New Music from 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards!

Well, I totally fucked up Marty and Drexel's Live Music Week, so here's some new music from former 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards. 

It's hard to imagine a band and album that affected me more in the early 00s than 16 Horsepower's Low Estate. I love everything they did, and everything David Eugene Edwards followed that band in Wovenhand, and now everything he's released under his name (which is still also known as Wovenhand? I'm not really sure). But everything has been chasing that feeling I got the first time I heard "Brimstone Rock" and the thirteen songs that follow it. But that's the thing with an artist like Edwards - he makes such a deep impact upon introduction because his approach, his songwriting, his tone and his lyrics all combine to make such a signature sound, that it's similar to but completely unlike anything you've heard before until you hear him. So too with this new track from the forthcoming album Hyacinth, out September 29th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I watched a couple flicks over the weekend, but none I enjoyed more than 2018's The Meg:

When I saw this in the theatre upon its original release, I didn't really care for it. Didn't hate it, but nothing about The Meg grabbed me at the time. After hearing Ben Wheatley is directing the sequel, and after seeing a trailer for Meg 2: The Trench a few weeks ago and really digging it (I can't turn the deep sea trench thing down, and there appears to be a lot more of that in this film), K and I decided to rewatch the first movie. You know what? LOTS of fun. I don't know if I was just in a more accepting mood because of my interest in the sequel, but I really had a good time with The Meg this time. 

 

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Read:

Less than one hundred pages from the end, I can tell you that Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper is one of the best sequels ever! 

I blew through almost two hundred pages yesterday, which wasn't easy to do as we had guests visiting from out of town. This is one of those carry-it-everywhere-and-read-it-any-chance-you-get novels, and I am 100% riveted. If you've still not read My Heart is a Chainsaw and you love literature, Horror novels, Slasher flicks or just a damn good yard, grab that and this in one swoop and dig in. 
        

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Playlist:

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

Led Zeppelin - Eponymous

Led Zeppelin - IV

The Door - L.A. Woman

Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. 2: Philosophy of Beyond

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Sandrider - Godhead

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

John Harrison - Day of the Dead OST

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night

Johnny Cash - Live at San Quentin

Various - The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo

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Card:

• Three of Disks: Works

• Five of Cups: Disappointment

• Ten of Cups: Sobriety

I'm having self-doubt that I can pull off this new novel the way I want to. That's a bit vague, but the cards definitely seem to be referencing this fear. There is a height I feel as though this story can attain, I'm just not sure I'm completely on the path to achieving that. Which would be a shame, because if I finish it and it's not what I want, I'll have to take a break for a while and come back to it. The Three of Disks indicate success through effort but juxtaposed with disappointing results. The Ten of Cups indicates perfect alignment, which leaves me needing a clarifying card:

• XVII: The Star indicates a turning point for the positive. Also, from the grimoire:

"Fulfillment - when this comes up, go for your dreams - better than average chance something will pan."

 

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Helms Alee - Tripping Up the Stairs

 

New music from the always crushing Helms Alee! I became a bit obsessed with these guys in the spring of 2019. Work sent me to our branch in Spokane, Washington. It was my first time there, and I kind of fell in love with the place. Different cities have different textures, and Spokane's texture is one of earth, rocky brutishness, so you'll understand when I tell you that every night I walked to The Steamplant for dinner and downed multiple pints of their wonderful Octoberfest - a fluke it was still on tap in April! Afterward, I would walk around the city with my ear pods in, either jamming Alee, Jaye Jayle, or Melvins.

New album Keep This Be the Way drops on Sargent House Records April 29th; you can pre-order a copy HERE.
  

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Watch:

Here's the trailer for what is, in my opinion, an underseen Horror gem, Colm McCarthy's Outcast.

Kind of an Urban decay folk Horror piece, I caught this one a few years ago and loved it. Now that it's finally returned to Shudder, I can't recommend it enough. If McCarthy's name sounds familiar, it's because he went on to direct the film adaptation of M.R. Carey's novel The Girl with All the Gifts, Black Mirror's The Black Museum episode, and a bunch of Peaky Blinders and Ripper Street episodes. 

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Read:

 

Tom Johnstone's new novel Song of Salome is out on Omnium Gatherum, and although I've never read his fiction before, I've heard a handful of positive reviews for his debut collection Last Stop: Wellsbourne, also published by Omnium back in 2017. Here's the description; I think you'll see why it sold me: 

"Maybe it's better if some movies stay lost. It's 1965, and Herb Fry is reminiscing about the time about twenty years before when a reclusive collector sent him to track down a movie that shouldn't exist. The studio destroyed every copy after its tragic first screening. But we all know lost movies have a habit of being found. Prepare yourself for a trip into the cinema's heart of darkness to discover an early talkie whose soundtrack is a killer."

Available on the Omnium website linked above, or wherever you get your books!

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Playlist:

Quicksand - Slip

Bauhaus - Drink the New Wine (single)

Bauhaus - Go Away White

Bauhaus - Boys (single)

Alien Sex Fiend - The Legendary Batcave Tapes

Pike Vs the Automaton - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

The Smiths - How Soon is Now (single)

Godflesh - Post Self

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Helms Alee - Keep This be the Way pre-release singles

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Card:

Everything is fluid as I finally received the answer to a question from a few weeks back. If you'll recall,  I kept pulling the Hierophant and shortly thereafter spoke about my daily diet of caffeine and heavy metal and how it appears to be affecting my ability to get good sleep. In trying to help me interpret these pulls, my good friend Missi mentioned the card was probably trying to tell me that I was hung up on something that was ultimately getting in the way. 

See where I'm going with this yet?

My morning ritual has always been making a full 30+ ounces of coffee first thing, drinking it over the course of my twenty minute drive to work and the first hour or so of my day, then proceeding to make more. 

And more.

I probably drink between 50 and 65 oz of coffee a day, and I think this is the problem (ya think?). Soooo - beginning yesterday, I am now eschewing that first 30 oz, instead waiting to have my first cup when I arrive at work. 

I remember when I was a bartender back in the early 2000s. My regulars - mostly middle-ageders - would watch me drink pot after pot of black coffee and remark how one day, that would change. I always thought that sounded insane, however, I think I have arrived at that exact place. I'd never give up black coffee, same as I'd never give up beer, but I definitely need to cut back. My fitbit tells me my heartrate is normally in the 80-90 range throughout the day, which, when I tell people that, usually gives them pause. Yes, I'm forty-six and starting to feel it.

Fuck.

Chelsea Wolfe & Emma Ruth Rundle - Anhedonia

 

Moments after finishing my first listen to Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou's entire new EP The Helm of Sorrow (I was holding out for my vinyl to arrive, but gave in), I log onto youtube and see the two Doom Goddess's have joined forces! Is Anhedonia a harbinger of a full-length to come?

I certainly hope so! In the meantime,  I'll play the hell out of this track, because it rules.

Buy from Sargent House HERE.

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READ:

A Most Horrible Library is the newest podcast under The Horror Vision umbrella, and my co-host Chris Saunders and I spent a good two hours last night on Zoom talking with comics writer/artist Jeremy Haun. Jeremy's recent book, The Red Mother, wrapped up with its twelfth issue, and I can tell you, it's fantastic. Especially if you're a Clive Barker or Dario Argento fan.

   

Jeremy is an extremely personable, and very interesting guy. He's a HUGE Horror fan - which endeared him to Chris and I immediately, and he has a bit of a mythology brewing that appears in a lot of what he writes. That mythology - the Four and Seven - also shows up in the short comic stories he publishes via his Patreon, which I subscribed to. Jeremy writes, draws, letters and inks these Haunthology books, and I'm super excited to read them because I'm a sucker for mythologies, and The Red Mother really made an impression on me. 

 

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Playlist:

Credence Clearwater Revival - Eponymous

Small Black - Best Blues

Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility (Pre-release single)

Tomahawk - Eponymous

Tomahawk - M.E.A.T. Single

The Jesus Lizard - Lash

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Soft Moon - Black Sabbath (Single)

The Soft Moon - Criminal 

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Boy Harsher - Country Girl Uncut

Cocksure - K.K.E.P. EP

exhalants - Atonement

Gwar - Scumdogs of the Universe

The Replacements - Tim

Small Black - Duplex (Single)

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow

The Bangles - A Different Light

Drab Majesty - Careless

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

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Card:

I'm writing this Thursday night and it's raining in LaLaLand. As you've no doubt heard me say before, that's pretty rare. I'm on New Retro New Wave tonight, splitting the decades between the 80s and the previous, jumping from The Bangles to Drab Majesty, to Deth Crux, all on vinyl. It's glorious, and I stop to have K try and take a photo of me standing in the rain with my Israeli Military issue gas mask, really just as an excuse to stand out in the rain for a while. When I come in, I draw this card.

I'm burned out from several insanely close COVID scares at work and all the stress that goes with them and the stupid fucking humans responsible. Luckily, by the time most of you read this, I'll be well into my Friday. Then I'll have a quick and painless (I hope) four hours on Saturday, and I'm off until Thursday. Five year anniversary with K on Monday, and three days to be even more of a Hermit than I already am. It will be glorious.

To Walk the Night

 

Glint, the first release from Deafheaven's Ten Years Gone live album , out December 4th on Sargent House. Order HERE.

 

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READ:

For Halloween I did an impromptu re-read of Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park, which has become a book I read every couple of Octobers and never tire of. From there, I'd planned to begin Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse, a book my good friend and fellow co-host from Drinking w/ Comics and The Horror Vision gifted me a copy of a few months back. However, something steered me into another impromptu re-read, this time of William Sloane's To Walk the Night. I first read this one back in 2016, and found I already was chomping at the bit to get back into it. 75 pages or so in, it's every bit as great as I remember. Also, the narrator speaks a lot like Hunter S. Thompson - which I attribute era and region - and that familiarity adds a entirely new level of pleasure to the prose.

To Walk the Night was originally published in 1937, and as such, there are many editions of the book that have been published in the intervening years. The most recent I know of, and the edition I have, is in a volume titled The Rim of Morning, published by NYRB Classics in 2015.

The volume also contains the novel The Edge of Running Water, another fantastically dark, cosmic tale of restrained but utterly creepy Horror. 

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Playlist:

Naked Eyes - Promises, Promises (Single)

Tamaryn - The Waves

The Stone Roses - Eponymous

Stevie Nicks - Stand Back (Single)

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

Bölzer - Hero

Steve Morse - Bliss OST

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Card:

The 5 of Wands always leaves me scratching my head a bit - there are things about this card that suggest a level of discomfort or discontent with authority to me, and I wonder if that has to do with my recent re-engagement with world news (imagine that, throw out the clown and the news no longer feels like a sideshow). However, there's also something militant about this card, and it makes me wonder if perhaps that might not bode well for the coming restrictions civic leaders are no doubt going to have to impose as the population of entitled cunts that apparently make up a sizable portion of this country's population continue to act like spoiled children.

This is why we can't have nice things, America.

Nobody Wants to Party with Us, says Mrs. Piss

 

I did not find out about Chelsea Wolfe and Jess Gowrie's new band Mrs Piss until a week or two ago, and since, their debut Self-Surgery has become a record I simply cannot turn off. Available on the always great Sargent House, you can order the record HERE.

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Watch:

 

Having just seen the original Castle Freak for the first time within the last year or two (Thanks, Joe Bob!), I'd read about Barbara Crampton's work producing a remake and became immediately interested. It's not often one of the original cast members in a seminal film take on such a labor of love, and the fact that the cast member in question is possibly the greatest Scream Queen of all time only adds to my interest. Why remake this film? I can only assume Ms. Crampton has good reason to throw her hat into the project, and judging by the trailer, we should have a new iteration of Stuart Gordon's somewhat odd modern take on the H.P. Lovecraft classic in just a few short weeks.

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NCBD

First, the return of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's dark fantasy epic has become even more exciting now that they've announced Seven to Eternity will be ending in just three short issues. I love this book, and I've missed it incredibly.

We Live is an Aftershock book getting a lot of press. On a whim I grabbed the first issue last month, dug it quite a bit, and now I'm hooked. Love this cover on issue two. 

A 'zombie book' that is very much not about zombies, Dead Day continues to make me smile.

Die! Die! Die! may be a book I've continued to read out of inertia, but that doesn't mean I'm not still enjoying it. "GI Joe but totally nuts" is really the only way to describe this one.

I mistakenly never added Jason Howard's Big Girls to either one of my pulls at Atomic Basement or The Comic Bug, and as such, it has been a pain in the arse to find since I picked up the first issue. If I hadn't stumbled across a copy of #3 last week, I would have probably given up and waited for trade, but since I'm only missing #2 now, I'm making the attempt to go monthly again, just to support Howard, whose art I adore.

And finally, this is a new one I'm considering picking up. A sequel to Vault Comics' Fearscape, which I did not read but keep hearing good things about, I thought I might grab the first issue of A Dark Interlude and the Fearscape trade. 

This is definitely the biggest NCBD is a while. I still have storage concerns, but they've kind of taken a back seat to 'the passion' again.

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Playlist:

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

The Clash - London Calling

The Bronx - Eponymous (I)

Fleet Foxes - Shore

The Foxies - Anti Socialite (single)

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

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Card:

Really, not necessarily a new journey or undertaking, as a direct indictment of how fucking lazy I have been of late. I just can't seem to get my discipline with writing back online at the moment; it's been a struggle now for the last few months, and I really need to do something about it

9 Days 'til Halloween - Deafheaven Live Daedalus

New, live Deafheaven from the forthcoming double-live album Ten-Years Gone, out December 4th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE. 

I ordered mine along with a nifty long-sleeve shirt back in March (I think it was March). I received the shirt shortly after, and only just recently remembered the good news that there was Deafheaven vinyl on the horizon.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Believe it or not, I'd never seen the original The Omen in its entirety. I fixed that last night, however... not a fan. It has a few moments, and I enjoyed David Warner, but overall, this one just feels like it's a bunch of Hollywood types 'hanging out in horror' because it was seen as a lucrative career move after the success of The Exorcist. I'm not saying I'm right, but that's how it felt to me.

1) Tales of Halloween: Sweet Tooth/The Wolf Man (1941)

2) From Beyond/Monsterland: "Port Fourchon, Louisiana"/Tales of Halloween: "The Night Billy Raised Hell" & "Trick"

3) Mulholland Drive/Creepshow (1982): "The Crate"

4) Waxwork

5) Synchronic/Bad Hair

6) Dolls

7) Lovecraft Country Ep. 8/Tales of Halloween: "The Weak and the Wicked" & "The Grim Grinning Ghost"

8) 976-Evil

9) Repo! The Genetic Opera

10) Firestarter/George A. Romero's Bruiser

11) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 1 & 2/Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

12) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 3, 4, and 5/House of 1000 Corpses

13) Masque of the Red Death/Creepshow (2019) Episode 7/Creepshow (1982)

14) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 6 and 7

15) The Haunting of Bly Manor episodes 8 and 9/Roseanne (88) season 2 and 3 Halloween Episodes

16) The Mortuary Collection/Roseanne (88) season 4 Halloween Episode

17) Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning

18) Lovecraft Country episode 9/The Haunting/Roseanne (88) season 5 Halloween Episode

19) Lovecraft Country episode 10/Tales From the Crypt season 1 ep. 5 "Lover Come Hack to Me"

20) George A. Romero's Season of the Witch

21) The Omen

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Playlist:

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

Fields of the Nephilim - Elizium

I took a break from the Halloween vibe today and whipped up a Spotify playlist based on a lot of stuff I was listening to ten years ago or so. Here it is:

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Card:

Undertaking an arduous working will tax the Will. This is an indication to replenish it, which I'm looking at my month-long Sam Hain celebration as a battery-charging exercise for.

Isolation: Day 102

Well, I know what I'm doing on July 10th. This looks breathtaking.

One of the things I began working on last year is a collection of short horror stories all based around the horrors of aging. Nice to see kinship in a major motion picture. From all accounts director Natalie Erika James is going to be a force to be reckoned with. That's awesome. Good to have another voice along the lines of Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Robert Eggers to look forward to hearing from. James' shortfall Creswick is a Master Class in the craft, from the acting to the camera to the sound. I'd expect with a larger budget, someone this good will give us a powerhouse.



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New Jaye Jayle out August 7th on Sargent House. Here's the latest single. Pre-order HERE.



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Playlist:

Baroness - Gold and Grey
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Crystal Castles - II
Lead into Gold - The Sun Behind the Sun
Slayer - Reign in Blood
Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
Doves - Lost Soul
Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Public Enemy - State of the Union (Single)
Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough, Vol. 1
KRS-One - Return of the Boom Bap
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Nexus 6 - Too Late to Tease EP
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Alio Die and Lorenzo Montan á - The Threshold of Beauty
Van Halen - Eponymous
Sault - Untitled
War On Women - Capture the Flag
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Doves - Carousels (pre-release single)
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Zombi - Shape Shift

2019: August 7th - Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group Live in LA

This just dropped on Sargent House's Youtube Channel, which is very much worth subscribing to, by the way. Described as a rough cut of a work in progress in the About section, I'm curious what this will become. Regardless, this band is ridiculous.

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NCBD:

Look at the alt cover by Ray Fawkes! Regular series artist Andrea Sorrentino's covers are always fantastic, but this... this is hallucinogenic and ominous.

Okay, I know I said no more monthly series, but Simon Furman and Guido Guidi returning to tell a prequel to the original, Marvel/IDW Transformers/Regeneration One run? Regeneration One was one of the best monthly series I read in a decade, so I'm definitely getting this one. I don't read any of the other T-Formers books, but I've always had a soft spot for that old Marvel series - primarily when Furman's run really got going - and then R1. They mirror the latter seasons of the original cartoon and cartoon movie - the only Transformers movie, in my opinion - so this will be fun.

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Playlist from 8/06:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous
Uniform and The Body - Not Good Enough (Pre-release Single)
Tool - Opiate
Opeth - Still Life
Opeth - Deliverence
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Interstellar Fun - Caves of Steel EP
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resources Vol. 2: Philosophy of Beyond


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Today's spread:

The turning of a tide into a new Universe. Yeah, you could say that. In the process of converting The Horror Vision from just a podcast into a Publishing Imprint. Excited, and a little horrified. Which is good. The Universal Dance; evolution.

2019: July 16th New Chelsea Wolfe!

New Chelsea Wolfe Video, from the forthcoming album Birth of Violence, out September 13th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

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Frank Black Appreciation Week continues today with a live rendition of my favorite track off the third Frank Black solo record, The Cult of Ray. Filmed in 1996, this footage isn't great, but the performance sure is. Great to see Lyle Workman in his prime here.



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Playlist from 7/15:

Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous
Pixies - Bossonova
Pixies - Come On Pilgrim
Pixies - Head Carrier
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Shellac - The End of Radio
The Misfits - Static Age
Minsk - The Crash and the Draw
Spotlights - Love and Decay
The Bangles - In Your Room
David Bowie - Hunky Dory

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No card today.

2019: June 12th Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky - For the Sun

Very cool video. That image at 1:15 is creepy as hell. I'd forgotten about this record, so thank you Sargent House for dropping this and reminding me!

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Not a big day for NCBD today, but that's good. Fits with my existential crisis regarding stuff from earlier in the week. I am, however, really looking forward to the new issue of Gunning for Hits:

The back-matter in this book alone is worth the cost of the individual issues, as loaded into the music business both past and present as it is. Absolutely worth your time if you're a music fan.

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Playlist from 6/11:

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Jamiroquai - Return of the Space Cowboy
Orville Peck - Pony
St. Elsewhere - The Odd Couple
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

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Card of the day:

I will be on the look out, as something I have planned is going to fall flat on its face. Being that I woke up at 2:00 AM this morning, I'd say that's my plans to work on the final edit later this afternoon. Not a total loss, as I used that extra time between waking so early and leaving for work to fix a particularly perplexing chapter.

2019: April 22nd - New Helms Alee Track!

From the forthcoming album Noctiluca, which drops on Sargent House this Friday! Can't f&*king wait! Pre-order physical HERE or digital HERE.

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The new film by It Follows director David Robert Mitchell drops on Amazon tomorrow (it was originally slated for today, but apparently got pushed back a day). I'm unclear if this will be available to rent or just buy. It's also playing a limited theatrical run in some city Monday through Wednesday this week. I've only known about this for about five days, and I've avoided all trailers or media, though I'm posting it here. It Follows is one of those films that immediately blew me away; I've never understood all the negativity thrown at that film. Also, The Myth of the American Sleepover was a great first film, so in my opinion, David Robert Mitchell is definitely someone I'm interested in keeping up with.



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Playlist from 4/20:

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Faith No More - King for a Day
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Windhand - Eternal Return
Zombi - Shape Shift
Paramore - Riot
The Rolling Stones - Tide High and Green Grass
Michael Parks - The Best of Michael Parks

Playlist from 4/21:

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Soma

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Card of the day:

This feels good, because I have two major things waiting to land, and I've been on shaky ground with both.

2019: April 17th - New Earth Track!

From the forthcoming album Full Upon Her Burning Lips, out May 24th on the frankly at-this-point unbelievable Sargent House. Pre-order physical HERE and digital HERE.

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First day back in LALALand was a doozy. All the cliches: traffic, meetings, yuppies, hipsters, douche bags. I suppose this all seems exacerbated by the fact that I want to live in North Bend! All in due time. Talk about life goals.

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NCBD today, and I'm so behind I don't even want to know what comes out today. I haven't been able to get into the shop in at least a month - yeah, I blog about what's coming out but my schedule has prevented me from stopping in so all that great stuff is just accruing into a massive bomb that is going to explode in my wallet, creating a black hole that will empty it.

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Playlist from 4/16:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Brand New - God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me
Skating Polly - Queen for a Day (Audiotree Live)
Algiers - Underside of Power
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Helms Alee - Sleepwalking Sailors

Card of the day:

This is telling me to continue to focus, as I did yesterday, on honing one of two stories to send into an open submission I've been waiting to see for a while. Information flowing quickly, which definitely means not to stall or overthink it, even if I am overhauling one of the two stories completely. Then I can dip back into Ciazarn.

2019: March 28th: Helms Alee - Spider Jar

This new track from Helms Alee popped up in my youtube feed via Sargent House's channel. Wow. I know nothing of this band, but that changes today. From the forthcoming Noctiluca, out on Sargent House April 26th. Pre-order HERE.

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Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie is finished. Well, the writing part. I spent a good four hours over the last two days tweaking the layout in Scrivener and Veullum, and it's almost right, but not quite. It looks like I'll be spending all day Friday watching 'how-to' videos for both programs, trying to dial in those last little nuances. Oh yeah, I've also secured my all-important First Reader! Thank You, Missi!

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If you're anywhere near my age - 43 - you remember a time before the Internet, when television required what we now refer to as Event Viewing. I'm not going to say that was necessarily better, but it's funny that, as we get further and further into the paradigm where we control the viewing experience 100% in most cases, there's still those of us who nostalgically long for an occasional movie or show to call the shots. I wouldn't want everything to revert to that paradigm because, hey, I'm freakin' busy, as I'm sure you are. But it's nice to have an event to look forward to every now and again. Shudder knows this. Joe Bob Briggs knows this. That's why, I am excited as all hell for tomorrow night and the inaugural Joe Bob Briggs The Last Drive In weekly Double Feature! I have no idea what JBB is showing, nor do I care. All that matters is that he is hosting.



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Playlist from 3/27:

Bonobo - The North Borders
The National - You Had Your Soul With You (Pre-release Single)
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Brand New - Science Fiction
Windhand - Eternal Return
White Lung - Eponymous
Tamaryn - The Waves

Card of the day:

Balance and Harmony. The imagery on this card, perhaps more than any other in the deck, instills in my chest a calm and peaceful feeling. The Star sifts the cosmic waters of the Universe, which in a way, is what artists do. I feel good. I feel on track.

2019: February 20th

Currently in love with Louisville, KY band Jaye Jayle's 2018 record No Trail and Other Unholy Paths. This was produced by David Lynch's long-time music supervisor/collaborator Dean Hurley, and pretty much blew me away from first spin. Think Mark Lanegan/PJ Harvey vibe, but with some dirgey Doom goodness thrown into the mix, I can't wait to go through the band's back catalogue, available on their bandcamp HERE.

Jaye Jayle's music - or at least on this album - totally fits in with my visual life at the moment, because tonight K and I are scheduled to finish Season 3 of Deadwood. I've watched the series before, although I haven't seen Season 3 but the one time, back in the aughts. This viewing has kind of been like seeing it for the first time again. I'm amazed at the pot boiler the show is building out of the Hearst/Swearengen-Bullock skirmish, and I can't wait to finish this out and then keep my fingers crossed 24/7 that the movie we have now actually seen pictures of in EW really does come to pass. Seems impossible at this point that it wouldn't, but you never know...

NCBD: Not a whole lot today, but a new issue of Seven to Eternity is always a reason to celebrate, and D.J. Kirkbride's Errand Boys comes to a rip-snortin' finish with issue #5!

Playlist from 2/19:

Pink Floyd - Works
Young Widows - Old Wounds
Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Algiers - Eponymous
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I
Chris Connelly - Artificial Madness
Beck - Odelay

No card today.