Being that I'm more of a Frank Black/Black Francis fan than a Pixies fan - though that wasn't always the case and really, I love both so it's kind of splitting hairs - their ongoing reunion has been bittersweet to me. Bitter, because I would love to hear another Black Francis/Grand Duchy/Frank Black (with or without The Catholics), but instead most of the previous decade has been a continuous run of new Pixies material. Which is also great, although I've received each album in different degrees of infatuation. The first one back, Indie Cindy, is a perfect return. I love it absolutely. Head Carrier and Beneath the Eyrie have required a bit more of a loving curve, but thanks to Mr. Brown, I dig both - although I haven't had enough of a Pixies binge in a while to really get to know either album like I do the others. Now we have a new 12" and the first 'single' I absolutely LOVE. So bring it on guys (and gal), I'm ready for whatever you have coming.
But I'd still love to get a new album from Mr. Black sometime soon.
Read:
I finally made it around to reading The Autumnal #1 from Vault Comics. Written by Daniel Kraus, with art by Chris Shehan, this is another one of those books, like The Plot and Black Stars Above, that has helped define Vault as the destination for Indie Horror Comics.
Now, those are non-consecutive pages. I just wanted to give you a feel for the art and the characters, both of which I absolutely love so far. Kat Somerville and her daughter Sybil remind me a lot of people that would know the family from The Devil's Candy, another family set I adore. Maybe it's because I've chosen not to reproduce that I love seeing stoner families who love one another and set a good example.
Playlist:
Deftones - Ohms
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Mastodon - Medium Rarities
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Mannequin Pussy - Patience
Bob Mould - Blue Hearts
Alice in Chains - Sap
Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies
Concrete Blonde - Eponymous
OGRE Sound - A Field Recordist's Guide to Summoning Lesser Demons
Portishead - Third
The Devils Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Pixies - Hear Me Out (single)
Card:
Spontaneity and Enthusiasm. Two attributes to contemplate this week as I shift into the second Act of the second Shadow Play book.
It's official! October 30th, Mr. Bungle's The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny is out via Patton's Ipecac Recordings. Thanks to Mr. Brown for the heads up, because I've been slammed all week and would have completely missed the chance to snag a copy of that Ruby Red 2 LP vinyl! Pre-order HERE.
While I've been a Bungle fan since Brown turned me on to their self-titled debut back in High School, and I spent a good deal of my time on Napster in the late 90s downloading bootlegs of their older, demo stuff, I never really got into the original, thrash version of the band. That said, seeing these songs a few months ago, played by musicians who are older and wiser, I became convinced if they recorded it, Easter Bunny had the potential to be one of the greatest thrash records to come out in decades. If Raping Your Mind is any intimation of what is on the rest of the record, I'm pretty sure I was correct.
Sure, I'd love another weirdo Bungle album eventually, but in the meantime, I'm welcoming this one with open arms.
**
NCBD this week was another no-go for my pull, which is fine, because I haven't picked up my books in two weeks now. One of the companies I always look forward to checking is Vault, and this week, I notice a collection for a series I'd not noticed previously. This looks pretty damn interesting, and I've ear-marked it for a little research.
This collection just came out, however, I'm going to look for the individual issues first, as I love the art and design of the originals' covers. Here's an example:
There's such a throw-back feel to this, but not like a comic, more like the old paperback books I used to read as a kid. LOVE this.
**
Playlist:
Concrete Blonde - Eponymous
Concrete Blonde - Free
X - Wild Gift
X - Los Angeles
Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
Contours - Essential
Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST
X - Under the Big Black Sun
The Birthday Party - Hee Haw
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Hank III - Straight to Hell
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Francesco Zampaglione and Andrea Moscianese - Tulpa OST
Brainiac - Smack Bunny Baby
Vitalic - OK Cowboy
Aerosmith - Pump
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
Moderat - II
Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
The Bangles - All Over the Place
**
Card:
Let's do another multi-deck spread:
For this one, I used one card from the Raven Deck, and two from my mini Thoth - both decks gifts to me from my good friend Missi, who now has my new book Murder Virus - that's the name I'm sticking with - as my first beta reader. Missi Birthday was yesterday, so there's a lot of her energy in this spread. The Tower is a toppling of old conventions, though here I don't take it as pointing to the 'Old Guard' publishing industry, but my perceptions of it. Work is the hard work and determination I need to maintain (another query sent a few days ago), and Lust is a warning about the lust of result. Those of you who know anything about Magick know lust of result is one of the major blockades to achieving one's Will.
It's been quite some time since I pulled out Miranda Sex Garden's 2000 swan song Carnival of Souls. Last night, prompted by nothing in particular, I noticed its spine on my CD shelf and was moved to give it a spin.
Wow! I've missed this one. My go-to albums with MSG will always be Fiarytales of Slavery and Suspiria. That said, this one has a much more polished feel, but it really works, playing out as a perfect cap on their short-lived career.
And bonus track, because while looking for a video of this one to post, I found this:
This is the first live footage I've found of the band, and it definitely doesn't disappoint. I really wish I could have seen them live.
**
What a NCBD we have this week! Holy cow am I excited! Why?
A 36-page One Shot, the proceeds go 100% to the comic stores selling it! That is awesome. Robert Kirkman can do no wrong in my eyes - he's helping out comic shops and giving us a new dose of one of my all-time favorite characters. Win win.
If that weren't enough:
The second issue of the new series following characters from Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson's The Boys - with Russ Braun taking over penciling - Dear Becky looks as though it will reveal some interesting things about Butcher's character, while also giving us a glimpse into Wee Hughie's life twelve years after the events of the original series.
I picked up the first issue of this a while back and really liked it, so I'm glad to see the series continue. A weird little take on a horror story, plus, I really like supporting Action Lab. They are forever in my good graces after 2015's Night of the 80s Undead.
Over the weekend I just completed a re-read of The Plot 1-4, I can definitely say I LOVE this book. Ancestral Horror is a thing that needs to make a comeback. After the brief hiatus for the book, I'm psyched to get more answers and, I suppose, inevitably more questions.
**
Playlist:
Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Pale Dian - Narrow Birth
Atrium Carceri - Cellblock
Kohler Playlist: Week of 6/29/20
Kohler Playlist: Week of 4/27/20
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST
Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls
**
Card:
"Inspired from Above." Not entirely sure how that applies, but when I think about this card now, I reflect on the fact that this is the highest mark in the cycle of cups, where emotional maturity helps understand the path through Malkuth, the world. There's a harmonic resonance that feels reassuring, even as much of what's outside my window feels like its falling apart, and many of this world's denizens appear to be anything but emotionally mature.
I knew this was coming, but I never dreamed it would look this good! More excited for this than pretty much anything else at the moment, and it serves as a nice bookend to the fact that I'm finally reading the series - only have Vol. Six and the one-off Vol. Seven left to go and I'll be completely ready for what looks like, at this point, the series of the year.
**
It's time once again for...
Over the last three days I've watched two more episodes, thus rounding out the Season One tier on Mr. Brown's Playlist. First, Season One, Episode thirteen, "Beyond the Sea," which not only featured Brad Dourif as convicted serial killer-turned-helpful-psychic Luther Lee Boggs (aided by another killer named Lucas Henry - see what they did there?), but also had Twin Peaks alum Don "Major Briggs" Davis as Scully's father. Super cool episode; fairly tight script, good character development, and an almost over the top performance from Dourif that was just plain fantastic to watch. Probably my favorite episode so far.
Next up was Season One, Episode Nineteen, "Shapes." Basically a Shapeshifter/Werewolf story set on an Native American Reservation, this episode also featured a Peaks alum, Michael Horse, aka Deputy Hawk. This one was a slosh clunkier than the last insofar as script, but overall, a solid, simple approach to the kind of archetypal folklore that makes this show fun.
Next up - and this I'm very excited for because although the episode resounds in my memory for all its infamy, Season Two, Episode Twenty's "Humbug" is not something I'm one hundred percent certain I've actually seen before.
Can't wait. So far, this little collaborative experiment between Mr. Brown and I has been quite fun, and really, we're just getting started.
**
NCBD yesterday:
This book gets more and more insane every month. I'm a little concerned at this point, it might not be able to stick the landing to whatever godforsaken place it's going, but it's still one hell of a ride getting there.
I am so very glad I started reading this book. Seriously, it's the type of dark, Ancestral Horror that used to populate paperbacks in the late 70s/early 80s, and although I was mostly too young to read that stuff at the time, I definitely picked up on its tone while stalking the shelves of the local libraries I used to frequent as a child. The Plot feels like a book that may end up leaving me with a gasp or two, which would be pretty cool, because with TWD gone, I need something to do that for me.
Whenever a major franchise book flips a landmark number, you have to kind of reassess. After the cataclysmic events of TMNT issue fifty, I felt the book took a few issues to really grab me again. Because of that, I've been a little concerned that for all its grandiosity, issue one hundred might do the same.
Nope.
I LOVE the new direction of this book. I won't go into spoilers, but we're finally done paying homage to all the stories of the past iterations of the characters, and are into completely new ground. And it. Is. Glorious, dark, and a little bit sad. And that's exactly where the characters should be. One thing about TMNT - probably the thing that always set it apart for me - for such a zany concept and highly marketable image, Eastman and, in the old days, Laird both excel at taking the characters and the readers out of their comfort zone. So yeah, I can't wait to read the next issue, and TMNT has pretty much replaced TWD as my new "gottareaditrightfuckingnow" title. Which makes me extremely happy.
**
Playlist:
NIN - Year Zero
Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Federale - No Justice
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
We now have a release date for the long-awaited next Grimes album. Miss Anthropocene will be out February 21st, and you can pre-order it HERE.
Being that I'm relatively new to her music - having really only been converted about four or five years ago - this will be the first new record Grimes has released that I've waited for. And I feel as though it has been a long wait.
**
Joe Begos' new film Bliss came out on Blu Ray/DVD this past Tuesday and I highly recommend you go out and pick this one up. I saw this at Beyondfest back in September and loved it, and upon re-watching it last night on Blu Ray, I found I enjoyed it, even more, a second time. Easily in my top top if not top five of the year:
And here's the awesome Spotify Soundtrack Mr. Begos put up to coincide with the release of the film.
**
Lo and behold, NCBD this week turned out to be a pretty big deal for me. It's been a while, but I left the shop with a couple new titles that I'm excited about supporting. I'm not thinking of backpaddling on easing off monthlies, but there were a few that were small press, so I'm paying it forward, in a manner of speaking.
And I'd completely forgotten there was a new Terry Moore series on the stands!
I don't really know anything about Five Years, but I'm fairly certain there are a couple of familiar faces on the cover to Issue #1.
**
This week's playlist:
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Timber Timbre - Eponymous
Snatch OST (playlist)
James Browns's Funky People Vol. 1
The Edgar Winter Group - Shock Treatment
Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison (single)
Revocation - The Outer Ones
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Final - Solaris
Arthur Ahbez - Gold
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death
Flipper - Album
Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits
The Knife - Silent Shout
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Tyler Childers - Purgatory
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone
The Nukes - Why Things Burn
Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Tamaryn - The Waves
The Sword - Age of Winters
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Kode9 - Nothing
**
Card of the day:
Hoping this is good news pertaining to the submission I sent out yesterday afternoon.
