I'm not going to be able to really celebrate until Saturday, but in the meantime, there's Pogues and Guinness.
Watch:
You can really tell I've drank all the Marvel kool-aid now, eh?
A friend at work showed me this trailer for the upcoming Event Book Judgment Day, and I will say, I'm curious. I'm not very hip to the Eternals, however, the idea that in their fervor to rid the Earth of "Deviants" they've determined that mutants are one and the same, well, it's a good idea for a story.
Judgment Day lands in July - I think - and although I'm not certain I'll be reading it, I will probably be at the very least staying peripherally abreast of the beats and outcome.
Playlist:
Tones on Tail - Everything!
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
Spizm - B4uDIE
Bryce Miller - City Depths
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Rammstein - Rosenrot
Mark Lanegan - Blues Funeral
New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust
Card:
Dogmatic regimes - outdated thought that threatens to lock your mind in a box of its own making - the worst kind. Hmmm... No context for this at the moment, unless A) the pull is the cards being playful, as I just had a conversation yesterday about The Hierophant with the person who colored and gave me these cards, or B) it's commentary on how far up Marvel's arse I am at the moment that I'm posting a trailer for an event book. Either way, always good to have a playful reading.
It's been a minute since I listened to Dum Dum Girls' 2014 Too True. Such a fantastic record, which also served as the band's last before dissolving. I can vividly remember staring out the window on a Greyhound bus early on in my relationship with this record. None of the band's other releases ever hit me quite as hard as this one, possibly because of such a sustained period of isolation and reflection with it on that bus, headed from Chicago to Dayton, nearing the end of a particularly long era of my life. When I listen now, my head doesn't automatically go to the whys and wherefores of that bus ride, just the deliciously peaceful Midwest scenery
Watch:
There's something inherently creepy about the word "watcher."
I don't know much about director Chloe Okuna, except that her segment of last year's V/H/S '94 - apparently entitled Storm Drain - was the only segment in the film that I enjoyed. And I really enjoyed it, so I'm very curious to see her new full-length film Watcher.
NCBD:
A thankfully abbreviated NCBD this week, as I actually went back in last week and ended up grabbing the new trade paperback of the Jeff Lemire/Greg Smallwood 2016 run on Moon Knight that Marvel recently released.
Now, onto this week's pull, which starts with another issue of our 90s rock tactical military ghost war comic, Home Sick Pilots!
This book continues to be insane, and I realize now that I should take the opportunity to pass on the fact that if you're so inclined, you can go HERE to read the first issue of the series for free online. The only reason you should absolutely not do this is if you don't want to get sucked in and immediately shell out the dough for the first two trades ($10 and $17 respectively).
The changes that adapting author David M. Booher has been making to Joe Hill's Rain have made this limited series a nice companion for someone like me, who just finished reading the original novella a fw weeks before this series hit the stands. Rain is a different kind of apocalypse story - thankfully - and in spite of the changes, the massive heart that comprises its DNA are brought our wonderfully by Zoe Thorogood's art.
More Silver Coin, and this month, we get a sequel to a previous issue's story. Hot damn!
A new number one from Image that sounds like it has serious potential. From the solicitation copy on Image's site:
"Stetson is a nightmare hunter. A dream detective. She runs a shoddy back-alley business where she helps clients sleep at night by entering their dreams and killing their nightmares. But Stetson’s past comes back to haunt her when she tracks down a literal living nightmare—a serial killer that murders people in their sleep.SLUMBER is an ongoing series from the twisted minds of writer TYLER BURTON SMITH (Kung Fury, Child’s Play) and rising-star artist VANESSA CARDINALI."
I don't know about you, but that description buys it at least one issue with me.
Playlist:
Drug Church - Hygiene
Metallica - Kill 'Em All demos
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Revocation - The Outer Ones
Card:
Discretion when dealing with the Physical World is a commonly held interpretation. It's generally NOT mine. To me, the Fifteenth Trump Card of the Tarot is usually a nudge to pay attention to wisdom that comes from a possibly dodgy source.
UPDATE on yesterday's three-card spread: Exactly as I thought, I stopped what I was doing pretty much on the spot, broke out a short story I've been trying to finish since 2018, and finished it!
Ghost had a big ol' Release Ritual for their new album Impera, out today. You can still order the album HERE. As I write this, it's 11:00 PM PST, so the full album dropped two hours ago when the East Coast hit Midnight.
I'm definitely losing some of the "to hell and back" vibe I had with Ghost, but I still feel like their music is fantastic, even if not always what I want it to be. Oh, how I long for Infestissumam, and to a lesser extent, Meliora ("Circe" is probably my favorite song by the band, or at least a close second to "Year Zero"). Even more than their actual music, I have long been interested in the course Tobias Forge has plotted out for his music. Since Popestar in 2016, it has been my prediction that Forge will eventually do a big budget broadway musical - I really see so much of that theatrical DNA in their records and their live show. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm off Friday - when you're reading this - so I'm up late with my first go-through of Impera running through my headphones and it sounds great. Again, not always what I want, exactly, but still great.
Watch:
A new featurette for Marvel's Moon Knight dropped earlier in the week. I'm trying to avoid seeing too much, but I broke down and watched this, can vouch that there are no real spoilers included here. The show begins March 30th, and I find myself counting the days. I want to like this one so much - with MK a favorite character and Benson and Moorehead as showrunners, well, this seems like there is no way it could possibly disappoint me.
However...
I'm still not sold on the way the costume looks on screen. I'm really hoping I get over that, or the images we're seeing are early on in the costume's evolution. I refer back to Netflix's Daredevil here, where at the end of the first season when Matt Murdock transitioned from the Fran Miller-inspired black mask to the actual DD costume, I was totally taken aback, but by the second season the rough edges had been rounded down. Regardless, Moon Knight is really hanging on as a favorite at the moment, and it has A LOT to do with Jed Mackay's current run on the monthly book - issue #9 in particular - which just blew me away. Making the House of Shadows the new Midnight Mission was a stroke of genius...
And then there's this:
I'm a fan of Marvel's Black, White & Blood books, even though I've not actually picked up all that many of them. This, however. Holy shit. I never would have anticipated them doing a Moon Knight installment. I've always tried to be consistent with the character; I missed out on the 80s series completely, cherry-picked at the 90s one, and missed the Charlies Huston series altogether, but loved the entirety of the Brian Michael Bendis run that followed shortly after. Then the Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey - well, let's just say that's holy in my eyes, and one of the things I've loved about the interpretation since - and what I expect to love about the Disney+ series - is the Mr. Knight persona. That's the kind of genius you expect from a collaboration between Ellis and Shalvey, and I've been continuously happy to see it garnering so much of the character's continued evolution.
Playlist:
The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
Ministry - Filth Pig
Ghost - Live From the Ministry (Impera Release Ritual)
Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil
The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP
Ghost - Impera
Card:
Taking a break from the Thoth deck and moving back to my beloved Raven Tarot:
A reminder to take knowledge from even the most obscure or upsetting places. This feels like it figures in to my current state of mind, which is about 30% paranoia. I'm looking for answers as to how to continue with my life, how to streamline the next series of large steps I have to take in order to get the hell out of my current paradigm and into what's next. Lot's of setbacks, lots of arrows. But there are always distractions and detractors. The point is to move beyond what we know and just make it happen. Lucifer certainly did.
It's another Bandcamp Friday, and it's also the release date of Spizm's B4uDie record. I pre-ordered this a while back and posted the lead, titular single, and now that I've heard the whole thing, I strongly recommend you throw these guys some $$. Remember, artists keep ALL the money from sales on Bandcamp Friday, so what better way to support independent creators!
There are some pretty Bold Horror Statements being used in the marketing for the new film You Won't Be Alone, which makes me skeptical. However...
Yeah, after watching about a quarter of this trailer, I knew I was in and turned it off lest I learn too much. Directed by Goran Stolevski - who I am completely unfamiliar with despite the fact that his name rings a bell - I think Focus Features is banking on the "Folk Horror Explosion" with this one. That's okay. I find despite the buzz, I'm rarely disappointed by films marketed under that banner.
Playlist:
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I
Judas Priest - British Steel
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
Ghost - Infestissumam
Neil Young - Greatest Hits
Greg Puciato - Lowered (single)
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits
Mutterlein - Orphans of the Black Sun
Jim Willaims - Possessor OST
Killing Joke - Night Time
Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil
Ministry - Filth Pig
Tom Vek - Luck
Grinderman - Eponymous
Spizm - B4uDie
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Card:
I'm really having trouble digging past the surface and listening to the inner voice that tells me how to write. I've kind of pushed myself into a frustration corner and can't see past it.
A wonder live rendition of the opening track from the Twilight Singers' 2006 EP A Stitch in Time, which as a bonus, flawlessly morphs into a cover of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."
I got chills at the end when Dulli yells, "Mark Lanegan ladies and gentlemen!"
It's been quite some time since I doubled down on any Twilight Singers. This EP and the corresponding album Powder Burns also released in 2006, along with Lanegan's 2004 Bubblegum were intricate daily rituals for much of my life during the mid-to-late 00s. They're also slightly synonymous with drugs - no surprise there. To me, these records so perfectly capture the fabric of my mental life at that time, it brings back a huge rush of thoughts, feelings and ideas that are otherwise haphazardly placed in a closet at the back of my psyche. It's good to take that stuff out and brush it off every once in a while.
Read:
I'd been trying to read the works of T.E.D. Klein for the better part of a decade, but until very recently, everything was out of print. I eventually found the story "The Events at Poroth Farm" in a Kindle-only "Megapack" of the Cthulhu Mythos. The story has fuck all to do with Lovecraft, but hell, forty stories for $0.99, I'll take it.
This is the kind of thing that flits in and out of my radar, so months go by where I get busy obsessing over other things, then something puts the enigmatic Klein back in my thoughts and I look around on Kindle and eBay again. The holy grail of his work would appear to be the 1985 novel Dark Gods, which goes for upwards of $40 for a Mass Market Paperback on eBay. It's only a matter of time until someone puts Klein's stuff back in print...
And now that is exactly what is happening. Two recent purchases I've made:
This first volume is a novel. A reprint of Klein's 1984 novel The Ceremonies, also long out of print. I snatched up a paperback copy of this the second I saw it hit Amazon, however, I will say, the binding looks like it will split and fall apart before I'm finished reading this one. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you have a 400+ pages book and its binding is barely an eight of an inch thick, well, that's usually a pretty crappy edition.
And here's one from Pickman's Press I just saw this morning on Kindle. I grabbed the digital right away for this collection of short stories, poems and an interview. "Poroth Farm" is included here, which is nice, as are what looks like an essay on Arthur Machen's "The House of Souls", a story I recently short-listed when I picked up a Complete Works volume of Machen's work. So far, I'm three stories in, and can already tell you, "Well-Connected" is already worth the $5.99 I paid for this one. Fantastic story.
Playlist:
Mark Lanegan Band - Bubblegum
Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral
Post Stardom Depression - Prime Time Looks A Lot Like Amateur Night
QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze
Card:
Looking for answers, but something remains obscured.
Alice in Chains' "Nutshell" has always been a devasting song to me anyway, but hearing Lanegan sing it a few days after learning of his passing, well... damn. That's about all I can say.
Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending this one my way.
Listen:
New Greg Puciato record in June, and the lead single is f*&king fantastic!
I've become quite a fan of Reba Meyers over the last two years, and even though I didn't dig that new Code Orange single that dropped a few months back, I dearly want her making music in my life. Her presence her only makes this an even better song than it already is.
Mirrorcell is out June 22nd on Puciato's own Federal Prisoner label, and you can pre-order it HERE.
Watch:
Serial killer stories are not my bag, however, THIS is fascinating:
K and I mainlined Netflix's The Sons of Sam over the last two nights and I have to say, I nearly fell down a rabbit hole. Here's a case that sits at the very heart of the "Satanic Panic" era of our country's history. Watching this put me on a precipice of re-reading Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Fatale, which definitely dovetails with that dark, post-60s vibe I find so fascinating.
Playlist:
Zombi - Digitalis
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
sElf - What a Fool Believes (single)
Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme
The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP
Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release single)
Card:
How perfect is this, what with all the Satanic Panic stuff I've ingested over the previous few days:
Take your influences where you find them, it's not wrong to follow your intuition.
I know nothing about Forest Circles - I'm not even sure where I encountered their name. But I'm glad I did. Super cool, moody Autumngaze - yes, I do believe I'm coining that term - and it fits my mood at the moment perfectly.
Can't wait to hear more.
Watch:
Friday night, K and I watched an excellent documentary on The Doors.
The Thumbnail for The Doors: When You're Strange caught my eye on Prime Video and after watching the little sample clip, I saw Jim Morrison climb out of a wrecked car on the highway near Joshua Tree, walk down the road hitchhiking, and eventually get picked up by... himself?
What really floored me was, this appeared to be an actual piece filmed by Morrison. I was so intrigued I started the film and was immediately sucked in. Johnny Depp narrates, and no matter what you think of the man now, this was a reminder what a bastion of class he is. There's so much raw, unseen footage of The Doors in this one, I was floored, and fully recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in the group.
Read:
Now that Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Primordial is finished, I went back and re-read the entire 6-issue story in one sitting.
Wow.
Part Grant Morrison, Part David Lynch, all kinds of mind-bending and thought-provoking, Primordial was definitely created to be read in a single sitting. The issues are tight, and the art/script hit that synergistic level from the jump, so that you fly through this and only slow down to try and figure out what you're actually seeing during the sequences that involve the three animals sent into space in 1957 and 1961 (two monkeys by the US in '61, one dog by the USSR in '57). The narrative really uses Sorrentino's art to play with the concept of extraterrestrial life, how it would exist outside of our dimensional perceptions and what it would be like to actually experience encountering something like that. Honestly, I found the entire read as awe-inspiring as some of Morrison's most heady stuff, and it left me thinking about it for days.
Playlist:
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
Pearl Jam - Vs
Urge Overkill - Oui
The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy
Forest Circles - Poison Leaves (single)
Chrome Canyon - Director
Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
Card:
I'm exhausted, so while I'm recording my pull, I'm not attempting to interpret it (at the moment).
Oh my god. Rough day yesterday, then I woke after a recuperative 11 hours and 18 minutes of sleep (haven't slept like that in over a decade, but my body needed it after yesterday, which I will get to shortly) and find Matt Pike's solo album Pike vs the Automaton has dropped! Three songs in, and I love this. I mean, out of the first three tracks, it was tough to decide which one I wanted to post: "Abusive" opens the record, and I loved it the second I heard those opening chords. Track 3, "Trapped in a Midcave" opens with such a throwback to The Art of Self Defense era High on Fire it seemed the natural choice, but in the end, how do you not post the track named "Throat Cobra". Shit, what a great Friday already!
Watch:
First, I LOVE that HBO has titled the second season of their SciFi/Body Horror show Raised By Wolves, Raised By Wolves 2. Episode 4 dropped last night, and as with the previous three and all of season one, I am repeatedly left scratching my head at where any of this is going - in the best possible way. There is NOTHING like this show, and I find there is no way to estimate where any of the plot threads are going, where the beats are landing, or to what lengths it will go to get stranger and more Horrific in a very Ridley Scott's Alien kind of way.
I'm going to go ahead and post the full first episode here - courtesy of HBO's youtube channel.
If you've not seen it, this one is definitely worth your time. And if you dig it but don't have HBO Max, I can assure you, if Raised By Wolves isn't enough to justify the cost of a few months subscription price, then the Turner Movie Classic suburb of the app more than makes it worthwhile.
WTF?:
I saw this on Ghost's youtube channel, called and received a cool little message that included this picture.
I feel like Ghost is going back to their old-school weird, counter-intuitive approach to marketing, and I like it.
Playlist:
Pearl Jam - Vs. *
Justin Timberlake - Justified
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Plagarism EP
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Urge Overkill - Oui
Pike Vs the Automaton
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Burial - Antidawn
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
...........................
* I still get a chill everytime I listen to the opening track on Pearl Jam's second record, "Go." I've never been a huge fan of the band or even this particular album - Ten is spotless start to finish, Vs has its ups and downs for me, although I love more of it than I don't. But the energy in this opening track and the emotional charge to Eddie Vedder's vocals is powerful stuff, mate.
Card:
One of the things I love about the High Priestess, and this Raven Tarot High Priestess my friend Missi made me, is the inclusion of Joachim and Boaz, the two pillars from King Solomon's temple. They represent Love and Understanding, Knowledge from unifying the two. When I look at this card, I see the Kabballahistic tree of life between the two pillars, and the High Priestess sitting in front of the image, occluding several of the sephiroth. Not just any sephiroth, either. She is blocking the lower spheres of perception, making it difficult to discern the path from where we are, to those higher planes of consciousness at the summit of the tree. This card, then, often reminds me that although the path to my intended goal is unclear, unifying disparate information, or simply acting out of love and understanding, will reveal the path I need to take. This is especially pertinent at the moment. The 'rough day' I referenced above - now two days behind me as I type this final part of this post - involved a failed biopsy on my right lung. Long and the short of it is, I have had a condition known as sarcoidosis for several years now. Actually, probably more like a decade +, it just took the doctors a bit to figure out what it was. Sarcodosis is a chronic inflammation disease, and not necessarily as troublesome as the word disease implies. However, it's something you keep tabs on. So every 6 months or so, I go in for CT scans so my Pulminologist can track the amount of difference between my pulmonary inflammation - has it increased or decreased. At one point, they tried treating it with the steroid prednisone, however, that produced a side effect that gave me terrifyingly blurred vision, thus, my doctors promptly removed me from the treatment.
During the pandemic, I did not see my Pulminologist. Also, I'm a typical male in the respect that I hate going to the doctor and following up on this type of shit. Whatever. I have already excepted that this is probably what will eventually kill me. Fine - let's just push that off as far as possible, right?
Anyway, this past October I went in for my first CT scan since May 2019, and in reviewing the images, my doctor saw a 1cmm shape that, "may be nothing, but let's be sure."
Yes doc. Let's be sure.
So a biopsy is ordered. Or it was supposed to be. November came and went and I never heard from the doc's office. We moved into December and I figured now it's the holidays, so I'll wait until January. Come the first week or so of 2022, I start calling to talk to someone.
I cannot get through. At some points, there's not even an answering service on the line, it just rings and rings. I start to fear the doctor has died or retired or something. Then I get a phone tree, and am able to leave message.
I never hear back.
Okay, what the absolute fuck, right? Finally, about three weeks ago, I finally get someone. They transfer me to an amazing woman in booking that is mortified at my experience when I describe it to her. She sets out to book the biopsy as soon as possible, does, and I go in this past Thursday. Only, the little fucker they need to access - via a 26cm needle inserted through my back into my lung - is behind a fucking rib. We spend a great deal of time practicing various combinations of my holding my breath, exhaling, etc, all to try and get the doctor performing the procedure a shot at accessing the spot in question. During this, my right lung begins to collapse.
Needless to say, that's where we stop.
I spend the better part of that day in the hospital on oxygen, having X-Rays every two hours to make sure my lung is reinflating on its own.
It is.
During this time, I have nothing to occupy my time, so I spend six or seven hours basically meditating; practicing very specific, purposeful deep breathing. I figure it's good for me all around, and should hopefully help my lung regain its proper shape. I am trepidatiously discharged that evening. I'm in pain and still somewhat short of breath, but I'm markedly better. I watch episode of Raised By Wolves 2, then turn over and go to bed at about 7:00 PM. I sleep 11 hours and 18 minutes and wake up feeling great. The pain in my back, side and chest that came from the inserting part of the procedure is reduced by about 60%. My breathing feels better still. I go in at 9:00 AM for another X-Ray and talk to the doc afterward. The lung is still partially collapsed, but I have a follow-up with my Pulmonologist on Monday and we will decide how to proceed.
Which brings me back to the High Priestess.
This has, as I feared it might, paused our move. Not for long, but the path to our goal has become obscured. I have to figure out how to get a sample of this damn thing, and I'm pretty sure it's going to require being put under and attached to a machine that can breathe for me. Not a fan of this idea, however, if it will provide the results, it has to be done. I already know the other option is, since this might be nothing, to wait and see if it gets bigger, which would be alarming but would also, in theory, make it easier for them to get a sample. Not sure I want to wait, though, especially because once we move, I'm fairly certain I will be switching to a PPO insurance plan, which traditionally includes more out of pocket expenses.
But I want to charge forward, cut a path through to the results I want as fast as I want them, because I want out of this fucking state. I want to be closer to my friends and family in Chicago, and I want to get away from the place where liberals act exactly like conservatives, and ubran expansion continues unchecked into realms that will absolutely damage the infrastructure of the city and, consequently, its inhabitants' lives. Elected officials in most states suck, but California - and LaLaLand in particular - is off the fucking charts. I need calm, less traffic, and some semblance of sanity.
New Orville Peck in April? Sign me right the f*&k up! Of the three songs from Bronco that Peck dropped last Friday - thanks to Mr. Brown for cluing me in on that - this is my favorite. All three are great, though, and you can pre-order the album HERE.
Watch:
July 22, 2022.
The trailer for Jordan Peele's Nope dropped the other day, and it looks as though it once again proves Mr. Peele knows how to make a trailer that makes his audience salivate without showing or telling you really anything that the movie is about. I keep seeing references to this being his "Alien Invasion" movie, but if you think Nope is going to be as cut and dry as that, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Or, perhaps more eloquently stated, "Nope."
Playlist:
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Oui
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)
Card:
Outta Time suddenly seems like the perfect song for today's post:
In undertaking this move, it would be easy to let all of the stress, planning, discussion and interaction overwhelm me. This happens. What I'm reminded of in drawing this particular card at this particular moment, is not to be seduced into inactivity or take the easy way out. I like my job a lot, and while I am mostly taking it with me, it would be so much easier to stay where we are and keep living the good, fairly easy life K and I have carved out for ourselves over the last six years. The important thing is to lean into the fray and meet this challenge head-on because once on the other side of it, our lives will be infinitely better.
Easily now my favorite of the records I received from Relapse Records by way of randomly getting their 20th Anniversary's Golden Ticket back in 2020, Valkyrie's Fear is a work of art, and definitely shares more in common with the work of bands like Led Zeppelin than a lot of modern bands do. That doesn't make them better, it just makes them unique. At the moment, this is my favorite song on an album of favorite songs.
Read:
I finally went back and read Rick Remender and André Lima Araújo's A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 1-4 in one sitting. I'd read issues one and two as they came out, then forgot about the book, picked up three and four and have basically had them sitting on my reading pile for a few weeks.
This book is fantastic; it's lean and has a velocity that pulls you page after page in short order, with a bunch of, "wait, did I miss something" moments that are all leading up to revelations that will no doubt draw the story into a cataclysmic conclusion. I can't wait to read more.
I also finished Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy by finally closing out volume three, The Amber Spyglass. Being that the HBO/BBC show's third and final season is soon to be upon us, and being that said show is such a spot-on adaptation of the books, I am very curious how this third installment will look. There are several very strange facets to this third chapter, including but not limited to the Mulefa and Gallivespians, and I can't wait to see how the show approaches them.
It's insane to think it's been nearly twenty years since the last time I read these books, and I was supremely baffled by how little I remembered of this one. If not for so vividly remember the scene where Lyra and Will release the aging god from his protective litter and watch him dissipate, I would be tempted to think after seeing the second half of the trilogy performed as theatre-in-the-round at the Royal National Theatre's Oliver Theatre in London back in 2003, I neglected to finish this third volume. That doesn't seem to be the case, though, so it's been good re-reading these, especially at a time when ignorance is so plentiful, it gives hope to remember there are intelligent forces at work in the world.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - VFW OST
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Valkyrie - Fear
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Cocksure - TVMALSV
Card:
I could not have drawn a more perfect card, as only moments before executing this pull, K and I booked 73 nights in Tennessee for Mid-April. This will be the hardest and yet most rewarding journey of my life, and we have just taken the first step on its path!
I've written about Skid Row before, both here and back on Joup, and while I've pretty much always defended their sophomore record Slave to the Grind for being released the same summer as Metallica's Black Album and being heavier, my absolute love of their self-titled debut definitely disappeared for about a decade and some change after I deemed it too "hair rock" to partake in.
Fuck that.
There's no denying some 80s Metal cringe here, and how that "dangerous kids on the street" zeitgeist that all these bands tapped into and sold hard in the 80s reached its absolute zenith on this record. But looking back- that's a great thing. This isn't slaughter or winger - this is a more real version of the act, if such a thing is possible. Maybe it was Bach's track record over the last few decades - certainly his appearance on Trailer Park Boys made me believe he was still exactly what he claimed to be on this first album. An album that's so perfect, even its ballad holds up. Throw in the iconic single 18 and Life, and you get the perfect soundtrack to suburban, middle-class high school punk kids (not Punk kids) in all their cheap whiskey swillin', stolen cigarette smokin', guitar center hangin' metal-dude voguing, and no one sings it better than Bach.
Watch:
This. Now. Please:
Aw hell, they took my favorite Turtle and mixed him with equal parts my favorite Universal Monster? Just take my got-damned money, NECA.
Look at those lightning bolt sais!
Playlist:
Slayer - Reign in Blood
Alio Die and Lorenzo Montaná - The Threshold of Beauty
DeadMau5 - Catbread (single)
Van Halen - 1984
Card:
Looking at the bigger gameboard. Seeing beyond the smaller machinations, and really attempting to construct a bigger picture. Too much Mr. Miyagi of late, or am I crystalizing my vision for 2022? Only time will tell.
My friend and Horror Vision cohost Tori recently sent this track my way, and of course, once you hit play and hear the bassline that starts and runs through the song, you'll get why I immediately went back and looked up several records by Great Falls. This particular track can be found on the Split Single the band put out with Thou. Makes sense, right?
Tough as nails, this. Love when those guitars come in just past the one-minute mark.
Here's a link to the Great Falls Bandcamp, where you can find more of their music. Also, here's a link to the label that put that split out, Hell Comes Home Records. Some great stuff on there, including the album Trust Fall by Xnoybis, which I stumbled upon while writing this and really quite liked.
Cast:
The new episode of The Horror Vision went up (a day late - thanks Wordpress, you fuck), and it's a full-on, ALL SPOILERS discussion about the first nine episodes of Yellowjackets, just in time to prepare us all for this week's season finale.
I haven't had this much fun with a show since Twin Peaks. No shit.
NCBD:
Another NCBD! It's fairly light again, and my addiction has grown, so I might do what I've done the last two weeks and order some stuff online to accompany these. I'll post my recent eBay acquisitions on another day, for now, here's what I'll be bringing home from the shop tomorrow:
This one's been a fun ride so far. I'm really starting to love anything that has Reed Richards as a villain, 'cuz, you know, that's pretty much where he's been headed all along if you really think about it.
I haven't read the Joe Hill novella this series is adapting, but it's in Strange Weather, a collection of five novellas. I've read the first three over the last few months, and really dug them, so I'll pick this up and hold off until I get around to reading the story first.
Jeff Lemire's Mazebook comes to a close and it looks as though we're getting our minotaur. This book has been super cool - you can see how personal it is to the author, which makes it feel weighty, but shot-through with a mystery that has really been something to watch unfold through Lemire's art.
I am straight-up LOVING this newest series by Michael Rosenberg and Tyler Boss. What's the Furthest Place From Here? has become one of my most anticipated books each month.
Playlist:
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Ministry - Moral Hygiene
David Bowie - Let's Dance
David Bowie - Station to Station
Ghost of Vroom - Ghost of Vroom 1
Great Falls/Thou - Split (single)
Xnoybis - Trust Fall
Card:
A change in seasons or cycles. This is a HUGE point for me at the moment, as I have to migrate my entire podcasting setup from one service to another. It's nerve-wracking, but not nearly as much as every interaction I've had for every episode I've done through Wordpress for the last year. I should have changed this paradigm - this world - a long time ago.
I'm not normally a huge fan of Chris Bachalo's art, but this cover is creepy AF. I've been a little disappointed in this Darkhold series, mainly because it wasn't a series at all, but an Alpha Book - which I dug - followed by a series of one-shot character books, i.e. The Darkhold: Spider-Man, The Darkhold: Iron Man, etcetera, none of which I was ever going to read. That means tomorrow I'm returning to the tale for the Omega issue, not really expecting much. I really thought there would be more Doom in this one. I guess I'll have to try another book dropping this week to get the Doom fix I was hoping for when I picked up the Alpha issue two months ago. That book?
I'm not following the Wastelanders books, but again, I've been in the mood for some Dr. Doom, so hopefully this will satisfy the craving.
OH MY GOD I CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS FINAL ISSUE OF INFERNO!!!
Here I was thinking that there were going to be five issues of this series, and instead, Hickman brings his run on X-Men to a close this week with Inferno #4. I was late to this and I'm bummed it's ending, so I can only imagine how people who have been reading the entire time feel. I guess the big question is, will I stay on after. Well, the newest X-Men book - I feature issue 6 farther down on this list - is a keeper for the time being, but what about anything else? I mean, I'm not currently reading any of the other titles, and several are ending, but there's been solicitations for at least two books slated to launch over the next few weeks. X-Men: Red is one I'll definitely give a chance to, simply because it's being billed as a sequel to the recently ended S.W.O.R.D. book, which I read and loved. But I'm on the fence with Immortal X-Men, which although is said to focus on all the agendas in the mutant ruling body known as The Quiet Council, features Kieron Gillen as writer. I loved what I read of Gillen's The Wicked and the Divine, but ultimately it didn't hold me. Also, his recent take on The Eternals was definitely NOT for me, and his plans for the X-Men kinda sound similar.
We'll see. The trap I'm trying to avoid here is what I have long referred to as "fan inertia," where you dig a book so much, you keep reading it even after the writer who made you love it leaves.
Often, not a good idea at all.
Another badass cover. This second arc of Two Moons has really been throwing curveballs, can't wait to see where the story goes next.
I really have no idea what to expect from this book anymore, so I'm happy to just go with the flow.
Cast:
The latest issue of A Most Horrible Library went up on all podcast platforms yesterday. In it, Chris Saunders and I discuss, among other things, Jeff Lemire and Doug Mahnke's Swamp Thing: Green Hell, which I absolutely LOVED.
Good to see a return to all-out Horror for a Swamp Thing tale.
Playlist:
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Disassociation
The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
I've never really been able to keep track of this Chino Moreno side project, but I guess that's because it kind of gets lost amidst Deftones, Palms, Team Sleep and probably at least one other project I'm blanking on. Good thing I'm subscribed to their youtube feed - this popped up and I LOVE it. Not sure if there's a forthcoming album, but hopefully there will be something substantial because I think another reason I drop the ball on these guys is the only other 'full length' is a comp of singles - I think.
Watch:
I watched a bunch of flicks over the holiday, but the two I'd like to briefly discuss now are the new Paul Thomas Anderson film Licorice Pizza and Park Chan-Wook's seminal revenge classic Old Boy.
Licorice Pizza is another beautiful film by PTA, and being as it serves as Cooper Hoffman's first film, the introduction of someone I think we'll be seeing a lot more of in the coming years.
There's a lot of talk that this film is racist because of a certain pair of scenes featuring an obnoxious restauranteur who speaks to his Japanese wives in a culturally insensitive manner. Calling this film racist because of that is like calling Schindler's List a pro-Nazi film - complete snowflake lunacy. Both scenes are funny, that's the point, but there's no one slighted here, so sorry. They are ridiculous, funny, and ultimately not going to hurt anyone's feelings that aren't looking to have their feelings hurt. Saying this is offensive would be like me saying I find State of Grace's portrayal of the Irish stereotypical and offensive. The point is, the character is based on an actual person, and the character is a dildo. Did I laugh? Yes. Do I feel bad? No. We're going to need tougher hides to get through the coming years, folks. I think we all know racism when we see it - this isn't that.
Aside from that, all the hype around Bradley Cooper's portrayal of Jon Peters is well-deserved. This is also comical, and perhaps some will see it as a slight against the hyper-masculine? There's an under-represented group amidst the SJWs, so if you're looking to cause a ruckus, have at.
Also, SO great to see Tom Waits again, in any capacity. His recent years of radio silence in all mediums had me concerned, but he's just as spry as he always has been in terms of performance, and with Sean Penn in his scene, the two are a sheer pleasure to watch.
Next, it'd been well over a decade since the last time I watched Old Boy. Long enough, in fact, for its effect to have waned in my memory. Well, this re-watch brought the film back up to the prestige it held with me upon my first viewing; this is an EPIC! The camera work is fantastic and the fight choreography is stunning. I'm pretty much betting the 'hammer' fight scene was the inspiration behind the now legendary "Hallway" fight scene in the first episode of Netflix's Daredevil show, and probably a hundred other fight scenes I'm unaware of or simply unable to conjure at the moment.
Playlist:
Miami Horror - Illumination
Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane - Eponymous
Great Falls - The Fever Shed
Old Time Relijun - Musicking
Nun Gun - Mondo Decay
Algiers - Eponymous
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
The Police - Synchronicity
The Afghan Whigs - 1965
Fleet Foxes - A Very Lonely Solstice
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)
Burzum - Filosofem
Card:
I have finally struck a balance between two disparate projects, and I believe this is a nod to my continued success in this regard.
On December 10th, Robin Pecknold, better known as Fleet Foxes, released A Very Lonely Solstice. A live stream performed December 21th, 2020 St. Ann at the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Beautifully recorded to take full advantage of the particular acoustic properties of the church, this is one for the ages. Pecknold's voice and guitar playing have nearly become one instrument in my brain.
Watch:
I finally made it around to watching Jeff Lieberman's Just Before Dawn on Shudder.
I first saw this one nearly twenty years ago now, back when my friend Dennis and I used to watch Horror movies a couple times a week after work at the hotel where I was the nighttime bartender and he was the Chef. Surprisingly, I did not remember how great this flick is. Easily the pinnacle of the 'Backwoods Slasher' sub-genre.
That's two films directed by Jeff Lieberman that have left me amazed the man didn't do more. NOT a criticism at all. But Blue Sunshine floored me the first time I saw it, and rewatching Dawn really made an impact. Might it be time to rewatch Satan's Little Helper?
Maybe next year.
Playlist:
Miami Horror - Illumination
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
King Woman - Celestial Static
John Coltrane - Blue Train
Ministry - Moral Hygiene
Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies EP
Kadavar and Elder - Eldovar: A Story of Darkness and Light
Fleet Foxes - A Very Lonely Solstice
The Kunts - Boris Johnson Is Still A Fucking Cunt
Universally Estranged - Reared Up in Spectral Predation
I'd not heard of this Algiers side project until Heaven is an Incubator posted his favorite albums of the year list (read it HERE. Seriously. READ IT). If you've seen my last couple years of "best of" lists, you know Algiers' first two records claimed my top album spots in the years they were released, and then 2020's There Is No Year fell flat for me. Well, Nun Gun is a return to form - in a way, since, you know, it's not the entire band. Take all the weird shit from those first two albums and leave out the soul and you have Nun Gun's Mondo Decay. I LOVE this record, and this song... this song is the stand-out track on an album of all stand-out tracks. SO fucking catchy, in the oddest possible way. The vocals remind me of Rockwell, which, surprisingly, is just a great thing.
Watch:
After re-watching the original, Bernard Rose Candyman the other night in preparation, K and I finally saw Nia DaCosta's Candyman.
Dubbed a 'spiritual sequel,' this Jordan Peele-produced entry in the Candyman mythos, this is one of the few examples of a sequel that makes the original better. The first Candyman (I've never seen two or three) focuses on a narrow width of a story that by the entire way it's handled you know is bigger. This sounds like it could be a flaw, but it's most definitely not. This unconventional approach is what I love about it. And now, three decades later, DaCosta's sequel then arrives to finally fill in all the background, and the way it does this is fantastic. The final image/dialogue is what really seals the deal, but the entire fill gloriously fulfills the original and its promise of one day telling us a much bigger story.
NCBD:
Let's see what's on tap for this penultimate NCBD for 2021:
Maw has had some of the gnarliest covers of the last few years. Here's to hoping I'm able to find this one.
The final issue of this Kang the Conqueror mini-series that will no doubt lead into the Timeless one-shot hitting shelves later this month. I'm fairly certain Marvel is positioning Kang to be the next Thanos-level big bad in the MCU, which is good news for those of us who adore the character. This series has been great, and while reading the previous issue, I was struck by just what a late 70s/early 80s/Bill Mantlo vibe this book has achieved.
Loving this Moon Knight series, and what's more, it's getting me pretty pumped for the forthcoming Disney+ show featuring Oscar Issac as ol' Moony himself.
I fell in love with this comic just as issue ten hit the stands, so this one is the first I've had to wait a full thirty for.
Wasnt' easy.
Like a lot of this Hickman-era X-Men stuff, I've re-read several of these issues a few times now, which is something I haven't done since I was a kid, re-reading books the same month I acquire them. But there's enough going on here that multiple 'viewings' really open the stories up.
If issue twelve of That Texas Blood was the end of the "1981" storyline, this must be a coda before the book goes back on seasonal hiatus. Go on and get your rest Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips - you've earned it, and I'll be waiting right here when you get back. This one has really turned out to be the sleeper hit of the year.
Playlist:
Godflesh - Post Self
Blut Aus Nord - Deus Salutis Meae
Kowloon Walled City - Piecework
Read Yellow - Radios Burn Faster
Card:
I'm feeling with an increasingly chaotic state of mind of late, and I know what I have to do, yet still, I resist. I'm not sure why the idea of meditation puts me off so much at the moment, but The Empress here definitely suggests I need to adopt some more nurturing practices again.
