Seven Days of Steve: Day 5

Big Black's Songs About Fucking stands with early Ministry as one of the stalwarts of the Chicago Indie Sound of the 80s. While it's easy to draw comparisons to Industrial music because of the drum machine, Albini's vocals help it remain not so committed to any one genre. It's some important DNA, though, and a perfect record from start to finish.

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Watch:

It had easily been 25 years since my first and only viewing of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. The film popped up on Prime recently,* and Saturday night, I fired it up and remained rivetted throughout the entire run time.

When I first watched this back in my 20s, I know I dug it, but this was one I never really sought out to add to the collection, and now I just can't understand why. Despite immediate tendencies to embellish and decry this as my new favorite Carpenter film, Assault on Precinct 13 definitely jumps up into that upper echelon on his work, along with Halloween, The Thing and Prince of Darkness. 

This one is raw! There's a scene that dropped my jaw (you know the one). Not that JC can't be brutal, but holy smoke muffins! And through the entire siege portion of the film, there is definitely that 'the calm before the storm' eeriness that percolates through Halloween, as well. The scene where the station receives the "Cholo" is just creepy A.F.

*I feel like amazon has been listening to me through the apps on my phone and actually sought to rectify my major gripe, namely that along with commercials in all their original programming now, most movies have migrated over to freevee. FUCK freevee.

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Read:

Took some time this weekend to re-read James Tynion IV and Joshua Hixson's The Deviant before diving into the newest issue that came out this past Wednesday.

Reading this again, I have to say that The Deviant strikes me as possibly one of the creepiest psychological nightmare mind-fuck series ever published in comics. Five out of Nine issues notched and if this is going where I think it's going (but not necessarily how it's going to get there), Michael and Randall's stories are becoming more and more entwined, not just with each other, but with the Horrors of loneliness and social isolation that seem to have created a world of sad, deadly men. 

Michael is telling us everything point blank; we're just not listening. It feels like this is exactly what it would be like to know a killer. I can say this because I knew one in my teens, and while looking back on his behavior with adult eyes after the fact, it becomes clear the signs were there all along; he wasn't steeped in killing the way a serial killer like the killer in The Deviant is. 

You don't need to have had that experience, though. Tynion and Hixon's tale unfolds in such a character-driven way that we're drawn into their world and their lives. You can imagine being in Michael's boyfriend's shoes, the signs that are literally all over the place, but how do you put that together? How do you learn to distrust and fear people you love enough to properly interpret these silently telegraphed confessions?

We'll see.

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Playlist:

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Nell' ora blu

Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Steven Sanchez - Angel Face

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Alice in Chains - Sap

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies

Gold Class - Drum

Etta James - 

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

Chuck Berry - Berry on Top

Various - Romantic Night in Playlist

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Card:

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

I had a hankering for Grimm's Bound Tarot, so I broke that out for today's Pull.

• Page  (Princess) of Pentacles

• Two of Pentacles

• Seven of Pentacles

Interesting. The first day back with this deck in months, and my entire Pull is Pentacles? Money has been on my mind - for both good and hesitant reasons. It's good right now, but I feel as though there is a shoe hanging above a drop of about 1000 feet. The Page/Princess indicates security, the Two partnership and the Seven Completion. That bodes pretty well, but I'm still feeling things out as I go along. 

Seven Days of Steve: Day 2

Mr. Brown sent me a link to this live performance in 1986 the other night, shortly after we touched base about Albini's death. The performance speaks for itself.

 

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Watch:

As much as I dug on Moritz Mohr's Boy Kills World the other night, what really set my heart a flutter was seeing a trailer for Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's Kill beforehand. I'm posting it here for posterity's sake, but my advice is do not watch it; as excited as I am to spread the word about this awesome, awesome film, the trailer just gives too much.

 

I saw this on opening night of 2023's Beyondfest and was completely blown away. Ever since I've been hoping Bhat's unflinching action flick would get a national US rollout, and it looks like that is indeed the case. 

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Read:

I caught and inadvertent book recommendation from Stephen King and Joe Hill on Twitter the other day, and I'm stoked to finish up Stephen Graham Jones' Indian Lake Trilogy and move onto this one. 

While completely unfamiliar with Keith Rosson, the description for this one grabbed me right away. I LOVE anything that deals with a Hand of Glory. Here's part of the blurb from the Publisher:

When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client’s refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch’s tail, more of the city’s residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . 

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Final Light - Eponymous

Pigface - Gub

Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound

The Jesus Lizard - Down

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

Big Black - Live at CBGBs 7.13.86

Warning - Watching From A Distance

Witch Finder - Forgotten Mansion

Soviet Soviet - Endless

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Crispin Hellion Glover - The Big Problem

Big Black - The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV: Noir

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XI: Justice (Lust in Thoth)

• XVII: The Star

• Knight of Cups

I thirst for something more. I see it in the online lives of people who I admire, and I want that for myself. The trick is not to fall too hard for the illusion of other people's lives. Everyone has successes and failures. The Star reminds me that, from the grimoire, "Create unto and within yourself a Universe, shaped of your strengths and built on your accomplishments as a foundation." The Knight of Cups, or the Will of Emotions/Firey aspect of Water, further clarifies that the aforementioned Lust can seem like it is deserved (Justice), but that's emotion talking. Nothing is deserved, it is earned. 

The Mysterines - Sink

 Out June 7th, you can pre-order the new album Afraid of Tomorrow HERE.

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NCBD:

Another fantastic Wednesday means comics! Comics! COMICS! Let's get into this week's pull:

The return of James Tynion IV's The Deviant. I feel like this one is going to be a sleeper this year; I just don't know anyone else reading it, which may just be my limited world-slice. Let it just be said if you're not reading and you count yourself a Tynion fan, you're missing out. 

Apparently, this is simply a re-packaging of last Saturday's FCBD Energon Universe special, so I may have both sitting in my box at Rick's (I don't go anywhere near actual comic shops on FCBD anymore; haven't in years). I'm fine with having both, and I hear there are some juicy spoilers inside this one. The cover art alone gets us something we have not yet had in the line - Optimus vs. Megatron! Hell, the only time we've even seen ol' Megs is as Cobra Commander's prisoner/science experiment down in the murky depths of Cobra-La, so I'm betting this will explain how that happened and how Megatron lost both arms.

The penultimate issue of Laurence Campbell and Ram V's The One Hand. This and The Six Fingers have been the year's most delightful surprises so far; can't wait to see where these books end up.

LOVE this cover. 

Just end already. Jeez.

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Watch:

Over on Francis Ford Coppola's YouTube channel, the filmmaker released a "First Look" and official synopsis of his upcoming Megalopolis. 

The clip reveals nothing story-wise. That said, the elements of composition at play on the screen are gorgeous. Also of note is the score, as credited to Osvaldo Golijov, who appears to be fairly new to a project of this size. What we hear sounds awesome!

We've been hearing about this for years; if you double-click the video above and read the summary in the description field on YouTube, this sounds like an 84-year-old master bestowing his most ambitious project on the world. 

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Facelift

Windhand - Eponymous

Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City

Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through

Trombone Shorty - For True

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Three of Cups

• Six of Wands

• V: The Hierophant

In a nutshell, Threes points to Growth and Sixes to Support. The Hierophant often implies "something more;" read that as the Divine if you like; I see it more as Occult, or hidden, influences, similar to XVIII: The Moon. I'm looking at everything right now as pertaining to a stressful situation with work, and in that regard, there's more of a balm here than I would have anticipated. 

All You Need is Lankum

 

As I reference below, my days have been filled with elemtns of Folklore of late, and one of the musical accompaniments for this is Dublin's band Lankum. One of the things about Paul Duane's All You Need Is Death that struck me during the screening at last year's Beyondfest was the score by composer Ian Lynch. Last week when Invada Records put the score up for pre-order (HERE), it led me to discover Lynch's band Lankum. I've been listening to their most recent album False Lankum ever since. A feast for the ears, you can listen to and purchase the record directly from the band over on their Bandcamp HERE. Really cool stuff, perfect for the thunderstorms we've had on an almost nightly basis of late. 

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Watch:

Over on The Horror Vision, we had the chance to interview Writer/Director Paul Duane last week. Mr. Duane's latest film, All You Need is Death was one of the highlights of 2023's Beyondfest, and after re-watching it now that it's available on VOD, we were all very excited to pick his brain about the film, Folk Horror, Documentaries, you name it.

Mr. Duane is a gracious man, and his film a marvel that will no doubt stand at or near the best of the year when I compile my list in December. Very much looking forward to seeing what else he does, as he teases a bit of what he's working on in the episode.

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Read:

We recorded a new episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Sticks & Stones, our Folk Horror sub-show that had been dormant after two episodes Ray and I did in early 2022. Folk Horror is a huge topic, and had proved difficult for us to get a handle on after the veritable explosion of new films in the sub-genre back late 2021/2022. The purpose of this episode, then, was to use two films at the opposite ends of the Folk Horror spectrum to define what Folk Horror is to us and how we would cover it going forward. One of the two films we chose was Djordje Kadijevic's Leptirica, AKA The She-Butterfly. 

After watching this film for what was my third time, I found myself interested in reading the story upon which it is based, Milovan Gilsic's After Ninety Years. There is a fairly recently published translated version by James Lyon available on Kindle for a pawltry $4.99, so I went ahead and ordered it.

Not sure when I'll get around to actually reading this, as the stack for the year just continues to grow. Still, it's nice to have it close at hand for when I do. This Serbo-Bosnian Vampire folklore is fascinating, especially when you consider it not only pre-dates Bram Stoker's Dracula, but also served to inform aspects of F.W. Murnau, which I won't elaborate on here, as Professor John Trafton delivers a bit of show-stopping information during the course of this upcoming Sticks & Stones episode, so keep an eye out of that.

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Playlist:

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis 

Gary Moore - Still Got the Blues

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Robot God - Portal Within

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Opeth - My Arms Your Hearse

Motörhead - 1916

Black Sky Giant - The Red Chariot

Mountain Realm - Frostfall

Lankum - False Lankum

Sunn O))) - Domkirke

Godflesh - Purge

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Knight of Swords

• Ten of Wands

• Ten of Cups

Earthly matter abound, distractions from more intellectual pursuits should be minimized until such time as I can clear some bandwidth for them. 

Saigon Blue Rain - Visions

When I posted that Ships in the Night track last week, I fell down a rabbit hole that led me to the band Saigon Blue Rain. Instant infatuation. Their 2023 album Oko would have been on my top ten of the year list if I had heard it in 2023. Regardless, I'm really digging the music this two-piece makes. You can check out and support Saigon Blue Rain on their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Last Friday, K and I got to see Ridley Scott's original Alien on the big screen for the first time. It was magnificent.

I've seen James Cameron's Aliens considerably more times than I have Scott's Alien; both are fantastic films, but Aliens was the first of the series I remember seeing, and that initial viewing - somewhere around the time it came out on VHS circa... 1987? - blew me away. I'll never forget sitting in our living room watching it on a Saturday afternoon with my Dad, both of us held taut by the absolute non-stop thrill of the film. Alien is, of course, not the same kind of movie. Alien is quiet, slow-burning and eerie. As a special introduction to this 45th-anniversary theatrical run, the film began with a sit-down conversation between Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott. During their conversation, Scott mentions how he'd never been interested in Science Fiction until he saw Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey several years before and how that film was such an influence on Alien. I never really thought about that before, but watching the film with that in mind last Friday, I'd say the entire First Act is Scott's version of 2001. It was all about creating the illusion of Space Habitation and Travel, and the technology that goes with that. 

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Read:

Sunday I finished Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless. FANtastic book! I've said it here before, Ms. Tholen's prose is so inherently readable, her books almost read effortlessly. 

Next up: just like last year, I'm jumping directly from Ivy Tholen to Stephen Graham Jones. I'm raring to dig into the third and final Indian Lake book, The Angel of Indian Lake; however, first, I'm going to re-read last year's Don't Fear the Reaper to really set the stage for the finale to Jade/Jennifer Daniels' story.

Sixty pages in, and this one just fits like a glove. Another effortless read, SGJ's books have become part of a well-spring of Horror fiction for me. His work, along with Laird Barron's and Nathan Ballingrud help balance me as a writer. These guys are masters of their craft, and their work explores the intersection of the Horrifying and the Weird that has obsessed me for most of my life. 

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Playlist:

Fever Ray - Radical Romantics

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

Various - 4.28.24 Spotify Playlist*

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

The Beta Band - The Three E.P.'s

Bexley - Eponymous

Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See

* made to shuffle

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Nine of Wands

• VI: The Lovers

• Six of Swords

A lot of climax and support, with VI there to indicate a harmonization of opposites - or perceived opposites. This feels like more heartening news concerning my recent anxieties, which remain vague due to the public nature of this forum and the... watchful eyes that abound out in the world today.

Drying the Rain & Washing Your Hands

 

Wow. I hadn't heard The Beta Band in ages, let alone their big single "Dry the Rain." Then, sitting in my coffee shop writing last night, a brief interval of silence between songs on my headphones had me stop and say, "Wait, I remember this..."

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Watch:

I took yesterday off and had that rare combination of energy and perseverance well into the wee hours of the morning, so I was able to watch a handful of films. 

Listed as Lockdown Tower on Shudder but also known as simply The Tower, Guillaume Nicloux's claustrophobic nightmare is Lord of the Flies meets Dawn of the Dead without the children or zombies. The inhabitants of a highrise tenement discover their building is surrounded by a black void that consumes anyone who steps across the thresholds of every egress from the building. Doors, windows - there is no way to leave. We start from the moment the phenomenon begins and travel forward through time with these people, seeing how the building's ecosystem evolves. Or, more accurately, devolves because, as Nick Cave sang, "People just ain't no good."

Next up, Jenn Wexler's The Sacrifice Game.

I loved this one. Between The Sacrifice Game and 2018's The Ranger, Jenn Wexler has become one of my favorite modern directors. Looking at her credits on Letterboxd, she's had a hand in a lot of films I've adored over the previous ten years; from Robert Mockler's Like Me, to Ana Asensio's Most Beautiful Island, to Larry Fessenden's Depraved, Ms. Wexler has left an imprint on the current state of Independent Horror that cannot be denied, and with the polish we see on The Sacrifice Game, I think she's poised to eventually make a breakthrough similar to what Ti West has done with his X trilogy. That makes me super happy and excited to see what may come of such an opportunity.

I have no idea what led me to re-watch Metallica's Some Kind of Monster the other night, but I turned it on and found I could not turn it off, despite the fact that it made me feel super gross about having a goatee in the 00s.

 

This is such an illustration of a band so far out of touch with themselves, their music, their fans, and just the actual reason people make music that it's super hard to watch. Especially considering that, while I still love their old stuff and refuse to acknowledge everything after their self-titled (which in itself I have a conflicted relationship with), I genuinely like their two most recent records. I think one thing this documentary showcases, besides how up their own asses this band was in the 00s, is that Bob Rock was the worst choice for a producer they ever made. This guy... wow. Not that hooking up with Rick Rubin helped do much besides draw a caricature of their sound for a while, but it seems like once Rubin's Engineer Greg Fidelman took over as the band's producer, things changed for the better.

The highlight of the film is when Robert Trujillo comes on board. The guy is just seems so down-to-earth, and he is an absolutely outstanding bass player, which you can see clear as day in this film.
 

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Read:

TMNT 150 ended up being a huge disappointment to me. It sucks to say that, but it's true. I could draw so many similarities to the mess Kieron Gillon is making of the X-Books at the moment, but it would sadden me further to do so. I half-read 150, bagged it, and am happily jumping off for what comes next. We'll always have this mammoth run of (roughly) 12 years of a vast, intricate, and emotionally charged TMNT run. 

Sophie Campbell has been co-writing with Kevin Eastman since Tom Waltz left after the series hit issue #100; she's taken it to some great heights - as have all the writers and artists on the title since it started in 2012 - and the thing I've loved so much about this series is the expansion. This is by far the longest, deepest look into a Turtles continuity we've ever received, and I've loved it. Time to let it rest, before it overstays its welcome like so many long-running comic continuity's do. Yeah, I know I was hoping for Jason Aaron's upcoming run to continue in the current world, and I'm still glad it will, but this milestone issue and all its time-travel/QNA deus ex machina convinced me it's time for me to go.

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Playlist:

CCR - Cosmo's Factory

Windhand - Eternal Return

The Veils - ... And Out of the Void Came Love

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Windhand - Eternal Return

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Metallica - 72 Seasons

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XV: The Devil

• Five of Swords

• Five of Pentacles

The Devil again, and this time, I'm inclined to think it's because I completely missed the point of the previous Pull. I now believe I am the source of the misinformation, because I'm not approaching anything rationally. The two Fives bear that out, as Five is often conflict, and here it would be conflict of Intellect (Swords) and Earthly concerns (Pentacles).

Cosmo's Sugarless Long Legs

 

How about a little Creedence Clearwater Revival to start our day? Woke up insanely early - haven't managed more than five hours of sleep a night in a while - and sat on the back porch with coffee, Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless (it's awesome!) and CCR's Cosmo's Factory, which is every bit as awesome an album as the cover photo is awful. But hey, it was 1970!

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Watch:

Osgood Perkin's upcoming film Long Legs is one of two flicks coming this summer that I've now seen the teasers for a few times and I can honestly say know how to do a 'teaser' right (Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus is the other). Check it out:

 

These teasers tell you absolutely NOTHING about the film, but 100% get me charged up to see it. I wasn't a fan of Mr. Perkins' previous two films (I tried with The Blackcoat's Daughter multiple times; it cheats!), but they are well-made films and that's on me. I'm hoping Long Legs blows me right the F away. Certainly seems like it will.

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Read:

As I mentioned above, I'm trucking along on Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless and it is fantastic! 

This one starts out like a typical Slasher sequel and then abruptly takes a left-hand turn. It's not what I thought it was going to be at all. You can order a copy HERE, and it's free on Kindle Unlimited at the moment.

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Playlist:

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial 

Windhand - Eternal Return

Witch Skull - The Serpent Tide

Jim Williams - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched OST

Bryce Miller - City Depths

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Swords

• XV: The Devil

• 0: The Fool

Not exactly the cards I wanted to see with what's on my mind. Ruin, lies/misperception/bad optics/a new journey. 

Ships in the Night - The Fire

I had no pre-existing idea of Ships in the Night when this popped up in my youtube feed, but upon hitting play, I was definitely hooked. It's definitely nothing new - we've been recycling the 80s for longer than that era's aesthetics lasted the first time, but it continues to provide something some of us seem to need. Making peace with the past, perhaps? Either way, I'll be checking out more of Alethea Leventhal's music on the Bandcamp right over HERE.

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NCBD:

The final issue of Duke before we switch over to follow the story in next month's Destro mini-series. I'll never be able to score this cover, but I'd like to.

Just f*cking end already. Goddamn me for my completionist leanings.

Thank god you've returned, SIKTC. Help me wash the taste of Fall of X from my mouth.

Me thinks this issue of The Six Fingers is going to be a bit gnarly. 

It's over. TMNT 150. Wow. I started reading this book in 2012 when they were three issues in and I haven't stopped. What a ride - still the best reboot of a preexisting property I've ever seen. 

Again, this last little bit of the Krakoan era is just killing me. 

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Watch:

I've been in the mood for Folk Horror again lately - seems to be a recurring taste this time of year - so I consulted my Severin Films' All the Haunts Be Ours and pulled out one of the few films in it I had not watched yet, Brunello Rondi's Il Demonio from 1963:

I feel like the B&W photography in this film is second only to that in The Third Man. A revolting, frustrating tale of a woman persecuted and exploited by her community, this one will piss you off even as it leaves you swooning over the imagery on the screen.

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Playlist:

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Zeal & Ardor - Devil Is Fine

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Moon Wizard - Ukiyo (single)

The Veils - ...And Out of the Void Came Love

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Page of Swords

• Eight of Wands

• XVI: The Tower

Page or Princess of Swords is fitting: Just. Breathe. Things are a mess. Impetuousness. Overcome by the rapid communication suggested by the Eight of Wands. This leads to a paradigm shift. 

Danzig - Blood and Tears

 

I'm not going to say where I unexpectedly heard this song married to Horrific imagery recently, but man was it effective! Danzig's first four albums stand apart from everything else he's done; as much as I like some of the records that came after Chuck Biscuits, Eerie Von and John Christ left the band and Rick Rubin stopped co-producing, there's just something so perfect about the heavy blues influence on those first four. Of those, Danzig II: Lucifuge will always be my favorite. I'll never forget the first time I saw a friend's older brother wearing a Lucifuge shirt - I didn't know what it was and it kind of scared me in that 80s/early 90s way of, "What the hell is this guy into?" 

That's probably around the time the album came out in 1990 and I would have been sixteen. Before the internet, and not so far removed from all the weird fears being a small child during the Satanic Panic instilled in me for a short time. There was a certain... haunted feeling to that era. Everything from the tv news to paperback books to Inside Edition (remember that pile of sh*t?) told you there were secret societies of Satan Worshippers in every neighborhood, just waiting to sacrifice any unlucky folks they happened to target to their dark lord. I actually pine for that feeling now, but not in the way so many do by rejecting everything known in favor of their opinions, fears and fantasies, and empirical data doesn't mean anything to our society as a whole anymore. Anyway, I cracked Lucifuge out and listened to it over the weekend and it doesn't disappoint.

 

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Watch:

This trailer for the new film Pandemonium popped up in my youtube feed two days ago. I have no pre-existing knowledge of this one, or anyone involved in making it, but I'm definitely intrigued. Here's the trailer I half-watched:

Also, wanted to point out that, thanks to Warren Ellis's newsletter Orbital Operations, I've found the first watchable version of Andrej Żuławski's On the Silver Globe on youtube I've encountered. 

I've seen mention for a few years about this popping up for years, but whenever I go looking for it - an irregular occurrence for sure, but one I do periodically undertake, I find ones with awful pictures. Not this, which you can see HERE. I haven't sit down to watch this yet, but it's in the cards for the next few days. 

Thanks to Heavenisanincubator for putting this one on my radar to begin with.

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Read:

I am about a third of the way through Ivy Tholen's Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless and I am here to tell you, it's fantastic!

Full disclosure: We recently invited Ms. Tholen to be a guest on The Horror Vision to discuss her novels, and she not only accepted but also sent us digital advance reader copies. That's a moot point, though, because I'd been waiting for this one regardless. If you read the first, this is a great continuation. If you haven't read the first and you love Slasher Flicks, THIS is for you. 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Moon Wizard - Sires

The Veils - ...And Out of the Void Came Love

The Damned - Night of the Living Damned (Thank You, Mr. Brown!)

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Ike Reilly - Poison the Hit Parade

Mike Doughty - Live From Ken's House

Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge

Nikki Lane - All or Nothin'

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Man Man - On Oni Pond

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz

Led Zeppelin - In Through the Out Door

Jimmy Buffet - Good Luck

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Cups

• X: Wheel of Fortune

• III: The Empress

A bird' s-eye view of this (all I have time for at the moment) is quite soothing to a massive stress bomb that has gone off in my life. Ace of Cups is the card that anchors this to a positive interpretation, something I really needed at the moment. Emotional Breakthrough, "Karma" and Fertility, in an abbreviated three-card reading. 

Second Song Second Time Around

 

Yesterday, I began my day with some TV on the Radio. Man, I miss these guys. Technically, I don't think they ever actually broke up; however, their most recent record, Seeds, came out a decade ago now, and their hiatus has lasted just about as long. 

Mr. Brown recently pointed out that the new Chelsea Wolfe album I've been spinning so much was produced by TVOTR's Dave Sitek, so maybe that's why I've been thinking of them lately. 

Interestingly enough, Sitek also produced Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits' covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head. I remember having an advance copy of that back when it came out, but I don't remember a single thing about what the record actually sounds like.

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Watch:

Kimo Stamboel's new film Dancing Village: The Curse Begins recently received a trailer. The only film I know by Stamboel is 2019's The Queen of Black Magic, but it's a f**king DOOZY to say the least. 

I watched about half of this trailer and am totally in. There's something so visceral about Stamboel's work. Some of it's the setting—the way he uses the jungle—I can almost feel the humidity and discomfort, the dirt and insects. But there's also an almost Body Horror element to some of his kills. They really leave an impression. 

The idea that this will be in selected theatres - I'd imagine I have almost no hope of seeing this in Clarksville, but then again, I've been surprised a lot lately by what's come through my town. So we'll see. 

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Playlist:

TVOTR - Nine Types of Light

TVOTR - Dead Science

TVOTR - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Deftones - Gore

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Adam Kesher - Eponymous

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Lick My Decals Off, Baby

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Three of Swords

• Six of Cups

• Queen of Pentacles

Turbulence, Pleasure and Fertility, which sounds like another way of saying from Chaos comes opportunity.

New Music From Barry Adamson!!!

 

Another advance single from Barry Adamson's upcoming Cut to Black album dropped on Monday and it is fantastic! You can pre-order the new album HERE.

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NCBD:

Light week, as I'm trimming a few titles from the Pull:

Ash Williams, you rogue! Only three issues left after this one (I think). Loving it!

At this point, this is easily my most anticipated book each month. The depth of character research and building that's going on here is awesome, and I'm actually excited to see more of the Cobra-La folks. 

Nice revisiting J.C. again. I dug the previous issue quite a bit; such old-school Vertigo flavor. 

Just riding this out. My malaise with the current X-Books doesn't have anything to do with this title, but they're all suffering from this rapid decline. Only one issue left of this series after this.

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Watch:

I only watched the first 20 seconds of this trailer for Byte, a film I had not previously heard of, but those 20 seconds sold me!

Low-budget werewolf movies don't always work, but I'm hoping this one will. 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Various - Brown Acid: The Seventh Trip (1967-1976)

Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

The Jesus Lizard - Mouth Breather 45 single (Sunday You Need Love cover B-Side)

The Jesus Lizard - Puss 45 single (No B-Side)

The Jesus Lizard - Wheelchair Epidemic 45 single (Dancing Naked Ladies B-Side)

Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike

Melvins/Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XI: Justice 

• Knight of Swords

• XV: The Devil

Justice or Lust in the Crowley/Harris deck again! Funny, because this card was in the #3 position two posts ago, and yesterday had VII The Chariot in the #2 position. Funny because I relate these cards, and they seem to be showing a process that is reversing itself. I'm just not quite sure what that process is. Also, maybe that feels like a bit of a reach, but my edict is to prevent myself from overthinking these when I do them, and that was definitely the first thing I 'saw' in the cards.

So what else do we have there then? Knight of Swords, or the Firey aspect of Air. This suggests force of Will tempered by Intellect so as to avoid conflict. The Devil has so many attributions, many of them quite fanciful. One I always keep in mind right off the bat is materialism over spiritualism. 

So Primordial forces (which we will pragmatically interpret here as uncontrollable mental or physical attributes - anger, fear, perhaps even logic - that need to be tempered by tempered by Will and a sharp eye on motivations. 

I'm not entirely sure this works for me - that's a lie, it does - but I want to keep it close and think about it. Might be telling me some things I don't want to hear at the moment concerning work.

Blackout in the Sleeping Village

I know it's summer now, as one of the rituals that eased in last year during my first full summer in Tennessee was Black Sabbath's Eponymous debut becoming my 'first thing in the morning' listen. This is no doubt because, for as long as I've loved this record, it will always remind me of two very particular summers—one when I was a Junior in High School and one when I was a year or two out of High School.  I listen to this year-round, but since moving back to the middle of the country and the climate I grew up with Sabbath's debut has come back to an association of hanging outdoors in the green environment of the midwest's humid, sub-tropical environment. 

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Watch:

Holy cow! I completely missed that Larry Fessenden's Blackout hit VOD this past Friday! I remedied that right quick, let me tell you!

I really dug this one, but at this point, that's no surprise. I wouldn't say this is anywhere near my favorite film by Mr. Fessenden, but its ability to mix an almost regional approach with a fairly stacked cast reminded me of Harmony Korine's Gummo - although the subject matter and tone are nothing like that film. This environmentally conscious, small-town set film does some pretty interesting things with the concept of lycanthropy, in a tone that will feel familiar to those viewers who have been with Mr. Fessenden for a long time. Reminded me quite a bit of his 1991 film No Telling, a favorite of mine from the Director's oeuvre. 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black (pre-release singles)

Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun

Adam Egpy Mortimer - The Obelisk

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• II High Priestess

• VII The Chariot

• Page of Cups

Of particular interest to me this morning is the High Priestess in the starting position. This is the middle pillar of the sephirothic Tree of Life, and thus concerns concerns the descent of the Supernal into the lower, knowable realms and the ascent of the aspirant to higher plateaus. Taken with The Chariot - the origin of ideas - and the Page (Princess of Cups), which can indicate "Dreams become Reality," I would say this is a nice nod toward a path that might provide the possibility for my work to emerge into a higher (more successful) realm.

New Music from High on Fire!!!

Now that's what I'm talking about! The title track from Cometh the Storm, High on Fire's ninth studio album, out next Friday, April 19th on MNRK Heavy. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I've been busy as hell with regular work stuff and with watching movies and reading comics. Sounds like a great first-world problem, eh? Let's talk about what I've watched.

First, the Soska Sisters' new film Festival of the Dead is a Tubi exclusive and is now up on the streamer, ready to watch. A sequel to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, this was a blast. 

The first ten minutes or so feel a bit like an NBC family morality flick, but Festival of the Dead very quickly asserts itself in the Romero tradition and does not look back. Loved some characters, loved watching others die in horrible ways, this one is fun and gory and just a good time in general. Don't let those first ten minutes fool you. 

Next, K and I caught Kiah Roache-Turner's Sting last night at the local cinema. Wow! This one is fantastic, too!

I've mentioned before that I have a bit of a spider phobia, and this one definitely plays on that. The FX are great, and the overall pace and tone here make for a great theatrical viewing. One thing I definitely noticed is there appears to be a huge chunk missing from this film (concerning the Bug Brothers, for those who've seen it), and I can only imagine the studio made the filmmaker trim a section to hit a specific run-time, and that's what came out. The film doesn't suffer for it, but it's pretty obvious. If anything, will make for a great extra feature on the eventual Blu-Ray.

There's a great interview with Sting's Creative Director about the practical FX in the film up on Bloody Disgusting HERE.

Finally, Shudder recently dropped the directorial debut by Alberto Corredor, a film titled Baghead.

Ostensibly a Talk to Me clone, this is still a pretty great first film. It's shot well, the lighting is great, and the location is an old Irish Pub that really steals the show, so it was pretty easy to enjoy this one despite any shortcomings. 

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Read:

As I type this, I'm finishing up my re-read of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's "Dark Phoenix Saga." I'm reading this in Classic X-Men, the way I bought it at a comic show at a Knight's of Colombus Hall somewhere in southern Illinois way back in... I don't really know when. Late 80s? Early 90s?

One thing I've noticed with these Classic X-Men issues is I actually prefer the cover art for a lot of these reprints to the original issues. Here are two great examples:

Above is John Byrne's original cover for Uncanny X-Men 134, while below is his cover for the reprint.

The original is good, but this second version is haunting in my opinion. There's something so chillingly cold and cosmic about Master Mind's eyes, hollowed out by an injection of Chaos by Phoenix. The fact that his slack-jawed, empty visage is so far up in the foreground and that Phoenix is more or less just an outline filled with the same cosmic imagery really ties this together, as does the cool greenish-blue color palette, which helps add a clinically void feeling to this entire tableau. This could be a poster, as far as I am concerned.

Next, the climactic chapter of the saga, Uncanny X-Men 137:

This has been a classic, iconic comics image since I began collecting in 1986, and while it is great - the massive yellow ad copy taking up the upper fifth of the page doesn't really help matters - it pails in comparison to the one on the reprint, Classic X-Men 43:

This one is a lot less dramatic of a moment than the first, so I can't quite figure out why I like it better. Again, the color palette is definitely more to my overall liking, but also, despite the fact that the original image is much more of an 'action' image, this one feels like a moment stolen from the finale of the issue. I think this is a case of the technology being better and the image simply being overall more crisp. 

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Playlist:

Turnstile - Glow On

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers

Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun

Yawning Balch - Volume One

Trombone Shorty - Too True

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Man Man - On Oni Pond

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Cups

• Eight of Swords

• Seven of Cups

Lots of emotion in this Pull. The pinion here, I think, is the Eight of Swords, as reading center-left-right, that is the middle card. This makes sense in that I've been prone to mood swings based on a certain person in my life; Ten of Cups is emotional maturity, Seven is Victory over emotion, but Eight of Swords can be read as Interference, that there's always some of that keeping me from being victorious over my emotions nad balancing them maturely in the face of trying situations.