Jon Spencer live

 

Jon Spencer and his new band hit KEXP for a live set that absolutely fucking RIPS! Special guest Ty Wagner. Really great stuff.

 

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Watch:

I picked up two Blu-rays this weekend that had been on my list forever, and when I noticed one had Sold Out on the manufacturer's website, I sprung into action. Both are, as you will see, the progeny of arguably the largest of the boutique companies specializing in the odd and exploitative film restoration, namely Vinegar Syndrome. I've learned that, with VS's business model, once the print run is tapped out, the secondary market can be brutal. 

First, Carter Smith's Swallowed:

I'm not posting a trailer for this one because I'm not sure how one can exist without giving away details best left served cold to an unknowing viewer. Watched this one last night, my second viewing since this came out and made my "Best of 2023" list over on The Horror Vision. 

I really like this film. In fact, after watching writer/director Carter Smith's Passenger recently, I'm finding that I really like his films in general. I closed the viewing last night by watching the interview supplement on the disc, and I found him likable and quite educational in terms of explaining his films in the context of how he went about getting them made. 

Next, Tammy and the T-Rex, also from Vinegar Syndrome. No problems posting a trailer for this mad-cap little monstrosity because it is what it is from the jump: a teenager's brain transplanted into a T-Rex out for revenge on the mad scientist and his goons who killed his human body:

I originally saw this one at Beyondfest back in 2019, and I'd been meaning to pick it up on disc since Vinegar Syndrome released it the following year. Total oversight, now corrected, because I just cannot let this one sell out and be lost to time. 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk version)

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

X - Los Angeles

X - Under the Big Black Sun

Butthole Surfers - Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac

Gerry Rafferty - City to City

QOTSA - ... Like Clockwork

Them Crooked Vultures - Eponymous

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

The Jesus Lizard - Rack

Shellac - To All Trains

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 1

Placebo - Meds

A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms

Ministry - Animositisomina

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

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David Bowie - Black Star

Released 9 years ago today. It was a Friday, and no one realized that in three days David Bowie would be called back to his ancestors in the cold, black void of space. I'm wondering if this video is modeled after his home planet?

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NCBD:

Oh man, I am psyched for this week's books! Let's get into it!!

Back in November, the first issue of David Ian and Rebekah McKendry's Barstow took me by surprise and blew me away! The desert can certainly be a creepy place, and Barstow leans into that all the way. Can't wait to see where this goes!

Bruticus vs. Devastator? 'Nuff said! This has me twitching with anticipation that HasbroPulse might be gearing up to release a Combaticons set similar to the Constructicons one they did last year. I could let Devastator lads pass me by, but Swindle, Vortex and their crew are probably the only merger set I would love to own. The original versions just never did the character designs on the cartoon and comic book justice. To have a Swindle or Onslaught that actually look like the characters... that would be amazing.

I read the first issue of Dan Watters' Batman: Dark Patterns last month and really liked it. Watters has become go-to writer for me; I won't read everything he does for the big two, but I think I'm 100% up on everything he's released that's creator-owned. I'm digging these one-off Bat-series, though, so I'm back on Patterns this month for another round. 

This book is just f*ckin' nuts! I don't know where we're going or how we ended up where we are (what a fantastic final page last ish!), but I'm hooked once again. Boss and Rosenberg have a punk rock dystopian epic on their hands. 

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Watch:

Rejoice! Vinegar Syndrome announced the Blue Ray for Ryan Kruger's Street Trash!

 

I pre-ordered mine as soon as I saw the announcement; this SEQUEL to the 1987 original came in at number six on my Top Ten Favorite Horror Films of 2024, which can be heard over on the latest episode of The Horror Vision. 

Here's the VS order link.

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Playlist:

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Nothing - The Great Dismal

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

Chrystabell & David Lynch - Cellophane Memories

David Bowie - Heathen

David Bowie - Black Star

The Jesus Lizard - Rack

Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits

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Card:

Today's card is the Knight of Wands:

The Firey aspect of Fire, or the Willful aspect of the Will, which feels convoluted or redundant. What does A.C. say about this one in his Book of Thoth?

"The moral qualities appropriate to this figure are activity, generosity, fierceness, impetuosity, pride, impulsiveness, swiftness in unpredictable actions."

This card implies a quickening and might warn about going off half-cocked. Things have to get done, but be careful how to do them. Impetuous actions don't often work out well, and impulsiveness can be a good thing, but it can also lead to a bad end. 

Japandroids - Chicago

 

I'm way late in posting this first single off Japandroids forthcoming and final album Fate & Alcohol, out October 18th on Anti. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

I've been meaning to post about this one for a while. Eight Eyes is the feature film directorial debut from Austin Jennings, Producer/Director of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince. 

This looks Grimy A.F.! Seriously, I'm kind of wondering if it will end up crossing some of my lines, but we'll see. This is the first original co-production from Vinegar Syndrome Pictures, the newly-launched production arm of one of the boutique home video label, along with Shudder and Not the Funeral Home. 

You can order the Blu-Ray from Vinegar Syndrome HERE, and you can read more about the film on the official website HERE. 

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Read:

Somehow, I missed the fact that the new Brubaker/Phillips HC Graphic Novel hit the stands on Wednesday. I was actually only a few hours back from Rick's Comic City with my weekly pull when my good friend Chris Saunders messaged to see if I'd snagged it. One quick message to Rick's in the morning and I had Houses of the Unholy waiting for me in my box. 

Another fantastic novel from this team who seem pretty much unstoppable at this point. I wanted more from the ending, but then, I'm also always okay with ambiguity, so aside from that minor issue that can easily be forgiven, this one rocked. Essentially a tale about the aftermath of America's great Satanic Panic in the 80s, this goes to some interesting places, and in typical Brubaker fashion, the plot takes turns you'd never see coming. 

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Playlist:

Primus - Antipop

Primus - Green Naugahyde

The Cops - Free Electricity

Thievery Corporation - The Outernational Sound

Z-Rock Hawaii - Eponymous

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Behind the Music

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

PJ Harvey - Stories from the City Stories from the Sea

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl

Nico Vega - Lead to Light

Danzig - Black Aria

Danzig - Black Aria II

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

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Card:

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

• Four of Cups

• V: The Hierophant

• XIV: Temperance

The luxury of establishing a routine that works specifically in my own private microcosm has to spread out and establish itself after a new idea is added. Whatever this is, I'm assuming it's writing, Process, and that my own will slip a bit before recovering. Once back online, however, I should be stronger. 

 

Is this new single the harbinger of a new Besnard Lakes record? I certainly hope so. LOVE this; it's the Lakes at their Dreamiest, and they can get pretty damn dreamy. Then it kicks in and you feel like you're soaring through the clouds. Guess they picked the perfect title.

You can buy the single over on the group's Bandcamp, HERE.

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NCBD:

First morning back after our mini vacation in Mississippi and I had a fantastic Comic Pull to look forward to. Let's get into what I brought home from Rick's Comic City yesterday! NOTE: I wrote all this before I picked up my comics yesterday, I just didn't have a chance to post this one until today.

I CANNOT wait to read Cobra Commander #5! Everything has been leading to this, and with the Destro and Scarlet mini-series starting in June, this should set us up for some interesting developments in Robert Kirkman's Energon Universe!

Still really digging this return to Vertigo with John Constantine: Dead in America. The book has been a road trip across the States for JC, and I'm not sure if that was done since Brian Azzarello's run back in the early 00s. There are so many ghosts for a wayward Con-Man/Magician to tap into in the depths of this country, and so far, we've seen some doozies in classic Vertigo commentary-but-not-commentary style.

The final issue of Fall of the House of X. That just leaves Rise #5 next week and X-Men 35 the week after. Then I. Am. Out. Whewwww. I will say that I've decided to sell off a lot of last year's six months' worth of X-Tiles, but I'm not going to part with Fall. I haven't loved this series, but it's worth keeping for no other reason than the cover of Issue 2. Plus, I'd say Gerry Duggan has done a great job dealing with the steaming plate of >>>> Gillen and the Editorial Department handed him. 

What can I say other than I miss this book so much when it's away, that I'm always super happy to see it when it comes back.

The cover says it all: Springer!

Ash continues his trek through the future to find his way back to the past. Not gonna lie - turning one of the three Necronomicons into a demon baby reeks of Grogu, and while I consider myself a fan of both the Mandolorian and Grogu, I've begun to roll my eyes at the proliferation of the 'child' character in genre as a result of Grogu's popularity. 

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Watch:

Upon returning home last night, I found a couple packages waiting for me. One was a recent Vinegar Syndrome order wherein I purchased BluRay copies of Ted Geoghegan's Brooklyn 45 and Lorcan Finnegan's 2016 feature film debut Without Name. I can't wait to tear into both of these, but it'd been a couple years since my first and only other viewing of Without Name, and I'd spent a large part of my reading time during the trip to MS reading about Folk Horror, so that proved to be my priority. 

The film is brilliant; a quiet contemplation of the haunted nature of the Irish Countryside, but what I really want to talk about here is the transfer, because this one is fantastic! I wish I could find a still or two from this one - a lot of times, BluRay.com will have side-by-side screenshot comparisons from different releases, but Vinegar Syndrome's release is still young, so that's not yet the case. Please believe me when I tell you that VS did an absolutely stellar job with this film. 

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Playlist:

Tangerine Dream - Strange Behavior OST

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation

Rodney Crowell - Tarpaper Sky

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Cocksure - K.K.E.P.

Robot God - Portal Within

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

The Cure - Disintegration

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk)

Pastor T.L. Barret and the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

The Bangles - Different Light

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The Lucid Night

 

My good friend and fellow cohost on The Horror Vision Horror Podcast sent me this track a couple days ago, and I just got around to listening to it. Outstanding! I'm working my way through the entire The Mystic Journey EP from 2020, which can be purchased directly from the band HERE.

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NCBD:

Here's the list for this week's NCBD picks:

The finale for Pat O'Malley's Popscars! I've been waiting for this one for some time, and issue five really just threw gas on that fire. Such a great book, and if you didn't read it monthly, I happen to know the TPB is being released from Sumerian next month!

After dropping off Ed Piskor's Red Room after the first four-issue series, I'm super happy I came back for this final four-issue run. Crypto Killaz has been a crazy ride; this book takes me back to the glory days of 80s indie comics, and despite its ultra-disturbing subject matter, Piskor's Harry Crumb-esque art style really makes for something new. I just booked a trip to LaLaLand in a few weeks, so while I'm there, I'll be stopping by The Comic Bug to pick up that second-season trade and complete the Red Room saga.

Due to my own misjudgment of interest in this series, I did not end up getting a copy of last week's penultimate Weapons of Vengeance chapter in Wolverine #36. Rick's Comic City ordered one for me, though, so hopefully, I'll be able to grab that as well as this final chapter there today.

I'm a bit confused why this Emma Stone/Tony Stark wedding is happening in the midst of the Mutants' darkest hour, but I'm sure Gerry Duggan and crew will make it work.

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Watch:

A few nights ago, I watched Riley Stearns's 2014 film Faults. Here's the trailer:

 

Leland Orser spent a lot of time owning the small, supporting roles he is known for - several of which I would argue are iconic - so it's great to see him in the lead, where he turns in one hell of a performance as Ansel Roth, Cult and Mindcontrol expert. Hired to deprogram an older couple's runaway daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who also turns in an outstanding performance), things are not quite what they seem, and Ansel ends up in a series of pretty rough situations. As hysterical as it is disturbing, Faults is a fantastic film. Currently streaming on Freevee, you can also pick up the Blu-Ray for a pretty good price over at Vinegar Syndrome.

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Playlist:

Rodney Crowell - Ain't Living Long Like This

Rodney Crowell - The Houston Kid

Extreme - Six

The Lucid Night - The Mystic Journey

16 Horsepower - Secret South

Low Cut Connie - Tough Cookies: The Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Blut Aus Nord - Triunity

Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate

Captain Jack - Pure Electric

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Oracle:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE, and his Kickstarter for The Hand of Doom tarot is now live! Click HERE and be blown away!!!

• Ace of Wands

• King of Wands

• Page of Wands

It's all about Will today, eh? Okay, good to know. Now, let's go a little bit deeper...

I generally read all Aces as Breakthroughs, and the King of Wands as a firm hand. Page or (Princess in Thoth) is a pragmatic application, so this would appear to be outlining a course of action: Applying Will in the proper place and without judgment, but with the understanding of when to back off may lead to a break-through. 

RIP Dean Stockwell

I'm a couple days late with this but talk about shitty news. Here's to your fuck, Ben.

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Watch:

I'd never seen William Malone's 1985 Creature, but I grew up seeing the VHS box cover art on the wall at the local video story and been curious as a kid. 

Somewhere in the intervening years I completely forgot about this one, until Vinegar Syndrome announced a new, restored version they're releasing at the end of this month. Pre-orders are closed - I didn't act fast enough while I tried to figure out if it was worth spending the money on when I'm still really limiting my frivolous expenses in preparation for moving across the country - but I believe will go live again for VS's Black Friday sale. 

 

So is Creature worth it? Well, as I stated in my quickie Letterbxd review, this film isn't great and it's not even really good, however, I feel like there are echoes within echoes that lead me back to this one. Probably the best of those 80s Sci-Fi Monster-in-Space Horror flicks that ballooned overnight as a response to the success of Ridley Scott's Alien, Creature reeks of the B-Movie, down-n-dirty pulp atmosphere that a low budget required filmmakers excel at in order to make up for the otherwise lack of expensive sets/props/production value. And from this era, that's not a bad thing in my book. Well, not in this case, anyway. Creature is a pinnacle of the zeitgeist landslide of cheap and fast Sci-Fi that created a zeitgeist in the 80s, one that washed up on the shores of comics, role-playing, and all kinds of other geek-centric mediums. Watching it for the first time at 45, Creature felt like a well-spent hour and forty-odd minutes that triggered all kinds of peripheral genre memories, or as I've come to think of them, PGMs. So yeah, I'll probably plunk down the $$$ for this one. Would make a fantastic double feature with Richard Stanley's Hardware. 

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Playlist:

Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Soviet Soviet - Fate

Motörhead - Ace of Spades

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

The Who - Live at Leeds

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

The Fixx - Reach the Beach

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Card:

Keeping a keen eye out for portents and omens today.

New Sleaford Mods!

 

From the forthcoming album Spare Ribs, out January 15th on Rough Trade. Pre-order HERE. Thanks to Mr. Brown for reminding me about this, as the Mods are always one of those bands that slide right off my radar when I'm not actively listening to them. 

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'Cast

My perpetual co-host Chris Saunders and I recently started an all Horror comics and literature spin-off show under The Horror Vision umbrella. The first episode of A Most Horrible Library went up early Monday morning, with more to follow on a somewhat regular basis.

 

This show is kind of our way of going back to substituting a new show for where Drinking with Comics left off; I'm still hoping to resurrect that after things go "back to normal," as it is primarily a live show, however, I'm not really one who believes things will go back to normal anytime soon, so in the interim, we have this as an outlet to talk about all the great Horror-centric reading out there. A Most Horrible Library will release under the same stream as the regular Horror Vision show, so no need for a new subscription.

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Watch:

After working our way a little over halfway through the fourth, apparently final "part" of Netflix's The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina over the last two nights, K and I rounded out our Monday night with the first of two episodes HBO dropped yesterday of Alex de la Inglesia's 30 Coins.

Holy smokes - this episode had the best monster I've seen since The Ritual a few years back. Mind-boggling and totally terrifying. I'm really looking forward to watching this one weekly.

Currently watching 1993's Body Melt on Amazon Prime. I've been feeling run down and a back-ache/stomach pain combination's reduced my sleep to less than I need to function, so I took a re-set day from work and plan on doing pretty much nothing. I actually started trying to rewatch Adam Simon's Brain Dead, which is also on Prime, however, the transfer to digital looks like it came off a deteriorated, second-hand VHS, with that dreary old 4:3 aspect ratio that doesn't work on anything not filmed to specifically have that effect. In looking it up, I see that Shout/Scream Factory transferred Brain Dead a few years back, so I'm hoping that pops up somewhere; I've never seen Brain Dead in its entirety, and it's been on my list for a while.

So far, Body Melt's doing the trick, though, and while I'm rarely interested in what Vinegar Syndrome releases, there are exceptions, and this would be one of them, and they did a pretty good job cleaning this one up for the digital age.

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Playlist:

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Orville Peck - Pony

Soundgarden - SOMMS

Them are Us Too - Remain

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery

The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues

Muddy Waters - Electric Mud

Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Goatsnake - Trampled Under Hoof

MF Doom - Operation: Doomsday

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

Van Halen - 1984

Iress - Prey

The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

Belong - October Language

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Freaks)

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Card:

First spread of 2021:

The Queen of Swords is definitely a defining force in my life, or at least has been over the last year or two. One of the reasons I do all this logging is so I can look back through the blog and track influences and the like, and when I search Queen of Swords, I see it came up five times in 2020. Thus, reading in the conventional Past-Present-Future positions, we see the Queen of Swords or the Airy Part of Intellect, ie sharpened perception as the Present and the Idea as a concise statement fortified by Knowledge (Past; 6 of Cups) and the balancing of the many tiers of that Intellect/Idea as a challenge to be overcome (Future; 10 of Wands) in the near future.