Japandroids - Chicago

 

I'm way late in posting this first single off Japandroids forthcoming and final album Fate & Alcohol, out October 18th on Anti. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I've been meaning to post about this one for a while. Eight Eyes is the feature film directorial debut from Austin Jennings, Producer/Director of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince. 

This looks Grimy A.F.! Seriously, I'm kind of wondering if it will end up crossing some of my lines, but we'll see. This is the first original co-production from Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, the newly-launched production arm of one of the boutique home video label, along with Shudder and Not the Funeral Home. 

You can order the Blu-Ray from Vinegar Syndrome HERE, and you can read more about the film on the official website HERE. 

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Read:

Somehow, I missed the fact that the new Brubaker/Phillips HC Graphic Novel hit the stands on Wednesday. I was actually only a few hours back from Rick's Comic City with my weekly pull when my good friend Chris Saunders messaged to see if I'd snagged it. One quick message to Rick's in the morning and I had Houses of the Unholy waiting for me in my box. 

Another fantastic novel from this team who seem pretty much unstoppable at this point. I wanted more from the ending, but then, I'm also always okay with ambiguity, so aside from that minor issue that can easily be forgiven, this one rocked. Essentially a tale about the aftermath of America's great Satanic Panic in the 80s, this goes to some interesting places, and in typical Brubaker fashion, the plot takes turns you'd never see coming. 

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Playlist:

Primus - Antipop

Primus - Green Naugahyde

The Cops - Free Electricity

Thievery Corporation - The Outernational Sound

Z-Rock Hawaii - Eponymous

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Behind the Music

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

PJ Harvey - Stories from the City Stories from the Sea

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

Nico Vega - Lead to Light

Danzig - Black Aria

Danzig - Black Aria II

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

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Card:

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

• Four of Cups

• V: The Hierophant

• XIV: Temperance

The luxury of establishing a routine that works specifically in my own private microcosm has to spread out and establish itself after a new idea is added. Whatever this is, I'm assuming it's writing, Process, and that my own will slip a bit before recovering. Once back online, however, I should be stronger. 

Abby Sage - Obstruction

 

Abby Sage dropped a new single earlier in the week, and as usual, it's pure bliss. I really don't know much about Ms. Sage, other than the handful of singles she's released over the last couple years have all been excellent. "Obstruction" is the latest and an advance from her first long player, The Rot, due out March 1 on Nettwork - which looks to be a very different label than it was back when I was familiar with it. Pre-order the digital album HERE. As far as I could find, there is no physical copy pre-order at the moment. Either way, I am very much looking forward to this one.

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Watch:

Two nights ago I "rewatched" Christopher Ganz's 2006 cinematic adaptation of Silent Hill. Here's the trailer Scream Factory used when they released their edition:

I say "rewatched" because, although I know I watched this back circa 2017/2018, I found that other than the beginning and end, I remembered very little of this one. I'm wondering if this was one of those times I had a "forty-minute blink." Very possible. I remember liking the film, but not much else, so this was an especially crisp viewing, and I very much dug the experience in a way I know was lost to me on that previous attempt. 

I am unfamiliar with the games, so take that into account as I say that visually, I feel like Silent Hill is the culmination of many of the mid-to-late 90s aesthetics that were introduced into popular culture with the NIN "Happiness in Slavery" video and that accompanying video 'album' it was released on. The twisted, barbed wire, industrial rot of the 90s, the fallout from the posh-n-clean dream of the 80s. All of it really works quite wonderfully in this film, and although some of the CG doesn’t quite hold up, I would argue most of it fairs considerably better than a lot of computer FX we saw in Horror at the time.

 

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Read:

New Drinking with Comics went up last night.

I really can't recommend Where the Body Was enough. Another fine fantastic original HC GN from Brubaker & Phillips.

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Playlist:

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Black Flag - Everything Went Black

Tamaryn - The Waves

Justin Hamline - A New Age of Ruin

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP

Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent

Sleaford Mods - Nudge It (single)

Various - January 2024 Playlist

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Card:

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

• Seven of Cups 

• King of Cups 

• Eight of Cups

First, yes, I have shuffled these cards quite a bit. It's weird how this is a new deck to me, and it continues to behave that way. I feel like it's not so much that the cards aren't shuffled, but that it feels like it needs to yell in order to get my attention. Inherent in its DNA, being that it's all about, well, turning the amp up to eleven?

I'm reading this in a different chronology today. Starting in the center but moving directly to the right, we have a path through the Sephiroth - Victory to Splendor. This is a viable path for working through the states of the mental architecture inside ourselves. The King of Cups then tells me to come ready to hone emotion with Intellect, that will be the method by which I reach those states.

Is this a nod to heading back to work? A lot of the issues there are resolved, as most of the problems are no longer with the company. There is one conflict I anticipate, however, I don't see it being quite so difficult. Maybe. Or, this is a strategy. I've said I want to be a bit less social with my time there; I want to see my friends, but I don't want to go out every night for the next three weeks. I'd really like to spend some time working on the book, using the change in environment to my advantage. Perhaps if I combat the emotional need to be social with the intellectual need to write - well, saying it like that, it all kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

Poni Hoax

 

A couple years ago, while watching the extras on my then-newly received copy of Severin Video's edition of Alex De La Iglesia's Day of the Beast, I noticed one of the film's crew members wearing a Poni Hoax t-shirt. I'd never heard of the band, so I looked them up on Apple Music and then promptly forgot all about them. Until recently. I still don't know much about the band or their discography, but I will soon remedy that. I do know that the entire self-titled record from 2006 is fantastic, combining Post Punk DNA with throbbing synths and moody keyboards. 

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Watch:

Last Friday, K and I made it out to see The Menu. 

I'm posting the trailer here, but I will say, this one was over-marketed in my opinion. You may have noticed that since moving, I go to the theatre more than ever before, and I must have seen this trailer before every movie since August. If you're as sick of it as I am, no need to watch it again, as I'm merely posting it here for posterity's sake.

I dug the film, although I had my issues. 

The plot of The Menu is exactly what the trailer hints at, which I found to be a little bit of a disappointment. You get what you pay for, sure, and maybe in this day and age I've become wrongfully indoctrinated to expect a 'twist' or some sleight of hand in the narrative. Not so here. I accept this and move on, except that doesn't gel for me in regards to the end of the film. I think anyone that goes to see this film will expect Anya Taylor-Joy's charater to live, but being that the plot is what it looks like and Fiennes character has assembled all of these folks to end their lives makes me feel like the movie doesn't earn the right to let Margo live. I totally get the mechanics behind "The Cheeseburger," however, it just kinda feels like cheating, or maybe better put that the film doesn't have the heart to live up to its convictions. It's funny, because I was certainly rooting for ATJ to live, but when I got what I wanted, it felt hollow.

 

Oh well. All in all, a good film and a nice night out at the movies. 

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Read:

Last week, I mentioned finally receiving my copy of Brubaker and Phillips' new Reckless book, Follow Me Down. I have to say, this series is fantastic, containing now five of the best graphic novels I've ever read.

I adore everything about this series. The format is a massive win for comic fans: the fact that Brubaker and Phillips have proven the concept of releasing Hardcovers every six months instead of serializing floppies for eventual collection just proves that there are a lot of people willing to pay for this kind of thing. 

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

Rezurex - Skeletons

Scratch Acid - The Greatest Gift

Team Sleep - Eponymous

Gang of Four - Return the Gift, Part 1

The Juan Maclean - Happy House (Matthew Dear Remix)

Rein - Reincarnated

Poni Hoax - Eponymous

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light

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Card:

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

Seven of Pentacles/Disks again, eh? Hmm... Well, the card I started with here, the Three of Wands, popped out of the deck while I shuffled, so that seems the point to which the others refer. Three of Wands often asks the question for you, a sort of, "How true to your ambitions/inner map are you at the moment? Seven of Pentacles denotes difficulty in material or "Earthly" matters, and in this case, the wheel tells me I may need to make an adjustment and wait out the ramifications before things realign with how I want them to be.

Greg Puciato's Fucking Content

 

As if I'm not completely overtaken by my love of Greg Puciato's debut solo album Child Soldier: Creator of God, the former lead singer of Dillinger Escape Plan has put out a new, multi-media package. Available from his own Federal Prisoner label HERE, Fuck Content is a video/audio release featuring a ten-song live set and five new studio tracks. I love Puciato's music, but I've also become quite a fan of his aesthetic. All the glitchy, seizuring graphics, the black and white digital abstractions that almost resemble some cyberpunk version of newsprint. It's all very fitting for the noisy/melodic mash-up that defines this first album's sound, so the idea that his follow-up release is an audio/visual thing really just makes sense. Also, not nearly enough musicians do this.

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Read:

I finished my re-read of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. It'd been over ten years since I read this the first time and inspired by the film, I decided to revisit, not remembering a lot of specifics, except that the movie is very different. Still, I really enjoyed both. After that, I picked up that new Brubaker/Phillips Hardcover Graphic Novel Reckless, expecting to read it in several sittings. Nope. I blew through Reckless non-stop, and even though I just got done telling everyone Pulp is their best, Reckless comes in ahead of that one by about 100 miles. 

This book is the perfect iteration of these gentlemen's ongoing collaboration, and if this is the case, we have nowhere to go but up. Hot damn, go buy this and read it now; Reckless is FANTASTIC!

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Watch:

The Mandalorian's second season ended last night and I am going to feel every day between now and season three. I am absolutely floored, not only at how fantastic this show is, but how John Favreau has completely undone my hatred of star wars - a hatred rooted in a betrayal, the complete undermining and convolution of something that should have been so simple, namely, making new star wars movies. This veritable disgust that I feel for the franchise began to sink deep into my blood three years ago, when I sat in a movie theatre in LaGrange, Illinois and watched the trainwreck that is The Last Jedi.

Disney + has really been a gamechanger for the fan-driven content previously only associated at such a high level with movies released in megaplexes. If you watch The Mando show, you're missing something great if you skip the end credits (especially on this last episode. Whewww! and on that, I will say no more). When you watch all those names and roles scroll up your screen and realize that these television shows Disney is producing are every bit as accomplished as major motion pictures. That in itself just blows me away, the fact that Disney is so big they can change the game this much (also, I secretly hope all the Marvel/Star Wars stuff will go this route and we can go back to having non-blockbuster movies in theatres in a year or four).

Anyway, Favreau really should be crowned king Geek for what he did for starting the MCU with Iron Man and now reinventing and, frankly, saving Star Wars from itself by taking it back to its roots. This final episode brought me to tears. Not just because of the story, but because finally, after twenty years of new star wars material, SOMEBODY GOT IT FUCKING RIGHT.

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Playlist:

Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen

Opeth - Deliverance

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once

Preoccupations - Eponymous

XTC - Drums and Wires

Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Squeeze - Argybargy

Slayer - Live Undead

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Devo - Going Down (single)

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Various Artists - Joe Begos's Bliss Spotify Playlist

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Code Orange - Beneath 

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Card:

 

A solid foundation for a solid trilogy. That's what I've been thinking about as I approach a stopping point in Shadow Play Book Two. I have to wind this plot down just right by the end of this section of three sections, so after I do one last post-Beta Reader edit on Murder Virus and release it, I can hop back into Shadow Play and really make that third act SPRING.

Isolation: Day 136 - New Sumac

A couple years ago, I caught Sumac live opening for Converge. Fantastic band. I kind of forgot about them after that, but with this lead track off their forthcoming album out October 2nd on Thrill Jockey - Pre-order HERE - I'm all in.

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NCBD:

Finally! We haven't been waiting for this new Brubaker/Phillips graphic novel for very long, but it's felt like a millennium! These guys are aces, and if you subscribe to Brubaker's email newsletter, you will have seen his announcement that they are releasing three original graphic novels over the next year as part of a new series. He hasn't released all the details yet, but he did include a few pages of the finished product, and it looks fantastic. Of course.

I'm a bit on the fence with this one, but I'm absolutely down to give Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips' That Texas Blood the benefit of a few issues to lock into place.

I LOVE this cover! So old school, black and white TMNT. This book just gets better and better, breaking new ground with world building no longer beholden to the old iterations.

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Playlist:

Mitch and Ira Yuspeh - Seven Doors of Death OST

Godflesh - Streetcleaner

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

JK Flesh - Depersonalization

Baroness - Gold and Grey

Blueneck - Repetitions

Primus - Frizzle Fry

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

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Card:

I was super excited to draw a card this morning from my new deck, one my good friend Missi colored for me. The deck is just the Major Arcana, but that's super cool. I know a few people who only draw with the Majors, and I've kind of always wanted a deck to do that with. Broadstroke answers can be insanely helpful.

Of course I shuffled the hell out of the deck - I could feel the energy Missi put into these things - and what card flips out on its own and lands face up in front of me? The Fool, of course, because I'm beginning a new journey with a new deck. Not replacing my beloved Thoth, but adding to it, in a way.

I've never been one to have multiple decks, but this is special and I love it. Look at how gorgeous this card is! I'm christening this deck the Raven Deck, after Missi. 

Isolation: Day 103 Doves - Carousel

A few days ago, Doves released the first track from what will eventually be their looooong awaited fifth album. "Carousel" is the first since 2009. I'm a huge fan of these guys, in particular, 2000's Lost Souls. The song "Rise" from that album has somewhat of a recurring role in the novel I just finished writing, which will be out later this year, and which I still don't have a title for. Serendipitous then, that this new music drops when I'd gone back into something of an extended Doves mood.

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Already primed for another narrative podcast to listen to via The Magnus Archives - which I mentioned here a few weeks ago - my good friend Missi recently turned me on to Qcode's Borrasca. Cole Sprouse stars and produces - you might recognize the name as the actor who plays Jughead on Riverdale. While I've never been able to get into that particular show - despite my curiosity about its second season having what I've read described as a 'Giallo' thread in the plot - I'm extremely impressed by everything about Borrasca. At first it seemed a little too "Young Adult" for me, but that isn't the case at all as I've gotten through the first five weeks of what I'm assuming is the first season that's dropping now, new episodes every Monday.



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NCBD - nice to have this back, eh? I've got some books this week, and one from last week to grab. Here is what's going to be my haul tomorrow:

So nice to get back into this one. There was a moment a few issues back where I thought Gideon Falls might have lost me. No dice. I'm so ready to go deeper into this world:

A new one with art by Jacob Phillips, son and collaborator of one half the dynamic crime fiction duo Brubaker and Phillips. Very much looking forward to this, and I'm hoping for more of that substantial backmatter that makes these books well worthwhile reading month-by-month.

Waiting four months or so since TMNT 104 has been difficult. That issue set up such a rich new world for the brand that I'm even more excited than before with where this title could go. Also, mutant metal bands? Fuck yes!

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Now that Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In is over for another year, what the hell will I do with my Friday nights? Well, I recently signed up for HBOMax, and despite my annoyance that it does not work with my firestick, K and I decided to make Fridays Turner Classic Movie night, because TCM is one of the properties lumped in with the sub. There are a lot of movies on there, and being that K is a HUGE fan of old Hollywood, this is perfect.

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Playlist:

Perez - Les vacances continuent (single)
Deafheaven - Black Brick (single)
Deafheaven - From the Kettle Onto the Coil (single)
Apparat - Soundtracks: Dämonen
Baroness - Gold and Grey

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Card:

Seems about right, as since I have hit the beta reading phase of the new book, I've already spent an hour or so this morning dusting off something new-ish. Just a short story as a palate cleanser before I dip back into the outline for Shadow Play Book Three!