Purple Hill Witch

 

Really digging Purple Hill Witch, an awesome Stoner/Doom band from Oslo, Norway, who recently signed to Totem Cat Records, home of so many other fantastic bands! As I get to know the back catalogue, I'm following these guys on IG and salivating at the prospect of the new record!

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31 Days of Halloween:

Rob Zombie's 31 is a polarizing film, to say the least. Even in my own personal conversation about Horror, you know, the one flowing in my head pretty much ALL THE TIME, I have mixed opinions. It starts strong with Doomhead, wears on my nerves with its "King Dong" bag of dick and fuck jokes as we meet the cast, and then really comes up strong again when we get going on the plot. Yet, all that time spent annoying me with character "development" doesn't make me dislike the protagonists at all. What they go through saves them for me.

By the end, I am always intoxicated by 31, and it's often difficult to find something to watch afterward (unless I'm doing House of 1000 Corpses or Devil's Rejects). 

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

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Read:

The pre-order went up for the next Laird Barron release on Bad Hand Books. HERE's the link and the solicitation below this amazing cover art by Samuel Araya. 

"Barron returns to Bad Hand Books with an all-new novella in his famed Antiquity setting. (Pretty) Red Nails features familiar hero Isaiah Coleridge—but he’s not at all as we remember him. This is Coleridge with a dark-fantasy twist. A tall, rangy mercenary armed with a deadly iron spear, Coleridge travels the benighted land astride a nameless piebald stallion while the grinning moon watches from above like a patient carrion bird. Alongside Lionel Robard and a battle-scarred war dog, Minerva, Coleridge faces off against a mad wizard and the horrifying Pale Ones on a quest to find the fabled city of Ur. For love. For lust. For pretty red nails."

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Playlist:

Drug Church - PRUDE

Chat Pile - Cool World

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Misfits - Static Age

Ministry - The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste

Purple Hill Witch - Eponymous

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Card:

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

• King of Pentacles

• Ace of Swords

• I: The Magician

The King (Prince) of Disks can be a bit of a cunt for matters of Earthly stability. He's a shake-up, a corporate higher-up who stops in to ensure things are running smoothly and routinely finds issues. That said, that kind of pragmatic assessment can lead to enlightenment and enhanced prowess. 

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather Always Makes Me SMILE, Too

 

Ritual Howl's album Turkish Leather was released ten years ago on September 30th! Holy smokes. If you're not familiar, check out their discography on Bandcamp. Easily one of my favorite discoveries from the last ten years, for sure.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Last night K and I hit the Regal for Parker Finn's Smile 2. I'm not going to post a trailer because last week, before Terrifier 3, I noticed there was a HUGE spoiler image sandwiched in the quick succession of scenes they splice together, and that pissed me off.

That's not Finn's fault. I rewatched the first Smile Wednesday night, and I have to say, third viewing - first at home - Smile not only held up, but I now think it's one of the scariest flicks in recent memory. Sosie Bacon's physical acting - her posture, inflections and facial tics totally sell her anxiety as she spirals, a descent made all the worse by the fact that the movie begins with her patient demonstrating the exact blueprint for what she's about to go through. 

Chills!

So how does the sequel hold up? Well, our theatrical experience ranks as the worst I've had in years, but that's definitely not the film's fault. Blame instead the groups of high school students who walked in and out of the theatre on almost constant rotations. I used to be the guy who would stand up and tell people to shut the fuck up when they were talking during a movie, but nearly coming to blows during James Bond: Skyfall (2012?) delivered the epiphany that I had become part of the disturbance. The theatre is my church, and I've learned to grin and bear it. It's not nearly as hard now that I rarely smoke before a theatrical screening. I have a much easier time letting periphery noise go when I'm not hyper-focused. Also, these kids weren't talking so much as just walking in and out of the theatre, so what do you say, anyway?

Back to the actual movie. Smile 2 is fantastic; it's not as good as the original, but that's just my opinion. My Horror Vision co-host Missi felt this one matched the first film. One thing's for sure - Parker Finn is a Director I will follow from here out. He used the considerably bigger budget for this sequel to really expand his idea in a way that transcends the genre completely and sets up the next movie with a scale that makes me extremely excited.

In a nutshell, it might not make my top ten of the year - a hard thing to do in 2024 from the sheer volume of awesome films released so far this year - but it's fantastic, moves the series forward in a brilliant and exciting way, and should definitely be seen in a theatre. Just try to get a screening where the brats are sure to still be in school. 

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

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Read:

I finished my third re-read of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station yesterday. Totally blown away again!

Now, onto Laird Barron's Not A Speck of Light, which I received from Bad Hand Books a week or so ago and have been chomping at the bit to read. I'm four stories in and it's just so wonderful to have new stories by one of your favorite authors. Barron's prose wraps around my brain like a massive alien wyrm slowly strangling the light from the sky. 

 

The plan is to read a couple of short stories in this new collection and then start Ivy Tholen's latest, Mother Dear, which I am also dying to tear into!

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Playlist:

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Sandrider - Godhead

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Beastmilk - Climax

Skinny Puppy - Remission

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

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Card:

Today's Card is IV: The Emperor.

"The Rules that Govern All Life."

That's how my entry in the Grimoire begins. Also, it should be mentioned that this is obviously a very Martial card; Crowly writes about this tying into the card as the representation of the physical embodiment of authority. He also drops this little gem:

"... Aires means Ram. At his (the Emperor's) feet, couchant, is the Lamb and Flag, to confirm this attribution on the lower pane; for the ram, by nature, is a wild and courageous animal, lonely in lonely places, whereas when tamed and made to lie down in green pasture, nothing is left but the docile, cowardly, gregarious and succulent beast. This is the theory of government."

No wonder my friends and I tend to regard this card suspiciously! One of the interpretations I lean toward with The Emperor is "It will be decided for you," which sounds a bit chilling now, when juxtaposed with the above passage from The Book of Thoth. Anyway you cut it, the fourth Atu is not a great card to see in many respects, unless of course, you need a third party to get something done for you. 

Seven Days of Shane: Day 3 - Nipple Erectors - All the Time in the World

Before The Pogues, MacGowan fronted a band with Shanne Bradley called The Nipple Erectors (subsequently shortened to The Nips). I first discovered this group in the late '00s, thanks to my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Shin. This was when my Pogues fervor was at its zenith. The album Bops, Babes, Booze & Bovver stayed in my old school iPod for a few years (I never had a physical copy), but disappeared somewhere along the way. Pretty cool to find them again now, on streaming, and be able to hear the record start to finish (I believe what I had was missing several tracks). 

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Watch:

Julien Temple made a Shane MacGowan documentary a few years back, and I'd kind of forgotten about it until Mr. Brown brought it up after the man's passing. Back on my radar, I fired Crock Of Gold up last night on HULU.

 

I liked this, but I do feel there's a lack of third-party, objective material. Maybe the point was to allow Shane the glory of self-mythologizing himself; why deny the man, he'd been in an awful state at the time this was made and it may have been Temple and Producer Johnny Depp's idea to just bask in the legends that already exist anyway, letting MacGowan grow them to whatever size he saw fit. Not a bad gift for a man trapped in a wheelchair at the end of his life, reaping the rewards of a life of debauchery. It's not like the film doesn't set this up in the first few moments - Crock Of Gold opens with an animated smattering of all Ireland's mythological creatures and folklore, from Leprechauns to Cú Chulainn to Children of Lir to... Shane being handpicked by god to be, "The man who would save Irish music." And, in a way, he totally did. Anyway, if you're a fan or even just curious, this is a nice walk through the man, the myth, the legend.

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Read:

Somehow, I forgot to mention the pre-order the good folks at Bad Hand Books have going for next year's new Laird Barron collection. Not a Speck of Light comes with a signed bookplate.

Sixteen new stories? Wow, and while it's not going to be easy to wait until Q3 next year, talk about arriving at the perfect time of year! Pre-order Not a Speck of Light from Bad Hand Books HERE.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Various - Joe Begos' Bliss Spotify Playlist

Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

Shane MacGowan and the Popes - The Snake

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Card:

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

• Ten of Pentacles (Disks)

• I: The Magician

• XIV: Temperance (Art)

Trump One two days in a row, eh? I'm apparently missing something...

Ten of Pentacles indicates Earthly completion, and I'm betting that has to do with (again) my folks finally being into their place. The recurrence of the Magus, however, indicates something that will need adjustment or patience (not that there's not been call for quite a bit of that already). 

I tend to remain hung up on the "Art" aspects of Trump XIV, however, there is an element of "Things falling into place." So again, the Magician is the missing piece of the puzzle.

Suitable Psychos Howling in the Wind

 

Mr. Brown clued me into the fact that Jenny Lewis dropped a new record last week. Totally not on my radar at the moment. I've given Joy'All a few spins - if you dig Jenny Lewis in general, this is for you. I have to say, I'm not taking to this one as easily as I have with her older stuff. Last night I revisited her 2006 collaboration with the Watson Twins (who also, it turns out, have a new album dropping next week!) Rabbit Fur Coat and it reminded me just how much I love Lewis's work. Her voice, lyrics, and arranging.  All that's there on the new album, however, those qualities feel somehow muted. It may just need more listens, which I will surely give it over the upcoming summer evenings. That said, starting with 2014's Voyager - which I adore - I feel like Lewis found a 'sound' and has not veered too far outside it. That's cool. But I miss the days when she mixed things up a bit more. Either way, new Jenny Lewis is still an event to be happy about. You can order the record HERE.

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Watch:

Fangoria posted a teaser for Joe Lynch's new film Suitable Flesh; I've been chomping at the bit for this one, so despite my recent tendency to avoid trailers, I watched this. 

 

It's perfect - gives nothing away, floods us with fantastically menacing images, and then disappears. Not unlike a Lovecraft entity, really. That's it for me, though; I won't be watching any subsequent trailers. No word on exact release dates yet, but if this goes wide, I'll be there day one.

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Read:

I received and blew through Laird Barron's new Isaiah Coleridge novel, The Wind Began to Howl. Outstanding, as always. I'm amazed at Barron's ability to crank out insanely readable iterations of this character that are primarily stand-alone, modern detective stories, but also have begun to develop not only a big picture but a bridge into the Barron mythos we know from his short story collections and previous novel/novellas.  In my memory at least, back at the outset of Book One: Blood Standard, there was little to no direct sign of his strange, dark 'Outer'. It's here in spades now, although introduced and perpetuated in a way that doesn't fully immerse Coleridge in that world. Yet.

 

The Wind Began to Howl is published by Bad Hand Books and is available wherever books are sold!

 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Colter Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

Bria - Cuntry Covers Volumes 1 &2

Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber II EP

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - The Endless Multitude (pre-release single)

Godflesh - Purge

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

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Card:

I'm feeling a pull back to the Thoth Deck in a way I haven't in quite some time. It's good to be back; I love this deck. First one I owned and really, the only one for nearly twenty years. Missi's homemade Raven Deck and Grimm's Bound are the only other Tarot I own. There are thousands of gorgeous or intriguing decks out there, but I collect enough stuff.

Anyway:

• 7 of Swords: Futility - a conflict reaches a natural pause.

• Knight of Swords - Probably from exhaustion at fighting

• 9 of Cups - an understanding, peace or elation is achieved. 

There are a couple open loops in my life at the moment; none directly affect me, but all affect folks I'm close to. Not entirely sure what this Pull is referencing. 

I dabbled in the first act of Blood Magick I've tried in a long time last night. This was to help a friend, and I should say upfront, I use my own blood; I don't hurt other living things. I don't know that this Pull is referencing that. Full disclosure: I never 'ask the cards a question' before I draw. I just draw and read and usually, the result makes its subject known instantly. But this... I'm not sure how to read yet.

Interesting note: Blood begets blood. I had dark, bloody A.F. dreams all night. Two relatively close friends - no one I have ever mentioned in these pages - died of a knife puncture to the throat. This happened in the old practice spot my bands had in the 90s, the studio apartment above my parents' detached garage. The scenario began with one friend, and the dream jumbles events so I'm not sure if it was a suicide or somehow I was the killer. After the agonizing event of the death, we (no idea who the 'we' were, but it was definitely more than just me) placed the body in the bathtub with ice, then fretted over contacting the person's spouse. This was the worst part of the dream, because it seemed even dream me was unsure if I was responsible for the death. Then, in true dream logic, the body became that of someone else entirely.

This did nothing to abate the horror.

The dream flit in and out of several iterations of waking, so that by the time I awoke this morning, I was unsure if the chronology of torment it imposed on my psyche was from last night, or if the dream has been recurring for several nights and I just haven't remembered it until now. As of typing this, I feel relatively certain this only occurred last night. 

Disturbing, yes. However, like bad drug experiences, I dig nightmares. I'm always able to crack a piece of my consciousness off and have it observe from a third-party perspective, even while the rest of me shrieks in horror. 

 

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