Fugazi - Bad Mouth Live 1991

Bad Mouth came into my head unexpectedly a few minutes ago and the impetus to post it followed. I went looking for the album version and stumbled across this, this gorgeous piece of footage that reminded me that, while the 90s sometimes embarrass me, this is what the best of that decade's music was all about.

2018: August 13th

Happy birthday to one of my best friends in the world! I hope You have an amazing day, Missi!

Been a few days. Leaving one project behind and starting the final stretch on another. Had to put Please Believe Me away for a few days in order to gain perspective on it, as I'm not sure it's 100% finished, even though I 'finished' it last Thursday. Something is telling me there's a coda, of sorts, that has to go in. We'll see.

Attended my second HWA meeting yesterday. What an absolute inspiration these folks are! So great to talk about the craft in such a wonderful environment.

Playlist from yesterday was short because I've been listening to that SC3T Giallo ST almost none stop; I've felt it building to inspiration on a project and this morning it was revealed to me what exactly that will be, and I am psyched!

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Card of the day:

Needed to see this today, and the fact that it comes up in my pulls so often is definitely a reassuring sign.

2018: August 10th - NEW HIGH ON FIRE

Fuck. Yes. They're not reinventing the wheel, and I don't care. Pre-order HERE from Napalm Records for an October 5th release.

Finished Dark Moon Books' excellent collection, Exploring Dark Short Fiction #2: A Primer to Kaaron Warren. Weeeelll worth your time. Jumped right into the first of two novels I'm reading for writing homework - Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Excellent so far, not that I didn't expect exactly that. I'm going to read that and, ahem, James Patterson's Along Came A Spider, a book I'm not looking forward to as much, though I'm sure it will be a more than adequate page-turner. The idea here is for the three books Keller and I have planned to pen together, I'm looking at creating a fusion of the thriller, less-is-more page-turner style and more more literary leanings. I tend to avoid page-turners, so I'm reading what Keller has suggested are two examples of the style that are worth reading.

Playlist from yesterday:

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Tennis System - Pain EP
The Body - I Have
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Mstislav Rostropovich - The 1967 Carnegie Hall Marathon (excerpts):
       Concerto for Violin & Cello in A Minor
       Suite for Cello & Chamber Orchestra
Christine - Sam Was Here OST
Christine - Brand New Furies
Goblin - Buio Omega

No card today.

2018: August 9th

New Author & Punisher up for Pre-order on Relapse Records HERE. This guy continues to baffle and amaze me with his post-apocalyptic insanity.

I have heard many good things about Channel Zero and it hits Shudder today, so I'm looking forward to that.



Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I recently started a re-watch of Deadwood, as K has never seen it and the news of the forthcoming movie caused quite a stir in me. I've begun re-watches before, but never made it very far. Thus, I've actually seen the first season enough to know a lot of it intimately. What's my favorite scene?



Al Swearengen may just be my favorite character ever. As dark as the show can be, it keeps a smile on my face almost the entire time.

New Sandman Universe #1 acquired and read, although it wasn't a very good read, rife with distractions as it was (my own fault). A good set-up for what is to come, which I must admit I'm still excited about. I've avoided this whole Doomsday Clock thing that has merged the Watchmen with the DCU proper - I'm not necessarily against the idea of the Watchmen being placed in the DCU, I just don't really care and have heard it's not very good. The Sandman Universe however, is apparently something I cannot ignore.



Playlist from 8/08/18:

Soundgarden - Superunknown
Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration
The Fixx - Reach the Beach

Card of the day:

So this is either me suffering from wishful thinking that Please Believe Me will be finished today - I just can't seem to nail the tone for the end of this but I am so close!!! - or it's a problem of over imagination, which could be gumming up the works on the ending. Either way, I have some work cut out for me today.

2018: August 8th - American Horror Story 8 Teaser

You put a chick in a gas mask and lingerie and I'm THERE! Seriously, I'm sure none of this imagery will actually tie into the story of American Horror Story season 8: Apocalypse, but it's cool as all hell. I've always been pretty hot and cold with the show: still haven't seen Freakshow or Coven, had pretty much given up until Hotel and Roanoke, both of which I loved, so I'll definitely be watching the new one.

NCBD. Cautiously excited for this:

Playlists from the last two days:

8/06:
Shockwaves Podcast #
Windhand - Grey Garden (Pre-release single)
Tubular Bells (part 1)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls

8/07:
Cypress Hill - Eponymous
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Steven Moore - The Mind's Eye OST

Cards from the last three days:

Knight of Swords was today's pull, and interestingly enough, I'd been anticipating each of the previous two days. Hence, I thought I'd read them all together as a spread.

Endeavors large and exploratory end in abrupt disappointment, only to have a contrary result arrive swiftly on that disappointment's heels. So one step back, two steps forward, so to speak.

2018: August 6th

How have I never posted this song before? SO good.

I watched Horsehead last night on Prime. I was really looking forward to this "Art House Horror" flick that keeps popping up in my periphery. I dug it visually, but I don't know that I loved the movie overall. Definitely worth watching - there's some gorgeous set design and costumes. But it seemed a bit style over substance.




Playlist from Sunday, 8/05:

Emma Ruth Rundle - Medusa (single)
Suburban Living - Video Love (single)
Windhand - Grey Garden (pre-release single)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Christine - Sam Was Here OST

Card of the day:

You know, I pulled a card this morning, but I have no idea what the hell it was.

2018: August 5th

Time for some Shudder curation. I watched two movies last night. Well, one and a half. The first I LOVED. Above is the very Carpenter-esque theme from Sam Was Here, a really cool, very understated psyche-out in the California desert. Having spent a pretty good amount of time out there, I related. That wasn't the only reason I dug the film though. But to go into that, with this movie, would be venturing into spoiler territory. I'll leave it at, "Definitely recommended" and move on.

The second film I attempted to watch and gave up on was 1979's The Visitor, which is one of the 'evil child' movies that came in the wake of The Exorcist's success. This one was painstaking, despite the cast being STACKED with a young Lance Henrikson, Shelley Winters, Sam Peckinpah (yep), and John Huston. Yes, JOHN HUSTON. I have no idea if intermittent internet outages and a recent predilection for sleep at an early hour on Saturdays had anything to do with my impatience, but I could not make it through this one. I may try again at some point. Cool poster, though:

Finished The Deer Park by Norman Mailer. I ended up giving it a three-star rating based on what I interpreted was a failure of the narrative device the author uses. I've got a short review on Goodreads HERE. From there, I've moved back into a book I started earlier in July but put aside to press through the Mailer. Exploring Short Dark Fiction is a series published by Dark Moon Books, each one of the two currently available a contemplation on a highly regarded writer, with three's Primer to Nisi Shawl due out later this month and a fourth on the way before year's end. Number two is A Primer to Kaaron Warren, a highly regarded Australian author I would recommend to fans of Neil Gaimen, John Crowley and even Tim Burton. I'm a little over halfway through the stories and love them, and am looking forward to the wealth of supplemental material in the back of the book!

Playlist from Saturday, 8/03:

Justin Furstenfeld - Songs from Open Book
Windhand - Grey Garden (pre-release single)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split

And the playlist from 8/04 was all vinyl!

Black Sabbath Vol. 4
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Joy Division - Closer

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "All troubles and disruptions have been necessary to grow. The growth is a Victory, as not everyone makes it out of the Strife and Chaos of the fives."

Very relevant, and the cards continue to illustrate that, as this is the second time in just over two weeks I've pulled this one. The last time was HERE, and you'll see I tie Victory's appearance into the strife of working on my latest short, Please Believe Me, which still is not finished, primarily because I've unfortunately only written twice in the last week. Never a good thing, the exhaustion inertia I've carried since last week's on-call shift has turned into regular old 'out-of-the-habit' inertia. I spent the day yesterday cleaning and reading instead of writing. NOT acceptable. The appearance of this card again creates a bit of a loop, so that I will use it to signal my return to beast mode, and today I will finish Please Believe Me, re-script the first half of the first issue of The Legend of Parish Fenn (I may post sample art soon - it's f*&king incredible!), and get a bit more done on the new idea artist extraordinaire John Grimm and I had recently.

Now that would be a Victory.

2018: August 3rd - NEW WINDHAND!!!

This absolutely made my day! I've had a feeling for a while that a follow-up to one of my favorite records of the last ten years, Grief's Infernal Flower, was due, especially after that split 7" with Satan's Satyrs earlier in the year.

Listening to Grey Garden for the first time, my initial observations are:

1. The bass sounds like a fucking motor tucked into just the right spot beneath those twin guitars; reminds me a bit of the bass on my favorite tracks from Soundgarden's Superunknown.
2. Producer Jack Endino really brought Dorthia's vocals up in the mix here, and that's fantastic news.
3. The artwork, by Arik Roper, is beautiful beyond words, and somehow reminds me of the writing of Clarke Ashton Smith.

Eternal Return is slated to release on October 5th; pre-order it on Relapse Record's website HERE.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shockwaves Podcast 101 - Tubular Bells

Shockwaves Podcast 099 - Graham Skipper 

Tennis System - Pain EP

I'm sure I'm forgetting something I listened to, because I find it hard to believe that other than that Tennis System it was all Shockwaves, but work was nuts, so it took me a while to chew through most of two whole hour-plus podcasts.

I took K to see one of her favorite musicians last night, again at the Hotel Cafe. This time it was Justin Furstenfeld of the band Blue October. Justin does this "Open Book" show that's him on a small stage, telling stories from his life and accenting them with acoustic songs. I can't confess to being much a fan of the band, but as a low-key performer he was endearing and has a pretty great voice. This stories run the gamut from funny to hard-life-lessons-wrought, and in discussing being put on Paxil at 15, he solidified a theory I've had for a while now: the reason I can't directly relate to a lot of the music from the 00s is because that was the first generation of 'rock stars' - take Justin as an example of what that means today - raised on pharmaceuticals (ie anti-depressants) and, having never had that experience, it creates a palpable rift between them, their music, and me. 

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Big Change; think things through."Not certain what this is referring to, but I have a feeling I will know by the end of the day. Always good to have a forewarning against acting impulsively. 

2018: August 2nd

In just two days of sporadic listening, and after an initial and unfair dismissal upon its release earlier this year, The Body's I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer is shaping up to be in my top ten if not top five of 2018. This is a POWERHOUSE of an album, and

The new and final of my Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying installments is up HERE - I'm hoping my fellow writers at Joup jump on this column and make it their own. It probably will no longer be a regular publication, but irregular's just as good.

Playlist from Wednesday, 8/01:

Shockwaves Podcast 104 - Paul Tremblay
Tennis System - Pain
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Johnny Marr - Call the Comet
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
The Veils - Total Depravity

Card of the day:

This was apparently my friend Missi's pull today too. I don't have time to decode right now, but it's interesting we both received it.

2018: August 1st

Another fantastic Airiel song that the boys played Sunday at the Echoplex. Yes, I'm still living off the energy from the show - I'm waking up with Tennis System as I type this.


NCBD: The return of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's Seven to Eternity!!!

Playlist from yesterday:

Algiers - The Underside of Power
Airiel - Winks & Kisses: Melted EP
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
The Go Go's - Vacation

Also, broke back into the Shockwaves Horror Podcast and I am certifiably sold on it now. Episode 104 has an interview with Paul Tremblay, whose 2015 novel A Head Full of Ghosts should be on every Horror Hound's reading list. Best take on a possession story in ages. And... in discussing his literary peers, Mr. Tremblay mentions that one of my favorite recent novellas, Nathan Ballingrud's The Visible Filth, just wrapped filming with Babak Anvari at the helm, the release date slated for March, 2019. I could not be more excited for that!

Card of the Day:

Can indicate Occult Study. Interesting, as I've just begun a re-read on Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham's Nameless, and long-time readers here will remember I got into a little bit of trouble doing occult research/annotations for that series back when it came out.

2018: July 31st

Sunday night Tennis System killed it at the Echoplex! We missed the opener Topographies, walking in and only hearing their final song, which was great. Tennis System came up next and swift, which was nice. I'm not one to hold up a phone for video or photos at shows, but Such A Drag is important to K and I, so I knew I was going to catch that for sure (she stayed home due to work in the morning; I had already arranged a late start). When they went straight into one of my favorite songs from the new EP afterward, I figured I'd finish what I started.

The real surprise was the headliner, Airiel. This was a Part Time Punks show, as most if not every Sunday night is at the Echoplex, and Airiel's front man Jeremy Wrenn commended PTP founder Michael Stock on bringing them out to the West Coast after a ten year hiatus. These guys were humble, and they were fantastic. If you dig old albums by The Cure, The Smiths and especially the Cocteau Twins, check them out. Here's a great place to start:



Playlist from the last two days, more or less:

Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Badfinger -
Tennis System - Pain EP
The Veils - Total Depravity

Write Dark Things playlist
Airiel - Winks & Kisses: Melted EP
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

Card of the day:

Breakthrough! (let's hope)

2018: July 29th

About a month ago I put Ministry's Dark Side of the Spoon in my car with the intention of finally getting to know it as an album. I've been a Ministry fan since just after Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs came out in 1992. The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Taste will probably always remain my favorite release, line-up, and era for the band, but I stuck with them fiercely through all the changes over the years. Where some folks I knew turned away from them after Psalm, I loved Filth Pig from day one, and although I fell off briefly with Spoon, when Animositisomina hit as the follow-up, I was right back in the fold and remained there until recently. I still dig what Uncle Al does musically, I've just become less interested in following it.

At some point in the last five or six years I found a used copy of Spoon at Amoeba and figured, what the hell? But still, that grand discovery never followed. Recently that changed, and Eureka Pile is, to my ears, one of the stand-out tracks. Above is a video I found while looking for the song on youtube; I'd never come across Chemical Traces' work before, but I'm intrigued. With its labored lope and lackadaisical drawl, this is a hard song to do a video to and keep it interesting, and CT pulls it off. Also, the work is deeply personal, and that makes it doubly effective. I'm interested to see more of their work. Looking at their artist's page on Youtube I see a lot of what I'm interested in here, so I'll probably be posting some more of Chemical Traces' work here in the future.

Into the last third of Norman Mailer's The Deer Park. If you're a fan of literary prose, specifically very Fitzgerald-esque literary prose, this novel should go on your list. It drifts a bit in the middle, but I'm enjoying this walk through 1950's McCarthyism Hollywood debauchery, set in a fictional oasis in the California desert.

Tennis System tonight at my beloved Echoplex. Haven't been there in a while, and I realized it's almost two-and-a-half years since I discovered this awesome Los Angeles band opening for Eagulls at the Teragram. Here's a Flock of Seagulls cover I had never heard them do before:




Playlist from yesterday:

The Veils - Total Depravity
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "When this card comes, go for your dreams - better than average chance something will pan out on a day ruled by this card."

2018: July 28th

I listened to True Widow's AVVOLGERE all the way through several times yesterday while in the midst of an outstanding writing session. Many props to Keller, who I met with on Thursday and who gave me invaluable notes on T12, which he is currently editing. Super charged by that, I sat in my writing nook for a straight two hours in the late morning/early afternoon yesterday and really made progress on Please Believe Me. I know it was two hours because one of the things Keller recommended to help me was a time tracker app that I downloaded and used for the first time. ATracker Pro should be good for me, as previously I've tended to either write for a nebulous two-three hours, or, as was the case during the T12 sprint, by word count; Scrivener has a Project Target feature that allows you to input a due-by date and a desired end word count, and then calculates a daily word goal based on that. I dig this function, as it inspires me to write everyday (thought I don't really need external incentive any more) so the daily targets stay relatively low, however it can create scenarios where you end up consciously or unconsciously word-stuffing, just to make the daily requirement. This is then felt during the editing process. I don't know that I ever consciously word stuffed on T12, however, on days when I would write and edit at the same time, I'd build up a daily count and then anything I would remove would be subtracted from that. Thus, there were a few occasions where I would write, let's say 2K words, edit out a large swathe of material further on, and be back to near zero again. THAT can be a morale killer.

Playlist yesterday:

True Widow - AVVOLGERE
The Veils - Total Depravity
The Misfits - Collection Two
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Attainment/Success through Effort. Result from hard work. Solid foundation. Balance." - Fitting, based on the topic of today's entry, eh?

2018: July 26th

I am kind of becoming excited for the Sandman Universe comic line, despite absolutely hating the most recent Neil Gaimen Sandman series Overture. I have to give it another try, if for no other reason than JH Williams III's absolutely mind bending art.

The penultimate edition of my Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE. Like last week, I didn't think I'd have one for today, as I've been so busy at work and have been nearing the completion of my short "Please Believe Me", however in the midst of my strange, heat-inspired sleep deprivation, I lay down for a nap yesterday after work and found myself once again unable to drift off. After about thirty rather frustrating minutes of this, I picked up the book I'm currently reading, Norman Mailer's The Deer Park, and read for a while. Prose like this always inspires me, and it wasn't long before I was up and seated at the desk in my writing nook. I put in my headphones, cued up Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's brilliant OST for The Social Network, and disappeared into my story for two hours. And this was the first session where I really nailed it. I mean, I'd been fretting over this story, because after several weeks of immersive work on it, I just wasn't nailing the tone I wanted. I didn't feel it coming together the way I'd felt all of the stories in A Collection of Desires come together, and as writing is a blind walk in a dark room - complete with a lot of bumping into things that smart - I was unsure if this one would ever get 'there.'

It's there.

I'm not all the way through it yet, but I'm halfway through a mostly polished piece, and hope to have it wrapped within the next few days.

Playlist from yesterday:

Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Rollins Band - The End of Silence
Jimmy Scott - Greatest Hits
Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network OST

Card of the day:

Ready for some financial breakthroughs, that's for sure.

2018: July 25th - New Video from Nothing

New Nothing! The album drops on August 24th and you can pre-order it from Relapse Records HERE and on their bandcamp.


Playlist from 8/24:

Killing Joke - Nighttime
Grimes - Visions
!!! - As If
NIN - Ghosts I-IV

No card again today. I' buttonholed at work with extensive logistics for the importation/exportation of live cells from South Africa into the U.S. and I have barely had time to do anything. Couple with this a pervading exhaustion, and a somewhat frustrating preoccupation with getting >60 seconds DwC clips on youtube to try and drum up views (of which we get no where near as many as I feel we should based on the amount of work I put in on editing), and I'm running on mental empty, so I can't even remember to pull from the Thoth Deck before I leave for work, and it takes all the free time I can muster in-between tasks at the office to even type this much out, let alone pull a card and attempt to interpret it.