Danzig - Blood and Tears

 

I'm not going to say where I unexpectedly heard this song married to Horrific imagery recently, but man was it effective! Danzig's first four albums stand apart from everything else he's done; as much as I like some of the records that came after Chuck Biscuits, Eerie Von and John Christ left the band and Rick Rubin stopped co-producing, there's just something so perfect about the heavy blues influence on those first four. Of those, Danzig II: Lucifuge will always be my favorite. I'll never forget the first time I saw a friend's older brother wearing a Lucifuge shirt - I didn't know what it was and it kind of scared me in that 80s/early 90s way of, "What the hell is this guy into?" 

That's probably around the time the album came out in 1990 and I would have been sixteen. Before the internet, and not so far removed from all the weird fears being a small child during the Satanic Panic instilled in me for a short time. There was a certain... haunted feeling to that era. Everything from the tv news to paperback books to Inside Edition (remember that pile of sh*t?) told you there were secret societies of Satan Worshippers in every neighborhood, just waiting to sacrifice any unlucky folks they happened to target to their dark lord. I actually pine for that feeling now, but not in the way so many do by rejecting everything known in favor of their opinions, fears and fantasies, and empirical data doesn't mean anything to our society as a whole anymore. Anyway, I cracked Lucifuge out and listened to it over the weekend and it doesn't disappoint.

 

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Watch:

This trailer for the new film Pandemonium popped up in my youtube feed two days ago. I have no pre-existing knowledge of this one, or anyone involved in making it, but I'm definitely intrigued. Here's the trailer I half-watched:

Also, wanted to point out that, thanks to Warren Ellis's newsletter Orbital Operations, I've found the first watchable version of Andrej Żuławski's On the Silver Globe on youtube I've encountered. 

I've seen mention for a few years about this popping up for years, but whenever I go looking for it - an irregular occurrence for sure, but one I do periodically undertake, I find ones with awful pictures. Not this, which you can see HERE. I haven't sit down to watch this yet, but it's in the cards for the next few days. 

Thanks to Heavenisanincubator for putting this one on my radar to begin with.

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Read:

I am about a third of the way through Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless and I am here to tell you, it's fantastic!

Full disclosure: We recently invited Ms. Tholen to be a guest on The Horror Vision to discuss her novels, and she not only accepted but also sent us digital advance reader copies. That's a moot point, though, because I'd been waiting for this one regardless. If you read the first, this is a great continuation. If you haven't read the first and you love Slasher Flicks, THIS is for you. 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Moon Wizard - Sires

The Veils - ...And Out of the Void Came Love

The Damned - Night of the Living Damned (Thank You, Mr. Brown!)

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Ike Reilly - Poison the Hit Parade

Mike Doughty - Live From Ken's House

Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge

Nikki Lane - All or Nothin'

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Man Man - On Oni Pond

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz

Led Zeppelin - In Through the Out Door

Jimmy Buffet - Good Luck

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Card:

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

• Ace of Cups

• X: Wheel of Fortune

• III: The Empress

A bird' s-eye view of this (all I have time for at the moment) is quite soothing to a massive stress bomb that has gone off in my life. Ace of Cups is the card that anchors this to a positive interpretation, something I really needed at the moment. Emotional Breakthrough, "Karma" and Fertility, in an abbreviated three-card reading. 

2018: May 26th 8:48 AM

I'm very late to Alkaline Trio. My friend Chris introduced me to their music a few weeks back and I'm surprised at how much I like it. At the time Crimson was released, I would not have been able to overcome my prejudices against anything that carried an air of slickly produced 'punk rock'. Now, I recognize this for what it is - good, fast rock with no agenda, politics or accoutrements. I'm loving this record - it's been a great sonic tool for writing.

Playlist from 5/25:

Danzig - Circle of Snakes*
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Chromatics - Cherry
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
David Bowie - Low
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I)
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.

I wrote just over 3K words yesterday, after a full day's work. Not too shabby. Today shooting for 4K.

I subscribed to Shudder recently, and have been digging the app's selection. Checking off a lot of longstanding,"I need to see that" boxes. Last night it was Adam Green's Digging Up the Marrow and Until the Light Takes Us. The night before was a new movie, Sequence Break. This is Grahamn Skipper's directorial debut; it premiered in LA last fall at BeyondFest and I had really wanted to go, but that didn't work out. Reminiscent of Beyond the Gates and eXistenZ, Sequence Break was a great watch, even if it was a little bit awkward at times (mainly just one character, the enigmatic man, was a bit off, a kind of contrived Deus Ex Machina that revealed the lines of the writing almost every time he appeared to catalyze events - there was a better way to do what he did). Still, I enjoyed Skipper's first film and look forward to his next. Definitely a fun watch with great visuals and some awesome Body-Horror elements, a la Cronenberg's mid-period stuff.



Card of the day:

The perfect Mother. Hmmm... perfectly fits what I'm writing, I'll leave it at that. Also, it ties directly into Mr. Danzig, doesn't it? Weird, since the bit below this with the asterisk is something I wrote yesterday in the morning, after listening to Circle of Snakes on the way to work.

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* Other than albums 1-3 and 7, my relationship of Danzig's records runs the gamut from begrudging to tentative. I'd not listened to this one in some time, and as much as I still enjoy 1000 Devils Rain and Skull Forrest, the production on this one is so fucking bad it actually makes me angry. I'm pretty sure in the case of opening track Wotan's Procession, the subpar guitar sound is a nod to the Black Metal of Norway, which I remember from seeing Danzig live for this album, was heavily reflected by his "Blackest of the Black' Tour lineup. But the rest of the record? No excuse, can't even hear parts of the chorus vocals on several songs, including the aforementioned Skull Forrest. Yo Glenn, hire a fucking producer, eh? Also, is Forrest purposely misspelled?

Danzig & Doyle Golden Gods: FULL SET!!!

That's much better. Fucking Death Comes Ripping into Skulls? Nice. Thanks to stormrider3 for posting this. Check out their youtube page I linked to above - lots of footage from last night.