Wake the Devil cover The Thirsty Crows!

 

Can it be considered a 'cover' if there are members from the original band who wrote song performing in the band covering it? Probably. I'll say this - I am extremely attached to every song on The Thirsty Crows' Handman's Noose; however, this is fantastic!

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Read:

I finally had a chance over the weekend to sit down and read Rebekah and David Ian McKendry's Barstow.

Four tight issues that tell a weird A.F. story that brings to mind Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta's Phantom Road and, I think, Greydon Clark's The Return. Barstow takes place in the desert, and if you've spent any time eating hallucinogens in Joshua Tree or an equivalent location, this will resonate. If you haven't, this is still a damn good time, with a mix of Body Horror, Satan Horror and a skosh of procedural thrown in to boot. 

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Watch:

Ari Aster's Eddington is probably not my favorite film of the year - its unflinching approach to America 2020 dovetails with the country we live in five years later. It doesn't pick at the low-hanging fruit by blaming politicians. Instead, it blames US. 

As with Aster's previous film, Beau is Afraid, there is a lot of humor here. It's dark and subtle and twisted, though, and honestly, my uproarious laughter was, at one point during our showtime, misinterpreted by a fellow audience member. There could have been trouble, but instead, I think the misinterpreter realized his mistake as he adjusted to the movie's voice, and by the end of the film, he was laughing just as loud as I was. 

I will say, I was expecting something approaching Civil War's "reasons to hate humanity" vibe, and instead, Aster pokes a kind of almost good-natured fun at just how stupid our species is. 

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

Mick Harvey - One Man's Treasure

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Them Crooked Vultures - Eponymous

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

Amigo the Devil - I Hope Your Husband Dies (Bridge City Sessions)

Amigo the Devil - 

Anthrax - Sound of White Noise

YUNGBLUD - Idols

G.B.H. - City Baby Attacked By Rats

Aerosmith - Pump

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

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Card:

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

• IX: The Hermit

• Ten of Swords

• King of Cups

Spend some time alone working on things or there is going to be an issue with getting things finished. 

New Much From Wake The Devil!!!

 

My good friend and former Thirsty Crow Chris Saunders' new group, Wake the Devil, released another single last week, the group's first foray into Country.

It's fantastic.

We listened to this on repeat last Thursday while driving Sweetie to what we were pretty sure was going to be her final Vet visit, and in that twenty or so minutes, I feel in love with this track and it simultaneously burned itself into my DNA for all time.

I cannot wait for a proper release from these guys. 
 

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Play:

Thanks to the mighty Bloody Disgusting for the heads up on this GROGEOUS Horror game coming to Switch on the 24th of July. I'd not heard of this, but SOMA is definitely now on my list:

I need to make some time coming up to play some of the games I still have lingering in half-completed states. I basically sat around the house all weekend mourning and didn't lift a thumb to make any progress on Inside, or Blasphemous, or Call of Cthulhu, or any of the Puppet Combo games - although those I honestly don't care about winning at all, as they are all about the atmosphere. That's the thing, though, and it's not a bad thing - I'd always rather read, or write, or watch a flick than play a video game. I can the spurts of interest and commitment where I find them. 

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Read:

I finished Timothy James' Like • Comment • Survive so quickly, I forgot to post about it here. 

Upon starting Like Comment Survive, I was initially taken aback by the found footage formatting of the prose and feared this would infringe on my reading experience. NOT TRUE! Holy cow - the formatting sucked me right in. 

James' characters are very well-developed, and the scenario he sets up instantly intriguing. I read this over the course of three days, winnowing out spare time from a busy schedule just to creep a few more pages in here and there. One of the most immersive reads I've had in a while.

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9

Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

The Flaming Lips - Hit To Death in the Future Head

The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Spoon - Lucifer On the Sofa

The Sword - Warp Riders

Wake the Devil - Lonely Road (single)

Jimmy Eat World - The Sweetness (single)

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Deftones - My Mind is a Mountain (single)

Deafheaven - Winnona (KEXP performance)

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Willie Nelson & Leon Russell - One For the Road

Ghost - Skeleta

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Misfits - Walk Among Us

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights... Camera... Revolution!

Buckcherry - Eponymous

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Card:

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

• Three of Cups

• Six of Cups

• Nine of Pentacles

The overflowing emotion of the first two cards I get. This has been a mourning weekend. I'm not sure where the Nine of Pentacles fits in, but maybe it's enough to know I will be able to temper my emotions with the daily grind this week. I certainly was barely capable of tempering them with anything other than Sierra Nevada and movies over the last few days. 

New Music from Wake the Devil!!!

 

Another new song from Wake the Devil, featuring former members of The Thirsty Crows! Hell yeah!

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NCBD:

Small Pull this week. After the last few and my trip to Amazing Fantasy in Chicago last weekend, my wallet thanks me!

Crap! Didn't realize Plague House was only going four issues! This saddens me a bit, however, Oni Press's strength this year has been precision. Michael W. Conrad and Dave Chisholm's super violent spin on the haunted house/ghost hunter trope is another in what is becoming a sizable line of quality mini-series for the company in 2025, and I'm hoping that leads to another round of the same in 2026.

With my shop in the process of integrating a new, post-Diamond POS and Pull system, G.I. JOE ARAH is going down as a pull. I've been reading it since Skybound and Image brought Hama and crew back last year, but never put it down on my actual list simply because, after not reading it since issue 116 or something, I had missed A LOT. Also, not sure I'll ever feel compelled to fill in that gap. But when Skybound said, "Issue 300 is a great jumping-on point for new or returning readers," they were not kidding. There have been a lot of changes in the book I've watched from afar for years (Lady Snake Eyes?), but as I should have expected, Hama handles it all with deft plotting and fantastic character development, and I am really enjoying this run. 

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Watch:

I had a BLAST taking part in the June Dread Broadcast Horror Discussion Panel!

Tim and John are really curating something special, with an emphasis on community. So many great recommendations! Talk about overwhelming. If you're on IG, follow all these folks!

A couple things I added to my list thanks to the other panelists that I'm most excited about are:

Bark, a 2023 film from Director Marc Schölermann and writer Steve Fauquier:

Brian McAuley's 2022 Slasher-adjacent novel Curse of the Reaper:

And Criterion's release of the Criterion release of Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 atmospheric film Vampyr (currently $19.99 during Barnes and Noble's Criterion sale):

And really, this is only scratching the surface! I love the focus on media and community that The Dread Broadcast are applying to the show and cannot recommend this one enough!

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Playlist:

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Melvins - Thunderball

Christopher Young - Sinister OST

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius (pre-release singles)

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

Ty Segall - Possession

Wake the Devil - Snake Eyes (single)

Wake the Devil - Eternally Under Your Spell (single)

Dávila 666 - Eponymous EP

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

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

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Botch - We Are the Romans

Greg Puciato - Fc5n EP

Ruin of Romantics - Velvet Dawn

Dreamkid - Daggers

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Card:

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

• XVII: The Star

• Knight of Swords

• King of Swords

Conflict leads to enlightenment. And isn't that the way conflict should work? I mean, as humans, there's always going to be conflict. Paths converge, and not always in a complementary fashion. But what should occur in the wake of that is conversation, growth, enlightenment, empathy and understanding.

That's not usually what happens in 2025 though, on either a macro or micro scale (because as we know from the Gnostics, the one reflects the other). A reminder then, to greet adversity with a smile and an open mind. Yeah, that sounds a bit unrealistic or woo woo, but it's true. 

Wake the Devil - Eternally Under Your Spell!!!

When The Thirsty Crows broke up a couple years ago, man, it hurt. Bass player Chris Saunders is a good friend - so good that, admittedly, the last few years I lived in California, I totally took the Crows for granted. Despite Chris always keeping me up to date on shows, I only saw them a handful of times and really didn't support them at all. But like Tom Keifer sang, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone. I moved, the Crows broke up, and I realized that Hangman's Noose is one of my favorite albums of the last ten years, and really, the only Rockabilly/Psychobilly record I care about outside the first five Reverend Horton Heat albums. 

Anyway, when Chris told me he and some of the other Crows had a new band, I was instantly intrigued, and everything I've heard has made this my most anticipated release of the year. And the first single only fuels that fervor. "Eternally Under Your Spell" is half Psychobilly and half straight up fucking Metal and I love it. 

Can't wait to get the first proper release from these guys, whether it's an EP or an album. I'll buy whatever they're selling. 

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Watch:

New Yorgos Lanthimos in October??? This man has become one of the most confident and prolific filmmakers of the current era, and as I type this, I realize I still haven't seen his most recent film, Kinds of Kindness, which - perhaps it's just me - felt like a total stealth release. 

I watched this trailer without sound, and it intrigued me to no end. Totally in, so I'll be there come October 24th when Bugonia hits theatres. A remake of the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet, which appears to be streaming only on Kanopy. 

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Playlist:

Rodney Crowell - Triage

Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell

Ren - Sick Boi

Meat Puppets - Dusty Notes

Big Black - Lungs

Slayer - Diabolus In Musica

Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss

Wake the Devil - Eternally Under Your Spell (Single)

Baroness - Live at Maida Vale, Vol. 1

Baroness - Live at Maida Vale, Vol. 2

Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa

Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road for the Hit

Jozef Van Wissem/SQÜRL - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

YUNGBLUD - Idols

Temple of the Dog - Say Hello 2 Heaven (single)

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Card:

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

• Eight of Pentacles

• Six of Swords

• XVII: The Star

The dedication of the Eight of Pentacles leads to the great objectivity of the Six of Swords. Actual "Science," or proven results. That, my friend, is the path to enlightenment often hinted at by XVII: The Star.

And yes, that's all a bit woo-woo, but it's more fuel on the fire for reengaging with my Art. I've yet to jump back into writing full-on; I received some amazing news on BG&BH's yesterday, and that should be enough to incite reengagement with my Craft. Gotta move that needle, though.