Mastodon's Hushed and Grim kind of fell off my radar these last few months, so nice of these guys to unleash a video for one of my favorite tracks on the double album and put it back in sight. The intro to this song is insane, and then it kinda just glides into a super soulful (for metal) verse and becomes one of the catchiest songs on the record.
Watch:
I'm hoping to hit a couple flicks at the virtual arm of Kansas City's Panic Fest this year. Johannes Grenzfurthner's Masking Threshold is top of my list:
You start a trailer with a John Cage reference and then move into talking about anechoic chambers and you have my attention.
Playlist:
Ash Ra Tempel - Friendship
Eagulls - Eponymous
Testament - The New Order
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
Mothership - High Strangeness
Joseph Bishara - Malignant OST
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Uncanny. I'm not going to go into details, but this is a PERFECTLY timed reminder to keep the peace.
I plan to do this every year and always botch it. Not this time! With yesterday the twelfth anniversary of Peter Steele's death, I thought this would be a perfect time to do a week-long retrospective of some lesser-known Type O songs.
1992's "live" album The Origin of the Feces is possibly my favorite album by Type O Negative. It's dark AF but still insanely funny, a tone the band was able to balance for most of its career, starting with this release, which followed their 1991 debut Slow, Deep and Hard. Feces is essentially the live version of the first album, and honestly, it's how I like these songs the best. There's no doubt SD&H had a HUGE impact on me when I first heard it, circa 1993, but that humorous tone just isn't there yet - like Peter and the guys hadn't quite found their voice yet - so when I go to this era, I almost always go exclusively to Feces.
That sounds weird.
Watch:
David Cronenberg returns! Oh man, I want this right. F&^king now, please!
I'm not sure when this drops, but hot damn am I hoping it will be in time for Beyondfest this year, which despite my plans to move out of LaLaLand, I will be returning for NO MATTER WHAT. Seriously, this is their ten-year anniversary, and I am not missing whatever shenanigans those crazy bastards have planned.
Playlist:
Television - Marquee Moon
Wire - Chairs Missing
Drug Church - Hygiene
Burial - Antidawn
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Black Mare - Death Magick Mother
Belong - October Language
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Punch the Clock
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Stop fighting what you know and listen past the distractions. There's inspiration amidst the chaos.
My friend Dave recently hit me up with a link to his group Spizm's new track, B4uDie. Wow. Dave's a pretty incredible drummer - weird that I know two guys named Dave in Chicago that are both incredibly talented on the skins - and a lot of what I've heard him do before was instrumental, often a super unique fusion of jazz and jungle. Those styles are present on this new track, but Dave has taken to adding vocals and they just blew me right the fuck away. Check out Spizm's Bandcamp HERE, and if you ever get the chance to see them live, take it. Just the way Dave plays the hi-hat is enough to make me gawk in wonder.
Watch:
I have tickets to see Julia Ducournau's Titane tonight at a theatre near my work. Wheew - thought I'd missed this one. Can't wait. I know I've posted this trailer here a few times, however, I'm posting it again. I get such a strong Cronenberg Crash vibe from this, but amped up, like Crash on Methamphetamine. Really looking forward to this one.
Also, anyone interested in hearing what I thought of Lamb, hold tight. Ray and I are hooking back up with Seattle University Professor of Film Studies John Trafton to do an episode that discusses both of these this coming Wednesday, so it'll be available to stream the following Tuesday.
31 Days of Halloween:
1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)
2) The Mutilator
3) Demons
4) Vortex
5) Possession
6) The Black Phone
7) Slumber Party Massacre
8) Antlers
9) No One Gets Out Alive
10) A Nightmare on Elm Street '84
11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010
12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
13) Satan Hates You
14) Night of the Demons
15) Lamb
16) The Company of Wolves
17) There's Someone in the House
18) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Playlist:
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Electric Youth and Pilot Priest - Come True OST
Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork Issue #1
Vreid - Wild North West
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Slowly starting to work out a new system for writing, as I've been out of the loop and pretty non-productive since my trip.
My good friend Mr. Grez recently introduced me to Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio, or from what I'm seeing, more commonly shortened simply to Maldita Vecindad. This band is fantastic; they kind of run all over the place, but for an elevator pitch I might simply go with - from the few songs I know so far - Los Amigos Invisibles meets the Blue Meanies. Check this song out, which in particular was the impetus for me pulling out the Meanies late last week.
Read:
It's been difficult to log anything in this particular segment of late because I've literally been drowning in the written word (a nice way to go, eh?). From the early 90s Fantaco Night of the Living Dead graphic novel adaptation series (thanks, Butcher!), to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, to weekly issues of the monthly series I follow, to the last-minute Bernie Wrightson/Kelley Jones re-reads I flew through over the weekend as prep for Chris Saunders and I sitting down with Jones to discuss Wrightson on the newest episode of A Most Horrible Library, I've been in and out of so many continuities lately that my heads started to spin a bit.
But something I've casually commented on over the last month or so that's percolating into a full-on reread is the old Hellblazer series.
Although I was already in the middle of a slow crawl through Jamie Delano and John Ridgway's original arc collected in Original Sins, I went and reread perhaps Constantine's most iconic arc, the Garth Ennis and Will Simpson's Dangerous Habits. This was seasonal reading - the story I went to over a few pints of Guinness on St. Paddys last week. I finished it last night, and really felt a different aspect of the story resonate with me this time, and that's John's relationship with Matt.
This relationship is extremely poignant in the Constantine evolution because it's one of (if not the first) time in the series that we see John make a new friend, and how because of how he's let down or betrayed so many of his other, old school friends, we see what Matt's friendship means to him, how he comes down on himself in such a brutal fashion when he gets a new lease on life and realizes he may have forgotten about Matt. This B-story is honestly more emotionally fulfilling than the iconic (and still awesome) Constantine cheats the Devil one in the foreground, and it's something that I don't really think made as big an impact on me back in the day as it does now.
From here, I'm going to continue through Original Sins, however, a full-on Ennis/Dillon reread is imminent at this point, now that my appetite for Ennis' particular take on the character has been reawakened.
Watch:
Patreon is a slippery slope. I launched one for The Horror Vision recently, mostly because last year, I found out there is another guy out there using our podcast name. We've had the name (and the .com) since October 2018; he started his almost a full year later. He also very obviously realized there was already a podcast with the same name when he went to buy the website and saw ours (his website is a derivation). At any rate, I don't really bear this person any ill will, however, I find it a little perplexing and frustrating that he wouldn't just, you know, come up with another name. So, after discovering all this, I immediately went and branded everything I could think of with our name, Patreon being one of the big ones.
But do we, The Horror Vision, as a podcast, do anything that warrants someone paying to support us on this platform? At the moment, no. I'm slowly working on getting some things off the ground that will make me better about occupying this space - the Patreon exclusive Podcast Elements of Horror is coming SOON - but in the meantime, I just feel weird about even having it. I mean, I don't even totally understand Patreon. Or, at least I didn't until I subscribed to Jeremy Haun's.
Now, this is nothing against Jonathan Grimm, whose Patreon I subbed to some time ago. John's one of my favorite artists working today, a frequent collaborator, and one of my best friends, so it's different. But Jeremy is someone who I met as a fan, and, I think, hit it off with over the course of a podcast interview so that, while I don't know that we're 'friends' exactly yet, we're friendly. And Jeremy's mind, the narrative work he creates, it just has me. The Red Mother was a unique and completely enthralling experience to read; having the opportunity to pick Jeremy's brain about it (and a hundred other things) was a pleasure and one that made me think I would absolutely benefit from supporting him on the Patreon platform. Turns out, I was right.
Just the Haunthology stuff alone fills my heart with the jet-black glee I love so much. Jeremy's is a narrative with ongoing, far-reaching continuity, and that's my favorite thing. Literally. The video above should help demonstrate that. I guess this is probably coming off as a sales pitch for Jeremy's Patreon, and I guess to some degree it is, because I just spent a wonderful hour immersing myself in it and feel completely elated, the way I do when I sit down and read a full arc by David Lapham, or a Hellblazer trade, or watch a great movie. And those are always going to be the things I want to tell other people about on here, because I like to spread the word. Works for the creator, works for the consumer. Literally, win-win.
Playlist:
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House
Pailhead - Singles
Primitive Man - Immersion
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST
Sunn O))) - Kanon
Steve Moore - VFW OST
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I have always loved the colors in this card. The rocky, pixelated backdrop and the emerald symmetry of the image in the foreground work together so well to create this feeling of order over chaos, which of course, is the nature of a truce.
This is the truce within myself that I have to navigate in the midst of the, frankly, insane workload I've created in my life. It's a constant energy drain to dodge and weave between projects, but there's no other way I can do things at this point. I believe it's how I've stayed sane during this trying time.
Because it was the first song I heard after waking today. It's been a while since I sat down with some ACDC, so I threw on Highway to Hell and ripped through the first three tracks while getting ready for work. Now that's a fortifying breakfast!
Watch:
I watched several flicks over the weekend. One of them was Martin Scorsese's criminally under-rated 1985 comedy After Hours. Damn, I love this flick.
Playlist:
Perturbator - Death of the Soul (pre-release single) Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Alan Vega - Nike Soldier (pre-release single)
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
Robots in Disguise - We're in the Music Biz
Grimes - Art Angels
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper
Underworld - Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future
Deadmau5 - Random Album Title
Various Artists - The Best of Northern Soul
The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
Etta James - Second
The Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave
Ween - Quebec
Ween - Shinola, Vol. 1
The Used - Ocean of the Sky
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Fours are even keel, balance, things get done and we settle into roles/situations/projects. I'm not there yet, but I'm close, so this is encouraging at the moment.
