A teaser finally dropped for Jonas Åkerlund's Lords of Chaos! I saw this back in the Fall at Beyondfest and it's fantastic. I'll definitely be going again - if it gets a proper theatrical release.
How about some more Horror, eh?
I believe I've discussed Luchagore Productions in these pages at some point in the past. I first came across their short film El Gigante back at Beyondfest 2014 and absolutely loved its Texas Chainsaw Massacre-meets-underground wrestling premise. Recently this new short film popped up on their youtube channel. Bad ASS! Check out all their great stuff on their website HERE. I still haven't made it around to reading their comics, but it's on my list.
Playlist from 01/01:
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
M83 - Junk
U2 - War
Card of the day:
I crossed a super barrier on the finale of the book yesterday, here's a nod to the strength I'll need to try and finish it off this week - then the edit! Major goal for the new year is to have it published in April, just like A Collection of Desires was last year.
I've been hitting the Calexico pretty hard since Mr. Brown gifted me that Twentieth Anniversary vinyl edition of The Black Light. Their 2001 album Even Sure Things Fall Through still holds its place as my favorite record by the band, opening its sonic maw and swallowing me multiple times yesterday morning, a nice ending to 2018 that should help me segue into a peaceful and creative 2019.
2019, eh? Insert trite colloquialism about how fast the hands of the clock move here.
I finished 2018 reading the eldritch horrors of August Derleth, only to began 2019 reading about the real-life horrors of hatred in Christian Picciolini's autobiography White American Youth, a memoir of a youth spent organizing racial hatred in America and how the author escaped before it was too late.
I can't put this book down. Picciolini's raw, unpleasant accounts are sociologically fascinating, but also enlightening in a true WTF way, as his accounts of places I know in the city I grew up in pave the way for my own personal realization to the dark underbelly of a burgeoning national hate movement in 90s Southside Chicago. A movement that was happening parallel to my own group of friends and our interest in Chicago punk rock. I didn't know Picciolini, but he was something of a boogey man in my youth. The skinhead thug brother-in-law of a high school friend whose house we partied at pretty much 24/7 Junior year, there was always frightened whisperings that while we filled my friend's two-level home with bong smoke, Picciolini might show up at any moment with a Buick of skinheads bent on kicking our scrawny asses for 'polluting our precious white bodies with drugs from the inner city.' The book and Picciolini's evolution out of the skinhead movement, his formation of the non-profit organization Life After Hateand itsdedication to fighting racism, were a total surprise to me; Mr. Brown sent me a copy of the book last March, the first I'd heard Christian's name in twenty-five years.
I've begun and discarded several television shows recently; FX's Legion came highly recommended, but after four over-wrought episodes, ultimately just annoyed me. And the SyFy adaptation of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson's Happy proved to be the funniest thing I've seen in yeaaaars for two episodes and then just kind of left me uninterested (I may go back to it; it's that funny). Finally K and I went back to Channel Zero: Candle Cove. We started this one before we left for Chicago and then kind of forgot about it. While there's some rough edges to the overall presentation, conceptually Candle Cove is right up my alley, and I'm eager to wrap up this first season and see how good the Anthology series becomes as popularity increases and, reciprocally, so does the show's budget.
Here's a clip of the titular phantom kid's show that runs through the first season storyline of Channel Zero; something about the close-up superimpositions of the character's faces freaks me right the fuck out:
Oh wow, and I almost forgot. Last night I realized for the first time that May 2019 brings another Laird Barron Isaiah Coleridge novel! The new literally made my New Year's Eve! You can pre-order Black Mountainhere.
Playlist from 12/31:
Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through
Mark Ronson - Version
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Graham Reznick - Robophasia
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission
Card of the year:
Interestingly enough, both K and I received the same card. Spiritually aligned. The big idea here is the saving of money (both pulls of XVII were preceded by Princess of Swords, as if to help direct the reading). To quote from a source, "Make your plans for the future and risk a new beginning in which you set long-term goals."
Easily in my top ten Horror of 2018, Graham Reznick's Dead Wax on Shudder is a descent into the danger and madness of the strange subculture that surrounds a record that can destroy you via Frequency Range Manipulation, as well as three mysterious records that surround the fatal prize. Everybody involved just kills it acting wise, especially lead Hannah Gross and Ted Raimi. Reznick was interviewed on the Shockwaves Podcast recently and he mentioned Mondo/Death Waltz would be putting out the OST sometime real soon. Needless to say, I'm checking the M/DW website daily.
Playlist from 12/30:
U2 - War
Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats - Wasteland
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
Pale Dian - Narrow Birth
Card of the day is being delayed until just before Midnight tonight.
It's been a few years since I've put on any of Ween's music. Still one of my all-time favorite bands, their break-up back in 2012I was heart-broken. A reunion seemed possible down the road, but it hurt regardless because Ween were two friends that had gown up and shared so much making music together, it was exactly like my friends and I - Grez, Mr. Brown, Sonny, Tim - who had done the same. Then, in 2014 Aaron Freeman - AKA Gene Ween - released this song and I was deeply affected by it. I found myself hoping Ween would not reunite; I didn't want him to end up back where he had been. And ever since I've felt a disconnect from Ween.
Then, two days ago a younger guy was listening to Mac Demarco. I'd heard Salad Days before, but something about it grabbed me in that moment. I put the album on my headphones and by the end had an irresistible urge to listen to Pure Guava. After Guava, I dipped right into Painting the Town Brown, and for the first time in probably ten years listened to the entire 25+ minute Poop Ship Destroyer version in sheer, invigorated awe.
I've avoided seeing Ween since they reunited in 2016, despite the fact that they've played near me countless times. I'm not sure I'll go see them live again - not because of a grudge, just because I've seen them live SO many times - but it's nice to reconnect with something I love in a purely organic way.
First Marvel movie I've seen since Civil War, which, along with batman vs. superman, kinda broke my interest in big two comic book adaptations. I would have been fine skipping this one, too, except I have to say, the trailer for Endgame has me, and I figured I should see the flick that leads into it.
I didn't hate this, but I will say I absolutely hated the overbearing score by Alan Silvestri.
All along, I've been far more interested in where Marvel is ultimately going with the big picture for their cinematic universe, and Endgame looks like it will shut the door on the Avengers, at least for a time.
Fucking insane. That's all I can say. Must have been an influence on Panos Cosmatos.
I watched this one more because I was in a Joe Bob mood than for the movie itself. That Last Drive-In special is still up on shudder, under series I think, and each film and its adjacent commentaries are listed as episodes in the 'season.' Did I call Blue Sunshine insane? I was wrong. This IS insanity. Like Porky's fucked Ghoulies and had a horny, satanic baby that grew up and went to college with the revenge of the nerds cast.
Playlist from 12/29:
Shannon - Let the Music Play (Single)
Ministry - Animositisomina
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Card of the day:
Not, I think, the beginning of a journey, but the end of one.
I kept seeing the trailer for this new Black Mirror pop up, but as much as I love the first two seasons of the show, I'm behind. And it seems from afar that Netflix releases trailers for the individual episodes now, which feels a bit extreme to my increasingly trailer-phobic mindset, so I passed over Bandersnatch multiple times. In fact, despite posting it here now, I'm still not planning on watching this trailer. But the movie is definitely being pushed to the top of my watch list - especially now that we've done our 2018 Year in Horror on The Horror Vision Podcast (I'll have links tomorrow) - because according to a discussion with a friend last night, Bandersnatch is a full movie AND a choose your own adventure format. And I cannot even begin to imagine how that is going to work.
Probably my final read of the year - at least literature wise - was polishing off the last couple of stories in an old paperback copy of August Derleth's The Mask of Cthulhu. I've had this book for over twenty years and never read all of it; the first Lovecraft I ever read, The Lurker at the Threshold, turned out to be a Derleth book (the edition I found in a Record Swap in Tinley Park, Il in roughly 1993 boldly credited the novel to Lovecraft on the cover), and though I generally find Mr. Derleth to be a bit too repetitious for my taste, he is a pretty good writer at times, and his concepts often hook me, even if the execution isn't always great. I picked this one back up in October under the premise of finally reading some of the stuff I've had on shelves but never read or finished - an initiative that underscored my reading this past year - and I actually enjoyed pretty much all five stories to some degree. You'll note I had to break the book's contents up over a few months, though, otherwise that repetitious handling of Lovecraftian tropes can make me feel as though I'm reading one long reiteration of the same story.
Playlist from 12/28:
Mac Demarco - Salad Days
Ween - Pure Guava
Ween - Painting the Town
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - Uncanny Valley
Calexico - The Black Light
Card of the day:
The card's titled Peace but I'm reading this as indecision, which I am suffering from majorly at the moment. Time to pony up.
This will be the only time and the only trailer for Jordan Peele's upcoming film Us that I watch. I do not want to know a single thing more about this film before I sit down to watch it in a theatre in March. But boy is it a doozy. Can NOT wait for this one; Peele had proven himself to be a major voice in establishing a beachhead of viability for horror with major studio budgets again. Also, watching this trailer and being genuinely chilled at several moments therein, the idea that Peele is Producing a new Candyman movie makes me extremely excited.
Playlist from 12/25:
Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas
Christmas Music of all varieties (kinda need it to stop)
Henry Mancini and His Orchestra - Charade OST
The Police - Synchronicity
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Card for today:
The Earthly aspect of Air. Let's read that initially as keep your head out of the clouds and down to Earth, or translated into Writerly Advice, stop f&^king talking about it and do it. There's also an element of destructive logic, which fits my overthinking the ending of this book. I've become gun-shy, and the next four days needs to undo that so I have a completed manuscript - in need of a hardcore edit, mind you - by NYE.
I had long banished any semblance of Christmas spirit from my life as a sort of revolt against Christianity and the 'normal' upbringing that, while having molded me for what I believe was the better, I had cast off in my twenties in a series of mental and intellectual, psychonautic journeys. You know, the usual 20s stuff: Drugs, the Occult, alternative political science. By my thirties I was more formed as a person, and having moved to LaLaLand, used the distance from family to eliminate Christmas altogether. The holiday only ever meant family to me after I jettisoned everything else about it, and with family thousands of miles away, I was free to hold some strange grudge against it, the same way I used to hold a grudge against Christianity in general. Which, let's face it, was stupid. Because you know, live and let live. Also, it's very common in the fascist Left of California to preach anti-hate against on the behalf of minorities, or left-of-center groups, while actively hating on the established majorities, which is just fucking retarded. Crowley said it best, "Every man and woman is a star," or "Do what Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law," the basic tenets of his self-made religion Thelema. In other words, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, believe what you need to in order to be happy and a good person (by the basic nature of this, group hate such as nazi-ism is expunged).
Anyway, K and her Mom really helped reactivate my Christmas spirit last year; I'm about as far from a Christian as you're going to find, but all the pretty dressings they've hung on the winter solstice please me, and in no way threaten my own world view.
I can share.
Still obsessed with Synchronicity. I find that lately, I have to listen to it every day. I just have to.
Playlist from 12/24:
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline disc 2
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
The Police - Synchronicity
The Police - Regatta de Blanc
Vaguess - The Bodhi Collection
Card of the day:
Lack of stability based on thwarted attempts to write that have become negative inertia. Jesus, I really need to get my shit on track. Tomorrow.
Continuing to hang out in the 80s music of my childhood, I've added a Talking Heads binge to my Police one (still listening to Synchronicity on an almost daily basis).
In 2008 Pascal Laugier ripped my soul open with his film Martyrs. The one film of the 'torture porn' generation to transcend the genre, Martyrs - the original, French version - is a milestone in horror cinema that made me feel something no other film has. Four years later his follow-up, The Tall Man, played like an ABC, movie of the week and left me flabbergasted that the same man had made it. Now, six years later, Mr. Laugier has once again made a film that affected me so deeply, I am still thinking about it four days after viewing it. I'm not posting a trailer here because I watched Incident in a Ghostland with no knowledge what it was about and think you should do the same - I sampled the trailer a few minutes ago and it gives WAAAAY too much away. Just watch it blind; it's $3.99 to rent on Prime right now and is very much worth the money. But do me a favor: watch it alone, in the dark, and if you smoke, maybe have a hit or two beforehand. And then, well, prepare yourself.
Another film I watched recently is The Witch in The Window, streaming on Shudder and nested in their "Best of 2018" category. Very good film; it has a moment that chilled me to the marrow. Very understated horror, with the main focus on a splintered family. This trailer I have vetted and have no qualms posting because it does what a trailer should do - gives you a feel without spoiling anything about the film.
Playlist from 12/23:
Tool - Undertow
The Police - Synchronicity
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (disc 2)
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Card of the day:
Macrocosmic emotional event? Perhaps a commentary on my re-finding my Christmas spirit last year and it really filling me with an all-pervading joy this year during the season?
It's hard for me to choose a favorite Prince song, and it's equally as hard for me to even choose a favorite Prince song off any given Prince album. Sign O' The Times Definitely ranks among my favorite of the man's work, partially because it is so of its time that when I listen to it the very cells in my body and brain move back to how they operated, circa 1987. I can see the ugly orange carpet we had in the living room, the weird 70s plaid sofa and loveseat; I can hear my dog Frisky barking over the sound of B96 low on the radio in my sister's bedroom. I can picture the chill of sneaking out of bed late on a cold Friday night in March to watch Friday Night Videos (we never had cable), and the strain of the title track from the album coming from the Magnavox tv. And for some reason, even though I didn't know or hear The Ballad of Dorothy Parker until later in life, listening to it now instantly evokes these sense-memories, in such a strong way that, if I close my eyes, I am right back there. Time Travel - I've sometimes wondered if it's just our sense of sight that prevents us from this feat, as though the things we build our world from specifically operate/exist within certain visual spectrum parameters, to prevent the layman from actually traveling into the past. Were this so, are there secret places where this is not the case? And who, if anyone, holds the keys to those places?
This weird psychonaut talk may be the result of watching most of the Joe Bob Briggs Christmas Phantasm Marathon last night on Shudder. The series gets pretty trippy as it goes on, so maybe it affected me in ways I did not anticipate...
The newest episode of The Horror Vision went up late last night. This past Thursday night Ray, Anthony, Chris, and myself were fortunate enough to have three of the main minds from Skeleton Crew on to discuss their new feature Secret Santa. Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, and Bryan Sexton steer the boat for a nice, meaty discussion on their movie, the horrors of holiday family dinners, independent filmmaking, the state of horror, plus, a lot of in-depth facets of the movie business as seen through a creator's eyes. Here's a trailer for Secret Santa, which I've seen twice now and which gets better every time. Links to our episode on all the usual platforms follow:
Ministry - The Last Sucker
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Card of the day:
Calm exterior, tempest inside. This is me at the moment. Nothing bad happening, just unable to find the time to work on everything I want to work on, let alone finish the goddamn book!
However, patience is virtue, and I sometimes feel as though I might have inexhaustible reserves of this precious commodity.
I've never been a very big MC5 fan. I've always labored under the idea that the right time/place just never hit me with them, despite several of my best friends being huge fans well back into the 90s. Mr. Brown saw them live recently, and alerted me to the fact that the new band is, for me, something I simply can NOT ignore. Original guitarist Wayne Kramer is joined on this current tour by:
Billy Gould - Faith No More
Kim Thayil - Soundgarden
Brandon Canty - Fugazi
And one of the best live vocalists I've ever seen, still to this day probably fifteen years after last time seeing him with one of my favorite bands, from Zen Guerrilla, Marcus Durant. I missed the show in LaLaLand, and I'll have to live with that, but thanks to KEXP and their wonderful Live on KEXP series, I at least have this.
Tangent: REJOICE - Heaven is an Incubator has released his albums of the year; read all about them HERE. Mine's coming eventually...
I really intended on posting the new Hellboy trailer that dropped yesterday. I love the two Hellboy flicks GDT did, especially Hellboy: The Golden Army, which I always thought felt like the first movie if someone gave it a Mandy-sized dose of LSD. I was sad to see that run of Hellboy end, but with Harbour as the red-skinned pulp hero, Ian McShane as Bruttenholm, and Neil "Dog Soldiers" Marshall directing, I'm all in. Even though I HATE the first trailer. After having a momentary panic, I did some digging and my encroaching suspicion seems to be confirmed: this trailer was edited in a slightly dishonest way, so as to push a bunch of humor to the front and give the film a more "Guardians of the Galaxy" type vibe. This of course makes perfect marketing sense marketing wise, so I'm willing to forgive that, especially when a Deadline interview with creator Mike Mignola includes this quote: "Neil is a horror director so the idea then was to make a darker film." Read the full interview HERE. Yeah, the interview is three months old, but I feel like Mignola's words are more poignant now that we have a trailer that, hopefully, is at least a touch misleading.
Playlist from 12/19:
Cash Money (Audio) - The Green Bullet
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
The Police - Synchronicity
Billie Ellish - Party Favor (Single)
Billie Ellish - When the Party's Over
Kavinsky - Night Call (Single)
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
The Damage Manual - >1 Remix EP
The Damage Manual - Eponymous
NIN - Bad Witch
Card of the day:
The Earthy aspect of Air. My initial impetus is to translate this as herald of a possible external or internal conflict today, however in looking at the nifty little reference book that came with the beautiful mini Thoth deck my good friend Missi gifted me while I was in Chicago, I read this: "A young woman, stern and revengeful, with destructive logic, firm and aggressive, skilled in practical affairs," and I realize this is EXACTLY one of the characters I am writing in the book at the moment, one of the ones that brings everything around to the book's conclusion. Cassandra Tenorio is very skilled, motivated solely by vengeance, and maybe should act a little more like it. Gloves = off!
Continuing my recent relapse into my life-long obsession with The Police - I can remember checking Synchronicity on vinyl out of the library in Worth, Il back in the early 80s. One of the first bands to make an impact on me, somewhere around the age of seven. Every Breath You Take is one of those songs that never became played out to me, despite its exponential ubiquity in the years since its release. I LOVE the bridge - the bridge still hits me just as hard now as it did then. And like Vertigo is to cinema, what a creepy contemplation of obsession in audio form, masquerading as a love song. Well, not really masquerading at all. The Police play this one as it lays, it just seems to be the world at large misinterpreted it as 'sweet'.
Playlist from 12/18:
Cash Money (Audio) - Green Bullet
The Police - Synchronicity
The Police - Outlandos d'Amour
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
Various Artists - Personal Playlist: Wisconsin Mix
Interpol - Marauder
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
I'll take this as a warning about the ease/speed with which I succumb to new ideas, because they are distractions at this point.
Aaaannnddd... the dream is over. Back to work today.
I'd never heard of Demdike Stare before last Thursday night. We were sitting around in the hotel room in Wisconsin after spending the day at House on the Rock, and I happened across this, which led me to the group's 2018 album Passion, which is fantastic. Reminds me a bit of the first time I heard Adult, way back on the Erase Errata remix EP that has since disappeared from this reality completely.
I think.
Playlist from 12/17:
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through
Calexico - The Black Light
Exhalants - Eponymous
Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth for Christ Choir - Do Not Pass Me By, Vol. II
The Knife - Silent Shout
Cash Money (Audio) - Green Bullet
Card of the day:
Right now, I'm reading this as successfully reintegrating back into my routine, which I have seem to done fine.
