The Twilight Singers - Live with Me/Where Did You Sleep Last Night

 

A wonder live rendition of the opening track from the Twilight Singers' 2006 EP A Stitch in Time, which as a bonus, flawlessly morphs into a cover of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." 

I got chills at the end when Dulli yells, "Mark Lanegan ladies and gentlemen!"

It's been quite some time since I doubled down on any Twilight Singers. This EP and the corresponding album Powder Burns also released in 2006, along with Lanegan's 2004 Bubblegum were intricate daily rituals for much of my life during the mid-to-late 00s. They're also slightly synonymous with drugs - no surprise there. To me, these records so perfectly capture the fabric of my mental life at that time, it brings back a huge rush of thoughts, feelings and ideas that are otherwise haphazardly placed in a closet at the back of my psyche. It's good to take that stuff out and brush it off every once in a while.

---

---

---

Read:

I'd been trying to read the works of T.E.D. Klein for the better part of a decade, but until very recently, everything was out of print. I eventually found the story "The Events at Poroth Farm" in a Kindle-only "Megapack" of the Cthulhu Mythos. The story has fuck all to do with Lovecraft, but hell, forty stories for $0.99, I'll take it.

This is the kind of thing that flits in and out of my radar, so months go by where I get busy obsessing over other things, then something puts the enigmatic Klein back in my thoughts and I look around on Kindle and eBay again. The holy grail of his work would appear to be the 1985 novel Dark Gods, which goes for upwards of $40 for a Mass Market Paperback on eBay. It's only a matter of time until someone puts Klein's stuff back in print...

And now that is exactly what is happening. Two recent purchases I've made:

This first volume is a novel. A reprint of Klein's 1984 novel The Ceremonies, also long out of print. I snatched up a paperback copy of this the second I saw it hit Amazon, however, I will say, the binding looks like it will split and fall apart before I'm finished reading this one. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you have a 400+ pages book and its binding is barely an eight of an inch thick, well, that's usually a pretty crappy edition. 

And here's one from Pickman's Press I just saw this morning on Kindle. I grabbed the digital right away for this collection of short stories, poems and an interview. "Poroth Farm" is included here, which is nice, as are what looks like an essay on Arthur Machen's "The House of Souls", a story I recently short-listed when I picked up a Complete Works volume of Machen's work. So far, I'm three stories in, and can already tell you, "Well-Connected" is already worth the $5.99 I paid for this one. Fantastic story.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Mark Lanegan Band - Bubblegum

Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral

Post Stardom Depression - Prime Time Looks A Lot Like Amateur Night

QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze

---

---

---

Card:

Looking for answers, but something remains obscured.

Halloween Kills Pink Milk

Heaven is an Incubator recently posted a new track by Pink Milk, a band I'd never heard of before, but which knocked me out upon first listen. The new album - Ultraviolet - spun about six or seven times this past Saturday afternoon. I literally could not turn it off.

---

---

---

31 Days of Halloween:

K and I finally saw Halloween Kills. In my world, the only truly necessary Halloween flicks are the original and then Part III: Season of the Witch. But in this world, where there will no doubt always be new Halloween movies, this was a fairly good entry. I'm not sure why so many people dislike it - I actually liked it better than Halloween 2018. The lynch mob stuff strikes me as exactly how that situation would go down in real life. I could have done without the last ten minutes or so, otherwise, solid entertainment. 

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

10) A Nightmare on Elm Street '84

11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

13) Satan Hates You

14) Night of the Demons

15) Lamb

16) The Company of Wolves

17) There's Someone in the House

18) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

19) Titane

20) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (9, 10, Never watch again)

21) Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (same. Awful)

22) The Innkeepers

23) Muppets Haunted Mansion/Freaky

24) Halloween Kills

---

---

---

Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Pink Milk - Ultraviolet

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

---

---

---

Card:

I'm not seeing the entire scope of something that's concerning me.  Something is off. Not sure what that is.

Boris & Merzbow Take You on a Journey

 

One of the records I received as the Relapse Records 30th anniversary golden ticket winner that I've only just been able sit down and really listen to is the Boris/Merzbow collaboration 2R0I2P0, which apparently translates to RIP 2020. It's a kind of tough, noisy record, however, there are moments of sheer, sublime majesty within. This is one of those.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

What the actual f*ck is going on with Ghost? I'm certain these new webisodes are leading up to an album announcement, and I can't wait! Also, I'm enjoying the return to their weird approach to viral marketing they've long been famous for.

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Bridge City Sinners - Here's to the Devil

Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission 

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blu

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Piano Nights

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Dolores

X - Under the Big Black Sun

Russian Circles - Memorial

Kowloon Walled City - Container Ships

Palms - Eponymous

Danizig - Eponymous

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

Carpenter Brut - Carpenterbrutlive

Type O Negative - October Rust

 

---

---

---

Card:

A warning about obscuring things, which perhaps is to remind me about the changes coming over the next year. I'm hedging some bets and need to be sure to keep others' well-being in mind while doing so (this is all work related). 

Censor

 

Oh, 1990s music videos - so very easy to spot even if you don't know the song. I've had this one in my head for about a week, and it's nice to be kind of obsessed with the Pixies again! I read something recently that posited that, with Kim Deal's reduced input on Trompe le Monde, it's essentially pretty close to a solo Frank Black album, and thinking about that while spinning through it multiple times over the last few days, yeah. I can totally see that. Really matches up to that first Frank Black solo era (in my thinking, that's Frank Black - Eponymous up to and including Cult of Ray).

---

---

---

Watch:

 

Censor dropped recently and I finally had a chance to watch it last night. Wow. I am so impressed with this flick, the feature-length debut by Writer/Director Prano Baily-Bond. Visually, this one has such a distinctive look, largely because of the lighting. Censor takes place in the 80s - during the Video Nasties era to be specific - but the film doesn't play up the 80s-ness that a lot of other films would. Instead, it lives and breathes in the textures of analog, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the set design and approach to the lighting. There are also ongoing tweaks to the aspect ratio, which sneaks up on you at strange moments and really adds to the otherworldly feel Baily-Bond executes in every single shot. At no time does this film rest on the laurels it establishes simply via subject matter. And Raised By Wolves's Niamh Algar kills it in the lead.

Also, goddamn Michael Smiley is fantastic in EVERYTHING.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Steve Moore - VSW OST

Vaguess - Bodhi Collection

Pixies - Beneath the Eyrie

Pixies - Trompe le Monde

Various - Playlist to Joe Begos's Bliss

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Moanin' 

Charles Mingus - Blues & Roots (Mono)

Diatribe - Odite sermonis EP

Sunken - Livslede

Bells Into Machine - Eponymous

---

---

---

Card:

Well, The Moon card literally lept out of the deck at me when I went to do my pull, so I guess I'm misunderstanding or missing something. I have to say, I feel perpetually overwhelmed by Tarot lately. 

New Iceage

No, I'm not talking about where all this freaky weather is eventually going to lead us, I'm talking about new music from Iceage! Seek Shelter is out May 7th on Mexican Summer. Pre-order HERE.

---

---

---

Watch:

K and I finally got back around to finishing His Dark Materials season 2 on HBO. Damn. This show is fantastic. The scope! I'm chomping at the bit to re-read these books, and since the three-book set that was so ubiquitous in the early 00s that sat on my shelf for over a decade went with the ex, I snagged a copy of the Omnibus that came out a few years back. After I finish Frankenstein, I believe I'll be digging into that one.

While I wait for the third and final season, I took to youtube to see if I could find anything documenting the two-part stage play adaptation that I saw in London circa 2004. This was all I could find, but it gives at least a little bit of an idea of what this looked like:

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Genghis Tron - Ritual Circle (pre-release single)

Tomahawk - Eponymous

Airiel - Molten Young Lovers

Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City

Queensrÿche - Empire

Melvins - Working With God (pre-release tracks)

Melvins - Houdini

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

White Lung - Wild Failure (Single)

White Lung - Paradise

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

The Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave

The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust 

---

---

---

Card:

Something important is obscured, or for some reason I am just not seeing what is right in front of my face.