Frank Black - Teenager of the Year 30th Anniversary

You know you're getting up there when your favorite, most influential post-High School albums start turning 30. How is Teenager of the Year three decades young? I mean, seriously? 

Last weekend, K and I drove up to Chicago for a few days. Saturday night I met up with a bunch of old friends and saw the first night of Black's Teenager of the Year 30th Anniversary show at the Metro. Mr. Brown was in attendance, and it felt like such a full circle moment - Brown was the friend who got me into so much of the most influential music of my twenties. In 1995, I'd gotten out of a three-year relationship begun in High School.

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Watch:

Last Thursday, K and I had the distinct pleasure of catching Steven Soderbergh's new film Presence.

Not posting a trailer, partially because I haven't seen one and don't have the time to vet one of spoilers, partially because I LOVE the posters they've released for this film. Soderbergh is always a class act, and his film about a haunted house is exactly what you'd expect by being nothing you would expect. 

This film blew me away, and I implore any even remotely interested parties to seek this one out while it's still on the big screen. Mind you, this isn't a movie you have to see on the big screen, like The Substance or Nosferatu. However, the camera flows across that massive screen in a way that just intoxicates. In a way, this isn't a "Horror" film in that Horror films generally unfold via events, and there are not a lot of events here. This is a character study of a family first and foremost. That said, when things get fucked up, they get really fucked up. Presence has one of the most disturbing concepts in it I've seen in some time. 

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NCBD Addendum:

I wasn't going to pick this new SIKTC: Book of Cutter one-shot up, but due to this rolling disaster that is Diamond Distribution, my take-aways from Rick's felt pretty light on Wednesday, and I admit, I was very curious to learn more about the SIKTC mythology, which this book pays off with in droves.

Loved it. More prose than graphic fiction, Book of Cutter really delves into the order of St. George's history while also advancing Maxine Slaughter as a soon-to-be major player in the ongoing SIKTC book. Reading this made me excited about the overall world-building in a way I haven't been since shortly after realizing I love the flagship book but not necessarily the ancillary titles. Might be time to revisit House of Slaughter...

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Jim Williams - Titane OST

Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow - Archive 81 OST

Portishead - Third

The Inmates - Runaway

Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere

Blood Incantation - Timewave Zero

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Foster the People - Torches

Bauhaus - Go Away White

The Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions

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Deafheaven - Magnolia

 

So much music unfurled while I was doing David Lynch week and then in Chicago for three days. Shit, I haven't even mentioned the Frank Black Teenager of the Year 30th Anniversary I attended yet. I'll get to all that, but first - holy smokes! I'll tell you that, while I LOVE Infinite Granite, I was hoping that would prove a detour. I don't need the Deafheaven to only play brutal music, but to me, the mix they achieve on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is perfect. Regardless of what we get on Lonely People With Power, out March 28th (pre-order HERE), "Magnolia" fills me with faith that, as my cousin Charles' friend Dave predicted, the band made Infinite Granite for them, and it had nothing to do with their overall ambitions/directions. 

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NCBD:

This is a new Rick Remender book. I've missed out on the last few he's released; hell, I've actually not read anything he's done since A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance, so I'm due. I tried the first issue of a few series since then and didn't really 'feel it,' so here's hoping The Seasons moves the needle.

Published through Remender's Giant Generator, I grabbed the first issue of Dust to Dust and dug it, so I'm coming back for more. Unfortunately, this Diamond bankruptcy is killing my shop, and I've already heard this is outstanding, much the same as the latest issue of What's the Furthest Place From Here has been for weeks now. 

Also confirmed as delayed due to Diamond's BS. I'm still really on the fence with Mark Spears' Monsters, but I figure I'll round out the first four-issue arc and reassess after. 

This is one I'll need a full re-read on once it's all out, but I've been enjoying the hell out of this second Last Ronin series. I've said it here before, but the dystopian Frank Miller-isms of this series really scratch an itch. An itch for when Frank Miller wasn't a douche bag. 

This cover is the stuff from which dreams are made. 

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Watch:

I caught the trailer for Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk's Hell of a Summer on the big screen last week, and it kinda blew me away. 

Yeah, it's more throwback, but I don't care. This looks fantastic.

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Playlist:

Moon Wizard - Sirens

The Veils - Asphodels

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Nothing - Guilty of Everything 

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Card:

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

Remember your Art (XIV in Thoth) when bogged down in Earthly matters. Enlightenment lies in balancing the two. 

David Bowie/NIN Hurt

 

Full disclosure. While I am a NIN fan, I've never really been a fan of The Downward Spiral. That's unbelievable to some, and honestly, it's not for the best of reasons. Thanks to a friend's older brother, I found Pretty Hate Machine six months to a year before the Broken E.P. came out, and it was just such a different sound than anything I'd heard before that I was immediately obsessed. Broken's switch to guitar-driven industrial metal confused me, but the band still felt fresh and like it was "mine."

When "Closer" hit the radio two years later and suddenly every jock and cheerleader in school became a super fan, I got salty. Because of this, it took me years to ever give The Downward Spiral a fair listen. Cunty, but what can I say? Seeing a Geo Tracker full of football players ahead of me in a Taco Bell drive-through one Saturday night in 1994, "Closer" blaring while one 'round-the-waste flannelled Quarterback jumped up and down and screaming, "Nails, man! Nail!" just put me off.

After eventually going back later in life to try and reassess, I still found I didn't care too much about TDS. When David Lynch talked lovingly about the album in the March 6th, 1997 issue of Rolling Stone (dedicated to Lost Highway), I tried again. 

Nothing (pun intended).

Eventually, I've come around to some of the record. However, both The Downward Spiral and its follow-up, The Fragile, are albums I never feel moved to listen to, and arguably the most famous song off TDS, "Hurt," has always been a particularly sore spot for me. "Hurt" sounds like a cheaper version of "Something I Can Never Have," still a masterpiece in my mind. "Hurt" has always struck me as egregiously sad, with the lyrics often evoking a one-upmanship technique. Sort of a proto-emo Madlib exercise, if you will. I'm not saying I'm right - I realize I am almost definitely wrong; that my bias stems from very much the wrong place; my high school, elitist "I liked that band first" mindset is bullshit. However, I feel how I feel. I continue to try, but nothing really moves the needle.

Until now. 

Over the weekend in Chicago, I stopped in a record store and found this in the Bowie section.

I've had a hard time establishing what exactly this performance was. The cover says, "Live Radio Broadcast," however, from the little bit I've seen online, this appears to be a soundboard recording taken from a full live set of the '95 tour, where Bowie and NIN each do a set and overlap on several songs. The thing here is it sounds to me like, on "Hurt" for example, it's Bowie's band doing the song and Trent joining them (which seems to be backed up by the video I posted above). Maybe because of this, I LOVE this version of "Hurt." I mean LOVE. The track listing is spectacular, with the older Bowie songs being reworked with the Outside era's aesthetic; in particular, this makes "Look Back in Anger" and "The Man Who Sold the World" very interesting. 

SIDE A:

Hello Spaceboy

Scary Monsters

Look Back in Anger

Wish (NIN)

AndyWarhol

SIDE B:

The Man Who Sold the World

Hurt

Terrible Lie

March of the Pigs

Closer

A word on the track order. Being a bootleg, I'm not sure if the compiler mixed in NIN's performance of "Wish" with an otherwise Bowie-centric side to further give the illusion of a completely unified performance; that was certainly my excited read upon first seeing this in the shop. Either way, I'm super psyched to have this and have already listened to it a number of times since returning home from my weekend in Chicago last night.

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Watch:

Sasha Rainbow's Grafted is now on Shudder and, oh man, I cannot recommend this one enough!

I'm already thinking of this as 'this year's The Substance.' Although it's not quite as cinematically bombastic as Coralie Fargeat's film, Grafted is a super fun, super gorey Body Horror Film with a weirdo score by Lachlan Anderson and an outstanding visual aesthetic that visually works the film's metaphors into color palette, setting and design.

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Playlist:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

JD McPherson - Nite Owls

Miranda Sex Garden - Velvetine single

L.A. Witch - Eponymous

Crime Weekly - Rey Rivera (part 1)

Bandsplain - Talking Heads (part 1)

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets - Indoor Safari

Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food

The Cactus Blossoms - Every Time I Think About You

David Bowie - Outside

NIN - Not The Actual Events

The Jesus Lizard - Westside (single)

Bandsplain - Talking Heads (part 2)

Anthrax - I'm the Man EP

Testament - Demonic Refusal (single)

Vanessa Williams - Dreamin' (single)

David Bowie & NIN - Back in Anger 

Deafheaven - Magnolia (single)

Deafheaven - Black Brick (single)

Deafheaven - Roads to Judah

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

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The Jesus Lizard's Yellowjacket's Season Three Trailer

Another new stand-alone track from The Jesus Lizard? Holy smokes - something's brewing.  

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Yellowjackets season three is right around the corner, and we have a new trailer! One I almost didn't post because of their choice of music - come on folks, do we really want to bring back the 00s trailer trope of using *ahem* drowning pool's let the bodies hit the floor? 

Very excited. Apparently, a lot of folks thought the second season dried the show out. I did not. Aside from the heartbreaking death I wish didn't happen (but 100% applaud the creators for having the stones to do so), I haven't a single complaint. 

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Season Two OST

Spoon - They Want My Soul

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Nothing - The Great Dismal

The Cactus Blossoms - Every Time I Think About You

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Card:

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

• Seven of Cups

• IV: The Emperor

• Page of Swords

Emotional stakes at the hands of perceived oppressors trigger impetuous reactions. Don't give in to the pull of chaos. Breathe.

Very fitting for multiple reasons, some having to do with work, others the point that the main character in Black Gloves & Broken Hearts actually uses a mantra I learned from my good friend Missi.

"Just. Breathe."

Goodbye, David Lynch

 

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ƎU⅃ᗺᗷOᗷ - Moutains Falling

From David Lynch and John Neff's 2001 BLUEBOB album, technically titled ƎU⅃ᗺᗷOᗷ, but I don't know a good way of typing that stylization outside of the clunky cut-and-paste from other websites, and then, see, you get comic sans or whatever that is. 

One of my favorite albums ever, and "Mountains Falling" is probably my favorite track. There's something so eerie and beautiful about the guitar, about the entire song. Very compelling and wonderfully utilized in Mulholland Drive. 

Tomorrow will bring us full circle on David Lynch's passing, and although technically the week-long celebration would end today, I'm extending it to Thursday for symmetry. That said, I wanted to start to get back into regular posting.

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NCBD:

This week's pull list from Rick's Comic City:

And then there's last week's books, which I completely forgot to post. How is that possible? More on that in a second.

Okay, so yeah, how did I forget to post last week's books? Well, besides being so busy at work that I didn't even make it into the shop until Thursday night, and that was only to give myself some normalcy after spending the day with the news of David Lynch's passing? There's something else at work here, though.

I recently realized I no longer have a tent pole book. I like everything I'm reading, but there's nothing that I absolutely cannot wait to read. This is always a rough patch because the older I get and the more media changes, the more I become concerned that one of these patches might stick. That seems unlikely, but even if an indie book really grabs me at some point in the near future, chances are it will either be a limited series or will be released in seasons, with gaps in between. I miss having something that really drives me. There was Preacher,  Stray Bullets, and The Walking Dead. Most recently, it was the Krakoa-era X-Men, and after that, I thought for sure the Energon Universe would carry the torch, but that's just not happening. With the exception of DWJ's Transformers, my favorite books last year were all indie titles that were published sporadically or as mini-series. Of everything I read, SIKTC comes closest, but goddamn, these hiatus intervals! Hahaha. I know JTIV is busy working on a lot of books people love - myself included - but that just means there's only sporadic consistency with all of his stories.

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Watch:

I really just found myself wanting to hear David talk today. About anything. How cool, then, that I found this:

 

From the Simple Tom YouTube Channel, which I recommend you check out. The full video for this is in the description.

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Playlist:

Man Man - Rabbit Habits

Man Man - Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between

Circle Jerks - Group Sex

The Halloween Scene - Pitch Black Manor

The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World

The Cure - The Head On the Door

David Bowie - Station to Station

David Bowie - John I'm Only Dancing (Sax Version; Single)

David Bowie - Low

David Bowie - Tonight

Raven Chacon - Los Subliminados (single)

Drug Church - Prude

David Lynch & John Neff - BLUEBOB

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

David Bowie - Reality

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Various Artists - Twin Peaks The Return: Limited Event Series OST

Various Artists - Twin Peaks The Return: Music From the Limited Event Series

David Bowie - Stage

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

James Brown - Funky People Vol. 3

James Brown - Hell

Hemlocke Spings - going... going... Gone!

Rina Mushonga - Narcisc0 (single)

Jocelyn Montgomery & David Lynch - Lux Vixens: The Music of Hildegard von Bingen

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Season Two OST

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

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Card:

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

• Knight of Cups

• XIV: Temperance (ART in Thoth)

• Ace of Pentacles

Couldn't be clearer. Emotional despondency at the loss of an Artistic influence should inspire a breakthrough in Process (the alignment of time and resources, both the Earthly realm of Pentacles). I'm planning on ending my period of obsessive mourning tomorrow with a full-on bounce back into Creative Fire

Rockin' Back Inside My Heart

From Julee Cruise's 1989 album Floating Into the Night, co-written and produced by David Lynch and  Angelo Badalamenti. Nothing can compare to how this and As The World Spins are used in the original Twin Peaks series. 

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Twin Peaks The Return

I still just can't get enough of this scene. 

I just finished my rewatch of the original Twin Peaks and will be moving on to The Return (saving FWWM a bit further down the road, maybe right before the final two episodes of The Return; I should do it now, but it's too dark for me at the moment). Really looking forward to this; I only rewatched The Return once in full, back in 2018. 

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Jocelyn Montgomery, Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch - And Still

Jocelyn Montgomery transcends two very particular elements I love - David Lynch and Miranda Sex Garden - a band that could easily be described as Lynchian. 

Published in 1991, MSG's debut record Madra consisted of Katherine Blake, Kelly McKusker and Montgomery performing acapella. Shortly after this, Jocelyn left the group and began working on solo material. The single "And Still" was the single collaboration between Montgomery, Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti that preceded the full album Lux Vixens. Lynch produced the album. and John Neff engineered. 

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David Lynch - Wishin' Well

 Another of my favorite tracks from David Lynch's The Big Dream. I love the motion of this song, it's somehow spooky and playful.

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David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Night (City Back Street)

From the 2015 album Polish Night Music, written and performed by David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski. You can practically see the manhole covers belching voluminous, silent vapor.

Listening to this the other night with a head full of smoke, I felt like the very air before me might open to reveal a portal to the pitch-black winter streets of Łódź.

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David Lynch

It's hard to accurately encapsulate in language what David Lynch means to me. I discovered his work through Twin Peaks in 1990 when the pilot aired on ABC channel 7 Chicago as a Sunday night movie. I was instantly hooked. The show would prove to be unlike anything I'd ever seen. When I think about what seeing that pilot and the subsequent episodes did to me at the age of 14/15, I am not exaggerating when I say David Lynch exploded my world. Narratively, musically, aesthetically, and spiritually. 

At 14, I was a suburban Chicago 80s stoner kid. I'd just become enamored with Anthrax through their album The Persistence of Time, and this was a catalyst for me to let the tide of 80s Thrash carry me out onto its tumultuous sea, for better or worse. I loved the imagery that came along with Metal - all the dark, weird and cosmic stuff. I thought Metal, comic books and Horror films like John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness were the only way into that dark tone that inspired all my teenage art - copious amounts of drawings, song lyrics, etc. The same tone that still inspires my art to this day. David Lynch showed me another way. 

The idea that the elements he employed could cut so deeply into horrific metaphysics blew me away. Jazz. Small Town America. Lonley traffic lights, shadows, Douglas Firs... the woods proved the ultimate draw - I lived surrounded by the 70K acres of forest preserves covering the Cook County area. Twin Peaks proved such a palpable experience because I could literally walk down the street from my house and get lost in the woods. The Black Lodge felt close. So did mystery and excitement. 

From there, I went back and found Blue Velvet - a film I watched for the first time on LSD. This was video store days, so it took me a while to track down Eraserhead. I had to go to a video store 22 minutes away when I finally got my driver's license and could explore more than the Fuckbuster down the street. After that, I watched everything as it came out, mostly in the theatre, the way Mr. Lynch intended. Lost Highway was a revelation I saw multiple times during its initial theatrical run. Mulholland Drive baffled me upon first viewing, then shored itself up as my favorite of his feature films over the three subsequent visits to the theatre that same week. Inland Empire proved a vertical free-fall unlike any other cinematic experience (one I've never been able to recreate at home with the DVD). 

The images and soundscapes David Lynch created have accumulated over the last thirty-five years, becoming integral aspects of my personality, driven in deep and strengthened by the patina of time and recycling. I watch David Lynch's work often. I listen to his music more. There's a place in my brain I access through Lynch's work, a shadowy corridor that lets out at my unconscious, my adolescence, my understanding of what it means to be a good human, an artist, and a fan. 

Thank you, David Lynch.

RIP David Lynch

 

I am destroyed by this news.

 

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Daredevil: Born Again Trailer

I woke up with this in my head this morning and had to post. Such a gorgeous song! 

From Man Man's 2008 album Rabbit Habits, now a certified classic in my book. Check out Man Man's website HERE.

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Watch:

It feels like a long time since I cared about anything Marvel has done on the large or small screen. I recently tried to pick up Secret Invasion, where I left off before the strike and just found I couldn't care less. This, however, has my blood up: 

I'd previously read the new Marvel Daredevil continuity would eschew any connection to the previous Netflix series, but that does not seem to be the case. Also, holy cow, is that the White Tiger we see? Also, fucking awesome to have Bernthal return as Frank Castle. March 4th I know what I'll be watching!

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Playlist:

Primus - Frizzle Fry

Rollins Band - The End of Silence

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz: Best Of and Rarities

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST

Drug Church - Hygiene

Aidan Baker & Dead Neanderthals - Cast Down And Hunted

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

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Card:

Today's card is the Queen of Cups:

The emotional aspect of emotion, so this is a card that often needs a qualifying pull. Deals with deep, emotional realms of the personality. Associated with Binah, the Mother. Can indicate finding answers in dreams and/or imagination.

Bring Me the Disco King 2. Remix

As an addendum to Bowie Week, I discovered this Danny Lohner remix of Bring Me the Disco King last night and wanted to post it here. I'll say right away it's interesting, and I dig it, but I love the original version of the song so much that there's really no room in my life for this. Still, I view this site as equal parts personal journal and information dump and part open-source information for whoever stumbles across it, so I felt I needed to record this for posterity's sake. 

The addition of John Frusciante's fragile guitar is a nice touch, and the video is cool in a very 00s kind of way.

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Watch:

I rewatched Jeremy Kasten's 2007 remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Wizard of Gore. People give this movie a lot of shit because it's a 00s remake, and it's also very of its time; the 00s were just not an appealing cultural time. Also, it has the dubious distinction of having been released under the "Dimension Extreme" label, arguably a driving force in ruining 00s Horror.

This flick eschews a lot of that, though, by building its own little pastiche of a world. As a kind of mash-up of a splatter flick and a Noir, Kasten and writer Zach Chassler (working off the original script by Lewis) create a kind of fetish-hipster-Nor L.A. that's all cool reclaimed spaces and lofts. As Danny! and Tim from the long-dormant Double Murder Podcast observed when they paired this film with the original, people like this - and I think they especially meant Kip Pardue's Edmund Bigelow, a trust-funder who completely dismisses modernity for the look and accouterment of the 40s - don't actually exist. True, and it becomes a bit of an affectation for the film. That said, watching the "making of" featurette after the film for the first time last night, Kasten talks about how Costume Designer Carrie Grace (who also worked on HBO's Doom Patrol) worked to ensure every single person on camera has their own specific, individual look. This just makes me think, in that sad, tired way I used to think when I had some hope and positivity in looking at the world, "Yeah, wouldn't it be amazing if that's the world we lived in? Everyone was an individual."

Is this film misogynistic? Hmmm.... maybe? One could argue the woman - naked, scantily dressed, or being butchered - are mere objects to the film; however, Kasten was forward-thinking enough to cast members of the Suicide Girls as Montag's fodder. Suicide Girls, as I understood it at the time anyway, was a movement by which the participants created their personas and online images based on personal empowerment - the then-exploding internet's first artistic or 'tasteful nudes' movement that took the exploitation out of pornographers' hands and gave it back to the subjects themselves. So just utilizing these particular girls kind of thwarts any sweeping generalization about the filmmaker's motives or misguided M.O.

The world and artistic design in this film are part of my big draw to it. Also, it has a very Lynch-like narrative that I honestly think is fascinating. The idea that "Nothing is as it seems" may be oft-overused, but here, it is most appropriate. Also, both Crispin Glover as the titular Wizard and Brad Douriff as the cantankerous Dr. Chong. Douriff's performance, in particular, hums with a barely restrained malevolence that conjures Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth, sublimated under secrets and agendas. That's the entire movie - secrets and agendas, and when it all comes out in the wash, I'm always kind of blown away.

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Read:

A couple of years ago, my good friend Jesus gave me Karl Klockars' Beer Lover's Chicago:

Knowing that I A) Love Beer, B) Hail from Chicago, and C) Haven't lived there for 16+ years, Jesus's prescience took a while for me to fully understand. This has been a 'bathroom' book for a while now, but lately, I find myself deeply interested in the stories of the breweries and taprooms contained in this book - hundreds of them. Chances are, they're not all still operational seven years after publication. That's the harsh reality and also possibly the reason I've become so interested in these stories. Any beer fan can attest to the shrinking shelf space at grocery and specialty stores alike as the "pre-mixed cocktails" craze gains steam. I want all these breweries to thrive, whether or not I ever get to sample their beers or not. I love a great beer-based success story.

Mr. Klockar has a pretty informative website as well, which you can find HERE.

And, of course, you can order the book HERE.

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Playlist:

David Bowie - John I'm Only Dancing (Single; Sax Version)

David Bowie - Five Years 1969 - 1973

David Bowie - Young Americans

Windhand - Eponymous

Antibalas - Where the Gods Are In Peace

Testament - Practice What You Preach

NIN - Ghosts I-IV

Adrian Baker & The Dead Neanderthals - Cast Down and Hunted

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Card:

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

• XIX: The Sun

• Eight of Swords

• Eight of Cups

Just a bargain-basement read right now, as I'm taxed and the bandwidth isn't really there:

Emotional and insightful avenues lead to a transformation of sorts. Something good is going to happen.

Bring Me the Disco King, Mr. Atkins

Bringing this year's Bowie Week to a close with possibly my favorite song by him, the closing track from 2005's Reality. I have a short story I wrote around the time this album came out that pertains to the mood and abstractions in this song, a time-traveling hitman stuck killing time in the 70s waiting for his target, the titular Disco King. I haven't even looked at it in probably twenty years; maybe one day soon.

I've probably posted this track here before. However, there is a very specific reason I'm posting it again now. Tune in tomorrow. 

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Watch:

Holy smokes - haven't been online all that much this weekend, so I just caught wind of this now, thanks to Bloody Disgusting:

I grabbed mine; I still hadn't upgraded my old DVD copy of Night of the Creeps, so this is fantastic news. Granted, I don't own nor have any plans to get a 4K tv or player, however, I believe this comes with a standard BR as well. If not, I'll find a home for it and grab the BR separately. I'm really just here for Mr. Atkins.

Order from Shout Factory HERE.

Read the full BD article HERE.

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Playlist:

Ruin of Romantics - Velvet Dawn

Steve Moore - VFW OST

David Bowie - Station to Station

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Station to Station

Continuing our David Bowie week-long celebration of his life and work, K and I watched Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth last night. I had not seen this in some time, and both of us sat captivated for the entire 2 hours and 19 minutes run time. Anthony B. Richmond's camera combines with Roeg's deliberate pacing to juxtapose Bowie's inherent renowned alien beauty with the beauty of the Earth. Such a great mission statement to approach source material about an alien on Earth. The supporting cast is extravagant - Candy Clark, Rip Torn and Buck Henry* all turn in fantastic performances, but it's Bowie's grace and reserved performance that really makes this film what it is. You literally could not have cast anyone else and had this work the way it does.

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 * Being that Buck Henry was also in Friday night's viewing of The Linguini Incident, I guess you could spin my weekend celebration as a Buck Henry double-feature as well.

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I Can't Give Everything Away

One of the most touching tracks on an album filled with touching tracks.

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Watch Bowie:

Being that yesterday was Friday night and the ninth anniversary of David Bowie's death, I wanted to do more than just listen to his music. I decided to watch a movie with Bowie. I'd recently noticed the Criterion Channel added a Bowie playlist that had The Man Who Fell To Earth on it, and it's been quite some time since I watched that one. En route, however, my finger stalled on the remote as the cursor passed over a different film - one I don't remember ever hearing about before:

Super fun film Directed by Richard Shepard. Reminds me a bit of After Hours, a bit of Quick Change, and a bit of The Dark Backward and The Birdcage (which came after). Spoiler-free Letterbxd review HERE, but the long and the short of it, with Bowie as the male lead, if you're a fan and missed this like I did, see it!!!

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Watch:

Oh my god. This movie!!!

Read nothing! If this hadn't gotten a small theatrical run late last year and I could count it toward next year's best of, I have faith that twelve months from now, this would still be in my top ten. Holy F*CK! Kudos to Nick Frost on writing and starring in this, and Steffen Haars for Directing. Everyone involved does a smashing job!

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Playlist:

David Bowie - Low

Windhand - Eternal Return

David Bowie - Black Star

David Bowie - Station to Station

David Bowie - Santa Monica '72

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST

Horna - Nyx Hymnejä Yölle

Ruin of Romantics - Velvet Dawn
 

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RIP David Bowie - 9 Years Gone

   

January 10th - nine years ago today David Bowie soared from Earth. Hopefully, he's bringing joy through music to some distant cosmic race (and we'll eventually be able to get copies on vinyl!).

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Watch:

Lowell Dean, the Writer/Director of Wolfcop, has a new Horror movie based around an underground Wrestling match meant to raise the Dark Lord? In, 100%.

Even though I don't count myself a wrestling fan, this looks pretty fun. 

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Read:

I've been suffering a spot of insomnia and using it to blow through Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola's Joe Golem and the Drowning City.

About 90 pages in, this is a fantastic novel that kind of mashes up modern Steam Punk elements with Lovecraftian Horror and old-school Detective/Adventure/Fantasy tropes. Sounds a bit crowded, but it's not at all. The prose is brisk and vivid, and Mignola's illustrations are light and fantastic, capturing just enough imagery to really help accentuate the images the prose already brings to life. Here's the solicitation:

"In 1925, earthquakes and a rising sea level left Lower Manhattan submerged under more than thirty feet of water, so that its residents began to call it the Drowning City. Those unwilling to abandon their homes created a new life on streets turned to canals and in buildings whose first three stories were underwater. Fifty years have passed since then, and the Drowning City is full of scavengers and water rats, poor people trying to eke out an existence, and those too proud or stubborn to be defeated by circumstance. Among them are fourteen-year-old Molly McHugh and her friend and employer, Felix Orlov. Once upon a time Orlov the Conjuror was a celebrated stage magician, but now he is an old man, a psychic medium, contacting the spirits of the departed for the grieving loved ones left behind. When a seance goes horribly wrong, Felix Orlov is abducted by strange men wearing gas masks and rubber suits, and Molly soon finds herself on the run. Her flight will lead her into the company of a mysterious man, and his stalwart sidekick, Joe Golem, whose own past is a mystery to him."

This is the first of several collaborations between Mignola and Golden that I'm reading, and I have my good friend Chris Saunders to thank for gifting me a beautiful hardcover copy last year during my trip to L.A.

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Playlist:

Mick Jagger - Strange Game (Theme from Slow Horses single)

David Bowie - Black Star

Laylow -.Raw

L.A. Witch - Eponymous

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

Antibalas - Where the Gods Are In Peace

Mr. Bungle - Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie - Outside

David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia  OST

Vanessa Williams - Dreamin' (single)

Al B. Sure! - Nite and Day (single)

Diana Ross - Missing You (single)

Karate - Unsolved

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Card:

Today's card is the Five of Wands - Strife:

From the grimoire: "Often signals the querent is unhappy with a situation such as work or home, but can also indicate inner conflict. Introduces the suite of Wands/For of Will undercurrent of moral or ethical issues (what will ultimately happen to other in the pursuit of our Will?).

Chaos that can prove growth."

Fives are Geburah - Severity; Mars. Fives are demanding cards.

So what are they demanding?

There's a balance found in Four that is interrupted by Five. This is demanding growth! Growth is Chaos, and in pursuing growth, we often offset others' balance as well as our own.  So this is a 'tread with caution, but definitely tread!!!" card. 

David Bowie - Slow Burn

The apparently unreleased video for "Slow Burn," track four on 2002's Heathen. Such a great song; I'm not the only one to specifically call this one out here in our little music blog community.

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David Bowie - Black Star

Released 9 years ago today. It was a Friday, and no one realized that in three days David Bowie would be called back to his ancestors in the cold, black void of space. I'm wondering if this video is modeled after his home planet?

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NCBD:

Oh man, I am psyched for this week's books! Let's get into it!!

Back in November, the first issue of David Ian and Rebekah McKendry's Barstow took me by surprise and blew me away! The desert can certainly be a creepy place, and Barstow leans into that all the way. Can't wait to see where this goes!

Bruticus vs. Devastator? 'Nuff said! This has me twitching with anticipation that HasbroPulse might be gearing up to release a Combaticons set similar to the Constructicons one they did last year. I could let Devastator lads pass me by, but Swindle, Vortex and their crew are probably the only merger set I would love to own. The original versions just never did the character designs on the cartoon and comic book justice. To have a Swindle or Onslaught that actually look like the characters... that would be amazing.

I read the first issue of Dan Watters' Batman: Dark Patterns last month and really liked it. Watters has become go-to writer for me; I won't read everything he does for the big two, but I think I'm 100% up on everything he's released that's creator-owned. I'm digging these one-off Bat-series, though, so I'm back on Patterns this month for another round. 

This book is just f*ckin' nuts! I don't know where we're going or how we ended up where we are (what a fantastic final page last ish!), but I'm hooked once again. Boss and Rosenberg have a punk rock dystopian epic on their hands. 

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Watch:

Rejoice! Vinegar Syndrome announced the Blue Ray for Ryan Kruger's Street Trash!

 

I pre-ordered mine as soon as I saw the announcement; this SEQUEL to the 1987 original came in at number six on my Top Ten Favorite Horror Films of 2024, which can be heard over on the latest episode of The Horror Vision. 

Here's the VS order link.

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Playlist:

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Nothing - The Great Dismal

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

Chrystabell & David Lynch - Cellophane Memories

David Bowie - Heathen

David Bowie - Black Star

The Jesus Lizard - Rack

Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits

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Card:

Today's card is the Knight of Wands:

The Firey aspect of Fire, or the Willful aspect of the Will, which feels convoluted or redundant. What does A.C. say about this one in his Book of Thoth?

"The moral qualities appropriate to this figure are activity, generosity, fierceness, impetuosity, pride, impulsiveness, swiftness in unpredictable actions."

This card implies a quickening and might warn about going off half-cocked. Things have to get done, but be careful how to do them. Impetuous actions don't often work out well, and impulsiveness can be a good thing, but it can also lead to a bad end. 

Mogwai - Fanzine Made of Flesh

 

Another new Mogwai track from their upcoming album The Bad Fire, out January 24th. Pre-order HERE.

PLEASE let it turn out that Brandon Cronenberg is a Mogwai fan and already optioned the title of this song for a future film!

 

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Ask the Rust About The Last of Us

 

You know, I never really gave Nothing's 2020 album, The Great Dismal, the chance it deserved. I wouldn't say I didn't like it, but before recently, I'd never bonded with this one like I did some of their others. That's changed, and this song resonates as a perfect album closer. Very MBV, but not, if you know what I mean. Here's Nothing's Bandcamp HERE or their site (which is really well-made) HERE.

 

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Watch:

F*ck. Not sure I'm ready to go back to this world...

 

Well, we have until April. Gonna have to look at A LOT of cat pictures to prep.

 

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Read:

Now that issue three of Rafael Grampa's Batman: The Gargoyle of Gotham is out, I sat down over the weekend and read all three. Holy smokes. This is seriously one of the best Batman series I've read, and even though I don't read all that many Bat-Books, I've read my share of the classics. I think this will sit amongst them. One of the reasons for that? The villains.

I've talked on Drinking with Comics about how I feel Bruce's standard rogues gallery is one of the major issues keeping from reading Bat-books. I rejoiced at Morrison's run when Prof. Pig and the Black Glove were introduced. Anything to get the same stupid, overdone bad guys out of the spotlight. I mean, yeah, I like a good Joker story here and there, and I loved Max's Penguin, but it's how you approach it. For the purposes of a Batman comic that's going to hold my interest, I need something new. And Mr. Grampa has certainly done that. Cry is fantastic (if that is actually their name), and whoever this is that showed up at the end of issue three blew me away. Let's not forget the weird, hallucinogenic psychic chick. There's just so much NEW going on here, and I absolutely reveled in it while reading. Can't recommend this one enough; I just hope it doesn't take the better part of another year to get issue four. If it does, it's worth it, but man - it would be tough just waiting a month or two.

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Playlist:

Windhand - Split E.P.

Windhand - Eternal Return

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Nothing - The Great Dismal

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Laylow - .Raw

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction (pre-release singles)

Hangman's Chair - A Loner

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Card:

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

• Page (Princess) of Swords

• XVI - The Tower

• II - High Priestess

The Earth of Air, the Earthly realms of intellect. In other words, you can be as smart as you like, and it won't mean spit if you're not street smart. The Tower tells me I'm not as smart as I think, and High Priestess suggests nurturing, so I'm reading this as a direct rebuttal to the nearly crippling self-doubt and imposter syndrome that's been hammering on the inside of my skull for the last few days. I'm not as smart as I think - meaning I've misread everything and should chuck all that baggage in the bin. 

Dreamkid - Street Lights

 

I have to say, while holding Dreamkid's retro 80s synthwave sound at arm's length for well over a year, I think I've finally succumbed to full-on fan. Yes, there's definitely a chessiness at play here, but it doesn't matter. Dreamkid's music has a very genuine soul, which is weird to say about something with so much facade, but that's part of music, right? A ton of Metal is facade, so why not neon and glitter instead of Satan and blood?

From last year's Daggers album, which I've been listening to in late-night writing sessions for a few days now.

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Watch:

In the past seven days, K and I have watched two and a half seasons of Apple TV's Slow Horses. This is a show based on Mick Herron's Slough House novels, none of which I have had the pleasure of reading.

That's the opening of the first episode. Slow Horses follows MI5 agent River Cartwright who is reassigned to Slough House after the debacle depicted in the Sneak Peek above. Slough House is where British Secret Service assigns their fuck-ups, and we meet a lovely cast who all suffer under the profanity-spewing, Curry-farting, Single-Malt-drinking Jackson Lamb, a right old bastard as played by Gary Oldman. Lamb was a legend but made a lot of enemies and got sent to Slough House to 'run out the clock.'

Lamb reminds me of two very different characters I've met before. On the one hand, Oldman invokes Jackie Flannery from State of Grace in all his whiskey-swilling, unwashed glory. The character also conjures more than a little comparison to an aged John Constantine, and I have to wonder if that's canon from the novels or if the show's creative team is showing its influence. Either way, Oldman is a delight every moment he's on screen.

So are all the other characters, too. Even the ones you despise. As the clip shows, this is a fast-moving series and, honestly, the best "spy" story I've come across.

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Read:

I guess re-reading Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey's Injection is, at the very least, an annual appointment for me now. I woke up Saturday and re-read the first volume and experienced nothing short of total comic book ecstasy.

I've held to the story that my two favorite comics of all time are Preacher and The Walking Dead, and on some level, they are and always will be. That said, I think Injection is up there, neck and neck, as well. This might even be a "win by a nose" situation, and what I mean by that is both Ennis and Kirkman's opuses are just that - epic, long-form series. At three six-issue volumes (that I hope will one day be joined by those final two), Injection is pocket-sized, in a manner of speaking. 

Especially when you consider that this is among the best of the 'wide-screen' format series, so it reads quick. Rereading is easy, as opposed to the voluminous experience of rereading the other two. That's not without its merit, of course, but I can find far more time to read Injection, and it affects my brain in a different way. 

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Playlist:

Aidan Baker & Dead Neanderthals - Cast Down and Hunted

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis - Invisible Cities

Zombi - Shape Shift

Lantlôs - Neon

Windhand - Split

Windhand - Eponymous

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Ruin of Romantics - Velvet Dawn

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction (pre-release singles)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Dreamkid - Daggers

Dreamkid - Eponymous

Soft Sun - Daylight in the Dark

Dreamkid - All Thriller, No Filler

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

David Lynch & Mark Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

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Dr. Colossus - I'm a Stupid Moron With an Ugly Face and A Big Butt and my Butt Smells and I Like to Kiss My Own Butt

 

This had me both laughing out loud and thrashing at my desk all afternoon yesterday. Focusing your band around The Simpsons is a quick way to get dismissed as a gimmick, but take a listen and you'll see - Dr. Colossus fucking rules!

 

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Watch:

Rewatched Adam Green's original Hatchet two nights ago and hot damn! I love this flick, but I always forget how much I love it until I actually sit down and rewatch it.

 

This is an obvious 'skin' of F13; however, I think by moving the 'Cabin in the woods' trope to the Louisiana swamps, effectively making it 'Cabin in the Swamp,' Green really breathes fresh life into the Slasher genre (always loved the tag: Old School American Horror). The cast is great and doesn't die in the order you'd imagine, and as annoying or vapid as some of them are, I actually don't want to see them die. That's usually not the case in modern slashers. 

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Playlist:

Aidan Baker & Dead Neanderthals - Cast Down and Haunted

Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker - Fantasma Parastasie

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis - Invisible Cities

Beth Gibbons, The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra & Krzysztof Penderecki - Henryk Górecki: Symphony N. 3

Windhand - Split

Dr. Colossus - I'm a Stupid Moron With an Ugly Face and A Big Butt and My Butt Smells and I Like to Kiss My Own Butt

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Heathen

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Card:

First Tarot Pull of 2025, I have to make it a single card from Missi's Raven Deck:

Always one of my favorite cards in any deck; this reminds me to look at things beyond surface capacity. No surprise I'm turning forty-nine in three months because that's what we do as we get older - we gloss over things. Part of it is, I think, when we're younger we have way more of a perceptual filter. We're only aware of our own world and small increments beyond. Aging opens that up, and by the time you're in your forties, you're aware of so much that you look for shortcuts. When you consider the internet and smartphones and all the stimuli and information that flow through us every day, my theory gets an update - kids are aware of so much more than I was when I was younger. Now, what's that due to adults that have that widened awareness?

In some cases, in a lot of cases I'd say, it shuts it down completely. We look at the world only as we want to see it. And the almighty algorithms just exacerbate that by creating these endless feedback loops that just cycle our own thoughts back through our head. So in 2025, I'm going to try and remember, every day, to look deeper. I've even made a note on my desk to remind myself. 

New Years Day + One = The Damned

 

Day late, but it's still poignant. Holy shit - we made it to 2025!!!

 

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Watch:

I saw this pop up on my local Regal's calendar and went from thinking I'd never heard of it to swearing I had posted the trailer on here previously. Not the case, but now that this is on my radar, I'm kind of dying to see it.

I feel like the release timing for this one was perfectly staged - people who saw Nosteratu and want more historical Horror can plop their arse in the theatre again and see what looks like a wicked combination of The Witch and Cold Skin. 

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NCBD:

Short week. Here we go:

Nice to have a short week at the moment. I've got a lot of other reading to do. 

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Playlist:

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

L.A. Witch - Eponymous

Ruin of Romantics - Velvet Dawn

Dreamkid - Daggers

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Nothing - The Great Dismal

Dead Neanderthals - Other Worlds

Final Light - Eponymous

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