Fugazi - Do You Like Me

 

From Fugazi's 1995 Red Medicine. I'm going through a bit of a Fugazi bender, only I've started at the end of their career. Arguably, this has always felt a bit like two bands to me, with this record being the crux. Fugazi had always harbored an experimental side, but I'll never forget Mr. Brown playing me this record upon its release and thinking, "They sound almost as much like Sonic Youth as they do Fugazi." Not to say anyone in the band's vocal approach ever changed, but the music become considerably more dissonant, distorted and, well, weird (see track 9 Version for the best example of that on this record). Anyway, it's going on 22 years since Fugazi went on hiatus. Wow.

 

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Watch:

Watched a couple of flicks over the long weekend. Here's a breakdown:

 

Letterboxd review HERE.

Letterboxd review HERE.

Letterboxd review HERE.

 

Letterboxd review HERE.

Letterbxd review HERE.

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Read:

Had a lazy New Year's Day with K. I ended up blowing through the last 150 pages or so of Jeff Vandermeer's Authority and beginning Acceptance, the third and final book in his Southern Reach Trilogy.

If you follow my Letterboxd link above for Alex Garland's adaptation of book one, Annihilation, you'll see that I mention watching the Blu-Ray extras for the film and seeing Garland talk about having to wrap his head around adapting that novel because it is so internal (those aren't Garland's words, I'm paraphrasing for simplicity's sake). Authority is even more an 'interior' novel, introducing the idea that the Psychologist character from the first novel was actually the Director of the Southern Reach Program, and after losing her during the events of Annihilation, Authority introduces and follows her replacement, the appropriately named Control, aka John Rodriguez, who is brought in under false pretenses to shore up the project, only to encounter hostile subordinates and a deepening mystery as to just why the Director went in on what she essentially had to know would be an ill-fated expedition.

Both these first two books in the series have been more intellectual than guttural, which incidentally makes for a great example of how Garland made his film, switching out the deepening paranoia and madness inherently easier to exhibit in a first-person novel than a film to extremely horrific body horror imagery (the 'snakes' in Mayer's stomach). Authority reads to me like a Horror/Espionage mashup; in fact, Authority reminded me a lot of Charles Stross' Laundry Files series.

On to the third and final book in the series now, and I really do not have any idea what to expect. Which is a fantastic way to go into the last volume of a series. One thing I did expect and thus far can confirm, Acceptance fills in some of the gaps left by previous volumes and is every bit as intellectually riveting as its predecessors. 

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Playlist:

Fugazi - Red Medicine

Fugazi - The Argument

Fugazi - End Hits

Fugazi - In On the Killtaker

Earthless - Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky

Wayfarer - American Gothic

The Bronx - IV

Best of 2023 Playlist

Julee Cruise - Floating Into the Night

Henry Mancini - Charade OST

U2 - War

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

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Card:

One card from Missi's Raven Deck to set the tone of the new year:

Knowledge is key for the coming year.

This feels like a huge affirmation to a concern that has been growing in me for some time. I feel as though my learning has stagnated, and might have taken with it some of my general 'knowledge base.' I've been left thinking I'm in too good a position, and perhaps need to find way to challenge myself a bit beyond thinking/writing on film/music/comics and literature. 

Seven Days of Shane Day 5: You're the One

 

I'm really digging this first album Shane cut with The Popes, particularly this duet with Máire (Moya) Brennan. I seem to gravitate to any duet MacGowan does - the way he always uses the opportunity to juxtapose his hardened rasp with some of the most staunchly beautiful voices around.  This one feels very prescient at the moment. 

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Watch:

Among the trailers we saw before Godzilla Minus One, Bleeker Street's I.S.S. was the one that really stood out. Primarily because this one looks a bit too close to home. I mean, this is pretty much the scariest trailer I've ever seen:

The anxiety this trailer instills in me is uncomfortable, so much so that I believe I'm going to have to force myself to see this in a theatre. Funny how the things that scare us as younger beings change later in life. Based on the world we live in, I.S.S. feels especially frightening.

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST

Steve Moore - Bliss OST 

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

The Nips 'N' Nipple Erectors - Bops, Babes, Booze & Bovver

Shane MacGowan and The Popes - The Snake

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Rein - God Is a Woman

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Card:

From Missi's Hand-colored Raven Deck, a single card pull as an indicator as to how my day will go moving my parents into their new house.

Something will not be what it appears on the surface.

Eating the Flesh of Robots

One of the records Mr. Brown lent me in our recent record swap is The Flesh Eaters 2018 album I Used to Be Pretty. Holy cow, is this a burner of a record! If you dig the track above - my favorite at the moment - check out the entire record.  

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Watch:

I've been in a bit of a rut with watching anything other than Happy! the last few days, and when I finished season one, I found I wanted something more. One of the things I found is Netflix's Love, Death + Robots.

I have watched this show before, although not in any consistent capacity. I've had Sci-Fi on the brain, though, and my decades-long avoidance of most animation that's not Cowboy Bebop seems to be falling away - never understood what that was all about, anyway - so this slotted in nicely.

Previously, only a few of these really left an impression, particularly Season Three's In Vaulted Halls Entombed, which I've watched quite a few times since it came out a year-and-a-half ago (the whys of my obsession are obvious if you've seen it). This time, however, I'm playing through entire seasons and really enjoying what I'm seeing, particularly The Very Pulse of the Machine, Life Hutch and The Drowned Giant. Oh, and Three Robots. Yes, that's a fantastic piece of post-apocalyptic satire right there. 

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Read:

I finished Richard Kadrey and Cassandra Khaw's The Dead Take the A Train and am definitely placing it among my favorite novels of the year. So much fun, and all while being Hellraiser/Evil Dead level GOREY! This is the first book in a series, and I'm down for all of them that follow. 

Still riding high off that, I ordered Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth and started that. 

Look at that cover! 

About a quarter of the way through, and I can say Ms. Khaw may be one of my favorite modern Horror writers. She has a descriptive flair I am head over heels in love with, and her characters feel so very real. The set-up here is fantastic, with a wealthy twenty-somethings friend paying for his small group of friends to stay at a supposedly haunted ancient Japanese estate. I can already tell things will probably get Hellraiser-level bloody, and with a narrator I'm not entirely sure I'd consider reliable, all kinds of hell seems poised to break loose.

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Playlist:

David Bowie - Black Star

Donny McCaslin - Beyond Now

Sen Morimoto - Diagnosis

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Zombi - 2020

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Card:

I'm finding I don't have the bandwidth at the moment to concentrate on involved Tarot readings, so I've been utilizing Missi's Raven Deck for single-card Pulls. Here's today's card:

On the lookout for obscured influences or hidden agendas, so that's (sadly) a "work-related" reading. Also, and perhaps more probable, what am I missing?

Hybrid Halloween Moments!!!

 

Happy Halloween! I've got today and tomorrow off and intend to soak up the atmosphere. First, woke up with The Misfits Hybrid Moments in my head! That has to be a boon that this will be a good day.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I had a spectacular October 30th last night. Here's what I watched:

Not for everyone, but Cary Grant and Peter Lorre are enough to make me love this classic Halloween comedy. The word "Madcap" got thrown around a lot back in this era, but this one deserves the description - it juggles so many plates that, even if some don't exactly 'land' for me, it's just a pleasure to watch.

Classic late-period Romero. I love this flick, flaws and all, and would take this any day over Schumacher's Falling Down, which, in the "man at the end of his rope" sub genre, definitely gets more love. 

If I love Romero's Bruiser, well then, I guess I have to marry Robert Englund's directorial debut, 976-Evil. I know this is not a 'good movie.' Couldn't care less. I think 976-Evil is the epitome of how great late 80s Horror could be, and it totally nails the Nightmare on Elm Street tone that none of the NoES movies except the original manage to.

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers

12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)

13) Never Hike Alone/Never Hike in the Snow/Never Hike Alone 2

14) Puppetman

15) Creepshow Season 4 Episode 1

16) Return of the Living Dead

17) Don't Look Now

18) When Evil Lurks

19) Barbarian

20) Demons 2/All Hallows Eve

21) May

22) Let's Scare Jessica To Death

23) The Birds/30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 1

24) 30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 2/The Church

25) Elvira Mistress of the Dark

26) To Kako (Evil)/To Kako: Stin epohi ton iroon

27) Tourist Trap (w/ Joe Bob)/Totally Killer

28) Amusement

29) The Rocky Horror Picture Show/There's Nothing Out There

30) Arsenic and Old Lace/George A. Romero's Bruiser/976-Evil

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Read:

In keeping with my annual Halloween traditions, I re-read James O'Barr's The Crow yesterday and began Rick Spears and Rob G's Teenagers From Mars upon waking this morning.

The Crow never fails to affect me; still the greatest love story I've read and the purest contemplation of grief I know. O'Barr's art and words drip with the Post Punk bands that grew to sway my tastes as a metalhead in High School, my obsession with Joy Division's Substance and Still and The Cure's Pornography following fast on the heels of my introduction to this dark, beautiful angel.

I love this book so much. The characters are, at this point, old friends I love to check back in on every year. 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Paranoid (single)

Claudio Simonetti and Goblin - Phenomena OST

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST

The Cure - Pornography

Night Verses - Every Sound Has A Color In The Valley of Night: Part 1

Wytch Finger - The Dance EP

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)

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Card:

A single card from Missi's Raven Tarot for this perfect Halloween morning:

When Every Day is Halloween, October 31st just means we're about to begin another journey around the sun toward the next one. 

Tonight At the Gates of Hell, Jessica

 

From Dan O'Bannon's classic Return of the Living Dead. SSQ is a band I know nothing about but damned if this song doesn't fit its scene in the movie like a glove. Or lack thereof. Interesting note, singer Stacey Q. is the artist behind the 1986 hit single "Two of Hearts," which was in heavy rotation on popular radio when I was ten years old and subsequently floats to the surface of my brain a couple times a month (at least) ever since. That's the power of radio, ladies and gentlemen.

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31 Days of Halloween:

John D. Hancock's 1971 Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a film I've been meaning to watch for years, and I finally got around to it yesterday afternoon. Here's a trailer for the remastered version Scream Factory put out a few years ago:

I didn't love this film the way some of my Letterbxd compatriots do, however, it's a fairly strong entry into the "urban flight" subgenre of the late 60s/early 70s. It's interesting to note that what I'm referring to as "urban flight" really prefigures the 70s error of Folk Horror. This was a direct reaction to a major societal shift in America at that time, where white people who lived in urban areas did what many white people do and overreacted to the influx of minority populations, fleeing "Back to nature" in more rural areas of the country. In the vernacular of the day, this was often referred to as "White Flight," or perhaps more generously, Urban Flight. There's an absolutely killer article by Devin Faraci about this disguised as an analysis of Michael Winner's 1974 film Death Wish in the back of Brubaker and Phillips's Kill or Be Killed, issue number one. Unfortunately, the extras in Brubaker/Phillips's monthlies generally do not get included in the collected editions, so if you're interested, you'd have to hunt this down in a back-issue bin. 

Perhaps as fitting dessert for being racist little shits, 70s Folk Horror often (but not always) arises from transplanting said fleeing urbanites to a rural setting that ultimately has something evil to hide. The evil almost always ties into some kind of Pagan or Naturalism, so I'm not really sure what the message is there other than "be afraid of everything." That said,  this formula worked for a while. More prevalent in novels that were then sometimes adapted to film, the best example of this Urban Flight/Folk Horror that I know of is Tom Tryon's Harvest Home, published in 1973 and was adapted into a 1973 tv miniseries in 1978. I have not yet felt the urge to track down the adaptation, seeing as I felt the novel was so good, to see it reworked for television felt... cheap to me. I might be wrong; maybe it's a banger. But I doubt it.

Let's Scare Jessica to Death definitely uses this same idea, however, I enjoyed the fact that this film is considerably more ambiguous about its rules and even sets up a correlation to a classic monster I did not see coming. Some of the narrative inner monologue we hear grows a bit tiresome, even if there is a question of its veracity, but I'm nitpicking here. The two things about this one I loved the most were A) Orville Stoeber's score, which predates Carl Zittrer's similar score for Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things by ten months and had to have been an influence on it. Children Shouldn't Play's score is one of my all-time favorite scores, so it should be no surprise to hear that the music was what finally roped me into watching this one. B) Speaking of influencing other films I love, Jessica also predates Gary Sherman's Dead and Buried by a decade, and there is no doubt Sherman drew from Jessica in the creation of his Seaside Horror classic. 

Alright, enough of the impromptu history lesson; here's the current tally for my 31 Days of Halloween:

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers

12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)

13) Never Hike Alone/Never Hike in the Snow/Never Hike Alone 2

14) Puppetman

15) Creepshow Season 4 Episode 1

16) Return of the Living Dead

17) Don't Look Now

18) When Evil Lurks

19) Barbarian

20) Demons 2/All Hallows Eve

21) May

22) Let's Scare Jessica To Death

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Play:

Puppet Combo/Torture Star's Night at the Gates of Hell hit Switch a few months back, and other than the initial release, I don't think I've posted anything else because I haven't had a lot of time to play the game. Last night, I dug in for about two hours and really immersed myself in it. Verdict?

This might be my favorite of the 80s Horror-themed games these folks have released so far (nothing's coming close to No One Lives Under the Lighthouse).

The game goes all-in on 80s Horror tropes by even including nudity! I mean, that was not something I'd ever expected to see in a game, but topless women are indeed one of the major ingredients in 80s Horror, so hats off for taking it that far (while it's possible that, since before buying a Switch in 2022 I had not played a video game since the original Nintendo, I am just being naive and nudity filtered into the gaming experience a long time ago, but I doubt it). Also, the violence and gore are cranked to ten, which makes sense - the creators have stated this game is a love letter to the films of Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei, so again, to fully expand on the quantifiable criteria of those films, you can't really half-ass the gore. And as usual with Puppet Combo/Torture Star, the sound is exquisite and a major part of the scares in this one. Like Nun Massacre, Night at the Gates of Hell conjures an anxiety that I haven't felt in Horror since I was a kid watching many of the films I love for the first time.

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Playlist:

Halloween Spotify Playlist

Rein - Reincarnated

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Twin Temple - God is Dead

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Orville Peck - Bronco

Billy Joel - The Stranger

Tear for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - Lawless OST

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Card:

I'm going to Missi's Raven Deck for a single card this morning; just want a big picture at the moment:

Trump XIV is Art in the Crowley/Harris deck, and that's generally how I think of it. However, here I'd have to say the message is clear and has way more to do with the actual act of "Tempering," as in expectations. After a wonderful but exhausting weekend with my sister, her husband and my parents in town looking for houses, I think we're all caught up in the panic of moving on short notice (they have to be out by November 15th) and not seeing things for how they actually are. My parents especially need to temper their expectations of how this is going to change their lives, but also, I also think the rest of us have to work with them on that while adjusting our own sense of how this is going to go. I have no doubt they will find 'the right' house, however, it's going to take more time than they currently have. This means accepting the idea of putting their things in storage and having them move in with us for a bit, so they can actually see houses here without having to drive down for the weekend and then leave again. 

New Music from Ministry!!!

Ministry released a new track last week, and as usual, I love it. From the forthcoming album HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, out March 1, 2024, I feel like this is a bit early, but still, I can't really complain about new Ministry. No pre-order link that I could find yet, but that's sure to come. In the meantime, enjoy Goddamn White Trash.

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Watch:

K and I took her Mom to see the Barbie movie over the weekend. This was about as interesting to me as the battleship movie until Mr. Brown posited that he'd read the entire thing was going to be one big piss-take. 

That got me interested. 

I waited for the hype (and crowds) to die down before even entertaining the idea of getting a ticket. We were at the theatre multiple times since this thing opened, and the crowds of pink-adorned moviegoers gave me pause. The malaise for big-budget IPs I always experience when actually faced with seeing them kicked in, and I figured I could go on just fine without ever actually seeing this thing, thank you very much. 

Then K's Mom expressed interest, so we decided to take her. Verdict? Greta Gerwig did exactly what I hoped she would with this one: It's irreverent toward everything that deserves irreverence - including itself and the Barbie brand - yet still manages to be fun and touching as all hell. And as far as the cries of man-hating, anyone offended by this is a douche, and exactly what the film is commenting on. 

Ms. Gerwig had come a long way from being the friend in Ti West’s House of the Devil, and I applaud Mattel for allowing this to be what it is. Also, fucking Rhea Pearlman, am I right? 

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Read:

I finished Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls over the weekend. OUTSTANDING novel! I read the last 60 or so pages in a mad gallop, unable to put the damn thing down. This means I'm going to reassess some of his newer books, all of which I'll probably read at some point.

Moving on, I finally started Nathan Ballingrud's novel The Strange. 

Holy smokes! Only 80-odd pages in, and I can pretty much guarantee right now, this will be the best novel I read this year. No disrespect to the others - Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl, and Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper are both going to come in close, but Mr. Ballingrud's prose is just mouthwatering.

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamably Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Agnes Obel - Aventine

Ghost - Impera

The Rods - Wild Dogs

The Rods - Live

Van Halen - 1984

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Etta James - Second Time Around

Standish/Carlyon - Deleted Scenes

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Ubre Blanca - Polygon Mountain EP

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Mercyful Fate - Melissa

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Oracle:

Just want to do a simple, one-card Pull today, and Missi's Raven Deck is the one I use for that:

Beware bad information and/or don't overlook information from dubious sources. 

Baroness - Shine

 

Baroness dropped another new track from their upcoming Stone, out September 15th. I'm really digging everything I've heard so far, and I adore this album art for this one; every album features Frontman John Dyer Baizley's paintings and all of them are fantastic. This one does something specific for me, apparently. Pre-order Stone HERE.

 

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Watch:

Based on the description Bloody Disgusting gives in a recent article, I'm a little afraid of Karim Ouelhaj's new film Megalomaniac. That said, I made it about 7 seconds into the trailer and knew I wanted to see it:

 

That imagery, whatever it is, took my breath. I won't be watching any more of the trailer, but you can. You can also read the BD article HERE, or Meagan Navarro's review of the film HERE. I'm literally doing none of that. Megalomaniac is receiving US theatrical distribution on September 8th via Dark Star Pictures, although I'm fairly certain it will be limited and I won't get it here in Clarksville, so I'll be keeping an eye open on VOD streaming platforms.

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Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Windhand - Eponymous

Count Gorgann - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

Various - Lords of Salem OST

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

        

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Card:

About to head out for the six-plus hour drive up to Chicago for the weekend, so just a quick (but important) Pull. I still try and use Missi's Raven Deck for occasions such as these, where Arcana is all I really need:

 

Don't struggle against change. Prescient for sure, for reasons I won't go into here.
 

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X's For Eyes... And That's All

 

I have always carried a torch for a handful of songs from the Phil Collins/80s Genesis catalogue. I know, I know... I don't care. These songs are in my DNA from early life exposure. Also, weirdly enough, a lot of comic book memories are attached to some of them, this one in particular. Not necessarily specific issues, but eras.

The year Tonight, Tonight, Tonight came out - 1986 - was the year I first started reading comics on a regular basis with Larry Hama's G.I.Joe issue #49. The same year, this song appeared in a Michelob television commercial. Something about that commercial primed me to be both a Ministry fan and a Bret Easton Ellis fan, though it's difficult to explain the latter half of that statement. (Ministry's Everyday is Halloween would score a - get this - Old Style Dry commercial, just two years later. My memory so clearly stated it was a Bud Dry commercial that I would have put money on it. Also, who remembered that Old Style had a "Dry" beer? Not me, and probably not Dennis Farina, either. I mean, if he was still alive...)

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Play:

The New Puppet Combo game Stay Out of the House drops June 16th! I've already pre-ordered my copy for Switch. Why? Check out this gnarly trailer:

Oh man, I need to double-down on No One Lives Under the Lighthouse, which I played the hell out of for the first week and a half and then haven't really had time for since.             

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Read:

Blew through Laird Barron's third Isaiah Coleridge novel, Worse Angels and, exactly as instinct suggested, it went from a 4-star to a 5-star rating simply because I did not reread Black Mountain (Bk 2) first. Love this series, and it's put me in mind of tracing some of the recurring characters, so the instant I finished it, I picked up Barron's 2015 novella X's for Eyes.         

I've only read this particular Barron book once before when it first came out, and it's not a Coleridge novel, however, Tom Mandibole makes an appearance, and since he is a major force in Worse Angels, I really wanted to work backward on his character. The first memory I have of him is "More Dark," the closing story in Barron's 2013 The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All collection, where - in my mind at least - it's heavily implied he is a riff on author Thomas Ligotti. I read Barron's work as it's released, and in the past, I haven't kept notes, so I'm hazy on where and how often Mandibole has appeared. Hence the 'working backward.' At any rate, Mandibole shows up in the first two pages of X's For Eyes, as does Sword Industries, the Labrador family and who knows what else. So I'm in the right place until The Wind Began to Howl (Coleridge Bk 3.5) arrives.

 

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Playlist:

Lustmord - Berlin

Low - Double Negative

Ganser - Odd Talk

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

Godflesh - Post Self

Danzig - Danzig III: How the Gods Kill

Alice in Chains - Sap EP

Soundgarden - Superunknown

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Phil Collins/Genesis - Collins. Phil Collins. Playlist

Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship (Without a Sail)

Ministry - Moral Hygiene

Yeruselem - The Sublime

Pigface - Pigface Live 2019 vinyl

            

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Card:

Heading to Chicago today, so here's a card from Missi's Raven Deck to see me on my way and plot the course of the trip:

Things change; long-standing certainties switch polarity. Life is change, so embrace change. Kill. Your. Darlings.

 

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New Queens of the Stone Age - Carnavoyeur

 

More new music from next month's new Queens of the Stone Age record, Times New Roman, available for pre-order HERE.

My friend Josh alerted me to this one, and I have to say, his "I hear Bowie" observation is spot-on. Not necessarily in how the song sounds (although there's that), but more in the type of experimentation the band's doing. Really cool stuff.

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NCBD:

Nothing in my pull this week, however, issue #3 of Pat O'Malley's Popscars drops, and I'll definitely be picking that up and adding the book to my Pull.

Now published by Sumerian Comics - formerly Behemoth Comics, the fine folks who published Andy Leavy and Hugo Araujo's Osaka Mime, not to mention the Turbo Kid and Spare Parts tie-in books. I met Pat back in 2022 at The Comic Bug when he was in signing issues 1 and 2 of Popscars, then completely independently published. I bought those issues, LOVED them and was supposed to have him on A Most Horrible Library, but then, well, I don't think we've done an episode since. He reached out recently and I need to get back to him and extend an invite to come on my functioning show, The Horror Vision, so he can talk about the book.

Here's the solicitation description:

"Popscars is a gritty Hollywood revenge story about a vigilante badass in a pink ski mask and the famous Hollywood movie producer she is out to kill, who also happens to be her estranged father. In Hollywood revenge is best served in front of an audience. As our pink ski masked killer pushes her way through a Hollywood crowd, prepared to take her shot at her movie producer father, she's quickly swept into a brand new revenge plot orchestrated by her own unsuspecting target."

 

I love the imagery in the book, and the seedy nature of, well, all of it. An exploitation book about exploitation flicks is, by its very nature, a fantastic story.

 

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Read:

I surprised myself by putting off my re-read of Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw after I noticed that my copy of Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl is due to land any day, and that technically, this book is labeled as "Isaiah Coleridge Novel #3.5." 

Interesting... and also probably a shorter read than clocking through Chainsaw and its follow-up, Don't Fear the Reaper, both of which I'm dying to read. But I've also been chomping at the bit for more Coleridge, and more Laird Barron in general, so I started re-reading Isaiah #3, 2020's Worse Angels.

I've read Coleridge books 1 and 2 twice each, or actually three times on book one, Blood Standard, but Worse Angels just the once, so this is a welcome return to a book that kinda blew me away (like they all do). Also, I'm eager to read it without reading book 2 Black Mountain, in close proximity. I love the entire series, however, Black Mountain was just something else, and because of this, I feel like it warped my only experience with Angels so far. Not this time...

 

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Playlist:

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

High On Fire - Snakes for the Divine

Decima Victima - Los Que Faltan

The Mysterines - Begin Again (single)

Killing Joke - Fire Dances

Tangerine Dream - Sorceror OST

            

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Card:

Had an inkling to pick the Raven Tarot Deck back up and pull a single card. Here we go:

Temperance, or "Art" in Crowley and Harris's Thoth deck. Another small goad to get my ass back in gear, as my lethargy has crept through the weekend and into the middle of the damn week now. We've had a steady stream of vendors out to the house for various reasons over the last few days, and that continues today. Also, I am once again completely enraptured by Laird Barron's Worse Angels. That said, I need to develop a curriculum. One thing I was pretty taken by in Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy - I mean, besides the awesome Slasher story - was main character Violet's practice routine with her violin. It reminded me of the benefit of commitment to the craft. I've been wanting to work up a schedule that includes not only writing - and of course reading has to be in there - but also guitar, as I've felt a pull back to that after nearly a decade ignoring what used to be my muse. 

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Ghost Covers Iron Maiden!!!

 

From the forthcoming Phantomime EP, out this Friday! Pre-order HERE. 

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Watch:

I've been sick AF since Saturday, so I watched a lot of movies over the last few days. I'm not going to post trailers for everything, but there are a few I'd like to mention. First of those is Gary Busey in a Richard C. Sarafian film, Eye of the Tiger! This was probably my favorite viewing experience. I don't know, seeing Gary Busey kick the hell out of a gang of ruthless bikers. Here's a trailer:

   

I'd put this flick up against a lot of similar movies from the same year - 1986 - that feature box office candy like Stallone and Armold; Eye of the Tiger is really well-made, and Busey turns in a solid performance. 

Also of special note from what I watched over the weekend, 1994's The Guyver.

 

I have some vague memory of seeing the imagery from this film somewhere about the time it would have received release press. More recently, when Fangoria interviewed Steven Kostanski about his influences on Psycho Goreman (Fangoria Vol. 2 issue 10) he mentioned The Guyver, so it was in my peripheral. Then, I noticed that Darcy had uploaded the full movie in the old Monstervision presentation to the Lost Drive-In Patreon, and I figured, what better way to watch it, right? Cool flick; not exactly my cuppa, however, as usual watching pretty much anything with Joe Bob amplifies it. I've thought about this a lot, the idea that even a movie you hate can be made enjoyable (to a degree) when you have the proper context for it. That's something Joe Bob excels at providing, and I usually find myself better able to put myself in the movie's headspace. I'm sure there would be conditions under which this theory would break down; I doubt very much that even if Joe Bob hosted The Notebook I would get a kick out of it. Then again, who knows?

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Read:

I continued to make my way through Alan Campbell's final book in the Deepgate Codex series this weekend, but I also had the itch to read some old Spider-Man comics, so I dug out Web of Spider-Man 40-42, the "Cult of Love" storyline, only to realize I'm missing the fourth and final part.

Not really a big deal; I located issue 43 on eBay, so I'll get to read that in a few days. More important than the story was the general tone of the story. 80s comics are very much recognizable, especially Spidey. They reflect the New York of the time, but also the world and society of the time. The art and writing are a certain 'way' - again, a lot of that has to do with topics that haunted Western Society at the time. Vietnam was a big one, but in this case, echoes of the Tate/Labianca murders and the fear of 'cults' that crime inspired. I wasn't there to read through metaphors of societal trauma, though. No, I was there because the 80s was when I started reading comics and Spidey, while not a mainstay, every-week purchase, had three ongoing monthly titles that I cherry-picked from quite often, and it's always super cool to go back and re-experience those books. 

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Nirvana - Nevermind

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Cartoonist Kayfabe - Havok/Wolverine Meltdown

The Beatles - Abbey Road

            

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Card:

Easing back into it with a single card Pull from Missi's Raven Deck:

As usual, this deck just knows. I'm abstaining from drinking any beer while I've been sick and thinking of carrying it on until the weekend, just to further give my body a break. My fever's gone, but I was up most of the night last night coughing, so I'm exhausted at the moment. Ginger Ale remains a close friend.

 

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Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl

 

If you're watching Yellowjackets, you know why I'm posting this. I feel like I totally forgot about this song and Tori Amos in general. I was never a HUGE fan, but respect the hell out of her, and this song has always blown me away.

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Watch:

30 Coins season two!

 

I'll admit - I'm still pretty raw at HOBO MAX for canceling Raised By Wolves instead of just doing that third, final season, and that makes me a bit trepidatious about any show on there having a continuing storyline from season to season. I'll also admit that based on how 30 Coins season one ended, I didn't foresee more to the story at all. I mean, obviously, the final images left things open for more, but it didn't seem essential. Which makes me feel better about another season of the show. I mean, I want as much of this as they'll give me, but I also don't want a dangling cliffhanger. 

ALL of that aside, can I get a hell yeah for this trailer? Can't wait.

 

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Playlist:

Bettye LaVette - The Scene of the Crime

Damon - From the Attic

Le Butcherettes - A Raw Youth

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Cristobal Tapia de Veer - Smile OST

Mortician - House By the Cemetery EP

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Suck My Kiss (single)

QOTSA - Smooth Sailing (single)

Screaming Females - Desire Pathway

Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl (single)

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Card:

From Missi's Raven Deck:

In this particular moment, this card is a reminder to focus on the world outside myself, because sometimes, that interior space just gets too cyclical and can cause a lot of anxiety,

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New Music From Bettye Lavette

 

From the forthcoming album Lavette!, out June 16th via Jay Vee Records. Read more about the announcement HERE on Brooklyn Vegan.

Back in 2012, I really did not know who Betty Lavette was. My x and I were in San Francisco for about a week, and caught Ms. Lavette at the old Yoshi's location; she was on tour for her Thankful and Thoughtful record. Amazing show, but it's been quite some time since she has been on my radar. Gotta change that! 

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News:

It's been a while, but a new edition of the Every Day (Is Halloween) Newsletter goes out this morning at 8:30 AM. Included therein is a pretty fantastic playlist, if I do say so myself. I recently bowed out of a friend's Spotify Premium Family account, so I totally understand if you're not hip to the format - I prefer Apple Music for almost everything, however, if there's one thing Spotify does better it's playlists.

If you're interested in signing up, I don't share your info, I don't send often enough to be a nuisance, and I try to add value to my readers' lives by turning them onto as much awesome stuff as possible!

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Read:

Here's another thing I don't think I'd ever heard of before: Alan Moore and Alan Davis's Captain Britain comic from 1983? 

Leave it to the Cartoonist Kayfabe guys - that's Ed "Red Room" Piskor and Jim "Street Angel" Rugg, two of the most talented artists working in comics today. I subscribed to their channel (HERE) a while back and have really been getting an education from it; HIGHLY recommend you check Cartoonist Kayfabe out if you're into the art and history of comics!

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Watch:

Not watching this new Dead Ringers trailer, but I'll post it here for posterity's sake.

 

All episodes drop on April 21st, and I'm curious as hell, especially after reading on Bloody Disgusting that Sean Durkin directed the first two episodes. I'm a big fan of his film Martha Marcy May Marlene, so I'm excited to see how his particular aesthetic might meld with Cronenbergian themes/images.

 

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Playlist:

Damone - From the Attic

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer (pre-release singles)

Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession

Deadguy - Fixation On A Coworker

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Brainiac - The Predator Nominate

Ghost - Prequelle

The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That

High On Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Massive Attack - 100th Window

Bettye Lavette - The Scene of the Crime

    

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Card:

Back to Missi's Raven Deck for today's Pull:

Change: Just accept it. "Words of wisdom Lloyd. Words. Of. Wisdom."

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Bedridden - Soft Soap

 

My good friend Amy posted a track by her nephew's new band on her socials the other day, and I was floored when I followed the link and hit play. Can't wait to hear more by Bedridden soon; this band rules! Buy the track and hit follow over on their Bandcamp HERE.

 

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Watch:

Starting my first full rewatch of Twin Peaks since before 2017's The Return (which I've rewatched twice since it aired). This time, however, I am starting with Fire Walk With Me. 

Watched it today; never fails to blow me away.

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Playlist:

David Lynch and John Neff - BLUEBOB

Stan Getz - Focus

Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food

Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner

Lustmord - Hobart

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

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Card:

For the first of my three New Year's Pulls, I used Missi's Raven Tarot for a single card to indicate where the new year will take me.

A paradigm shift! Good news. This leads me to believe I am on firm footing with the projects I am currently balancing. Let's revisit this for each of the next two days with my subsequent pulls.

In the Mist

 

A little old-school Opeth to kick off the week. From their 1995 debut Orchid.

I spent more time last week listening to the newer Opeth albums than I ever have before, and still, nothing after Watershed really sticks with me. I wasn't a fan back when these early, Candlelight/Century Black records came out; I didn't buy my first Opeth album until the early oughts (Deliverance), and I didn't become what I would call a huge fan until shortly before the aforementioned Watershed, an album I never really connected with either, until last week. Watershed has its moments, but previously only ever served to make me miss the band that recorded the albums before it that I like. My circuitous point here is I can't claim the same prejudice against the band's conversion to prog-rock that older fans do, who witnessed the evolution as each successive record came out, but like many others, I miss the teeth from the band's early and even mid-career music.

So I'm pulling out the triple-disc rerelease those first three records received in the mid-00s and digging in. 

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Play:

I hadn't really picked up my Switch to continue my pilgrimage in Game Kitchen's Blasphemous in some time, so Sunday I spent a good deal of time on it while editing the 100th episode of The Horror Vision. I made quite a bit of progress, and am now approximately 93% finished. Lots of surprises in this game, which so reminds me of Castlevania and, in some ways more so, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. The most unexpected event I encountered so far is a hidden room that houses an arcade game, which you have the option to play. Here's a playthrough video from youtube Psychobeats, link to their channel HERE.

Very cool stuff. I can't wait to see what else this game has in store for me. For now, I'm trapped battling my way through "Mourning and Havoc" one of the more difficult levels I've encountered in the game.

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

John Carpenter - Alive After Death

The Besnard Lakes - The Last of the Great Storm Warnings

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School  of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done

Lustmord and The Ocean - Primal (State of Being) (Single)

The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

The Final Cut - Consumed

Miami Nights 1984 - Sentimental

Sade - Loe Deluxe

Boy Harsher - Lesser Man

Thelonious Monk W/ John Coltrane - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Barry Adamson - As Above So Below

Cory Wong - Power Station

Orville Peck - Pony

Orville Peck - Bronco

Ghost - Impera

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Tim Waits - Rain Dogs

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Card:

Day of the Dead

 

As is my custom, here's Opeth's Dirge for November to initiate our Day of the Dead. I'm not quite sure how Opeth became my official band of the month November, but it happened. I'll be digging into the band's back catalogue all month, and Blackwater Park is always where I start that particular journey.

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31 Days of Halloween:

10/1 - Trick 'r Treat

10/2 - Barbarian

10/3 - Hellraiser ('84)

10/4 - Phenomena

10/5 - Hellraiser (2022)

10/6 - The Dark Backward

10/7 - Sick/The Beyond

10/8 - Werewolf By Night

10/9 - Something in the Dirt

10/10 - Let the Right One In Episode 1/Lux Aeterna

10/11 - My Best Friend's Exorcism/Grimcutty

10/12 - Smile

10/13 - Monstrous/VHS (Amateur Night segment)

10/14 - Halloween Kills

10/15 - Halloween Ends/Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space

10/16 - Spider Baby/101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments/Night's End/Behemoth

10/17 - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

10/18 - Random Acts of Violence/Two Witches/Let the Right One In Episode 2

10/19 - Footprints on the Moon/976-EVIL

10/20 - Alison's Birthday/Tone Deaf

10/21 - Elviria's Haunted Hills/Popcorn

10/22 - Resolution

10/23 - The Endless

10/24 - VHS 99

10/25 - Tigers Are Not Afraid

10/26 - Bliss

10/27 - Deadstream/Host

10/28 - The Convent

10/29 - Lot 36 (GDT's CoC ep. 1)/George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead 3D/Return of the Living Dead

10/30 - Lords of Salem

10/31 - 31/Treehouse of Horror XXXIII/Hocus Pocus/Night of the Living Dead (68)

That's a wrap on yet another 31 Days of Halloween. Of course, my love of Horror movies doesn't stop there - I'm actually taking K to see Smile this evening - but there's a TON of non-Horror I need to get to, and November/December is typically the time of year when I get psyched for the, ahem, 'Prestige' pictures the studios release, and that carries over into my daily life as well. 

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Read:

Still inspired by seeing Lucio Fulci's The Beyond: The Composer's Cut at Beyondfest last month, I returned home from Los Angeles and began re-reading Eibon Press's outstanding The Beyond series, where Stephen Romano and Pat Carbajal adapt and explore Lucio Fulci's masterpiece:

I've been wanting to do this re-read for some time, as it will dovetail nicely with me finally ordering a copy of the recently released Escape From The Beyond #1.

I very much dig Romano's extrapolation of the over-story Fulci thinly draped across his three "Gates of Hell" films, and can't wait to see where he takes the sequel, now firmly new territory. The previous books from Eibon - The Beyond, The Gates of Hell, and House By the Cemetery - are all adaptations with flourishes that hint at being further advanced in this new series. 

Whether by intention or after sight, Fulci built an extremely ripe mythos with these three films, and it's awesome to see so talented a creator as Romano - who clearly loves the material - do what the master himself never got the chance to do. 

Bring it all together. 

There will, of course, be those who say the ending of The Beyond is perfect and shouldn't be messed with. To that, I'd say I agree with the first half; if someone were to remake or plan a film sequel, I'd be a lot more trepidacious. Swapping mediums gives Romano and now artist Jeff Zurnow an unlimited bag of visual tricks, so let's see what they do with it. If you don't end up liking it, these books need not affect the film at all. But imagine the possibilities; we've all wondered what happens after John and Liza end up in Schweik's painting...

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Playlist:

Various -Shawn's Halloween Playlist

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

John Carpenter - Lost Themes II

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death

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Card:

Being that November 1st is, in some manner of speaking, the beginning of my new year, I wanted to make this pull pretty comprehensive. To that end, I began with the Raven Tarot:

I see this as denoting a return on the investments of my time/energy on various projects.

Next, to move beyond the general scope, I wanted to pull a spread using Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, (which you can buy HERE.)

Ace of Cups and Swords both imply breakthroughs, with the addition of the Eight of Cups telling the breakthroughs may come in the form of recognizing my errors and thus, correcting them. Again, this all seems to point to my current project. 

Your Favorite Toy

 

From Ritual Veil's 2017's Wolf in the Night EP, available from Avant! Records. The Ritual Veil Bandcamp is located HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

10/1 - Trick 'r Treat

10/2 - Barbarian

10/3 - Hellraiser ('84)

10/4 - Phenomena

10/5 - Hellraiser (2022)

10/6 - The Dark Backward

10/7 - Sick/The Beyond

10/8 - Werewolf By Night

10/9 - Something in the Dirt

10/10 - Let the Right One In Episode 1/Lux Aeterna

10/11 - My Best Friend's Exorcism/Grimcutty

10/12 - Smile

10/13 - Monstrous/VHS (Amateur Night segment)

10/14 - Halloween Kills

10/15 - Halloween Ends/Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space

10/16 - Spider Baby/101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments/Night's End/Behemoth

10/17 - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

10/18 - Random Acts of Violence/Two Witches/Let the Right One In Episode 2

 

Two Witches is a new film that just hit Arrow's streaming app on 10/17. Pretty damn good, and would make a fantastic double feature with H6LLB6ND6R. Props to Peter Tsigaridis on his first feature.

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NCBD:

Pretty big haul this week. Damn. 

Not entirely sure I'll be continuing this one, but I can at least give it to the end of the second issue, if not the first arc (much like the last).

A Halloween one-off that immediately earns my $$$ by featuring not just Moon Knight but Man-Thing (aka Ted) on the cover. SOLD!

The final issue! Holy sh*t! End of an era indeed. I will miss Deadly Class so very much. This and Black Science - both by Rick Remender - defined a certain era of my life, and as sad as I was to see Black Science end a few years ago, it's Deadly Class that will be taking my heart with it. That said, I always prefer the books that leave too soon than those that overstay their welcome. Kudos to Mr. Remender for holding his ground on all these titles launched under his Giant Generator imprint. Can't wait to see what's next.

Moon Knight!

Issue one blew me away. 

So far so good on this Predator series. This issue, I believe we have a big throw-down coming. 

Final Issue? I'm not really sure. This story is, as I've said previously, completely insane. 

Yes! Finally, the fireman's story!

I really can't wait for this series to get in gear; feels like it's been MONTHS since issue #1. 

Love this cover. That face on Forge's vest - Krakoa? Either way, it's creepin' me the f*&k out.

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Playlist:

Fantômas - The Director's Cut

Diamond Galas - The Litanies of Satan

Sa Bruxa - Ritual

Ritual Veil - Wolf in the Night EP

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Various - Every Day (Is Halloween) Chicago Industrial Playlist

Here Lies Lucy - Heaven or HLL EP

Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST

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Card:

I've been wanting to pull the Raven Tarot back out, but as I've been in three-card-spread mode, and I can't imagine doing a spread with all Major Arcana cards, I had to find a way to augment the reading. Then I thought, hell -why not mix two decks. Voila! A lot of good ideas bring abound fresh ideas, fresh breath and better circumstances.