RIP John Bonham - 46 Years Gone Today

Hard to believe. Granted, I was four when he died, so it's not like this has resonated with me since the day of his death. But Zeppelin is a huge piece of my musical psychology, and I have remembered this date since first reading it in a book Freshman year in high school (circa 1991). 

From the criminally underrated Coda, released well after Bonham's death. 

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Watch:

I just got wind that Alex Winter and Tom Stern's Freaked is included with Prime until about the end of the month, so if you've not seen it, now's the time. 

Hell, over six-and-a-half years since I was introduced to Freaked with a debut screening for the restoration at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre, with Paul Leary doing live guitar scoring no less and most of the cast present for a post-film Q&A. I wrote about that HERE; just rewatched this for the first time since and I still just have to marvel at the sheer audacity of the 90s - NO ONE would give a film like this the kind of money for practical FX on display in Freaked in 2026. This is one special film, and it 100% holds up as one of the greatest practical FX flicks of all time.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

Joseph Loduca - Evil Dead II OST

Dreamkid - Daggers

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST

Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST

Fear - Live... For the Record

Count Gorgann - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

Godflesh - Purge

Steve Moore - VFW OST

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter

Final Light - Eponymous

Ramones - Road to Ruin

Ramones - End of the Century

Chat Pile - Who Loves the Sun

Godflesh - Post Self

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Flying Lotus - 1983

Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness

M83 - I Wrote you A Letter

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Card:

One from the Thoth deck:

Renewal. I'm definitely feeling like I need it. I'm feeling burn out on music, movies, writing. Everything. I have a feeling a lot of it is from rounding the final corners on my reread of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. I'm dragging my feet because this final book is breaking my heart and yet, I don't want it to end. Maybe if I can knock that out this weekend (like 60 pages left), I'll get my renewal.

Also, I can't pass up the correlation between mentioning The Egyptian Theatre above and then pulling this card a few moments later. 

Butthole Surfers Week Day 6

Despite recent claims otherwise, "Mexican Caravan" from 1985's Psychic.... Powerless.... Another Man's Sac is probably my favorite Butthole Surfers track, simply because of the guitar. It's always kind of made me imagine Jimmy Hendrix playing while on ten hits of blotter acid. But then, that's kind of what the Surfers do.

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Watch:

One day last week while I was still sequestered at the hotel in West L.A., I watched Josh Forbes's new movie Destroy All Neighbors and had an absolute BLAST with it! Here's the trailer, which I can now endorse does not give anything away other than a taste of the Hallucinatory 90s Practical FX goodness you can expect from this one!

Produced by Alex Winter, with FX by Gabriel Bartalos (Skinned Deep!), Destroy All Neighbors reminds me more than a little of 1993's Freaked, which Winter co-directed with Tom Stern. This fits in nicely with Butthole Surfer week, as Stern Produced/Directed last year's The Butthole Surfer Movie, and the Surfers were involved with Freaked, starting with lending their frontman to the film's cast to play Cheese Wart. There's a certain tone Freaked employs - a kind of madcap 90s Practical FX and sets grandeur - that is at work in Destroy All Neighbors as well. The opening credits reminded me so much of the 90s, with its swirling, wormhole-like background, that I knew I was in for goodness. 

Neighbors obviously did not have the same budget; no studio is going to give anyone 11 Million to make a movie like this in 2024, but the movie does so much awesome stuff with what they have, that you won't notice unless you're checking while you watch. And you won't be doing that, because you'll be laughing out loud. This is a story we've definitely seen variations of before, but not like this, and not with a Prog Rock obsessive as the lead character (Jonah Ray is awesome!)  

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Re-Release:

Just a quick heads up to any Blut Aus Nord fans out there, Debemur Morti just re-pressed Memoria Vetusta II: A Dialogue with the Stars on vinyl, and it's available both on the label's site HERE (where I ordered it this morning), and from the band's Bandcamp HERE. 

I've been laying off ordering vinyl, but this was a no-brainer. By far my favorite album from a group that has quite a few albums I adore, I have been waiting to grab this one on vinyl for probably over ten years now. 

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Playlist:

Ready for the World - Oh Sheila (single)

Sheila E. - Glamorous Life (single)

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face

Double Life - Indifferent Stars

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