David Bowie/Brian Eno - Neuköln Remastered

 

Being that David Bowie was not only born but also took his exit from our Planet on this week, I'm doing another edition of David Bowie Week! For today's post, I pulled the remastered version of "Neuköln," originally published on 1977's collaboration with Brian Eno, Heroes. I LOVE the arranging on this one, especially Bowie's Sax. Some interesting tonal ideas.

Heroes is a great album, but it could almost be pragmatically divided into two different playlists, one for the 'songs' and the other for the instrumental suites like "Neuköln." Such a haunting atmosphere to these passages, while the songs draw on a lot of the musical ideas/subsequent tropes being formed in the late 70s. Likewise, the Eastern influence of the instrumentals and overall world themes (

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Watch:

A few days ago I fired up Shudder.TV to see what was playing and caught Writer/Director Liam Gavin's 2017 film A Dark Song. Here's a trailer:

I caught this once before, maybe three or four years ago. I really dug it at the time, and it totally holds up upon second viewing. Mr. Gavin clearly knows his way around the Occult, or at least he researched the hell out of this film. Also, I may be off base, but feel like I detect some Warren Ellis influence here. Maybe I'm just running an unconscious parallel to Ellis and Mike Wolfer's Gravel series from the 00's - also kind of a Mercenary Magician, although in Gravel's case, Combat Magician would be a better description.

Wow. I just realized how much I miss Gravel.

How has it already been almost twenty years since this and Doktor Sleepless? 

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Playlist:

Screaming Females - Desire Pathway

Fever Ray - Radical Romantics

David Bowie - Heroes

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

Wayfarer - American Gothic

The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn?

The Afghan Whigs - In Spades

The Afghan Whigs - Do The Beast

Damone - Out of the Attic

Yawning Balch - Volume I

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Card:

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

• VI - The Lovers - Influence or inspiration

• Ace of Wands - Essence inception

• III - The Empress - Fruitfulness

The big pinion in the interpretation for today is choosing to read The Empress as Fruitfulness, an association I often forget or disregard altogether. It fits in with all the other ideas attached to this card, though, and it shows here that I need a little something new to get back on track writing. Being away from home for so long, it would be damn easy to fall out of the habit of writing. Not gonna happen, however, I think I need to lean into a new idea briefly in order to get my momentum back up. I haven't written since Friday. I brought a nice microphone with me so I could record myself reading the current version of Black Gloves and Broken Hearts, a part of the process that can be cumbersome, but that is also one of the most beneficial elements of my edit strategy. So while I'll be doing that at night, I think I'll take some time this afternoon to start up a new Nosleep story I've had percolating in the back of my brain. My first, fairly successful three-part serial on Nosleep, I Got a Deal On My New House Because Someone Committed Suicide in the Garage really inspired me, as I feel like it's some of the best short-form writing I've done to date, and I've been wanting to kind of re-create that. Sure, the Nosleep Community is fantastic, and provides instant validation to writers if they take to your story, which might sound lame at first, but that validation can be used as fuel for stepping up projects.

Isolation: Day 178

Struggling a bit to get into the recent Jaye Jayle, so I ended up going back to 2018's No Trail and Other Unholy Paths. That led me to this. Very cool to see them in action.

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Watch: Finally sat down and watched Z on Shudder last night. I really liked this one. There was some great, sustained tension, and one scene in particular really affected me in a way that resonated long after. 

      

 

Also, K and I had a 'nefarious mansion' doubleheader across two nights over the long weekend. We kicked it off Saturday night with this classic which I had never seen but K swears by. She's totally right, too. April Fools Day is definitely not your ordinary 80s Slasher flick. Which, of course, made me like it quite a bit. 

 

 And Sunday night it was the always amazing Clue!

   

Love that one, as it's got such a great cast who all turn in iconic performances. 

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Playlist:

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Nirvana - Nevermind

Zeal and Ardor - Vigil 

The Clash - London Calling

The Obsessed - Lunar Womb

Ainoma - Necropolis

Brand New - God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me

Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
 

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Card:

Okay, now this is getting crazy.

I have to dial back in. I did a fairly decent job tonight, hoping I can plow through after the return to work tomorrow. Back is better with some anti-inflammatory meds the doctor gave me, so that's not really an excuse right now. 

Isolation: Day 174 Cowboy Bebop OST on Vinyl!

I've been meaning to post about this all week! I'm in the middle of a re-watch of the Cowboy Bebop, and on a lark - and because lately, Saturday nights after midnight I tend to go buzzed record shopping online - I looked up the constantly out of print soundtrack for Bebop and found there is a new pressing up for pre-order RIGHT BLOODY NOW!!!

I ordered mine from the evil empire HERE, but if you have another source, there may be an alternative. All that really matters is I will finally own this one. The music Composer Yoko Kanno and Seat Belts did for this series is among my most favorite music in the world. I can't wait!

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Reading: 

I have fallen in love with Mirka Andolfo's comic Mercy. Look at these covers!

Art is not usually the factor that pulls me into a new book, but it convinced me to pick up the first issue of this one a few months back. Well, more than a few. I let the rest slide, but recently made it back into Atomic Basement Comics - I'm lucky enough to have two comic shops I love near me, it's just the Bug is literally walking distance from my crib, so my pull at Atomic sat lonesome since this whole Pandemic began. Anyway, I picked up my stash and there they were - four more issues of Mercy. It's not just the art - this one is a sly, period piece horror story that reminds me more than a little of Mike Mignola and Troy Nixey's Jenny Finn or even Joe Hill/Laura Marks/Kelley Jones' recent book Daphne Byrne. Polite society in what I think is late 1800s Washington state, with a tentacled monster(s) preying on lords, ladies, and orphans alike! Can't recommend this one enough.

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Playlist: 

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Rezz - Mass Manipulation

Sam Ewing - The Shed OST

Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split

Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

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Card: 

 

Persistent, eh? Persistent creativity perhaps? While it's true my creative impulse has lately been curbed by persistent back pain, I had a good little session on Shadow Play Book Two this past Wednesday, enough to get me stoked for the possibility of a deep-dive on this upcoming holiday weekend that begins, well, today!

 

See you, Space Cowboy...

Isolation: Day 171 - Mike Doughty returns with Ghost of Vroom

 Not sure anything could have made me happier than finding out that Mike Doughty has a new project named Ghost of Vroom. Doughty's solo career is great, but I've kind of always had trouble getting past the dissolution of Soul Coughing, a band I would count as one of the most influential bands of my young adult era. Being that Ghost of Vroom feels more like it's in that particular wheelhouse, I bonded with Rona Pollona pretty much immediately. Also, what a great concept for a music video!

The EP, Ghost of Vroom 2, drops on mod y vi records this month, and was produced by Mario Caldato, Jr., better known as former Beastie Boys DJ/Producer Mario C.!

You can pre-order Ghost of Vroom HERE.

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Watch: 

Finally got to watch Frank Sabatella's The Shed. I really dug this one. It seemed like a love letter to Fright Night, without directly taking anything from it. Can't wait to see what Mr. Sabatella does next!

I just posted the trailer for this one a few days back, so instead, here's an awesome poster! The Shed is steaming on Shudder right now, go check it out!

Have to say, recently, there's been more than a few stories - movies, comics, books - that have made serious inroads in updating the zombie mythos, which is exactly what The Shed does for vampires, simply by going full-in on the classic Vamp lore. Nothing new here, except a new approach to handling the old bloodsucker tropes. Maybe others will follow suit?

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Playlist: 

Anioma - Necropolis

Faith No More - Angel Dust

The Clash - Combat Rock

Ghost of Vroom - Rona Pollona (pre-release single)

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Card: 

A bold infusion of creativity today. Hopefully.
 

Self - What a Fool Believes

Last week was a much-needed respite for me. My good friend Dave was out, and we bounced between hanging out at home watching movies and taking in two of the three Mr. Bungle Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny shows at LaLa Land's Fonda Theatre (one of my favorite West Coast venues). We drank a ton of great beer (me), and artisanal Gin (him), and generally just acted like two friends who don't see each other nearly enough and welcomed the chance to hang out and act foolish. And as usual when I see Dave, certain songs/groups followed us wherever we go. One of those songs was Michael McDonald's What a Fool Believes. McDonald had a bad rep for about a decade and a half, mostly thanks to a certain early 00s comedy, but whatever you feel about him and his music, he's a great song writer. This is the pinnacle of truth to that statement, but of course, Matt Mahafey makes everything better than it already was.

Especially with toy piano.

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Congratulations Joker. I haven't seen Parasite yet, but I was glad to see Todd Phillips' masterpiece clean up - including Hildur Guonadottir receiving best score. I'm still not thrilled about this one having a sequel on the horizon, but when you're film grosses over a billion dollars, well, that's inevitable.

Speaking of Joaquin Phoenix, one of the movies I watched while Dave was visiting was Lynne Ramsay's 2017 You Were Never Really Here. Not what I expected, and deeply affecting. I really enjoyed this one, despite subject matter that would normally make me cringe. Ramsay knows how to handle the intensely disturbing pockets of our world just right, and seeing this has me considering watching 2011 We Need To Talk About Kevin, a film I have completely avoided for eight years despite all the accolades, because, well, I'm a wimp and everything I've always heard about this one makes me think it will burrow way too deep beneath my skin.



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Five episodes into Netflix's Locke and Key and I'm digging it quite a bit. Quite a few of my friends are considerably more invested in the comic than I - I finally read the series this past December/January - and most of them have reservations. So far though, I'm enjoying it, even if it is a little more "CW" than it should be.



It's really interesting to see how Mike Flanagan's Haunting of Hill House and its success have affected titles that pre-date it in other forms, specifically here Locke and Key. The show definitely has a similar feel, and that's no accident. Flanagan's show was an unmitigated smash, and stands as one more example of why the man has become such a stalwart in the Horror genre.

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Playlist - pretty much all thrash of late, thanks to those Bungle shows:

SOD - Speak Spanish or Die
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Testament - The Gathering
Anthrax - Among the Living
Me and That Man - Songs of Life and Death
Slayer - Reign in Blood

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Card of the day:

Fertility and the idea of creating something new; propagation. Fits exactly with an insight I had into a stalled project from last year, which I may spend some time outlining soon.

2018: September 2nd

Thanks to Jeff at the Comic Bug I found Vaguess. As you can no doubt hear from the above, they are awesome. Guilt Ring will definitely end up on my favorite albums of the year.

Long day of work and sinus infection yesterday. This iteration of the infection proved what the previous one (last year) suggested: the Z-pack antibiotic no longer works. The doctor I saw at the urgent care the other day backed this up, saying he has seen approximately 40% resistance to azithromycin. As a back-up, he prescribed me a secondary prescription of doxycycline hyclate. All this just further proves a theory I have had for about fifteen years now - being that bacteria lives generations for every day we do, eventually it will outrun our defenses and conquer us. The widespread proliferation of antibacterial hand sanitizers and a quick-to-subscribe attitude to antibiotics has expedited that outcome, so be prepared. And if you can't seem to beat your sinus infections, use doxycycline hyclate - until that no longer works.*

I watched a 1971 Italian Giallo last night called Black Belly of the Tarantula. Talk about an awesome title! Directed by Paolo Cavara and scored by none other than the great Ennio Morricone, I loved the flick and intend on hunting down the score on vinyl. It is gorgeous! Here's a taste:



Playlist from 8/31:
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise degli ultimi Uomini
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Roxy Music - Eponymous
Windhand - Grey Garden (single)
Kyuss - And the Circus Leaves Town

Playlist from 9/01:

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Yonatan Gat - Universalists
Vaguess - Guilt Ring
The Veils - Total Depravity
BeNNi -The Return
Chris Connelly - Artificial Madness
Bowie - Stage
Bowie - Outside

Here's a card I haven't drawn since I began doing these daily pulls. See how intoxicating the visuals are, with their soft pastels and robust female figure? The surreal aspect, where her lower half almost looks more like a mermaid's fin than legs? Of the Swan - which Crowley refers to as a Pelican, and although that may have been his intent, Lady Frieda Harris most certainly painted a swan - tending its young is motherly. I'm interpreting this as my nurture of my ideas, which are essentially like children to me.

*Yes, I realize I am both lambasting and advocating the use of antibiotics here. I only use them for sinus infections, which I get about twice a year.