. I'm sure I've talked about this here before, but even though I don't go in for very much animation, the original Cowboy Bebop cartoon is one of my favorite things of all time. Also - and this was a total surprise at the time - I really liked the live-action Netflix show this series is based on. Watters really captures the spirit of both shows, and Mathurin just nails the perfect blend of how the characters look in the cartoon and how they look played by actors. The story revolves around - what else - a heist and a bounty, but snakes into some serious Grant Morrison territory just enough to have made this feel unique but still very much in the spirit of the show that does indeed transcend the genre.

You can order a trade of this direct from Titan Books HERE.

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Playlist:

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Brainiac - Predator Nominate

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Eagulls - Eponymous

Megadeth - So Far, So Good... So What?

Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation E.P.

Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy

Forhist - Eponymous

Fen - Dustwalker

Donny McCaslin - Beyond Now

Suicidal Tendencies - Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit... Déjá-vu

Deafheaven - Sunbather

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XVII: The Star

• Eight of Pentacles

• IX: The Hermit

XVII is a much needed reminder - "Create unto and within yourself a Universe, shaped of your strengths and built on your accomplishments as foundation."

Eight of Pentacles - Earthly transformation, and IX is the concentration needed to achieve it. In other words, finish the book!!!

New Music from The Jesus Lizard!!!

 I'm behind everything by a couple of days. Had a friend in town earlier in the week, and between catching up at work after a few days off, digging back into finishing Black Gloves & Broken Hearts after five days away at a crucial point in the novel, and recording podcasts for both MaXXXine and Longlegs, I just haven't had time to do anything else. So here's some awesome new music by one of my all-times. You can pre-order the new album RACK from Ipecac Records HERE, it drops September 13th.

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Watch:

In the past week I have seen three movies that I expect will define much of 2024 for me. First, MaXXXine, which I've now seen twice on the big screen and am planning for another round:

I'm in the final stages of editing a HUGE episode The Horror Vision just did on this one. Ti West has been a favorite of mine since I first saw The Roost in 2005, and to see his very distinct filmmaking on the big screen for the first time since I caught The House of the Devil back in 2009 at the old Laemmle's on Sunset (after waiting for it for something like 3 or 4 years), but with a much bigger budget and not in a limited art-house release (I'm in Clarksville for hell's sake; I seriously doubt Hosue of the Devil played in Clarksville, haha) was an awesome experience. MaXXXine has some issues, but none that blind my love for it or the director.

Although I saw Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's Kill last September at opening night of Beyondfest 2023, I am counting my viewing this past Sunday on a big screen in Nashville as the first salvo of what may very well be my favorite film of the year.

This film takes the "Surprise, I'm getting married" trope of Indian Cinema and uses it to propel the best Action-Horror film I've seen since Dog Soldiers, easy. See this on the big screen if you can, and don't worry about the run time. It's a little over two hours, and I won't feel it AT ALL.

Finally, Oz Perkins' Longlegs... I'm not really sure how I feel about this flick after seeing it last night. It's fantastic, no doubt, but something about all of Perkins' films creates a disconnect in me. 

You'll read this is the scariest movie of the decade. I think that's a bit much. But it is extremely unnerving, and everyone turns in a fantastic performance, especially Nick Cage, who defies all possible expectation and description with his performance.

The only other really big films I'm still waiting on for the year are Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, and Robert Eggers' Nosferatu. I know there will be other, unexpected greats that filter in here and there, but for now, those are the horizon line. All in all, so far it's been a pretty great year, with Kill and Stop Motion duking it out for my favorite thus far.

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Playlist:

Various Artists - The Void

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes (single)

Scorpions - Rock You Like a Hurrican (single)

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XIV: Temperance

• XX: Judgement

• Page of Wands

XIV is Art in the Thoth deck, a variation that projects a slightly different connotation for me. Having only used Thoth for the first 17 or so years I've been familiar with the cards, this recent switch is something I've not quite worked out yet. Art usually suggests synchronization, often of disparate elements into a pleasurable outcome. Temperance, on the other hand, suggests Balance, which is and is not the same. Seeing this card here and thinking about it, I take this as a definite nod to balance some of the uneven and, frankly, negative emotions/thoughts that have ruled my head of late. Taken with XX - ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES - and the Page (Princess) of Wands, or the Earthly aspect of Fire, I'd say this is a Pull that suggests I really have some work to do on myself in order to regain the mental/emotional balance I've kind of misplaced the last two weeks or so

David Lynch & Chrsta Bell - The Answers to the Questions

 

A second 'single' from David Lynch & Christa Bell's upcoming Cellophane Memories album dropped yesterday, complete with an animated video by Lynch himself. So far, both tracks from this have defied all manner of expectations and/or predictions. 

Cellophane Memories is out August 2nd on Sacred Bones Records. You can pre-order the album HERE.

 

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NCBD:

I didn't post for NCBD last week because there was only one book on my list, and I didn't end up hitting the shot to grab it. Part of that is no doubt that, with only one issue out so far, Scarlett has not inspired the same kind of "Gottasee" that the Cobra Commander and Duke mini-series did. 

On to this week, which is also a light one:

LOVE this cover for Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows' Get Fury #3. This has been a solid book so far; it's cool to see Ennis return to both Nick Fury and Frank Castle with his trademark flair for the violent and the grotesque.

The last couple issues of Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers have really opened the book up, with new characters, new agendas and new subplots aplenty. I like that we're spending a lot of time with a good mix of Gen 1 and later characters and that in hindsight, the storytellers can really introduce anyone at any time, unlike the original Marvel comic that, while I love it, was more beholden to introducing and highlighting characters as they were introduced in the toy line. 

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Watch:

Neil Marshall has a new film on the way. Co-writer and star Charlotte Kirk leads the cast of what looks like a high-energy heist-gone-wrong flick. 

Duchess hits VOD on August 9th; I haven't loved most of Neil Marshall's output over the last few years. Starting with 2020's The Reckoning, his films have seemed... safe? Not sure if that's exactly the word I want, but it will do. Last year's The Lair was a touch better, but really just beat-for-beat skinning of Dog Soldiers, with the story and action transposed to the desert where the characters fight demons (or whatever it was) instead of Werewolves. Still, I'll always give this man's films a chance, just based on Dog Soldiers and The Descent.

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Playlist:

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Double Life - Indifferent Stars (single)

Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins EP

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the End of the War

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Zombi - Direct Inject

Trombone Shorty - For True

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Various - The Void OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Pentacles

• Nine of Cups

• Eight of Cups

Stability becomes wealth.

USSA - Blue Light

 

From USSA's 2007 album The Spoils. This was Duane Denison and Paul Barker's group and damned if I wouldn't LOVE to see these guys release another record. Every track is pretty tight, and when this came out, I remember feeling their next record would be even better. Alas, that never happened. That said, take it for what it's worth, but their Wikipedia entry does not refer to them in the past tense, so who knows... 

In digging around, I never realized that Barker was a co-founder of a Synthesizer/FX manufacturer. HERE is a link if you're interested.

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Watch:

My Fourth of July movie viewing was 100% a nod to the summers of my youth. After putting in an hour and a half writing and then mowing the lawn in ungodly heat, I picked my impromptu Trailer Park Boys marathon. My folks came over, and we made ribs on the grill. As I've aged, meat on the bone bothers me, especially when it's so much work for so little meat. Still, I'd let my folks pick and they turned out pretty good, so we masticated and then sat down to watch my second favorite movie of all time: Joe Dante's The 'Burbs!

 

Apparently, my Dad had never seen this before, and neither had K's mom. It was a pleasure watching this with them; their laughter only bolstered my own. Not that this one needs any help with me - after almost four decades of regular viewings, The 'Burbs never disappoints. Every joke lands, the cast is PERFECT, and Jerry Goldsmith's score provides the perfect sonic balance between sinister intentions and 80s suburban bliss.

At one point during the film, there's a clip of Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on the tv, and seeing that I instantly made up my mind what my second feature of the evening would be. It'd been a few years since the last time I watched this one, so after The 'Burbs ended and my folks took off, I pulled out my DVD copy and fired up what I can still only describe as one of the most insane movies I've ever seen.

   

The only movie I know of that may have more screaming than TCM2 is Juan López Moctezuma's Alucarda. Seriously, I watched this once in San Pedro - also on the 4th of July, come to think of it, and with all the windows open, my ex became concerned the neighbors might call the police. 

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Playlist:

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Anthrax - Spreading the Disease

USSA - The Spoils

Deftones - White Pony

Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet

Brand New - Science Fiction

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Valkyrie - Fear

Thou - Umbilical

The Knife - Silent Shout

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

Coleman Hawkins - Wrapped Tight

JD Mcpherson - Undivided Heart & Soul

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A New Night, An Old Theme Song

 

Ian Lynch's All You Need is Death Soundtrack/Score hasn't left the side of my office turntable since it arrived. This one haunts me on a regular basis. Yesterday, the first song on the second side especially hit me, possibly because it's been a few months since I last watched Paul Duane's fantastic film and the cinematic associations have weakened compared to the mental ones I've made with the music. This gets me thinking about THIS post over on Heaven Is An Incubator. Man, talk about hitting it right on the head. 

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Watch:

The older you get, the tougher it is to just be a person. I don't mean existing gets more difficult - though our bodies and our society definitely make that the case - I mean just operating inside the framework you've spent your life building out as "you." I've had a tough couple of weeks mentally as my job is absorbed and transmogrified inside a hollow corporate entity, and one of the things that brought me back from an emotional brink is Mke Clattenburg's Trailer Park Boys.

I know, I didn't expect any of this, either.

A lot of the 'healing' I find in this show comes right up front with the opening credits. If a more soothing, peaceful intro than Blain Morris's for TPB exists, I haven't heard it. Twin Peaks would be close, but that also carries with it a sense of foreboding. Morris's is pure grace, and it always brings my heart rate down a couple notches.  Maybe this is because it reminds me of the time that I discovered the show, shortly after moving to L.A. in 2006, an era I now look back at forlornly as just before the post-apocalyptic era we live in today began.*

And of course, this theme song is the perfect precursor to whatever idiocy lies in wait on the other side of its final note. These characters are, in my opinion, one of the funniest comedies in existence. There's a lot that's over-the-top, but there's even more nuance that it's taken multiple viewings to catch. Julian's perpetual drink is, to me, Shakespearean in its design and continued execution, as is Ricky's inability to 'use his words' properly. 

Don't even get me started on Conky or Sebastian Bach. 

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*Of course, I recognize that, as a middle-class, white male, the world has been shit for so many other people for so long and that I'm just morning my own personal apocalypse. Doesn't make it hurt any less, though. 

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Read:

Two chapters into Prof. John Trafton's Movie-Made Los Angeles and I am fascinated. This is easily the most academic long-form piece I've read in a very long time, and while it took my brain a few sittings to adjust, once it clicked, I found myself fascinated by all the behind-the-scenes history of Southern California that those of us boring in the late Twentieth Century take for granted as just always having "been that way." In particular, John's use of the palimpsest metaphor of Southern California in general, and Los Angeles in particular, is so graceful and spot-on that it makes me wonder what other cultural histories we've erased or submerged with modernity.

Movie-Made Los Angeles is published by Wayne State Press. I picked mine up at the wonderful Sky Light Books in L.A.'s Los Feliz neighborhood, but you can order this anywhere you order books. Also, and I've said this before and will no doubt repeat ad infinitum, check out some of John's essays over on his website HERE.

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Playlist:

Valkyrie - Fear

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

Barry Adamson - Cut To Black

Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST

The Used - The Ocean of the Sky

Trailer Punk Podcast - Nervous Gender Reloaded

OLOMUHD - The Absurd Silence of a Mute World

Deafheaven - Ten Years Gone

Man or Astroman? - Deafcon 5...4...3....2...1

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Deafheaven - Sunbather

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

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Card:

One Card from my original Thoth Deck for today. 

Avoiding activity - is this a reference to the fact that it's nearly 100 degrees outside and I feel like doing nothing but reading all day, or is this a reference to me being too lackadaisical about the situation at work? 

Hellboy's Evil Eye

 

From Valkyrie's 2020 album Fear, I dug this one back out recently, and although I did really like it at first introduction, I haven't really given it much play lately. That's changing - this is a fantastic record and one that seems stuck in my current rotation. Also, just realized Valkyrie released a follow-up in 2021 that I haven't heard yet. That's about to change...

You can check Valkyrie out on their Bandcamp HERE or on Relapse Records' site HERE. 
 

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Watch:

I skipped the Neil Marshal Hellboy film from a few years ago because, from everything I read at the time, Marshall's version of the film is not the one that ended up being released. Sure, David Harbour had huge shoes to fill (literally) stepping in as a replacement for Ron Pearlman, but Harbour's no slouch in my book, and I'd expect he did a great job. A few people I know who saw it gave it favorable reviews, but I just don't know - when I read that the Director didn't go to the review because he felt his film had been trifled with, well, I lost interest.

Now we have a whole new Hellboy coming in, and honestly, I'm excited (and I appear to be alone). I won't get my hopes up too high, but seeing that Mignola and Golden wrote the script and were heavily involved, well, that definitely bodes well. Also, hot damn if Jack Kesy doesn't almost look like Pearlman while in makeup. Here's the trailer that Bloody Disgusting posted yesterday; read their more in-depth article HERE.

 

Directed by Brian Taylor, who will forever be in my good book for the Crank films and HAPPY!, it's looking like Millenium Media has pulled off a great new starting point for more Hellboy films, especially seeing that they have definitively stated Hellboy: The Crooked Man is an R-rated Folk Horror Film.

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Read:

The latest issue of Fangoria arrived late last week, and it's killing me that most of the articles inside are about movies I'm already chomping at the bit to see. The newsstand cover is Ti West's Maxxxine, but the subscriber cover is, well, apparently a secret:

I've looked around online, and although the embargo has been broken, it hasn't been broken much, and not by Fangoria itself, so I'm playing it cool and only going to post the cover as they have teased it. Regardless, I LOVE this. 

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Playlist:

Audio Commentary - A Field In England

Zombi - Direct Inject

Valkyrie - Fear

Beyond the Void Podcast: Director of The Coffee Table - Caye Casas 

The Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Tina Turner - Private Dancer

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Four of Cups

• Ten of Swords

• Six of Wands

A solid foundation for emotional support during a climatic time that, ultimately leads to harmony.

Yeah, that's about as vague a reading as I've ever posted here. I'm dancing around shit I don't want to recognize at the moment, and the cards seem to understand that; like they're drawing it out of me. Which, of course, is what they do because the cards aren't magick, they're just windows into our subconscious. 

Loathe - Screaming

 

Getting back into Loathe's 2020 record, I Let It In and It Took Everything, which I first fell in love with in early 2021. How did I go so long without listening to this? Sure, I've spun it a few times in the last three and a half years, but not as much as I should have, considering how obsessed I am with it at the moment. Can't wait for something new from these guys - they did release a counterpart record in 2021, the all-instrumental The Things They Believe, but I'm talking about a new, proper album. A lot of things I see online lead me to believe we can expect a new one any time now, so I'll be waiting...

 

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Watch:

I watched Ben Wheatley's A Field In England last Friday. I'd made two previous attempts to watch this one over the last ten years or so, and failed both times. I never once considered this was the film's fault, just a failure on my own part to relinquish myself to the slow-moving, otherworldly specificity of Wheatley's vision with this one. It was decided recently that we would cover Field on an upcoming episode of The Horror Vision's Sticks N' Stones - our Folk Horror discussion vehicle, and in looking for a unique angle to take I had the idea that I would eat the last of some psychedelic mushrooms I've had in my desk for going on two years now. 

A strategy was born, and I undertook the endeavor this past Friday night.

I'll save the details of this cinematic expedition for the episode of our show. For now, though, let me just say this was a perfect strategy, and while the mushrooms were not nearly as potent as they were two years ago (I should have frozen them!) they offered a deeper watch than I'd been able to achieve on those other two occasions. 

A really fine film, and a marvelous score by Jim Williams, who is very quickly becoming my favorite working film composer today.

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Man or Astro-Man? - Defcon 5...4...3....2...1

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Loathe - The Things They Believe

X - Los Angeles

Pigface - Live 2019 Limited Edition Vinyl (Thanks, Mr. Brown!)

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronnie Scott's Club, London 1962)

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV: Noir

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Jackie Wilson - Higher (single)

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• V: The Hierophant

• Knight of Wands

Intellectual breakthrough possibly arrived at via a spiritual state. The Knight of Wands may indicate that what stands in the way of achieving this enlightenment is an imbalance between the intellectual and spiritual/emotional states, which kind of defines what it is to be human, especially in the chaotic period of upheaval that usually predates a breakthrough or epiphany.

The Dillinger Escape Plan cover Rollins Band's Tearing

One of the coolest moments in last Sunday's Dillinger Escape Plan show at the Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn was when they played "Tearing" from Rollins Band's 1992 masterpiece The End of Silence.  

There's a great write-up on Dillinger and Dead Guy's three-night stand over on Brooklyn Vegan, a site I used to love and frequent a lot more before they succumbed to the same pop-up ad malarky all sites seemingly succumb to now. 

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Watch:

K and I caught the new Tom Hardy movie The Bikeriders at the theatre. What is it with recent movies that are fantastic but have terrible names? Underwater? Bikeriders? Come on. 

Ultimately, I won't give the film too much shit, because it was fantastic. Tom Hardy gives another nuanced performance and Austin Butler just nails the "Brooding, silent bad boy" archetype. Jodie Comer is essentially our lead character as the window into the world of Chicago's Vandals, and she also turns in a great performance. Then, we also have Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus, Emopry Cohen, Karl Glusman, and - maybe the best surprise - Damon Herriman; known to Justified fans as Dewey Crowe! It's an ensemble cast and a lot of damn fun, so I'd say if you can, catch it in a theatre. Plus, you get to see the Robert Eggers' Nosferatu trailer on the big screen. 

This is another recent trailer that gives absolutely nothing away but still fills the screen with sounds and images that make me super excited to see this one when it releases this coming December. Now, if I can just manage not to see it more than once or twice before then...

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Playlist:

Ghost - Infestissumam

Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right

USSA - The Spoils

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronnie Scott's Club, London 1962)

Calexico - The Black Light

Forhist - Eponymous

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Joseph Bishara - Malignant OST

Valkyrie - Fear

The Ravenonettes - Sing

Night Sins - A Silver Blade In The Shadow EP

Thou - Umbilical

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Four of Cups

• Eight of Cups

• XX: Judgement

Emotional stability through the transformation of emotions during a pivotal sequence. In other words, we choose how we are going to interpret and let things make us feel. You can take things negatively, or you can put some kind of positive spin on it. Obviously, some things are just awful and can't be "spun" any other way. 

This is definitely not for me today, but someone I know. 

New music from Human Impact!!!

 

New music from Human Impact! This band's debut hit right around the time the pandemic began, and I remember it quickly became a fairly regular and significant piece of music for me. However, in the last few years, they kind of slipped from my radar. Now, their sophomore album Gone Dark drops October 4th on Ipecac; pre-order HERE.

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GorGazma! X! NCBD!

New music from X as they announce their final album and tour! You can pre-order Smoke & Fiction from X's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

GORGAZMA - remember this name because this is a new Horror Production company whose debut short film, Pizza Panic Party, absolutely blew me away.

 

I love everything about this film, from the lighting, the music (score by Joseph Fucking Bishara!) and of course, the gore and FX. Holy smokes. I'm over the moon at the prospect of getting more from these folks. Talk about coming out of the gates swinging. 

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NCBD:

Heading out to Rick's Comic City after work today for this week's NCBD. Here's what I'll have waiting for me in my Pull:

Okay, well, this one isn't actually on my pull list yet. This will be the first monthly issue of Department of Truth released since I began reading it last year, shortly after the title went on hiatus. Honestly, I'm not certain I won't just wait for the trade - or at least that's what I keep telling myself. 

For the man himself, a silver mask and a stunningly hot terrorist lady. Damn - while all this crazy Cobra shit goes on around Cobra Island and Springfield, with the multiple factions plotting against one another, Destro has his own agenda. Can't wait to see what it is.

The cover of this book is a testament to just how f*cking crazy it is. 

"Road Stories" continues, and I'm curious where we'll end up this month. It's been a tiny bit anti-climatic to have this book come back from the insane energy of the previous arc with tales set in Erica's past, however, the character development is huge, and really, I think this is almost down time for her (and us) before shit really goes off the deep end with what comes next. 

The solicitation for this issue has me kind of chomping at the bit:

"VOID RIVALS finally puts the "energon" in their corner of the Energon Universe!"

I had not even considered that, while all the other books have been about Energon discovery and acquisition, we haven't had any of it to speak of in Void Rivals. That's interesting, and I think the highly sought-after element is going to make quite a splash within the factions of the Sacred Ring.

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Playlist:

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Coleman Hawkins - Wrapped Tight

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us Is the Killer

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

Trailer Punk Podcast - My Chemical Romance

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronnie Scott's Club, London 1962)

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