In just two days of sporadic listening, and after an initial and unfair dismissal upon its release earlier this year, The Body's I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer is shaping up to be in my top ten if not top five of 2018. This is a POWERHOUSE of an album, and
The new and final of my Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying installments is up HERE - I'm hoping my fellow writers at Joup jump on this column and make it their own. It probably will no longer be a regular publication, but irregular's just as good.
Playlist from Wednesday, 8/01:
Shockwaves Podcast 104 - Paul Tremblay
Tennis System - Pain
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Johnny Marr - Call the Comet
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
The Veils - Total Depravity
Card of the day:
This was apparently my friend Missi's pull today too. I don't have time to decode right now, but it's interesting we both received it.
I am kind of becoming excited for the Sandman Universe comic line, despite absolutely hating the most recent Neil Gaimen Sandman series Overture. I have to give it another try, if for no other reason than JH Williams III's absolutely mind bending art.
The penultimate edition of my Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE. Like last week, I didn't think I'd have one for today, as I've been so busy at work and have been nearing the completion of my short "Please Believe Me", however in the midst of my strange, heat-inspired sleep deprivation, I lay down for a nap yesterday after work and found myself once again unable to drift off. After about thirty rather frustrating minutes of this, I picked up the book I'm currently reading, Norman Mailer's The Deer Park, and read for a while. Prose like this always inspires me, and it wasn't long before I was up and seated at the desk in my writing nook. I put in my headphones, cued up Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's brilliant OST for The Social Network, and disappeared into my story for two hours. And this was the first session where I really nailed it. I mean, I'd been fretting over this story, because after several weeks of immersive work on it, I just wasn't nailing the tone I wanted. I didn't feel it coming together the way I'd felt all of the stories in A Collection of Desires come together, and as writing is a blind walk in a dark room - complete with a lot of bumping into things that smart - I was unsure if this one would ever get 'there.'
It's there.
I'm not all the way through it yet, but I'm halfway through a mostly polished piece, and hope to have it wrapped within the next few days.
Playlist from yesterday:
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Rollins Band - The End of Silence
Jimmy Scott - Greatest Hits
Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network OST
Card of the day:
Ready for some financial breakthroughs, that's for sure.
I've been on a bit of an Electric Mud kick and this was always one of my favorite songs and one of the ways I got into the record, as Cypress Hill sampled this on their first album, which I used to be quite the fan of.
Playlist from 7/11:
Greenhaus - The Unmistakable Sound of Sloth
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
Andre Previn & The London Symphony Orchestra - Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Sinister Whispers: The Wax Trax! Years
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE. Two more to go and it is officially retired.
Card of the day:
Let's take a literal interpretation, shall we? That'd be nice.
In light of recent news, let's have some Them Are Us Too, shall we?
I finally saw A Cure For Wellness. Visually I dug it, and three-quarters of the way through I was still more or less smitten. The last third, where Gore Verbinski couldn't quite decide how he wanted to end the film, just that he absolutely had to wedge in a series of scenes that all felt as though they ended the movie, really toppled the film under the weight of lofty ambitions. A Cure For Wellness just falls apart at the end, and it's a shame. Worth a watch for sure, but even at $9.99 I have buyer's remorse that I picked up the Blu Ray. #firstworldproblems for sure.
Also watched the 1986 Transformers animated movie - the ONLY Transformers movie in my book - for the first time in probably fifteen years. Still pretty damn awesome, and the soundtrack actually bothers me less today. All the ambient/synth-based stuff is great. The hair metal not so much, but again, it doesn't quite bother me as much now as it did fifteen years ago.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.
Playlist from 7/04/18:
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Joseph Loduca - Evil Dead 2 OST
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Card of the day:
Balance. Also, results from hard work or actualization from an idea. This is good; working on a new short story.
My friend Anthony recently turned me on to these guys. Powerful stuff.
Final issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' Kill or Be Killed came out yesterday. Great series. I didn't LOVE the end, would have found it more fitting with the severity of the series if it had ended at the end of issue 19, HOWEVER, I didn't not like having 20 end the series, and I get why they did what they did. Brubaker and Phillips have proven themselves so I don't question their work, I just enjoy it.
Watched a really cool little movie on Shudder last night. Sweet Sweet Lonely Girl is an exercise in both atmosphere and restraint, and it is definitely worth your time if you like retro, slow-burn films bristling with soft dread you know is going to go tits up before the end.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.
Playlist from Wednesday, 6/27/18:
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse
PLANETS - The Dark Woods
NIN - Bad Witch
FMLYBND - Letting Go
The Effigies - Remains Nonviewable
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Wrong - Feel Great
The Atlas Moth - The Ache of Distance
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
There is a melancholic air to this song that absolutely floors me. I love it SO much. Corniglia is a band that I happened across on LA's music treasure, KXLU, one morning on the drive to work, and in the two or three weeks since I just cannot stop listening to them. The album, self-titled, is easily in my top of the year. One of the things I like so much about this is, in some strange way, it reminds me of the vibe I had in my head in the early 2000s - a kind of delicious airiness that translated to a gray hopelessness as I graduated College: the future loomed before me, I buried a friend, and I felt more alone than ever. The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HEREand while it would seem to glorify a somewhat frightening moment in my life, it actually very much illustrates the loneliness I felt at that time. 2001-2002 was dark, and although I had an awesome band (The Yellow House) and awesome friends (particularly at that time Brown, Tim, Sonny, Grez, Dennis and Dave), I was somewhat adrift on a mindset so bleak that it spurred me into frequent drug use and several bouts of totally vapid sex, both very much unlike me. And some how, I hear elements of that hear.
I'm digressing, or maybe I'm not.
My point is that music is the same as all art in that, to modify a famous saying, the beholder gets out of it what they put in. That is to say, there is often baggage you bring with you when hearing a new band, new song, new album, and that baggage - snippets of color or image associations, emotions, whatever form it takes - shapes how you hear that music and, ultimately, what it will mean to you. What's even more interesting is your interpretation could be light years away from what was happening in the artist's head at the time - it doesn't matter. Having also made music and talked to people who got something out of it that I had never anticipated or intended, I can tell you that just the idea that something you made could have such a multi-textural effect on another soul is rewarding beyond description. So, while Corniglia may not have intended the melancholy associations I ascribe to their sound, I'm sure they won't mind if there music drives me to stay awake long past when I should have my head down, trying to capture in words something they have made me feel with their song.
Playlist from Odin's Day, 6/20/18:
Danzig 6: Satan's Child
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
David Bowie - Reality
Nothing - Downward Years to Come
Various Artists - Reservoir Dogs OST
Corniglia - Eponymous
Card O' the day:
The Lovers again, and how it currently applies to my life is still escaping me. I need to make time to look further into this. Perhaps I will ask Missi.
Cracked this out yesterday. First time in a long while. Always really liked this album and this song.
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE to read.
Playlist from June 13th:
Les Claypool - Of Whales and Woe
Deafheaven - Honeycomb single
Deafheaven - Canary Yellow single
Corniglia - Eponymous
Junior Jr. - Obligatory Demo
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Lustmord - Dark Places of the Earth
James Brown's Funky People - Part 3
My good friend Ray sent me an Apple Music link to this album quite some time ago and I only just now got around to working it in for listen - when I'm writing everyday as I have been, spending so much time dialed into a particular frame of mind, I curate everything I listen to pretty rigorously. Thus, trying something new - especially if it's something I'll love - might totally skew my routine. I tried two new things yesterday - Dessa's Badly Broken Code, which is fantastic but completely out of my element at the moment, and Nabihah Iqbal's Weighing of the Heart. The latter instantly bewitched me, and it fits right in where I need it to, so it's been on heavy, heavy rotation all day and will most likely stay there for some time. Above is my favorite track, thus far.
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.
Playlist from Odin's Day, 6/07/18:
Pigface - A New High in Low
oOoOO & Islamic Grrls - Faminine Mystique
White Ring & oOoOO - Roses/Seaww - Emotion Single
Dessa - A Badly Broken Code
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Zombi - Shape Shift
Ghost - Prequelle
Card of the day:
Take the high ground for perspective. That might come in handy during the 4 hour meeting I have today at work.
On the way to work this morning, I put on Loyola Marymount's KXLU and heard Corniglia for the first time. This was exactly what I needed today. A gray morning, woke up late, desperately in need of more sleep than I've been getting - this just hit the spot. You can buy stuff at Corniglia's bandcamp
and they are also on Apple Music!
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up this morning, read it HERE.
Playlist from 5/30:
Opeth - Orchid
Opeth - Morningrise
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Card of the day:
This tells me I should eschew the after-work nap and write instead. I'm exhausted, but I am on an incredible roll! I re-outlined the project on Monday - which took pretty much all day - and now it's just a matter of realigning what I've already written and then ticking off the boxes. Feels good.
Chris from DwC and I will be attempting to do our The Genesis of Preacher show again this year. Last year we got hit with a 'Cease and Desist' thing for using footage from the show, and that kind of took the wind out of our sails for a bit. Also, I was doing the Twin Peaks: Evolution of the Arm, and DwC, and working and writing a book, so that show just died. Not this year. Now I'm just hoping the show actually incorporates SOMETHING from the fucking comics this year; as much as I have enjoyed what they've done, I got a bit fatigued last season. If this trailer is any indication, I should get my wish.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying just went up. Read it HERE.
Playlist from 5/23:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Alice Glass - Alice Glass EP
Chromatics - Black Walls EP
Twin Peaks Playlist
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Card of the day:
Going to interpret this visually today and say I need to have another ~3K word day writing, as what I'm reaching for is well within reach (that about 45K words in ~38 days).
I only knew about the surprise Dead Cross E.P. because Tommy still runs the got-damned best music blog around over at Heaven Is An Incubator, otherwise, I would have missed out entirely. Here's an awesome new Dead Cross video!
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up. Read it HERE.
Playlist from yesterday:
Chris Connelly - Phenobarb Bambalam
Chris Connelly - The Tide Stripped Bare
Nachtmystium - Man Made
Nachtmystium - Doomsday Derelict
Nachtmystium - Reign of the Malicious
Peter Gabriel - Us
Brand New - Daisy
Eagulls - Eponymous
Friday the 13th and I'm going to see the Soft Moon!!! Here's some awesome F13 stuff to enjoy:
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.
Playlist from Thursday the 12th (a mention that will become ironic later this year):
Odonis Odonis - Hollandaze
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Ben Frost - By The Throat
Monolord - Rust
Pigface - A New High In Low
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (Concert Film)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Card of the day:
Always nice to see this one, especially when I just received the proof of my first book cover! Should I reveal it yet? Naw... not just yet.
