Pop Scars

 

Svarte Greiner's new record Devolving Trust was recorded in the "Once bombed-out Schneider Brewery, Berlin," and the acoustics are as much an instrument here as anything else. This is some serious atmosphere. Absolutely gorgeous in the darkest possible way, this brings me back to a headspace I lived in daily back around 2006. I found this one when comics scribe Warren Ellis mentioned it a few days ago on his Morning Computer, and within a few moments of checking it out, I was enraptured. However, this is not Wednesday-morning-at-work music, so I had to put a good solid listen on the back burner until later. 

And later it was. Loooong day Wednesday. It wasn't until about 5:00 PM that I had the chance to really dig in, and as I said, it did not disappoint. Once I was in Greiner's sonic conjuring, I couldn't listen to anything else for the next several hours. Actually, for the rest of the night.

You can pick up Devolving Trust HERE from Miasmah Recordings. 

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Watch:

A trailer for Brendan Muldowney's new film Cellar dropped a few days ago and it looks fantastic:

 

I've said it here before, but we need more Ancestral Horror, and this looks like a good start!

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Read:

I was completely blown away to walk into the Comic Bug this past Wednesday and meet Pat O'Malley, author of the new comic Pop Scars. I picked up the first two issues, and they're freakin' fantastic! A highly polished, super-bright grindhouse exploitation Hollywood Revenge flick delivered in the comic format, I love this book and can't wait for issue 3. 

This book is nuts: violent, funny, pop, and bloody. Very much the kind of book I look for when I'm scouring the shelves of a shop for something new and independent. The plan is to have Pat on an upcoming episode of A Most Horrible Library, so I'll definitely update here when that happens. In the meantime, here's a LINK to his Frightening Tales on youtube.

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Playlist:

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me

The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy and the Lash

The Tossers - The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Flogging Molly - Float

Exhalants - Atonement

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Perturbator - I Am the Night

U2 - The Joshua Tree

U2 - War

Faith No More - Angel Dust

Ghost - Impera

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

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Card:

Roll with the punches - I had an incredibly unproductive writing session today. So what? I'm not going to let it keep me from trying again tomorrow.

Locke and Key Gets a Trailer!

I knew this was coming, but I never dreamed it would look this good! More excited for this than pretty much anything else at the moment, and it serves as a nice bookend to the fact that I'm finally reading the series - only have Vol. Six and the one-off Vol. Seven left to go and I'll be completely ready for what looks like, at this point, the series of the year.

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It's time once again for...

Over the last three days I've watched two more episodes, thus rounding out the Season One tier on Mr. Brown's Playlist. First, Season One, Episode thirteen, "Beyond the Sea," which not only featured Brad Dourif as convicted serial killer-turned-helpful-psychic Luther Lee Boggs (aided by another killer named Lucas Henry - see what they did there?), but also had Twin Peaks alum Don "Major Briggs" Davis as Scully's father. Super cool episode; fairly tight script, good character development, and an almost over the top performance from Dourif that was just plain fantastic to watch. Probably my favorite episode so far.



Next up was Season One, Episode Nineteen, "Shapes." Basically a Shapeshifter/Werewolf story set on an Native American Reservation, this episode also featured a Peaks alum, Michael Horse, aka Deputy Hawk. This one was a slosh clunkier than the last insofar as script, but overall, a solid, simple approach to the kind of archetypal folklore that makes this show fun.

Next up - and this I'm very excited for because although the episode resounds in my memory for all its infamy, Season Two, Episode Twenty's "Humbug" is not something I'm one hundred percent certain I've actually seen before.

Can't wait. So far, this little collaborative experiment between Mr. Brown and I has been quite fun, and really, we're just getting started.

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NCBD yesterday:

This book gets more and more insane every month. I'm a little concerned at this point, it might not be able to stick the landing to whatever godforsaken place it's going, but it's still one hell of a ride getting there.

I am so very glad I started reading this book. Seriously, it's the type of dark, Ancestral Horror that used to populate paperbacks in the late 70s/early 80s, and although I was mostly too young to read that stuff at the time, I definitely picked up on its tone while stalking the shelves of the local libraries I used to frequent as a child. The Plot feels like a book that may end up leaving me with a gasp or two, which would be pretty cool, because with TWD gone, I need something to do that for me.

Whenever a major franchise book flips a landmark number, you have to kind of reassess. After the cataclysmic events of TMNT issue fifty, I felt the book took a few issues to really grab me again. Because of that, I've been a little concerned that for all its grandiosity, issue one hundred might do the same.

Nope.

I LOVE the new direction of this book. I won't go into spoilers, but we're finally done paying homage to all the stories of the past iterations of the characters, and are into completely new ground. And it. Is. Glorious, dark, and a little bit sad. And that's exactly where the characters should be. One thing about TMNT - probably the thing that always set it apart for me - for such a zany concept and highly marketable image, Eastman and, in the old days, Laird both excel at taking the characters and the readers out of their comfort zone. So yeah, I can't wait to read the next issue, and TMNT has pretty much replaced TWD as my new "gottareaditrightfuckingnow" title. Which makes me extremely happy.

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Playlist:

NIN - Year Zero
Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Federale - No Justice
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
The National - Trouble Will Find Me

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Card:

I guess I better start walking...