Relax - Creepshow's Back!!!

Rewatched Brian De Palma's Body Double last week in preparation for the deep-dive discussion we just did over on The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror. Man, I love this film. Body Double has to be my favorite De Palma film, and one of the things I love about it is the use of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax, a song I've dug since I first heard it as a child. Went looking for the video today, wondering if it might match up with the scene that features it in the film, but somehow it's actually a lot weirder than that! I must have seen this at some point in the 80s, but I definitely didn't remember what an odd spectacle Director Bernard Rose (yes, THAT Bernard Rose!!!) creates for the song. 

You can listen to that Body Double discussion on Apple Podcasts HERE, Spotify HERE, or pretty much anywhere else you stream podcasts.

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Watch:

Shudder is bringing Creepshow back for a fourth season! Here's the new trailer:

I'll admit, I'm excited despite the fact that each of the seasons so far feel like exercises in diminishing returns. Season One is the strongest overall season, in my opinion, but three had the best episode (Public Television of the Dead and its wonderful, Bob Ross-meets-Evil-Dead feel). Regardless of perceived shortcomings, I very much root for Creepshow, and am glad to see it coming back after a nearly two-year hiatus.

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Read:

Killing time Saturday afternoon in Chicago's south suburbs, I stopped in a Barnes and Noble for the first time in a long time. This particular store has been in Orland Park, Il, for years, and although my preferred big box bookstore environment was always the Borders that used to sit across the street, I've been in this B&N a handful of times. If you're familiar with the chain, you know that when you first walk inside most B&N stores, they have displays of their own publishing imprint, Fall River Press. These are normally public domain bargain books, but some of them are very nice. Case in point, this Hardcover H.P. Lovecraft edition that I picked up for $10:

This is by no means a 'complete' collection. What I've found with printed complete Lovecraft books is, they are so voluminous, the bindings are usually shite. This is a pretty smart-looking HC that collects six of HPL's more famous stories:

1) The Call of Cthulhu

2) The Colour Out of Space

3) The Haunter of the Dark

4) The Whisperer in Darkness

5) The Dunwich Horror

6) The Thing on the Doorstep. 

While I still consider the .99 "Everything" volume I have on Kindle (no bad bindings there, and it's really easy for cross-referencing between stories), it's nice to have six of the big ones on a slim, attractive bookshelf volume as well. 

 

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Playlist:

The Replacements - Tim

Hollywood Babble-On Ep. 406

Real Ones w/ Jon Bernthal - Living A Double Life: Lou Valoze

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

bunsenburner - Rituals

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Led Zeppelin - Presence

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Baroness - Stone (pre-release singles)

Ministry - Goddamn White Trash (single)

GnR - Perhaps (single)

Steely Dan - Aja

Sigur Rós - Ágœtis Byrjun

The Blues Brothers - OST

Les Discarts - Prédateurs

Alice in Chains - Sap EP

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Crime Weekly: D.B. Cooper A Man with a Grudge (part 1)

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Crime Weekly: D.B. Cooper Mystery Money (part 2)

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

            

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Card:

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

• 0: The Fool

• Three of Pentacles

• Ten of Pentacles

Lots of "Earthly" concerns, and that tracks; spent the weekend in Chicago for a wedding, however, a lot of the time was also spent thinking about moving my folks out of the house I grew up in and down by us. There's The Fool's new journey, Three's Growth and Ten's Endings/Closure all rolled into one!!!

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2019: February 17th - New Perturbator!!!

New track from Perturbator, who had previously stated he was done with the synth wave thing. This is definitely something different, and I'm hoping only one facet of what will be a widely different adventure for the musician, who is perhaps just as equally ambitious as he is talented. A good thing, for sure.

As for pre-orders, there's nothing listed on either the Perturbator or Blood Music bandcamps yet, but when I find something, I'll be sure to post it here.

Back in 2006, Scottish write Alan Campbell messaged me on myspace - remember that? - and, having noticed I talked about the work of China Mieville a lot, asked if I'd heard of his debut novel, Scar Night. Set in a city that hangs on massive chains above a bottomless pit, I really didn't need to read any more than that to seek the book out. Thus, my love of Campbell's Deepgate Codex series was seeded. Four books and five years later, I saw an announcement for a new novel and series go up, Sea of Ghosts: the Gravedigger Chronicles, Book One. Only problem was, for years I could not seem to get the book in the U.S.

At some point Sea of Ghosts fell off my radar, and remained obscured to me for some time. Now, a few weeks ago, I finally ordered a copy and, having received it yesterday, began reading it. It's good to be swaddled in Campbell's lush, fantastical prose again.

There's not a lot of fantasy I like, primarily because, from my experience, most of the genre is made up of authors who love Tolkien and want only to write inside his tropes. Hence, no matter how many people I drive mad with my resolve, I will never read or watch Game of Thrones. I'm sure they are excellent, but Knights and Dragons are most assuredly not my thing. It's been done to death. Mieville's take on fantasy - where everything is his own creation -  is more my taste, and I'd add Campbell and Peter V. Brett as similar contemporaries. Campbell's Deepgate Codex plays with the textures and aesthetics of Steampunk, for example, but never feels the need to limit itself by those aesthetics, preferring instead to incorporate them into the author's own unique world-building ideologies. And with his undermining explorations of the tenants of religion, political power, and military intelligence, Alan Campbell's aesthetics always engage and expand my own imagination, and quite often make me smile. I'm excited as pie to be back in one of his worlds again.

Playlist from 2/16:

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
David Bowie - Station to Station
Beastmilk - Climax
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil
Red Rider - As Far As Siam
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Pink Floyd - Animals

Frankie Goes to Hollywood? You mean, like Relax? Yep. How did that happen? Well...

Two nights ago K and I watched Body Double for the first time. I LOVED this flick; possibly my favorite De Palma film, or at least right behind Carlito's Way. Body Double is early, macabre thriller De Palma, and its tone is compelling and unapologetic for turning the camera's eye on a protagonist that is as seedy as he is well-intentioned. In the film, there's a sequence that utilizes pretty much the entire track Relax, and seeing it I remembered encountering the LP Welcome to the Pleasuredome on the shelves of a thrift store back in the oughts. The album art and design was involved, and I remember thinking it looked as though this band I only knew the one track by - a track I liked very much - may have had ambitions on a level similar to groups like early Genesis, or Pink Floyd. I'm not sure why I didn't buy the record that day in the thrift, but I'd always meant to get around to listening to a full album by Frankie, partially just because I don't know that I've ever spoken to anyone else who had.

So, spurred on by Body Double - a film I really can't say enough good things about - I used the good ol' Apple Music to listen to Pleasuredome yesterday. Verdict? Hmmm... not sure. Ambitious? Yes. Nobly so? Maybe not. Bloated with its own regard? Probably.

I may get back around to re-engaging with Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome some day, but in the meantime I'll still crank Relax whenever I hear it. Like now:



Card of the day:

I'm hoping this points to being back to all cylinders, and not the fact that in order to finally extricate this damnable flu, I need the help of a trained professional. I'll know by the end of the day, I'm sure.