It's been quite some time since I've really gotten into Ween, which breaks my heart because at one time, and in some perpetually occluded way, they are and were one of my favorite bands ever. 

It started with Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween)'s Freeman album and hearing his side of the rift that had torn the band apart a few years prior. I wouldn't say I ever took Gene's side over anyone else's, but there was just something so disturbing about hearing the behind-the-scenes shit on this band known for reveling in intoxication that broke something in me. I wouldn't say anyone was at fault but Freeman himself - we all take responsibility for our choices - but it just left me cold. Then, when the band eventually reunited, I don't know, it just felt like the old, 'Ya can't go home again' rang true. 

Yesterday, a message from Mr. Brown about the new three-disc anniversary edition of 12 Gold Country Greats set something in motion, and I started listening to Ween and found I couldn't stop. I feel like I reconnected, but what's more, I realized something important.

Ween takes me to a place - a state of mind that I believe I share with my two best friends in the world - Mr. Brown and Sonny Vee. We all live in different places and can't see one another nearly as much as we would like (I could definitely make more of an effort), and so listening to Ween makes me reflect on missing our friendship in the day-to-day, as something I could experience in the flesh, and that leaves me sad. So, while I may be over whatever bullshit I had due to Ween's breakup (finally), I don't think it's likely I'll be doing more than what I did yesterday - the occasional freefall back into a state of mind that just doesn't gel with the world of 2026. Or, at least for the moment it doesn't.

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NCBD:

Another light week, thankfully...

Glad to have Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana back. Love this book, and I've been in the mood for Seaside Horror, even if this book is really more Horror adjacent. 

Unless something huge happens - and I mean HUGE - this is probably the last regular issue of MASK I'm picking up. I just don't really care about this end of the EU. I know at some point I'll at least partially regret this decision; these titles are all so tied together, after all, that we've seen Scrap Iron working for Miles Mayhem and Matt Trakker build his vehicles from Cybertronian technology. So logic dictates that 'crossing of the streams' will continue. That said, I did not have any MASK toys as a kid; I never saw the cartoon (that I remember) or read the comics. So I think I can let this one go.

Event Horizon: Inferno is the Event Horizon story I've wanted for thirty years. Destined to be in my top of the year. 

With all the crossover stuff happening around this book, I am very happy that Fraction and Jimenez appear to be keeping that from infecting the regular book. Because I really dig everything happening in this one. Issue 5 is still probably my favorite comic so far this year. So I'm invested. I just don't care about Commissioner Vandal Savage, Mayor Poison Ivy and the whole police angle. It feels too beholden to what Marvel just did in Daredevil: Born Again. I know this always happens with the big two: they share concepts like this. It's fine. I haven't minded what we've gotten of this so far in the book, and actually quite liked the idea of the police hunting the Bat-Family. Now that this plot point is turning into a full-on "Event," I just want it to stay the hell out of the book so it can focus on other things.

Like Minotaur, who my cohost Mike Shin pointed out is almost definitely an AI crime boss. Now that's not something I've seen anywhere else. You?

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Watch:

Monday night, K and I hit the Regal Mystery Movie: Horror Edition and were thrilled with an early screening of Eli Roth's Ice Cream Man.

This movie is f*cking bonkers!

Weapons meets Terrifier is my elevator pitch. Weapons, because there are children running around constantly causing mayhem; Terrifier because their mayhem consists of brutally murdering every adult they encounter in some of the most graphic ways I've seen on a big screen since Terrifier 3. This is not for everyone - I can't tell you how many people walked out of the theatre Monday night - but if you have a sick sense of humor like I guess K and I do, I think this will really make for a fabulous night at the theatre!

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Christmas, Bloody Christmas

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats

Ween - Featuring the Shit Creek Boys: Live in Toronto Canada

Ween - Live at Stubbs (Disc 2)

The Black Keys - Magic Potion

Alice in Chains - Sap

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

Gatta Merta - Black Hall (single)

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Card:

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

• Four of Pentacles

• King of Swords

• XVI: The Tower

New Music from The Veils!

Another fabulous new track from The Veils. I still haven't seen an announcement pertaining to a new album, but my eyes are open. 

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Watch:

Eli Roth is really hit-or-miss with me. When I first heard about his new film, Ice Cream Man, the person who told me about it described it as an adaptation of W. Maxwell Prince's Horror Anthology comic of the same name, published by Image Comics. Turns out that's not the case; this is a new, original film from Roth. And where, a few years ago, I would have approached a new Roth movie with more trepidation. After Thanksgiving, though, I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I can't say I've cared for anything else he's done movie-wise, but I love to listen to Roth talk, and his short-lived Las Vegas Goreatorium was one of my favorite things when I experienced it circa 2012.

This trailer does a good job of not oversharing or selling, but one thing really got me here - the blood snow angel. So yeah, I'll take two scoops of f*cked up sh*t on a waffle cone, please.  I just hope it tastes as good as that turkey from a few years ago.

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

sunn O))) - Loser

Flying Lotus - You're Dead

Boy Harsher - Careful

Émilie Leviensaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life

The Veils - Little White Bird (Fragile World) Single

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Card:

One card from my trusty Thoth deck for tonight, 'cuz I'm tired. 

Read between the lines.

Let's Have a Pulp Friday!

I dug out Pulp's Separations yesterday and just had an absolute blast with it. Forgot how much I love this album. Here's the "hit."

I still haven't been in the headspace to give Pulp's latest record, this year's More, a proper listen, but perhaps soon.

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Last night I drove an hour into Nashville to catch the new Joe Begos film Jimmy & Stiggs on the big screen. 100% worth it!

This movie is the fucking definition of balls-to-the-wall DIY. So loud, so neon, so METAL! Begos stars alongside Matt Mercer in a whiskey-drenched, cocaine-fueled fight to the death against aliens who invade his apartment and do some pretty heinous things to the two friends, the titular Jimmy (Begos) and Stiggs (Mercer). Fantastic on-screen chemistry. Like Christman, Bloody Christmas, some of the dialogue goes a bit off the rails for me (pun intended), but it doesn't matter. I'm in awe at the sheer force of will that is the Joe Begos filmmaking machine. See this in the theatre, and when you do, arrive early for the two fake trailers and stay late for the behind-the-scenes. 

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Playlist:

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Boredoms - Chocolate Synthesizer

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

lords. - bleeding out

Young Widows - Power Sucker 

Cryo Chamber - Echoes of the Hollow Earth

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part

Pulp - Separations

The Veils - Total Depravity

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1

BESET - Most Foul

HEALTH & NIN - Isn't Everyone (single)

NIN - As Alive As You Need Me To Be (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm just launched a Kickstarter for his new The Art of the Fae Bound Deck Art Book. Check that out HERE.

• Kings of Wands

• VIII: Strength

• VI: The Lovers

Drive, Strength and Passion. Three things I find myself contemplating A LOT. I have them, but do I have enough of them? Is this an eternal question all creators ask themselves?

Takes A Second To Say Goodbye To Thanksgiving

 

It took considerably longer than a second to say goodbye to U2 this week. After yesterday's early morning contemplation of their seminal 1991 album Achtung Baby, I found it impossible to shake the mood they set in me. That usually takes this route - Achtung to 1983's War. 

War will always be not only my favorite album by this band but one of my favorite records of all time. Over the years, I've grown accustomed to starting the record on track two, "Seconds," playing all the way through and then listening to the opening track, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," last. It's nothing against SBS; "Seconds" is just an instant time machine to circa 1987 when I first took notice of the band. I had a Junior High Music Teacher named Miss Mooha who was clearly an activist of some kind and brought the record in to play SBS for us, going so far as to pass out Xeroxed lyric sheets and use the time to talk about the conflict in Ireland and, beyond that, musicians who used their platform to try and make change in the world. Of course, at eleven years old, a lot of this went over my head. 

I always find it fascinating to juxtapose these two records by the band because A) they're my favorite records by them, and B) there is such a sharp contrast. To do so, one really need look no further than the band photos that accompanied the release of each record:

As I said in yesterday's post, I did not hold this change against the band. Part of that may be I was fifteen when Achtung came out and did not have the same kind of "identity politics" attached to them that I did to say, Metallica, whose change for the infamous black album eventually shattered the hold the band had on me up until that point. With U2, it all seemed to be coming from the same place somehow, and a lot of the differences would not become apparent to me until I really deep-dove Achtung Baby in directed juxtaposition to War. Also, at 15 in 1991, that puts me directly in the tsunami of the "Alternative" movement, and a lot of what was coming out just felt like part of that and somehow integrated with changes in my own life at the time.

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Watch:

If you are a Horror fan and have not seen Eli Roth's Thanksgiving yet, let me give you the best advice you're going to get for the next two months. Go see it in a theatre.

 

I guess this is a day of "juxtaposing" (or I just really like that word) because I'll say that, like many folks I've talked to about this, I was hesitant going in. I really dig Eli Roth as a speaker/personality within the Horror Community; however, other than his first film Cabin Fever, I've never liked any other movie I've seen by him. That said, I feel like there are legions of Horror fans who have clung to a hope that, since first seeing the 'fake' trailer included with Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse double feature, Roth would one day actually make this completely insane-looking film (that trailer is age-restricted and thus, only available on youtube). Well, he did, and it is one of the best Horror flicks I've seen all year and an absolute BLAST in the theatre. The moment it ended, K turned to me and said she was already thinking about when we could see it again (we had previous engagements afterward, or we would have seriously sat through it again right away).

To hear more about the flick, we did an episode on it for The Horror Vision. Warning - the first ten minutes or so is spoiler-free, then we segue into a full-spoiler discussion, but not without ample warning. Seriously, this one has a fantastic murder mystery undertone that you do not want ruined before viewing.

The Horror Vision is available on all Podcast Platforms or you can just click the widget in the upper right-hand corner of this page. There's also a YouTube version, although I was in a rush to get this one up and didn't do a hell of a lot with the graphics. 

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Read:

My reading has been all over the place of late, so I'm still working through Michael Wehunt's Greener Pastures. Sunday night, I had a lot of trouble sleeping and ended up reading what is easily the best short story I've read all year, Wehunt's The Dancers. 

As a forty-seven-year-old man and only five years younger than the protagonist, I found this story to be one of the most refreshingly nihilistic treatises I've ever read on middle age. Add to that the fact that about three-quarters of the way through, Mr. Wehunt completely yanks the rug out from under the reader and goes full-on WEIRD, and my first time through this story, The Dancers blew me away.

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Playlist:

U2 - Achtung Baby

U2 - War

NIN - Pretty Hate Machine

Your Black Star - Sound From the Ground

PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

This Movie Saved My Life Podcast Ep - The Killer vs Le Samourai

Rein - Reincarnated

BÉNNÍ - The Return

Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me

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Card:

From Aleister Crowley and Lady Freida Harris's Thoth Deck:

• Three of Disks - Works

• Ten of Disks - Wealth

• Six of Disks - Success

Second day in a row where we have two-thirds of the pull as Disks/Pentacles. Makes sense - as I've related here now for a few weeks, my concerns at the moment are very tangible, Earthbound. Seeing the Ten of Disks for the second day in a row, puts a pretty fine point on things, and I'm very much okay with that as I sit here typing this waiting for a call or text from my folks with an update on the now twice-postponed closing on their house. In times of uncertainty, one could definitely do worse than seeing threes, sixes and tens.

Eli Roth's Hemlock Grove

I've been looking forward to upcoming Netflix original series Hemlock Grove from Director/Producer Eli Roth. Now first, let me say that in the past I've been a little polarized on Roth. The guy definitely has the background; he interned for David Lynch and he's worked with Quentin Tarantino. As far as his projects, I really liked wry humor and nail-biting gore of Cabin Fever (the leg-shaving scene - oh my god!), but I absolutely HATED hostel. I've been told I should give it another chance, but I doubt that'll ever happened, I hated it that much. I ignored Roth's stuff for a couple of years after that.

Then came the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse flicks and Roth's Thanksgiving trailer, which I loved. Not too terribly long after that was news that Roth had embraced and would produce Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford's movie Clown -  a movie that originated as a fake trailer the creators had posted online and attached Roth's name to. Roth caught wind of it and instead of getting upset at the use of his name took it for what it was - a compliment as well as a tactic two creative guys had used to get noticed - and reached out to the creators. The movie is now set for release this year. 

How Awesome is that?

Finally, late last year while in Vegas we visited Roth's Goretorium exhibit. I was blown away. I'm still probably never going to give hostel another chance, but the guy has earned his place in my "benefit of the doubt" book and when news trickled down about Hemlock Grove - especially because I kept seeing comparisons to Twin Peaks - I was interested.

Well, below is the first footage released from the Grove, which lands all-episodes-at-once, on April 19th. Taken out of context it's a bit wonky, until the end that is. As far as werewolves go my first love will always be Dog Soldiers, but this looks like it will be pretty damn awesome.




You should follow this link to where I procured this footage from as bloodydisgusting typically posts the best horror stuff around!

Eli Roth's Goretorium

So December 21st is my anniversary (8 years!) and this year we drove out to Las Vegas. My wife is on some magic list to get suites at Luxor a couple of times a year for like thirty-eight bucks or something and we love to drive in for two days and then drive out. I always make an attempt to procure mushrooms for the journey but failed this time, which was a bit of a let down but hey, I was with my baby AND we got my good friend Mr. Brown to meet us out there, so I was in the best of company. Probably the best thing we did this time was the above - Mr. Roth's Goretorium is fantastic and well worth the price of admission (somewhere around thirty bucks). It's basically a haunted house with Hollywood-grade special effects and I loved every minute of it despite being a fan of pretty much only one movie by Mr. Roth to date - Cabin Fever. Hostel was, simply put, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. AT one point it had made me seriously dislike Mr. Roth (how do you apprentice/intern to David Lynch and then make a movie that bad?) but I have high hopes for Thanksgiving and just the amount of time, money and effort the guy puts into undiscovered talent and producing worthwhile projects shows he's a stand up guy.

Next time you go to Vegas, Mr. Roth's Goretorium really is worth a visit.