I only just learned that Blut Aus Nord's Vindsval has an album under the moniker Forhist. This is straight Black Metal, but it's my kind of Black Metal. I love this and have been unable to stop listening to it for the last few days.
Watch:
Very Curious about this one. I'm getting weird Titane vibes, only not in any discernable way. I'm starting to pay attention to what I think will play at Beyondfest this year, this is a certain bet (especially since they tweeted about it after I originally penned the above observation):
Doesn't tell You much, but it tells you enough.
Read:
With all my flying all over the place the last few months, followed by the preparation for and actual move, I haven't been able to make any progress reading T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies, which I started a few months back. Mostly settled, I picked it back up last night and easily fell back into it.
As if I didn't have enough to read, I've also begun a re-read of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade The Changing Man, the classic Vertigo stalwart from 1990.
This book is nuts. The Kennedy Sphinx? Absolutely terrifying in the best possible way. I can't wait to dig back into the first three trades of this.
Playlist:
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. II
Blanck Mass - In Ferneau
Forhist - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Led Zeppelin - IV
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Lost of conflict, sacrifice and planning may end up wasted in the end. How appropo, as I woke up with what I'm certain is COVID, thanks to K's Mom being diagnosed with it two days ago and then hobbling around the house, coughing without a mask.
Like me, you may have been recently introduced to U.S. Girls via Netflix's The Sandman, where episode five featured THIS song. That song is awesome and makes quite the impression, but in checking out the 2015 album it hails from, Half Free, I can tell you that every track is awesome. This one, in particular, made quite an impression on me. Am I hearing traces of Prince-like songwriting and arranging? And Portishead... definitely Portishead. Great vibe and ironic, because I was only just recently waxing philosophical about how I miss the Trip Hop vibes of artists like Portishead and Poe.
We're six episodes into The Sandman, and it is spectacular. I never thought I'd see a proper, nearly panel-for-panel adaptation of this book that had such a huge impact on me as a teenager, but here we are.
The way things are shaking out, it looks as though this first season will contain two of my all-time favorite/most personally influential issues - John Dee's 24 hours in the Diner and the Cereal Convention. Watched the Diner last night, and it delivered, so I'm psyched to get to the Convention.
Being that I like this so much, I can't help but be reminded of last year's Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix, and the fact that they unceremoniously canceled it shortly after the first season dropped.
Watch:
I believe this is the same trailer that ran post-credits at Ti West's X. I still can't believe how far beyond my expectations Ti West's return to cinema has been:
Now that I'm somewhat settled in TN, I'm anxiously awaiting this year's Beyondfest announcement so I can ready myself for the nightmare of trying to buy tickets for their tenth anniversary. I've been attending for all but the first year (didn't know about it then), and I'm certain Pearl will screen, most likely with West and Mia Goth in attendance for some form of Q&A. I'm banking on my boss flying me back to work in L.A. that week, so hopefully, this should all go kind of smoothly and not cost me much.
Listen:
One of my favorite moments of my cross-country drive last week was while my co-pilot was sleeping in his seat next to me, middle-of-the-night, with the Weird Studies podcast on my earbuds (I use the ambient sound pass-through so I can hear everything going on around me). This episode, in particular:
Hearing Phil Ford and J.F. Martel discuss anything is an intellectually stimulating pleasure, but hearing them talk Twin Peaks? Priceless. That said, the conversation begins with Twin Peaks: The Return's infamous episode 8, but uses that as a jumping-off point to expound on the physical and physic changes in our reality that the Trinity Detonation ushered in. Their idea - which I will only very briefly summarize here in an effort to get you to head over to your favorite Podcast Platform and listen to the episode, is that using Lynch's Garmonbozia - pain and suffering - as something of a quantifiable metric, a particular 'flavor' of fear, a discussion can be had about how the world has changed since 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945.
Playlist:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Now that I work from home - a scenario that has been slightly frustrating due to Amazon's delay on nearly everything I've ordered for my home office - the lack of a commute means I can make my daily Tarot pulls considerably more in-depth.
Starting in the Middle, with Past on the Left and Future on the Right, I'm reading this as my tendency to overthink and psychoanalyze everything has bound me. Somewhere inside that circuitous cavern of thought, however, is an epiphany, or at the very least a sublime moment of understanding. Applying a fresh perspective will open that up.
I think this is in relation to my home-from-home situation, which feels completely scattered at the moment. I need to build my space and from there, things will become better defined.
One of my favorite tracks on Ghost's Impera, an album where I love every track. Is it madness to say this is my second favorite of their records (behind Infestissumam)? I don't care. I love this record.
So, after packing all day last Saturday, and loading all day Sunday, my good friend Keller and made it from LaLaLand to Clarksville, TN in a day and a half! It was awesome. We left immediately after packing (he helped a bit near the end, but I wanted him crisp to drive first-shift, knowing I would be exhausted. My Horror Vision Brother King Butcher and our friends Maddie and Kenta really threw down with us on the move - no easy task when you realize that K's Mom pretty much had, once again, not packed much of anything before day-of). Keller drove from 11:00 PM Sunday, 7/31, until around 7:00 AM the following day. We stopped at a gas station in Flagstaff, AZ, and accidentally hit the skirt of the truck on the concrete bumper guarding the pumps.
Thank god for that bumper.
This is a 20-Foot uHaul truck, and as you might imagine, there's a learning curve. However, everything was ultimately fine because we paid $199 for uHaul's Safemove insurance. SO worth it, and honestly, we were already paying close to $7000 for the truck - it would have been half the price if we trekked over the border into Nevada, however, the monetary benefits would not have outweighed the sanity benefits of picking that truck up down the street from our house.
So my first driving shift began about 7:40 AM (we hit a McDeath's near the gas station for a breakfast sandwich and COFFEE). I'd come to peace with going back to eating meat the week before - that's something I'll hopefully correct again soon, and while I try to avoid McDeath, you really have little choices on the roads between states, so again, I accepted the circumstances for what they were. That shift lasted fourteen hours - I was on fire! Seriously, I did not want to relinquish the vehicle. It was as though I had tapped into something. I've read and thought a lot about the hypnogogic states long drives induce, but this was something even more powerful. I've always thought there is Magick in this country, in the sheer size and what that does to our consciousness as we traverse it, and I think that's what Keller and I tapped into while driving.
So shifts:
Keller: 11:00 PM-7:00 AM
Shawn: 7:40 AM-9:00 PM (time shift puts us at local time ~11:00 PM
Keller: 11:30 PM-3:00 PM
..
I-24 kind of divides Clarksville into two textures. Where we stayed last month with my parents was West of the 24, closer to Fort Campbell, and it has a bit more of a hodge-podge feel. Still nice, but it's a lot of strip malls with Vape stores and Payday loans shops. East of the Highway is decidedly crisper. It's mostly new developments, new stores, etc. When K and I rolled into town with my folks at the end of June, we entered the city through the West side and honestly, it knocked our expectations down a few pegs. After getting priced out of the Murfreesboro/Lavergne/Smyrna area by Angeleno homeowners, seeing this side of Clarksville felt a little like a defeat. When our Realtor eventually explained the divide and showed us around the East side, we felt a lot better, hence why we bought the house that we did. However, as the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so I carried an almost unconscious, background anxiety around with me through the sale, inspections, packing, etc. When Keller and I drove in, Siri had us go a totally different way, using the 31, which is essentially a long, scenic surface street. A bit stressful with a 20-Foot truck, but it totally did the trick. All my low-level disappointment evaporated. I fucking LOVE it here. K and I sat outside on our back porch last night and watched a lightning storm.
Watch:
We haven't had the internet, and we haven't had any time to watch anything, but if all goes well, tonight we'll be digging into some of what we missed. Here's where I'm planning on starting:
And, of course:
While I've been fairly skeptical about what feels like the nearly impossible feat of adapting Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, I am hearing nothing but good things from people I know. Of course, it remains to be seen how I feel about it - as Sandman is one of my all-time favorite and most influential comics, but my mind is open.
Read:
Finally going to start reading James Tynion's Something Is Killing the Children, thanks to Gerald at the Comic Bug, who sold me a set of the first five issues with David Mack covers for half-price as a going-away gift. Look at these:
So far, I'm in. Issue One is a FANTASTIC set-up.
I'm glad I waited to start this (although for investment purposes, I wish I had that first-printing #1). Tynion's 3-issue The Closet just wrapped this past week, and it cinched him as one of my favorite current writers in comics, so I have a nice big run of SIKTC ahead of me to look forward to.
Playlist:
Orville Peck - Bronco
Ghost - Impera
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Zombi - 2020
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic
Calexico - The Black Light
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Ella Fitzgerald - Best of, Vol. II
The Bangles - Different Light
Anthrax - Worship Music
Cults - Static
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Deafheaven - Ten Years Gone
The Contours & Dennis Edwards - Motown Rarities 1965-1968
SOD - Speak English or Die
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
The first pull here was done on Wednesday, August 3rd 2022. The second night in the new house. K didn't arrive until the following night, so this was Keller and I hanging out after a second hard day of unloading. I had procured some Mushrooms from a friend back in LaLaLand and saved them for this trip, so when we knocked off for the evening, we opened fresh beers and ate about 2 grams each.
First, yes. I shuffled.
The fact that I laid down 13, 12 and 11 is crazy to me. I read this as the sacrifices I endured (saving $, dealing with all the difficulties of moving your life across country) to perform a massive life-changing ritual (the drive), rewards me. And I'm feeling that reward. Everyone loves this house: Keller couldn't get over it, Kirsten loves it, her Mom loves it, and Sweetie loves it. Oh, and I love it.
How about some Slayer to start the day, eh? One of my all-time favorite tracks from them.
NCBD:
Short week (thankfully):
After that big Silver Coin reread over the weekend, I can't wait for this new issue.
Watch:
I for one LOVED Halloween Kills. Now, granted, I really dug DGG's Halloween 2018, too, until I rewatched it at home. Not that I hated it or anything, but that second, smaller viewing revealed a bit of a lackluster sheen that was no doubt covered up by the big, opening night, theatrical viewing my friends and I had first with that one (listen to our just-after-leaving-the-theatre review HERE). And I've only seen Kills the one time, again in the theatre, although not on opening day. Still, I dug pretty much everything but the ending, which proved to be a HUGE question mark. It catapults this new requel approach into possibly super-supernatural territory, so I really have to see Halloween Ends before I can make an overall judgment, Either way, this is going to be fun as hell in the theatre come October!
Visceral, to say the least. And call me old-fashioned, but the old hand-in-the-garbage-disposal is always a gag that makes me flinch.
Playlist:
Bria - Cunty Covers Vol. 1
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak version)
Ghost - Impera
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Fast-paced change? CHECK! I love how all my pulls are reflecting the heightened frenzy and complication party of my preparing to move across the country. Batten down the hatches, not long now!!!
Anthrax's fan-chosen live album XL dropped yesterday, and while you can tell Joey is struggling a bit on some of the songs, overall this is a blast. Love these guys, can't wait to see them at the Paladium at the end of the month, my outro show from LaLaLand.
What a great way to exit, eh?
Watch:
I have to tell you, all the way until I hit play on the new trailer for Rob Zombie's The Munsters remake, I assumed I would hate what I saw. You know what though? This looks visually fantastic and fun as hell:
I also appreciate the fact that it's a love story? I mean, part of why I assumed I would not give a lick about this film is I had a really hard time imagining what RZ would do with this property - he hits the same note with his stuff so often that I just couldn't imagine a departure. That's not a complaint - despite regular complaints and disappointments, I generally like most of what he's done cinematically.
Playlist:
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
Baroness - Gold and Grey
John Cale - Black Acetate
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Anthrax - XL
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Bexley - Eponymous
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Struggle? Oh yeah. Getting some people to start packing is like trying to get a liar to tell the truth. Still, the card reminds me not to give up, and that even when I feel totally immobilized, there will be a new card tomorrow (unless this one resurfaces. That would make me cry).
I have Alice in Chains on my mind. Mr. Brown often clues me in on the Pitchfork Sunday Review, where every Sunday a writer looks back on an iconic album. Yesterday was Dirt - one of the most important of my "forever albums," and it made me dive back in head-first.
I've never been much of a Pitchfork guy, but when they hit it, they really leave a mark on me. This was one of those times.
NCBD:
Back home (for now) in LA, so I'll be heading to the Bug to pick up this week's books, which are plentiful:
Some big events kicking off in TMNT and the X-Books, which have the second annual Hellfire Gala followed immediately by Judgment Night (which I'm still not sold on). Also, I'm not necessarily going to jump on this new Mandolorian series, but I definitely want to check out the #1.
Playlist:
Ghost - Impera
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Karma to Burn - V
Black Sabbath - Never Say Die
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Faith No More - Sol Invictus
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
This gives me a teensy bit of an idea of how things are going to be as I prep for leaving LaLaLand. So far, no, things have not necessarily been the way I expected, but nothing has been a straight-up rug, so that's good. The idea in life is always to go in with loose expectations (if any at all), lest you succumb to disappointment despite a triumph.
Flew home from Chicago yesterday after a post-house buying week where I tried like hell to relax. I mostly succeeded, thanks to all my dear friends who were more than happy to drive to my folks' place in the woods of Palos Park and sit on the patio for hours on end.
I'm using Boards of Canada's Dayvan Cowboy today because Boards are on of my two most commonly used airplane soundtracks - the other is Burial - and in spite of the fact that I usually use either the In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP or Geogaddi as flight-long loops in my earbuds, yesterday I went with 2005's Campfire Headphase because I know it the least.
And I realized at once that I know it better than I realize. Dayvan is Probably my favorite track. The guitar on this album is incredible, and I always mistakenly think is performed by Bibio, whose style is extremely similar. Either way, this record is fantastic, as are all the BOC outputs, and it helped make my flight smooth and a partial extension of my relaxation (as much as one can relax on a plane).
Read:
Well, I blew through most of Donnie Goodman's The Razorblades In My Head on the trip, read a shit ton of comics I bought at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville (soon to be my new shop, I'm happy to say. Great store, SUPER awesome, friendly people), and took a trepidatious cue from Warren Ellis' most recent newsletter and picked up Will Carver's Hinton Hollow Death Tripon Kindle for $0.99.
I read it in three days.
I suspect this will be the best book I read in 2022. It is dark and disturbing, but not in the ways I initially feared. But it's also one of the most human books I've read in some time, and it ended up making me want to be a better person. Not that I don't always want to be a better person, because this is literally a goal I think about on daily basis. However, it's something I think about after I've made stupid comments like, "Fuck that guy for not using a turn signal, if I were going to be a serial killer, those are the people I'd kill," and the like. And really, while there's nothing wrong with venting, c'mon. Also, and this has been hovering on my consciousness for decades, ever since I first tried it in 2001, but I think I'm going to stop eating meat for a while. I'm not going to go completely 'full-hilt' on Vegetarianism, however, meat bothers me. It always has, or at least since my early twenties. Morrissey's right - meat most certainly is murder, and it's one of the most fucked up elements of our modern culture I can think of. But I am programmed, from the youngest of ages. This is not my parents' fault, it's just what happens with systemic issues that people are born into generations after being installed. Sure, earlier versions of humans might not have had a choice - or really, maybe they did. It's not like plants didn't grow while early humans were spearing bores on the planes - but once we had agricultural systems in place for producing substitutes, well, why didn't we switch?
It doesn't matter. There's no way I'm going to say, "I'm never going to have a hamburger again," because I fucking love hamburgers, and in fact, am thinking about eating one right now. But I won't. While we were in Tennessee, something entirely different prompted me to declare I'm giving up "plated meat" dishes, which I only occasionally eat anyway. But we're heading to the store today for a post-trip restock, and we're thinking about picking up some of the Impossible stuff, to try and use it in some recipes K makes where the dish isn't dependent on the meat's flavor or texture. I'm hoping it works, as it's not only the principle issues of eating meat that is prompting me but goddamn if I didn't eat more red meat in the last three weeks than I have in probably a year, and I'm feeling it.
Also, yes, Carver's book had a little something to do with it. The man identifies himself on his Twitter profile as "Drinker. Non-preachy Vegan" and I'd agree with that. But his ideals come through in Hinton Hollow Death Trip, and they affected me for sure. In a good way.
I'll keep you posted.
Watch:
Bloody Disgusting had a pretty big Upcoming Horror Movies for July trailer dump last week. Here's one that caught my eye:
I'm not 100% on this one, as there are a few things in the trailer that give me concern, chief among them being that, although as a lifelong Lovecraft fan, I'm a sucker for anything with his name attached. This also means I am literally a sucker because adding HPL is an easy way to market a bad movie. Still, the goat-head silhouette effect seen near the end of the trailer makes me hopeful (despite also being a sucker for goats in Horror).
Playlist:
No way to list it all. Here are some of the staples, along with some new stuff:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Sleep - Volume One
Karma to Burn - V
Billy Idol - The Roadside E.P.
CCR - Bayou Country
Sleep - The Sciences
Orville Peck - Bronco
Witchcraft - Legend
The Sword - Age of Winters
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Baroness - Gold & Grey
The Company Band - Eponymous
Ween - a couple recent live shows, all curated by Mr. Brown. It appears the boys are digging deep into their back catalogue that included "Cornbread Red" and a couple from Craters of the Sac.
Card:
The first thing I did upon returning home was pull out Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for a reading:
A call to relax and enjoy, but also a warning about intoxication and the indulgences it can bring. This feels prescient, simply because my plans for today are "Pack and Drink."
From the Split Single Sing Each Other's Songs for You, on which King Dude does a very sedate but ultimately charming version Rockin' Back Inside My Heart.
Watch:
Continuing on that Netflix Trailer dump from a few days ago:
"From the creators of Dark." That's all I needed to know to get excited about 1899, which I feel like I've been waiting on for a really long time.
Read:
One of the things I've been meaning to do for a couple years now is to begin re-reading Wrapped in Plastic magazine. This was a Twin Peaks/David Lynch-focused magazine published from roughly 1992 to 2005 by Craig Miller and John Thorne. In the wake of Julee Cruise's death, I decided to pull out issue 61, which has Cruise on the cover and chronicles the 2002 Twin Peaks Fest, which she attended as a guest.
In doing this, I realized that the first issue Cruise appeared in, October 1993's issue 7, was one of the early issues that came out before I knew about the magazine. My collection runs issue 16 through the final issue, June 2005's issue 75, with a reprint of issue #1. I never made it around to filling in those gaps, and obviously, with Cruise's death, the going eBay price is, for the moment, astronomical. That said, issue 7 has a gorgeous cover, and I wanted to post it here:
Wrapped in Plastic was a HUGE part of my life for about ten or eleven years, and I flip through the issues often, however, I haven't really read one in ages.
Playlist:
Julee Cruise - Falling
Julee Cruise - The Voice of Love
Julee Cruise - The Art of Being a Girl
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Ghost - Impera
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Card:
Dipping once again in Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for today's reading:
My general definition of the Four of Swords is based on Crowley and Freida Harris' Thoth, which subtitles the card as Truce. That said, I've decided I am not going to look at the Bound Tarot in the 'learned tradition of tarot, but in a more personal interpretation.
Decisions that hang heavy over your head: this card evokes a tough decision that will open the door for indecision to immobilize you. I'm not sure if this has to do with something coming up at work, or our impending trip to Tennessee in about a week's time, when we will begin looking for our new home. Our pre-approval came back as a win yesterday, so with that out of the way, we really just have to get there and try and find something. By the looks of what we're seeing online, our new focus in Clarksville may mean we have to decide between several places, all of which seem fantastic. I can see how that would be a crippling decision.
(Obviously, most if not all of the homes we're seeing now as available on our Real Estate Agent's portal are going to be under contract before we get there, however, what we are seeing is an indication that there are a lot of places that will tug at our heart strings.)
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
This past Friday on The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl hosted Hellbender, the sixth movie by the prolific and endlessly fascinating indie filmmaking Adams/Poser family.
During the interview segments of the broadcast, the family revealed that not only is H6llb6nd6r an actual band they play in, but Ship to Shore media are releasing their debut record on vinyl.
I immediately pre-ordered the vinyl, despite an estimated ship date of Q4 2022 and the fact that, hopefully, by that time I will no longer live at my current address or even in California. Because of this, I used my parents' address in Illinois. However, there is the very real possibility they may also end up near us in Tennessee, so I'm hoping that, when all this finally happens, I will have enough time to go into the order and change the shipping address.
You can pre-order H6llb6nd6r's Side A from Ship to Shore Media HERE. The entire record is currently streaming on all platforms, and it's fantastic.
Cast:
A new episode of Southside 90s dropped concurrently with the newest installment of my Newsletter, which appropriately enough features a "Giant-sized" 90s playlist that chronicles all of the bands and albums I associate with those long-ago days spent playing in bands and smoking pot, getting crazy and watching friends build flamethrowers out of fire extinguishers. Sound insane? Yeah, it kinda was.
The stories are only going to get weirder from here out, so if you're listening, buckle up.
Watch:
My good friend and Horror Vision cohost Ray kicked off his summer outdoor movie series Cineray this past Saturday with one of the coolest double features I've seen in a while. First up, my first-ever viewing of Tango and Cash:
Next, and I had no idea this movie existed, was John Stamos and Vanity in an all-out 80s action movie called Never Too Young To Die. Feat your eyes on this glory:
Yeah, it's ridiculous, and maybe it was the tall cans of Stone's Hazy IPA I was sucking down, but it really hit the spot.
Playlist:
H6LLB6ND6R - Side A
Various - Lost Highway OST
David Bowie - A Reality Tour
Duende and David J - Oracle of the Horizontal
Deftones - Gore
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
Card:
I was SUPER excited to receive my copy of The Bound Tarot, which my friend and occasional co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm recently released. I'm extremely proud of Grimm - I watched him work on this deck over the last year and his skill never ceases to amaze me.
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Page of Cups indicates a predilection for following your Creativity, which, as of yesterday, is where I'm at again after weeks of spinning my wheels.
Regardless of the fact that Lanegan himself was pretty vocal about a certain degree of embarrassment at some of the music he made as a part of Screaming Trees, I'll always love certain songs by the band. It's the project with Lanegan I care the least about, but they definitely have their moments. "Nearly Lost You" is a perfect rock single, and my original plan was to post that. However, the day he died I was at work, and at some point, a couple hours after hearing the news I walked out of the office and heard "Dollar Bill" on the 88.9 KXLU. I haven't heard this song since 2009, and it really just smacked me upside the head.
Watch:
Sunday was a full-on relaxing, restorative day. I needed it. I slept in, dozed often, read quite a bit, and managed to watch several movies.
First up, 1944's House of Frankenstein:
I'm pretty sure I had never heard of this one before, and boy did it deliver on the Universal Monster goodness. Such an awesome set-up. From the Wikipedia entry for the movie:
"After escaping from prison, the evil Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his hunchbacked assistant, Daniel (J. Carrol Naish), plot their revenge against those who imprisoned them. For this, they recruit the powerful Wolf Man (Lon Chaney), Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) and even Dracula himself (John Carradine). Niemann pursues those who wrong him, sending each monster out to do his dirty work. But his control on the monsters is weak at best and may prove to be his downfall."
In particular, the scene where Karloff's Dr. Niemann revives Dracula is fantastic, as is the way their relationship progresses and finally ends. Saying anything more would be giving away a nice little surprise, of which, this movie has several. Also, really cool to see Karloff in a movie with the Frankenstein monster where he doesn't play the titular being.
Next, 1939's Son of Frankenstein.
Pretty standard, but cool to see Basil Rathbone in a flick with these Horror Icons.
Both of these were leaving Shudder, and after starting House of Frankenstein out of curiosity a few days ago, but ultimately falling asleep for most of it, my early childhood love of Frank came back with a vengeance. I enjoyed both of these quite a bit, but preferred House because of its truly unique set-up.
Read:
So I decided I'm going to re-read all of H.P. Lovecraft's work. I started reading Lovecraft in High School - maybe Junior year. I've been reading him ever since but with my exposure to his work being subdivided between various Dell Paperbacks, I never had a "Complete Works" set until fairly recently. Because of that, I'm not entirely certain which of his works I missed (see my post about Charles Dexter Ward from last week).
So far, here's what I've read:
• The Festival
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
• The Statement of Randolph Carter
• The Strange House High in the Mist
• The Terrible Old Man
• Azathoth
• Beyond the Wall of Sleep
• Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn & His Family
Of particularly great pleasure was reading The Strange House High in the Mist. It'd been a loooong time, and this is one of those stories I realize now that defines what I love about HPL.
Playlist:
Walking Papers - The Light Below
Federale - No Justice
QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze
The Cure - Carnage Visors
Christopher Young and Lustmord - the Empty Man OST
Myrkur - Folkesange
Card:
I don't collect Tarot decks. I've had my full-size Thoth since around 2003. My only other decks are the "pocket" Thoth Missi gave me a few years back, and her own Raven Tarot (Major Arcana only) which she made for me two years ago. However, as I performed my pull this evening I was thinking about the fact that my friend Jonathan Grimm is beginning to take pre-orders for his "Bound Tarot" deck and there's no way I'm not buying this. Pulling The Hierophant only serves to reinforce my thinking that this will now be a third deck I actually use for daily readings.
There's not an actual link to pre-order the Bound deck yet, but I'll definitely be posting that here when it's up. In the meantime, you can peruse the designs over on Grimm's Etsy HERE.
New Mogwai! From the forthcoming album As The Love Continues, out February 13th. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
Last night, K and I finished watching the Night Stalker documentary that dropped this week on Netflix. Serial killer stuff is normally outside of my comfort zone, however, after moving to LA in 2006 and hearing a good friend talk about what it was like to grow up here as Richard Ramirez held the city hostage for the better part of a year has proved motivation for a fascination that overcomes my squeamish nature when it comes to this type of thing. That, combined with the fact that once you start watching this series and see that director Tiller Russell places the two Police Detectives who hunted Ramirez as the main characters, this was a great documentary that didn't leave me feeling dirty.
As much as I love AHS 1984, I still have issues with the fact that they made Ramirez a character I ended up rooting for (to a degree).
While flipping around Bloody Disgusting earlier I saw they finally released a trailer for Christopher Smith's The Banishing. I'm very much looking forward to seeing this one on Shudder in March, just a couple of days after my forty-fifth birthday no less.
Playlist:
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA
David Bowie - Reality
Mogwai - As the Love Continues (pre-release singles)
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything
Card:
Another signifier for the end of my current project, which will lead to the publication of my next book.
I received the cover art this week from Jonathan Grimm - it's BAD ASS! I can't wait to share it.
Holy cow! Dorthia from Windhand has a new band with Gina Gleason from Baroness? Count me in!
**
I was pleasantly surprised by not one but two movies yesterday. First up, We Summon the Darkness, which I'd originally blogged about my plans to rent a few months back when it first premiered on VOD. That never ended up happening, and the flick fell off my radar until Jonathan Grimm alerted me to the fact that it hit Netflix recently.
This flick is 100% worth your time. I loved it; yes I saw a big WTF moment coming a mile away, but I think the filmmakers knew most folks would and added an extra little twist that I did not. Plus, who cares about twists when the characters, setting, mood, and overall layout of the film is this fun. We Summon the Darkness is a really good time that doesn't take itself too serious and knows how to get down and dirty in the mud and blood with Satan!
Next up, Host on Shudder. This is a 56 minute flick that was filmed during COVID shelter-in-place on Zoom.
Yes, that's right. On Zoom. I know what you're thinking; stop thinking it. This one's scary as hell and quite a good time.
Granted, I watched Host in my ideal setting: alone, stoned, with all the lights off and totally focused on the film. It's 56 minute runtime helped in that, because these days an uninterrupted movie is almost an impossibility.
**
Playlist:
Santogold - Eponymous
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
JK Flesh - Depersonalization
X- Under the Big Black Sun
X - Los Angeles
Dead Swords - Enders
Iress - Prey
Iress - Flaw (pre-release singles)
Card:
Back to the Raven Deck for this morning's Pull:
Old rules reassessed and rewritten? Or get off your lazy ass? I did a fair amount of work getting back into the sequels for Shadow Play over this past weekend. Not a lot of writing; mostly digging in and re-reading the bible for the series, plus the copious amount of notes I have on it. Feels good. That said, the Tower pops up to remind me that although I told myself I would send a query letter a day, it's been at least three days since I actually have, so I need to get back on that ASAP.
Mr. Brown had to remind me several times to look up Low Cut Connie, and when I finally did, I understood and became extremely thankful for his persistence. So far, 2015's Hi Honey is all I know, but MAN is it a fantastic album. This is a tie for my favorite track - so far - with Royal Screw, which I might just post here tomorrow.
**
As of yesterday, my short story Pentagram Girls is available to read for free on Wattpad, just follow the widget below:
If you dig the story, you can follow the widgets to the left to order the book - I have a 'quarantine special' of $.99 for the Kindle copy running now, so that's a pretty great deal, if I do say so myself. Also, that fantastic cover art is from my good friend and often co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm. If you dig his art, check out his site HERE.
**
Playlist:
Primus - Frizzle Fry
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues
Orville Peck - Pony
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Joy Division - Closer
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Dead Swords - Enders
**
Card:
I keep getting this card because I shake my head like I understand and heed the advice contained therein, then turn around and do the exact opposite.
Living Nudes is the bedroom brainchild of the man who runs Heavenisanincubator. Yesterday, I saw a tweet that they'd released a new track titled - appropriately enough - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down. It's awesome. Go HERE to check it out, and if you dig, it's set up for a "name your price" purchase. Can't beat that.
**
The vocal harmonies that make up the center piece of this new Living Nudes track haunted me all day, and seemed to echo through my mind during the night, mixing with images from the second episode of HBO's Chernobyl, our perhaps foolishly chosen before-bed watch last night.
The resonance this show has with our own current moment is terrifying. World leaders telling people everything is fine when it certainly is not, sealing potentially millions of people's fates in a terrifying refusal to own up to a situation unlike any the planet has ever seen before. In watching this and now re-reading reports on the Chernobyl crisis, we're all lucky those officials in 1986 didn't destroy life on the entire planet.
Mindful Habitation:
Speaking of mass human destruction, you have to ask: will the slow-to-start response by certain world leaders during today's crisis finish what the Soviet's began? Only time will tell, but with the Orwellian nature of our world seemingly proved by captain hairdo's surge in approval ratings, well, maybe we fucking deserve it, eh? Not really, but an objective, non-human look at things definitely makes it easy to understand why this is happening. I mean, if you refuse to hold the lessons of the past in your head and your heart, how can your future be any different? Or is it the people making the decisions just don't care, because they have advantages most of us don't?
Yeah, I'm leaning toward door number two as well. But then, I'm also trying to stay positive. The peak is coming folks. Stay in your homes...
One of the funniest things I've seen in years. Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for sending it my way. If you need a pick-me-up, might I suggest after hitting Living Nudes' Bandcamp, you stop by his shop and browse all the damn awesome stuff he has for sale with his inimitable art adorning?
**
Playlist:
Wire - Pink Flag
David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Foster the People - Torches
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Pearl Jam - Gigaton
Childish Gambino - 3.15.20
Childish Gambino - because the internet
Living Nudes - Growing Global Pandemic Got Me Down
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters
Steve Lynch - Let Us Prey
**
Card:
From the Grimoire: "A new project or a sudden change in material fortune/status." Playing this one close to the chest so as not to tempt the Universe to smack me upside the back of the head.
Let's trace a chain of events so that I can better explain my current musical obsession.
My good friend and collaborator Jonathan Grimm messaged me recently telling me he'd been hired by an awesome band to do a design. A day or two later, I see that the band, Wisconsin's 20 Watt Tombstone, had released an absolutely killer limited edition baseball tee featuring Grimm's design.
The next day at work, where I can often do my most concentrated listening of the day on headphones, I swung over to the band's page on Apple Music and loaded up their 2015 record Wisco Disco.
Immediate love. I listened to the album on repeat all day.
Here's the thing; it's not just that this is an awesome two-piece band. These guys have such a thick, dirty sound that it recalls music long ago ingrained in my blood. Back in the mid-to-late 90s, Mr. Brown, Sonny, Joe Grez, and I - basically the core of Schlitz Family Robinson - used to hang out at Chicago's Empty Bottle a lot, and we took quite a liking to two-piece Touch and Go Records band Cash Money that played there often. We started to kind of follow them around to other venues when they'd play as well, often opening for other Touch and Go bands. But Cash Money - later Cash Audio because of a bullshit lawsuit by the shitty rap label - stands as one of my all-time favorite live bands. John Humphrey and Scott Gimpino had a sound that is so unbelievably similar to 20 Watt Tombstone, that I can't help but feel like I've known 20 Watt a helluva lot longer than I have. Their sound is in my blood. And I don't mean to say I think there's any imitation going on; this is a natural progression of how two guys can set up and play dirty ass blues rock just fine without anyone else in the band. The Gretsch both Humphrys and 20 Watt Frontman/Guitarist Tom Jordan play has a lot to do with the sound, as does the slide, and the rough hewn blues-on-delta-rock vocals. I could go on, but I'd rather just shut my mouth and urge you to go check these guys out on their website and bandcamp, they are a fantastic band in their own right, and come from a lineage of blues/metal/fuzz icons.
**
This past Friday, K and I went to the theatre to see Osgood Perkins' new film Gretel and Hansel. I'll say right off the bat, I was very surprised to see this one getting such a wide release, and despite the fact that I am not a fan of Perkins' previous film, Blackcoat's Daughter (aka February), there was no way I wasn't going to support this one in a major chain.
So what did I think of Gretel and Hansel? All the acting is fantastic, it's a very pretty film, and I love the soundtrack. However, the soundtrack largely does not fit the movie. Synth-based music over old world settings play at being anachronistic, but in this case at least, I just don't think it worked. In fact, there were a few other elements that seemed to tease at the idea that Perkins sees this film as inhabiting an anachronistic space similar to, say, David Robert Mitchell's It Follows. Mitchell's film pulls it off in a very strange way; Perkins' film, in my opinion, does not. It's just too half-hearted and feels thrown in after the fact, as if the other elements that made me wonder - a few snippets of colloquialisms in Gretel's dialogue, or the coffee cup the Witch serves her from in one scene - were thrown in simply to try and justify the synth music. There's no doubt that the film, like BlackCoat's Daughter, is shot beautifully, and at least one scene is enhanced by that synth music, but as good as that scene is, it takes away from the overall film, and should have been removed or scored differently. Kill your darlings, dude.
Oh, but it was also really cool to see the old Orion Pictures logo come up at the start of the film. Not sure if that's being brought back, or if I'm just unobservant and it's been around since back in the day, but it feels like we haven't seen it in at least fifteen years if not longer.
All in all, I'd definitely say that, while I had some gripes, Gretel and Hansel deserves your support in the cinema, it just might leave you feeling 'meh.' Then again, I am largely alone in my disdain for Blackcoat's - I simply cannot reconcile the red herring that conceals the twist at the end; it's only accomplished by cheating - so who knows, everyone may very well love this one as well.
**
Playlist:
Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
David Bowie - Heroes
20 Watt Tombstone - Wisco Disco
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
The Misfits - Static Age
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
Clark - Daniel Isn't Real OST
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Greg Dulli - Pantomina (pre-release single)
Greg Dulli - It Falls Apart (pre-release single)
Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death
Zonal - Wrecked
Mol - Jord
K and I had a marvelous weekend celebrating our four-year anniversary, now and I have a truncated week at work this week as my buddy Dave is coming out and we're seeing two of the three Mr. Bungle shows (*excited*), so I'm digging back into work on Shadowplay and I've begun the first steps preparing the book I will be releasing this year, what I consider the first successful novel I ever wrote, back in 2008.
Soooo... this season is an amalgam of a multitude of different slashers flicks from years past? The Burning, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer? Well, even if it looks pretty uninspired, it might be fun. I usually know within two episodes whether or not I want to complete a season of AHS, so I'll give it a try.
**
Originally, Wednesday the 28th I was slated to do a signing of my new book, Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach. Unfortunately, due to a production delay with the copies I ordered, I was forced to cancel. The event will most likely be re-scheduled for 9/11, but in the interim, Jonathan Grimm and I will have a table at Scare Faire, the annual Horror Event held in Scary Perry's Halloween Store and Hardcore Hearse Club in Chicago on Saturday, September 7th. Grimm will be selling art prints, magnets, stickers, and all the awesome stuff he does, and I'll have copies of Shadow Play and my first book, A Collection of Desires: 7 Tales of Modern Horror. If you're in the area, stop in and see us. Both of us love to talk all things horror.
**
Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week continues with another classic track, the James Brown-parody RC's Mom, from Beelzebubba. So good...
**
Playlist from 8/26:
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
The Ocean - Heliocentric
The Ocean - Precambrian
The Ocean - 1.0 Ansia - EP*
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Budos Band - Burnt Offerings
* Not sure this is actually same The Ocean as the other tracks. Researching it online has been frustrating to say the least. If anyone happens to know anything about this, please leave a comment.
**
Today's Spread:
I Love seeing this Spread! The juxtaposition of the intellectual refinement of emotion lends itself well to the pleasures of completion. I have my assignment for the day, and I'll let the cancellation of the signing roll right the f--- off my back!
Thanks to Jonathan Grimm for the heads up on this one - I'd not even heard of Lightning Born until I woke up at 4:00 AM this morning, rolled over and saw a text from Grimm:
... and that about says it all. The band's self-titled debut is out today on Ripple Music, so it's available everywhere music is can be acquired. Or, order the record from the band themselves HERE.
**
I watched two fantastic movies yesterday. First, Knife + Heart just dropped on Shudder and I stumbled into it without knowing much. LOVED it. A kind of software, gay Argento-homage, the flick stalls a bit at times as it goes to incredible lengths to soak the viewer in atmosphere and aesthetic of 1979 Paris' underground gay culture. It does an excellent job with this, but imagine those overly descriptive paragraphs that plague genre books at times? There's a correlation to that here. Still, the movie is gorgeous, and what I did not realize it until this morning is M83 scored it. Basically a gallo that follows an underground porn studio's actors as they are picked off one-by-one at the hands of a masked killer, Knift + Heart doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's a great watch. Here's the trailer:
Next, 1990's Hardware. I'd never seen this until yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it. Kind of a third rate Terminator knock-off, I'll take this over Cameron's epic any day. I loved the colors, the sets, the tech - everything. And a very cool soundtrack that juxtaposed Simon Boswell's neo-futuristic, Vangelis-light score with tracks like Stigmata from Ministry and this epic from PIL:
**
Playlist from 6/20:
The Verve - Northern Soul
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Saygun
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
David J and Federale - The Day David Bowie Died
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Public Image Ltd - This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get
**
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire: "The beginning of a new project or job." Well, that could not be more appropriate. I took a few days off writing after finishing Shadow Play Book One, tonight I plan on walking to my coffee spot and digging into Ciazarn!
Holy cow. I don't post in five days and everyone drops something new. What do I start with? Doesn't matter; what a great problem to have!
Chelsea Wolfe announced a new album and tour dates after dropping a new song. As always, Ms. Wolfe has kind of become the dark queen of my heart. I love the fluidity of her aesthetic, the fact that it meshes fine in shades of Desert acoustic, or lavish, droney Doom. Here's the album trailer:
**
Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie is completed! I've ordered a few proofs of the paperback, and once I go through that and confirm everything is tip top, it will be available on Amazon, at The Comic Bug, and hopefully, shortly in Barnes & Noble and any other store that will carry me! Gotta start looking into getting into the Baker & Taylor system. It's all so exciting! What's even more exciting, though, is the cover art, courtesy of my good friend Jonathan Grimm:
Grimm is an amazing artist - he really hit the "Paperbacks from Hell" aesthetic without even being asked to. And folks, he is for hire! Contact him HERE for all your freelance needs. Seriously, he does it all.
**
South Park Season 19 is probably one of the most intelligent examples of social commentary ever. A joy, start to finish. I can't believe this show can continue to remain this relevant. Kudos the Parker and Stone.
**
Two episodes left on Doom Patrol Season One, which I'm now comfortable saying is my favorite comic book adaptation ever. Yep. Ever. I also began re-reading the Grant Morrison/Richard Case run from the late 80s/early 90s that a lot of this show is pulled from. I can't say I'd forgotten how brilliant the book is, but I had forgotten major arcs, so it's cool to revisit. And Branden Fraiser's Cliff Steele is awesome for many reason, but in particular, he reminds me SO MUCH of my good friend Mike Shin that it's uncanny. Speaking of Cliff, one of my favorite Cliff moments occurs at the tail end of the following clip:
Look at that gator jump!
**
Playlist from the last few days includes but probably wasn't limited to:
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
The Doors - Waiting for the Sun
Orville Peck - Pony
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Deftones - Gore
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Blur - 13
Blur - Eponymous
Blur - The Best of
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night OST
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
The Temptations - Psychedelic Shack
The Knife - Silent Shout
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