Scream with Me, You Beautiful Man-Thing, You!

 

Yeah, I guess Michael Graves is a proud boy or whatever now, but once upon a time his unfortunate nationalist tendencies hadn't floated to the surface yet and he took over as the first Misfits singer I gave a shit about since Danzig. Wait, maybe he was the first after Danzig? I don't even remember anymore. Whatever. Either way, I had to post this track because of what you'll see in the next section of this post below. Regardless of his politics - which mind you, is mostly third-person related to me - I adore his two albums with the Misfits.

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Read:

From the final page of Marvel Comics' new Spider-Punk mini-series. What an idea - a Misfits-inspired revamp of Taskmaster!

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Dollar Bin:

If you've followed any of my comic/pop culture writings for long enough, you've heard me talk about my affinity for Marvel's 1986 failed New Universe line. I remember the ads building hype for this as if they were published yesterday:

I tried a few of the New Universe titles when they first dropped, but none of them moved the needle enough to make me spend my allowance on them monthly. Then, something amazing happened:

The Starbrand character accidentally nuked the city of Pittsburgh and the entire line of books changed, basically became a terrifying allegory for 80s Cold War Nuclear Panic. It was amazing!

After the one-shot graphic novel that changed the status quo of the line - aptly titled The Pitt - the 8 books in the NU turned into four, and things got dark AF. Shortly after came the four-part, Prestige Format series The War, which I believe ended the first iteration of Marvel's New Universe.

When these were coming out, I know I had books 1 and 2 of The War, but I don't remember having 3 and 4. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have bought them, but who knows. I'm pretty sure I don't still have now, although similarly I don't remember ever parting with them. Recently however, I found books 3 and 4 in the Dollar Bin at the Bug. Score! Now I just have to either find or re-buy the others and I can finally read the entire series.

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Plastic:

Speaking of Marvel Comics - Jesus F*&king Christ do I want this:

Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending the advert for this my way. I'm not sure I'm ready to pony up $275 bucks for this, but... damn! If it had been anyone but Man-Thing, I wouldn't even be entertaining the idea. I'll always have a fascination with Slime/Swamp/Sewer characters (what does that say about me???).

The psychedelic variant of Marvel's Man-Thing drops tomorrow from Mondo. 

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed

Mark Lanegan Band - Here Comes That Weird Chill

Helmet - Aftertaste

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Reflections - The Color Clear 

Ghost Bath - Moon Lover

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

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Card:

I don't even have it in me to interpret this at the moment, but it looks like a pretty big warning about letting emotional pile-up affect carefully laid plans.

Fields of the Nephilim - Moonchild

A little Carl McCoy and crew to usher us into the weekend. Here in LA, a brief flirtation with Autumn-like weather two weeks ago proved a total tease, and we've been back to 80+ degree days, with slightly chilly nights. The smell of the fires that raged over the last week has added a slight tinge of Halloween atmosphere to the air, as the brain can easily mistake the odor for that of burning leaves. For the most part, though, we are on our own to create and sustain a proper Autumnal environment for the season. Hence my leaning heavily on all the "October" music in my collection.

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31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31

10/02: Lords of Chaos

10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1

10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

10/05: Bliss/VFW

10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog

10/07: Halloween 2018

10/08: Hell House, LLC

10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)

10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)

10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena

10/13: AHS 1984 Ep 4/In the Tall Grass
10/14: Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)
10/15: Rabid (2019)
10/16: Wounds
10/17: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

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I received my copy of Death Waltz Records/Mondo's Vinyl Halloween III: Season of the Witch score. Fantastic packaging. I wish they'd put equal care into their Prince of Darkness vinyl from a few months ago, but I'll take what I can get.

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Playlist from 10/17:

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST
Ritual Howls - Their Body

Card of the day:

Time to change my routine a bit to promote fresh growth. I've felt a touch stagnant in the actual act of writing lately. Part of it is the scope of outlining the second and third Shadow Play books in depth is creating massive change in the story. This is a really good thing, as I feel these books are really coming alive. But the execution of concept is feeling a bit daunting at the moment, and the feeling is paralyzing me. I spent a good deal of time surrendering to an urge to clean and re-arrange the apartment yesterday in the middle of what was supposed to be a day off's writing session. I have no illusions here - I know this was an exercise of psychological displacement, i.e. I'm having trouble plotting one of the character groups' arcs, so I put writing aside and clean because it's something I can accomplish. This tomfoolery is dangerous if it gets out of control, so I need to figure out a way to sidestep this mania. I'm open to suggestions.

2019: May 8th - The Lodge Trailer

I've been hearing great things about this, however I also heard great things about Severin Fiala and Veronica Franz's previous film, Goodnight Mommy, and I absolutely hated that, so I am going into The Lodge with manageable expectations.

For the record, I found Goodnight Mommy to be a very well-made film, with fantastic visual and aural aesthetics, however, the 'twist' was obvious from the first scene and the film played out pointlessly cruel. Much of it was just in very poor taste, in my opinion.

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Damn it Mondo, another record I cannot resist drops tomorrow at noon:

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Playlist from 5/07:

Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified
Atrium Carceri - Cellblock
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Le Butcherettes - bi/MENTAL
Twin Temple - Twin Temple (Bring You Their Signature Sound... Satanic Doowop
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Lustmord - The Word as Power
Ghost - Meliora

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Card of day:

From the Grimoire: "The Fiery aspect of Fire. Pure Will. Creative Power that can tip into imbalance if one is not careful." See that horse? if the Knight is sitting wrong or ill-prepared, he's falling off.

2019: February 27th - The Chromatics' Nite Back in Print!

There's a whole slew of music re-released recently on Italians Do It Better, and of particular interest is The Chromatics' 2004 album Nite, long OOP and recorded/released before current lead singer Ruth Radelet joined the band. You can order Nite HERE; there's links at the bottom of the page for a ton of other music from both The Chromatics and Glass Candy, all on beautiful limited edition vinyl.

Now I just wish IDIB would release the old Glass Candy and the Shattered Theatre demos. I'd love to have Night Nurse, Love Love Love, or Brittle Women on vinyl.

NCDB:


Consistently entertaining as all hell:

Finally! The return of Punk's Not Dead! And the new mini series is titled, "London Calling." How awesome is that? Might have to spin some Clash today to prep.

Playlist from 2/26:

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme
Young Widows - Settle Down City
Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
Bob Mould - Sunshine Rock

Shockwaves Podcast #134 dropped last Friday and the back half of it is an hour-plus interview with Tobias Forge of Ghost. After the lawsuit by his ex-ghouls bringing his identity to light two or so years ago, I've avoided all interviews with the man. I think he's really adept at rolling with the punches, and the lawsuit hasn't hurt the band at all, though it has changed its persona's course for sure, but this one I couldn't pass up. You can find the episode (and all the others) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever fine podcasts are desalinated. You can also go straight to the source HERE.

Finally, at 12:00 PM noon CT time, Mondo/Death Waltz is releasing the John Carpenter/Alan Howarth soundtrack to my favorite JC movie, Prince of Darkness, or as I like to call it, Prince of Fucking Darkness. You can grab that HERE, just know there are probably a bunch of fanboy motherF*&kers like me who have alarms set and intend to be sitting at their computer with their fingers poised over the Order button on Mondo's site.

No card today.

2019: January 18th

New Finn Andrews! Pre-order The Veil's frontman's debut solo album HERE.



I've been doing pretty good not spending money, but this will most likely be a must.

Playlist from 1/17:

Tool - Aenima
Belong - October Language
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
Baroness - Purple
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A# (infinity)
Lung - All the King's Horses
Carpenter Brute - Leather Teeth

Card of the day:

A controlled burn for creative victory.