Godflesh @ Cold Waves 2023!!!

 

This past Sunday, Mr. Brown, Missi Raven and I attended the 2023 Chicago Metro edition of Cold Waves. As with last year - the first one of these I'd managed to make it out to after almost a decade of wanting to - the event was fantastic. We arrived late, so missed several bands, which sucks, but I've been a bit worn down, so it is what it is. We did manage to see Sierra, who was fantastic, Paul Barker's Lead Into Gold, also fantastic and closer Godflesh.

Godflesh closed with"Spite," the opening track from their 31-year-old masterpiece Pure, arguably my favorite Godflesh album (depending on the day, I suppose, but it's up there). 

Here's a recent setlist from Montreal; Chicago's set was identical, except for the two encore tracks, which they didn't have time to play. No complaints - a fantastic sampling of their illustriously pummeling career.

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Watch:

Holy smokes. I did not know this was on the way:  

I've cooled on pretty much everything Mr. Cave has put out since Push the Sky Away. However, I still think he's a genius. And that genius began in a completely raw, primordial form with The Birthday Party, easily one of my all-time favorite bands. Seeing there's a documentary on the immediate horizon makes me insanely happy, even though it plays at my local arthouse theatre in Nashville, The Belacourt, from October 4th through the 8th, and I return from my trip on the 9th. 

Agghh!!!

More information - including all upcoming screenings - is on the movie's website HERE.

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Playlist:

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boards of Canada - A Beautiful Place Out in the Country EP

Canyon - Empty Rooms

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

The Damned - Evil Spirits

Damone - From The Attic

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Card:

I'm on the road, so all my Pulls will be from my mini Thoth deck for the next two weeks. Not a bad thing, but wanted to put up a reminder that Grimm's new Tarot Deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot, is both gorgeous and live on Kickstarter until Tuesday, October 3rd. Here's the LINK.

• Eight of Disks - Prudence

• Ten of Cups - Satiety

• Three of Cups - Abundance

Seriously sleep deprived out here for my first full day in LaLaLand, I'll take this as a reminder to know when enough is enough. Prudence + Satiety = Plenty; have the sense to know when you're done and retire with that. I'd say that's letting me know that I should not work past my 8 hours today but rather return promptly to my hotel and catch a nap, as I'll be attending a 10:00 PM screening of Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's new film Kill tonight at Beyondfest!!!

Rodney Crowell - Ever the Dark

My favorite track from a fantastic summer album Mr. Brown recently recommended to me, Rodney Crowell's The Chicago Sessions, produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. 

Crowell has been kicking around for decades; his debut record, Ain't Living Long Like This came out in 1978, but I don't remember ever being exposed to his music until Brown sent me a copy of his 2018 Christmas Record Christmas Everywhere last year. Working backward, there's a wealth of fantastic material (especially on that first record and 2001's The Houston Kid). Crowell spent some time in the mid-to-late 70s in Emmylou Harris's backing band, and they did an album together in 2013 that's also on my list to check out.

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Watch:

I've never really been a Godzilla fan, but I have to admit, I think I'd probably be a fool not to see Godzilla Minus One when it opens this December:

 

I'm assuming it was lack of exposure to Godzilla flicks as a kid that is the reason they don't really resonate with me. I remember when the trailer for that first Legendary film with Brian Cranston popped up before something in the cinema - that trailer made me think the new approach would be a lot more in the Cloverfield vein, and that sounded really cool at the time. Then several of my friends saw it and reported back that if I was looking for something new, this wasn't it. I let that film come and go, then tried to watch the second one on HOBOMAX a few years ago and actually fell asleep for lack of Godzilla. Will this return to Toho ignite a love for these films? Well, it's not likely to move the needle backward, but you have to admit, this looks pretty badass, so I'll check it out. What I'm really hoping is all my Godzilla-loving friends come away super happy with this one; the buzz of the franchise's return to its original home Toho seems like a good omen for sure. 

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Read:

I finished Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange, and as I suspected, I'm having a difficult time choosing a book to move to next, simply because The Strange was so damn good. Officially, as of right now, this is the best novel I've read in 2023 (new or old):

Described by the Author in the afterword as "The Martian Chronicles meets True Grit," I think that says it all. This is a coming-of-age story shaped by loss and the quiet, frustrating echoes of it that resound forward through our lives and shape who we become, especially for those loss touches at a young age. Annabelle Crisp is a protagonist for the ages, and I loved the brief 'wraparound' that Ballingrud employs so we could 'hear' a grown Belle relate the events of her 14th year on Mars, 1931. 

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Playlist:

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Soul Coughing - El Oso

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Lustmord - Berlin

Metallica - The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited

Various - Apple Yacht Rock Essentials

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 2

The Ravenonettes - In and Out of Control

T. Rex - The Slider

Rodney Crowell - The Chicago Sessions

Bluekarma - The Frictin, The Pain

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Southern Fried True Crime Podcast - Episodes 180, 182 and 190

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Oracle:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE. And as of 5:00 PM Central Time today, September 5, 2023, you can head over to Kickstarter and back Grimm's new deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot. Check it out HERE.

• Eight of Cups

• Six of Pentacles

• IV: The Emperor

Right off the bat (and probably because I'm tired and have a lot of work-work in front of me), I'm reading this with a squint, which is to say, I'm not even looking past the fact that there's only one Major here, and it's telling me to sit quietly and hammer out my work before even thinking about the creative and emotional threads that will emerge as the day lengthens. 

I'd Rather Be...

Just watched the final episode of The Bear Season Two. We've been dragging this out because I love it so much, but after doing episodes 8 and 9 Monday night, there was no way we could not do 10 last night. Emotional wrecking ball - good, bad, ugly... ALL the feels. I don't think I've ever seen a show quite like this, and these 'real-time' episodes just blow me away.

I've always loved Pearl Jam's Animal; Out of the 12 (?) tracks on the original release of Pearl Jam's second album Vs., the opening two tracks, Go and Animal, are among the best the band ever did. The album slides into wishy-washy territory from there for me; I dig about three more songs on it, and while I don't necessarily dislike the rest, none of them are in the "I have to have that available to me for when I need to hear it" territory that Ten and those five or so songs from Vs. are. I wish I could say I connected with anything else Pearl Jam ever did after this, but aside from giving a thumbs up to a few songs from the first album with Matt Cameron on drums (2002's Riot Act, I think), I respect the hell out of them and 100% think they tow their own line, but just never really cared. Still, this was PERFECTLY placed in this episode, and I applaud everyone involved in making this tour de force of a show that is as bite-sized as shows tend to come these days (short episodes, short seasons, nothing missing. Trim the fat, Jeff).

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NCBD:

Small Pull this week, but I'm looking forward to both of these titles quite a bit.

I know I'm still relatively new to Something is Killing the Children, picking up with the series around issue #16, but having this recent hiatus in the middle of the current storyline was difficult, to say the least. I've been waiting for this book to come back with a fervor I don't possess very often these days, so I can't wait to read this one. NOTE: That's a variant cover I posted above; almost no way I'm going to end up with that, but still wanted to post it, because hot damn, that's rad!!!

I LOVE that, so far, the X-Men books are sticking to Magneto's death. It's so funny; I've always disliked the Magneto character, and just when he becomes one of my favorites, he's gone. Thus is life, and thus is good freakin' writing. I'm not foolish enough to think ol' Mags will stay dead, but for now, in the era where none of the mutants ever die for good because resurrection is a plot point, having a meaningful, lasting death of a major character is thrilling. 

Also, I really love the 'team' in X-Men: Red. It's not really a team at all, and feels a bit like a super Sci-Fi version of my favorite era of the book, Claremont's Dissolution and Rebirth, when the team took the Reavers' old base in the abandoned town in the Australian Outback. 

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Back:

My good friend Jonathan Grimm sent me a link to a Kickstarter some friends of his are doing. I backed the instant I read the first paragraph of the recap: 

When Black Sabbath (not the Beatles) became the world’s most famous band, the universe was changed, musically and otherwise. Lost arts, like Alchemy, were made common, schools taught about transfiguration and alternate science, Demons were summoned and some stuck around.

Drumsticks of Doom sounds awesome and these guys are in their last 37 hours and they are oh so close, so if you're even remotely interested, go HERE and throw down!

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Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Jim Willaims - Possessor OST

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Agnes Obel - Aventine

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

 

• Seven of Swords

• VI: The Lovers

• Seven of Wands

Two sevens and a six, eh? Numbers alone, this shows steps, consecutive or otherwise. Seven of Swords (Intellect) and Seven of Wands (Will) can work together or against one another. Combined with The Lovers, I'd say it's a harmonious union. 

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Mascara - Half Light Aftermath

Hailing from France, Mascara is a band I know very little about. I picked this up after hearing the guys at Cinematic Void talk about the latest single, which this song is on. I really dig this and recommend checking out their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Let's talk about David Lynch's Inland Empire.

 

I have to laugh at the idea that a trailer was cut for this film. I mean, this tells you nothing except Laura Dern is in the movie. I plan on writing a bit more extensively at some point, possibly on my Letterbxd, but for now, suffice it to say that while I love this film as an example of how David Lynch's mind works, I find it nearly inscrutable and a bit of a chore to watch in its entirety. I always think back to seeing this in Hollywood when it premiered. What I experienced that night was what I have always described as an absolute free fall - the film swallowed me whole, and I did not become lucid until the moment when Beck's "Black Tamborine" kicked in. Resurfacing, I had absolutely no idea how long I had been sitting in that theatre; it could have as easily been four hours as forty-five minutes. That's one of the best theatrical experiences of my life, the experience of being so taken over by a film. Translating that to at-home viewing, however, has been unbelievably difficult. I must have attempted to watch the Inland Empire DVD a half dozen times since it was released in '07 0r '08, and every time I failed. Until yesterday, when I watched it with headphones on. 

Yes. Headphones.

You would not believe the sound design in this, and while I still felt the burden of sitting through the entire three hours, I made it and am glad I did.  While I can't see myself ever frequenting this film like I do most of Lynch's other works, I'm glad I own it and look forward to whenever the next time I watch it - as long as the tv I watch it on has blue tooth.

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Support:

Jonathan Grimm has his new Kickstarter up, and I'm blown away by the artwork he's produced for this.

 

I've known Grimm for a long time, and he has come a long way with his art. In the last year, however, his talent has grown exponentially, as has his business plan. Having all the risk removed from these campaigns before even launching them should instill a confidence in his fans and supporters that is equal to the awe his work inspires. Solid Dude, Incredible Artist. Honored to call him a friend.

 

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Playlist:

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone

Anthrax - Persistence of Time 

Mascara - Hla-11Tf (single)

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Mascara - Cameo Blue Estate EP

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Card:

Back to the Thoth deck for today's single card pull:

The Airy aspect of Water, so Will applied to Emotion. Sounds like this is still pointing to that same Emotional Breakthrough I keep missing on my recent daily spreads - and I believe I just figured it out. In jogging back through the other posts, I realized I've been reading these in a completely distracted state. On Friday, 1/20/23 my Pull had an Ace of Cups at its center, however, the two days this week I mistakenly read as a reiteration of that were actually Ace of Wands, thus Intellectual Breakthrough. Or an achievement of Will. This, I believe is a reference to a slight incoming lifestyle adjustment in terms of finally being removed from my salaried Associate Manager position I stepped down from in August when I moved and shifted to a work-from-home position. Not a huge change, but you'll be seeing a lot fewer picks for NCBD for starters. Hence, Will Power Adjustment.

My First Autumn in Sixteen Years!!!

Now that I'm home and can partake properly, let's start things off in October with some Type O! This is the first time I'm experiencing Autumn since I moved from Chicago back in May of 2006, so I am EXCITED!!! Also, this is K's first Autumn ever, so it's even more of a thrill seeing the adorable wonderment that overtakes her as she watches the trees change, sits outside as a Thunderstorm rolls in, or sniffs the smell of the Dying Time that hangs in the wonderful Tennessee air.

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) Trick 'r Treat

2) Barbarian

3) Hellraiser ('84)

4) Phenomena

5) Sick

6) The Beyond

7) Hellraiser (2022)

8) Werewolf By Night

9) Something in the Dirt

10) Lux Aeterna

11) Grimcutty

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NCBD:

Pretty mellow pull this week, which is good, because I have books stacked up in my box at Rick's Comic City from the past two while I was away in LaLaLand. Here's what's on the menu for today:

I'm pretty behind on my reading, so I won't get to some of these for a while, especially if this catch-up pace at work persists (took my post-travel day off on Tuesday, as I worked until 4:30 PM Monday, then ubered to LAX and didn't land at BNA until around 1:20 AM. Collecting my bag and ubering home to Clarksville put my much-anticipated arrival at around 2:30 AM. So I was TIRED). 

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Playlist:

Sylvaine - Nova

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

The Flamingos - Best of Playlist

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Northern Boys - Party Time (single)

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right To Children

Stereolab - Pulse of the Early Brain (Switched On Vol. 5)

Cold Cave - Full Cold Moon

Rein - Reincarnated

Zombie - 2020

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Card:

I've been dying to get back to my Bound Tarot deck from Jonathan Grimm, especially since Grimm currently has a Kickstarter going for a full-on Art of the Bound Tarot Hardcover Book! You can check out and support the Kickstarter HERE. 

Today's spread:

So, delicate machinations will require a sacrifice to reveal hidden information? Also, and I almost never read the cards this way, but if you add 12+02+18 you get 32, or the day after 31 Days of Halloween, so perhaps I should set my sights on that as the day to release the free Kindle exclusive, which I originally hoped would land in October. 

Light House

 

I'd completely forgotten about Future Islands until Julia Ducournea's Titane put them back in my head by using "Light House", from their 2014 4AD release Singles.

 

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Play:

A couple years ago, I totally missed out on Mixtape Massacre. Now, the creators of that have a new game on Kickstarter, and by the looks of it, this one is a definite for me:

I'm really trying not to spend $$ on stuff like this, so there's a bit of a tug-o-war going on as I watch this. We'll see. Either way, I wanted to spread the word.

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Playlist:

Allegaeon - Into Embers (pre-release single)

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Allegaeon -Proponent for Sentience

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Blood Moon I (pre-release singles)

The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex Museum

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - The Good Son

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues

Lower Dens - Escape From Evil

The Neverly Boys - The Dark Side of Everything

TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain

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Card:

Two days in a row, I receive positive reinforcement for a series of investments. 

Isolation: Day 140 - Vólan!

Vólan is a band from Moscow I'd never heard of until this morning when this live session from Audio Tree popped up on my youtube feed. Pretty awesome! You can hit their Bandcamp HERE for more music and merch!

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I'm a pretty big fan of Robert S. Wilson's Nightscape Press, and as such I backed their recent Kickstarter HERE. I'd actually meant to post about this earlier, but there's still twelve days left, and even fully funded, this is absolutely worth contributing to. Nightscape is a fantastic and fully independent publisher, and my hope is they will be around for many years to come.


Previously, I've mentioned Nightscape's brilliant Ashes and Entropy anthology - easily one of the best books I read last year. I also recently picked up Dark and Distant Voices, Nightscape's short story collection by Tim Waggoner. I'm only one story in - ALL my pleasure reading is on hold as I work on final edits of two different versions of my forthcoming novel (I'll explain that at some other point). The point is, Mr. Wilson runs a top shelf company who deserve our support.

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Nirvana - Nevermind
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Urge Overkill - Saturation
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Big picture.

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol

A couple of night ago in the Southwest Suburbs of Chicago, some dear friends hosted a party in mine and K's honor. During this event, I saw a youtube clip that, well, dropped my jaw.

The context, besides liquor, was that Mr. Celentano is quite an interesting fellow when you read about him; he is credited as having introduced Rock n Roll to Italy. All my friend Amy told me as this song began was, to quote Celentano's wikipedia page, "...was written to mimic the way English sounds to non-English speakers despite being almost entirely nonsense."

Sold.

I love everything about this, especially the colors and, um, the fit of Celentano's pants. From someone who was born over half a decade after the 60s ended, this is as much my broad stroke impression of that era as "Prisencolinensinainciusol" is a broad stroke of English. Reminds me a bit of an Italian, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," although I can't quite put my finger on why that is.

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If you've followed these pages for the last few years, you know I'm a fan of Kristen Gorlitz's Relationship/Horror comic The Empties. The new Kickstarter just went up a few days ago for the final, collected volume of the book. Support it if you can - this is a fantastic indie comic, and something I think will eventually make a killer movie.



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NCBD:

A typically light week, although I find myself in the mood to read some comics. I may pick something up on Kindle, depending what's on sale:

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Children of the Grave (Cassette)
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Boards of Canada - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Metatron Omega - Evangelikon
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy
Edu Comelles and Rafa Ramos Sania - Botanica De Balcon
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits
Slayer - Live Undead
Testament - The Gathering
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism

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Card of the day:

You spend a couple of days off laying out a perfectly functioning brain and emotional state, then you return to work and someone puts two blades straight through everything you worked so hard to shore up.

2019: June 8th Spotlights - Mountains Are Forever

Well, thanks to Mr. Brown, I found my album of the year. It's early, so this could conceivably change, but I pretty much always know my album of the year the moment I first hear it, and brothers and sisters - this is it! And to think, I'd never even heard of Spotlights before, a husband/wife duo whose new album Love & Decay is out now on Ipecac Records and can be streamed or purchased HERE.

Love & Decay feels a lot like the MBV album I wanted to hear when I ordered their loooong-awaited follow-up to Loveless back in 2013, the self-titled and unfortunately underwhelming eponymous record. I also hear Soundgarden, Deftones, and a lot of other bands I like in the sound of Spotlights, but never in a way that feels trite or repetitive. This leads me to declare for myself and like-minded music lovers a new classic and a band to follow and be excited for from here out! Always a great day when I can say that!

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I've talked about Kristen Gorlitz's awesome horror comic The Empties in these pages before, and it's time to talk about it again because Kristen just launched the Kickstarter for issue #3! You can go to the Kickstarter page HERE to read more about it and support it; if you've read the first two issues of The Empties, you'll most likely be like me and not need any more convincing. So good!



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I finally had the chance to watch the new Criterion Edition of David Lynch's Blue Velvet last night. Wow. Gorgeous transfer. This film never gets old for me; I enjoyed this viewing as much as or more than the countless others I've had since discovering this film back in the mid-90s. What I didn't expect  last night was my reaction to the 53 minutes of deleted scenes included as extras on the disc. I watched a few and really had a sense of inspiration in editing. I mean, you look at all the extra stuff Lynch filmed and you can practically see how making Blue Velvet helped him grow as a filmmaker over the course of its creation; all the Jeffery-at-college and Jeffrey-comes-home stuff that got cut would have, if included, very much weakened the film. The elegance to the progression of events in the version that Lynch released and we all love is so much more apparent and enjoyable after seeing the scenes he cut. And after waiting 20+ years to see this stuff - scenes we never thought we'd see back in the Wrapped in Plastic days - I found I could only watch about twenty minutes of them before I grew exhausted and decided to save the rest for a later date.



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Playlist from 6/06:

Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Spotlights - Love & Decay

Playlist from 6/07:

Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Los Amigos Invisibles - The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera
Pelican - Nighttime Stoties
Bloody Hammers - Under Satan's Sun
Primus - Antipop

Card of the day:

Paradigm shift! Just in time for the next project.

2019: Blood Machines!

This morning I backed the Blood Machines Kickstarter, something I'd not heard of until two days ago. In a nutshell, Blood Machines is a soon-to-be film by French director Seth Ickerman that is based on a video he made for Carpenter Brut's song Turbo Killer back in 2016. You can read more about the evolution of this project and see some more nifty behind the scenes stuff HERE. Backing is officially over for this and the film is fully funded - and then some - so it looks as though this amazing project is going to see the light of day!

Here's the original video that sparked all this off:



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Watchlist from the last two days:

First episode of AMC's Adaptation of Joe Hill's wonderful lovel NOS4A2. Did not like this at all, but I'll give it a chance. AMC is definitely one of those networks that won't really go all into a show until it's proven to have an audience.

Also, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, which I'm always shocked isn't discussed more as the obvious key influence to Dario Argento's Suspiria. Bava crafted a gorgeous Giallo with this film, and it very much satisfies every time I watch it. And the score! Why isn't this available on vinyl? Waxwork or Mondo - I'm looking at you guys. Someone give the music in this film a new great new edition!



Also, caught a bit of Dead Birds last night on Shudder.tv and now really want to go back and watch the entire thing.



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Playlist from

Stereophonics - Just Enough Education to Perform
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible 20
Sigur Rós - 22° Lunar Halo
Sigur Rós - Variations on Darkness
Sigur Rós - Takk
Sigur Rós - ( )
Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum

Playlist from 6/06:

Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Golden - Eponymous
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

2018: November 3rd - New Music from Chasms

One of my favorite live shows I saw in 2017 was Ritual Howls at the Echoplex. The show was fantastic, not just because the Howls absolutely killed it live, but because opening band Chasms - who I'd not heard at the time - held me mesmerized for the entirety of their set. The ethereal quality of Sky Madden and Jess Labrador's music stops time, transfixing moments into a fluidic-like substance that bubbles up around you in colors as you stand and stare at a stage that ceases to be a stage and instead becomes a portal.

Highly recommended live.

According to Chasms Bandcamp, this is the final track of their current shoegaze/industrial sound and a closing chapter on their time in the Bay Area. The band has relocated to Los Angeles (yah!), and 2019 will see the release of a new record on Felte. I can't wait.

Thanks to Kristen Renee Gorlitz - whose Kickstarter for her Zombie Romance comic The Empties, and who will be the guest on next Friday's Drinking with Comics, which streams live on the DwC facebook page - I've found an awesome new project on Kickstarter I just backed. The Murder Balloon! Check this out:



Four days left, so if like me, you love the idea of a vengeful clown inventing a Murder Balloon, click HERE and drop some $$$ - the rewards are worth it!

Playlist for 11/02:

Tones on Tail - Everything
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Wasteland
The Chameleons UK - Strange Times
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Chasms - Divine Illusion (Single)
Chasms - On The Legs of Love Purified

Card of the day:

My favorite card, the number 17, a beautiful portrait of the cosmos and the idea of ebb and flow, balance and harmony, and a guiding light. Reminds me that although last night I had appeared to write myself into a nasty little corner, this morning in the shower I thought my way out of it rather easily. Looks like she's bathing, right? I've come to suspect this card surfaces when I do my best problem solving, which is almost always in the morning, in the shower.

2018: October 23rd

From the B-Sides and Rarities Box set released back in the early 00s. Such a strange track; Cave definitely has a sense of humor - anyone that doesn't agree needs to absorb the entire And No More Shall We Part record - but rarely does it come off like this... not even sure how to describe it, other than it's awesome!

My friend Kristen Renee Gorlitz is the upcoming Drinking w/ Comics guest on Friday, November 9th at 9:00 PM. She also just launched a Kickstarter for the continuation of her comic The Empties. Best freakin' tagline EVER, "There are many ways to ruin a relationship. Turning into a zombie is one of them..."

Brilliant! Check out the trailer below and support her Kickstarter HERE



31 Days of Horror is quickly coming to the final stretch and I still have a handful of 'must-watch' movies left. Last night crossed off a big one. Regardless of a setting that, while being visually stunning, feels more ridiculous every time I watch it, Flatliners will always be one of my favorite movies, especially around this time of year. I love EVERYTHING about this one. And watching this last night means we have to watch Jacob's Ladder tonight, which although not standard Halloween fare, compliments Flatliners as part of a late 80s/early 90s sub genre that really only exists in my mind. Angel Heart and Serpent and the Rainbow would also fall into this same category.



31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners

Playlist from 10/22:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Rarities and B-Sides Vol. 1

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

New Order - Power, Corruption, and Lies

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog

Killing Joke - Nighttime

Card of the day:

Emotion honed by intellect. This perfectly describes last night. Perfectly! For today, I'm looking at applying that same intellect to the emotional deluge I've felt of late in editing the first two parts of the novel for continuity, which is really difficult at the moment. 

Food For Thought - Election Comic Kickstarter

Back in the early episodes of Drinking with Comics we had an episode that overlapped with one of the many local creator meetings that take place at Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug and brought one Cassidy James up to speak on behalf of a comic he was kickstarting, Gun Up Paintball. I hadn't seen Cassidy in a while and ran into him a month or so ago during an event at the shop. He told me about a new comic he had waiting in the wings called Food For Thought and it sounded like a lot of fun to me; I'm so disgusted by the entire election but can't seem to stop following it (for the record I don't consider myself a liberal or a conservative - I don't want any of 'em in office, btw) and a book that poked fun at any of the candidates sounded right like it might be just what a lot of us need to blow off some steam at the seemingly endless campaign trail shenanigans that we've been choking on for months now. If this sounds good to you too give the video above a watch and contribute to the Kickstarter HERE if you can. I'd really like to see this book get up off the ground. With Cassidy's words and Livan Ivan Cornejo's art I think this could be a truly entertaining and timely book.

Whispers From The Abyss Volume #2

I've really only just begun reading the first volume of Whispers From the Abyss from 01 Publishing but I'll stay straight off it's fantastic. Two of the stories in it - Nation of Disease: The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Legend by Jonathan Sharp and Death Wore Greasepaint by Josh Finney are probably among my top five Lovecraft-inspired stories ever. And now 01 has the second volume out digitally and are kickstarting the print edition. If you're a Lovecraft fan, a fan of dark or Weird fiction, or just a fan of great writing this is a well-worthy cause. AND might I add that 01 has procured none other than Laird Barron for an entry into this second volume.

The Unkindness of Ravens

This looks amazing. I'm going to support the kickstarter after I get paid and I'm suggesting anyone else who digs this do the same. 

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #6

Wherein A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor sits in with Mike and I for the entire episode! We talk about Larime's fantastic book, horror movies and music's role in his creative process. We interview local comic creator Cassidy James about his Kickstarter for his new book Gun Up Paintball and a trip to The Comic Bug for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014!

Kickstart the Gun Up Paintball Comic

I know nothing about Paintball - except I always thought it looked like fun - but I know comics. After meeting Cassidy James several evenings ago and talking to him briefly about this book he is currently running a kickstarter for I'm convinced this book will be great.

If you can pledge go here and help an independent creator do what he does best!

RUIN - Indenpendent Comic Kickstarter

My love of comics is a very deep and intense thing. I've been reading them since Larry Hama's GIJOE #49 - roughly the summer before I was in fourth grade or ~1986. Not all comics fit my "like" profile of course - I'm somewhat discerning when it comes to the area of tights and capes for instance. However, the beauty of today's comic climate is that the books and writing have matured with the audience and we now find not only amazingly sophisticated story tellers like Grant Morrison, Jonathan Hickman and Brian Michael Bendis writing superhero books for an equally sophisticated audience, but a wide variety of independent books that not only constantly break new ground in the medium itself but seed and influence big-budget Hollywood movies. Once thing I really try to do with my comic column on Joup.co is focus as much as possible on independent books that the Kickstarter platform has made possible in a way that was just never economically feasible before. I've begun to get emails from a lot of indie folks out there and I confess that lately I'm not always able to feature or even - in several unfortunate cases - respond to the creators because all the writing I do - which is at times almost unmanageable - is on top of my day job, which along with commute through LA traffic* eats up a considerable amount of my day. I try to respond to everyone and I'm getting better at it, but honestly I'd not anticipated the amount of interest.

Now, excuses aside...

The indie books I have begun to spotlight have been books like Ugli Studios Presents and Tension that have consisted of undeniably-constructed Kickstarters. Now another has caught my eye and it will be the focus of an upcoming issue of Thee Comic Column. That said I wanted to jump the gun and start getting the word out there as best I can because there are only thirty-six days left, so without further adieu I give you the Kickstarter video for ...RUIN, a post-apocalyptic, sci fi adventure that looks fantastic!

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*Still not as bad as Chicago traffic regardless of what anyone says

Painted Ladies of San Quentin Kickstarter

Jason Lenox is running a new Kickstarter. Support Indie everything!!! Go here to contribute.

Interview: Ryan Black's Tension

Ryan Black has a kickstarter going for his AWESOME comic tension. I interviewed him recently via email - you can check out his kickstarter video and contribute here and you can read the interview on Joup here.