The Cramps, live in 1986. One of my greatest musical regrets is not seeing these guys live. Goddamn.
Posted to YouTube by Travisbickle1963. Check out their channel HERE - LOTS of awesome stuff.
Watch:
Robert Eggers' Nosferatu gets a trailer (that I'm not watching yet, as this will likely be inescapable in the theatres for the next three months):
Curiosity is driving me mad, but I'm going to attempt to stick to my guns here. I'm really looking forward to this one; I loved The Northman, The Lighthouse and The Witch, and what little imagery we've seen of this remake so far has done nothing to convince me I won't love this as well.
Playlist:
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather
Various - Rocktober Blood OST
The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX (Live)
The legendary Mary Anne Hobbs premiered a new track by Mogwai a couple of days ago, and now here's the video! No word on a new album yet, but smart money says it's coming, as the band also announcned a 2025 world tour, details of which are HERE.
Watch:
K and I went to see Coralie Fargeat's new film The Substance last night. Pretty sure I will not see a better film for the remainder of the year; Robert Eggers has Nosferatu coming, but The Substance is just... see it on a big screen, that's all I can say.
The term "Batshit crazy" gets thrown around a lot - hell, I do a fair share of the throwing myself - but once in a great while, a film comes along that reminds me I really had forgotten what Batshit Crazy is. This is that film. I cannot believe I saw this in a big box theatre in Middle America. The Substance is absolutely INSANE. It almost wears out its welcome, then doubles down on the crazy and just... it feels like the most Body Horror movie I may have ever seen. And I don't offer that lightly.
Read:
Sweet little comic shop pickup I wasn't expecting the other day; shout out to Ryan and Rick's Comic City for pulling this aside when they got it in, presumably from someone selling some old comics:
Published by Arrow Comics in 1986, this was a fascinating read. Not nearly as intricate as Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, this is totally outsider art from before Zombies had become mainstream. A group of survivors make their way through a world not only overrun with Zombies but intelligent zombies. There appears to be a classification here, with the intelligent Dead few and far between but able to manipulate or control the hordes of shambling dead. Very cool concept and execution, a nice piece of the 80s Black and White Explosion's history I'd missed until now.
It's just the best Rock n' Roll song ever recorded from the best Rock n' Roll album ever released.
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This recent trend with prequels to 70s Horror classics hasn't given us very much in the way of anything worth hanging onto. The idea that Paramount has a Rosemary's Baby prequel called Apartment 7A coming straight to Paramount Plus didn't move the needle with me at all until I saw Julia Garner is the lead. She will FOREVER be in my good book for Ruth from Ozark. Here's the trailer, which I didn't bother with; I'll just watch and assess when it lands on the streamer come September 27th:
I should also mention that there's more good news: Apartment 7A is Directed and Co-written by Natalie Erika James, whose 2020 flick Relic made quite the impression on me (it's definitely time for a rewatch of that one, and it's currently streaming on Shudder).
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I blew through Nathan Ballingrud's novella Crypt of the Moon Spider yesterday. Both the Hardcover and Paperback are currently available; I posted the paperback's cover art last week, primarily because that's the version I chose for my shelf, as I liked the art just a smidge more; here's the Hardback:
It's fantastic but short, and the advance chapter from the second book of his Lunar Gothic Trilogy that serves as an epilogue to this volume only made me want MORE! Seriously, Ballingrud writes Science Fiction with a silver lining of Horror and it's GLORIOUS!
Now, however, I'm in between books. Bad Hand Books began shipping Laird Barron's new collection, Not A Speck of Light, last week. However, I've not received a shipment notice yet, so I have some time to kill, and I'm not quite sure what will adequately follow Ballingrud.
The second single from Jerry Cantrell's upcoming album, I Want Blood, out on October 18th. Pre-order HERE.
Loving this new record so far. Jerry Cantrell is one of those humans who I root for
Watch:
I am unfamiliar with Patricio Valladares's previous films; however, when I first read about her upcoming Invoking Yell, she instantly caught my attention. A found footage film that follows an all-female Black Metal band in Chile, set in the 90s? Events go awry through their penchant for recording paranormal phenomena for their records? What a fantastic idea.
Invoking Yell hits VOD on September 20th.
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I woke up early this morning and blew through pretty much the entirety of Sandman Volume 2: The Doll's House. I honestly don't know if there is a work of graphic fiction I love more than this one, especially issue #14:
This was instrumental in so much of who I have become. The dialogue, plotting, characters, and the way Gaiman weaves his own brand of dream logic throughout the series, as well as the way a large part of that crescendoes in this volume. We get the resolution for the missing Nightmares Brute and Glob, and how their machinations have affected the world - and the DCU - while Morpheus was indisposed. We are introduced to Lyta and Hector Hall, tying directly into previous Golden Age (?) iterations of 'The Sandman." We get the Corinthian and the Cereal convention, more of those amazing 'confessional' moments that echo back to Volume #1's 24 Hours. Gaiman knows spooky fantasy, but he also knows human nature at its lightest and darkest. Oh yeah, and we meet Hob Gadling, so Gaiman knows his classic English Literature and folklore as well.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - 777 The Desanctification
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy
METZ - Up On Gravity Hill (Thanks, Jacob!!!)
Card:
Today's card for study is IV - The Emperor:
Rules that govern Life. THIS is an important aspect of the card that I tend to gloss over. When this comes up, it's a reminder to adhere to the boundaries of life, i.e., what keeps you alive. There's also the martial aspect, a further reminder of rigor. That said, there's also a flipside that reminds us not to let rationality and, by extension, civilization become a prison. So balance. That's the name of the game, and it's borne out by the image on the card.
I had no idea this existed. Reposted from BlackSunHorizon's YouTube channel, which is full of sludgy goodness. Check it out HERE.
The song itself is taken from the Covered in Black album, an Industrial tribute to AC/DC. If I knew about this back when it came out in 2000 on Cleopatra Records, I had long since forgotten it until stumbling across this track on Apple Music this morning.
NCBD:
Here's what I'm bringing home from the comic shop tonight:
Again, I have to say that this series is really just a corridor for me on the way to the rest of the Energon Universe. I don't hate it, but the fervor I had for the Duke and Cobra Commander mini-series is gone.
Very excited for a new book from Jeff Lemire. Especially one he is
Penultimate issue! Shit is about to get real and hopefully coalesce into a satisfying conclusion. Tony Fleecs has laid all the pieces out in a very pleasing story of past/present/future - something that isn't easy to do in 2024, where time travel is even more overdone than meta. Every once in a while, though, someone takes the concept and really makes it work. Maybe here it's because Army of Darkness did it long before a lot of other cinematic franchises, or maybe it's just great to have multiple versions of Ash running around. Either way, buckle up.
Get Fury has been another sleeper hit of my 2024. Ennis and Burrows really bring their ultra-violent storytelling to the Marvel Universe with two of the best possible choices for telling this story - Frank Castle and Nicolas Fury! Love it.
Watch:
I'm posting this here, but I'm not going to watch it, as I'm assuming I'll have to get pretty creative not to see this a million times before it hits theatres on October 18th.
After initially dismissing it, I loved the first Smile and ended up seeing it three times in theaters, so I have high hopes for this one.
Playlist:
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Perterbator - Bloodlust (single)
Braindamage - The Downfall
Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Pepper Adams - Encounter!
Godflesh - Pure
Godflesh - In All Languages
Behemoth - Cursed Angel of Doom Live (pre-release single)
JK Flesh - Posthuman
Godflesh - Hymns
Grimes - Art Angels
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
Zeal & Ardor - GREIF
Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Card:
Today's card is The Knight of Cups:
The Firey aspect of Water or the Will as applied to the Emotions. Don't be overwhelmed by emotion. The deluge is not without its rewards.
From the forthcoming album Highly Irresponsible, out on October 25th on SharpTone Records. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
Never been a Demi Moore fan, but maybe anybody can redeem themselves with the right Body Horror movie.
This trailer definitely evokes the work of Brandon Cronenberg and also, Ana Lily Amirpour's episode of GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities, titled The Outside. Hell, maybe even a bit of Larry Cohen's The Stuff. Writer/Director Coralie Fargeat's previous film Revenge crossed way too many lines for me, but I loved the look of what little I saw of it. Very much looking forward to seeing The Substance on the big screen when it opens on September 18th.
Read:
I finished Professor John Trafton's BRILLIANT Movie-Made Los Angeles last week, and after such an academic deep-dive into film and regional history - that I really can't recommend enough - I started Ramon Glazov's newly published English translation of Giorgio De Maria's 1975 novel The Twenty Days of Turin.
I posted about this early last week, how I hadn't been able to stop thinking about what little I knew about the premise via a post author Warren Ellis made on his LTD:
"A decade previously, Turin suffered twenty days of mass insomnia marked by nightly massacres committed by persons unseen or indescribable. The many hundreds of witnesses cannot explain what happened."
Something about this rattled around in my brain for several days until I finished John's book and promptly ordered a copy of De Maria's novel. Something about that setup reminded me of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind, and my expectations only grew.
I received the book yesterday, and at ~65% of the way through, I can confirm The Twenty Days of Turin is a fantastically creepy read. What's more, not only does it remind me of Zafón's work, but reading this is stirring up a desire to re-read Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show for the first time since I was a Freshman in High School, circa 1991. Both novels deal with secrets gleaned from the throwaway detritus of life - notes, scraps of paper, mail. I've always found the idea fascinating, and realize now there's a throughline between where it was introduced to me with Barker's opus, picked up later (in a manner of speaking) by Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, and now reintroduced to me with De Maria's novel. I'm curious if there are more ideas like this out there, and if so, how I might find them.
Playlist:
Feel the Knife - So Raw... So Nasty... So Hideous.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Grey Rubble - Green Shoots (pre-release single)
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Nature Sounds - Pure Nature (Track 7: Bird Calls)
Revocation - Fathomless Catacombs (single)
Braindamage - The Downfall
Perturbator - Bloodlust (single)
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley (Expansion)
L'Enfant De La Forêt - ABRAXAS
Gang of Four - Return the Gift Part 1
Card:
Going to change the way I do this for a while. I'm feeling a bit rusty and disconnected from the cards, so I'm going to take 72 days and go through every card, in whatever order I draw them in, and explore them here. First up - XV: The Devil:
Bringing knowledge. "Bringing light into darkness" - the Lightbringer, as one of Lucifer's many names suggests. This card, like IX, warns against following dogmatic answers laid out by other people's spiritual systems. Worship thine self!!!
Fantastic film with extremely strong performances by both Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. JT Mollner created what will possibly rank as the best thriller of the year with this one.
Playlist:
Zeal & Ardor - GREIF
Uniform - American Standard
Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07
T. Rex - Eponymous
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Pepper Adams - Encounter!
Amigo the Devil - Born Against
Deftones - White Pony
Wings - Band on the Run
Card:
Using my mini Thoth deck for today's Pull.
• Prince of Disks
• II: The Empress
• Two of Swords: Peace
Thoughtful invention manifests during downtime. Pay close attention to fleeting ideas, as they could become the backbone of strong new ideas/projects. Really good advice for any creative person and something I used to be a lot better at. I think it's time to drill back down on keeping daily notes. K gifted me a couple of moleskins for Christmas last year, one for the book and one for daily notes. I've been using that all year but have kind of slacked off in the last month or so. Great ideas sometimes come from random jottings.
From The Cops' 2007 album Free Electricity. This was a mainstay in my car stereo for much of the late '00s, and then, somehow, it slipped off my radar. Rifling through a CD binder last week, I came across it and the instant I hit play, I fell in love again. This is one of those every-fucking-song albums, meaning every song is fantastic. Check out The Cops Bandcamp HERE.
Watch:
All I had to do was watch the first minute of this to know just how goddamn in I am.
I'm overjoyed that Steven Kostanski is bringing back something of the Ghoulies formula and marrying it to a slightly 976-EVIL idea. It says, "In Theatres October 4th," and I can only hope this will land here in Clarksville.
NCBD:
Short list this week.
I LOVE this cover! Also, I have to say, I'm pretty freakin' invested in this book. Really digging seeing Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows play around with Marvel history with two of its most badass characters.
My monthly grilled cheese with tomato soup on the side. I'm not even entirely sure I remember what happened last issue, but it doesn't matter. Restarting GIJOE: ARAH was just a curiosity at first, but I'm enjoying this, so I'll be sticking around for a while.
Chameleon vs. Detro. 'Nuff said. Granted, Chameleon is a character I only know through the IDW Cobra series, and this is obviously a decidedly different version, but still.
Playlist:
Swans - The Glowing Man
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom
Blue Karma - The Communication
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want
Idles - Joy as an Act of Rebellion
Card:
Sticking with the Thoth for a bit. Feels right:
• 5 of Cups: Disappointment
• V: The Hierophant
• 3 of Cups: Abundance
Operating systems, ideas, all networks of the mind and routine have to be balanced right to run smoothly. Adding one too many facets can tip the entire thing out of proportion. I think I'm there with something, I'm just not quite sure what.
Chat Pile blows me away. I won't pretend to have clocked a lot of hours on their stuff, but the handful of rotations I've given their first full-length, God's Country, affected me deeply. I've heard comparisons to King Missle, and there's an element of that in lead vocalist Raygun Busch's approach, for sure. Except, as much as I like some King Missle, their music is largely about being clever; there's no soul-searing vitriol mixed in like there is here. Also, the music sounds like The Jesus Lizard and Thrall in a blender with a can of dirt-streaked brown paint. That bass sound!
The new album Cool World is up for pre-order now HERE.
Watch:
Stumbling across the trailer for the Butcher Brothers Consumed this morning, I could have sworn I'd posted about this film at some point in the past. I couldn't find anything, though, so here we go:
This one doesn't exactly look like my cuppa. However, if there's a Wendigo involved, I feel like I have to investigate. I'm not familiar with the Butchers' work, but I believe The Hamiltons is Masters of Horror season one, which I bought on a digital sale a few years back, so I'll have to check that out soon. Meantime, I've added Consumed to the list.
(I have to admit, the title drew my eye because I thought for a second we were finally getting that adaptation of David Cronenberg's BRILLIANT novel of the same name. No dice.)
Read:
After beginning last Spring (I think), I finally jumped in and finished my re-read of IDW's Cobra series from the 2010s. I'd read the series monthly, but not since, and I wasn't quite prepared for the insane level of head-fuckery this book takes on, especially once it gets to the Las Vegas chapter.
The idea of a small unit housing Tomax Paoli as a prisoner in his own Casino, exploring intel he's giving them they know is tainted but have to act on anyway, is a great start, but by the time the series restarts the final time as The Cobra Files, the level of deep psychological control Paoli - whose twin brother Xamot was killed very early on in the series - exerts through his malicious mental influence on several team members is downright frightening.
This book really pulls no punches, and once again, I am utterly floored by what a fresh, dark take on the property IDW allowed Mike Costa and Antonio Fuso to take with this book. I never got into the other IDW Joe titles and still don't really have any interest in doing so. This, however, is one for the ages.
Playlist:
Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge
Sam Hain - Unholy Passion
Sam Hain - Final Descent
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us
Tomahawk - Oddfellows
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Idles - Joy As An Act of Rebellion
Card:
Back to my trusty old Thoth deck for a while. I've been missing it:
• XX: The Aeon
• XI: Lust
• 10 of Wands: Oppression
"Taking the pill will open your eyes." The pull of unconnected processes. Oppression (read at face value). This points to a theory I'm developing for a story that is quite important in my understanding of how to navigate this world of corporate dominance.
Full confession - I am not familiar with Azam Ali's music at all. My good friend Dennis sent me this video a few weeks back and it just got lost in the shuffle of the day-to-day. I realized my negligence this morning and fired "Tender Violet" up and was pretty much completely blown away.
Link to the full youtube video in the playlist below.
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Last night K and I went to see Tilman Singer's new film, Cuckoo.
The night before, I finally watched Singer's first film, 2018's Luz. Having now seen both in tight succession, I can say I will follow this man wherever he goes from here out.
There's definitely something about Singer's work that gives me a hint of Nicolas Winding Refn, but it's just a hint, a sort of Hauntology flavor that doesn't overpower everything else like the current crop of films I would describe using the same reference does. In Singer's work, there's just as much classic Horror and, after seeing Cuckoo I have to say it, 80s action mixed in. What that more subtle predilection for hazy, contemplative tempos and outdated locations/set design does for the film is anchor the story and characters in a recognizable, relatable world, even as the plot and FX push the film into some super bizarre territory. And Cuckoo is bizarre, make no mistake about it. Luz is, too, but in a much smaller way. Cuckoo is, well, a bit cuckoo.
Singer brings along several repeat collaborators, chief among them Production Designer Dario Mendez Acosta, Cinematographer Paul Faltz, and composer Simon Waskow. Waskow's work, in particular, has begun to greatly interest me; the Luz score is something to behold and has made it into regular, daily rotation. Cuckoo's score will no doubt follow.
NCBD Addendum:
I wasn't expecting to pick up the first issue of Spider-Man: Black Suit and Blood this past week, but dammit do I love Black Suit Spidey, so yeah, I did.
I've enjoyed all of the Marvel "Black, White and Blood" books I've picked up since they started the series a few years back, and especially when I saw J. M. Dematteis' name on this one, I just couldn't pass it up. There are four stories included of varying lengths. Here's what I thought of each.
1) Losing Face - J.M. DeMatteis/Elena Casagrande
A fantastic story that spins off of a minor event at the beginning of DeMatteis' seminal Spider-Man Story Kraven's Last Hunt, which admittedly is getting a bit saturated with continuity spin-offs and references of late, however, this was tight and really sweet.
2) Inside the House - Alyssa Wong/Fran Galán
A quick little "It's coming from inside the house" type story set during the end of Peter's relationship with the symbiote. Very cool.
3) Dysmorphia - Dustin Nguyen
Very short but effective exploration of the inherent body horror in the human/symbiote bonding.
4) Fade to Black - J. Michael Straczynski/Sumit Kumar/Craig Yeung/Dono Sánchez-Almara
I know JMS has one of the historic runs with Spidey, but I've never read any of it, so I wasn't sure how this would play out for me. Happy to report, I really dug it. A kind of current continuity reassessment of Peter's time with the b
Overall, a great issue that has me pulling out my Spidey short box to dig back into some old Black Suit issues. Can't wait for issue two on September 11!
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.
• Two of Wands
• Four of Cups
• Five of Wands
Two of Wands tends to suggest avoiding a single-minded Willful push. In other words, there may be more ways to get what you want than the one you're focusing on. Four of Cups in emotional stability, so moving from middle to left I'm getting a "Don't make decisions based on emotion." The five of Wands, then, is a break in emotional stability. This shores up the idea that a big, premeditated decision made in an overly emotional state can be as destructive as not making a decision. More sometimes. Now, what this applies to in my own life at the moment... nope. Never mind. It's work. Loud and clear.
Helmet's Monochrome is an album that I've recently spent some time reassessing. When this came out in 2007, I had just moved to L.A. two months prior and was still VERY high on the band's 2004 album Size Matters, which was and still is my favorite of their records. So Monochrome's vocal shift to a considerably more affected style from Paige Hamilton didn't quite sit right with me at the time. I've gone back and dug this one out a few times over the past - shit - eighteen years since its release, and it's never really done anything for me. I always kind of figured that one day it might, though, and that day has come!
The shift from the more melodic vitriol of Size Matters and Aftertaste back to the absolute savagery from the first album threw me at the time, but right here in 2024, it fits like a glove. Album highlights (so far) upon reassessing are the above track, as well as the album closer, "Goodbye."
NCBD:
Nice and easy week for the wallet.
Saga returns again! I feel like this one is being drawn waaaay the hell out now, and I'd really like to see it hit a monthly cycle and hold it for at least the better part of a year. Either way, though, I'm still just as invested as I was at the beginning, and I'm here for whatever.
When Department of Truth returned from hiatus last month, it marked the first time since I'd come to the book that I got to buy an issue day of release. I wasn't sure how that was going to play; having read the entire first four volumes in a few days last year, was I going to have to go back and re-read everything to remember where we are? Nope. This one is just such a pleasure to fall into that the only drawback reading single issues monthly is it's just not enough!
Watch:
Although the Adams family's Where the Devil Roams still hasn't been released, the trailer for their next film, Hell Hole, dropped yesterday.
These folks make some awesome indie flicks, and this looks right in line with everything I love about Hellbender and The Deeper You Dig.
Playlist:
QOTSA - In Times New Roman
Les Claypool - Of Wales and Woe
Les Claypool - Highball with the Devil
Pigface - A New High In Low (Low Disc)
The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Interpol - Antics
Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the End of the War
Metropolis - The Darkest Side of the Night (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, starting today for the next 30, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.
• Four of Pentacles
• Knight of Pentacles
• IX: The Hermit
Four of Pentacles is stability in Earthly matters, arrived at through no small exertion of Will as applied to Earthly desires/concerns after a period of contemplation.
From the forthcoming album The Night the Zombies Came Out, dropping October 26th. Pre-order HERE.
Post-reunion Pixies has been a mixed bag for me. I LOVE Indie Cindy, but everything since has felt anticlimactic. Sure, I'll lean into Head Carrier and its brethren, but they don't put me in quite the same place. Plus, I've always been a bigger fan of the music Frank Black (or Black Francis) made after the Pixies' first breakup, so to see him essentially jettison those musical endeavors for the last ten years has been disappointing, to say the least. I'm hoping his upcoming Teenager of the Year anniversary tour early next year means maybe he will start dividing his time between Pixies and other bands (Catholics!). We'll see. In the meantime, I still love the Pixies, so I'm looking forward to hearing the new record come Halloween time.
Watch:
The filmmaking collective of François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell - largely referred to as RKSS - is responsible for one of my favorite films of the last ten years: Summer of '84. Of course, they've also done Turbo Kid, which is fantastic in its own right. Not many films in recent memory have affected me like Summer of '84, though, so after that one, I'll follow RKSS to hell and back. And funny enough, it looks like that's where their next film will be taking us.
Streaming everywhere on August 13th, We Are Zombies is based on Jerry Frissen and Guy Davis' comic series called The Zombies That Ate the World. I'm not familiar with that series, but like I said, I'd follow these filmmakers anywhere they want to take me, so based on the trailer, buckle up.
Read:
Over this past weekend, I sat down and re-read Ram V and Dan Watters' The One Hand and The Six Fingers as one complete story.
This one is definitely going to be near the top of my year-end list. I read these all monthly, and re-read most of the series before the final two installments dropped, and I can say that when I finished the final issue last week, I was a little hesitant. I wasn't quite sure these guys had pulled off what they'd set up.
Boy was I wrong.
The key to 'getting' these books is reading them as one story because each issue of each book contains serious overlap, where we see the same events from both the Detective and the Killer's perspective. Not necessarily the most novel idea, except when you place the story in the context of a Blade Runner-esque Cyberpunk city like Neo Novena.
Hopefully, this did well enough that both creators will return to Neo Novena at some point in the near future. Preferably before our world comes to resemble theirs any more than it already does.
Playlist:
T. Rex - The Slider
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Jerry Cantrell - Brighten
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman
Helmet - Monochrome
16 Horsepower - Hoarse
Liars - Sisterworld
Mr. Bungle - California
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, starting today for the next 30, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up. Check it out HERE.
• Two of Wands
• XVI: The Tower
• Seven of Swords
Collaboration of Will leads to a change in pre-existing paradigms - not an easy thing, but a good thing for those with the intellect to recognize the advantages of a system overhaul.
This has to be work-related. Not sure if that's good or bad.
Yesterday, I began my day with some TV on the Radio. Man, I miss these guys. Technically, I don't think they ever actually broke up; however, their most recent record, Seeds, came out a decade ago now, and their hiatus has lasted just about as long.
Mr. Brown recently pointed out that the new Chelsea Wolfe album I've been spinning so much was produced by TVOTR's Dave Sitek, so maybe that's why I've been thinking of them lately.
Interestingly enough, Sitek also produced Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits' covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head. I remember having an advance copy of that back when it came out, but I don't remember a single thing about what the record actually sounds like.
Watch:
Kimo Stamboel's new film Dancing Village: The Curse Begins recently received a trailer. The only film I know by Stamboel is 2019's The Queen of Black Magic, but it's a f**king DOOZY to say the least.
I watched about half of this trailer and am totally in. There's something so visceral about Stamboel's work. Some of it's the setting—the way he uses the jungle—I can almost feel the humidity and discomfort, the dirt and insects. But there's also an almost Body Horror element to some of his kills. They really leave an impression.
The idea that this will be in selected theatres - I'd imagine I have almost no hope of seeing this in Clarksville, but then again, I've been surprised a lot lately by what's come through my town. So we'll see.
Playlist:
TVOTR - Nine Types of Light
TVOTR - Dead Science
TVOTR - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Deftones - Gore
Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses
Adam Kesher - Eponymous
Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves
Blackbraid - Blackbraid II
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Swords
• Six of Cups
• Queen of Pentacles
Turbulence, Pleasure and Fertility, which sounds like another way of saying from Chaos comes opportunity.
Another advance single from Barry Adamson's upcoming Cut to Black album dropped on Monday and it is fantastic! You can pre-order the new album HERE.
NCBD:
Light week, as I'm trimming a few titles from the Pull:
Ash Williams, you rogue! Only three issues left after this one (I think). Loving it!
At this point, this is easily my most anticipated book each month. The depth of character research and building that's going on here is awesome, and I'm actually excited to see more of the Cobra-La folks.
Nice revisiting J.C. again. I dug the previous issue quite a bit; such old-school Vertigo flavor.
Just riding this out. My malaise with the current X-Books doesn't have anything to do with this title, but they're all suffering from this rapid decline. Only one issue left of this series after this.
Watch:
I only watched the first 20 seconds of this trailer for Byte, a film I had not previously heard of, but those 20 seconds sold me!
Low-budget werewolf movies don't always work, but I'm hoping this one will.
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
The Jesus Lizard - Mouth Breather 45 single (Sunday You Need Love cover B-Side)
The Jesus Lizard - Puss 45 single (No B-Side)
The Jesus Lizard - Wheelchair Epidemic 45 single (Dancing Naked Ladies B-Side)
Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
Melvins/Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XI: Justice
• Knight of Swords
• XV: The Devil
Justice or Lust in the Crowley/Harris deck again! Funny, because this card was in the #3 position two posts ago, and yesterday had VII The Chariot in the #2 position. Funny because I relate these cards, and they seem to be showing a process that is reversing itself. I'm just not quite sure what that process is. Also, maybe that feels like a bit of a reach, but my edict is to prevent myself from overthinking these when I do them, and that was definitely the first thing I 'saw' in the cards.
So what else do we have there then? Knight of Swords, or the Firey aspect of Air. This suggests force of Will tempered by Intellect so as to avoid conflict. The Devil has so many attributions, many of them quite fanciful. One I always keep in mind right off the bat is materialism over spiritualism.
So Primordial forces (which we will pragmatically interpret here as uncontrollable mental or physical attributes - anger, fear, perhaps even logic - that need to be tempered by tempered by Will and a sharp eye on motivations.
I'm not entirely sure this works for me - that's a lie, it does - but I want to keep it close and think about it. Might be telling me some things I don't want to hear at the moment concerning work.
Whoah. I'm not sure how I stumbled upon Brazilian Stoner/Doom/Desert Metal band The Acid Machine two days ago, but hot dam! These guys kick some serious ass! New album Mushrooms is out April 12th. You can listen to/support the band at their Bandcamp HERE or by clicking the widget above.
NCBD:
Another short week on the Pull. Not a bad thing. Here we go:
The third issue of The One Hand. I'm already hooked on this and sister title The Six Fingers; I really enjoy the world Ram V and Dan Watters have built here.
I'm planning a re-read of Void Rivals sometime soon, so I don't have a lot to say about this one other than I'm still loving this series. That cover is classic 80s SciFi/Fantasy comics, too!
Even though I don't have a bad thing to say about Gerry Duggan's X-Men book, I'm honestly no longer enjoying seeing any X-Book come up on my list. I just can't wait for this Fall of X to be over, so it can do its next thing, and I can leave that alone.
Watch:
From what I saw of this trailer, Cuckoo looks insane in the best possible way.
There is a moment in this that gave me some of the best chills I've had in some time. Very much looking forward. Writer/Director Tilman Singer's previous film Luz gets some great accolades, yet somehow I've yet to watch it. Gonna have to fix that soon.
Playlist:
The Cure - Disintegration
Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
Chasms - On The Legs of Love Purified
Brown Whörnet - Stroke the Apechild
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk version/Vinyl)
Zombi - Direct Inject
Iron Monkey - Spleen & Goad (pre-release singles)
Spotlights - Seance EP
Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here
Rollins Band - The End of Silence
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Swords
• Four of Pentacles
• IV: The Emperor
Numerically speaking, this is one Five and Two Fours, which suggests Stabilization after Damage. Taking the Suites/Faces into account, that's Earthly structure kicking back in after a hit to the Intellect, and we see that structure is a direct draw from the paradigms or "rules" that govern all life.
The news of Ed Piskor's death really messed me up for the last two days. I know it seems weird that someone I don't know personally could have that effect on me, but it did. I think part of that came from seeing how the bridge away from his ultimate choice disappeared behind him. There's no way to say whether he did what he was accused of, and now, there never will be. This entire episode sent me into a bit of existential crisis because it further proves what I am having a very difficult time acclimating into my own operating system - the Internet is just not a good thing for human beings and human society as a whole. There's seemingly no way to turn back now, but faaauuuuhhhccckkkk - we're already being ground beneath the heel of a 'Robot Overlord;' look no further than the interface before you.
The cards are a welcome reminder to look past this modern overlay, at the fundamentals of being "human." Seek a stabilizing path forward with that. Easier said than done, but whatever. It's that or give up, which I don't think I have it in me to ever do.
From their 2004 debut, The Man in the Blue Turban With a Face, we have yet another example of how versatile this group is. I love the elements they draw from Tin Pan Alley and 50s Doo Wop, fusing them with something all their own.
Watch:
Paul Duane's All You Need is Death proved to be one of the highlights of this past year's Beyondfest lineup, and now it's finally being released worldwide. I can vouch for this trailer - it does not give away the movie.
Having seen the film, I can tell you to try your best to see it on the big screen. Duane's approach to Horror thrives on an almost subconscious, microcosmic level while also employing some really big, frightening images. This combination works so well on the big screen, with a professional theatre audio system, especially in regard to Ian Lynch's score, which I can only hope someone releases on vinyl.
Read:
I've been pretty scattered lately and have not been very successful in reading. I'm chipping along at Malcolm Devlin's Then I Woke Up, which is excellent, but my attention's compass is wonky, pulled from due North by all manner of interfering metals. That said, I recently picked up the missing issues of two early 00s comic series I've been dying to dive into.
First, Mike Baron and Mike Norton's The Night Club, which I'd been missing the final issue of since I picked up the series back in 2005:
Next, from right around the same time, Keith Griffen's Tag.
I'm using the image of the Deluxe Edition Boom! eventually published, however, I was interested in the original issues, as I had two of the three. There was a subsequent series, Tag: Cursed,that I haven't read, but the first two issues of this first one always stayed with me. Ostensibly a zombie story, Tag is a pretty interesting take on what was even a bloated subgenre back in 2005, only two years after The Walking Dead comic started, the same year George Romero returned for a fourth time to his original continuity with Land of the Dead. Tag presupposes an infection you can pass by tagging another person. The pull quote on the top of issue two says it all:
Very much looking forward to reading both of these once I get my head on straight again.
Playlist:
All Hell - The Howl (single)
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes
Man Man - The Man in the Blue Turban
Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.
One card today, because I haven't touched the deck in a while and wanted a generalized, "this is the 48 year of your life" kind of reading.
I went with the lighting I'm working in at the moment, too. It felt appropriate. Knowledge above salvation. Sounds great.