Wide Eyes Towards The Sky

Mr. Brown, our friend Hellman and I hit the Forever Deaf Fest this past Saturday, thus rounding out my Chicago stint. We bought tickets for Plague Bringer - their first show in ten years and the first time any of us had seen the legendary Chicago Industrial-Death band live.

Worth every f*cking penny!

Also on tap, we caught Year of the Knife, who were fantastic as well. 

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Watch:

There's not a helluva lot Marvel does anymore that I care about, but the 'street level' stuff still hits me in the old-school sweet spot. While I've only seen the first episode of Daredevil Born Again season two, that's a priority now that I'm back from my Chicago jaunt. There's confirmation that DD season three is filming now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has me cautiously optimistic, giving me the kind of anticipation tingles that the MCU used to give me during its first couple of years. And now... Frank gets an R-rated one-shot!

Bernthal IS Frank Castle to me, and I'm super excited about this. Also, there are apparently some easter eggs in here I would never have caught, one in particular that pertains to the possible eventual relaunch of the X-Men. I know, that's getting into the weeds of stuff I'll probably only avoid and/or be disappointed by. Still, as a now forty-year comic reader, this shit is hard-wired into my blood. 

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Read:

Huge haul this past Friday while I was hanging out at Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics. I'm not going to post everything, but here are some highlights:

Here's something I don't think I knew existed, but I had to have the moment I saw it. Props on Amazing Fantasy for always carrying not only the best selection of comics, but an awesome selection of non-comic stuff. 

Oni Press ruled 2025, but I don't think I've read anything from them so far this year. That changes now that I have the first issue of Time Daniel, David Andry and Maan House's Estuary: A Ghost Story. I know nothing about this, but it's another three-issue Oni Press Horror mini-series, so that's all I really need to know. Also, with a quick glance, House's art - which I am unfamiliar with - is as moody and atmospheric as the cover art promises, so this was an easy 'yes.'

I have wanted this for quite some time now, and I was happy to grab it at my favorite shop! Stokoe's art is beyond almost anything else, and when applied to Godzilla, well, it's unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Now here's the only one I had time to read while I was still in Chicago: Matt Kindt and David Lapham's Hero Trade: Project Chimera. I've been keeping an eye on Bad Idea's second-wave releases (I think that's what it's called; basically everything after Planet Death rolled out last year). Despite that, I don't remember hearing about this one. The cover caught my eye, and seeing Lapham's name made me open it and upon doing so, the B&W presentation made me think I was looking at Stray Bullets for a second. 

So yeah, it came home with me. 

This was originally published last year, two issues, and by the time you hit the end of the second issue, you know it's just going to be two issues. Further research shows that there are multiple series within the overall Hero Trade umbrella, starting back in 2020, all two-issue or one-shot length. I liked this enough that I'll probably keep my eyes peeled for future issues or any back issues I can find out in the wild.

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Jim Williams - Alpha OST

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Gorillas - The Mountain

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead - Amnesiac

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Eponymous

Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest

Anthrax - Anthems EP

Anthrax - Best of Both Worlds

Gylt - I Will Commit a Holy Crime: Tandem

Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies I Exist

Baroness - Red

Baroness - Chicago Music Exchange

Year of the Knife - No Love Lost

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God Baad Man

Anthrax - Spreading the Disease

Deftones - private music 

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Card:

Loud and clear.

Wishful Beginnings

 

Sunday night, I found myself in bed at 10:30 after getting another round of COVID booster earlier in the day. 

I felt awful.

Of course, this means I woke up somewhere around 4:45 AM on Monday. Yay. Not a lot good about waking up that early, especially when feeling like absolute crap. That said, this has happened enough over the last few years that I know not to waste the time. I make coffee, fire up the laptop and plug my headphones into my ears, eager for an aural world to impress itself upon the morning-thin physical one. In this particular case, I followed David Bowie into that special liminal zone he had such a way with in his later years. One track I've always shortchanged on 1997's Outside is "Wishful Beginnings," which despite knowing quite well, often gets overshadowed by the fact that it leads directly into "We Prick You," one of my favorite tracks on the album. Something about "Beginnings" really resonated with me in those grey early hours yesterday, though, and it stayed with me all day, a rather pleasant haunting.

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Watch:

Despite not having seen any of the Legendary Godzilla or Kong movies, I caught up on Legendary Studios/Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters over the last few days, and I have to say, I dig it. Of course, a lot of what I dig is the utilization of Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt, both cast to play the same character at different points in his life. There's one scene transition where the older Russell's face seamlessly dissolves into his son's, and it's pretty damn breathtaking. 

Seeing this, I've become curious enough to probably finally give the Legendary Studios' Godzilla and Kong movies a chance. I'd previously avoided these after being warned off 2014's opening film in the franchise by friends. I'd also made a subsequent attempt at viewing Godzilla: King of Monsters that failed. With the former, the hopes I held that Legendary would treat the iconic monster in a more "Cloverfield" manner were banished when friends saw it and basically reported back, "It's just another Godzilla movie." With the latter, I'm pretty sure I watched about half the film and there were considerably more humans than monsters, which seemed impossible based on the title and trailers (there's another reason to dislike trailers).

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Playlist:

David Bowie - Black Star

David Bowie - Outside

André 3000 - New Blue Sun

I really don't know what to make of this new André 3000 album. It's an easy candidate for "up its own arse," but at the same time, I think there's something there. Maybe it's because I was sick A.F. yesterday (still am) and needed something soothing, but I put in headphones and drifted into a bizarre inner space courtesy of four tracks with names like:

1) I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a 'Rap' Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time 

2) The Slang Word Pussy Rolls Off the Tongue with Far Better Ease Than the Proper Word Vagina. Do You Agree? 

3) That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn't Control ... Shit Was Wild

4) BuyPoloDisorder's Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered

I guess there's the relief that there won't be another "Hey ya" floating around out in the world like a viral STD for the ear, but I also have to wonder if this is a complete piss take. Actually, it's a lot like another project Mr. 3000 was involved with around the turn of the century, Guy Ritchie's Revolver, which I'm still not sure how I feel about, as it's either the dumbest movie I've ever seen or the smartest. 

Talk about walking a thin line.

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