Still riding near the top of my favorite albums of 2024 list is Amigo the Devil's Yours Until the War is Over, and what's that? This unstoppable force of storytelling goes and drops another new song at a live show last week. Mr. Brown sent that footage to me, and I'd planned to make it today's musical post; however, this 'Tour Bus Edition" popped up in my feed yesterday, and the choice was clear.
Head over to Liars Club Records to order the album OR the nifty new "My Body is a Dive Bar" T-shirt. I scooped that one up the moment I saw it.
NCBD :
Oh man, a fantastic-looking pull today. Let's not waste any time:
To say I have been waiting for Dan Watters' Destro book is an understatement of the highest order. I cannot wait to see where this takes us in the formation of Cobra, and what kind of relationship develops between the silver-visaged Scottish Laird and our dear, sweet Commander.
As I mentioned previously, I've really been enjoying hanging out with John Constantine again. I'm not sure if Dead in America is coming to its inevitable conclusion, but League of Comic Book Geeks has the series ending at issue 9, which is a weird number of issues for a series. Is it possible this may play out like Tynion's Nightmare Country and come back in a few months? We will see.
Okay, this second issue of Last Ronin II is starting to remind me of Jason Mrowski's older brother in his IROC. You know the type - he offers you a ride, then keeps pulling up just out of reach so you can't actually get into the car? Yeah. How many times have I posted this issue on a Wednesday?
And we come to the end of The One Hand, which really is only half the end of the story, because the final issue of The Six Fingers drops July 24th. I've really enjoyed this Neo Noir by Ram V and the aforementioned Dan Watters, and I'm hoping the books did well enough to warrant more stories set inside Neo Novena's seedy walls.
I caught up on this one over the weekend and am still really digging it. I love the commitment the modern TMNT universe takes to exploring new characters and not just using and reusing the old mainstays. Case in point: Shredder has been out of the picture since issue... what? 100? That's several years they've let Oroku Karai lead the foot and develop into a really cool character that stands on her own. Sure, she doesn't have the gnarly army her Grandfather Oroku Saki had, but like so many of the characters, her look as evolved and is still super sleek. The introduction of a secret sect of the Foot that has survived until now could have been exhausting, but this series is playing it smart and I am intrigued to see where this will go.
Watch:
This just made me incredibly happy:
Way jealous of the "Ceiling of Toys." Talk about living in a surreal environment.
Playlist:
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Amigo the Devil - Born Against
Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the War is Over
Man Man - Carrot on Stings
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
Card:
One card from Missi's Raven Deck for today:
From the Grimoire: "Literally, "What comes next." To me in this moment, this denotes finalizing something I've been flighty on and moving onto the next project.
From the upcoming Tarantula Heart, available April 19th from Ipecac Records. Pre-order HERE.
LOVE this track! I'm a Melvins fan, but the group has always proved too prolific (I know, no such thing) for me to keep up with everything they do. This one caught me on exactly the right day at the right time, and I instantly fell for lead "single" "Working the Ditch." Didn't hurt that I was able to snag the limited edition, Puke Green vinyl.
The line-up for this album is a throwback to Melvins' two-drummer paradigm; current Ministry drummer Ray Mayorga plays alongside mainstay Dale Crover and just from this track, I feel like we're hearing some really interesting rhythmic ideas. Aside from Houdini, the two drummer years are my favorite of the band, and this already reminds me of (A) Senile Animal, probably my second favorite of the group's albums.
Watch:
I've held off on learning too much about upcoming Horror/Thriller Long Legs because this one is generating a lot of hype, and as well we know, that is a surefire way to kill a film before it is even released (looking at the marketing team for Evil Dead Rise). That said, I'm leaving this teaser here unwatched, with my fingers crossed:
I've seen two of Oz Perkins' previous films, and didn't care for either. The Blackcoat's Daughter straight-up cheats with its casting as a way to deliver its twist, and Gretel & Hansel, while pretty, bored me to tears. Regardless, I'm very much hoping Long Legs will rule and, thus, maybe inspire me to rewatch one or both of those (although I've rewatched The Blackcoat's Daughter three times and each viewing just leaves me scratching my head at why the film is held in such high regard. It is entirely possible that I'm missing something, but I don't think so).
Many thanks to Mr. Brown, who clued me in on the existence of Matt Cameron's Gory Scorch Cretins, a solo album with Melvins as his backing band! Apparently, this came about after a Soundgarden tribute where Buzz and the boys did "Spoonman." All of this is news to me, and I've gotta say I was a little confused when I first saw the cover and title; was this a Melvins tribute? Nope. All original stuff, and they're all great. Furthermore, Cameron - long one of my favorite drummers - makes a fantastic singer! Every track on this is great; I chose this one because it reminds me a bit of Urge Overkill, and for some reason, when I played this for the first time yesterday, that really hit the spot as a final track on the album.
Watch:
After picking at it since September - primarily because the show disappeared from the platform I was watching it on and then reappeared on another - I finally finished the second season of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal yesterday.
I watched the last six or so episodes in a fairly tight burst, and this one is really masterfully done. This isn't something most of the world doesn't already know; I'm ten years late to the game on this one, but man, it burns knowing there won't ever be a season four.
One of the charms of the show is, of course, watching Hannibal in the kitchen, so I jumped at the chance to post the video above; special thanks to Moonshine Omega - their YouTube channel is an interesting collection of Food and Bevy-related videos from shows we love (there's a cool one of all drinks and food in Jessica Jones Season One!)
Play:
Having just finished Torture Star/Puppet Combo's Night at the Gates of Hell, I am SUPER happy to get wind of a new game coming our way from them:
As usual, the 80s VHS/Video Nasties influence is a large part of the draw, however, I've really come to prefer Torture Star's games, so I am psyched to be getting another for Switch.
Playlist:
Disappears - Pre Language
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Fear - Live for the Record
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Baroness - Stone
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Swords
• XVIII: The Moon
• Six of Cups
The intellectual benefits of balancing the mental and moral components of a conflict lead to emotional revelation.
No idea what the hell this means at the moment, but as with most of my pulls on this trip (yes, I'm still in L.A.), I'm really just recording all this as data archives for later analyzation.
It was not until just last week that I realized Melvins had collaborated with Lustmord on an album. THIS is mind-blowing stuff.
NCBD:
We start this week's NCBD with the final issue of Moon Knight: Black, White & Blood.
I Love this series. When they first announced they were doing one of these BW&B for Moon Knight, I was surprised. I'm hoping they do some other left-of-center characters, and that it wasn't just the Moon Knight Disney+ series that spurred this particular title. I'd love to see a Taskmaster or even, hell, a Wilson Fisk, Kingpin BW&B. Come on Marvel, let's see what you got!
One of my most anticipated series since the previous issue. This one is such a great heir to the Neil Gaiman/Vertigo legacy.
Being that issue 3 just came out last week, I'm not entirely sure this will land today. We'll see. Either way, this series is worth the wait.
I feel like it's been quite some time since the previous installment of West of Sundown. That's not really true, I think I've just, you know, moved across country and completely restarted my life since issue 4. Can't wait to read this next chapter.
Probably my favorite cover with Scott Summers on it EVER.
Read:
There was a time when I bought every novel Irvine Welsh released the day they came out. That stopped after his 2012 Skag Boys. Not because I don't love Welsh's work. On the contrary, his prose is a HUGE influence on my own, and being that I had shifted to working on a genre series, I was afraid that influence would hinder my completion of the first Shadow Play novel. Shadow Play ultimately took another seven years to finish, starting and re-starting it. In between, I cranked out a lot more genre work, always keeping Welsh at bay.
Last Sunday, the damn burst.
I'm a saver - if I discover an author who already has a few novels on the shelf, I'll always save one. So was the case with Welsh's 1995 novel Marabou Stork Nightmares. Well, after learning Welsh had just released a follow-up Ray Lennox novel to Crime with The Long Knives. I realized I've now missed five Welsjh novels including this one. To quote Lebowski, "this will not stand!"
So I cracked open Marabou and cannot put it down.
It's crazy to think this was Welsh's second published novel. The narrative is written in the same kind of experimental fashion that Filth is - I don't want to try and explain it here, but needless to say, Welsh finds a pretty insane way to move between main character Roy Strang's coma-narrative and his real life and what he hears while he's inside the coma, bubbling up just below the surface of waking. Which Roy does not want to do. I love Welsh's work so very much, I can't believe I've been away from it this long.
Playlist:
Pink Mountaintops - Peacock Pools
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Megadeth - Rush in Peace
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer Bs
Patty Smythe - The Warrior (single)
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic
Scott H. Biram - Nothing But Blood
Amigo The Devil - Born Against
The Mysterines - Reeling
Young Widows - Settle Down City
Breather Resist - Charmer
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
The way that I will choose to accomplish something will usher in notable change, part of which will be condemnation by someone I respect.
I've got a BIG new project in the works, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people - not necessarily people I know - will give it a big eye roll just for what it is. Unfortunate. "The work that transforms the medium."
After a recent text conversation with Mr. Brown, I fell down a Melvins rabbit hole yesterday. I hadn't heard 2010's The Bride Screamed Murder since back around the time when it came out, and even then it wasn't an album that impacted me at the time (a lot of times, if I'm not in a "Melvins Mood," their shit goes right past my head, then I hear it again at some point and love it immediately). Bride is a fantastic record, one of my favorites of theirs from the last ten years, but the album closer "P.G. X3" might be my favorite track by the band since "A History of Bad Men", on 2006's (A) Senile Animal.
Watch:
My excitement for this is building!
While I wasn't blown away by Season Four at its start, by the end they had me again. The announcement that Mike Barnes returns in Season Five has me think this is definitely an "All the soldiers in a row" moment for the show.
Sharon Jones and the Dap Tones - Give the People What They Want
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Here's a direct commentary on something I've known for some time. As I've gotten back into reading and thinking about the practice of Magick, the major impediment to me actually doing very much with it, is drinking. Which, averaging four beers a night right now, is something I probably do too much of.
I've gotta say, 2020's Melvins album Working With God is easily my favorite of the group's since 2006's (A) Senile Animal. My go-to favorite track has pretty consistently been the album opener, a modified cover of the Beach Boys I Get Around appropriately renamed I Fuck Around. But Hot Fish is a very close second, and one I played more than once today in order to get through some monotonous paperwork.
Read:
I've always dug the Marvel character Dane Whitman, AKA The Black Knight, so I picked up the one-shot King in Black: The Black Knight last week. Not a great story - it starts great and then quickly begins to feel editorially driven. Plus, I'm not going anywhere near a crossover of this size, so it was largely lost on me. Still, I dug enough about it that it inspired me to dig out another Marvel title that plays off the old school, pulp Weird Barbarian stuff, Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo's Weirdworld, from circa 2015.
I love this book for so many reasons, however, chief among them would be the use of Crystar the Crystal Warrior and some of his supporting cast (now that's a fucking PULL), and the concept of an entire forest made of Man Things.
I only have the original, post-Secret Wars five-issue run, and I know there's a second volume that followed, so I'm going to need to track that down.
Playlist:
Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA
Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
The Replacements - Tim
Deftones - Covers
Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire
Zeal & Ardor - Wake of a Nation EP
Suburban Living - Always Eyes
Gun N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Skid Row - Slave to the Grind
Bjork - Post
Tomahawk - Toxic Immobility
Fantômas - Suspended Animation
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Flogging Molly - Float
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Card:
Change continues unabated: I type this entry on my brain new, M1 Macbook. The old one - which I've had since August of 2012 - isn't going anywhere, but it's slowing down and suffering from an erratic track pad, so this was a necessary change.
Pre-order the new album HERE, out February 26 on Ipecac Records!
Watch:
Friday morning I woke up and rented Bryan Bertino's new film The Dark and The Wicked on Prime. Great flick. I didn't 100% connect with it the way I had hoped, however, I probably had some pretty unrealistic expectations. That said, it's a very well made film, even if I did kind of think all the atmosphere and tension didn't quite "pop" the way it tried to. Definitely worth supporting, though, and Bertino is one of the best modern filmmakers working in Horror, in my opinion.
I also finally made it around to Benson and Moorhead's episode of this year's season of The Twilight Zone. "8" is great. I still don't dig the overall feel of the series, and as much as I dig Jordan Peele, he just doesn't have the same wry manner needed to fill Rod Serling's shoes, but I did like seeing an Octopus kill off a team of Arctic research scientists.
Despite my misgivings on the series, I'm glad someone's doing it, because anthology shows like this help employ a lot of filmmakers, and whether I watch them or not, it makes me happy they exist.
Playlist:
Opeth - Watershed
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To the Sky
Miserable - Uncontrollable
Anna Von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Fen - The Dead Light
Hoseback - The Invisible Mountain
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse
Card:
What I've been doing to myself again with writing. I did nail some important backstory in a scene yesterday, but I could have got a lot more done had I not kept flitting around, being distracted by menial tasks that totally could have waited.
Last night I had the absolute pleasure of seeing the 1993 movie Freaked at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Freaked is a film I don't think I had ever even heard of before a few weeks ago, when I caught sight of the screening via Beyondfest's Twitter. Even though I didn't know the film, I saw them tweet that Paul Leary would be present "with his guitar" and bought two tickets immediately.
Turns out, that was a very good thing...
Written by Alex Winter, Tim Burns, and Tom Stern, and directed by Winter and Stern, Freaked is an absolute marvel of practical FX, courtesy of Screaming Mad George, Alterian FX and XFX. The movie is an testament to a Hollywood that no longer exists. Costing Thirteen Million and boasting a cast that includes but is not limited to Winter, Brooke Shields, William Sadler, Gibby Haynes (yes, that Gibby Haynes), John Hawkes, Randy Quaid, an uncredited Keanu Reeves, and so many more, Freaked is absolute madness. And since this was a Beyondfest event, there was, of course, special guests.
The evening began in Peter Seychelle's comfortable study...
No, wait.
The evening began with Burns, Stern, and Winter explaining how Freaked grew out of their MTV show Idiot Box. From there, they played a first pass at a conceptual Rock n Roll Horror Movie they had attempted to spin out of the show, a feature-length film that, well, in their words, "Was basically The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the Butthole Surfers as the cannibal hillbilly family."
The footage was, of course, as insane as that might lead you to believe. They began with this clip from Idiot Box, to clear up a joke at the beginning of the film:
Then moved to the aforementioned Rock n Roll Horror Film, Entering Texas:
From there Freaked played, with a stop motion "Holo Rollins" Henry Rollins discount "hologram" set in time to sing with Freaked, the Rollins/Blind Idiot God title song that plays over David Daniels' brilliant hand-animated title sequence title sequence. During the film, Paul Leary did indeed take the stage several times to play live guitar over key "freak out" sequences.
By this time, I considered my investment to have already paid off ten-fold.
After the film the special guests took the stage and Burns, Stern, and Winter were joined by Catherine Hardwicke, John Hawkes, composer Kevin Kiner, the real Henry Rollins, Lee Arenberg, Megan Ward, and FX maestros Bill Corso, Tony Gardner, and I think Jim Eustermann, although by the time we got to the three FX gurus, things were a bit of a blur.
Every time I get frustrated with living in LaLa Land, something like this happens and I am reminded why I absolutely love living in this city. Special thanks to Beyondfest, Mondo/DeathWaltz, and @troniks on Twitter, who provided the beautiful 35mm print of the film. A wonderful night all around. Oh, and all that wonderful Idiot Box and early Winter/Burns/Stern footage comes from turdburglar27's wonderful youtube channel where you too, can watch Entering Texas.
Song:
While I was at the Egyptian last night witnessing early 90s Cinematic Magic, the Melvins played a pop up LaLa Land Gallery. Here's Inky Psyops and Printed Schemes, a song I am not familiar with at all, courtesy of Baby Gorilla, whose channel is always chock full o' great live music.
**
Playlist:
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
93MillionMilesFromTheSun - Towards the Light
Mol - Jord
Godflesh - Hymns
Zonal - Wrecked
Butthole Surfers - Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac
Card:
The Air of Water, a reminder to temper emotion with intellect, not always an easy thing to do.
It was only a matter of time until I sunk into my favorite Melvins album while walking around Spokane. There's an insane aural/visual connection I make exploring the various textures of this city - a lot of brick, stone and Earth - with heavy slabs grinding in my ears. It just works. I'm probably waiting until the last day to take pictures - the streets are a bit sketch in a lot of parts, overrun with homeless, many of whom I've seen bother random folks walking around on the street. This makes a lot of people nervous, I know, but I do my best to avoid standing out, and part of that is not pulling out my iPhone every few minutes and snapping pictures. Also, with my worn combat boots, fingerless glove, dark clothing, and fully engaged hoodie, I blend in with the homeless. Which works well for me.
Last night I took a deviation from Ciazarn and followed inspiration for a new short story. The inspiration came from a simple, everyday office scenario that my mind twisted into what is becoming a really fun direction. I wrote for hours yesterday, causally pecking away at an online that, at some point shifted to a full-on narrative. No working title, no nothing yet. Just 15K words and an escalating desire to see where this one goes.
**
Later, back in my hotel room, I watched GhostWatch, currently on Shudder's "Last Chance" list. I'd heard the Shockwaves crew speak on this one a few weeks back, and earmarked it based on whatever that discussion entailed. I have to tell you, it had me all the way through. And genuinely scary, which you all know I consider rare. What's crazy is apparently, many of the British BBC ONE news folks in the movie are indeed real television news folks, and GhostWatch originally aired in Britain on Halloween, 1992 under the auspices of being an actual news program, Orson Welles style. Man! I wish I could have seen it in that capacity. Still, really cool flick. Here's a video that explains the occurrence in more detail than I can:
**
Playlist from 4/09:
Young Widows - Old Wounds
Helms Alee - Night Terror
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Melvins - Houdini
Card of the day:
This resonates. My writing yesterday feels like it's put my power levels through the freakin' roof. More today.
I talked a bit previously about my friend John being in town. This is John of Jonathan Grimm Art. His work is amazing, and he's also the artist and co-creator of The Legend of Parish Fen, the swamp monster comic we hope to have the first volume out of mid next year. We spent the day yesterday working out the entire 2nd issue and it is grand, much better than what we had when we originally beated out this 3 issue arc about a year ago. We also came up with something else, something that's not quite a comic and not quite prose, and should prove considerably easier to release in a more expedient fashion. More on that later, but for now I'll leave you with the title.
CIAZARN
There was no playlist yesterday, as we chose to work on Fen without music. Weird - a day with no music. I'll make up for it today.
Tonight - the Los Angeles premiere of Mandy! I can NOT wait! Here's the recently released Japanese trailer - I'm not watching it, but I'm on trailer ban.
Card of the day:
Always good to see you pop up, especially after a week off working on my current project. I'll be back to that tomorrow, until then, TO VICTORY!!!
Woke up with Coast to Coast, the second track on Tune-Yards new album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life in my head. I can't find a good version of it to embed here so instead here's the Melvins covering The Butthole Surfers in honor of the fact that the new Melvins album is out soon and features Jeff Pinkus on second bass for the entire album:
So good...
Playlist from 2/21:
Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Brookville - Life in the Shade
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Soma
House of Waxwork Vol. #2 OST
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
New installment of Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is HERE.
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire:
Indicates greater objectivity/clarity
Healthy balance of emotions and intellect
Good time to make decisions
I can see clearly now the rain has gone
Hmm... Well, the convolutions thicken with the prospective move; the place we had settled on is out, a potentially better place has popped up and I suppose this is telling me to balance my approach inspire of exhaustion (which I haven't so much as half the right to claim as K does).
Oh! Check this out - Metallica Garage Days Re-Revisitied reissue; the CD comes in a limited edition long box like CDs used to come in back in the day. $10 bucks for the second of the only two albums by this band you need to own? Check!
The first song we've heard off of April 30th Melvins (and friends) cover album Everybody Loves Sausages. Thanks be to Mr. Brown for the heads up.
What is not addressed in the article is why JSBX - or what is commonly an abbreviation for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is on the graphic. Are they somehow involved in with the track? There was no mention anywhere that I looked.
