The Getaway

 

A couple years ago, Mr. Brown clued me into the greatness of Dr. John when he sent Gris Gris my way for Halloween. Since, every so often, he'll recommend an album. Two weekends ago he introduced me to 2012's Locked Down, where The Black Keys are his band. 

This is the same treatment the Keys have done for other aging icons, but combined with Dr. John, Locked Down struck me immediately. A perfect combination, this, and The Getaway is my favorite song (so far). The coda on this one is fantastic; one of the best guitar solos I've heard in some time.

---

---

---

Watch:

Watching this final season of Servant has finally made me dig out my DVD copy of Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla to show K Toby Kebbler's first break-out role (that I was aware of, anyway).

 

This one does not disappoint. Face-paced and twisty in that way Guy Ritchie's flicks are when he's on, I put this one right under Snatch as my favorite. And Kebbell is awesome- that pencil scene at the Subways gig! Oh man, I feel that every time I watch this.

 

---

---

---

Read:

I did a full, deep-dive, note-taking re-read of James Tynion IV's Department of Truth this weekend, and I can definitively tell you that no comic has stirred me up like this since first reading Grant Morrison's Invisibles back around the turn of the century. 

The ideas in this book are massive; Tynion has found a way to wrap everything from Alt-Right Conspiracy to Big Foot into an insanely compelling package that feels a lot like things we've seen before and loved cut with something brand new. My elevator pitch would be "Grant Morrison writes the X-Files" and there is zero hyperbole in that. Conspiracy Theories are fun, but ultimately I've never been a person who cannot refuse them just on some innate mental survival instinct; yes, I think 911 was probably an inside job, or some facet of our own government pulled the trigger on JFK, but it would do me no good to obsess over it, so I do not. This book is a super-intelligent way of working with a lot of that stuff in a fictional environment. 

Also, Martin Simmonds's art is absolutely breathtaking and helps the book feel a lot like the old-school Vertigo titles I love so much.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Dr. John - Locked Down

Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Pixies - Doggerel

Metallica - Hardwired

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession

Ghostland Observatory - Paparazzi Lightning

Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

White Hex - Gold Nights

---

---

---

Card:

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

Think things through and don't be distracted by splendor. 

Department of Neon Truth

 

I rewatched Nicolas Winding Refn's 2016 The Neon Demon yesterday and was once again completely blown away by it. The visual textures are sleek and beautiful while remaining as soulless as the industry they house in the story. This is perfect for Julian Winding's throbbing, minimalist techno (not calling it EDM, sorry).

---

---

---

Watch:

Interestingly enough, not a day after I read an article about Huesera: The Bone Woman in the latest issue of Fangoria, the trailer dropped: 

 

The first feature from writer/director Michelle Garza Cervera and distributed by the delightful XYZ Films; I'm kind of chomping at the bit to see this one. Something about the mythology at play here really fascinates me.

 

---

---

---

Read:

Last week I doubled down on my James Tynion reading and picked up the first four trades of Department of Truth. This is research for an upcoming deep-dive Butcher and I are doing for The Horror Vision; the project began as a lay-everything-out for Tynion's Something is Killing the Children mythology; only before we could get going, The Book of Slaughter dropped and kind of answered everything we were going to attempt to draw conclusions on. However, knowing the overall premise of Dept. of Truth, I began to realize the real deep-dive is seeing how these two connect because I am almost certain that they do. 

We'll obviously get more into it on the show, which will hopefully drop in about two weeks, but for now let me just point out that in SIKTC, the thing that manifests the monsters is belief, and the titular Department in DOT's entire job is managing belief in conspiracies because the big secret of the world is that if enough people believe in something, it becomes reality.

There's a layer to my enjoyment of DOT I hadn't anticipated, and that's that it looks and reads almost exactly like a late 80s/early 90s Vertigo title. I'm still picking away at the first couple trades of Peter Milligan and Chris Bacchalo's Shade The Changing Man from 1990-1991, and there are so many similarities, it's unreal. Add to that the Bill Sienkiewicz-like art from Martin Simmonds, and I've realized this is a book I should have been reading from the beginning. Better late than never, though.

---

---

---

Playlist:

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Various Artists - Twin Peaks (Limited Event Series Soundtrack)

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

The Police - Synchronicity

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

Off! - Free LSD

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Katatonia - Sky Void of Stars

Cliff Martinez - The Neon Demon OST

Final Light - Eponymous

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil

Special Interest - Endure

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

---

---

---

Card:

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

A strenuous emotional sacrifice to achieve a goal. (that's a crappy reading, but I'm short on time)