The Besnard Lakes - She's an Icicle

 

Somehow, I totally missed that The Besnard Lakes released a three-song EP last year. The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP is one of my favorite missives from the band in some time, and of its three perfect tracks, opener She's an Icicle is, to me, everything I love so much about the band: the swirling morass of guitars fx and keys, Bonham-esque beats and Jace's heavenly voice surrounded by layer upon layer of harmony, all combining to make a dirgey rock and roll ephemera. You can order this directly from the band HERE.

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NCBD:

Short and sweet this week. Here we go:

I love the fact that we still haven't seen all of the fallout from the events of this year's Hellfire Gala. Man! I'm still blown away by that issue. So much changed so fast. Based on this cover, I think we're going to start really feeling things with this issue.

I wasn't going to read this issue the same way I keep saying I'm dropping Ghost Rider's main monthly book, but they keep pulling me back in. The idea that there's a new Weapon X/Weapon Plus program coming, but one that utilizes the stolen powers of Hell just blows my mind. HIGHEST of concepts; let's hope they pull it off. 

 

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Brew:

I stumbled across this on Kickstarter recently (Thanks to an email from Unplugged, the beer tracking app), and I'm pretty tempted to get in on this one:

It's a lot of money, but seems like it would definitely pay for itself at some point. Or, it would just make me drink more. Hmm...

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Read:

I finished Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper yesterday and am happy to report I was blown right the fuck away. Talk about one-upping the original. I'm not saying Reaper is better than Chainsaw, but to be as good, with even more stakes, well, damn. Just damn. Now we just have to wait until March 26, 2024, for the final installment, The Angel of Indian Lake. 

Now, of course, I need something new to read and I just don't know what can follow SGJ. I've had Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls in my Kindle forever, but my friend Jesus sent me a physical copy a few months ago and it's on my nightstand, so I guess that's the winner by default. 

This one comes highly recommended by a lot of people; however, for whatever reason, I've been reluctant. I LOVED Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism back when I read it circa 2017, so much so that I actually bought something like half a dozen copies and sent them to a bunch of friends for their birthdays at the time. That experience left me feeling like I would read anything Hendrix wrote, then a funny thing happened. I watched Satanic Panic, which Hendrix wrote the screenplay for, and hated it so much that it turned me off instantly. If questioned, I no longer even remember what it was I disliked about that flick, and a good friend recently said he saw it and loved it, so I'm thinking if We Sold Our Souls goes over well, I may give that another go, too.

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Playlist:

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow Live at CBGB

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP

††† - Invisible Hand (pre-release single)

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

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Card:

• Ace of Disks

• III The Empress

• Queen of Cups

Ace of Disks always reads as a monetary or 'Earthly' breakthrough, and combined with The Empressthe implied Motherly qualities of The Empress and the Emotional fortitude of the Queen of Cups, I'd say this is directly referring to my folks coming down here this weekend to house hunt. 

 

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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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The Kills Live From The Basement!!!

 

"Mutha fucka must'a thought it was live music week. It ain't live music week, is it Marty?" 

"Yeah, man. It's live music week." 

Well, Marty and Drexel have spoken. It's live music week. Here's a nice, tight live set from The Kills, originally published on the From The Basement youtube channel, which you should definitely check out and subscribe to HERE.

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NCBD:

My picks for this week's NCBD:

After last week's Hellfire Gala, well, shit. I can't wait to see this. I'll admit, I did not expect the landscape of X to be so completely changed in just one issue. Looking at a lot of the books launching after this, I'm not super interested in how the X Bullpen is choosing to explore this new playing field, however, I maintain my hopes that the core books will continue to turn out awesome entries into this aptly named Fall of X saga on a monthly basis.

The final issue of TMNT's The Last Ronin: Lost Years. In comics, possible future spin-offs are pretty common, and in general, I'd say I'm a fan. That said, there's so much of this kind of story out there, it feels a little overdone these days, and I tend to stay away from them. In TMNT's case, I really feel like they did it right. I don't know if I need a constant line of these Last Ronin stories, but I'd definitely be up to revisit the world again at a future date.

A Thessaly one-shot written by James Tynion? Yeah, sure. I want that. Thessaly's always been a Sandman Universe character that fascinates me. She's brutal and sexy and seemingly has no fear, which always makes her showing up a bit fretful for the characters already in play in any given story. Since this ties into the current Nightmare Country storyline, I'm curious to see whose blood Thessaly spills. Also, curious to see her and The Corinthian interact, as I can't remember off the top of my head if that's ever happened before.

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Read:

I finished my re-read of Stephan Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw yesterday and immediately jumped into this year's sequel, Don't Fear the Reaper. It's funny - last year when Chainsaw came out, I was sick, home from work for a week, and read it in three days. This year, I'm not only working, but hammering out a novel, so I had to read it more piecemeal. Didn't affect the sheer joy the novel inspires in me, but I also wanted to state it out loud, so no one out there reading this thinks Chainsaw is anything but one of the greatest Horror novels since Pet Semetery. 

Only a couple chapters in so far, and I already can feel I am standing at the precipice of a masterpiece. I don't know how I can love the sequel more - and I don't want to jinx it - but the broadening scope Jones starts laying out in Chapter Two: Dark South Mill has me positively giddy with excitement at where the novel will go.

 

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Playlist:

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish

The Kills - Live From the Basement

Arctic Monkeys - The Car (thanks Josh!)

Goblin - 2013 Tour E.P.

Zombi - Shape Shift

Mammon XV - Woes and Winter's Breath

Silent - Modern Hate

Meg Myers - Sorry

Steely Dan - Aja

Calexico - The Black Light

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• IV: The Emperor

• V: The Hierophant

• Page of Cups

Decisiveness in the face of dogma and institutions we adhere to in our daily lives. In other words, decide against the grain of the life I've set up

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Duration:

I've kind of messed up the days I'm doing this report, and this is a week old now, so I'll post the current report tomorrow.

Better. Not great, but better than last week, and I'm making leaps and bounds in the actual mechanics of the ending, which again is known, but not yet written. I've gone back through the entire novel, shoring things up, installing alignments that will hopefully carry me into a successful first draft of that ending.

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Blut Aus Nord - Queen of the Dead Dimension

 

Another new track from the upcoming album Disharmonium - Nahab, out August 25th on Debemur Morti; pre-order HERE.

This track reminds me A LOT of the material released on Blut Aus Nord's iconic The Work Which Transforms God. It's not the easiest to listen to at first, because it follows very little of our pre-conceived notions of what a song or music can be. That's exactly why I love this band. Bring on the full album - I want to melt my mind with its non-Euclidean sonic geometry!!! 

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Read:

Issue twenty of the new Fangoria arrived in the mail yesterday; always a good day when a Fango shows up!

Most of the main articles are about films that haven't come out yet; the cover story is on Michael and Danny Philippou's Talk to Me; I bought tickets to see this next Thursday, 7/27/23 and I'm fairly stoked. The fine folks at Beyondfest recently did some screenings with the Directors and they can't stop raving about it, so I'm fairly certain this one will be wonderful. Also featured is Cobweb, which I'm driving into Nashville to see on Saturday. Written by Chris Thomas Devlin and Directed by Samuel Bodin, I have high hopes for this one as well. So those are among the articles I'm saving. My favorite parts of Fangoria, however, are the columns, and in just the three I've read so far, I'm instantly reminded why I love this iteration of the Horror Mainstay Magazine so much.

Long-time contributor Michael Gingold discusses writing a new novelization for the 1980 Video Nasty Nightmare for Severin Films, who also just released a restoration of the film. The resurgence of movie tie-in novelizations is fascinating to me, and although I don't read a lot of them - I burned through Brad Carter's Night of the Demon last year, also from Severin - Nightmare is one I'm curious about. The film is hit or miss with me, despite its aurora of grindhouse sleaze that drips from every nook and cranny, but as with Night of the Demon, I have a feeling I will really enjoy reading the story more than watching the film. Whatever your preferred medium for Nightmares, you can order the restored film HERE or Mr. Gingold's novelization HERE. 

Next up was Barbara Crampton's editorial on theatrical screenings vs. streaming. She makes some points I'd not considered until now, mainly that we are seeing the streamers' film production slowing as people return to the theatre. I don't think we'll ever tip the scales back in the direction they were twenty years ago, however, while bombastic (and to my mind at this point, mildly annoying) Marvel/Super Hero flicks carry the main audience on the big screen, Horror is the quiet RBI batter, in my opinion. 

Finally, Stephen Graham Jones has a fantastic new entry in his Slasher Nation column that traces the origins of the Final Girl all the way up from the Damsel in Distress of the silent era. Easily my favorite piece in the magazine I've read this morning.

 

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Mammon XV - Woe's and Winter's Breath EP

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear Is a Cruel Master

Brainiac - Predator Nominate

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

Gism - Detestation

Blut Aus Nord - Queen of the Dead Dimension (pre-release single)

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Sepultura - Schizophrenia

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Pachouli Blue

Pale Dian - Feral Birth

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Card:

• V: The Hierophant 

• XI: The Hermit

• Five of Cups - Disappointment

Exciting news will turn out to be erroneous, or at the very least not what it seems at first glance.

 

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New Noise

 

Besides just being an awesome track, if you're watching FX's The Bear, you're probably picking up what I'm putting down.

From 1998's The Shape of Punk to Come, a veritable classic of that era.
 

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Watch:

Easily my favorite show at the moment, FX's The Bear returned recently and K and I just caught up by rewatching season one. 

This is the most "Chicago" anything I've ever seen. I know these people - Richie Jerimovich is one of my best friends, Cicero (Oliver fucking Platt!) is every other middle-aged man I met through friends and family in the 80s - I mean, it's freaking uncanny. It's also one of the most honest narratives about loss, drive and passion I've ever seen. 

           

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Read:

I'm about 100 pages into my re-read of Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw. If you're a Horror fan and you haven't read this, you're missing out on your new favorite novel:

Chainsaw's protagonist, Jade Daniels, is one of the most relatable and magnetic final girls of all time. Also, what a wonderful experience, reading a book that puts you so deep inside the mind of a High School kid who is obsessed with Horror, specifically Slashers, so much so that she interprets the arrival of a new girl at her high school in Proofrock, ID as the arrival of a Final Girl and the beginning of her town's own Slasher Cycle. There are reasons historic to the town that prompt this theory, but as SGJ is so damn good at, we're so awash in Jade's inner thoughts that we're never quite sure if she's just a bored and obsessed teenager or if there's actually something to what she's saying to anyone who will listen. 

Can't wait to finish this and go directly into the sequel, this year's Don't Fear the Reaper!

 

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Playlist:

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear Is a Cruel Master

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

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

Screaming Females - Desire Pathway

God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Radiohead - OK Computer

The Body - No One Deserves Happiness

A001 - Necro (single)

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Flying Lotus - Yasuke

Ariel - Molten Young Lovers

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Forhist - Eponymous

The Body - I Shall Die Here/Earth Triumphant

Secret Chiefs 3 & Traditionalists - Le mani destre recise degli ultimi uomini

Fear Factory - Demanufacture

Rein - Reincarnated

Grimes - Art Angels

Gram Rabbit - Music to Start a Cult To

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Sylvaine - Nova

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Card:

• Ace of Disks - Breakthrough in Earthly concerns

• Seven of Disks - Failure - A difficult period in modern life

• Princess of Disks - Fortification; Frugal

All Disks? Well, this really splits the difference between warning and encouragement, but I get the overall gist, just hope it's not too late - STOP SPENDING MONEY!!!

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Duration:

I've come up with a better way to post my 'time card' here. Check this out:

Didn't take me much time either, which is good, because when I instituted this a few weeks back, it quickly became apparent I was spending time on reporting that I could have been spending on actually writing. I've known people who do things like this instead of write - it can have a pretty negative impact on the process overall.

As for the time, it's still not where I want it. I took yesterday off completely so I could edit the new episode of The Horror Vision - up in the widget to the right at the top of the page - and hang with K. Another important thing to remember in all this, is to maintain a life/work balance. Considering I worked 40 hours last week at the day job and recorded and edited a podcast, 15 hours isn't bad.

But I need more. 

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New Music from Baroness!!!

 

The first single from Baroness's upcoming album Stone, out September 15th. Pre-order HERE. Love this track - listen to Gina SHRED - you can hear the Randy Rhoads influence for sure!

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Watch:

I interviewed writer/artist/filmmaker Pat O'Malley yesterday about his comic Popscars, his short films, future projects and our shared love of cinema. Going into it, I hadn't realized Pat made short films, so I checked out his youtube channel HERE. I dug everything on there, but Pool Shark was, by far, my favorite. Check it out:

I was kinda blown away by the camera work on this. The first few times we see the Shark, they filmed it in a way that, at first, I thought it must be stock footage of a real shark. Talk about movie magic. My discussion with Pat should go up this weekend; Popscars issue #4 comes out this coming Wednesday, and if you're lucky, there might be copies of 1-3 still lurking on your shop's shelves. Published by the new Sumerian Comics - a rebranding of the company formerly known as Behemoth - this one is wide and, only the first chapter in a bigger story.

 

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Read:

I was so blown away by Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl that I'm still unpacking/reveling in it. Because of that, I've found it difficult to start my planned reread of Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart is a Chainsaw. This will be a quick brush-up before diving into the recently published sequel Don't Fear the Reaper. Meanwhile, over on his Twitter, SGJ revealed the cover to the third and final installment in the trilogy, The Angel of Indian Lake. 

Jones also linked the website Crimereads.com, who broke the cover image and have an excerpt from the novel up. Obviously, I'm not reading that until I get current, but it's cool that this is out there in the world. Talk about inspiration! You can read the excerpt at the Crimereads link above. 

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Playlist:

Witchskull - The Serpent Tide

Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber III EP

Spelljammer - Abyssal Trip

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Rina Mushonga - In a Galaxy

Godflesh - Purge

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Baroness - Last Word (pre-release single)

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1

Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart

Forhist - Eponynous

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

Chamber of Secrets, Clement Panchout & Mxxn - Murder House (Puppet Combo OST)

Pegboy - Strong Reaction

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

            

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Card:

Two days of Pulls to put up here, as I was too busy with work yesterday to do a post:

• Nine of Swords again? My dreams have actually been fairly unremarkable or unrememberable the last few days.

• Ten of Disks - Wealth - The highest manifestation of the Earthly realms, which juxtaposed with Nine of Swords may explain why my dreams dried up all of a sudden. Earthly, material issues/items dampen the inner realms

• Prince of Wands - Airy aspect of Fire, or the intellectual thrust applied to conflict. In other words, Strategy.

Okay, so let's use today's Pull to try and make sense of that:

Today:

• Prince of Wands, sir, you have my attention. Something is amiss in my head, and I may find the answer if I can figure out (the aforementioned Strategy) how to 'unblock' my dream channel.

• Nine of Disks - Gain - Let's look past other interpretations of this card and go straight to its correlations to the Sephiroth. 

Yesod - Imagination and reflection, the first stop when one leaves the bottom, earthly manifestation of the tenth plane (Sephiroth) and into the higher planes. 

• VII: The Chariot - Control and Balance, but also the origin of ideas.

My overall read here is there's an idea locked inside me that I will need to access to finish something (my current project?), and I'm going to have to figure out how to get it. That probably doesn't mean I have to figure out how to get it out of my head, but how to recognize it when I 'see' it.

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Duration:

The irony is it's taking time away from writing to do these recent posts, so I'll probably reconfigure the duration portion to once a week. It'll show a better snapshot to. I'm definitely doing better, though, and the transparency posting here helps immensely. 

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The Wind Began to Howl

A lot of new music coming up lately, although some of it is only new to me. Case in point: that recent viewing of Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla was my first since the advent of Shazam (or since I started using it, anyway), and it was through that film I found the 22-20s, whose entire 2004 self-titled record rules. This is currently my favorite track on the album.

 

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Watch:

Yellowjackets returns in March!

On March 24 - my birthday, no less! To say K and I are excited would be an understatement of extreme measure.

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Read:

I try to severely limit my exposure to social media these days, so I'm late to the game but nonetheless overjoyed to see that Author Laird Barron is home from the hospital and in recovery AND the pre-order is up for the fourth book in his Isaiah Coleridge series. 

Wow, what a cover, eh? This is exciting because, with The Wind Began To Howl releasing from Bad Hand Books in late Spring, I have plenty of time to slot in re-reads of the previous three entries in the series. These are PURE PLEASURE for me, and every time a new entry comes up for pre-order, I go back and re-read the previous ones. 

Pre-order your copy from Bad Hand Books HERE. Also, if you do it within the first 30 days since the announcement (which I believe was last week), ALL proceeds go directly to the author, who is recovering at home from his recent health scare (Laird is tweeting about it on his account), and thus, still racking up medical expenses.

Pre-ordering the new Laird Barron reminded me I still had not ordered my signed copy of Stephen Graham Jones' sequel to 2021's My Heart is a Chainsaw from Boulder Books. 

Don't Fear the Reaper dropped a few weeks ago, the second in a planned trilogy; I can't wait to read this one. Chainsaw rocked my world and I'm looking forward to re-reading that as well.

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Playlist:

22-20s - Eponymous

Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

Karl Casey - XX EP

White Hex - Gold Nights

Myrkur - Folkesange

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

It will require a lot of Will to successfully complete a current project. 

For Absent Friends

I don't think I ever noticed how much this track from 2002's Deliverance resembles Alice in Chains. It's the guitar, 100%. Has that woodsy, almost campfire sound Jerry Cantrell gets to his playing when it veers forlorn and reflective. Absolutely stunning, regardless of the comparison. I always teeter back and forth between Deliverance and Blackwater Park as the crowning jewel of Opeth's "mid" period.

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Watch:

Over the course of two nights last week, I watched and rewatched Panos Cosmatos' entry in Guillermo del Torro's Cabinet of Curiosities. 

 

To say The Viewing is my favorite installment of Cabinet would be an understatement. I liked all of them to one degree or another, and even the ones I connected with least - unexpectedly, both H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - rank as extremely well-made genre films. But The Viewing is something else entirely.

 

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Read:

Seeing the announcements for Stephen Graham Jones' Don't Fear the Reaper, I finally ordered a signed Hardcover edition of last year's My Heart is a Chainsaw from the wonderful folks at Jones' home store, Boulder Books in Bolder Colorado. Chainsaw was the first volume in what Jones has dubbed his Indian Lake Trilogy, and Reaper continues the story. Here's the solicitation from Jone's publisher, Simon and Schuster:

December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones.

Don't Fear the Reaper is out February 7th, and you can pre-order it anywhere. I'm sure I'll be ordering a signed one from Boulder Books, and I'll probably ask for the personalized option this time. To good to pass up.

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Playlist:

Barry Adamson - Back To The Cat

Opeth - Deliverance

Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse

With Strangers - A Love That's Gone (single)

Preoccupations - Arrangements

The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic/Cenozoic

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

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Card:

Returning once more to the Raven Deck for a quick pull to establish the week:

Reading this as a reminder to keep things fluid this week. I had a great writing session this past Saturday where I dug heavily back into Shadow Play Book Two, and then a massive, three-plus hour one again Sunday to further that. Raven's telling me to enjoy this, but be open to other projects that might need attention this week.

Waste

 

Seeing Zeal and Ardor tonight with some friends at the Echoplex!!!

 

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NCBD:

Still going to be another week before I return to Tennessee and grab my books, but here's this week's pull:

New book written by Stephen Grahman Jones! 

I've actually really missed this book in its brief furlough. Can't wait to see what madness Cotes gets Bruce and his big, green spaceship into this time.

Another new book I know very little about.

Kinda hell waiting to buy my books, especially when I intend on stopping by The Comic Bug at some point, and Mike from Atomic Basement is doing a Pop-up shop in Long Beach.

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Playlist:

David Bowie - Earthling

Anthrax - Worship Music

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

Drum - Gold Class

The Ocean - Heliocentric

NIN - The Slip

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

(We Were) Electrocute

 

Continuing Peter Steele week, here's "(We Were) Electrocute," from 2003's Life Is Killing Me.

I've always wondered if this song was in some way about Milli Vanilli. I'm not really sure why.

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Read:

A Stephen Graham Jones Horror comic from IDW? Sign me up.

With cover art here is by Rafael Albuquerque, and series artwork by Davide Gianfelice (Northlanders, Greek Street, Ghosted), Bloody Disgusting reports this one as follows:

“Earthdivers unites four Indigenous survivors in an apocalyptic near future as they embark on a bloody, one-way mission to save the world by traveling back in time to kill Christopher Columbus and prevent the creation of America.”

Read the rest of the BD article HERE. 

Recent events very much on my mind, I can tell you that I LOVE this concept. Here's a rather lengthy video announcement IDW released earlier this week; it mentions several other new titles I'm ear-marking here, particularly Scott Snyder and Hayden Sherman's Dark Spaces: Wildfire.

You can read info on all nine new titles HERE.

Jones' last three books all blew me away, but My Heart is a Chainsaw proved a level up even for someone already so prolific and accomplished. I can't wait to see how his writing plays out in the graphic format.

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Playlist:

The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy

Nurse with Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith

Tones on Tail - Everything!

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle, Part 2

Judas Priest - Painkiller

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Slayer - Live Undead

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Revocation - The Outer Ones

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Card:

I'll be keeping my eyes and my mind open for inspiration or knowledge from an unexpected or previously dismissed source. 

I Hate to Say My Heart is a Chainsaw, But I Told You So

 

Here's a group I had all but forgot about. A big name to me in the early 2000s, The Hives still sound great today, and I was excited to hear this track at the end of Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley's Invincible. It put the band back on my radar and I'm excited to go through their albums for the first time in probably a decade.

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Read:

The new Stephen Graham Jones novel is out today. I had completely forgotten about this until, just before bed last night, I read an article SGJ contributed to the most recent issue of Fangoria, wherein he offers some pretty interesting theoretical methods to fix three problematic Slasher films from the past (Shocker, F13 V and Nightmare on Elm Street 2). Anyway, I grabbed this on Kindle (despite my growing dislike for the device) because I read both of Jones's novels last year and both blew me away. Here's to hoping that this one - with such an awesome title - will do the same. I have every reason to believe it will.

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Watch:

So, yeah, K and I finally finished the first season of Invincible. Initially, the first episode had a huge effect on me - it was engineered to do so - but then my interest tapered off. It's this thing I have about pretty much all animation sans Cowboy Bebop, 80s Transformers and... well, that's about it. I don't know why, I just don't connect with it, and I find it hard to finish any series. It was that way with Castlevania - made it up to about halfway through the third season and stopped, and even that took multiple attempts and a couple of years to do. Same with Trese, which I made it about halfway through. Anyway, if you haven't watched it, here's a trailer. However, I think it shows way too much, so maybe just go watch the first episode all the way through. In most cases, that should be enough. Unless you're like me.

 

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Playlist:

Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

Grinderman - Eponymous

Gesaffelstein - Aleph

Old Blood - Acid Doom

Slipknot - We Are Not your Kind

Code Orange - Underneath

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Sturgil Simpson - Sound and Fury

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious

The Afghan Whigs - 1965

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Card:

I feel like this is referencing something bigger than me, something I'm hopelessly caught in a repetitive dance with. I'm just not sure what that is. 

The Besnard Lakes - Feuds with Guns Official Music Video

 

More new Besnard that I'm trying really hard not to listen to in anticipation of sitting down with a joint and the entire new album - The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings, out January 19th (digital) and 29th (physical) - and just melting into the fucking music. Pre-order the record HERE.

 

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Read:

I have read a lot lately. First, at the recommendation of my good friend and Christian Fisting co-founder Joe.Baxter, I fell into Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder novels pretty hard, devouring Books one and two in about a day each. This started as research for a character I'm writing in Shadow Play Book Two, but quickly became the kind of obsessive read that forces me to relegate all Block to weekend reading only, lest I stay up all night on a work night rabidly flipping pages.

Next, I finally picked up Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians. After reading Jones's Night of the Mannequin a few months ago, I've been eager to get to this one. Halfway through in two days, it is not disappointing at all, so there will be more SGJ in my future.

Also, thanks to Jonathan Grimm, who tipped me off that Kindle was having a Marvel Masterworks sale on the entire original Chris Claremont run of Uncanny X-Men. I picked up the first five volumes, which fills in most of the gaps of what pre-dated the issues I have in physical form, including the classic Giant Size X-Men, which introduced Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Sunspot (fuck him, he stayed for one mission and left), and Thunderbird to the team.

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Playlist:

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Bell Witch - Four Phantoms

Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Eponymous

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country

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Card:

Not about me at all, I think, but a confirmation K will be getting her promotion.

Isolation: Day 185

Music:

Wow. This just blew me right the F&*K away. This year's Underneath is already on the shortlist to be on my top ten albums of 2020, this perfect cover of Alice in Chains' immortal 'Down in a Hole' may just put the newly released Under the Skin live album on that list, as well. 

This is one of those songs I can't hear without a slew of emotions, thoughts, and sensations from high school coming flooding back. That kind of emotion juxtaposition usually doesn't translate to covers. That is definitely not the case with this one. 

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Read:

Two stories from finishing Nathan Ballingrud's debut short story collection, North American Lake Monsters, I jumped into Stephen Graham Jones' Night of the Mannequins. I read the thing in a few hours and absolutely loved it. Funny, freaky, weird, hilarious, spooky, confounding. All of the above. This is a slasher novel that is not anywhere close to being what you would ever expect from a slasher story. Highest possible recommendation, especially since you can probably knock it out in a day. Perfect summer reading. 

Night of the Mannequins is $3.99 on Kindle right now, and worth every goddamn penny!

Next, as I savor these last few stories in Lake Monsters, I'm probably going to start a long-overdue re-read of Clive Barker's iconic The Hellbound Heart.

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Playlist:

Doves - The Universal Want

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

X - Los Angeles

Steely Dan - Aja

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz

Electric Wizard - Black Masses

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

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CARD:

Getting back up on my writing legs after a fairly successful weekend that proved my new outline method will make writing these next two Shadow Play books considerably easier than the first.