Skinny Puppy - Circustance

From my favorite Skinny Puppy album, 1991's Last Rights. This record blew my mind when I used a gift token from Coconuts to purchase it back circa 1992/93, not knowing what to expect, just that the weird/cool Industrial Senior in my art class named Matt once told me, cryptically, "The keyboards in Skinny Puppy will make you feel... like... you're... GOD!"

He wasn't wrong.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Unpopular opinion: I actually prefer Carrie 2: The Rage to Brian De Palma's original Carrie. Now, I'm not saying Carrie 2 is a better film, but for me, there are a few major irks with De Palma's film.

Carrie is well made, but the 70s were often an ugly decade, and all the costume design and set decoration seems (to me) to revel in that ugliness. This is an excellent story; such a raw treatise on bullying and the personal, world-bending pain that comes of it. That’s something I love and respect. That and most of the performances. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie are a fucking powerhouse, and Nancy Allen is an unforgettable bitch. Alas, a lot of the suspense just doesn’t work for me. The entire protracted sequence before the bucket spills feels absurd on a cartoon level, with Sue and the Gym Teacher looking here, looking back, looking at each other, looking away… it ends up taking away from the blood and fire of the climax. Not completely, but enough that I get annoyed. Finally, I’ve said this for three decades, but travolta is not a good actor and really brings down every scene he’s in.

Katt Shea fills Carrie 2 to the brim with a sense of embitterment and isolation that, while affecting, fails to measure up to those feelings in De Palma's. That said, I think there is something about the time between the two films (1976 and 1999) and the severely different aesthetics of the eras that helps Carrie 2 feel like a natural extension of the original. Does it need to exist? Absolutely not. The entire movie is really just one long wait for some widespread comeuppance, but when Shea's film delivers this, it is GLORIOUS! I love that pretty much no one is spared. Does the film suffer from that pre-millennial cheese that so many films from this era do? Yes, but it also references both Scream and New York Ripper in the same line of dialogue! I feel some Twin Peaks in here, some NOES 2, a lot of disparate influences that work together to make Carrie 2 way more watchable than a lot of films from this time. 

Will I revisit this again? Maybe. Will I revisit the original? Absolutely. I check back in every few years on this and Dressed to Kill to see if my problems are me. So far, that has not been the case.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

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NCBD:

This week's pull starts off with one I've been excited about since seeing the cover solicitation.

Holy. Shite. I've been waiting for something like this since the inception of The Energon Universe. Cobra-La in space, mixing it up with, I'm assuming, either the Quintessons or the denizens of the Great Ring? And this is probably only the beginning. It's funny how I couldn't give a toss about these 'goofy' Joe cartoon characters in pretty much any other context but what Kirkman and his team are doing. Admittedly, Pythona has the best scene in that G.I.Joe cartoon movie from the '80s, but overall I always sided with Hama's comic and eschewed the increasingly day-glo aesthetic of the cartoon. But Kirkman has recontextualized all of this, and I am excited to see what happens.

Michael Walsh's Frankenstein has not disappointed me yet. I'm sure I've said this before, but Mr. Walsh is one of my favorite artists working today. Also, does this cover allude to The Bride joining the story? 

Catching up with Leo? Nice. Loving that this book has been taking its time to release. I'm hoping that doesn't fall away once things really get going. 

John Constantine is dead and his trek across the U.S. has been as bizarre as one might expect for a (ghost? Reanimated?) Britsh Punk Rock-reared Magician. 

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Playlist:

Purple Hill Witch - Eponymous

Ritual Howls - Virtue Falters

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

The Soft Moon - Criminal

The Kills - Midnight Boom

Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

John Frusciante - Brown Bunny OST

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Card:

Today's card for study is XIX - The Sun:

The Triumph of the Spirit! This card is obviously a glorious one, filled with revelation or perhaps the idea of seeking revelation. From my grimoire: "Taking the Pill will open your eyes."

Crowley says it in his Book of Thoth: "This is one of the simplest cards; it represents ... the Lord of the New Aeon in his manifestation to the race of men as the sun."

The dancing children (?) represent humanity accepting the revelation of the new aeon, Crowley's Age of Horus. The philosophical reality of that can be argued, the important thing on the non-Crowley level of just reading the cards is this indicates the person in question will change. 

Skinny Birds

 

A few days ago, Heaven Is An Incubator posted some old-school Skinny Puppy. Hearing it put me in the mood to dig out 1984's Remission, and it's kinda been stuck in my headphones since, so let's start the day with "Sleeping Beast."

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31 Days of Halloween:

K and I went to see Hitchcock's The Birds on the big screen last night. The film still holds up, although here are a couple of observations I don't know that I made previously about the film:

• I'm guessing Cary Grant must have been Hitch's first choice for Leading Man Mitch Brenner because Rod Taylor feels like a stand-in. Not to say Taylor is bad; on the contrary, I rather think he does a smash-up job. There's just something about his physicality that makes me think Hitch originally had Grant in mind for the role.

• There's almost a full hour of lead-in. This isn't bad, and in fact, I was mostly engrossed; however, the weird practical joke Tippo Hedren's Melanie Daniels plays on Mitch unfolds rather slowly and then gives way to the Brenner family's very odd dynamic, none of which is ever mentioned. Why is one of Lydia's children in his 30s and the other looks to be about 10? I kept thinking I was forgetting some odd revelation, like Cathy is really Mitch's daughter and the mother passed away, or something like that. When that didn't happen, I was left wondering. What I have arrived at after sleeping on the film is I think there are a lot of little things in this one that make the overall tone expectant and slightly off, which adds to the overall tension.

• Not every scene of the titular birds attacking 'works' as well as I remembered they did - and I just rewatched this a couple of years ago - but the final sequence with Melanie and the Brenners barricaded in the house is fabulous and more than a little frightening.

• Suzanne Pleschette worked as a small-town school teacher before recovering from her bird attack and moving to the big city, where she married a successful psychologist.

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

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Sexores - Salamanca

††† - Good Night, God Bless, I Love U, Delete

Wytch Finger - The Dance EP

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Skinny Puppy - Remission

New Order - Movement

The Final Cut - Consumed

Skinny Puppy - Bites

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19 Days 'til Halloween: Skinny Puppy - Morpheus Laughing

 

I've been hip-deep in old Skinny Puppy records and it feels great. It's been a while since I've sunk this deep into theirt catalogue, and I've even begun making inroads into listening to some of their later records, beginning with 1996's The Process, a record I avoided when I was younger because of all the hulabaloo around its release. I have to say, other than the first song - which is the only track on the record that was recorded at their old Canadian studio - I'm not entirely convinced I should go any further. Last Rites always just seemed like a perfect place for their existence to stop.

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31 Days of Halloween:

We did the first two episodes of Mike Flanagan's new The Haunting of Bly Manor yesterday for our main entry in 31 Days of Halloween. Really good. Flanagan's craft continues to evolve, his ability for total immersion in the worlds he creates among the best out there. Based on the works of Henry James, basically wrapping all of his ghost stories up into one narrative, I can't wait to see where this goes.

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/Tales of Halloween: 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 Wicken/Tales of Halloween: 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

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Playlist:

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Skinny Puppy - Inquisition EP

Naked Raygun - Raygun... Naked Saygun

Bauhaus - Burning from the Inside

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Van Halen - 1984

Skinny Puppy - Too Dark Park

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Card:

 

This card suggests a reserve of quiet strength and a domestic outlook. This is interesting when I juxtapose those concepts with my own continued estrangement from the state in which I live. Over the last few months, I've begun to seriously long for transporting my life with K to a more reliable, affordable, and low key location. Small town life sounds amazing to me. I think some of this is just a natural reaction to all the insanity the last four years have produced, however, I am not foolish enough to think that if captain hairdo gets voted out things will change or get better. In fact, regardless of the outcome - in which I definitely hope captain hairdo is ousted - I think things are only going to get worse. This is where that reserve of quiet strength comes in handy, and I'm happy to be reminded of it now.

Skinny Puppy Live Footage 1986

Currently going through a Skinny Puppy thing, so yeah, it's been a bit dark of late. Bearing this in mind I sat down to hammer a newer chapter of the book into shape with Too Dark Park as the soundtrack and Last Rites close at hand. This particular part of the book is pretty dark, the darkest segment I've written for the project thus far. SP seemed like the right vehicle to help inspire the tone.

Chapter finished I rewarded myself by scouting around online for this home video I remember from high school. It was a live concert, late 80's/early 90's. Ogre was tearing apart a stuffed dog in front of the microphone. I spent some time looking for this video tonight but have absolutely NO idea what it was named, or if it was maybe even a bootleg. In the absence of that which I sought, this does quite nicely.

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights - Track 10 is Missing?

Speaking of Last Rights, I bought the record when I was in high school. I remember my Aunt Dottie gave me several Coconuts Record Store gift tokens that equalled quite a bit of $$ - might have been 3 $20 tokens. I bought 4 CD's - this was like '93. I came away with Slayer - Decade of Aggression, Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger (the SOMMS version), and Skinny Puppy - Last Rights. The other three albums were based on me already liking or at least having heard the groups before - the Skinny Puppy was based on A) the weird industrial Kid Matt Debore in high school who was a year older than me telling me that if I liked Pretty Hate Machine, the keyboards in Skinny Puppy would, "Make you feel like you're god" and B) the cover by I, Braineater:

The Skinny Puppy record scared me. To this day it still scares me, and that my friends, if rare. Usually something catches you offguard or unaware but you acclimate to it. That's only partially true of this record. I may have gotten to know it, gotten to love it, but I still sleep with one eye open around it. And for that I LOVE it.

One thing that always fascinated me about Last Rights was the tracks are numbered 1-9 and then 11. In the Liner notes there's a seemingly casual caption that states/asks, "Track 10 is Missing?". For years I assumed the track was somehow hidden on the album. This was the age of hidden tracks and backwards tracks; tracks hidden after hidden tracks and 12 minutes of crickets to get to the final track, so I just assumed... Remember there was both the They Might Be Giants album and the Course of Empire album that had hidden tracks before the first track on the album. You had to - if I'm remembering this correctly - pause the first track and then search backwards to get to the hidden track. Freakin' crazy!!!

Anyway, the internet is of course great for solving all these little mysteries, but it also robs us of the enigmas of those long gone pre-instant information eras. So here then, at last, is track 10. And here is the explanation, if you choose to read it. It's not that cool.

Skinny Puppy - Lust Chance

My favorite Skinny Puppy album (although I only know like three of them well).

This particular youtubes video: what the heck is up with 0:06-:010? It looks like it's going to be the album cover (brilliant! by I, Braineater) but then there's... that.