New Blackbraid!!!

New Blackbraid EP is out today! You can order a copy right here on their Bandcamp for Bandcamp Friday! 

Blackbraid III has become one of my all-time favorite records, and hearing this EP, I can tell that my fervor is only going to continue to mount with each subsequent release.

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After falling in love with James Gunn's Peacemaker series recently, I've actually started a "Shawn Was Wrong" segment on Drinking with Comics. DC finally has its head out of its arse. Need more proof? 

 

I cannot believe they've made Green Lantern something I am interested in! Now that's f**king magick, baby!

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Beyondfest Chicago announced the lineup and hopefully, about ten hours after this posts, I'll have tickets for a handful of screenings. 

None of the films I have my eye on are ones I know nothing about. Always the best way to see any movie. 

That said, the film Normal has one familiar variable: Bob Odenkirk. Here's a trailer:

I've been a fan of Odenkirk's since Mr. Brown made me a lifelong disciple of Mr. Show back in the 90s. It's been a joy to see his film career evolve the way it has. 

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Playlist:

Tool - Undertow

Foxy Shazam - Dark Blue Night

sunn O))) - Eponymous (pre-release singles)

Matte Black - I'm Waving, Not Drowning

Blackbraid - III

Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons

Blackbraid - Nocturnal Womb (pre-release single)

Jucifer - Lambs EP

Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came

Melvins - Houdini Live '05

Barry Adamson - Scala! OST

Fever Ray - The Lake/Wrong Flower EP

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Card:

Back on the Thoth (But you can still order Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot HERE.)

• Ace of Wands

• Ace of Disks

• I: The Magus

Notice how the numbers read 911? Weird, right? 

The two Aces are breakthroughs, so watch for gains and new creative ground (my Will tends to center on creation). The Magus is the flex that makes it happen. Magick.

So we're at this crossroads again, eh? 

Body Count - Comfortably Numb

 Wait... what?

I don't love this, but it's definitely worth posting. "Comfortably Numb" was probably my favorite song when I was a stoned teenager in high school. My friend Anthony and I were obsessed with Pink Floyd, and this song... just moved the world for me. I still love it, but it's not all that often I go back and revisit Floyd in the religious manner I used to. Still, seeing this as a cover by Ice-T's thrash metal band Body Count floored me, and it's definitely worth a listen, as they do some interesting things with the song, which is an advance single from the upcoming album Meerciless, out November 22 on Century Media. Pre-order HERE.

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Last night, K and I watched Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist on Joe Bob Brigg's The Last Drive-In Patreon. The original air date of the episode was 4/3/99 - why does the late '90s look so old to me now? - on a TNT series called Joe Bob's Last Call. 

As a huge fan who only ever heard of Joe Bob in 2018 when he hit Shudder with that Marathon (I never had cable growing up), I've obviously become aware of Monstervision and Up All Night, but Last Call was new to me. I'll have to look to see where that slots in between the others. Anyway, Poltergeist is something of an annual or bi-annual Autumn watch for me, and it was especially wonderful watching it with Joe Bob.

This is a perfect film, in my opinion. I never bothered with the 2015 remake, even out of curiosity, and I likely never will. The world on display in Poltergeist is the world I grew up in - early 1980s suburban America - and that's part of what makes it so effective both as a Horror film and a nostalgia piece. Also, I find it super interesting that the first few times I saw this film I was very young and Jobeth Williams was a "Mom" to me, but over the years as I've aged and the version of her in the film hasn't, she's become one of the hottest Horror movie women I've ever seen. 

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Playlist:

The Damned - AD 2022 Live in Manchester

Human Impact - Gone Dark (pre-release singles)

Human Impact - EP01

Mogwai - God Gets You Back (single)

Dale Crover - Glossolalia

The Mysterines - Afraid of Tomorrows

Bauhaus - Go Away White

Aerosmith - Pump

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Body Count - Comfortably Numb (single)

Body Count - Eponymous

Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom

Jane's Addiction - Nothing Shocking

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

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Card:

Today's card is the Ace of Disks:

Financial Breakthrough. Successful implementation of new ideas/rules/parameters in matters of Earthly providence. Growth and prosperity.

Splatterhouse OST on Vinyl!!!

 

From the Nameco Arcade version of Splatterhouse, now up for pre-order at SpaceLab9 HERE.

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Float:

I've been using my time in LaLaLand to try and reprogram some of the bad behavior I've developed since moving to Tennessee. Well, okay, calling it bad behavior is a bit hyperbolic, but here's a list of my transgressions:

    • I used to average 14K steps a day. Now I average 4K. BIG difference, especially when you consider the next two points.

    • Found I could eat all kinds of bread again without it causing me inflammation problems in my gut, which is how it's been since 2014 or so, and as a result, for the last 5 months, I've eaten bread multiple times a day every day. 

    • I went years barely eating red meat. I reserved that for special occasions or Chicago. However, we once we found a good Mexican place in Clarksville - something we 100% did not think we'd find - I ordered a big ol' carne asada burrito every Friday for months. This culminated with me eating two of those burritos one night. And when I say carne asada burrito, the only ingredients besides the tortilla are steak, guac and pico de Gallo. So that's like half a cow for two of these bad boys.

Now, I'm not one of those super health-conscious types, but I also adamantly will not give up drinking beer and do not want to be an old man who's super thin with a gut like a boulder, so something has to give. Since I woke up and flew out here this past Monday, I've fasted 74 hours (mostly in 8, 13, or 16-hour increments) and walked a stunning 40 miles - just over 84K steps. I've also done something I'd wanted to do for about the last 8 years I lived in LA and didn't - I booked two sessions and am planning at least one more at Float Lab Westwood.

I can't quite explain how the first session made me feel, except that it was fantastic. I've talked in these pages recently about needing to meditate more, and in general learn to relax a bit. When I stepped from that first session back out into the world, I was in such an altered state I couldn't believe it. My second one was yesterday, and although a bit frustrating - for whatever reason I just could not let go of my thoughts - I still count it as successful. Also, between the two, I think I've figured out a bit of a regiment to get what I need out of the experience, so here's hoping number three will be even more beneficial.

Of course, it's not just relaxation I'm after. My interest in Sensory Deprivation tanks shares motivations with my interest in hallucinogens - the latter being something I've found myself not really digging so much the last two times I've micro-dosed Psilocybin. 

This is a forever place for me now, no doubt. I expect to be back in LaLaLand about every six months, and Westwood is only 2.5 miles from the hotel I favor while here, so there should never be a reason not to go.

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Playlist:

SQÜRL - Berlin '87 (single)

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed 

T. Rex - The Slider

Fantômas - Eponymous

Orville Peck - Pony

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Windhand - Split EP

Windhand - Eponymous

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Breakthrough in Earthly matters. Feels right. 

7 Days of Ozzy - Day 7: Therapy

 

And for day 7 of our 7 Days of Ozzy, I had to go with something a little bit different. Love the first Infectious Grooves album, and especially this track, which benefits enormously from Ozzy's vocals. I'd say this is similar to Sting's contribution to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" - you just can't imagine the chorus being sung by anyone else.

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Saturday night Beyondfest & the American Cinematheque held a free advance screening of Chloe Okuno's new film Watcher at the Aero Theatre. Holy smokes - a fantastic psychological thriller with a gut-punch ending. LOVED it! 

The cinematography and direction in this one are fantastic, as are all the performances. The film really gives you a feel for the slow-motion paranoia that upturns Maika Monroe's Julia's life after she moves with her husband to Bucharest - a city she's never been to where most people speak Romanian - a language she doesn't speak. This isolation feeds directly into her paranoia, so you really don't have a sense of what's real and what's imagined in Julia's escalating panic, stoked by the fact that a serial killer stalks the city in the background of their lives.

Afterward, Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman did a Q&A moderated by Heidi Honeycutt. The two stars discussed filming in Romania during the Pandemic, the endless beauty of Bucharest, and how they prepared for the isolation and paranoia of the film. I can't recommend this one enough. 

Distributed by IFC Midnight, Watcher opens wide June 3rd on 500 screens - the company's largest theatrical opening to date.

Then, in keeping with the themes Watcher introduced, K and I took in a matinee of Alex Garland's new film Men.

Bold Horror Statement*: If The Witch and Midsommar kicked off the current zeitgeist resurgance of Folk Horror, Men is it's apex. Not to say it's better than them, but it seems to coelsce so many of the themes and images into an entirely new thing.

 

I'll be seeing this one on the big screen again.

..........

* Props to Shock Waves and Colours of the Dark!

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Joseph Bishara - Malignant OST

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Sparks - Lil' Beethoven

Mannequin Pussy - Patience

Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death

Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell

Pale Dian - Narrow birth

Ghost - Impera

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium (Undreamble Abysses)

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Card:

Confirmation on an inkling for investment.

80s Metal Week Day #6: Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane

 

It's getting a bit tough to make it through all seven entries of 80s Metal Week and not repeat myself, but then it occurred to me, there is no way I wasn't going to include this song and, particularly, this video, which is ridiculous. That said, this one has stayed with me since I first saw it on Empty-V back when it came out, so I wanted to do it justice.

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David Lynch Executive Producer on a surreal thriller dealing with doppelgängers?

 

Sign me up. This also reminds me that I still haven't seen My Son, My Son, What Have You Done, the film Lynch produced for Director Werner Herzog back in 2009.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights... Camera... Revolution

Author/Punisher - Krüller (pre-release singles)

Drab Majesty - Careless

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)

Cypress Hill - Back in Black (pre-release singles)

Cypress Hill - Eponymous

Metallica - Master of Puppets

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

Back Sabbath - Master of Reality

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Soul Coughing - El Oso

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Card:

Dealing with issues of stability as we move into the phase of booking all of the locations and services that will precipitate our escape from LaLaLand. Also, taxes always induce mild to threatening anxiety in me.

Shang-Chi and the Voyag3r

 

This past weekend I stumbled on the band Voyag3r. Never heard of these guys before, and I think Apple Music did me a solid by rotating Lord of Doom Fortress in right after a Steve Moore track. I'm still getting used to this new update Apple has that makes their service a bit more like Spotify by continuing to play music after whatever album you're listening to ends. I both like and dislike this feature, but in this case, definite mark in the "Pro" column, because as I said, I don't know that I'd ever have heard Voyag3r otherwise. Listen to the outro of this track. It's gorgeous. After it ended, I listened to the entire record and absolutely loved it, so I'm on board. LOVE the use of guitars with the synths, it really makes these guys stand out from a lot of the other synthwave stuff out there.  You can head over to Voyag3r's Bandcamp HERE and check out their music, or dial them up on your favorite streaming service.

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So F*&king down. 

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Playlist:

SURVIVE - Mnq026

Blood Spore - Fungal Warfare Upon All Life

György Ligeti - Essentials

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death

16 - Dream Squasher

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow: Live at CBGB

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Prioritizing Earthly concerns, or in layman's terms, starting to save $$$ again. I did really good last year, but some unexpected car maintenance set me back last month. No biggie - gotta keep the machine running, right? Anyway, April was that rare bird where I had three paychecks in 30 days, so this is a reminder to roll into May feeding my savings account again. Can't keep paying rent forever, even in LALA Land.

New Arab Strap!

Holy cow! This is the third single from the upcoming new album by Arab Strap? Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton's first album as Arab Strap in... a really long time! How did I miss that this was coming? The good news is the album is out March 5th on Rock Action Records, so it's not long now. The bad news? The vinyl is currently completely Sold Out. I'm hoping for a re-stock, so if you're like me, you'll be checking the Pre-order link for the next few weeks.

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Near the end of the newest episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, Ray Larragoitiy asks Tori and me what we're excited about coming out in the next few months. I wasn't prepared for the question at that time and was pretty bummed to realize I could barely think of a thing. Seems like the COVID effect on productions has finally caught up to us. There are a few things, though. One of them is this:

Ben Wheatley's new film In the Earth should be along within the next few months (I hope) and I for one can't wait. 

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Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow 

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark (pre-release singles)

Alice in Chains - Dirt

The Veils - Nux Vomica

U2 - War

The Twilight Singers - Dynamite Steps

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

The Soft Moon - Feel (single)

Joy Division - Closer

Nothing - The Great Dismal

Exhalants - Atonement

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 Taxes are good.

Refugee

Because this was the first song I listened to when I woke up this morning, and because it's such an awesome example of the marrying of Rock and Pop that was so flawless in the early 80s.

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Kind of stumbled into watching the first season of Evil on Netflix this weekend. I'd seen the minimalist billboards for this around town last year and was intrigued, but being that it's on CBS I dismissed it as network. However, this one's pretty cool for network (and it's not actually on regular, network CBS, but their All Access). There's some really interesting camera work and a decidedly bigger budget - or at least a bigger 'approach' - than a network show would take. And there are some genuinely scary moments so far, so I'm in. 

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Playlist:

Ministry - Houses of the Mole

Ministry - Amerikkkant

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

ISIS - In the Absence of Truth

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

ZZ Top - Rio Grande Mud

Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

Ministry - The Last Sucker

The Bangles - All Over the Place

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Etta James - Third Album

Etta James - Second Time Around

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Card:

Financial breakthrough, which I will gladly take on with a smile. 

John Carpenter's Alive After Death

 

New video for John Carpenter's Alive After Death, from the forthcoming album Lost Themes III: Alive After Death, out February 5th on Sacred Bones Records. You can pre-order the record from Sacred Bones HERE, or, do what I did and pre-order the Wax Work/Sacred Bones collab like I did HERE, although, without checking, there's probably a pretty good chance this one is long since sold out. 

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K and I finished the new and apparently final "season" of Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Hot damn I love this show! Here's a cool little bloopers reel Netflix dropped on youtube a bit ago. It's cool to see everyone having fun between takes.

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Playlist:

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Queens of the Stone Age - Villains

Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Ravenous Wolves - Stories and Pictures

Ravenous Wolves - A Horror of Shades Demo EP

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

ISIS - In the Absence of Truth

The Fixx - Reach the Beach 

 

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An influx of success!

New ✝︎✝︎✝︎'s and Best Horror of 2020

 

New Crosses! No word that I see of a release date yet, but what a way to round out the year!

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Favorite Horror Films of 2020

Over on The Horror Vision, we did our "Favorite Horror of 2020" episode this weekend, and as I type this the episode should be hitting all major streaming platforms. Here's an embed of the youtube, although this and the IGTV version are considerably truncated for time compared to what you can stream from Spotify and the like. Either way, here are our picks:

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This was one I had not even heard of until I watched it on Christmas Eve. HOLY cow. This one would make a fantastic double feature with Jeremy Saulnier's Hold the Dark (time for a rewatch!), there's such a stoic reverence for violence. Easily slid into my top ten of the year, as evidenced by the episode of The Horror Vision above. This is director Shawn Linden's third feature, and you can bet I'll be seeking out his first two films - The Good Lie, and Nobody - in short order. 

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Playlist:

Howard Shore - Crash OST

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Doves - The Universal Want

Nat "King" Cole - The Christmas Song

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

✝︎✝︎✝︎ - The Beginning of The End (pre-release single) 

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

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Card:

 

Being that the standard reading of this card is the beginning of a new project, and I'm in the midst of wrapping one and finishing another, I'm not quite sure how to take this. There's also the "Big influences" reading, and although I'm not sure how to interpret that on a surface level, I suppose I should be on the lookout for inspiration.

2 More Days 'til Halloween

LA band PLaNETS is doing a special Halloween show on Youtube this Friday at 9:00 LALA Land time and I'm going to try and 'be there.' I only know one of their records, 2012's The Dark Woods, but it's a favorite. They'd fallen off my radar for quite some time and it was only last week that I broke out the album and then went digging around online for updates on them - their name makes them kind of hard to find stuff about. At any rate, I found their youtube, subscribed, and it was totally fortuitous because now I have this awesome virtual gig to look forward to!

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) Tales of Halloween: Sweet Tooth/The Wolf Man (1941)

2) From Beyond/Monsterland: "Port Fourchon, Louisiana"/Tales of Halloween: "The Night Billy Raised Hell" & "Trick"

3) Mulholland Drive/Creepshow (1982): "The Crate"

4) Waxwork

5) Synchronic/Bad Hair

6) Dolls

7) Lovecraft Country Ep. 8/Tales of Halloween: "The Weak and the Wicked" & "The Grim Grinning Ghost"

8) 976-Evil

9) Repo! The Genetic Opera

10) Firestarter/George A. Romero's Bruiser

11) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 1 & 2/Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

12) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 3, 4, and 5/House of 1000 Corpses

13) Masque of the Red Death/Creepshow (2019) Episode 7/Creepshow (1982)

14) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 6 and 7

15) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 8 and 9/Roseanne (88) season 2 and 3 Halloween Episodes

16) The Mortuary Collection/Roseanne (88) season 4 Halloween Episode

17) Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning

18) Lovecraft Country episode 9/The Haunting/Roseanne (88) season 5 Halloween Episode

19) Lovecraft Country episode 10/Tales From the Crypt season 1 ep. 5 "Lover Come Hack to Me"

20) George A. Romero's Season of the Witch

21) The Omen

22) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait/Masters of Horror: "Sick Girl" (Lucky McKee)

23) Joe Bob's Halloween Hideaway: Haunt/Hack-O-Lantern

24) Eight Legged Freaks/What We Do in the Shadows season 1 episode 1/Night of the Demons

25) 10/31 - "The Old Hag"/Absentia

26) Prince of Darkness/Tales of Halloween (remainder)

27) Joe Bob's Haunted Drive-In - Nine short films

28) Halloween III: Season of the Witch

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Playlist:

Deftones - White Pony

Orville Peck - Pony

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

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Card:

Monetary breakthrough. Could be good news.

Isolation: Day 175 - New Music from All Them Witches

New music from All Them Witches on this wonderful first day of a three-day weekend. New album Nothing As The Ideal dropped yesterday, order it HERE.

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Originally, I had no intention of watching the new Ridley Scott produced Raised By Wolves. After Mr. Scott decided Michael Fassbender's android character David was now the focal point of the Alien franchise - a decision that would not have bothered me had Scott not bizarrely used it as a reason to kill ALL the Engineers off camera* - the trailer for Raised By Wolves looked like he was now doubling down on his android fascination, deciding to make something new and wholly apart from Alien that only focused on those white-goo filled humanoids. 

I mean, David, Bishop, Ash - the androids are all great characters, filled with weird amoral dilemmas, but they're not that cool, right? I mean, cooler than the Engineers, the god-like creators of the Xenomorph and, um, EARTH? No.

However, then I began to think, what if Raised By Wolves does end of tying in? I've always regretted the fact that the marketing for Prometheus gave away the connection to Alien before the movie even opened. I mean, imagine having gone to see this new Ridley Scott Sci Fi movie in the theatre, getting to the end, and seeing it suddenly connect as a surprise? It would have been one of the best theatrical experiences ever! Robbed of that, what if Mr. Scott had a new opportunity to do the same thing and took it, only this time as a top tier HBO series?

  

Well, after watching the first two of the three episodes that dropped this week, I'm pretty sure Wolves will not tie in to Alien. However, it's pretty damn good. Also, it's not a Scott creation. This is the brainchild of Aaron Guzikowski, who also wrote one of my favorite films of the previous decade, the Denise Villeneuve-directed Prisoners. Keeping that in mind, after two episodes, I'm all in.

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Playlist: 

 Zeal and Ardor - I Can't Breath (pre-release single) 

Zeal and Ardor - Vigil (pre-release single) 

The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs 

Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris 

Nirvana - Nevermind

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Card: 

Whenever I draw the Ace of Disks now, I draw a clarifying card, because somehow, this one has becomes slightly bent, which physically increases the chance that it is the card I will cut the deck at. I don't want to completely disregard it; also, my preference previous to beginning these daily pulls was always to do at least a three-card spread, however, as the meme goes, ain't nobody got time for that.

Four of Wands, Completion. Two solid cards, one vested in Material or Earthly matters, one in aspects of Will. What do they tell me when taken together?

As is my wont, I interpret pretty much everything in these daily draws as relating to my work as a writer. If I ever need anything outside of that, I draw separately and don't mention it here. Keeping this in mind, I  believe my plan for the day should be to finish my most recent query letter on Murder Virus before I dip back into Shadow Play, and send it out. I've stalled on everything of late, mostly because I've slipped or herniated a disc in my back and am more or less in continuous pain, which has affected my mood, which in turn has made me quite lethargic. Need to get over that.

Isolation: Day 131

I've had The Smiths on the brain of late, particularly The Queen is Dead, and even more particularly this song. I love Morrissey's lyrics, but even more, I love his delivery of the lyrics. "Dreaded sunny day, so let's go where we're happy, and I meet you at the cemetery gates" is a hysterically subtle indictment of 80s Goth culture - a considerable part of the band's fan base - that is beautifully countered by genuinely thought provoking and despondent lines like, "All these people, all those lives, where are they now? With loves and hates and passions just like mine, they were born and then they loved and then they died."

It's just so damn good.

The Smith are a band that, when I'm into them, I feel my love for each song and album deepen with each listen.

**

Last night, K and I finished Dark Season Three.

Holy. Shit.

In the interest of understanding the insanely well-written intricacies of this series, we'll be starting season three over again tonight. This time, however, we're going to follow every episode we watch at night by listening to the Digesting Dark podcast episode pertaining to the episode. These guys really know the show, and both K and I are really looking forward to having some third person insight into this one, because no one else we know is watching this, and it BEGS to be discussed.



**

Last week, the Maniac Cop trilogy dropped on Shudder. I've been wanting to see the original for years but haven't had much luck. As far as I knew until Arrow's recent release, the Larry Cohen created, William Lustig-directed Action/Horror classic had not been in print for quite some time. How was it? Exactly what I expected, and wonderful for just that reason. It's not everyday you have Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins in the same flick.



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Playlist:

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Tamaryn - The Waves
The Soft Moon - Deeper
Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done
Me and That Man - New Man New Songs Same Shit Vol. 1
The Stooges - Funhouse
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band


Card:

Big influences spur a new project. Yes. Very big. Not a new project, but a new direction for the current book as I've decided to take a completely different tack than I was originally planning.

Isolation: Day 112 - Fourth of July

I have been nothing but impressed with Two Minutes to Late Night, both as an example of the Late Night TV format I grew up loving with David Letterman (that's where it ends for me), and a vehicle for outstanding cover songs. How do they handle one of my favorite Soundgarden songs?

Perfectly.

They're Patreon is HERE. I've been meaning to sign up. Seems like today is the day.

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Last night I FINALLY watched Ti West's In A Valley of Violence. As a huge fan of Mr. West's work, my natural inclination to watch this one back when it became available on VOD in 2017. That said, the film proved a source of massive cognitive dissonance for me, as one of the stars is travolta, and I have a 'no travolta' rule when it comes to cinema. There's really no exception to this rule, and while I'll agree he did fine in Pulp Fiction, that film is one I pretty much have no interest in ever watching again, so it works out. At any rate, Valley is currently on HBO, and K was interested in seeing it, thus I had an impartial third party to help me over my hump. Turns out, as I suspected, the film is magnificent. Also turns out, JT does a pretty decent job in it.



Is this a learning experience for me? Should I break down and challenge my No-ben stiller and No jim carey rules?

Nope. Those will stay staunchly in place. I can make an argument that the JT rule was made broken already, as my boycott mainly applies to the post Pulp Fiction work of the actor. His earlier work is spotty, but definitely contains some gems, Brian De Palma's Blow Out being the example that immediately springs to mind.

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Playlist:

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
John Carpenter - Skeleton/Unclean Spirit
War on Women - Capture the Flag
The Chameleons UK - Strange Times
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Prince - Sign O' The Times
The Obsessed - Lunar Womb
Megadeth - Rust in Peace

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Card:

From the grimoire: "Big Influences and the creation of a new project."

Yes. I'm sitting down to that new project after I post this, so spot on.

Isolation: Day 26 - Living Nudes

Living Nudes is the bedroom brainchild of the man who runs Heavenisanincubator. Yesterday, I saw a tweet that they'd released a new track titled - appropriately enough - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down. It's awesome. Go HERE to check it out, and if you dig, it's set up for a "name your price" purchase. Can't beat that.

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The vocal harmonies that make up the center piece of this new Living Nudes track haunted me all day, and seemed to echo through my mind during the night, mixing with images from the second episode of HBO's Chernobyl, our perhaps foolishly chosen before-bed watch last night.



The resonance this show has with our own current moment is terrifying. World leaders telling people everything is fine when it certainly is not, sealing potentially millions of people's fates in a terrifying refusal to own up to a situation unlike any the planet has ever seen before. In watching this and now re-reading reports on the Chernobyl crisis, we're all lucky those officials in 1986 didn't destroy life on the entire planet.

Mindful Habitation:

Speaking of mass human destruction, you have to ask: will the slow-to-start response by certain world leaders during today's crisis finish what the Soviet's began? Only time will tell, but with the Orwellian nature of our world seemingly proved by captain hairdo's surge in approval ratings, well, maybe we fucking deserve it, eh? Not really, but an objective, non-human look at things definitely makes it easy to understand why this is happening. I mean, if you refuse to hold the lessons of the past in your head and your heart, how can your future be any different? Or is it the people making the decisions just don't care, because they have advantages most of us don't?

Yeah, I'm leaning toward door number two as well. But then, I'm also trying to stay positive. The peak is coming folks. Stay in your homes...

courtesy of https://brancastudio.bigcartel.com/

One of the funniest things I've seen in years. Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for sending it my way. If you need a pick-me-up, might I suggest after hitting Living Nudes' Bandcamp, you stop by his shop and browse all the damn awesome stuff he has for sale with his inimitable art adorning?


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Playlist:

Wire - Pink Flag
David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Foster the People - Torches
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Pearl Jam - Gigaton
Childish Gambino - 3.15.20
Childish Gambino - because the internet
Living Nudes - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters
Steve Lynch - Let Us Prey

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Card:

From the Grimoire: "A new project or a sudden change in material fortune/status." Playing this one close to the chest so as not to tempt the Universe to smack me upside the back of the head.

Orville Peck - Nothing Fades Like the Light

From the album Pony, which is most definitely in my top ten favorite albums of 2019. Where's it rank? I'll be posting my list within the next week or so, and you'll find out.

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Happy Friday the 13th, folks! I'll be celebrating tonight with a croc pot full of Chili, copious amounts of beer, and Joe Bob Brigg's Red Christmas Special on Shudder. Can't wait!

What three movies is Joe Bob going to play? I'm guessing Black Christmas, Deadly Games, and Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, the first of which I dig, the other two I have never seen.



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And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time once again for...

Last night was Season 1, Episode 3, "Squeeze." I'd seen this one before as well, but it's been quite a while. While I can't say there was anything spectacular about the episode - which, of course, wasn't the point at all - the first of two episodes with "Twentieth Century Mutation" Eugene Victor Tooms is a freaky-ass exercise in creature-of-the-week tone. The idea of a human being able to stretch, squash, and elongate on command is a nice, subtle play on the 'body horror' ethos, and makes me wonder what would have happened if David Cronenberg directed an episode or two of this show.

I especially dug the opening kill of this episode, as it really felt like the beginning of a horror movie or, perhaps better equated, an episode of Tales From the Crypt.



Oh yeah. And the Bile Cave. That was pretty gnarly as well. Now that I'm thinking about comparisons and the X-Files influence down through the years, I'm also feeling a kinship to some of the Body Horror/Nightmare Logic of Channel Zero (RIP).

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Settle Down City
Kaiser Chiefs - Duck
Me and That Man - Songs of Life and Death
Shining - X Varg utan flock
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
The Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen

Card:

I'd imagine then that I should be careful about befouling my plans for the weekend. 

New Federale Album Drops Today!!!

No Justice, the new album by Federale dropped today, and it's every bit of cinematic, desert-washed goodness you'd expect. I'm relatively new to the band, having first been exposed this past spring when I saw A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night on Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive In. If you know that film, then you know what an awesome soundtrack it has; Federale has several of the key tracks on it.

No Justice comes to us via Jealous Butcher Records.

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Now, welcome to...

I'm definitely in a tailspin through the 00s right now, and one of the band's that acted as a tent pole for my musical obsessions during those dark years was TV On The Radio.



It's funny that I never really got to know their last album, Seeds, so in keeping with my MO, I kinda saved one for later. I know they never officially broke up, and I'm sure we are bound to see a new album from them at some point, but it's been going on six years, and I've been away from them as long as they've been away from the world at large, so right now, things feel a little final.

This song really makes me want to start the Breaking Bad re-watch I have planned in the near future.

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Playlist from 11/07:

Final - Solaris
Revocation - Teratogenesis
Revocation - The Outer Ones
dan le sac Vs Scroobious Pip - Angles
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Me and that Man - Songs of Love and Death
Arthur Ahbez - Gold
Atrium Carceri - Kapnobatai
Jogger - Nephicide (single)
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone
TVOTR Playlist
Sunn O))) - Life Metal

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Always a good card to see, this reads to me as success coming TODAY on a short I've been hammering for well over a year (off and on). I recently set aside everything else to focus on this one because I have a very cool submission opportunity, so hopefully, the appearance of this card bodes well.

2019: June 21st - Lightning Born!

Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for the heads up on this one - I'd not even heard of Lightning Born until I woke up at 4:00 AM this morning, rolled over and saw a text from Grimm:

... and that about says it all. The band's self-titled debut is out today on Ripple Music, so it's available everywhere music is can be acquired. Or, order the record from the band themselves HERE.

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I watched two fantastic movies yesterday. First, Knife + Heart just dropped on Shudder and I stumbled into it without knowing much. LOVED it. A kind of software, gay Argento-homage, the flick stalls a bit at times as it goes to incredible lengths to soak the viewer in atmosphere and aesthetic of 1979 Paris' underground gay culture. It does an excellent job with this, but imagine those overly descriptive paragraphs that plague genre books at times? There's a correlation to that here. Still, the movie is gorgeous, and what I did not realize it until this morning is M83 scored it. Basically a gallo that follows an underground porn studio's actors as they are picked off one-by-one at the hands of a masked killer, Knift + Heart doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's a great watch. Here's the trailer:



Next, 1990's Hardware. I'd never seen this until yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it. Kind of a third rate Terminator knock-off, I'll take this over Cameron's epic any day. I loved the colors, the sets, the tech - everything. And a very cool soundtrack that juxtaposed Simon Boswell's neo-futuristic, Vangelis-light score with tracks like Stigmata from Ministry and this epic from PIL:



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Playlist from 6/20:

The Verve - Northern Soul
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Saygun
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
David J and Federale - The Day David Bowie Died
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Public Image Ltd - This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get

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Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "The beginning of a new project or job." Well, that could not be more appropriate. I took a few days off writing after finishing Shadow Play Book One, tonight I plan on walking to my coffee spot and digging into Ciazarn!