Feel the Knife

I've never heard Feel the Knife until just now, but after trying to make it through The Last Drive-In's six-film Nightmareathon last night (and failing miserably), this just felt right, and I'm really digging it. But then, when I find the following description on a band's Bandcamp as a sort of mission statement, I know I'm in familiar territory. Sounds like a warm blanket to me...

"Thrash Metal band created in 2018 with lyrics about 80's horror, 

science fiction, vengeance and dark rituals."

You can head over and listen to and support these guys on their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

I'm not much on Anime (LOVE Cowboy Bebop, but that is the work that transcends the genre), and I'm also not much on anything named Terminator after the first movie (the second movie still needs to be reassessed, as I haven't seen it since it was in the theatre), but THIS article on Bloody Disgusting made me think I might give this a chance:

It's long occurred to me that the feel of James Cameron's original film separates itself from all that comes after by essentially being a big-budget exploitation film of the Slasher variety, so the idea that someone might take it back to those roots makes me think this show and I will get along. Also, part of the issue with any of the Terminator sequels is the star power that always seems to come first. None of that shit here, boy. One way that, even as someone who does not count themselves an Anime fan can admit the genre/style's superiority in a case such as this. 

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Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity

Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

Low Flying Hawks - Out For Blood (pre-release single)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Grey Rubble - Green Shoots (pre-release single)

The Damned - Phantasmagoria

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Death - Human

The Cops - Free Electricity

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Card:

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

• Six of Cups

• VIII: Strength

• Five of Pentacles

Emotional balance creates a strength that may lead to biting off more than can be chewed. The first two cards suggest positive reinforcement of current ideologies, but the last card reminds me to be weary of overexertion. Also, this little nugget from the Grimoire seems worth remembering:

"Needed: Break the Cycle. Pattern Interrupt a definite counter to this card's presence. Physically write down the object/cause of anxiety." 

No anxiety yet. Well, that's not exactly true...

Jet of the Moon Spider

 

I heard this while drinking with friends this past Saturday night in Nashville. It was a guys' trip for my good friend Grez's 50th birthday, and we spent Friday night/all day Saturday hanging out on Music Row and in East Nashville (fuck the strip). Our last stop Saturday night was Duke's, which Grez and I felt was a proper substitution for Chicago's Estelle's, the late-night Rock n' Roll bar we grew up hanging out at until the wee hours. Duke's was awesome, and the DJ there fired one great tune after another, quite a few of which I had never heard before. When Jet came on, it was loud AF and sounded oh so sweet. I'm not much of a Beatles fan - they are obviously important and have their place in history, as well as their moments I enjoy - but they're the most overrated band ever, in my opinion. I've made the statement "I prefer Wings" for years as a kind of inciting statement when questioned about my stance on John, Paul, Ringo and George, and hearing this Saturday, I can confirm it is, in fact, the truth.

 

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Watch:

Shudder released a teaser for V/H/S/Beyond, which drops on October 11th, and while this series doesn't have the best track record with me, based on the Directors lined up, I'm cautiously optimistic:

This one features Kate Siegel's directorial debut on a short written by her frequent collaborator Mike Flanagan, so that should be cool. And Justin Long is directing one? Interesting. 

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Read:

It completely slipped my mind that Nathan Ballingrud's Crypt of the Moon Spider came out this past week:

This is part one of Ballingrud's Lunar Gothic Trilogy, and seeing the words "Lunar" and "Gothic" together to describe a novel makes me more excited than I can possibly relate.

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Playlist:

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

The Damned - Evil Spirits

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs - Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits

Garland Jeffreys - Ghost Writer

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Calexico - Black Light

The Veils - Total Depravity

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

X - Under the Big Black Sun

X - Los Angeles

Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

James - Wah Wah

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Tuff Enuff (single)

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Card:

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

• Eight of Pentacles

• XVIII: The Moon

• Five of Cups

Concentration on what previously seemed mastered reveals unknown damage. This is 100% an editing reminder, as I'm at the point where Black Gloves & Broken Hearts is finished; it just has to be edited again. 

Jay Reatard - The Night of Broken Glass

 

Been thinking about this man of late. Damn, 14 years this past January.

 

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NCBD:

Pretty cool Pull this week:

I feel like it's been forever since the previous issue of SIKTC! Can't wait to dig back in. 

After re-reading The Nice House By the Lake and going directly into The Nice House By The Sea issue #1, I am psyched for this book! The first series proved to be even more psychologically profound than I'd remembered, and things are certainly ramping up to a new level in this second phase. Can't wait to see where this goes. 

I have many of the original Marvel Transformers issues, starting at, I think, issue # 4. I do not have nor have I ever read number 1, so this facsimile edition is kind of a nostalgic must. 

Quintessons! Quintessons! Quintessons!!!

I have been waiting for this one for a while now. A Frankenstein series that tells the story of each major body part and where it came from is just too good to pass up, even if this one didn't have the added luster of Michael Walsh being the creator. 

Whenever I see Saga show up on my pull, it always feels like an afterthought these days. Then I read the issue and I remember why the book is so great. Not gonna lie - I really think that four-year hiatus hurt this book's momentum. I've loved it from the beginning, and I'm certainly not going anywhere, but it just doesn't feel the same. Maybe a re-read would help? Yeah, well, take a number...

I've been seeing a lot of Etrigan of late, what with re-reading Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, continuing on from that into Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and contemplating a Hit Man re-read somewhere in the not-so-distant future. And then, here he is again. 

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Watch:

See and read nothing:

Solid thriller, and knowing absolutely nothing made this a fantastic viewing experience. Props to Zoe Kravitz.

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Playlist:

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

The Veils - Total Depravity

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

Herweer - Paracelsus Fiebertraum 

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Joe Jackson - Night and Day

David Bowie - Heroes

Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

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Card:

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

• Ace of Wands

• I: The Magician

• Knight of Wands

A breakthrough of Will leads to a successful business transaction and a renewed energy of creative force.

Pretty sure I know exactly what this is referring to.

The Damned - Beauty of the Beast (Live in London)

From The Damned's double live disc Night of A Thousand Vampires, which Mr. Brown gifted me a few months back, and has in the last week or two, become an indispensable part of my morning ritual and one of my favorite live albums of all time.

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Watch:

Last night, I took K to see the new Crow movie. You can read my thoughts over on Letterbxd, but in a nutshell, skip it unless you like having dirt rubbed directly into your eyes.

This is the only Crow I will likely ever recognize. 

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Read:

I cannot remember the last time I was so excited to read a book:

Written by Giorgio De Maria in 1975 but not translated into English until this year, Warren Ellis posted about The Twenty Days of Turin on his LTD earlier in the week, and the second I read the synopsis, my mind locked with anticipation for reading this. As Ellis writes by way of summary:

"A decade previously, Turin suffered twenty days of mass insomnia marked by nightly massacres committed by persons unseen or indescribable. The many hundreds of witnesses cannot explain what happened."

Literally, all I needed to become obsessed. I've been hemming and hawing with what my next book to read will be, just found it. 

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Playlist:

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Dave Edmunds - Chronicles 1968-1984

Sweet Lizzy Project - High (single)

Arab Strap - I'm Totally Fine With It Don't Give a F**k Anymore

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

The Veils - Total Depravity

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Amigo the Devil - I'm Going to Heaven

A little Amigo the Devil to start the week.

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Watch:

Go. In. Blind.

Fantastic film with extremely strong performances by both Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. JT Mollner created what will possibly rank as the best thriller of the year with this one.

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Playlist:

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Uniform - American Standard

Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07

T. Rex - Eponymous

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Deftones - White Pony

Wings - Band on the Run

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Card:

Using my mini Thoth deck for today's Pull. 

• Prince of Disks

• II: The Empress

• Two of Swords: Peace

Thoughtful invention manifests during downtime. Pay close attention to fleeting ideas, as they could become the backbone of strong new ideas/projects. Really good advice for any creative person and something I used to be a lot better at. I think it's time to drill back down on keeping daily notes. K gifted me a couple of moleskins for Christmas last year, one for the book and one for daily notes. I've been using that all year but have kind of slacked off in the last month or so. Great ideas sometimes come from random jottings.

New Zeal & Ardor album GREIF out today!!!

THIS RECORD IS BLOWING MY F**KING MIND!!!!!!

From the new Zeal & Ardor album GREIF, out today. Order direct from the band HERE.
 

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Watch:

Ed Brubaker is one of the Executive Producers of Amazon's new Caped Crusader cartoon. I was skeptical about this; Batman is OVERDONE, to say the least, and 

I've watched two of these so far, and I really like it. I'm not going to go on my "Fuck commercials on a service I already pay for" rant anymore - the next stage is acceptance, so I'll just pay $2.99 and go commercial-free. The ads are seriously creating way more mental destabilization than you might anticipate. I've boiled that down to them being continuous reminders of the completely corporate world we live in now, but that's a discussion for another time. In the interim, I'm digging this Caped Crusader show a lot, primarily because it's set in the 1940s. That was a stroke of brilliance. 

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Play:

Whoah. Might be time for me to pick up an Xbox or PS:

 

I'm not sure if that would be a total waste of time, as the amount of time I allocate to gaming now is minuscule, and I don't really want to raise it by much. But this... breathtaking.

 

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Playlist:

Uniform - American Standard (pre-release singles)

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Thee Oh Sees - SORCS 80

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Godflesh - Hymns

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

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The Cops - It's Epidemic

From The Cops' 2007 album Free Electricity. This was a mainstay in my car stereo for much of the late '00s, and then, somehow, it slipped off my radar. Rifling through a CD binder last week, I came across it and the instant I hit play, I fell in love again. This is one of those every-fucking-song albums, meaning every song is fantastic. Check out The Cops Bandcamp HERE. 

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Watch:

All I had to do was watch the first minute of this to know just how goddamn in I am. 

I'm overjoyed that Steven Kostanski is bringing back something of the Ghoulies formula and marrying it to a slightly 976-EVIL idea. It says, "In Theatres October 4th," and I can only hope this will land here in Clarksville.

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NCBD:

Short list this week. 

I LOVE this cover! Also, I have to say, I'm pretty freakin' invested in this book. Really digging seeing Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows play around with Marvel history with two of its most badass characters.

My monthly grilled cheese with tomato soup on the side. I'm not even entirely sure I remember what happened last issue, but it doesn't matter. Restarting GIJOE: ARAH was just a curiosity at first, but I'm enjoying this, so I'll be sticking around for a while.

Chameleon vs. Detro. 'Nuff said. Granted, Chameleon is a character I only know through the IDW Cobra series, and this is obviously a decidedly different version, but still. 

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Playlist:

Swans - The Glowing Man

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Blue Karma - The Communication

Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

Idles - Joy as an Act of Rebellion

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Card:

Sticking with the Thoth for a bit. Feels right:

• 5 of Cups: Disappointment

• V: The Hierophant

• 3 of Cups: Abundance

Operating systems, ideas, all networks of the mind and routine have to be balanced right to run smoothly. Adding one too many facets can tip the entire thing out of proportion. I think I'm there with something, I'm just not quite sure what.

New Music from Chat Pile

 

Chat Pile blows me away. I won't pretend to have clocked a lot of hours on their stuff, but the handful of rotations I've given their first full-length, God's Country, affected me deeply. I've heard comparisons to King Missle, and there's an element of that in lead vocalist Raygun Busch's approach, for sure. Except, as much as I like some King Missle, their music is largely about being clever; there's no soul-searing vitriol mixed in like there is here. Also, the music sounds like The Jesus Lizard and Thrall in a blender with a can of dirt-streaked brown paint. That bass sound! 

The new album Cool World is up for pre-order now HERE.
 

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Watch:

Stumbling across the trailer for the Butcher Brothers Consumed this morning, I could have sworn I'd posted about this film at some point in the past. I couldn't find anything, though, so here we go:

This one doesn't exactly look like my cuppa. However, if there's a Wendigo involved, I feel like I have to investigate. I'm not familiar with the Butchers' work, but I believe The Hamiltons is Masters of Horror season one, which I bought on a digital sale a few years back, so I'll have to check that out soon. Meantime, I've added Consumed to the list.

(I have to admit, the title drew my eye because I thought for a second we were finally getting that adaptation of David Cronenberg's BRILLIANT novel of the same name. No dice.)

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Read:

After beginning last Spring (I think), I finally jumped in and finished my re-read of IDW's Cobra series from the 2010s. I'd read the series monthly, but not since, and I wasn't quite prepared for the insane level of head-fuckery this book takes on, especially once it gets to the Las Vegas chapter. 

The idea of a small unit housing Tomax Paoli as a prisoner in his own Casino, exploring intel he's giving them they know is tainted but have to act on anyway, is a great start, but by the time the series restarts the final time as The Cobra Files, the level of deep psychological control Paoli - whose twin brother Xamot was killed very early on in the series - exerts through his malicious mental influence on several team members is downright frightening.

This book really pulls no punches, and once again, I am utterly floored by what a fresh, dark take on the property IDW allowed Mike Costa and Antonio Fuso to take with this book. I never got into the other IDW Joe titles and still don't really have any interest in doing so. This, however, is one for the ages.

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Playlist:

Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge

Sam Hain - Unholy Passion

Sam Hain - Final Descent

M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

Tomahawk - Oddfellows

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Idles - Joy As An Act of Rebellion

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Card:

Back to my trusty old Thoth deck for a while. I've been missing it:

• XX: The Aeon

• XI: Lust

• 10 of Wands: Oppression

"Taking the pill will open your eyes." The pull of unconnected processes. Oppression (read at face value). This points to a theory I'm developing for a story that is quite important in my understanding of how to navigate this world of corporate dominance. 

Japandroids - Chicago

 

I'm way late in posting this first single off Japandroids forthcoming and final album Fate & Alcohol, out October 18th on Anti. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I've been meaning to post about this one for a while. Eight Eyes is the feature film directorial debut from Austin Jennings, Producer/Director of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince. 

This looks Grimy A.F.! Seriously, I'm kind of wondering if it will end up crossing some of my lines, but we'll see. This is the first original co-production from Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, the newly-launched production arm of one of the boutique home video label, along with Shudder and Not the Funeral Home. 

You can order the Blu-Ray from Vinegar Syndrome HERE, and you can read more about the film on the official website HERE. 

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Read:

Somehow, I missed the fact that the new Brubaker/Phillips HC Graphic Novel hit the stands on Wednesday. I was actually only a few hours back from Rick's Comic City with my weekly pull when my good friend Chris Saunders messaged to see if I'd snagged it. One quick message to Rick's in the morning and I had Houses of the Unholy waiting for me in my box. 

Another fantastic novel from this team who seem pretty much unstoppable at this point. I wanted more from the ending, but then, I'm also always okay with ambiguity, so aside from that minor issue that can easily be forgiven, this one rocked. Essentially a tale about the aftermath of America's great Satanic Panic in the 80s, this goes to some interesting places, and in typical Brubaker fashion, the plot takes turns you'd never see coming. 

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Playlist:

Primus - Antipop

Primus - Green Naugahyde

The Cops - Free Electricity

Thievery Corporation - The Outernational Sound

Z-Rock Hawaii - Eponymous

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Behind the Music

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

PJ Harvey - Stories from the City Stories from the Sea

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

Nico Vega - Lead to Light

Danzig - Black Aria

Danzig - Black Aria II

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

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Card:

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

• Four of Cups

• V: The Hierophant

• XIV: Temperance

The luxury of establishing a routine that works specifically in my own private microcosm has to spread out and establish itself after a new idea is added. Whatever this is, I'm assuming it's writing, Process, and that my own will slip a bit before recovering. Once back online, however, I should be stronger. 

Simon Waskow - Soft Array

From Simon Waskow's incredible score for Tilman Singer's Luz. I love this film, and a lot of that love comes from the score (not to diminish the film in any way; I feel about this the way I do M83's score for Knife + Heart - they are intertwined perfectly).  

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Watch:

K and I hit the local theatre's 7:20 PM screening of Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus last night.

This is everything you want from an Alien film. There's just the right amount of fan service, I think, and that's refreshing after Deadpool Loves Wolverine,  which I enjoyed, but which was 90% fan service. But of course, Fede Alvarez was going to know how to make an incredible Alien film - he already proved his ability to pick up an iconic franchise with 2013's Evil Dead.

I don't want to say too much, but I will say the trailers gave nothing away on this one, and that makes me super happy. That said, I'm still only posting that first teaser. The less you see, the better. The tone and story of Romulus advance the world of "The Company" in a way that I very much appreciated, and a lot of the opening chapter's set designs remind me of that wonderful Metal Hulant Sci-Fi from the 70s/80s.

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Read:

Having finished Alan Moore's Swamp Thing last weekend, I began Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Nearing the end of the first collected volume, Preludes and Nocturnes, I'm reminded how much I absolutely love this book. The John Dee chapters are my favorites, and "24 Hours" stands as a watershed moment in my comic book reading life. 

I can still vividly remember the way this book made me feel the first time I read it, and that's rare (although not rare for 80s/90s Vertigo comics). Storywise, Dream doesn't even enter the picture until the last page or so, and that time spent away, watching a demented man amuse himself with the lives of others, as careless as if he were throwing dice, it just sunk in and took root. There is real Horror here, and it's steeped in a glorious 80s Post Punk flavor that just kicked open all kinds of new doors for me at the time I read it in High School, circa... 92 or 93, I think.

Onward to my favorite collected edition - The Doll's House, which will be the first volume that draws from Moore's Swamp Thing by incorporating a transmogrified Matthew Cable as Matthew the Raven and the references to Moore's The Boogeyman Killer. I'm hoping as I read these I might find some other references I'm not familiar with. 

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Playlist:

Primus - Antipop

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris B-Sides/Lullabies to Paralyze Vinyl Exclusives

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Jon Cleary - Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen

Danzig - Danzig 4

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

Primus - Green Gnaugahyde

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up for four more days. Check it out HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• Two of Pentacles

• Queen of Pentacles

A breakthrough of intellect leads to collaboration and a nurturing future endeavor. Interesting... at least with Vol. 4 published, I can stop reading all of these are pertaining to finishing that book.

New Music from A Place to Bury Strangers!

 

From the forthcoming album Synthesizer, out October 4th on Dedstrange. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

Throwing a couple of last-minute titles on the list this week. Here we go:

How can I pass up a facsimile edition of the first appearance of Swamp Thing in The House of Secrets #93 when I just finished reading all six volumes of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing? The short answer is, I can't.

This new Werewolf By Night series is apparently the first "Red Band" Marvel book, so I have to check it out. Okay Marvel, Thrill me.

More Shockwave. More! More! That's still not enough Shockwave! MORE!!!

This series is seriously unnerving me. Reminds me a lot of Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, which I read earlier this year. Call it the junction point where Cosmic Horror meets Body Horror. Science Horror? Any way you call it, I'm digging Into the Unbeing.

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Playlist:

Final Light - Eponypous

Shellac - To All Trains

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Assembly Line People Program - Eponymous EP

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That

Dead Milkmen - Quaker City Quiet Pills

T. Rex - The Slider

Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the War is Over

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up for five more days. Check it out HERE.

• XIV: Temperance (aka ART)

• Knight of Wands

• Four of Cups

 Elements previously thought divisive begin to fall into a cooperative allure, creating stability previously overlooked or unfounded.

Shawn C. Baker - VOL. 4 Available Now!!!

 Despite all my bitching about amazon of late - there's a lot to bitch about - I'm acting as a total hypocrite and released my new short story collection Vol. 4 as a Kind Exclusive. This was meant to be a free collection. However, I realized too late that Amazon requires a minimum purchase price of $0.99. So there it is and here's a link. Cover concept by me, actual artistic execution by Jonathan Grimm Art - whose Kickstarter for the Art of the Bound Tarot book is still running. 

Popcorn Fright Film Fest

 

I rewatched Richard Bates Jr.'s Excision (a perfect film) this past Saturday night, and it put me back on the White Lung. I don't think I'd ever seen this video, taken from 2016's Paradise (a perfect album), directed by Bates and starring Excision's Pauline, AnnaLynne McCord.

I miss this band.

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Watch:

I did a couple of Virtual Screenings at Ft. Lauderdale's Popcorn Frights Film Fest this past Friday. First up, Luke Bursaća's Videoteka.

I really liked a lot about this film, but found it's pacing to be off. I think the script either wasn't quite right, or there was something lost in the translation between Serbian culture and my own. Still, let me lay out the accolades because there are many: The lighting is exquisite! The Acting is all top-notch, the sound design and score are fantastic, and the locations and set/production design really transport you to the world of the film. I think the trouble lay in balancing a wrap-around with three fairly lengthy films within the film. That's definitely not an easy format to work with, and I'd say Mr. Bursaća did a pretty damn good job. Can't wait to see what he does next.

Next up, Michael Varrati's There's a Zombie Outside. No trailer up yet for this one that I could find, so here's the poster:

A very meta take on doing a zombie film about a guy who makes a zombie film and then fears that will be his high point. In that way, this is more a contemplation on the interior pressures of an artist than a straight horror film, but it was fun and had some great ideas, even if not everything worked all the time. Overall, a definite recommend, especially if you dig films like 2018's You Might Be the Killer; I feel like that would make a perfect double feature with this film.

Popcorn Fright Film Fest runs through August 18th. I don't think I'll have a chance to see any more virtual films, but if you're looking for some new Horror/Genre, check the fest out HERE.

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Read:

I tore through the final three volumes of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing saga over the weekend, and I can say that due to some neglect years before, I don't think I'd ever actually read the final three issues of the run. As the trajectory Moore and his artists create in the earlier volumes, their tenure on Swamp Thing more than lives up to the expectations they set at the outset redefining the character from Once-Man-Now-Monster to something God-like and, ultimately, Cosmic. The final two volumes especially really stretch Moore's concepts as far as they can go - like allll the way across the DCU's cosmic breadth. I wasn't huge on the Brujeria Cosmic World Ending Crisis storyline, but then me and world-ending cataclysms in comics reached saturation at least a decade ago. That said, it's still cool to see the template for what DC has been trying to refine into their "Dark Justice League" since the New 52 here in its inception and see it done flawlessly, no less.

Of particular note in these volumes is issue 60, Loving the Alien. Named after Bowie song, this is unlike any other mainstream American comic at this time (that I know of, at least).

A tale of techno-organic lust, the words flow more like William Burroughs than anything Moore did in Swamp book's done previously and the art... to say John TotLeben redefines what a DC comic can look like here is an understatement. This was such an interesting period in comics. 

Around the same time, Barry Windsor Smith did Uncanny X-Men #205, and there's a throughline here. This is where that Métal Hurlant influence really creeps into the establishment in the states, and it's glorious.

Now to move seamlessly into Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which in many ways picks up and continues some of the smaller threads of Moore's Swamp Thing. I'll admit, I'd also like to look into what followed this groundbreaking run.

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Playlist:

QOTSA - Villains

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Anthrax - Sound of White Noise

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World

Chris Isaak - Speak of the Devil

Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel

Danzig - Danzig 4

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

Roy Orbison - Greatest Hits 

Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through 

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Final Light - Eponymous

Willie Nelson - Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin

Simon Waskow - Luz OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.

• XVIII: The Moon

• Knight of Swords

• Eight of Wands

Something obscured from sight (or neglected) will provide motivation for transformation. 

Can it get any more vague than that? Probably not, but my head's only half in this at the moment, so I'll be chewing on that all day.

Azim Ali - Live at Paste Studio NYC live from The Manhattan Center

 

Full confession - I am not familiar with Azam Ali's music at all. My good friend Dennis sent me this video a few weeks back and it just got lost in the shuffle of the day-to-day. I realized my negligence this morning and fired "Tender Violet" up and was pretty much completely blown away.

Link to the full youtube video in the playlist below. 
 

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Watch:

Last night K and I went to see Tilman Singer's new film, Cuckoo.

The night before, I finally watched Singer's first film, 2018's Luz. Having now seen both in tight succession, I can say I will follow this man wherever he goes from here out.

There's definitely something about Singer's work that gives me a hint of Nicolas Winding Refn, but it's just a hint, a sort of Hauntology flavor that doesn't overpower everything else like the current crop of films I would describe using the same reference does. In Singer's work, there's just as much classic Horror and, after seeing Cuckoo I have to say it, 80s action mixed in. What that more subtle predilection for hazy, contemplative tempos and outdated locations/set design does for the film is anchor the story and characters in a recognizable, relatable world, even as the plot and FX push the film into some super bizarre territory. And Cuckoo is bizarre, make no mistake about it. Luz is, too, but in a much smaller way. Cuckoo is, well, a bit cuckoo.

Singer brings along several repeat collaborators, chief among them Production Designer Dario Mendez Acosta, Cinematographer Paul Faltz, and composer Simon Waskow. Waskow's work, in particular, has begun to greatly interest me; the Luz score is something to behold and has made it into regular, daily rotation. Cuckoo's score will no doubt follow.

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NCBD Addendum:

I wasn't expecting to pick up the first issue of Spider-Man: Black Suit and Blood this past week, but dammit do I love Black Suit Spidey, so yeah, I did. 

I've enjoyed all of the Marvel "Black, White and Blood" books I've picked up since they started the series a few years back, and especially when I saw J. M. Dematteis' name on this one, I just couldn't pass it up. There are four stories included of varying lengths. Here's what I thought of each.

1) Losing Face - J.M. DeMatteis/Elena Casagrande

    A fantastic story that spins off of a minor event at the beginning of DeMatteis' seminal Spider-Man Story Kraven's Last Hunt, which admittedly is getting a bit saturated with continuity spin-offs and references of late, however, this was tight and really sweet. 

2) Inside the House - Alyssa Wong/Fran Galán

    A quick little "It's coming from inside the house" type story set during the end of Peter's relationship with the symbiote. Very cool. 

3) Dysmorphia - Dustin Nguyen

    Very short but effective exploration of the inherent body horror in the human/symbiote bonding.

4) Fade to Black - J. Michael Straczynski/Sumit Kumar/Craig Yeung/Dono Sánchez-Almara

    I know JMS has one of the historic runs with Spidey, but I've never read any of it, so I wasn't sure how this would play out for me. Happy to report, I really dug it. A kind of current continuity reassessment of Peter's time with the b

Overall, a great issue that has me pulling out my Spidey short box to dig back into some old Black Suit issues. Can't wait for issue two on September 11!

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Playlist:

Glen Danzig - Black Aria

Vitriol - Eponymous

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

Danzig - Thrall/Demonsweat Live

Danzig - Danzig 4

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Deftones - Ohms

Jerry Cantrell - Villified (pre-release single)

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

QOTSA - Villains

QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze

Azam Ali - Live at Paste Studio NYC live from The Manhattan Center 

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abbatoir Blues

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.

• Two of Wands

• Four of Cups

• Five of Wands

Two of Wands tends to suggest avoiding a single-minded Willful push. In other words, there may be more ways to get what you want than the one you're focusing on. Four of Cups in emotional stability, so moving from middle to left I'm getting a "Don't make decisions based on emotion." The five of Wands, then, is a break in emotional stability. This shores up the idea that a big, premeditated decision made in an overly emotional state can be as destructive as not making a decision. More sometimes. Now, what this applies to in my own life at the moment... nope. Never mind. It's work. Loud and clear.

Man... Or Astro-Man???

From Man...or Astro-Man?'s 2022 12" Distant Pulsar, available over on MOAS?'s Bandcamp HERE. Love these guys, and been listening to them more lately than I have in some time. Feels good to reconnect with an old favorite.

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NCBD:

This week's Pull (still haven't stopped in to pick up last week's yet!):

I have to say, I don't really give a toss about this Scarlett series. That said, I'm in for the bigger picture of the Energon Universe, so I'm hanging in there. Maybe I'll be surprised.

This is probably the best series I read on a monthly basis at the moment. I love The Deviant and can't wait to see how this all pans out. Only two issues left after this one...

Going to be sad to see this one go. The Principles of Necromancy has been the sleeper hit of 2024 for me. I knew nothing going in - hell, I know nothing from issue to issue - and maybe partially because of that, I'm staggered by this book every time I pick it up. The premise is nuts and Eamon Winkle's art is out of this world; his concepts are like nothing I've ever seen before.

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Play:

More Puppet Combo for Switch!

 

I'm not certain, but judging by the face designs, I'd say this is possibly another Torture Star game, which means I might have an actual chance in hell of playing it through. The rule of thumb thus far with the games Puppet Combo releases seems to be if Torture Star is involved, it's beatable (for me); otherwise, not really. But this looks AWESOME! A lot of elements from Stay Out of the House, a game I adore but can't get very far in.

Rewind or Die drops next Friday, August 16th and will be available for Xbox and Playstation as well. 
 

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Playlist:

QOTSA - Villains

Black Venus - Eponymous

Man... Or Astro-Man? - Distant Pulsar 12"

Jerry Cantrell - Vilified (pre-release single)

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Zombi - Direct Inject

Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Simon Waskow - Luz OST

Forhist - Eponymous

Danzig - Danzig III

Deftones - Live @Lollapalooza 2024

Fright Night - Some Are Born to Endless Night

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

David Bowie - Heathen

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.

• Page of Wands

• Knight of Swords

• Wheel of Fortune

The Physicality of the Will. The Intellect, raw and pure. The tides of time and fate mixed with chance and served up as a cocktail brimming with potential.

See, this is just further proof that the cards work, but the reason they work is all subconscious to us and not traditional mumbo jumbo (although I would submit for review the idea that our subconscious has A LOT to do with traditional mumbo jumbo). Anyway, the point is, no matter what I draw or how poetic I try and make my interpretation, it's all saying the same thing to me - finish the fucking book. One story left to proofread. The last was easy, the one before it a BEAST that I cut a lot out of. Not story-wise, but syntax and grammar. The stories as narrative are long finished, it's finding the best way to say things that's the hard part.

New Music from Human Impact!!!

 

The second single the band has released from the upcoming album Gone Dark, out October 4th on Ipecac Records. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Being that I'm a huge fan of both Black Christmas and Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, I'd been meaning to catch Bob Clark's Death Dream - AKA Dead of Night - for a number of years now. When it landed on Shudder a month or two back, I immediately added it to my list, but it wasn't until a few nights ago when I woke in the middle of the night and found I could not fall back asleep, that I  stumbled on it playing from the beginning on Shudder TV. 

Not nearly as grand as Clark's other two aforementioned forays into the Horror genre, however, Death Dream did not disappoint, and it's no surprise that William Lustig's Blue Underground restored this one and put it out on disc. Death Dream is pure 70s Cult Cinema, and taken in the mood for such things, I enjoyed it immensely. Even restored there is a palpable darkness the camera and lighting add to the story that almost makes you feel like you're watching it at a Grind House Drive-In circa 1974.

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Playlist:

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

Melvins - Nude With Boots

Opeth - Deliverance

Charles Bradley - Victim of Love

Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss

Thou - Umbilical

Zombi - Shape Shift

The Knife - Silent Shout

Blue Meanies - Full Throttle

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

Mike and the Mevlins - Three Men and a Baby

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Dr. John - Things Happen That Way

James Brown - Funky People Vol. 3

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, starting today for the next 30, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.

• IV: The Emperor

• Two of Cups

• Page of Cups

Another late night photo of Grimm's marvelous Hand of Doom Deck. This time, the cards seem to be telling me to, oh gee, lookit that. Finish the book.