New Music from The Cure!!!

Even though I'm pretty sure many of us in 2024 harbor suspicions that our world is winding down, I usually cut the temptation to give that idea any credence by reminding myself that every generation up through time has probably thought the same thing. Blame that on all the fearmongering the Christians used a mentally ill poet named Enoch's writings for. That said, when Robert Smith starts singing about the world ending, I tend to ruminate on the idea with a little more consideration. 

"I know, I know my world has grown old..."

Fucking chills, mate. Fucking chills.

Spending my post-Halloween morning with the new album from The Cure. You can order a copy HERE.

 

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31 Days of Halloween:

Once again, I closed the season with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. I picked this ritual up from my good friend/Horror Vision cohost Anthony a few years back, and it has stuck! I can't think of a more meaningful way to close 31 Days of Halloween and Sam Hain than with the movie that birthed the entire modern era of the genre I love. And NoTLD is Public Domain, so it's all over YouTube and I thought I'd post it here today.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

23) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

24) Planet Terror

25) Baron Blood

26) The Blob ('88)/ The Thing/Tremors/Abigail

27) Halloween Kills

28) Over the Garden Wall

29) Hereditary

30) House By the Cemetery - The Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 16, 2021)

31) Dog Soldiers/The Exorcist (Theatrical cut)/Halloween (78)/ Don't Go in the House/Pizza Panic Party/Night of the Living Dead

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

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

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

John Carpenter & Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Various - My Halloween Spotify Playlist

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Tinderbox

Siouxsie & The Banshees - The Scream

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

Goblin - Suspiria OST

Danzig - Black Aria

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Card:

A one-card draw for MY new fiscal year:

Enlightenment. Suppressed desires, or perhaps in my case, ideas. The Lightbringer. Also, a warning against following the answers others may offer to you. A good card for a new year. Raising a glass to the idea perhaps most associated with this card, "Worship Thyself!!!"

Better Lovers!

 

From the forthcoming album Highly Irresponsible, out on October 25th on SharpTone Records. Pre-order HERE.

 

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Watch:

Never been a Demi Moore fan, but maybe anybody can redeem themselves with the right Body Horror movie.

This trailer definitely evokes the work of Brandon Cronenberg and also, Ana Lily Amirpour's episode of GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities, titled The Outside. Hell, maybe even a bit of Larry Cohen's The Stuff.  Writer/Director Coralie Fargeat's previous film Revenge crossed way too many lines for me, but I loved the look of what little I saw of it. Very much looking forward to seeing The Substance on the big screen when it opens on September 18th.

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Read:

I finished Professor John Trafton's BRILLIANT Movie-Made Los Angeles last week, and after such an academic deep-dive into film and regional history - that I really can't recommend enough - I started Ramon Glazov's newly published English translation of Giorgio De Maria's 1975 novel The Twenty Days of Turin.  

I posted about this early last week, how I hadn't been able to stop thinking about what little I knew about the premise via a post author Warren Ellis made on his LTD:

"A decade previously, Turin suffered twenty days of mass insomnia marked by nightly massacres committed by persons unseen or indescribable. The many hundreds of witnesses cannot explain what happened."

 Something about this rattled around in my brain for several days until I finished John's book and promptly ordered a copy of De Maria's novel. Something about that setup reminded me of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind, and my expectations only grew. 

I received the book yesterday, and at ~65% of the way through, I can confirm The Twenty Days of Turin is a fantastically creepy read. What's more, not only does it remind me of Zafón's work, but reading this is stirring up a desire to re-read Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show for the first time since I was a Freshman in High School, circa 1991. Both novels deal with secrets gleaned from the throwaway detritus of life - notes, scraps of paper, mail. I've always found the idea fascinating, and realize now there's a throughline between where it was introduced to me with Barker's opus, picked up later (in a manner of speaking) by Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, and now reintroduced to me with De Maria's novel. I'm curious if there are more ideas like this out there, and if so, how I might find them.

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Playlist:

Feel the Knife - So Raw... So Nasty... So Hideous.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Grey Rubble - Green Shoots (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

Nature Sounds - Pure Nature (Track 7: Bird Calls)

Revocation - Fathomless Catacombs (single)

Braindamage - The Downfall

Perturbator - Bloodlust (single)

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley (Expansion)

L'Enfant De La Forêt - ABRAXAS

Gang of Four - Return the Gift Part 1

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Card:

Going to change the way I do this for a while. I'm feeling a bit rusty and disconnected from the cards, so I'm going to take 72 days and go through every card, in whatever order I draw them in, and explore them here. First up - XV: The Devil:

Bringing knowledge. "Bringing light into darkness" - the Lightbringer, as one of Lucifer's many names suggests. This card, like IX, warns against following dogmatic answers laid out by other people's spiritual systems. Worship thine self!!!

Man Man Week: The Fog or China

From their 2004 debut, The Man in the Blue Turban With a Face, we have yet another example of how versatile this group is. I love the elements they draw from Tin Pan Alley and 50s Doo Wop, fusing them with something all their own.

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Watch:

Paul Duane's All You Need is Death proved to be one of the highlights of this past year's Beyondfest lineup, and now it's finally being released worldwide. I can vouch for this trailer - it does not give away the movie. 

 

Having seen the film, I can tell you to try your best to see it on the big screen. Duane's approach to Horror thrives on an almost subconscious, microcosmic level while also employing some really big, frightening images. This combination works so well on the big screen, with a professional theatre audio system, especially in regard to Ian Lynch's score, which I can only hope someone releases on vinyl.

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Read:

I've been pretty scattered lately and have not been very successful in reading. I'm chipping along at Malcolm Devlin's Then I Woke Up, which is excellent, but my attention's compass is wonky, pulled from due North by all manner of interfering metals. That said, I recently picked up the missing issues of two early 00s comic series I've been dying to dive into.

First, Mike Baron and Mike Norton's The Night Club, which I'd been missing the final issue of since I picked up the series back in 2005:

Next, from right around the same time, Keith Griffen's Tag.

I'm using the image of the Deluxe Edition Boom! eventually published, however, I was interested in the original issues, as I had two of the three. There was a subsequent series, Tag: Cursed, that I haven't read, but the first two issues of this first one always stayed with me. Ostensibly a zombie story, Tag is a pretty interesting take on what was even a bloated subgenre back in 2005, only two years after The Walking Dead comic started, the same year George Romero returned for a fourth time to his original continuity with Land of the Dead. Tag presupposes an infection you can pass by tagging another person. The pull quote on the top of issue two says it all:

Very much looking forward to reading both of these once I get my head on straight again. 

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Playlist:

All Hell - The Howl (single)

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu

Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes

Man Man - The Man in the Blue Turban

Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

One card today, because I haven't touched the deck in a while and wanted a generalized, "this is the 48 year of your life" kind of reading.

I went with the lighting I'm working in at the moment, too. It felt appropriate. Knowledge above salvation. Sounds great.

7 Days of Ozzy - Day 5: Little Dolls

 

While posting yesterday's track, I ended up inadvertently listening to the entire Diary of a Madman album for the first time in, well, in a very long time. And I really enjoyed it, the entire record. 

This is one that kinda got beat to death in my late teens. I dated a girl for three years in/after High School who had two older sisters and they were all HUGE Ozzy fans. So much so that the oldest sister had a boyfriend who kind of modeled his life after Ozzy. His Mustang even had vanity plates that read "Im Ozzy 1" if you can believe that. Anyway, Diary was a staple of our lives, and so I guess it just became associated with that version of me and that time in my life. Nearly thirty years later, I've apparently reclaimed it, free from any nostalgia associated with that particular version of me. Which is pretty cool, to kind of hear something again, for the first time when you knew it so well to begin with. And Little Dolls was a track I don't think ever really clicked with me as being all that great, but last night, hearing it again, listening to the words and that glorious chorus, well, it felt a bit like a small, unimportant (in the grand scheme) epiphany. Which was nice.

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Watch:

Another new flick hitting Shudder at the end of July. Really looking forward to this one:

 

As is my growing custom, I watched the first minute or so, got a feel for how good the cinematography and tone are and then clicked off. Trailers are increasingly frustrating pleasures that are better after you see the movie.

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NCBD Addendum:

A couple things I picked up that I forgot to list or didn't expect to buy:

I still love the entire physical presence of these TMNT "Best of" Books.

A new Shaolin Cowboy book! I read the second series (I think it was the second one), back circa 2015 (I think) and loved it, so when I saw this new number one, I couldn't resist. Will also fill the void left by Orphan and the Five Beasts returns at some undisclosed time in the future, as I just re-read the first arc again, and really loved that, as well. 

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

The Mysterines - Reeling

Small Black - Moon Killer (pre-release single)

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Card:

Again? Okay, so seeing this, I went to my Thoth deck to pull a clarifier. Here's what I turned:

It's a little on the nose as an interpretation, however, I take this to mean whatever it is I'm supposed to be learning or picking up on is right in front of my face. 

7 Days of Ozzy - Day 3: Diary of a Madman

 

It's been a couple decades since I've listened to Diary of a Madman. This one was omnipotent in my life for a few years back around the end of High School/beginning of College. Not sure if the entire album will hold up, but I know the title track does.

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Cast:

The second episode of my new Southside 90s podcast went up today:

This is a project I'd wanted to do for so very long; all my life-long friends from High School and I gathering periodically to tell the tales that, well, when we tell them, people don't believe them. But they're all real. Seriously. This week's ep is largely focused on a house we hung out at first semester of Junior Year, a two-story in a rich subdivision where adults were almost never present, and when they were, they didn't stop us. 

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Watch:

Holy shite:

Have I mentioned how much more I like Amazon's version of The Boys than I do the comic? Nothing against Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson; this is totally a case of being able to improve a story with the hindsight that comes after a decade since its completion.

 

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Dollar Bin:

You know what I find A LOT of in Dollar Bins? Issues from Marvel's failed late-80s New Universe line:

I'm not interested in all the books from that particular experiment, but anything pertaining to The Star Brand, The Pitt or the surrounding narrative that encompassed the four titles that survived after that first, failed year. These are pretty easy to come by these days, and that surprises me a little. I don't read Jason Aaron's Avengers book, but I know he's integrated The Star Brand into the modern 616 continuity over the last few years. I'm curious if anyone has updated Spitfire - basically the Iron Man of the New Universe, except with a woman in the armor (long before that was fashionable, to boot!), DP7 (mutants), or Justice, which I can't compare to a regular Marvel 616 book, as I don't think I ever read it or at least don't remember it.

These are total nostalgia bombs for me, but also, The New Universe's arrival dove-tailed with my blossoming interest in the non-G.I.Joe comics in general and Marvel Universe specifically, so there's something about it that is integral to my love of the medium.

And as I've said before, post-Pitt New Universe is dark AF.

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Playlist:

The Mysterines - Reeling

The Bronx - The Bronx (II)

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

The Ruby Friedman Orchestra - Gem

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Card:

I'm pretty sure this either has to do with something I thought I was done with. Modern Life is Rubbish, indeed. 

New Music From Woven Hand

 

I will always miss Sixteen Horsepower, however, the work David Eugene Edwards has been doing as Woven Hand over the last decade-and-a-half (or so) is next-level stuff. It's interesting how the slightly toxic religious elements that informed/inspired Horsepower pushed this man into a considerably more Shamanic perspective with his music. 

Woven Hand's new record Silver Sash is out now on Glitterhouse Records and can be ordered from them or Woven Hand's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

This is going to be one of those posts where I post the newest trailer for David Cronenberg's upcoming Crimes of the Future, but don't watch it:

 

Right now, this is my most eagerly awaited film of the year - thus far- and I say that on the cusp of seeing Sam Raimi's Dr. Strange In the Multiverse of Madness tonight, a film I have been CHOMPING at the bit for since... well, since I realized Patrick Stewart's voice is in the trailer. NOTE: I should say something here. Marvel, I'm talking to you now; if it turns out that Patrick Stewart is playing a man named Jim Bohner or some such, I will not be happy. Just saying. And as long as I'm posting trailers I have no intention of viewing, here's that 'Final' Dr. Strange trailer:

I have insanely high expectations for this one, even though I still have been unable to sit through the first Stephen Strange flick. I've always maintained I'm more interested in Marvel's big picture than I am the individual films, and this is the one that - I think - will firmly shape the post-Avengers landscape for the MCU into something more cohesive than it's been (not that I've minded the chaotic and disparate elements of the last few years, which have been very final-years-of-Claremont's-Uncanny-X-men at times).

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Playlist:

Bexley - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

Michael Jackson - Greatest Hits

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

The Mysterines - Reeling

Sparks - Tryouts for the Human Race (single)

Helmet - Meantime

Motorhead - Ace of Spades

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

Jerry Cantrell - Brighten (Thanks to Mr. Brown for the beautiful vinyl!)

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

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Card:

It's been a minute since I've pulled from Missi's Raven Deck, so here goes:

Expecting knowledge to come my way today that might turn things around a bit. Or maybe that was yesterday when we spoke to a new realtor in TN and received a lot of really good, inspiring information. I suppose there's a part of me that demonizes that, simply because the longer we've stayed in LaLaLand, the allure of the routine and easy (not really, but kinda) life we've made here pulls at my ideas of burning it all down and starting over. 

Don't trust comfort. That's the real Devil. 

New Music From Blut Aus Nord!!!

 

Many thanks to Heaven is an Incubator for posting about the new Blut Aus Nord album Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses, out on May 20th 2022 from the always awesome Debemur Morti Productions. This sounds like a return to the 777 era of the band, so one track is really just a big freakin' tease. 

Pre-order the album HERE.

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NCBD:

A light week this week for NCBD. Good. I spent quite a bit last week.

Saga! So happy to have this book back in my life, and awesome to see Lying Cat on the cover this month.

The fourth issue of X Deaths of Wolverine was the best one so far and has had me anxious to read this finale. 

A new stand-alone Horror anthology? Like, in the vein of The Silver Coin perhaps? Whatever the flavor, how the hell do I pass up a cover like that?

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Plastic:

I can't believe they made this:

And I can't believe I got one without paying through the nose. So damn cool.

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Playlist:

Drug Church - Hygiene EP

Entropy - Liminal

Author & Punisher - Krüller

SOM - The Shape of Everything

Johnny Marr - Call the Comet 

Metallica - Ride the Lightning 

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

I'm taking this as a considerably more literal interpretation than I normally would, throw up some horns and jam some Slayer today.

Too True, The Watcher of Slumber

It's been a minute since I listened to Dum Dum Girls' 2014 Too True. Such a fantastic record, which also served as the band's last before dissolving. I can vividly remember staring out the window on a Greyhound bus early on in my relationship with this record. None of the band's other releases ever hit me quite as hard as this one, possibly because of such a sustained period of isolation and reflection with it on that bus, headed from Chicago to Dayton, nearing the end of a particularly long era of my life. When I listen now, my head doesn't automatically go to the whys and wherefores of that bus ride, just the deliciously peaceful Midwest scenery

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Watch:

There's something inherently creepy about the word "watcher." 

I don't know much about director Chloe Okuna, except that her segment of last year's V/H/S '94 - apparently entitled Storm Drain - was the only segment in the film that I enjoyed. And I really enjoyed it, so I'm very curious to see her new full-length film Watcher.

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NCBD:

A thankfully abbreviated NCBD this week, as I actually went back in last week and ended up grabbing the new trade paperback of the Jeff Lemire/Greg Smallwood 2016 run on Moon Knight that Marvel recently released. 

Now, onto this week's pull, which starts with another issue of our 90s rock tactical military ghost war comic, Home Sick Pilots!

This book continues to be insane, and I realize now that I should take the opportunity to pass on the fact that if you're so inclined, you can go HERE to read the first issue of the series for free online. The only reason you should absolutely not do this is if you don't want to get sucked in and immediately shell out the dough for the first two trades ($10 and $17 respectively). 

The changes that adapting author David M. Booher has been making to Joe Hill's Rain have made this limited series a nice companion for someone like me, who just finished reading the original novella a fw weeks before this series hit the stands. Rain is a different kind of apocalypse story - thankfully - and in spite of the changes, the massive heart that comprises its DNA are brought our wonderfully by Zoe Thorogood's art.

More Silver Coin, and this month, we get a sequel to a previous issue's story. Hot damn!

A new number one from Image that sounds like it has serious potential. From the solicitation copy on Image's site:

"Stetson is a nightmare hunter. A dream detective. She runs a shoddy back-alley business where she helps clients sleep at night by entering their dreams and killing their nightmares. But Stetson’s past comes back to haunt her when she tracks down a literal living nightmare—a serial killer that murders people in their sleep.SLUMBER is an ongoing series from the twisted minds of writer TYLER BURTON SMITH (Kung Fury, Child’s Play) and rising-star artist VANESSA CARDINALI."

I don't know about you, but that description buys it at least one issue with me. 

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Playlist:

Drug Church - Hygiene

Metallica - Kill 'Em All demos

Metallica - Ride The Lightning 

The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Dum Dum Girls - Too True

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

Revocation - The Outer Ones

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Card:

Discretion when dealing with the Physical World is a commonly held interpretation. It's generally NOT mine. To me, the Fifteenth Trump Card of the Tarot is usually a nudge to pay attention to wisdom that comes from a possibly dodgy source.  

UPDATE on yesterday's three-card spread: Exactly as I thought, I stopped what I was doing pretty much on the spot, broke out a short story I've been trying to finish since 2018, and finished it!

Ghost - Impera

 

Ghost had a big ol' Release Ritual for their new album Impera, out today. You can still order the album HERE. As I write this, it's 11:00 PM PST, so the full album dropped two hours ago when the East Coast hit Midnight. 

I'm definitely losing some of the "to hell and back" vibe I had with Ghost, but I still feel like their music is fantastic, even if not always what I want it to be. Oh, how I long for Infestissumam, and to a lesser extent, Meliora ("Circe" is probably my favorite song by the band, or at least a close second to "Year Zero"). Even more than their actual music, I have long been interested in the course Tobias Forge has plotted out for his music. Since Popestar in 2016, it has been my prediction that Forge will eventually do a big budget broadway musical - I really see so much of that theatrical DNA in their records and their live show. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm off Friday - when you're reading this - so I'm up late with my first go-through of Impera running through my headphones and it sounds great. Again, not always what I want, exactly, but still great.

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Watch:

A new featurette for Marvel's Moon Knight dropped earlier in the week. I'm trying to avoid seeing too much, but I broke down and watched this, can vouch that there are no real spoilers included here. The show begins March 30th, and I find myself counting the days. I want to like this one so much - with MK a favorite character and Benson and Moorehead as showrunners, well, this seems like there is no way it could possibly disappoint me.

However... 

I'm still not sold on the way the costume looks on screen. I'm really hoping I get over that, or the images we're seeing are early on in the costume's evolution. I refer back to Netflix's Daredevil here, where at the end of the first season when Matt Murdock transitioned from the Fran Miller-inspired black mask to the actual DD costume, I was totally taken aback, but by the second season the rough edges had been rounded down. Regardless, Moon Knight is really hanging on as a favorite at the moment, and it has A LOT to do with Jed Mackay's current run on the monthly book - issue #9 in particular - which just blew me away. Making the House of Shadows the new Midnight Mission was a stroke of genius...

And then there's this:

I'm a fan of Marvel's Black, White & Blood books, even though I've not actually picked up all that many of them. This, however. Holy shit. I never would have anticipated them doing a Moon Knight installment. I've always tried to be consistent with the character; I missed out on the 80s series completely, cherry-picked at the 90s one, and missed the Charlies Huston series altogether, but loved the entirety of the Brian Michael Bendis run that followed shortly after. Then the Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey - well, let's just say that's holy in my eyes, and one of the things I've loved about the interpretation since - and what I expect to love about the Disney+ series - is the Mr. Knight persona. That's the kind of genius you expect from a collaboration between Ellis and Shalvey, and I've been continuously happy to see it garnering so much of the character's continued evolution.

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Playlist:

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

Ministry - Filth Pig

Ghost - Live From the Ministry (Impera Release Ritual)

Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil

The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP

Ghost - Impera

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Card:

Taking a break from the Thoth deck and moving back to my beloved Raven Tarot:

A reminder to take knowledge from even the most obscure or upsetting places. This feels like it figures in to my current state of mind, which is about 30% paranoia. I'm looking for answers as to how to continue with my life, how to streamline the next series of large steps I have to take in order to get the hell out of my current paradigm and into what's next. Lot's of setbacks, lots of arrows. But there are always distractions and detractors. The point is to move beyond what we know and just make it happen. Lucifer certainly did.

Mark Lanegan Covers Alice in Chains

 

Alice in Chains' "Nutshell" has always been a devasting song to me anyway, but hearing Lanegan sing it a few days after learning of his passing, well... damn. That's about all I can say.  

Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending this one my way.

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Listen:

New Greg Puciato record in June, and the lead single is f*&king fantastic!

 

I've become quite a fan of Reba Meyers over the last two years, and even though I didn't dig that new Code Orange single that dropped a few months back, I dearly want her making music in my life. Her presence her only makes this an even better song than it already is. Mirrorcell is out June 22nd on Puciato's own Federal Prisoner label, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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Watch:

Serial killer stories are not my bag, however, THIS is fascinating:

 

K and I mainlined Netflix's The Sons of Sam over the last two nights and I have to say, I nearly fell down a rabbit hole. Here's a case that sits at the very heart of the "Satanic Panic" era of our country's history. Watching this put me on a precipice of re-reading Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Fatale, which definitely dovetails with that dark, post-60s vibe I find so fascinating.

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Playlist:

Zombi - Digitalis

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

sElf - What a Fool Believes (single)

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP

Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release single)

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Card:

How perfect is this, what with all the Satanic Panic stuff I've ingested over the previous few days:

Take your influences where you find them, it's not wrong to follow your intuition.

Orville Peck - Outta Time

 

New Orville Peck in April? Sign me right the f*&k up! Of the three songs from Bronco that Peck dropped last Friday - thanks to Mr. Brown for cluing me in on that - this is my favorite. All three are great, though, and you can pre-order the album HERE. 

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Watch:

July 22, 2022.

 

The trailer for Jordan Peele's Nope dropped the other day, and it looks as though it once again proves Mr. Peele knows how to make a trailer that makes his audience salivate without showing or telling you really anything that the movie is about. I keep seeing references to this being his "Alien Invasion" movie, but if you think Nope is going to be as cut and dry as that, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Or, perhaps more eloquently stated, "Nope."

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Playlist:

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Urge Overkill - Oui

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)

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Card:

Outta Time suddenly seems like the perfect song for today's post:

In undertaking this move, it would be easy to let all of the stress, planning, discussion and interaction overwhelm me. This happens. What I'm reminded of in drawing this particular card at this particular moment, is not to be seduced into inactivity or take the easy way out. I like my job a lot, and while I am mostly taking it with me, it would be so much easier to stay where we are and keep living the good, fairly easy life K and I have carved out for ourselves over the last six years. The important thing is to lean into the fray and meet this challenge head-on because once on the other side of it, our lives will be infinitely better. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the goal.

Diz and Bird @Carnegie Hall

 

How about a change of pace? It's been a minute since I've listened to any Bird, but all the references and music in Netflix's Cowboy Bebop stoked my thirst for some, so let's go live.

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Watch:

I am overjoyed to report that both "big" watches I had this week - each with their own initial apprehensions on my part - are just fantastic. First up, Ghostbusters: Afterlife blew me away. This past Saturday, K and I accompanied some friends to the local AMC and grabbed tickets to see this one in the Dolby Atmos theatre. Here's the trailer, which is old news now. I never posted it here before now because I had such strong reservations about the film, all of which were completely unfounded and proven wrong.

 

Next, yes! Yes! YES! Netflix's Cowboy Bebop adaptation is fantastic. Against all odds, this one is eventually going to occupy a spot on my shelf next to the various home video iterations I have of the original series. Because I've posted everything else I can think to post for this one, here's a clip ET dropped a few days ago: 

 

The care with which all the actors approach playing these iconic characters is bar none; so many nuances went into these performances and that makes them an utter joy to watch!

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Playlist:

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Unto Others - Mana

The Ocean - Fluxion

Mastodon - The Hunter

Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker - Diz 'N Bird At Carnegie Hall (Live)

Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

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Card:

Two things to watch out for today, one good, one bad: bling impulses (may have to do with anger caused by stress and the things that can come out of my mouth at potentially inappropriate times), and creative inspiration, which is always welcome.

Mastodon's Drinking Tears Again

 

This very well might be my favorite Mastodon song ever. I'm sure some folks will say the band is mellowing I can't wait for Hushed and Grim to drop on October 29th (pre-order HERE).

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Watch:

I was just getting back into town when VHS '94 premiered at Beyondfest yesterday. This one was kind of off my radar for a while - I have mixed feelings about the original VHS series -  overall I do very much enjoy them, but there's no arguing that as the series progresses, the results become an average of diminishing returns. Still, now that this new, 90s-set entry has arrived, I find myself excited to see it. 

VHS '94 hits Shudder tomorrow.

 

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Playlist:

The Allman Brothers - Idlewild South

Windhand - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Black Sabbath - Children of the Grave

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

Ghost - Hunter's Moon (single)

Mastodon - Teardrinker (single)

Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Blood Moon

Various - The Devil's Rejects OST

The Black Queen - Infinite Games

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

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Card:

The last two weeks I have been given over to eating and drinking to excess. Now, who does that sound like to you? Putting things back into a regular routine and moving forward on multiple projects I just haven't had a chance to get to. Still, the temptation is always there, no?

Gift of Screws

Heaps of praise to Mr. Brown for introducing me to Lindsey Buckingham's 2008 solo album Gift of Screws, an album I am fairly certain would never have wound up on my radar without the guidance from my friend. This is one for the ages - as Brown stated in a text recently, the whole thing really highlights his guitar playing, an aspect that often gets pushed to the background in Fleetwood Mac. Opener Great Day has some truly fantastic finger-picking, and most of the tracks - especially "Did You Miss Me" above - would have made stand out singles for the radio, if there was an outlet in the major markets for guys like Buckingham, who are more often than not relegated to the 'was in a classic rock band' category. Reminds me a bit of the first time I heard John Paul Jones' record Zooma. 

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Watch:

I haven't watched Richard Kelley's The Box since it was in theatres in 2009. After that viewing, I left scratching my head even harder than I did after my first viewing of his Southland Tales. Do I like either of those movies as much as I do Donnie Darko? Not at all - in fact, I don't even know if I can say I actually like either. Well, Southland grew on me, and despite the fact that it's a fractured mess, I like enough of it to say, "Yes." The Box though... after this second viewing I'm less convinced I like it than if I had just left things at the one viewing eleven years ago. That said, it's a conversation piece for sure, and pretty damned engaging, so this isn't a dis, just a renewal of the hesitancy I reserve for everything Kelley did after DD.

 

The actual viewing of this film leaves me a bit baffled and I think it's because in some way I do not possess the technical vocabulary to describe, Kelley filmed this to look like a tv show from the 50s and seeing it packaged with the expectations of a big-budget (well, not that big) Hollywood movie creates a kind of cognitive dissonance that makes it hard for me to reconcile. Also, there's an element of the film that involves people becoming transmitters for alien intelligence, and I think Kelley brilliantly worked this into the fabric of the film itself, into performances, camera angles, and dialogue, so that many scenes are just jarring enough to create a disconnect with the viewer. I don't know. I'm not getting rid of my DVD copy of The Box or anything, but it may be another eleven years before I watch it again.

 

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

El P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

QOTSA - Rated R

Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Lustmord - Heresy 

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

 

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Card:

 

New ideas can free you from yourself. This is something I'm always glad to be reminded of because another side of the Devil is obsession or narrowing of vision, which is essentially anathema of a writer.