Me and That Man - By The River

I wanted to post this a few days ago, but with the continued irregularity of my schedule, I've got all kinds of cool stuff piling up. Anyway, By the River is yet another fantastic offering from forthcoming New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. #1, which is out March 27th on Napalm Records. Pre-order HERE.

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I recently purchased a Kindle compendium of H.P. Lovecraft's works. It's coming in handy on our short stint to Chicago, where we surprised the hell out of my folks for their 50th Anniversary. The book I'm currently reading back home in LaLaLand is still Chuck Wendig's Wanderers - it's awesome, it's just hefty and my time has been erratic - but as an over 700 page hardcover, there was NO way that was coming with me on the trip. Also, my time in my hometown is usually pretty full, so I didn't really expect to have a lot of reading time. So, I've been picking away at re-reads of a few quintessential Lovecraft stories.

First up was The Call of Cthulhu. I re-read this one every couple of years, and I still believe it is both Lovecraft's best writing and my favorite of his works. I've probably said it here before, but the opening paragraph always leaves me in awe:

The remainder of the story is always a joy to read, as it more or less bears out this first paragraph, bringing the reader into events that begin mundane but develop into terror of a truly cosmic proportion.

Next is The Dunwich Horror, which it'd been quite some time since I'd last read. I wanted to re-read this now that Richard Stanley has announced it as his next Lovecraft adaptation in what hopefully will end of a trilogy.

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Playlist:

Slayer - Live Undead
Myrkur - M

Also my cousin, my friend Amy and my friend Joe all turned me on to a lot of random music that will no doubt be incorporated into my playlists over the next several days. The Babies, Porridge Radio, Gene, Cornershop, and Lloyd Cole, to name a few.

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No card today.

Me and That Man - Mestwo

There's something to be said for artists who, whether they plan to or not, end up defining a part of our time, whether it's a year, or half-year, or period of weeks and/or months. Me and That Man is having that affect on me now, here at the start of the 20s. Part of it is because I didn't hear about them until the back half of 2019, and part of it is the pace at which they have been releasing singles off their upcoming 2020 album, Same Shit Volume One, due out March 27th on Napalm Records (Pre-order HERE). The steady, every-couple-of-weeks has helped keep them on my mind, in my ears, and a continual OST to these cold and dreary days of the first quarter (LaLa Land's 'cold and dreary' might not be as severe as a lot of other places, but everything is relative). This new track is simple, catchy, and has a certain stoic dirge quality that, once again, shows me Nergal is a huge Nick Cave fan. Not a band thing by any means.

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The similarities between the procedural CDC elements of Chuck Wendig's novel Wanderers and the current 'outbreak' of the Coronavirus are frightening to say the least. Benji Ray's complex relationship with the job of disease identification/control/treatment already inspired me to pull Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys off the shelf in anticipation of a re-watch, reality and the daily news - which I largely shy away from these days other than BBC - have made me think twice about adding to the 'paranoia fire' that seems to lay at the heart of the modern world at the moment.


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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration
Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Night Shop - In the Break
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land
Mol - Jord

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Card:

A direct reference to the power and stability my recent writing sessions have given my made-up world of Shadow Play. As if to further underline that interpretation, a second card leapt from the pile as I pulled the first off the top of the deck:

Second time this week for XXI The Universe, and why not? I'm currently dealing with massive philosophical concepts, finding fun and interesting ways to instill a version of my own cosmology in this work that is coming to define my life (at least until it's over and I move on).

2019: June 1st Bloody Hammers - From Beyond the Grave

Bloody Hammers is a band Jonathan Grimm just turned me onto. Really cool stuff. They've got a new album out June 28th from Napalm Records, you can pre-order it HERE.

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All that debating on what to watch last night, and we ended up getting through one episode of Ozark before K fell asleep; that's about the time I realized we actually went into yesterday with three episodes remaining, not two. Once she was out, I put on Swamp Thing and promptly fell asleep, too. So yeah, epic fail.

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Playlist from 5/31:

The National - High Violet
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Faith No More - King For a Day
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
The Cure - Pornography
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above the Night

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Card of the day:

"Unfailing determination toward your goal."

That shakes it. The two major adjustments on Shadow Play will be done by the end of the weekend and the book will be submitted for Proofs on Monday.