Wednesday, August 17, 2022
A Drop For Every Hour
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
The Bullet Screamed At Me From Somewhere
NCBD:
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Thursday, June 23, 2022
Preoccupations - Ricochet
Watch:
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Friday, October 22, 2021
Scary Little Green Men
31 Days of Halloween:
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Sunday, October 10, 2021
To Answer The Black Phone, You Must Walk On Guilded Splinters
A couple of years ago, Mr. Brown turned me onto Gris-Gris, one of the darker Dr. John albums, and it's become a staple of my annual Halloween listening. Check out the album closer, "I Walk on Guilded Splinters" creates a creepy A.F. atmosphere.
Watch:
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Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Neverly Boys
Thanks, J.B.!
Watch:
Bloody Disgusting ran an article about Director Patrick Rea's new film I Am Lisa HERE.Playlist:
Card:
Victory, which tells me that, yes, I've finally finished a short story I've been struggling with since 2018! That feels good - a nice palate cleanser before switching back to Shadow Play.
Friday, October 9, 2020
RIP Naked Raygun Bassist Pierre Kezdy
Damn. I just received word from Mr. Brown that Naked Raygun Bassist Pierre Kezdy has died at 58. Chicago local, Kezdy played on all the Raygun releases I heard in my high school group of friends when people's older brothers began to decimate albums down through their younger siblings' ranks. Holding You is the first Raygun song I ever remember hearing, and it's still my favorite. Something about that Sax. From the album, Raygun... Naked Raygun, which always struck me as hysterical when combined with the album art concept, a kind of James Bond-esque, cut-out, paper doll incoporating the band members' faces.
Very cool. These guys, along with Pegboy, The Effigies, and Big Black were the Chicago bands that formed my teenage views of one half of Chicago's musical scene/legacy (the other half of that being the Industrial scene).
Friday, August 14, 2020
Isolation: Day 151
While I've been a Bungle fan since Brown turned me on to their self-titled debut back in High School, and I spent a good deal of my time on Napster in the late 90s downloading bootlegs of their older, demo stuff, I never really got into the original, thrash version of the band. That said, seeing these songs a few months ago, played by musicians who are older and wiser, I became convinced if they recorded it, Easter Bunny had the potential to be one of the greatest thrash records to come out in decades. If Raping Your Mind is any intimation of what is on the rest of the record, I'm pretty sure I was correct.
Sure, I'd love another weirdo Bungle album eventually, but in the meantime, I'm welcoming this one with open arms.
**
NCBD this week was another no-go for my pull, which is fine, because I haven't picked up my books in two weeks now. One of the companies I always look forward to checking is Vault, and this week, I notice a collection for a series I'd not noticed previously. This looks pretty damn interesting, and I've ear-marked it for a little research.
This collection just came out, however, I'm going to look for the individual issues first, as I love the art and design of the originals' covers. Here's an example:
There's such a throw-back feel to this, but not like a comic, more like the old paperback books I used to read as a kid. LOVE this.
**
Playlist:
Concrete Blonde - Eponymous
Concrete Blonde - Free
X - Wild Gift
X - Los Angeles
Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
Contours - Essential
Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST
X - Under the Big Black Sun
The Birthday Party - Hee Haw
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Hank III - Straight to Hell
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Francesco Zampaglione and Andrea Moscianese - Tulpa OST
Brainiac - Smack Bunny Baby
Vitalic - OK Cowboy
Aerosmith - Pump
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
Moderat - II
Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
The Bangles - All Over the Place
**
Card:
Let's do another multi-deck spread:
For this one, I used one card from the Raven Deck, and two from my mini Thoth - both decks gifts to me from my good friend Missi, who now has my new book Murder Virus - that's the name I'm sticking with - as my first beta reader. Missi Birthday was yesterday, so there's a lot of her energy in this spread. The Tower is a toppling of old conventions, though here I don't take it as pointing to the 'Old Guard' publishing industry, but my perceptions of it. Work is the hard work and determination I need to maintain (another query sent a few days ago), and Lust is a warning about the lust of result. Those of you who know anything about Magick know lust of result is one of the major blockades to achieving one's Will.
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
Isolation: Day 141
Mr. Brown sent me this last night, and after watching it, both K and I are immediate fans. I can't wait to dig into The Hu's catalogue, which you can peruse and purchase from HERE.
**
A new trailer dropped for Season Two of The Boys.
The trailer is a bit overdone, but I'm still excited to see where this goes.
**
NCBD:
Not a lot this week. I did notice this coming from Vault, and I'm curious. Back in the early/mid 90s, I wasn't a RPG'r, but I loved Vampires. I know the entire genre is cliched now, and maybe it was back then, too. I didn't know that. I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire when I was a senior in High School, and I LOVED it. This was shortly before the movie - which I'm not a huge fan of - and reading that first novel in Rice's Vampire Chronicles coinciding with my purchasing Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses (the digipak version, of course). I'd smoke out and lay around devouring the novel, while listening to Peter Steele's voice sing of Blood and Fire, and Suspended in Dusk, and Steele's voice became Louie's voice. I haven't gone back to those novels in since I read them; I'm not even sure I'd like them now. Back then though, Rice's fiction had me ravenous for more Blood Lore, and in this way I discovered White Wolf Publishing's Vampire: The Masquerade. My Chicago comic shop Amazing Fantasy carried a lot of books as well (thank you Garrett!), and I believe that is where I bought my first Masquerade novel. I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one it was, it left a bit of an impression on me. Enough that I'm curious to see a comic series reviving the line.
A few years back, when my friend Missi turned me on to Poppy Z. Brite's fiction from the 90s, it kind of scratched a long-standing itch for this kind of Goth-Pageantry fiction, and it's probably the hangover from reading her Lost Souls last year that has me tempted to pick this up.
**
Playlist:
Young Widows - Settle Down City
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Metallica - Master of Puppets
**
Card:
Keep going despite fatigue. The wheel turns, so says Ka.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Isolation: Day 34 Code Orange
Mr. Brown turned me on to Code Orange's new record Underneath a few days ago, and it's been quickly becoming a staple. The album is all over the place as far as textures; so many influences in these guys that, in a way, I feel like they're the bridge between reclaiming some of the cooler elements in late 90s/early 00s metal - most of which was ruined by near constant narcissism and ostentatious infusion of hip hop aesthetics - and bridging those elements with the groove-heavy pioneering of mid-period Sepultura, the speed of and precision of DEP, as well as the latter's occasional penchant for incorporating glitch-like electronic elements.
Underneath dropped on Roadrunner Records recently; if you're interested you can order it HERE.
**
Speaking of metal, yesterday I re-watched the Joe Bob Briggs presentation of Jason Lei Howden's Deathgasm. Man, I love this movie.
Letterboxd
Also, I finally watched the John Carpenter/Tobe Hooper anthology Body Bags. Not sure why this one took me so long to get around to. Fantastic. The cast really surprised me, with a slew of B-Level actors whose chops were never more apparent than at the direction of two Masters of Horror.
Letterboxd
**
Playlist:
Killing Joke - The Fall of Because
Killing Joke - Night Time
Code Orange - Underneath
White Lung - Paradise
The Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup
The Babies - Our House On the Hill
**
Card:
From the Grimoire: "Saving Money." Fitting. Stimulus landed today and all but a tiny bit of it went directly into Savings. I'll stimulate the economy when we buy a house. In the meantime, a portion of the remainder of the government pay-off for ineptitude will be spent on Kindle editions of William Gibson's The Peripheral and it's recently released follow-up, Agency.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Isolation: Day 3 - Seefeel Fracture
Caught this on Michael Stock's Part Time Punks on KXLU this past Thursday (there's a link via KXLU that archives the playlist for all Michael's shows HERE). Love it. Fracture is from the Fracture/Tied single on Warp Records. You can also find and support Seefeel through other releases available on their Bandcamp.
**
Seven episodes into HBO's The Outsider, and it has a hold of me good. Fantastic show that very much scratches the itch left over from True Detective Season One.
**
As more and more public events are cancelled, it was inevitable the upcoming Deafheaven tour got postponed. Mr. Brown pointed me HERE, where the band is selling what was supposed to be their tour merch, as well as taking pre-orders for the double live album that was supposed to be recorded over two nights in Chicago, but will now be recorded live in-studio. As the craziness increases, you're going to see a lot of messages from independent artists about helping to support them and/or others like them. Take this seriously. I've always considered myself a 'patron' of the arts, especially as we've moved into such a decentralized paradigm for creating and distributing said arts. Now with this, bands who would have made the bulk of their income touring - because even a band like Deafheaven isn't being supported by their label enough for its individual members to actually exist in the real world - are going to be effectively cut off at the knees. You can't support everyone, but please, support those you can.
Here's one of the older Deafheaven songs I'm hoping ends up on the double live, which titled 10 Years Gone, I'm assuming is a career-to-this-point retrospective:
**
Playlist:
Human Impact - Eponymous
Seefeel - Fracture/Tied (Single)
Various Artists - The Void OST
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
**
Card:
That's a bit disturbing in light of recent events. Or, I can interpret it as the hot streak I'm using all the media induced 'pandemic' paranoia to fuel re-writing something I will be releasing in a few months.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
New Music from Man Man!
From Man Man's forthcoming Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, the band's first album since 2013's On Oni Pond. You can pre-order the new record from Sub Pop HERE.
As much as I love Man Man, they had completely fallen off my radar until, maybe two or three months ago, I went through a little jag with 2011's Life Fantastic. Then, a few days ago, Mr. Brown messaged me about the new record, and now I find myself quite anxious for May 1st and the first new record by the group in seven years.
What I did find while digging around in Apple Music, was that Man Man released an EP in 2019, two songs, both of which are fantastic, but one I adore. Here's that song, too:
**
Having been in something of a funk the last week or so, I left work a skosh early yesterday with the desire to do nothing more than recharge by watching a couple flicks. I went with Benson and Moorehead's Resolution and The Endless, the second of which I'd watched before, October 2018, and not really liked. The links for my micro reviews on Letterbxd are linked to each title, suffice it to say, I loved Resolution, and it is now my opinion in order to fully appreciate the themes and situations of The Endless, you have to watch them one after the other. Not necessarily in one sitting, but it helps. Both are exceptional films - I'm really kind of staggered by the elegance of The Endless and its metaphors, and now I can't wait for the two creators' next film, Synchronic, which seems as though it should have already been released, and which I'm pretty sure will deal with Flower, the hallucinogenic plant people smoke in both films.
Normally, I'd post trailers, but I think any pre-knowledge will ultimately take away from both films, so I figured I'd use the awesome poster art and be done with it. Resolution is currently streaming on Prime, and The Endless is on Netflix.
**
Playlist:
Man Man - Cloud Nein (pre-release single)
Man Man - Beached (Single)
Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (pre-release single)
Parliament - Mothership Connection
**
Card:
Lots of red, with authoritarian overtones. Mars. Pretty sure this is a sign to pull myself up out of my funk and get back to work.
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Me and That Man - On The Road
Holy cow. A good friend sent me a link to this 2017 album Songs of Love and Death by Me and That Man. Dark, fuzzy, gothic country, this entire album is fantastic. I know nothing about this band, but this album hits a perfect harmonic with the new Federale and a few other albums I've had on heavy rotation lately, most of which I'll get to posting from in the next few days.
**
Last night K and I went to the theatre to see Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.
The best cinematic sequel ever.
Honestly, I miss spoke above, because Flanagan - who I now think might be the greatest living modern horror director - has made a film that is a sequel to both King's book and Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining, which are two very different entities. There's an article in the most recent Fangoria Magazine where Flanagan talks about how he approached this, and all I can say is, he hit it out of the park. Doctor Sleep is also a very tight adaptation of the novel, so it has the dual quality of feeling like a novel first, and a movie second. In other words, the three-act structure moviegoers have unconsciously come to expect is there, but in an over-arching way. The way the individual scenes are woven together, moving back and forth seamlessly between characters, events, and places, feels literary, as though you're plowing through sections or chapters in a book.
I loved Doctor Sleep when I read the novel back around the time it came out - many thanks to Mr. Brown for mailing me his copy just to be sure I read it, as our love for both King's book and Kubrick's film goes back a looooong way. And now I love the film. Win-win.
Playlist from 11/08:
Federale - No Justice
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits
Black Pumas - Eponymous
TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
John Coltrane - Coltrane's Sound
**
Card of the day:
Balance and harmony; coherence and the intuition of a guiding light. I think so. Tonight we're doing a Horror Vision taping and I'll be premiering the finished version of this story I've been working off-and-on for over a year now to five people by reading it out loud. As Cap'm says, Proof is in the Pudding.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Some Spooky Dr. John for your October 8th
Chalk another awesome recommendation up to Mr. Brown. Of course, I've been aware of Dr. John's music for a pretty damn long time and never really dipped a toe in, but when Brown recommended this to me yesterday as a left-field pick for some Halloween music, I jumped right in and found myself fully submerged in Gris Gris, the Doctor's first Voodoo-infused take on his Night Tripper persona. Really good stuff, and you'll see a lot of where Tom Waits pulled from when he left the drunken piano-schtick behind.
No offense meant to Waits, he'll always be one of my favorites. But the influence is on his sleeve, for sure.
**
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
**
Playlist from 10/06:
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
1919 - The Complete Collection
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000
John Carpenter - Lost Themes II
**
Card of the day:
I always kind of think of the Twos as the spicket through which the Cosmic Perfection of The Crown trickles into Reality. What that means for me today, I'm not sure, but I'm hoping it bodes well for my writing session scheduled for this evening.
Monday, September 23, 2019
New Trailer for Shudder's Creepshow!
This Thursday! Can't wait.
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The Writing Process:
Lots of intense bursts of inspiration for Shadow Play Book Two: The Absence of Light. I have a general outline, sort of, but there's so much ground to cover and a lot of jumping around in the timeline, which currently runs from about 1576 to 2019, with one chapter most likely occurring in early pre-history. This is easily the most ambitious story architecture I've ever attempted, but it feels strong and alive in a way that is increasingly energizing. Which is great, because lately, I've had a lot of ups and downs with all the short stories I've been working on over the last year, and the first book of Ciazarn is largely written, but I can't quit nail the tone, so I'm easing away for the time being on that one. Frustrations are amplified by the fact that most of these issues would probably work themselves out if I could just get back on a consistent writing schedule. Hoping that happens this week.
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Super excited to announce I'll be doing a bit of a collaboration with my good friend Mr. Brown. I've never really been an X-Files fan; I don't have anything against it, but I also have never really gotten into it beyond a dalliance with the 'mythology' episodes way back in the day, which dried up as it became apparent the story wasn't really mapped out to conclude in any satisfying way. Or maybe I'm wrong - I liked some of what I saw, but could never commit to a regular watch-schedule with it, despite being sexually obsessed by Gillian Anderson in my late teens/early twenties.
But I digress...
Brown asked me recently if I'd be into the idea of him curating a playlist of stand alone X-Files episodes, the idea being I would watch them and write a little something about them as I go. I love this idea, as I trust Brown's taste implicitly, and have always wanted someone to show me just what the hell everyone loved about this show in the 90s. This is the perfect time for such a project as well; 31 Days of Horror begins next week, and I figure on days with little watch time, I could pepper in some X-Files. I have the list and can't wait to start!
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Recent Playlist:
Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Carpenter Brut - Trilogy
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Drab Majesty - Careless
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night OST
Boy Harsher - Careful
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe
Monolord - No Comfort
Joseph Loduca - Evil Dead 2 OST
John Carpenter - Prince of Darkness OST
**
Card of the day:
Turning. Changing. Cycles. You can see on the diagram below that Atu X: Fortune manifests as the path between Mercy and Victory. Not sure how to read that in my own current context, but while digging around online for the image below, I came across something I'd never really noticed about Fortune - The Wheel or The Wheel of Fortune in other decks. It moves counter clockwise. Macro-definitions aside, I'm looking at this today as a nod to move forward in reverse-engineering something that has been giving me a bit of trouble.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
2019: July 13th - The Pixies: Tame
I may have made you wait longer than other folks would have to get to a track by The Pixies, here during my Frank Black Appreciation Week, but you knew I'd get there, right?
I won't lie, I thought about not posting any. I could fill a couple months posting beloved Black Francis songs and completely eschew his first major band, but then, well, I'd be lying to myself. It's weird; for some reason I have a bit of a grudge against the Pixies. I'm not sure when that happened, or why exactly. I think it's a combination of a few factors. Bear with me while I dig around in my mind and see if I can explain this, really more to myself than to you, but thanks for being here for me to bounce this stuff off, sometimes that just works better, talking out loud to someone else.
I'll never forget when Mr. Brown turned me onto The Pixies back in the mid-90s - he lent me Bossonova and it completely bowled me over. The first few tracks are epic, packed with that wonderful madness that Joey Santiago and Frank Black bring out in one another when things really get going. Then you get to Digging for Fire and Down to the Well, and they're so sweet and sugary, I was in love instantly.
I should specify that my introduction came well after the Pixies were over, and so at the same time Brown lent me Bossonova, he also lent me Frank Black's third solo album, The Cult of Ray. I loved that too, but it paled in comparison to how Bossonova made me feel. As I began to consume the other Pixies records, they became my band. Not just my band, but one of our bands - the music I shared with Brown and Sonny, my two best friends. Mr. Black and company were part of what seemed to us, a secret handshake. I didn't know anyone else who was into The Pixies, or Soul Coughing, to name two, and those bands became ours. This was while we were building our first band, Wink Lombardi and the Constellations, and it was an amazing time in my life. I'd just gotten out of a three-year, high school relationship, and I had amazing friends I saw every day. We'd play music, go to obscure diners for coffee and pie, stay up to all hours getting stoned and recording bizarre acoustic tracks, or noise sessions on my Tascam 4 Track. It was amazing. And The Pixies were one of the major soundtracks to that, so I'm protective of it, now, many years later.
I suppose that's another thing about The Pixies that I'm protective of - it can be hard for me to go back and really immerse myself in listening to these albums that I absolutely love because they trigger massive nostalgia pulses in me. And I guess I want that kept in its place. Couple with that the fact that directly after Cult of Ray, Frank Black formed The Catholics and began releasing albums that I actually got to see him play live, and that helped shape the next chapter of my life. Those Catholics records are HUGE to me.
So, I guess it's actually kind of obvious why I prefer Frank Black to the Pixies, and why, as much as I LOVE Indy Cindy, the first Pixies reunion album, I would rather Black keep moving forward than trying to go home again.
Anyway, every song on every Pixies album rules, but this is one today rules a little bit more than most.
**
Had The Horror Vision folks over last night and recorded a new episode that will hopefully be up later today or tomorrow. Our movie reaction for the episode? Possum. Here's the trailer:
**
Playlist from 7/12:
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Motörhead - March or Die
Motörhead - Eponymous
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Boy Harsher - Careful
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero
**
No card today.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
2019: June 23rd Orville Peck - Hope to Die
Here's a video I've been meaning to post since Mr. Brown alerted me to its release late last week. Orville Peck's album Pony is neck and neck with Spotlights' Love and Decay for my favorite album of the year, and I have a feeling it will be that way all the way up until I post my annual year-end list at the end of December. Two amazing 2019 albums I found on the same day, that I have had to split my obsession with since. SUCH a great problem to have!
**
Speaking of 'year's favorites,' I watched Yann Gonzalez's Knife + Heart on Shudder again Friday night. I'm really at a loss. This film is amazing in so many ways. The final scene, set to Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Love's Refrain, is possibly the most beautiful juxtaposition of visual and aural imagery I've ever experienced; I've been haunted by it for days. Here's the track, which can be found on Cantu-Ledesma's EP In Summer, available on Apple Music or HERE:
I've slowly begun making my way through more of Cantu-Ledesma's work, and it is incredible, running in a range from eerie field recordings to hazy, ethereal synth drone like Love's Refrain.
**
Playlist from the previous few days:
Motorhead - Eponymous
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Public Image, Ltd - This is What You Want...
Felicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Limpid As the Solitudes
Alexis Georgopoulos and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Fragments of a Season
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Alone Together #6: Faceless Kiss/Blut Mood
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Visiting This World
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
M83 - Knife + Heart OST
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death
**
Card of the day:
Always nice to see this multiple times in one week. And it fits: I received the Proofs for Shadow Play Book One yesterday (their gorgeous but need a wee bit of tweaking), and when I sat down to work on Ciazarn yesterday for an admittedly abbreviated session, I absolutely experienced a breakthrough. I expect today will be HUGE for that story.
Friday, June 14, 2019
2019: June 14th - Dr. Sleep Teaser
Holy. F*&k. This, this I can't wait for. IT chapter 2 is exciting, but Doctor Sleep directed by Mike Flanagan... words can't describe my anticipation. Which is a little unnerving, because I had a lot of anticipation for Pet Sematary, too, and look how that turned out. That said, I'm still inclined to think the problem with PS was the studio not allowing Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer make the movie they wanted to make, while Flanagan has such a solid, lengthy track record at this point, I'm sure he will be able to do what he wants, just as I'm sure what he wants to do is make a great Stephen King adaptation from a great Stephen King novel.
If you haven't read Doctor Sleep, do so. Now, if you're able. It's fantastic.
And thanks to Mr. Brown, for lending me his copy back when it came out, ensuring I had a chance to read it early on.
**
Hey, hey! That new Baroness dropped today. I'll be listening to it all morning, but tell ya what - this opening track freakin' rules!
**
Playlist the last few days:
Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky - Droneflower
Arthur Ahbez Gold
King Woman - Doubt EP
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Final Blindness 7"
Finitribe - Make It Internal
Orville Peck - Pony
Helmet - Aftertaste
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Helmet - Size Matters
Helmet - Dead to the World
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Spotlights - Love and Decay
**
Card of the day:
Leaving behind the symmetry of the sixes and moving into uncharted - and possibly murky - waters. I'm reading this as caution going forward with the next project, as I have less than three hours of work remaining on Shadow Play before I order the proofs. It's been a hell of a battle to finalize this, and I'm still not convinced I won't be reading it again in full when the proof arrives. Either way, my time on Ciazarn is coming back around again, but where that should feel strong, I've got two shorts hanging on as loose ends. Should I begin with those, knock them out and then dive back into the Dust Bowl? Not sure.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
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!
**
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!
**
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.
**
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.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
2019: North Bend & Dinner @ The Roadhouse
First, I had to set the tone with some music. Last night, K and I rolled into North Bend. I love this town. Seriously. With Mount Rainier looming beautifully in the mist, we checked into our amazing Airbnb and set out for the Salish Lodge. In the cool, wet spring evening, the falls were more amazing than I've ever seen them. To say K had a religious experience is something of an understatement.
Afterward, we ate at Fall City Roadhouse, the exterior for the infamous Twin Peaks Roadhouse. Second time I've dined here and the food is just ridiculous! I had the Meatloaf Dinner, and, well, this must be where meatloaves go when they die. Washed it down with two of these, Nitro, on tap:
Breakfast this morning will be at Twede's, which my fellow Peaks People will know as Norma's Double R Diner. From there will probably cruise a few filming spots so she can see them (Hap's old location, Ronette's bridge, maybe the Mill/Sheriff Station), then on to Seattle, where we'll leave the Peaks nostalgia behind and dig into an Underground tour and some museum tours. Special thanks to Mr. Brown who is way more familiar with Seattle than I, and his offering to serve as my 'Alex,' by phone if I have any questions.
Playlist:
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Melvins - Houdini
Slayer - Reign in Blood
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
Twin Peaks Limited Event Series Soundtrack
Card of the day:
Having a hard time squaring this with my present state. 7s traditionally represent the unbalance that leaving the harmony of the 6s behind causes. I don't feel unbalanced, but I suppose we often don't. I'll take this as a reminder to keep my wits about me and stay emotionally even.