Holy Wars

 

This cover RIPS! Hot damn, it's nice to hear such a spot-on cover of a song I love by a band I despise, especially since I don't have to have Dave Mustaine sing it, replaced instead by the inimitable Troy Sanders.

---

---

---

Watch:

A friend at work recommended this new HULU flick directed by John Lee.

HULU is a platform I generally don't use all that much; incorrectly or not, I associate them with being a bit more 'family friendly' than aligns with my tastes, despite the fact that they have long been a sponsor of Beyondfest and pull out a lot of stops for Horror come every autumn with their HULUween. Still, with the new seasons of American Horror Story and its brand new spin-off American Horror Stories both moving to the 'FX on HULU' status, as well as their ongoing relationship with Blumhouse - mostly to middling results from what I've seen - they're definitely trying to keep abreast of the genre. And now, holy cow: False Positive is A24! 

(Have I mentioned that I'm starting to fear Horror is becoming too mainstream? No? Well, that's a discussion for another time, then).

So yeah, False Positive stars Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, and Pierce Brosnan, and it is creepy A.F. I will say, this isn't the A24 I'm accustomed to, exactly. There's a reductionist quality insofar as it feels more like a Blumhouse "Into the Dark" - which I think of as the calibre for the new "TV movie" format for the streaming age - than it does the A24 we see get theatrical treatment. Still, this is high-quality stuff, and it's definitely up there with the better flicks I've seen so far this year.

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Kills - Midnight Boom

Chairlift - Something

Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

Tape Waves - Bright

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

King Woman - Celestial Blues (pre-release singles) 

King Woman - Doubt EP

Sunken - Livslede

Spotlights - Love and Decay

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Perturbator - I Am the Night

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering

Silent - Modern Hate

Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1

 

---

---

---

Card:

 Bull in a china shop, that's how I always read this card at first. I'm regrouping my strategy on this Nosleep serial I'll be posting soon (but not today). Don't want to come out of the gates strong and crawl to the finish line. 

Does this Slipper Belong to You?

Wow, I am in a weird headspace this morning. Woke up earlier than needed and went right to looking this album up on Apple Music. I've had hair rock on the mind for the last few days. This goes back to that Recontextualizing the 80s idea I was posting about here a few years ago. Some of this stuff from the Sunset Strip sound of the 80s is definitely best left forgotten, but some of it has a place in history. Or at least in my history, I guess. 

I never owned Cinderella's Long Cold Winter, but a friend in the neighborhood did, and I can remember hanging out at his house and popping it into the stereo more than a couple times. Other favorites at the time  (off the top of my head) would have included Metallica's ...And Justice for All, ICE T's Power, GnR's Lies, and NWA's Straight Outta Compton. This was really at the start of my getting into music in a 'beyond the radio' way, and this neighbor was loaded and, in the way of a lot of rich folk a bit clueless, so he tended to buy tapes and CDs rather haphazardly (I didn't have a CD player yet, so he was my first exposure to the format). 

I still have no idea why or how he chose to pick up a Cinderella album in the first place, this really wasn't his sound, but it was that anomaly factor that made me first pluck it from a pile of CDs and put it in the more than ample stereo. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Long Cold Winter became a go-to when hanging out at his house and listening to music, but that friendship dissolved shortly thereafter and he was lost to the waves of time. I haven't heard the album since. 

Once you get past Tom Keifer's throat-singing, this record has a pretty cool sound. The title track still stands as a damn good example of that 80s rock/blues sound that, in my opinion, was perfected on Gary Moore's Still Got the Blues for You, and it's this quality, as well as the ripping slide guitar sprinkled here and there, that elevates Long Cold Winter above your standard 80s Hair Rock sound, although Cinderella does that to varying degrees of palatability throughout the rest of the record, as well.

---

---

---

Watch:

Joe Bob Briggs gave us the best of his Holiday specials he's done in some time last Friday with the Joe Bob Put a Spell on you, where he paired the Gore-cut of Tammy and the T-Rex with Anna Biller's The Love Witch. 

I was fortunate enough to catch the premiere of Vinegar Syndrome's release of the long-lost Gore-cut of Tammy at Beyondfest 2019 - the film actually followed an in-person presentation of Joe Bob doing his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood lecture. Both were fantastic, and it was cool to see the two together again. 

The Love Witch is one of the first movies K and I actively waited on the VOD premiere for back in the early phase of our relationship, due to a great LA Weekly article that talked about the absolute care and detail Ms. Biller put into making the film. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissem - The Mystery of Heaven

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Teenage Wrist - Earth is a Black Hole

Helmet - Meantime

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III Alive After Death

Zombi - 2020

The Bangles - Different Light 

---

---

---

Card:

Coincidentally, as I draw from my Thoth Deck, I reflect on the fact that one of the things I most love about The Love Witch is there is a room in the film painted with the colors of the deck. 

 Hammering away with increased gusto but an edge of carelessness that can bring the whole damn thing down around your ears. Ease back and keep a keen eye. This is totally a nod that I'm overworking myself and need to take tonight to chill out. Science and Will must be strategic (to a degree), and still possessed of mindfullness.

2019: January 21st

A little Gordon Lightfoot to start out the day.

And then this! This is so close! I only just found out about this forthcoming documentary on the band Brainiac last month, but it feels like I've now been waiting for it forever.




Playlist from 1/19:

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death
Thou - Summit

Playlist from 1/20:

Calexico - Even My Sure Things Fall Through
Gordon Lightfoot - Gord's Gold

Card of the day:

The Airy aspect of Air, so the intellect of intellect, in a manner of speaking. Not sure how to apply this. The book is finished, and I've already read the first act to K. It feels GOOD. Little rough spots here and there, but nothing that can't be shored up as we go through it. I'll have to figure out if this card pertains to that, or the new project I've begun to brainstorm.

2018: November 8th - New Boy Harsher!

The new album Careful drops February 1st, 2019 on Nude Club Records. 

Had a really nice night just reading in bed for an hour or so last night. The next DwC is tomorrow, and I've a gaggle of stuff to catch up on. First and foremost, as I've already talked yesterday about Blackbird, let me tell you the other new book I'm really hot for right now is Dead Rabbit:

Gerry Duggan and John McCrea. A retired criminal/vigilante thief finds he has to reinstate his life of crime to pay his wife's medical bills. Shit goes wrong. It's great.

Playlist from 11/07:

Algiers - The Underside of Power

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Deafheaven - From the Kettle Onto the Coil

Briqueville - II
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love



Card of the day:

This card always speaks of things gone out of control to me. It also reminds me a bit of Ash being taken down by the three mini-Ashes in Army of Darkness. And believe it or not, that seems a pretty good place to start, because a lot of times I understand things better if I run them through a familiar lens, and film is a very familiar lens to me. So, in Army of Darkness, Ash fucks up, tries to play it off and ignore his mistake, and it ends up coming back to haunt him as these three mini-doppelgangers that bite and chew at him. Nothing important. But it's his lack of taking these little nuisances seriously that ends up leading to full-on Evil Ash, who is a Huge threat to him. So, what's the card saying? Take care of the little stuff - don't let it build up, or it will come back three times the size and way more serious. I think that's a health cue for me, specifically pointing to the two problems that persist - my sarcoidosis and my still-not-right left hamstring. I've made serious inroads to finally get back to taking care of both of these, but it's going to take a serious chunk of my already limited time. That's okay. This is a reminder that it's worth it.

2018: August 15th

NCBD!!! Can't wait to read:

Playlist from 8/14:
Fugazi - 13 Songs
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Sunbather
John Carpenter/Alan Howarth - Big Trouble in Little China OST

Card of the day:

And interestingly enough, the card on top of the other side of the split was the 6 of Wands Victory again. Which yes, I still need to hear.