2018: May 24th New Preacher Trailer

Chris from DwC and I will be attempting to do our The Genesis of Preacher show again this year. Last year we got hit with a 'Cease and Desist' thing for using footage from the show, and that kind of took the wind out of our sails for a bit. Also, I was doing the Twin Peaks: Evolution of the Arm, and DwC, and working and writing a book, so that show just died. Not this year. Now I'm just hoping the show actually incorporates SOMETHING from the fucking comics this year; as much as I have enjoyed what they've done, I got a bit fatigued last season. If this trailer is any indication, I should get my wish.

The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying just went up. Read it HERE.

Playlist from 5/23:

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Alice Glass -  Alice Glass EP
Chromatics - Black Walls EP
Twin Peaks Playlist
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Alkaline Trio - Crimson

Card of the day:

Going to interpret this visually today and say I need to have another ~3K word day writing, as what I'm reaching for is well within reach (that about 45K words in ~38 days).

2018: May 23th 6:29 AM

Two new Chromatics E.P.'s in the same week? Is the fabled Dear Tommy drawing near?

Playlist from yesterday:

The Ocean - Pelegial
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Venue - Desireena E.P.
Zombi - Spirit Animal

Card of the day:

From my least favorite yesterday to one of my favorites today. Reward?

Nicolas Winding Refn's To Old To Die Young

via Bloody Disgusting. Now this is a teaser trailer! Now please.

2018: May 22nd 7:27 AM

Props once again to Heavenisanincubator for reminding of a band that had fallen off my radar.


Playlist from Monday, 5/21:

Helmet - Betty
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Melvins - Pinkus Abortion Technician
Chromatics - Looking For Love
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Drab Majesty - Careless

Card of the day:

Funny. A couple days ago my friend Missi asked me what my least favorite card in the deck is (hers is the Emperor, and he's never been one of my favorite either, but I don't think I harbor the ill-will for him she does. Mine is more of an ambivalence, which also perfectly encapsulates my view on authority). I'd never really thought about it in those terms before, my least favorite card, and yet I knew immediatley what my answer was:

The Queen of Wands.

And yet, I see her in a good amount in my pulls. This seems to suggest I should engage with ideas that are contrary or combative to my nature - which is itself an idea that has been winnowed away from the collective consciousness of our society, the practice of confronting and working with ideas that don't exactly match up to your own, in order to grow and, help us, change our minds.

Drinking w/ Comics 41: Special Guest David Lucarelli!!!

New issue went up today after a lot of hard editing work. It's worth it, even though I totally blanked on adding a theme song for the new, apparently monthly segment titled, "What Stupid Thing Did Chris Buy This Time?"

Also, check out who gives us a bumper at the start of the episode! None other than Garth Fucking Ennis!

Next time.



And just because I dig Mr. Lucarelli and his work so much, here's the previous episode we had him on, back when his awesome new book from Alterna Comics, Tinsel Town, had just begun formulating for him:

2018: May 21st

Woke up with this one in my head:



I still haven't checked out anything beyond their 2011 debut, but Torches has never failed me. Every song is fantastic. I put this on the headphones yesterday when I rang out to grab some groceries, and it completely lightened my mood (spent the entire day finishing the edit on the previous DwC, only to have the Media Encoder fail to render it properly. That's about two hours down the drain and the knowledge that I have to fuck around with it more today).

Playlist from yesterday:

Helmet - Betty
Foster the People - Torches
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Roll up your sleeves. Take care of what you have been procrastinating. Clear out what has stood in your way." Message received.Writing will be painful but exhilarating today.

2018: May 20th - New Ghost!

Another new song surfaces. I started listening and then decided to wait until the album drops, wanted to post it here though for anyone else interested.

Playlist from 5/19:

Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Drab Majesty - Careless

Card for today:

Interesting juxtaposition, if you look at this card, one of the major visual components beside the Princess herself, is the churning, stormy sky, this can indicate anger, restlessness and negative trauma. I don't directly feel any of that, however I spent a few hours earlier today engrossed in reading Lords of Chaos; while doing so I listened to the audio from a thunderstorm on loop. The book and the storm burrowed their way into my brain; I fell asleep and woke up from a nightmare somewhat shaken. The dream involved a doctor who had an evil man locked up in some kind of photo-prison cell in her home. At some point she realized he had picked the lock and was free. The dream ended with the evil one on the hood of the doctor's car, with her driving into a fence on a kind of pier that ran to the ends of her property, the fence collapsed and the aggressor was thrown into whatever large body of water lay below, but there was the definite panicked intimation that he was not dead and she should hurry out of there.

I've a lot to say about Lords of Chaos, and more specifically Varg from Burzum. He talks in interviews of using Burzum's music to influence others, especially younger fans, to get them to take up his cause, which is a militaristic brand of nationalist medieval satanism. This is insanely removed from what we think of as satanism in the modern day - the goals this entire motley cast of characters continually extol are spreading 'fear and evil,' and they really mean it. It's deceptive; on one hand you can see skinny, somewhat awkward young people carving out an identity for themselves - one that they perceive will make others fear them. This is a counter balance to being 'misfits' and many of us do it, especially those who come up in metal. But here you can see extreme examples of the possible divergent paths, where most of the inner circle of the original Black Metal scene backdown from actually committing the follow-through on the atrocities they preach, and others go through it all the way, refusing to back down, transgressing into murder, arson and mayhem (pun intended). The book is an interesting journey into a pathos we children of the Heavy Metal 80s often dismiss, the idea that people can be influenced to do evil via music.

Deafheaven - The Pecan Tree

Just because it's so fucking awesome.

2018: May 19th 11:25

Chester Whelks absolutely kills it with a brief call-to-arms for reassessing one of the greatest albums by a hip hop artist in the last twenty years (in my opinion). READ IT HERE.

K surprised me a bit by asking to go see Deadpool 2 for her birthday yesterday. We saw the original on video about eight months ago and both liked it, K more than I. I may still be suffering fatigue from blockbusters and thus, eschewing all of them, I'd never begrudge my girl anything. Plus, there's something about the strange, Meta-soup that Reynolds has spearheaded here; my interest and enjoyment of Deadpool 2 - which I liked infinitely more than Deadpool 1 - lies in its comedy. Ask most of my friends and they will half-jokingly tell you, "Shawn hates comedies." This isn't completely untrue; the comedies I love - The Burbs, Airplane, Real Men, Ghostbusters, The Convent, The Big Lebowski (not a comedy but still shows up on this list! How's that?), are so well-made they make me hate most modern comedies. While I quite liked both Neighbors movies, Pineapple Express (maybe more for the shock of Gary Kohl as a villain than anything else, but still) and the Twenty-One Jumpstreets revivals, I find no reason for laughing at most of what comes out in the genre. Deadpool 2 was f*&kin' hysterical, and largely because it is so aware of itself. The tragic backstory that catalyzes most of the events in the movie are even delivered so hard-nosed I couldn't help but crack a smile. And sorry, Josh Brolin was born to play Cable. Just saying.

Yesterday's playlist:

Apex Twin - I Care Because You Do
Lantlos - .neon
Geto Boys - Eponymous
Merciful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
Eagulls - Ullages
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls

Card of the day:

Emotion tempered with Intellect. Rain falls on the calm waters - emotions rousing the mind, stirring decisions beyond those made by sheer intellect. The reins in the Prince's hand, wresting control from the tumultuous forces threatening the calm - this should not necessarily be looked at as 'bad' - the creative process is a marriage of Emotion and Intellect; a tumultuous explosion that we must shape and control in order to actually record or define.

2018: May 18th 5:00 AM

In my head upon waking; pretty sure I've posted this before, but it's good enough to post again:



The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday. You can read it HERE.


Back when Riverdale first came out I loved their posters - the tone of the piece, kind of a Neon Noir look, really caught me, and the fact that I read/heard someone somewhere refer to it as "Dawson's Peaks" intrigued me; I couldn't care less about the Dawson part, but the Peaks part, well, that should be obvious. When season one hit Netflix I gave it a shot, liked it okay, but it just didn't make the cut; I have to be pretty severe in what I choose to watch these days, as my time for tv is minimal to say the least. Now though, I see this and I know I have to go back and catch up, because my mind is blown that season two of an updated Archie story (I should really stop thinking of it in those terms) has a Giallo element. I mean, who saw that coming?

Playlist from 5/17:

Eagulls - Ullages
The Geto Boys - Geto Boys
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Kitty Lester - Love Letters
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞
Lantlos - .neon

Two cards today:

It annoys me that I couldn't find the actual card, instead of this weird, dark-bordered version. Either way, I'm looking at this as I'm going to encounter my dark side today - or perhaps someone else's - and I will need to bring balance to the situation. This sounds about right, know the day I had yesterday and what's on deck at the office today.

2018: May 17th 6:59 AM

Yesterday I dug out Eagulls' second album, Ullages, for the first time in quite a while. I really liked the album when it came out, but it was somewhat the wrong time for me to fully invest in it - I was still riding too high on the frenetic burst of their debut, and the dour vibe, while glorious, was perhaps too much of a downer at the time. Enjoying sadness can be tricky, and definitely requires a particular mindset; without that mindset there is no enjoyment, only Zoul. I mean, there isn't a proper enjoyment, more of a sulking. For me at least.

I stuck to it though, and it helped me process the tracks in a different context when I saw the band live about a month after Ullages came out; the band absolutely killed it, and all the new songs sounded fantastic, intermixed with tracks from the first record to inject a bit of pep and throb amidst the otherwise seriously downtempo tone. Going back to the record now, after some time away and inherent expectations have faded, I'm falling into the sullen British craft of the record and it feels exquisite.

Playlist from yesterday:

Jamiroquai - Return of the Space Cowboy
Eagulls - Eponymous
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Eagulls - Ullages
Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire, "Overcoming opposites - attraction. Recognizing what belongs together - union."

Check. A confirmation that K and I need to carve out a little more time together, as of late it's been difficult, with her Mom fully moved in and my writing constantly. Her birthday is tomorrow, and I intend to make this a very special weekend.

2018: May 15th 6:15 PM

First, because I've been All-Black Metal, All-the Time, let's do something as a pattern interrupt:



After I finished David Peak's Corpsepaint two nights ago I immediately ordered this:

Back when I worked at Borders, this always caught my eye. I'm so taken with exploring this fascinating subculture right now that I just can't look away, and I wanted some non-fiction to bolster and sustain the high that I still have from Peak's book.

Playlist from yesterday:

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter

The Ocean - Aeolian

Venue - Desireena

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Deafheaven - Roads to Judah

Card of the day today was:

An eight. Of course. The number of building. Because I've worked on T12 everyday for two weeks, and Keller and I are really building something, not the story per se, but also a system by which we intend to tell many stories, the next two after this one already slated.

2018: May 14th 8:38 AM

Falling down a black metal hole thanks to Corpsepaint, which I finished and weighs in as my fourth favorite novel of all-time.




Playlist from 5/12:

Darkness Brings the Cold - The Psychoangelic Crypt
Cocksure - TV
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1
The Best of Ella Fitzgerald, Vol. 2

Playlist from 5/13:

Burzum: Filosfem

Card of the day:

Could be good news coming when I combine this pull with something my boss told me late last week.

2018: May 12th 8:07 AM

Here's a song I originally found back in the mid-00s and then lost track of. Recently, I spent a good amount of time looking for Salem's Dirt on youtube but A) although the video left a lasting impression in my head, I could not for the life of me remember the name of the track, and B) there are a lot of bands named Salem. Anyway, I get to Keller's the other day and he has a Grimes-inspired playlist on and I see Salem Redlights. This makes me think about my fruitless search and I go on a tear again, preempting our meeting just to try and find this song. And I finally find it, I think by googling some combination of the words, "Salem + Music Video + Garage". Creepy AF.

I don't know if Salem is still kicking. Back in 2006-2007, I spent a lot of time nosing around online for music. I was also reading Wire magazine rabidly, and between the two I found quite a bit of really left of center music. I'm not talking about System of a Down left of center - they're not - or even Mike Patton left of center. This was small stuff. It was also around the time I first heard the terms "Witchhouse" and "Hypnogogic Pop", which may have essentially been the same thing. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff that just kind of got swallowed with time, Salem being one of them. I stopped reading Wire after I left Borders (I'd have to drive to Amoeba to get it - need to look into reading it online), and started spending my time writing instead of snooping for music. The one site I found during the final years of that whole musical archeology thing that I stick to religiously is Heaven is an Incubator, because honestly, Tommy finds only great stuff and he finds a lot of it. Good to re-claim this now as something I can go to when I need a freaky vibe to catalyze a scene or idea.

I signed up for Tubi and finally gave Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem another chance and, holy cow, I really liked it. The last time I think my two major problems were we were still kind of coming off his lackluster Halloween stint, and I fell asleep during my viewing. This time I was wide awake in spite of starting the movie with some yawns, but it pretty much kept me glued. And I thought Sherri Moon Zombie did a really great, somewhat nuanced job in the starring role. So that kind of puts RZ's films back in the black with me, with only his Michael Myers-as-Jason Voorhees singular one of his I hate, and the first Halloween feeling pointless and mean.

Playlist from yesterday:

Darkness Brings the Cold - House of Sin 1
Cocksure - K.K.E.P.
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Nachtmystium - Doomsday Derelicts
Nachtmystium - Reign of the Malicious
Darkness Brings the Cold - IX
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle, Pt. 2
Burzum - Aske

Card of the day:

Watery aspect of fire - temper Will with Emotion.

2018: May 11th 8:26 AM

New Arctic Monkeys!



The album is out now, and you can click HERE to go to Brooklyn Vegan and hear the entire album.

Playlist from yesterday:

Darkness Brings the Cold - Human Me
Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See
Dead Cross - E.P.
Windhand/ Satan's Satyrs - Split E.P.
Darkness Brings the Cold - House of Sin, albums one and two
Teenage Wrist - Dazed E.P.

Card of the day:

The duality of the One. Two sides of the same coin. A marriage of alchemical elements. I'll choose to interpret this as I need to spend some time with my Baby, who I feel like I haven't seen ages due to work, my writing schedule and her having been sick for a week. Will remedy that this weekend. Happily.