Frankie Freako

 

I'm not certain I actually dig this song—not that I think it's 'bad' per se, just not sure it's my cuppa—but this video is insane. This is my first exposure to Mörmaid, and after seeing it, I put their new album Pearlescent Dark on my Apple Music to give the entire thing a go. You can download the album from Mörmaid's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

I love Steven Kostanski.  After helping bring us one of the greatest Horror films of the past twenty years (The Void, Co-Written and Directed with Jeremy Gillespie) and Writing/Directing one of my favorite films of all time (Psycho Goreman), photos of him hard at work on a remake of Roger Corman's Deathdealer surfaced earlier this year. Then, he goes and drops a teaser for an entirley different film, one much more in line with PG than Deathdealer:

Did I mention Kostanski also headed the FX team that brought us the yoga kill in this year's In A Violent Nature?  I mean, his team did all the FX, but really, that's the one everyone's still talking about, whether you liked or disliked the film. All this, and he's still had time to finish what looks like a veritable practical FX bonanza called Frankie Freako? Steve baby, you are amazing, and I'm here for anything you have to drop on us.

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Plastic:

I'm having a tough time not ordering these new NECA recreations of the Universal Monsters as originally released by Burger King. I remember these from the 80s!

Honestly, I really could just settle for The Creature, but it's a set. Read all about it over on the mighty Bloody Disgusting HERE.

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Playlist:

Dead Milkmen - Quaker City Quiet Pills

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

JD McPherson - Undivided Heart & Soul

Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Nothing - The Great Dismal

The Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Deadguy - Work Ethic

Big Black - Lungs EP

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Swords

• Seven of Wands

• Knight of Pentacles

That's a lot of Will. We have a concentrated effort of intellect that brings about creative completion (that's an announcement I'll be making next week), and a concentrated effort - what I'm reading as - to not spend the money on those Universal Figures I posted above. Okay, thank you Hand of Doom Tarot Deck, for putting a face to the inner voice I was set to ignore (really, that's all the cards do).

Poison Ruïn's Harvest

I am completely new to Philidelphia punks Poison Ruïn, but when this video for Härvest, their upcoming album on Relapse Records showed up in my feed, it kinda blew my mind. We've seen "blackened" versions of nearly everything else (although I'd love to find a band that calls itself "blackened adult contemporary"), why not Punk? And with Poison Ruïn's anti-establishment ethos, we are talking about actual Punk here, insofar as politically minded, not just three-chord monte. Anyway, I dig this quite a bit. Härvest drops April 14th, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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Watch:

Yellowjackets is back, and K and I are finishing up a rewatch of the first season today and hitting episode one of season two later today. Can't freakin' wait!

If you didn't hear it before and are interested, here's the speculation episode we did on The Horror Vision days before the season one finale. Many of our theories/projections were proven erroneous or obsolete by that finale, but not all of them.

 

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Plastic:

Oh, come on! Stop taking my money!

            

The Universal monsters were, like many from my generation, my introduction to "Horror." My girlfriend also has a passion for the Universals, and we kind of bring it out in one another, to the point that one year for our anniversary, I bought us Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein shirts from Fright Rags. 

As Bobby Fingers says in that most recent video, when you find the one, never let them go!

Anyway, my die-hard passion starts and stops with Frank and this fella right here, who is actually probably my favorite of the Universals. Tack on the Lovecraftian twist in the lore that writers like Alan Moore and Stephen Murphy have reintroduced to popular culture over the last few decades, and The Creature continues to captivate me. So you can imagine my joy/chagrin when Jonathan Grimm messaged me with the details about this lovely figure Neca announced. I'm preordering mine from Entertainment Earth, but I'll need to do something really nice for my wallet one day soon.

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Playlist:

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

The Obsessed - Lunar Womb

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

           

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80s Metal Week Day #3: Skid Row - Sweet Little Sister

 

I've written about Skid Row before, both here and back on Joup, and while I've pretty much always defended their sophomore record Slave to the Grind for being released the same summer as Metallica's Black Album and being heavier, my absolute love of their self-titled debut definitely disappeared for about a decade and some change after I deemed it too "hair rock" to partake in. 

Fuck that.

There's no denying some 80s Metal cringe here, and how that "dangerous kids on the street" zeitgeist that all these bands tapped into and sold hard in the 80s reached its absolute zenith on this record. But looking back- that's a great thing. This isn't slaughter or winger - this is a more real version of the act, if such a thing is possible. Maybe it was Bach's track record over the last few decades - certainly his appearance on Trailer Park Boys made me believe he was still exactly what he claimed to be on this first album. An album that's so perfect, even its ballad holds up. Throw in the iconic single 18 and Life, and you get the perfect soundtrack to suburban, middle-class high school punk kids (not Punk kids) in all their cheap whiskey swillin', stolen cigarette smokin', guitar center hangin' metal-dude voguing, and no one sings it better than Bach.

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Watch:

This. Now. Please:

 

Aw hell, they took my favorite Turtle and mixed him with equal parts my favorite Universal Monster? Just take my got-damned money, NECA. 

 

Look at those lightning bolt sais!

 

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Playlist:

Slayer - Reign in Blood

Alio Die and Lorenzo Montaná - The Threshold of Beauty

DeadMau5 - Catbread (single)

Van Halen - 1984

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Card:

Looking at the bigger gameboard. Seeing beyond the smaller machinations, and really attempting to construct a bigger picture. Too much Mr. Miyagi of late, or am I crystalizing my vision for 2022? Only time will tell.