2019: January 26th

I'm a pretty big fan of Jim Jarmusch the filmmaker, and Only Lovers Left Alive is probably my favorite of his films. But Jarmusch also makes music: sparse, eerie, haunted music. Lately, as I've gone deeper into his musical collaborations with Jozef Van Wissem, I've found my favorite of their work is the OST for the same film. The Only Lovers Left Alive OST is a deep dive record; despite the epic rock-dirge of the opening track, embedded above, this album pulls me down into what feels like a sacred, cavernous place in my psyche. A place daily life makes it hard to get to often. It's a great feeling, to connect with myself through music like this, especially when it's not dependent on the application of mind-altering substances to get there. It's literally just 'Press Play and Go.'

This past week, K and I went through the first season of David Fincher's Mindhunter series on Netflix. It is fantastic. I've heard some folks say this is 'boring,' but I don't get that at all. Fascinating is the word I'd use. And I often avoid sequence, *ahem*, serial killer stories because they disturb me too much. Something about the way this one unfolds is very balanced though, so that even though you go a lot of dark places, it's not all there is. Can't wait for the second season.



Oh! And Hannah Gross - who I got to know as the lead in Dead Wax late last year on Shudder - is a co-star, and she is terrific!

Playlist from 01/25:

Tool - Aenima
Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Explode into Colors - Quilts
The Effigies - Remains Nonviewable
Boy Harsher - Careful
Gary Numan - Replicas
Boy Harsher - Country Girl EP
Curtis Harding - Where We Are (Single)
Specimen - Azoic
David Bowie - Low

Card of the day:

Loud and clear. See, what's happening is, when I finished the book and began reading it to K, I expected to find some problems areas that needed edits. I made it through a near-pristine first act, only to get four chapters into the second act (of three) and get caught up in a chapter that I have now been re-writing for five days. It's all there, I just can't seem to get it fluid. There's a social obligation we have today, and I'd been wondering if I should skip it to write. This tells me my hunch is correct.

2018: December 31st

Easily in my top ten Horror of 2018, Graham Reznick's Dead Wax on Shudder is a descent into the danger and madness of the strange subculture that surrounds a record that can destroy you via Frequency Range Manipulation, as well as three mysterious records that surround the fatal prize. Everybody involved just kills it acting wise, especially lead Hannah Gross and Ted Raimi. Reznick was interviewed on the Shockwaves Podcast recently and he mentioned Mondo/Death Waltz would be putting out the OST sometime real soon. Needless to say, I'm checking the M/DW website daily.

Playlist from 12/30:
U2 - War
Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats - Wasteland
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
Pale Dian - Narrow Birth

Card of the day is being delayed until just before Midnight tonight.

2018: November 22nd

One of the best songs of the 90s, hands down. I unexpectedly realized I still had one more 33 1/3 that Brown lent me to finish before my trek home to Chicago in two weeks, so last night I started Gina Arnold's entry into the 33 1/3 series, a kind of contextualization of Liz Phair's seminal indie rock album, Exile in Guyville. More the story of the fictitious Guyville (not so fictitious) and the gender politics of the early 90s indie rock scene than the story of the album, and that's good. So far this is a fascinating read. Also, digging back into the era that surrounds this record made me reconnect with Never Said and Guyville in general, a song I've loved and an album I dig for a long time now, but one that hasn't received any recent rotation space in my audio life.

Joe Bob Briggs returns to Shudder tonight with Dinners of Death! I have to work early tomorrow, so I don't know how much I'll see tonight, but hopefully this will remain on Shudder in perpetuity, much like The Last Drive In has since back in the spring.



Last night I watched three-quarters of the Shudder original Dead Wax. LOVE this. Written and directed by Graham Reznick, whose name anyone familiar with Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix will recognize as most often helming audio departments on films. Great debut that's essentially a movie chopped into 10-18 minute episodes, Dead Wax is about a legendary record that does strange things to reality when played and the people who have sought it through the years. Think John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, but the world of rare record collecting instead of film collecting and you'll be in the ballpark.




Playlist from 11/21:

David Bowie - Low
Frankie Valli - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (single)
Deaf Heaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Bell Witch - Longing
Testament - Demonic
Boy Harsher - Face the Fire (pre-release single)
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man
Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified

Card of the day:

This is a direct response something outside of writing, so I'll take the advisement in silence.