Showing posts with label Mike Doughty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Doughty. Show all posts

Friday, July 28, 2023

Talk to Me

 
Another new Ghost of Vroom track dropped two days ago, and it's probably my second favorite from the pre-release singles for the upcoming album Ghost of Vroom 3, out September 1st on Mod y Vi Records. You can pre-order the vinyl from Doughty's website HERE.




Watch:

Last night K and I saw Talk to Me at the local theatre. I am still thinking about it. This was one of those films that afterward, I didn't come home, open a beer and throw something else on. I dug right into those articles in the new issue of Fangoria that I'd been saving. 


Luckily, after seeing the trailer back when it first hit the internet, I have not watched it since, so I barely even remembered anything about this one. There's hype building around it that's turning some folks off, but I'm here to tell you, that hype is deserved. I've seen Beyondfest post on their socials numerous times declaring the first feature by twin brother directors Danny & Michael Philippou as the best Horror film of the summer, and Fangoria put it on the cover of that aforementioned new issue. Also, I've heard there is a lot of viral marketing that somehow I was fortunate enough to have missed. So I went in pretty virgin.

Even if you're inundated with the marketing, I'm recommending you see Talk to Me and you see it in a theatre. The sound design is a large part of how effective the film's unease is - it's LOUD and SHARP and often pummels you in short, declarative bursts. No explosions - just visceral, meaty stabs of sound. The performances are all fantastic, and the overall manner in which the plot unfolds felt fresh to me. 

The Philippous have created a Horror Prop that, in my opinion, has similar potential to Hellraiser's Lament Configuration, so we'll see if we get a sequel. 
            


Read:

This morning I discovered that there's a new novel on the horizon from Jonathan Lethem, author of a couple books I adore, namely Motherless Brooklyn; Gun, Occasional Music, and Amnesia Moon. Not to mention his batshit crazy Omega the Unknown for Marvel back in the early 00s. 


From the official Publisher's solicitation for the novel: 

"On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and the laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. The rules appear obvious at first. But in memory's prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget. Written with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers."

Brooklyn Crime Novel drops on October 3, and can be pre-ordered on Indiebound HERE or wherever books are sold. 




Playlist:

Sigur Rós - Ágœtis Byrjun
Sandrider - Godhead
Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
H6LLB6ND6R - Side A
Ghost of Vroom - Ghost of Vroom 3 (pre-release singles)
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous



Card:


• Knight of Wands
• Six of Swords - Science
• XV The Devil

Will applied to Will, a strengthening of resolve and a healthy dose of knowledge - possibly from a less-than-ideal source or possibly even a dodgy source.

Because I didn't ask a specific question, I have to read this as applying to my current writing project. If you read these pages, you know that's how I usually do Tarot. The specific question thing always seems a bit... dodgy to me (look! The cards are already sussing things out). It works, for sure, but I've never seen Tarot as a mystifying oracle, i.e. Omnipotent third party. I mean, I don't know that anyone who seriously studies the cards looks at them that way, but that's something that's definitely in the air. that said, I've done a specific question or two lately and the resultant Pulls have been spot-on, so it does work. The thing is, that just means I already know the answer to the question, anyway...

How this relates to the current project? Not so sure yet. I'm thinking it has to do with the ending, which exists in a theoretical way, but doesn't quite have the steam behind it for the prose to manifest yet. Perhaps I need to carouse some other works of fiction to look for some kind of jumpstart phrase or idea?



Friday, May 5, 2023

Ghost of Vroom!


New music from Mike Doughty's Ghost of Vroom! If you're a Soul Coughing fan like I am, this is the closest thing to that sound Doughty's done since their breakup back in, well, a loooong time ago. The new album, Ghost of Vroom 3 is out later this year, although no hard date has been announced.




Watch:

Rewatched Kevin Phillips' Super Dark Times on Shudder last night. Man, this one is heavy.

I'm not going to post a trailer because I think it's best to go in cold on this one. Yes, that's my recommendation for every movie, however, we can't always control that. This one is from 2017, so if you haven't seen it you may already have an idea what it's about. If not, just watch it. Damn.

What I will say is A) Kevin Phillips NAILS high school. I mean, he just crushed it - so many little non-sequitur moments that surround the characters and mean nothing other than to reinforce where our minds are at this age. Anger, Angst and Rebellion. "No I don't need your fucking help, lady!" one background character screams at one point, and it's just spot fucking on. B) This deals with a trauma that an event in my life in high school shares some DNA with. Phillips nails the state of mind that followed it. Again, he CRUSHED it.
 


Play:

Ask and ye shall receive: new Puppet Combo-like game No One Lives Under the Lighthouse by Torture Star and Marevo Collective hits a bunch of platforms - Switch included - this month!

 
Spooky AF! There are some images in this trailer that seared into my brain the moment they appeared on screen (@1:22 - WTF???). What a spectacular setting; an abandoned lighthouse island with rocky crags and descending spiral staircases lends itself so well to this aesthetic. I can't wait to play this game!

NOTE: if you read this post earlier and remembered it being longer, fret not! You are correct - I've expanded my "Lighthouse Horror as a burgeoning subgenre thoughts in a separate post HERE.

No One Lives Under the Lighthouse is out May 18th!



Playlist:

Sleep - The Sciences
Windhand - Eternal Return
Earth - Live at Third Man Records
Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country
The Sword - Warp Riders
Bongripper - Satan (single)
Crowbar - Planets Collide (single)
Gaupa - Myriad
Witchfinder - Hazy Rites
Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion
            


Card:

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


• 20 Judgement is Aeon in Crowley and Harris's Thoth deck. Regardless of which you go with, this is a card of Redemption. It also suggests a pivotal sequence and the holography of cause/effect.
• Seven of Pentacles is a card that denotes Victory/Completion of Earthly matters
• Queen of Pentacles, in this particular case, is offering the advice that I actually stop thinking with my emotions on Earthly matters and begin applying a more staunch lens of discernment.

In other words - I'm spending too much money on vinyl. 




Monday, February 22, 2021

I Hear the Axe Swinging

I emerged from a mid-afternoon nap yesterday to a text from Mr. Brown alerting me to the fact that Mike Doughty and Andrew "Scrap" Livingston's Ghost of Vroom dropped a new track. "I Hear the Axe Swinging is from the forthcoming album Ghost of Vroom 1, out March 1st. Pre-order the album HERE.




Watch:

K and I started Penny Dreadful this weekend. Wow! I always suspected I would dig this show, and I don't know if my relationship with it is so good because our timing meant it dovetailed with my finishing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but this one is fantastic. There's an obvious debt to Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but Penny Dreadful is dark, disturbing, and often quite gruesome, and the show's ambitions to bring together so many iconic Horror personalities is really served well by in-depth research. 





Playlist:

White Lung - Paradise
Melvins - Working with God
Sleaford Mods - Nudge It (single)
Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction
The Blueflowers - Relapse EP
Gwar - Scumdogs of the Universe
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
Small Black - Duplex (single)
PM Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss (single)
The Bangles - Different Light
Van Halen - 1984
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Chuck Berry - Berry is on Top
The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control




Card:


 "Look unto yourselves for answers, as it is in your partnership you will find that which you seek."

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

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

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

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

You can pre-order Ghost of Vroom HERE.




Watch: 

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

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

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




Playlist: 

Anioma - Necropolis

Faith No More - Angel Dust

The Clash - Combat Rock

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




Card: 

A bold infusion of creativity today. Hopefully.