New Music from Ministry!!!

Ministry released a new track last week, and as usual, I love it. From the forthcoming album HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, out March 1, 2024, I feel like this is a bit early, but still, I can't really complain about new Ministry. No pre-order link that I could find yet, but that's sure to come. In the meantime, enjoy Goddamn White Trash.

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Watch:

K and I took her Mom to see the Barbie movie over the weekend. This was about as interesting to me as the battleship movie until Mr. Brown posited that he'd read the entire thing was going to be one big piss-take. 

That got me interested. 

I waited for the hype (and crowds) to die down before even entertaining the idea of getting a ticket. We were at the theatre multiple times since this thing opened, and the crowds of pink-adorned moviegoers gave me pause. The malaise for big-budget IPs I always experience when actually faced with seeing them kicked in, and I figured I could go on just fine without ever actually seeing this thing, thank you very much. 

Then K's Mom expressed interest, so we decided to take her. Verdict? Greta Gerwig did exactly what I hoped she would with this one: It's irreverent toward everything that deserves irreverence - including itself and the Barbie brand - yet still manages to be fun and touching as all hell. And as far as the cries of man-hating, anyone offended by this is a douche, and exactly what the film is commenting on. 

Ms. Gerwig had come a long way from being the friend in Ti West’s House of the Devil, and I applaud Mattel for allowing this to be what it is. Also, fucking Rhea Pearlman, am I right? 

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Read:

I finished Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls over the weekend. OUTSTANDING novel! I read the last 60 or so pages in a mad gallop, unable to put the damn thing down. This means I'm going to reassess some of his newer books, all of which I'll probably read at some point.

Moving on, I finally started Nathan Ballingrud's novel The Strange. 

Holy smokes! Only 80-odd pages in, and I can pretty much guarantee right now, this will be the best novel I read this year. No disrespect to the others - Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl, and Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper are both going to come in close, but Mr. Ballingrud's prose is just mouthwatering.

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamably Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Agnes Obel - Aventine

Ghost - Impera

The Rods - Wild Dogs

The Rods - Live

Van Halen - 1984

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Etta James - Second Time Around

Standish/Carlyon - Deleted Scenes

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Ubre Blanca - Polygon Mountain EP

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Mercyful Fate - Melissa

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Oracle:

Just want to do a simple, one-card Pull today, and Missi's Raven Deck is the one I use for that:

Beware bad information and/or don't overlook information from dubious sources. 

The Besnard Lakes - She's an Icicle

 

Somehow, I totally missed that The Besnard Lakes released a three-song EP last year. The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP is one of my favorite missives from the band in some time, and of its three perfect tracks, opener She's an Icicle is, to me, everything I love so much about the band: the swirling morass of guitars fx and keys, Bonham-esque beats and Jace's heavenly voice surrounded by layer upon layer of harmony, all combining to make a dirgey rock and roll ephemera. You can order this directly from the band HERE.

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NCBD:

Short and sweet this week. Here we go:

I love the fact that we still haven't seen all of the fallout from the events of this year's Hellfire Gala. Man! I'm still blown away by that issue. So much changed so fast. Based on this cover, I think we're going to start really feeling things with this issue.

I wasn't going to read this issue the same way I keep saying I'm dropping Ghost Rider's main monthly book, but they keep pulling me back in. The idea that there's a new Weapon X/Weapon Plus program coming, but one that utilizes the stolen powers of Hell just blows my mind. HIGHEST of concepts; let's hope they pull it off. 

 

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Brew:

I stumbled across this on Kickstarter recently (Thanks to an email from Unplugged, the beer tracking app), and I'm pretty tempted to get in on this one:

It's a lot of money, but seems like it would definitely pay for itself at some point. Or, it would just make me drink more. Hmm...

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Read:

I finished Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper yesterday and am happy to report I was blown right the fuck away. Talk about one-upping the original. I'm not saying Reaper is better than Chainsaw, but to be as good, with even more stakes, well, damn. Just damn. Now we just have to wait until March 26, 2024, for the final installment, The Angel of Indian Lake. 

Now, of course, I need something new to read and I just don't know what can follow SGJ. I've had Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls in my Kindle forever, but my friend Jesus sent me a physical copy a few months ago and it's on my nightstand, so I guess that's the winner by default. 

This one comes highly recommended by a lot of people; however, for whatever reason, I've been reluctant. I LOVED Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism back when I read it circa 2017, so much so that I actually bought something like half a dozen copies and sent them to a bunch of friends for their birthdays at the time. That experience left me feeling like I would read anything Hendrix wrote, then a funny thing happened. I watched Satanic Panic, which Hendrix wrote the screenplay for, and hated it so much that it turned me off instantly. If questioned, I no longer even remember what it was I disliked about that flick, and a good friend recently said he saw it and loved it, so I'm thinking if We Sold Our Souls goes over well, I may give that another go, too.

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Playlist:

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow Live at CBGB

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Prayers For the Death of Fame EP

††† - Invisible Hand (pre-release single)

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

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Card:

• Ace of Disks

• III The Empress

• Queen of Cups

Ace of Disks always reads as a monetary or 'Earthly' breakthrough, and combined with The Empressthe implied Motherly qualities of The Empress and the Emotional fortitude of the Queen of Cups, I'd say this is directly referring to my folks coming down here this weekend to house hunt. 

 

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2018: September 26th

I messed this up and should have posted this yesterday, as September 25, 1980 is the day John Bonham passed away. 38 years... wow.

A week or two ago, the new Grady Hendrix book came out. Author of My Best Friend's Exorcism, Paperbacks from Hell, and Horrorstör, this guy has become a recent favorite of mine. Looking forward to this new one. Why?

Right up my alley. That said, I still have a lot of books to tackle before the year is over. My list of "To-Read" goes a little something like this:

Neil Gaimen - The Graveyard Book
Robert Payne Cabeen - Cold Cuts
Dead Reckoning - Dino Parenti
David Lynch - Room to Dream
Gemma Files - Experimental Film

That's not all of them, but it's the ones I really want to read before the end of the year.

Playlist from 9/25:
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST
Boy Harsher - Country Girl EP
Mad Love - White With Foam
Briqueville - II
Godflesh - Post Self

Card of the day:

As often as it appears in my daily pulls, I'm going to have to dig deeper on this card. I'm not getting a 'journey' vibe, literally or figuratively for today, so let's look at the Grimoire:

"Everything within. No external or obscured (The Moon) influences. Trust you gut. Materiality can point to eccentricity or folly."

Hmm. The materiality bit rings a bit true to some of my deep-rooted neuroses about money; I tend to buy to much stuff. Or this may be a resolution to a certain fatigue that has haunted me of late, making it more difficult than usual to walk down to my local coffeehouse and write (I drove yesterday, but only just convinced myself to go).