Alice in Chains - Sweet Leap Live 1991

 

Discovered this randomly yesterday. Badass - to hear Layne do Ozzy's introductory, "All right now!" just puts a Horror-movie-sized SMILE on my face! It's not the full track, but it's enough. This video was posted by Nerojotun on their Youtube channel, which is filled with Alice in Chains stuff. Check them out HERE.

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Watch:

K and I rewatched Jordan Peele's NOPE Saturday night. Hot damn - this movie is absolutely my favorite of Peele's films, and that's saying something because I really dig all of them.

All the characters are so endearing and relatable, human and distinct. It doesn't 'give' the viewer anything - totally drops everything in front of you the entire time and just lets you either pick it up and piece it together or not. Peele's not concerned with convincing or converting anyone; he just wants to make killer cinema. And he does. 

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Play:

Cosmic Horror Metroidvania for Switch? Holy shit, sign me up:

Voidwrought hits Switch on 10/24. Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for posting about this one, as it was not on my radar at all. 

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Playlist:

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

Crystal Castles - (II)

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Undreamable Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Nahab

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)

Alice in Chains - Dirt

The Replacements - Tim

Silent - Modern Hate

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Card:

Card for today:

"Structure, time and space. Laws of growth and decay. Completion." - That's from a book I have named Keywords for the Crowley Tarot. I like this because, to me, Fortune - The Wheel in traditional Tarot - is an example of the laws of space and time. Simply put, what goes around comes around. I don't believe in Karma, per se, but as a concept, I think it's close (I just don't like the word, probably because hippies adopted and ruined it). 

Alice in Chains Dirt - 32 Years Old Today

 

One of those records that changed my life. Happy Birthday, Dirt. Love You!!!

New Music from Jerry Cantrell!!!

 

From the forthcoming album, I Want Blood, out October 18th. You can pre-order a copy HERE.

Jerry Cantrell kind of blows me away these days. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of his first two solo records - though I do like them, despite their somewhat uneven listening experience - and although I'm all for Alice in Chains continuing with James Duval, it doesn't always work for me. But between AIC's Rainier Fog, Cantrell's previous solo album Brighten (how has it been three years?), and now this 11th-hour announcement of I Want Blood, I feel the man is unpredictable in the best possible way. Aging musicians from bands that lost a key member over twenty years ago just don't act like this, and I LOVE it!!!

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Watch:

Yesterday, K and I finally started Evil's long-awaited fourth and final season.

A) This might be the best show ever (minus Twin Peaks), and B) the writers have definitely been reading Laird Barron. The first episode of Season Four deals with strange happenings at a particle accelerator on the East Coast, and the second has a robot guard dog attacking innocent people. In a way, both of those are right out of Barren's third Isiah Coleridge, Worse Angels, although in the book, it's a robot sentry that attacks Coleridge while he's exploring an abandoned particle accelerator in upstate New York, but the influence is there.

And that's not to say all Evil's charms are limited to homage. This show has been a wild ride, a totally new take on a procedural crossed with X-Files, a demon-of-the-week that strictly adheres to a larger arc. The characters are among my favorites ever in a show like this, and the actual production... the lighting! This is THE BEST television lighting EVER. No joke. It works hand in hand with the set design to create this extremely relatable yet also liminal space the characters live and move within. And the practical FX! Also, Katja Herbers, Mike Colter and Ben Shakir are just fabulous. 

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Playlist:

Big Black - Lungs

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST

Jeff Grace - The House of the Devil OST

Cocksure - TVMALSV

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker

Mörmaid - Pearlescent Dark

Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent

The Church - Starfish

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

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

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Loathe - The Things They Believe

Mirar - Mare E.P.

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies E.P.

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity

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Card:

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

• Ten of Cups

• Eight of Swords

• Ten of Wands

Earthly completion, a profound use of intellect (problem-solving) and completion of that which thou has Willed.

Okay, first, funky 70s lighting courtesy of a late-night photo in my office. Might play around with different lighting for these photos down the road. The aesthetic fits Grimm's Hand of Doom Deck. Which, by the way, there's a coffee table art book Kickstarter starting tomorrow. I'll post here.

As for this morning's cards, it's another nod toward finishing both the free Vol. 4 collection that should drop tomorrow (I think; I still have to iron out some last-minute copyright stuff today) and Black Gloves & Broken Hearts, which I wrote the final sentence of yesterday. I've had the ending for months, I just had to finesse the final chapters to get there. That appears to be where I am now, and I should just need to sort out the epilogue and then go through for a reading edit on two fronts - me and my constant beta reader, Missi. 

Love Songs from the Phantom Road

 

Why not? The oddest and to some, a throwaway track from Alice in Chains' 1992 acoustic EP Sap. I love this one, and have long marveled at just how weird AIC could be when hardly trying. 

 

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NCBD:

A damn quiet NCBD, if I say so myself:

I didn't know about this new Jeff Lemire series until I happened to look in my email and see a missive from his newsletter. Sounds pretty badass; from the solicitation on League of Geeks:

"Dom is a long-haul truck driver attempting to stay ahead of his tragic past. When he stops one night to assist Birdie, who has been in a massive car crash, they pull an artifact from the wreckage that throws their lives into fifth gear. Suddenly, a typical midnight run has become a frantic journey through a surreal world where Dom and Birdie find themselves the quarry of strange and impossible monsters. It's grindhouse horror meeting high-concept supernatural fantasy..."

So yeah, short week, which is fine. I'll be in L.A. for the next two NCBDs and plan to make it out to The Comic Bug at some point, so I'll pick up some of the books I read that I don't have on my pull at Rick's here in Clarksville. 

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Playlist:

22-20s - Eponymous

Various - Fight!!! Spotify Playlist

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

Helmet - Size

Alice in Chains - Sap

The Mysterines - Reeling

David Bowie - Reality

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

To affect change, an equal force of Will and Renumeration may be required. 

For Absent Friends

I don't think I ever noticed how much this track from 2002's Deliverance resembles Alice in Chains. It's the guitar, 100%. Has that woodsy, almost campfire sound Jerry Cantrell gets to his playing when it veers forlorn and reflective. Absolutely stunning, regardless of the comparison. I always teeter back and forth between Deliverance and Blackwater Park as the crowning jewel of Opeth's "mid" period.

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Watch:

Over the course of two nights last week, I watched and rewatched Panos Cosmatos' entry in Guillermo del Torro's Cabinet of Curiosities. 

 

To say The Viewing is my favorite installment of Cabinet would be an understatement. I liked all of them to one degree or another, and even the ones I connected with least - unexpectedly, both H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - rank as extremely well-made genre films. But The Viewing is something else entirely.

 

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Read:

Seeing the announcements for Stephen Graham Jones' Don't Fear the Reaper, I finally ordered a signed Hardcover edition of last year's My Heart is a Chainsaw from the wonderful folks at Jones' home store, Boulder Books in Bolder Colorado. Chainsaw was the first volume in what Jones has dubbed his Indian Lake Trilogy, and Reaper continues the story. Here's the solicitation from Jone's publisher, Simon and Schuster:

December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones.

Don't Fear the Reaper is out February 7th, and you can pre-order it anywhere. I'm sure I'll be ordering a signed one from Boulder Books, and I'll probably ask for the personalized option this time. To good to pass up.

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Playlist:

Barry Adamson - Back To The Cat

Opeth - Deliverance

Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse

With Strangers - A Love That's Gone (single)

Preoccupations - Arrangements

The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

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Card:

Returning once more to the Raven Deck for a quick pull to establish the week:

Reading this as a reminder to keep things fluid this week. I had a great writing session this past Saturday where I dug heavily back into Shadow Play Book Two, and then a massive, three-plus hour one again Sunday to further that. Raven's telling me to enjoy this, but be open to other projects that might need attention this week.

Junk F*ck

 

Thirty years ago today. I'm floored. I really wanted to pick up the new vinyl release to commemorate the anniversary, however, I cannot stand that the original track order was, at some point long ago now, changed. "Down in a Hole" originally occupied the second-to-last track on the album, preceding the equally powerful "Would?" I still have my original Compact Disc from 1993 - the one that came in the long cardboard box, as CDs used to. I think I even still have the front of that box somewhere. It hung on my closet door for many, many years.

Later versions of Dirt shifted "Down in a Hole" to track number four, placing it between "Rain When I Die" and "Sickman." I suppose if I could ever find evidence that the rearranging came at the band's behest, I might be okay with it, but there's nothing online about it, so I just continue to revere the version I know. (even if the band did do the rearranging, it would probably ultimately prove to be a case similar to the Donnie Darko director's cut; yes, I know Richard Kelley wrote that opening scene to INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" - after reading him talk about it, you can pretty much spot right away how the flow of the images fits that song better. However, for me, it's "Killing Moon" that will always belong there and resonate best.

Back to Dirt's anniversary for a moment, Mr. Brown MADE MY DAY yesterday when he sent me a text that on the official AIC site, this has come back into print:

I'll never forget the first time I saw this. High School, Mr. Brown wore it to school. I LOVED this shirt from the moment I saw, it and, a few years later, he gave me his shirt. I have always loved the long-sleeve black band shirt make and model, and this... this was my favorite. I wore that fucker up until about ten years ago when it had become so degraded, I had to relegate it to "sleep only." When I moved from my two-story, two-bedroom townhome I rented in San Pedro to an 1100-square-foot apartment in Redondo Beach, I purged A LOT of stuff. This shirt was practically in pieces, large holes throughout the body, so sadly, I cast it into the aether. 

And now, once again thanks to Mr. Brown, I'll have a brand-spanking new one. Not gonna lie - pretty freakin' excited!

The Bullet Screamed At Me From Somewhere

 

I have Alice in Chains on my mind. Mr. Brown often clues me in on the Pitchfork Sunday Review, where every Sunday a writer looks back on an iconic album. Yesterday was Dirt - one of the most important of my "forever albums," and it made me dive back in head-first. 

I've never been much of a Pitchfork guy, but when they hit it, they really leave a mark on me. This was one of those times. 

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NCBD:

Back home (for now) in LA, so I'll be heading to the Bug to pick up this week's books, which are plentiful:

Some big events kicking off in TMNT and the X-Books, which have the second annual Hellfire Gala followed immediately by Judgment Night (which I'm still not sold on). Also, I'm not necessarily going to jump on this new Mandolorian series, but I definitely want to check out the #1.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Impera

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

Karma to Burn - V

Black Sabbath - Never Say Die

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Billy Idol - The Roadside EP

Faith No More - Sol Invictus

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

This gives me a teensy bit of an idea of how things are going to be as I prep for leaving LaLaLand. So far, no, things have not necessarily been the way I expected, but nothing has been a straight-up rug, so that's good. The idea in life is always to go in with loose expectations (if any at all), lest you succumb to disappointment despite a triumph.

Mark Lanegan Covers Alice in Chains

 

Alice in Chains' "Nutshell" has always been a devasting song to me anyway, but hearing Lanegan sing it a few days after learning of his passing, well... damn. That's about all I can say.  

Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending this one my way.

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Listen:

New Greg Puciato record in June, and the lead single is f*&king fantastic!

 

I've become quite a fan of Reba Meyers over the last two years, and even though I didn't dig that new Code Orange single that dropped a few months back, I dearly want her making music in my life. Her presence her only makes this an even better song than it already is. Mirrorcell is out June 22nd on Puciato's own Federal Prisoner label, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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Watch:

Serial killer stories are not my bag, however, THIS is fascinating:

 

K and I mainlined Netflix's The Sons of Sam over the last two nights and I have to say, I nearly fell down a rabbit hole. Here's a case that sits at the very heart of the "Satanic Panic" era of our country's history. Watching this put me on a precipice of re-reading Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Fatale, which definitely dovetails with that dark, post-60s vibe I find so fascinating.

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Playlist:

Zombi - Digitalis

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

sElf - What a Fool Believes (single)

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP

Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release single)

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Card:

How perfect is this, what with all the Satanic Panic stuff I've ingested over the previous few days:

Take your influences where you find them, it's not wrong to follow your intuition.

Mastodon Covers Alice in Chains

One of my favorite current bands covering one of my all-time favorite band's best songs. Magic. After this and that Flaming Lips cover on last year's Medium Rarities record, Mastodon is one of the few bands I like hearing do covers, basically because I can't wait to see what they'll pick to do next.

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Watch:

I recently found this super cool, animated reading of H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon that Patronoid Magazine published recently. Lost of cool stuff from these folks, check out their site HERE. 

  

I've had Stuart Gordon's Dagon in mind of late, and not being able to find my old DVD copy (I had two at some point, I love this one so much), is the perfect excuse to buy that gorgeous Blu Ray copy that the resurrected Vestron Video put out a few years back. Here's the trailer:

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Playlist:    

ISIS - In the Absence of Truth

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Solid State Survivor

Giraffe Tongue Orchestra - Broken Lines

The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

YOB - Our Raw Heart

Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death

Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

The Beatles - The White Album

David Bowie - Heroes

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Card:

Back to the wonderful Raven Deck my good friend Missi made for me:

Whereas this would normally read Completion, and despite the fact that I don't normally recognize ill-dignified (read: upside down), I can't help that dopple-definition fits, because it tends to hinge on 'interruptions' or 'hesitating.' I'm stalled again at the moment, and need to push myself back into 'On' mode.

Isolation: Day 185

Music:

Wow. This just blew me right the F&*K away. This year's Underneath is already on the shortlist to be on my top ten albums of 2020, this perfect cover of Alice in Chains' immortal 'Down in a Hole' may just put the newly released Under the Skin live album on that list, as well. 

This is one of those songs I can't hear without a slew of emotions, thoughts, and sensations from high school coming flooding back. That kind of emotion juxtaposition usually doesn't translate to covers. That is definitely not the case with this one. 

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Read:

Two stories from finishing Nathan Ballingrud's debut short story collection, North American Lake Monsters, I jumped into Stephen Graham Jones' Night of the Mannequins. I read the thing in a few hours and absolutely loved it. Funny, freaky, weird, hilarious, spooky, confounding. All of the above. This is a slasher novel that is not anywhere close to being what you would ever expect from a slasher story. Highest possible recommendation, especially since you can probably knock it out in a day. Perfect summer reading. 

Night of the Mannequins is $3.99 on Kindle right now, and worth every goddamn penny!

Next, as I savor these last few stories in Lake Monsters, I'm probably going to start a long-overdue re-read of Clive Barker's iconic The Hellbound Heart.

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Playlist:

Doves - The Universal Want

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

X - Los Angeles

Steely Dan - Aja

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz

Electric Wizard - Black Masses

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

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CARD:

Getting back up on my writing legs after a fairly successful weekend that proved my new outline method will make writing these next two Shadow Play books considerably easier than the first.

Sunday, September 29th

Two albums after this song made its way into the world on Black Gives Way to Blue it gets a video, and I'm reminded how much this band continues to steal my heart, against all possible odds. Jerry Cantrell - I love you. All you guys. Thank you for a lifetime of amazing, touching music.

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Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson's Paperbacks From Hell does an amazing job recontextualizing horror literature over the last forty or so years, and Errickson's blog Too Much Horror Fiction has been chronicling lost corners of the genre for years. We know this, and while a large part of the charm of reading PfH is seeing all those wonderful paperback covers in one place, there's also decades worth of pulp Sci-Fi/Fantasy cover art lining the shelves of history. In the interest of celebrating and cataloging some of those covers time forgot, I'm starting a new segment here on the blog: Sunday Sci-Fi Cover Art. This should be fun.



I'll kick it off with this gem, Daniel Galouye's Dark Universe, which I know nothing about, but after reading a short synopsis I definitely intend on tracking down and reading:

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Playlist 9/28:

Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Halloween Playlist

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A call to arms - I need to organize and devise new systems of routine, as last week's illness has completely thrown my systems out of whack and it's proving difficult to get them back online. See all that red? Martial - tough love is needed.

2018: August 27th

My favorite song of the year, thus far. And the entire album is, after an intense day of listening to almost nothing but, clocking in at #2 of the year, right behind Zeal and Ardor's Stranger Fruit. Another great year for music (if you know where to look).

Finished Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs. Solid four stars. I'm still irked by some of the pacing manipulations, but that's a small thing. The end speeds by and is excellently paced. I definitely learned a thing or two here. Next up:

Playlist from 8/26:

Etta James - Second Time Around
Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real (vinyl - thanks Mr. Brown!)
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
The Damage Manual - >1
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer

Card of the day:

And yeah, my lust of result is interfering in my work process. So I'm at my CBTL trying to fix that now.

2018: June 29th

New Alice in Chains went up earlier this week. I haven't listened to it yet, not suer that I'm going to until I can hear it in the context of the new album (which I'm not even sure we need), but I figured I've posted everything else recent they've done here so I might as well do this too, if only for posterity's sake:



I was unofficially tagged to do this week's edition of The Joup Friday Album and it's up HERE if you'd care to take a trip with The Atlas Moth to open your weekend.

Playlist from yesterday:

Liars - Eponymous
PLANETS - The Dark Woods
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Wire - Pink Flag
Wrong - Feel Great
Slayer - Reign in Blood
Zombi - Spirit Animal
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir



Card of the day:

Unkindness and a lack of empathy. Hmm... Definitely going to keep my head down today.

2018: May 4th - New Alice in Chains!

How weird that the first time I dig out 2013's The Devil Put Dinosaurs here in a couple years and then write about it, is the same day that Alice in Chains drop a teaser of their newest song, presumably off an album not yet announced. And it's pretty good, too, this new track. Looking forward to seeing an album later in the year.

The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday, you can read it HERE.

Playlist from yesterday:

Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber III E.P.
Brand New - Daisy
Brand New - Science Fiction
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Thou - The House Primordial
Deafheaven - Honeycomb
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Card for the day:

Ah! My favorite card. Probably because I made serious progress in re-formating my writing ritual yesterday and thus, was able to accomplish quite a bit.

2018: May 3rd 6:28 AM

It is my opinion that Alice in Chains never had a bad album until The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Now, I like pretty much all the songs on this record, however, I find it difficult to listen to as an album, top to bottom. Maybe their time has run out, however the absolute Shock of finding that I really dug When Black Gives Way To Blue earned them a lot of respect in my eyes. In high school, pre-grunge, Anthrax was my band. After the influx of new material with the post-Nirvana wave, Alice was. Dirt made an ENORMOUS impression on me; I mean, there is no way to overestimate the effect that record had on me. And pretty much still does, although time and life experience has obviously diluted that experience. When Layne Staley died I felt what people felt when Cobain did. I followed Jerry Cantrell's two solo records and liked them to varying degrees, but something was, obviously, missing. A lot of time passed and then James Duval came in to the picture and I felt divided; I figured Cantrell was at least 50% of the band to begin with (at least), and his name did not have the 'branding' that AlC did, so why begrudge the guy? The test came down to the music, and I have to say, I dug Blue a lot. It's never been in regular rotation, but then again most Alice binges are sporadic events at this point and they usually center around the original albums. Recently I dug Dinosaurs back out and listened to it and found I really like it. The title track is especially haunting musically, and here's a video I'd never knew existed! The one thing that diminishes the track for me just a skosh is the slightly awkward rhyming couplet in the chorus, with "Jesus don't like a queer" working but only just - 'like' seems like a weak verb there. But that's nitpicking, which is okay when something is this good.

Playlist from 5/02:

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
The Raveonettes - Ghost single
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here

Card of the day:

What is it with this card? Actually, now I know what all the recurrences of this one were warning me about - I'm not putting it down here, but suffice it to say it's something I have to solve and when I do, I will have a tiny influx of $$$.

New Alice in Chains - Stone

New album God Put Dinosaurs Here out May 28th!

Previously Unreleased Mad Season Tracks?

Whoah.

Thanks to mxdwn for this tip off.

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged

As I come to the end of Mark Yarm's wonderful book Everybody Loves Our Town I find myself drawn once again back to my favorite band from that era, Alice in Chains. In that return I realized a major oversight in my record collection. I do not own the AIC unplugged.

Now, I know why I don't own it - its association with empty-v. However, Everybody Loves Our Town has made me re-think this.

The book is word of mouth - in other words it is comprised entirely of interview snippets conducted and arranged by Mr. Yarm and in the last chapters as those firsthand accounts address the death of Layne Staley there's a quote by AIC bassist Mike Inez that reads, "We discovered at that show that songs like "Sludge Factory" were even heavier acoustic. Layne that night was so haunting. His voice, especially his performance on "Down in a Hole," it still brings a tear to my eye. There was a couple times I had to pull my eyes off of Layne and remind myself, Hey, I'm at work. Instead of being a fan here, I better concentrate on my bass chords. He was just so mesmerizing."

I have a powerful relationship with Alice's music, and Staley's death was the first of two rock star deaths that have actually affected me (the other being Peter Steele's from Type O Negative). Staley reminded me of my best friend Jake, who died a looong time ago. Anyway, that quote from Mr. Inez made me really want to see/hear the performance in question so I went youtube.

Wow.

Nutshell, the second track off of 1993's Jar of Flies ep just kills me every time. But it's even more powerful here. All the tracks are fantastic, but that one and Sludge Factory - which since the first time I heard it has been one of my favorite Alice tracks - are just killer.

New Alice in Chains

I'm posting this without even listening to it as I'm at work and the computer I'm on does not have speakers. After Black Gives Way to Blue though, Jerry Cantrell and crew have (yet again) earned the benefit of the doubt.

Whereas with a lot of folks my age (36) Nirvana was their important new band during high school in the nineties, mine was AIC. Not to say I didn't like Nirvana - I did and still do. To a point. But the first time I heard Dirt - specifically the track Junkhead - it was like Layne, Jerry and the boys were speaking directly to me, summating my experience (minus the heroin) and presenting me with music the likes of which I'd never heard before (and really still haven't since) while doing it. When Cantrell began touring again under the name Alice in Chains I was skeptical but hey - it's not his fault Layne died. I made peace with it. Then when I heard they were releasing an album I was a little taken aback.

But then I heard it.

Several old school bands have released new or 'comeback' albums in the last ten years that somehow seems to pick up EXACTLY where they left off. Bauhaus's Go Away White and now Soundgarden's King Animal spring immediately to mind. But how Cantrell did it w/out one half of the main songwriters is beyond belief.

In an interview I read recently he talked about how with this upcoming album he was in the unique experience of feeling sophomore jitters for the second time in his band's career. I don't know how well album sales and their tours are doing for the guys in Alice but I hope it's keeping them living a good life.

They deserve it for all of the wonderfully innovative rock they've made over the years and I for one will be buying this new album DAY IT COMES OUT just to help show support to a band from the past that STILL has not disappointed me to date.

Afternoon???

Morning?

Afternoon?

The only reason I know its not night is the sun is out, otherwise who knows.

Hard to get the old brain working right now, I'm really just writing because I've found if I write first thing when I wake up I have an easier time doing it throughout the day. I know thats the kind of thing you always read in writing technique books, or teachers tell you and it seems like, well not necessarily like a falsohood, but it seems like it doesn't really add up. At least it always did to me. But yeah, either its become true as I've gotten older and matured as a writer (after all, writing is now my main source of artistic expression, being 3k miles away from all the people I used to make music with) or, more likely is that it has been true all along and I've just been too stubborn to see it.

I'm listening to Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom. After I added the icon below and looked at the release date I was struck by a strange synchronicity. Released Halloween, '95. I got off work at 4AM last night/this morning and spent the following 4 hours working on one of my scripts and drinking Sierra Nevada, all the while listening to Alice In Chains eponymous final album, reveling in its dark and twisted glory. Guess what? Also released in 1995. That was a rich time creatively for the music industry in general. Grunge as a buzz word was dying, but the truly great bands that had gotten umbrella-ed under the term had evolved anyway. Alice was, in my opinion, the best of them. Alot of people didn't like the '3-legged dog album' but from the first time I heard it I was in love. I mean, Dirt is an undisputed masterpiece, but on that final album, the next album proper after Dirt, things had worsened for Layne Staley and you could hear the dark and twisted rings of his soul come through in the music. People I knew complained of his lack of effort with the lyrical content of the album (case in point always being 'Nothin' Song') but I have always thought they were great, really showing how his own path had gotten so disembodied and frightening, right down to the horrors of the simplest tasks of everyday life (and here I'll use others' bane, the aforementioned 'Nothin' Song' to illustrate. Fear of interacting with his cat to the point that he may kill it, whether maliciously or out of dazed neglect I don't know, but its fucking disturbing regardless).

Now, Temples of Boom is, to me, the Hill's Masterpiece. Fuck what the world calls goth, this is potentially more goth than what is grouped beneath that for the most part misleading label. Released on Halloween no less! What hip-hop artist does that? I mean, and this album was made to freak people out. And it works. At the time it came out I was smoking pot all the time and I remember the first time I listened to this it virtually left me physically ill. Disturbed. The tones and timbres are all dark and ethereal; haunting organs hang in the air like blood red velvet curtains, low end bass creeps like goblins stalking you in a rain-soaked alley, disonate piano chords strike and ebb, strike and ebb, like a knife brandished for murder. And then there's B-Real's stark, raw vocal attack. Intense, violent and frankly, unnerving. When he sings about having illusions and then goes into the violence of Boom Biddy Bye Bye you get the very real impression that this guy is living in a very different place then most others who rap about partyin' and violence - everyone else seems a bit too boisterous and outlined to be real. But B-Real, well, it sounds like the demons he exorcises and infects his listeners' world view with are indeed real, and just possibly waiting around the next corner...