Night Riders on the Deadstream

 

I've been leaning heavily into talking and posting about Rein, the first band I caught at Coldwaves 2022 Night One, opening for The Revolting Cocks Corpse, so I wanted to get in at least one about the other, penultimate band that night.

I know nothing about Stromkern going in, but man did they make an impression Excellent stage presence, and the drummer absolutely slams in a kind of Martin Atkins way, Andrew Saga switches back and forth between keys and guitars with ease, sometimes playing both to fantastic effect, all while vocalist/mastermind James "Ned" Kirby uses the entire stage as he blasts through his almost hip-hop-like approach to vocals. 

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Watch:

One of the flicks I'm bummed I won't be able to make at this year's Beyondfest is Joseph and Vanessa Winter's Deadstream.

 I've been hearing a lot about this in the Horror Community, and after seeing the trailer on the big screen last week, prior to both Trick 'r Treat and Dark Glasses, the film looks like it would be a ton of fun in a crowded, like-minded theatre. Alas, I can only manage so many shows while I'm in, and this one fell outside the logistics for my second week in LaLaLand. That said, Deadstream hits Shudder on the 6th, so that means I might be able to sneak in a home viewing while staying with my friends, who are both huge Horror fans.

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Playlist:

Pixies - Doggeral

Rein - Reincarnated

The Afghan Whigs - In Spades

The Flamingos - Best of Playlist

Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs (single)

Dead Milkmen - Beelzebubba

Revco - Linger Fickin' Good

Forhist - Eponymous

Anthrax - Worship Music

Antrax - Persistance of Time

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Card:

I usually read this as a sacrifice, however, this morning I'm inclined to read it as a suggestion to change my perspective to gain new insight. 

You Goddamned Son of a Bitch!!!

 

Flew into Chicago Midway this past Friday. Always amazing to be in Chicago, more 

so now that I live so close. I flew back out three days later on Monday, back to LaLaLand to work for two weeks. Of course, my boss is awesome, and when he asked me to cycle back in for a week to help out in-house, I asked if I could A) time my stint to coincide with Beyondfest, and B) if I could stay the entire two weeks of the fest. Once a patron of the festival himself (and the person who originally introduced me to it way back in 2012), he replied of course.

It's cool being back in LaLaLand, even if everything about the texture of the city reminds me why I left. There is garbage literally everywhere. Living here, you start to become desensitized to stuff like that; it's a mental and emotional survival skill to ignore crises like that. But once you're away for even a little while, you see it for what it is: an indicator that the population has given up because the civic leaders either don't care or have given up, and infrastructure suffers. This entire city just seems sad to me now. Filthy and dying. Of course, there are still bright bastions of joy housed here, a focal point for so much creative energy for so long now, but the top-heavy corruption that (probably) began with the old studio systems has finally evolved into something of an apex, and it doesn't look good.

Glad I got out but kept a tie. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live here (anymore).

But Chicago! Oh, the majesty! I had not driven on Lake Shore Drive for easily two decades, and I did so Saturday night, up to the Chicago Metro for Cold Waves X Day 1. We arrived late and missed the first few bands, but Rein was fantastic, Stromkern also fantastic, and Revco... well, talk about a dream come true, to finally see one of my favorite and most influential bands since Mr. Brown turned me on to them in High School. The night was perfect. The setlist:

Cattle Grind

Physical

Stainless Steel Providers

38 (with Richard 23)

Crackin' Up

Attack Ships on Fire

Something Wonderful

No Devotion

Beers, Steers and Queers

Do You Think I'm Sexy (with Duane Buford and Richard 23)

I might have mixed up the order a bit, but those are the songs.

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Watch:

My first Beyondfest screening is tomorrow night at the Aero in Santa Monica. Dario Argento's Dark Glasses:

I'm pretty psyched. After that, Saturday a bunch of us scored free tickets to Trick R' Treat on the big screen at the Hollywood Legion Theatre. Director Michael Dougherty will be in attendance for a Q&A. Pretty psyched. 

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NCBD:

Despite the fact that I will be visiting The Comic Bug on this trip, that's not until next week, and I won't be picking up any of the titles I have on my regular pull list back at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville. So this is what will be sitting in my box from this week when I get back to TN:

And Declan Shalvey's new book, Old Dog:

Mr. Shalvey is writing and drawing this, so I am very excited. I've been a fan of his since his work with Warren Ellis, particularly their six-issue run on Moon Knight (the definitive modern run, in my opinion) and Injection, one of if not my absolute favorite ongoing independent comic series in recent memory. Couple that with the writing chops he displayed with 2019's graphic novel Bog Bodies, and Old Dog feels poised to be an immediate obsession.

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Playlist:

Revco - Beers, Steers and Queers

Revco - Bix Sexy Land

Revco  - Linger Fickin' Good

Revco - You Goddamned Son of a Bitch

Thee Sacred Souls - Eponymous

Stereolab - Pulse of of the Early Brain (Switched On Vol. 5)

The Flamingos - Best of Playlist

Rein - Reincarnated

Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Brain Telephone

Stromkern - Armageddon

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Joe Begos' Bliss Playlist

Misfits - Static Age

Dio - Last in Line

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Card:

I haven't had the time to write or post an entry here (been working on this one since Monday), but I have been doing daily pulls:

Tuesday, 9/27/22:

Wednesday, 9/28/22:

Thursday, 9/29/22:

No time to try and read these all now, let alone write anything down, but I always try to record these here for posterity's sake.

Never Fight A Man With A Perm

 

Words of wisdom Lloyd. Words. Of. Wisdom.

I discovered Idles two days ago completely by accident. I think. Since setting up a work-from-home office in our new house, I've been using Spotify more than I ever have. I'll always prefer Apple Music for most things, but there's some great stuff about their competition, too, one of which is how bands will just show up in your 'feed' based on their algorithm. I know a lot of folks hate that word and practice, however, I have found that, while I would never want to solely rely on an AI to find me music, they sometimes come up with some good stuff I had otherwise missed.

 
Case in point, Idles appeared on my landing page yesterday and I have no idea why. But upon hearing "Never Fight a Man With a Perm" for the first time, I was in love. The album that song is on - Joy As An Act of Resistance - is start-to-finish fan-fucking-tastic! 

This video of them performing Never Fight A Man With A Perm literally gives me chills. This is a band that the architects of the BBC's Hyundai/ Mercury Prize in 2019 never would have dreamed would be performing on this stage; seriously, the incongruency of the elaborate look of the set with this snarling mess of a band brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. 

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Watch:

New Lucky McKee? YES!

 

I'm betting money this will be announced next week along with the second half of Beyondfest's tenth-anniversary line-up.

 

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Read:

An unexpected surprise yesterday at the comic shop:

With allusions to the works of both Dickens and Dan Simmons, and probably the most refined interpretation of Occult Victorian England since Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s seminal work From Hell, I am totally in for the ride on El Torres and Joe Bacardo’s new comic Phantasmagoria! Also, the title is quite possibly my favorite word in the English language, so bonus points on that. This one is from Scout Comics' Black Caravan line, which is really starting to beef up their presence in the Horror Comic Continuum. 

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Playlist:

Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance

Idles - Brutalism

Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs

Pailhead - Trait

Misfits - Static Age

Misfits - American Psycho

Godflesh - Pure

Revolting Cocks - Linger Ficken' Good

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Card:

Back to Missi's Raven Deck for a single card signifier today:

Equilibrium for sure. Yesterday everything was out of whack, and I'm weary of bringing that with me into today. I'll take this as a reminder of yesterday's pull - even keel. Weight (wait?) and measure. 

What Hides in the Forhist???

 

I only just learned that Blut Aus Nord's Vindsval has an album under the moniker Forhist. This is straight Black Metal, but it's my kind of Black Metal. I love this and have been unable to stop listening to it for the last few days. 

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Watch:

Very Curious about this one. I'm getting weird Titane vibes, only not in any discernable way. I'm starting to pay attention to what I think will play at Beyondfest this year, this is a certain bet (especially since they tweeted about it after I originally penned the above observation):

Doesn't tell You much, but it tells you enough.

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Read:

With all my flying all over the place the last few months, followed by the preparation for and actual move, I haven't been able to make any progress reading T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies, which I started a few months back. Mostly settled, I picked it back up last night and easily fell back into it.

As if I didn't have enough to read, I've also begun a re-read of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade The Changing Man, the classic Vertigo stalwart from 1990.

This book is nuts. The Kennedy Sphinx? Absolutely terrifying in the best possible way. I can't wait to dig back into the first three trades of this.

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Playlist:

Roy Ayers - Ubiquity

Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. II

Blanck Mass - In Ferneau

Forhist - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I

Led Zeppelin - IV

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Card:

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

Lost of conflict, sacrifice and planning may end up wasted in the end. How appropo, as I woke up with what I'm certain is COVID, thanks to K's Mom being diagnosed with it two days ago and then hobbling around the house, coughing without a mask.

He Will Show You Fear In A Handful of Dust

 

 Like me, you may have been recently introduced to U.S. Girls via Netflix's The Sandman, where episode five featured THIS song. That song is awesome and makes quite the impression, but in checking out the 2015 album it hails from, Half Free, I can tell you that every track is awesome. This one, in particular, made quite an impression on me. Am I hearing traces of Prince-like songwriting and arranging? And Portishead... definitely Portishead. Great vibe and ironic, because I was only just recently waxing philosophical about how I miss the Trip Hop vibes of artists like Portishead and Poe.  

We're six episodes into The Sandman, and it is spectacular. I never thought I'd see a proper, nearly panel-for-panel adaptation of this book that had such a huge impact on me as a teenager, but here we are. The way things are shaking out, it looks as though this first season will contain two of my all-time favorite/most personally influential issues - John Dee's 24 hours in the Diner and the Cereal Convention. Watched the Diner last night, and it delivered, so I'm psyched to get to the Convention. Being that I like this so much, I can't help but be reminded of last year's Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix, and the fact that they unceremoniously canceled it shortly after the first season dropped.

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Watch:

I believe this is the same trailer that ran post-credits at Ti West's X. I still can't believe how far beyond my expectations Ti West's return to cinema has been:

 

Now that I'm somewhat settled in TN, I'm anxiously awaiting this year's Beyondfest announcement so I can ready myself for the nightmare of trying to buy tickets for their tenth anniversary. I've been attending for all but the first year (didn't know about it then), and I'm certain Pearl will screen, most likely with West and Mia Goth in attendance for some form of Q&A. I'm banking on my boss flying me back to work in L.A. that week, so hopefully, this should all go kind of smoothly and not cost me much.

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Listen:

One of my favorite moments of my cross-country drive last week was while my co-pilot was sleeping in his seat next to me, middle-of-the-night, with the Weird Studies podcast on my earbuds (I use the ambient sound pass-through so I can hear everything going on around me). This episode, in particular:

 

Hearing Phil Ford and J.F. Martel discuss anything is an intellectually stimulating pleasure, but hearing them talk Twin Peaks? Priceless. That said, the conversation begins with Twin Peaks: The Return's infamous episode 8, but uses that as a jumping-off point to expound on the physical and physic changes in our reality that the Trinity Detonation ushered in. Their idea - which I will only very briefly summarize here in an effort to get you to head over to your favorite Podcast Platform and listen to the episode, is that using Lynch's Garmonbozia - pain and suffering - as something of a quantifiable metric, a particular 'flavor' of fear, a discussion can be had about how the world has changed since 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945.

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Playlist:

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's

Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

U.S. Girls - Half Free

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Card:

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

Now that I work from home - a scenario that has been slightly frustrating due to Amazon's delay on nearly everything I've ordered for my home office - the lack of a commute means I can make my daily Tarot pulls considerably more in-depth.

Starting in the Middle, with Past on the Left and Future on the Right, I'm reading this as my tendency to overthink and psychoanalyze everything has bound me. Somewhere inside that circuitous cavern of thought, however, is an epiphany, or at the very least a sublime moment of understanding. Applying a fresh perspective will open that up.

I think this is in relation to my home-from-home situation, which feels completely scattered at the moment. I need to build my space and from there, things will become better defined.