I've been pretty well obsessed with Chris Isaak's 1989 album Heart Shaped World of late, and "Kings of the Highway" is the major impetus for that. This song is so fucking haunted it's unbelievable. For a song I'm fairly certain I never heard upon its release - I would have been thirteen, and while I knew and loved "Wicked Game" as it drifted from radios and tv alike that year, I didn't go any deeper than that - the soft, airy guitar, minor chord inflections, and perfectly reverberated drum kit creates a sonic space that, in my head, summons so many sense memories of my life at the time that it's as close to time travel as I've come. This goes beyond nostalgia; this is something else, and it's tied into how a scrawny Midwest metalhead kid came into contact and fell in love with David Lynch later that same year. Maybe these reveries of the past are firing off, careening backward through the time stream and colliding with my younger version, effectively priming me to be in the right place at the right time, that fateful Sunday night when I wandered into the living room and plopped on the sofa across from my Dad, only to get slowly engulfed in what he was already watching - ABC Sunday night movie, the two-hour pilot of David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks.
Whether that's massive hyperbole or not, one thing is for sure. I'm not gonna talk about Judy.
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Speaking of Peaks, here's a head scratcher Mr. Brown brought to my attention recently. CBS recently stopped the 26-year, independently run Twin Peaks Fest. The plan, apparently, is for an official Fest to start up this spring, held in all places, Graceland.
Yes. That's right. Graceland.
Now, at first this just strikes me as all kinds of sad and bizarre. The sad doesn't alleviate the more I think on it, but the Tennessee part eventually turned on a little light bulb. If you've kept up with anything that's happened online with Twin Peaks over the last few months, there was a flurry of activity back in early October that suggests there may be more Peaks coming (read the article HERE), and while it's all conjecture, what if some element of the next chapter takes places in Graceland?
At this point, only the Owls - and probably Carl Rodd - know for sure.
**
NCBD: I had a handful of items to pick up, and with my pull slowly being split between The Comic Bug and my DwC co-host Mike Wellman's new Atomic Basement shop in the LBC, I've been behind. Here's what I landed in the last week:
Black Stars Above has now replaced the in-hiatus Criminal (see below) as the most bang for my buck every month. The story continues to unfold in a creepy, confounding way, and this third issue incorporated about six pages of prose. No idea where this is going, but it also occurs to me we have a Lone Wolf and Cub-like scenario similar to what Disney did recently with The Mandalorian, except replace Baby Yoda with what I'm kinda thinking of as Baby N'yarlohotep.
Going back and re-reading all of this currently Criminal "Cruel Summer" arc in anticipation of this final issue, I have to say, Brubaker and Phillips may have topped themselves. This one is Grand, capital "G" intended.
A new book in Joe Hill's Hill House imprint at DC, I had to bite back my aversion to monthly big two books when I saw A) Kelley Jones is the artist on Daphne Byrne, and B) there were no snickers ads in the book. Not really many ads at all (still more than there should be for a book that sports a $4.99 cover price). So far, I'm hooked.
Gideon Falls is as fascinating as it is perplexing, and with the conclusion of this fourth volume, I intend to go back and do a serious, deep-dive re-read before the new arc arrives in May.
TMNT continues it's fracturing of the traditional mores and paradigms of the TMNT universe, and it's just as good as it's ever been.
And with that, we have no more Trees on the horizon for some time. Sad face emoji.
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Wednesday, February 5th my good friend Dave flew out for an extended weekend of not one but two of the three Mr. Bungle 'reunion' shows happening here in LaLaLand. The show is, exactly as the remaining members advertised in advance, a full-on thrash show, so I wasn't expecting to hear anything other than their Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny demo - re-worked by Dunn, Spruance, and Patton with the help of Anthrax's Scott Ian and Fantomas/Slayer's Dave Lombardo. This first show was great despite the fact that for a large part of the show, all I could hear was Lombardo's drum kit, and I'm looking forward to tonight's, hoping there will be some covers or surprises exclusive to each night. The highlight of Wednesday's show for me were never-before-played Eracist, and Speak Spanish or Die, a re-worked version of the title track from SOD's 1985 debut album.
That's the entire set on youtube, however, I've dropped you in at the aforementioned cover song.
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The first 'teaser' from the next AHS dropped recently. I must say, if Season 10 is even half as good as Season 9, I will be happy.
It feels a little early for this to have teasers for this one, and I haven't looked around online for synopsis, but this looks like a very high concept season.
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Playlist:
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Chris Isaak - Eponymous
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism
Testament - Night of the Witch (pre-release single)
20 Watt Tombstone - Wisco Disco
Cash Audio - The Orange Sessions
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
Simon Bonney - Past, Present, Future
Zonal - Wrecked
Mol - Jord
Steely Dan - Aja
Billy Joel - The Stranger
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Zombi - Shape Shift
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Jenny Hval - The Practice of Love
Boy Harsher - Careful
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death
Faith No More - King for a Day
**
Card:
Sevens follow me these days. Even in the Major Arcana, I'm never far from Netzach. There's a little lesson about this card, that you shouldn't confuse the armor you use to face the world as your real self. I'm not sure how that relates exactly, but it's good to contemplate that from time to time.
