Taking a cue from Heaven is an Incubator and posting some Morphine. Love this band, love this track. It's been a minute since I pulled any of their albums out, and doing so now makes me realize that in the four years or so now that I've been using Apple Music, I've not taken advantage of it insofar as finally filling in the gaps I have with this band, one of the most unique and listenable bands from a decade where both those attributes seemed abundant. Not every band with a unique sound from that era has aged well; maybe it will pass, but there's a lot of music I considered unique then that feels dated because of it now. Not Morphine. It's a tired metaphor, but Mark Sandman, Dana Colley, Jerome Deupree and Billy Conway's music truly is like a fine wine - it only gets better with age.
Watch:
Chalk this one up as another upcoming Horror flick I almost missed:
Amazon dropped the trailer for their upcoming University Horror flick Master last week, and it looks creepy A.F. This one lands next week on the 18th, in theatres and on Prime.
And as long as we're talking about upcoming Horror movies, This is the best f*&king news I've heard in quite some time.
NCBD:
Frank Castle in the Hand? Well, that's an original take. I'm cursing myself already for giving this one a shot, but I'm super curious so I'll at the very least be grabbing this first issue.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it here at some point recently or not, but when I heard Beta Ray Bill was in Thor 22, I had to pick it up. And seeing as how that issue is the third in the current God of Hammers storyline, I went back and tried to grab issues 19 and 20 as well, only they were long gone. Apparently, Mjölnir is now a sentient character - that's him/her/they on the cover of issue 21's second printing, which I'll be picking up tomorrow, along with the finale of the storyline, issue 23.
That's a long way to go for what seems to be a brief appearance by BRB, but the story's pretty good, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all shakes out.
Advance word has it that the penultimate issue of X Deaths of Wolverine is bloody and nasty and crazy. We'll see.
Past = 5 of Wands: Strife. I have been extremely uneasy in my own skin, and part of that has been a reticence to commit to a short-term writing project. Lots of ideas, but I flit from one to another without any commitment.
Present = 0: The Fool. Fresh starts. In this case, over and over again. Usually The Fool is a welcome sight, an inclination that a new adventure or project is about to begin. Here, I believe it's akin to spinning my wheels.
Future = 8 of Cups: Indolence. The warning: What one and two have done so far is keep me in a kind of holding pattern that intermittently results in non-activity, or, in the classic definition of this card at face value, inactivity. I need to break this. So how about a final, clarifying card?
Again, my inclination is to take this literally - well, okay, as literal as "The Universe" can be, and read this as what comes next. In other words, the next project I work on, I stick to. I'm off tomorrow for a visit to the lung doctor, and other than hitting the Bug for NCBD, the plan is to write. I'm pretty sure I know what the winning project will be, but I guess you never know.
I've been in the mood for some of the older albums by long-time favorite The Ocean, aka The Ocean Collective. This would be my favorite track from Precambrian, released on Metal Blade way back in 2007.
I love almost every album by these guys, and chief songwriter Robin Staps is a genius for my money, but there's something about the sheer assault of Precambrian and its precursor Aeolian, that the band has yet to capture again (not that I'm saying they need to).
Watch:
The long-unavailable in the States second film by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, Livid, hit Shudder last week and I was able to eek in a viewing over the weekend.
Wow. This one did not disappoint. Livid is, like Inside before it, further proof that Bustillo and Maury are just as interested in making beautiful movies as they are Horror movies. Comparisons to Argento are on the money and yet also a bit misleading, and while the dance academy from Suspiria is mentioned in Livid and thus, ties the film directly to Argento's "Three Witches" world, there are no continuity, character or place/plot overlaps. This means whatever tie was intended is more homage than actual DNA for Livid. But there is a definite tone here that feels at the very least inspired by, if not directly related to, Suspiria. The color pallette is quite different - Livid prefers grey to bold primary colours - however, there is a softness to the visual life of the film that smooths the horrific edges and helps make it feel like a fairytale, much like Argento's technique. Part of this may indeed be that both films deal with the world of Dance, and this makes them feel 'old world' and steeped in tradition, which is often the very element of the world fairytales seek to unmoor.
There's also the element of what I call "Doll Discovery." Dolls play a big part in the visual fabric of the film, from a strange, anthropomorphic children's tea party to a penchant for extreme taxidermy. This also helps the viewer feel what the characters feel - namely that they've accidentally stepped into some "other" place, where time does not necessarily behave the way it does for most of us.
I adore this film, and pretty much immediately set out to order it on Bluray. Now I really need to go back and give the filmmakers' other movies a spin, as I didn't connect with Among the Living upon first viewing, and I still haven't watched Deep House.
Dollar Bin:
New feature. Every Tuesday, I'm going to post a comic I found in a dollar bin. What with hardcovers, omnibuses, trade paperback collections and even digital, old floppies just don't have the draw they used to. The Comic Bug is known for buying large collections and then placing the bulk of the stuff out as Dollar Bins, and I've had a lot of good times going through them, finding stuff that would be garbage to many. So here's where I highlight some of my finds.
I don't really know much about ROM Spaceknight except it was a toy I never had as a kid, and there was a Marvel Comic I never read. Later in life though, ROM began to pop up in weird places to remind me he existed, and once in a while over the last decade or so, I find a single issue in a dollar bin and pick it up. ROM is a book that has come to represent a certain era of comics and SciFi to me, and because of that, it's always fun to read.
Playlist:
The Ocean - Precambrian
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Mr. Bungle - The Night They Came Home
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Ennio Morricone - Il Grande Silenzio OST
Card:
I wanted to do a three-card spread today, primarily because I haven't done much other than pull one daily card for quite some time. What I got feels very on the money, true to recent form.
Past = 4 of Swords: Truce. Focus and concentration undercut by a certain restless energy. I love this card. The "restless" aspect is not always one of the most clear-cut elements of this card. In fact, I would normally ignore it based on how the other images - all balanced and proportional, right down to the swords that meet perfectly in the middle of a beautifully centered cross and the 49 petaled flower in its own heart. But mixed with the next two cards, that hectic background cannot be ignored.
Present = Knight of Wands. This card is pretty simple. Energy and Passion.
Future = Prince of Disks. More focused energy, but proportionate. Those concentric circles in the background tell of using the second card's Will to help corral the energy of the first card into a culminating experience.
From the Dead Boys 1978 album, We Have Come For Your Children. Classic album, classic song. Also, talk about close to the bone - this was released less than a year after Berkowitz was arrested in August of 1978, and the fact that by '77 the Dead Boys had moved from Ohio to New York, this is a New York punk band singing about Son of Sam pretty much while it was happening.
Watch:
Saturday night, K and I were invited to what will probably be our last screening with the crew from the Comic Bug. Owner Jun rents out a theatre for all the major comic book movies and invites a small cadre of family, friends and favorite customers. I have always felt deeply honored to be among the latter. What did we see? Why, Matt Reeves' The Batman, of course.
I would almost definitely not have seen this if not for this invite. I just feel so burned out on Batman in general. When I saw the trailer on the big screen a few months back, I had to admit the movie looked fantastic, but the thought of actually watching it held exactly zero joy for me, so I wrote it off. Was I wrong?
Well, there was more about The Batman that I liked than I disliked, so I'm glad I saw it. The film is visually arresting; it has a strong tone reinforced by a somewhat defining color palette that just works. Everything is dark AF, with lots of fluorescent red lighting thrown in to beautiful effect. There are also patches of neon throughout, and a certain embedded opulence that really serves to define the more upscale elements of Reeves' Gotham. Oh yeah, and I can honestly say this is the first Batmobile I didn't roll my eyes at (despite my adoration of Christopher Nolan's franchise, that one was pretty ridiculous).
Robert Pattison also turns in a fantastic performance. His is a perfected Batman and Bruce Wayne - despite the too-perfect bangs - that clearly had the benefit of observing and correcting what didn't work from Christian Bale's version, which I'm not knocking at all. But the newest version should learn from the previous, and Pattinson definitely owes at least a passing thanks to Bale. John Turturro was an absolutely inspired choice for Carmine Falcone, and it wasn't until after the movie when someone mentioned Colin Farrell had played the Penguin that I realized it. As tired as I find all of Batman's classic rogue's gallery, these reinventions are all great. Paul Dano went a bit overboard in some of his screen time as the Riddler - mostly in the declaration videos he baits the police with - but overall he's great, and I'm happy to report that there's not a "?" to be seen on his costume.
So what didn't I like? Well, it's just shy of three hours long, and absolutely shouldn't be. Oh, the story they ran with needs all of that time to work itself out (well, not ALL of it), but that's the thing. The story's not very good. Sure, parts of it are great, but it's written in a way that incorporated all kinds of elements it just didn't need. The script has some issues as well. There are three scenes with two people talking that go on way too long and border on irrelevant or not needed, as does some of the delivery of the lines in those scenes. Chewing the scenery, as they say.
My biggest problem? The third act. Well, felt more like the fucking tenth act by the time we got to it, and it takes the movie off the rails. What I LOVE about Reeves' TheBatman is he gave us what he promised - a stripped-down, Detective story. Awesome, let's leave the semi-flips and city-wide destruction aside and see the detective side of Bats. Except - when you get to the final set-piece, it goes so big with its swathe of destruction that at times, it became laughable.
Overall, if you brace yourself for a long three hours, this one is worth seeing on the big screen. And if you get the chance, do like I did and re-watch David Fincher's Se7en beforehand. There's a massive influence Fincher's seminal serial killer film had on Reeves' film, for the best.
Playlist:
Firebreather - Dwell in the Fog
sElf - Breakfast with Girls
The Afghan Whigs - I'll Make You See God (single)
Sade - Apple Music Essentials
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Beliefs - Habitat
Drab Majesty - Careless
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
The Ocean - Mesoarchaean (single)
The Ocean - Heliocentric
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux
Dead Boys - We Have Come For Your Children
Deafheaven - Infinite Granite
Card:
Listening to inner dialogue, harmonizing renewal, which is funny consider "renewal" is a word used A LOT in The Batman. Anyway, I have felt pretty good of late, and my ideas are flowing again.
It's another Bandcamp Friday, and it's also the release date of Spizm's B4uDie record. I pre-ordered this a while back and posted the lead, titular single, and now that I've heard the whole thing, I strongly recommend you throw these guys some $$. Remember, artists keep ALL the money from sales on Bandcamp Friday, so what better way to support independent creators!
There are some pretty Bold Horror Statements being used in the marketing for the new film You Won't Be Alone, which makes me skeptical. However...
Yeah, after watching about a quarter of this trailer, I knew I was in and turned it off lest I learn too much. Directed by Goran Stolevski - who I am completely unfamiliar with despite the fact that his name rings a bell - I think Focus Features is banking on the "Folk Horror Explosion" with this one. That's okay. I find despite the buzz, I'm rarely disappointed by films marketed under that banner.
Playlist:
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I
Judas Priest - British Steel
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
Ghost - Infestissumam
Neil Young - Greatest Hits
Greg Puciato - Lowered (single)
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits
Mutterlein - Orphans of the Black Sun
Jim Willaims - Possessor OST
Killing Joke - Night Time
Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil
Ministry - Filth Pig
Tom Vek - Luck
Grinderman - Eponymous
Spizm - B4uDie
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Card:
I'm really having trouble digging past the surface and listening to the inner voice that tells me how to write. I've kind of pushed myself into a frustration corner and can't see past it.
I had to get one more Lanegan track in, because I don't think I'd ever realized he had a collaborattion with Chelsea Wolfe before.
NCBD:
Here's my haul for another NCBD:
Again with the fantastic cover for Moon Knight.
I might have missed picking up issue #3 of Newburn, so I'll have to remedy that as well.
James Tynion IV's The Nice House On The Lake returns after a small hiatus. This one has a lot that feels like it's being lost to me reading it as it drops, but I may make
Hands down, the best cover of any X-Book since Powers/House. This is currently the only of the X-titles that I'm reading that still feels like Hickman's run, and this cover proves that 100%.
Playlist:
The Gutter Twins - Adorata
Wham! - Everything She Wants (single)
George Michael - Faith
The Veils - Total Depravity
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
Zombi - Digitalis
Author & Punisher - Women & Children
Yeruselem - The Sublime
Card:
Sevens are Netzach, and thus related to Strength. Which I feel like I've been pretty keen on exhibiting of late. Also, in Thoth, I tend to see this card as an indication that one idea will stand out among others, and prove itself useful if followed. Which helps with the current state of my writing, which is a big mess of peaks and valleys at the moment. Too many ideas, is kind of what I was thinking an hour or so before I pulled this one, so I'll take the advice.
And thanks to my good friend Seth for the link to this one. What a beautiful way to end Mark Lanegan week.
Watch:
I know it's waaaay early, but I'm going on record: So far, Hellbender - or stylized as H6llb6nd6r - is the movie to beat for my favorite movie of the year:
This is another film by the Adams family - Tobey Poser, her husband John Adams and their two daughters Lulu and Zelda - who released The Deeper You Dig in 2019 and have been gaining an increasing amount of notoriety as a family of ridiculously talented individuals. Even the music they did for the movie is fantastic and begs for a proper release.
Playlist:
The Afghan Whigs - In Spades
The Cure - Faith
The Cure - Carnage Visors
QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze
Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral
Walking Papers - The Light Below
Black Road - Witch of the Future
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Silent - Modern Hate
Ritual Howls - Into the Water
Card:
Again? I need some time to process this. Or maybe that's the point. While I keep trying to figure certain things out, the Wheel keeps spinning, and the situation changes.
Regardless of the fact that Lanegan himself was pretty vocal about a certain degree of embarrassment at some of the music he made as a part of Screaming Trees, I'll always love certain songs by the band. It's the project with Lanegan I care the least about, but they definitely have their moments. "Nearly Lost You" is a perfect rock single, and my original plan was to post that. However, the day he died I was at work, and at some point, a couple hours after hearing the news I walked out of the office and heard "Dollar Bill" on the 88.9 KXLU. I haven't heard this song since 2009, and it really just smacked me upside the head.
Watch:
Sunday was a full-on relaxing, restorative day. I needed it. I slept in, dozed often, read quite a bit, and managed to watch several movies.
First up, 1944's House of Frankenstein:
I'm pretty sure I had never heard of this one before, and boy did it deliver on the Universal Monster goodness. Such an awesome set-up. From the Wikipedia entry for the movie:
"After escaping from prison, the evil Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his hunchbacked assistant, Daniel (J. Carrol Naish), plot their revenge against those who imprisoned them. For this, they recruit the powerful Wolf Man (Lon Chaney), Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) and even Dracula himself (John Carradine). Niemann pursues those who wrong him, sending each monster out to do his dirty work. But his control on the monsters is weak at best and may prove to be his downfall."
In particular, the scene where Karloff's Dr. Niemann revives Dracula is fantastic, as is the way their relationship progresses and finally ends. Saying anything more would be giving away a nice little surprise, of which, this movie has several. Also, really cool to see Karloff in a movie with the Frankenstein monster where he doesn't play the titular being.
Next, 1939's Son of Frankenstein.
Pretty standard, but cool to see Basil Rathbone in a flick with these Horror Icons.
Both of these were leaving Shudder, and after starting House of Frankenstein out of curiosity a few days ago, but ultimately falling asleep for most of it, my early childhood love of Frank came back with a vengeance. I enjoyed both of these quite a bit, but preferred House because of its truly unique set-up.
Read:
So I decided I'm going to re-read all of H.P. Lovecraft's work. I started reading Lovecraft in High School - maybe Junior year. I've been reading him ever since but with my exposure to his work being subdivided between various Dell Paperbacks, I never had a "Complete Works" set until fairly recently. Because of that, I'm not entirely certain which of his works I missed (see my post about Charles Dexter Ward from last week).
So far, here's what I've read:
• The Festival
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
• The Statement of Randolph Carter
• The Strange House High in the Mist
• The Terrible Old Man
• Azathoth
• Beyond the Wall of Sleep
• Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn & His Family
Of particularly great pleasure was reading The Strange House High in the Mist. It'd been a loooong time, and this is one of those stories I realize now that defines what I love about HPL.
Playlist:
Walking Papers - The Light Below
Federale - No Justice
QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze
The Cure - Carnage Visors
Christopher Young and Lustmord - the Empty Man OST
Myrkur - Folkesange
Card:
I don't collect Tarot decks. I've had my full-size Thoth since around 2003. My only other decks are the "pocket" Thoth Missi gave me a few years back, and her own Raven Tarot (Major Arcana only) which she made for me two years ago. However, as I performed my pull this evening I was thinking about the fact that my friend Jonathan Grimm is beginning to take pre-orders for his "Bound Tarot" deck and there's no way I'm not buying this. Pulling The Hierophant only serves to reinforce my thinking that this will now be a third deck I actually use for daily readings.
There's not an actual link to pre-order the Bound deck yet, but I'll definitely be posting that here when it's up. In the meantime, you can peruse the designs over on Grimm's Etsy HERE.
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.
I originally posted a track from this Lanegan/Isobel Campbell collaboration album back when it was released in 2010. That's over a decade ago. Trite "Time Flies" sentiments aside, I'm beginning to feel like we're lucky any of us are still here with the way the world has changed since then. Anyway, I love "The Raven" because it's just so damn cinematic. Also, there's a definite air of homage to Nick Cave here. That track from 2010 - "Who Built the Road" has more than a passing similarity to Cave's duet witih Kylie Minogue, "Where the While Roses Grow." Gentle bell chimes, hushed, breathy vocals, and an overall somber and reflective atmosphere to the album as a whole make this a late-night, dim-light album, and the juxtaposition of Isobel Campbell's voice with Lanegan's is just beautiful, especially when the strings swell beneath them.
You can still grab the complete record on digital over its Bandcamp page HERE. The entire thing is fantastic, with styles ranging from this quasi Italian Western cinema to sultry Motown-esque soul, to quiet, contemplative ballads that meander through your mind and emotions like a slow-moving snake. SO good.
Also, file this in "Made my Day" - how about this cover by Two Minutes To Late Night's Gwarsenio Hall?
Super cool.
Watch:
This one looks like it's going to be one helluva fun ride:
I love the Cheap Thrills-meets-You're Next vibes here.
Playlist:
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release)
Allegaeon - DAMNUM
Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt
The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP
Warren G - Regulators (single)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Silent - Modern Hate
Card:
I've been jumping back and forth between my two decks - The Raven and Thoth - in an effort to see if any of my recent pulls line up. So far, not really, but they definitely tell an over-arching story:
Change - don't struggle against it. I can't help but wonder if this is intentionally a dovetail with what I see as the beginning of a very tumultuous five years for the world as we know it.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
The Gutter Twins - Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli - performing "Idle Hands" on David Letterman. Easily my favorite song by the Twins, not because their other material is lacking, but because Lanegan channels a fucking demon with the low end on his voice in this one. The album version is sonically preferable, but how good is it to see these two icons playing side by side?
Listen:
Thanks to Mr. Brown for messaging me about this one dropping - I'd missed it completely.
I am SO hoping this means there's a new Whigs full-length on the way. Also, wondering if Dulli released this earlier than expected as a statement on Lanegan's passing. Super awesome track, can't wait for more.
Watch:
Tomorrow on Shudder:
The trailer Hellbender one played a few weeks ago during the halfway point of the Joe Bob Brigg's Valentine's Day Special. I've been looking forward to it since, and it finally hits tomorrow on Shudder.
Playlist:
Boy Harsher - The Runner OST
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
The Gutter Twins - Adorata
Metallica - Kill 'Em All
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy
The Afghan Whigs - I'll Make You See God (single)
Mark Lanegan Band - Here Comes That Weird Chill
QOTSA - Songs for the Deaf
Chrome Canyon - Director
Cult Leader - A Patient Man
Card:
The watery aspect of water. From the grimoire: "Deep, Emotional Realms of Personality." I'm plumbing ideas of Deep Personality in a new writing project I'm using to bridge the huge gap I've suffered in working on the second Shadow Play book. This is a short, probably a serialized piece for No Sleep, since the other was so well received, and it's keeping me writing while so many interruptions have made it impossible to hit any kind of a continuous stride while working on the novel.
From Earth's 2014 masterpiece Primitive and Deadly, featuring the late Mark Lanegan on vocals.
NCBD:
A pretty smashing Wednesday at the shop, if I do say so myself:
Fucking LOVE this cover.
Deadly Class! Only a few more issues. I'm getting both excited and sad.
I would say I'm annoyed at how long this one has taken to come out, but when you look at the work involved, I think it's totally understandable. I mean, the detail on the cover - let alone on the pages inside - is almost mindboggling.
Prince Robot? Me thinks I smell a flashback.
This was accidental. I heard that Beta Ray Bill appears in Donny Cates' Thor #22 and picked it up late last week. When I did, I realized that issue is part four of a storyline called "The God of Hammers". I grabbed the first part - Thor #19, but quickly realized there were no copies of 20 or 21. Apparently, they sold fast, and reprints of 20 hit this week with 21 following next. All this has really just primed me with hype for a comic I normally don't care anything about.
I still love Two Moons, but resolved to wait to read this arc until it finishes, I was just missing too much going month-to-month.
As long as this continues to be primarily about Moira and Mystique, I'm in.
Read:
I was just about fed up with H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward when I arrived at the Fifth section of the book, V. A Nightmare and a Cataclysm. Here's an excerpt:
"The next few rooms he tried were all abandoned, or filled only with crumbling boxes and ominous-looking leaden coffins; but impressed him deeply with the magnitude of Joseph Curwen’s original operations. He thought of the slaves and seamen who had disappeared, of the graves which had been violated in every part of the world, and of what that final raiding party must have seen; and then he decided it was better not to think any more. Once a great stone staircase mounted at his right, and he deduced that this must have reached to one of the Curwen outbuildings—perhaps the famous stone edifice with the high slit-like windows—provided the steps he had descended had led from the steep-roofed farmhouse. Suddenly the walls seemed to fall away ahead, and the stench and the wailing grew stronger. Willett saw that he had come upon a vast open space, so great that his torchlight would not carry across it; and as he advanced he encountered occasional stout pillars supporting the arches of the roof.
After a time he reached a circle of pillars grouped like the monoliths of Stonehenge, with a large carved altar on a base of three steps in the centre; and so curious were the carvings on that altar that he approached to study them with his electric light. But when he saw what they were he shrank away shuddering, and did not stop to investigate the dark stains which discoloured the upper surface and had spread down the sides in occasional thin lines. Instead, he found the distant wall and traced it as it swept round in a gigantic circle perforated by occasional black doorways and indented by a myriad of shallow cells with iron gratings and wrist and ankle bonds on chains fastened to the stone of the concave rear masonry. These cells were empty, but still the horrible odour and the dismal moaning continued, more insistent now than ever, and seemingly varied at times by a sort of slippery thumping."
Subterranean exploration and Stygian catacombs are among my very favorite things- they tickle my imagination in a way I cannot express in words. This story went from being a massive chore laced with veins of Lovecraft's meandering prose and racist tendencies to being everything about his writing that made me fall in love with him in the first place, and I am very happy I stuck with it.
Playlist:
Chrome Canyon - Director
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Metallica - Kill 'Em All
Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers
Mr. Bungle - The Night They Came Home
Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum
The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia
Mark Lanegan - Straight Songs of Sorrow
Card:
This card is all about balance to me, and I pulled it right after texting with my friend Missi about finding balance. Her's is off today (this is Tuesday night), and so is mine. Between my lung issues and now an identity theft issue that came up last night, I definitely feel unmoored. But it's all about planting a solid foundation and using that to find a center of gravity. From there, things will unfold at a more controllable rate.
Jesus. Wasn't expecting this yesterday. Talk about an iconic voice. Lanegan came to my attention the same way he did many people my age - via the Screaming Trees' "I Nearly Lost You" when it was featured on the seminal soundtrack album for Singles. I couldn't care less about the movie, but that soundtrack, it's one of the ages in my opinion. And "I Nearly Lost You" is one of the best tracks on an album of all great tracks. From there, I kind of got into the Trees, but I was always way more into Lanegan's solo and journeyman stuff he did after the band broke up. Personal favs have long been the work he did with Greg Duli on The Gutter Twins, his time in QOTSA, and of his 2004 solo record Bubblegum, which is another perfect album.
For an artist who left us such a wealth of material, I'm going to make him my featured artist for the remainder of the week (or the next 7 days, whichever comes first).
I know nothing about Forest Circles - I'm not even sure where I encountered their name. But I'm glad I did. Super cool, moody Autumngaze - yes, I do believe I'm coining that term - and it fits my mood at the moment perfectly.
Can't wait to hear more.
Watch:
Friday night, K and I watched an excellent documentary on The Doors.
The Thumbnail for The Doors: When You're Strange caught my eye on Prime Video and after watching the little sample clip, I saw Jim Morrison climb out of a wrecked car on the highway near Joshua Tree, walk down the road hitchhiking, and eventually get picked up by... himself?
What really floored me was, this appeared to be an actual piece filmed by Morrison. I was so intrigued I started the film and was immediately sucked in. Johnny Depp narrates, and no matter what you think of the man now, this was a reminder what a bastion of class he is. There's so much raw, unseen footage of The Doors in this one, I was floored, and fully recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in the group.
Read:
Now that Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Primordial is finished, I went back and re-read the entire 6-issue story in one sitting.
Wow.
Part Grant Morrison, Part David Lynch, all kinds of mind-bending and thought-provoking, Primordial was definitely created to be read in a single sitting. The issues are tight, and the art/script hit that synergistic level from the jump, so that you fly through this and only slow down to try and figure out what you're actually seeing during the sequences that involve the three animals sent into space in 1957 and 1961 (two monkeys by the US in '61, one dog by the USSR in '57). The narrative really uses Sorrentino's art to play with the concept of extraterrestrial life, how it would exist outside of our dimensional perceptions and what it would be like to actually experience encountering something like that. Honestly, I found the entire read as awe-inspiring as some of Morrison's most heady stuff, and it left me thinking about it for days.
Playlist:
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
Pearl Jam - Vs
Urge Overkill - Oui
The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy
Forest Circles - Poison Leaves (single)
Chrome Canyon - Director
Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)
Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)
Card:
I'm exhausted, so while I'm recording my pull, I'm not attempting to interpret it (at the moment).
Oh my god. Rough day yesterday, then I woke after a recuperative 11 hours and 18 minutes of sleep (haven't slept like that in over a decade, but my body needed it after yesterday, which I will get to shortly) and find Matt Pike's solo album Pike vs the Automaton has dropped! Three songs in, and I love this. I mean, out of the first three tracks, it was tough to decide which one I wanted to post: "Abusive" opens the record, and I loved it the second I heard those opening chords. Track 3, "Trapped in a Midcave" opens with such a throwback to The Art of Self Defense era High on Fire it seemed the natural choice, but in the end, how do you not post the track named "Throat Cobra". Shit, what a great Friday already!
Watch:
First, I LOVE that HBO has titled the second season of their SciFi/Body Horror show Raised By Wolves, Raised By Wolves 2. Episode 4 dropped last night, and as with the previous three and all of season one, I am repeatedly left scratching my head at where any of this is going - in the best possible way. There is NOTHING like this show, and I find there is no way to estimate where any of the plot threads are going, where the beats are landing, or to what lengths it will go to get stranger and more Horrific in a very Ridley Scott's Alien kind of way.
I'm going to go ahead and post the full first episode here - courtesy of HBO's youtube channel.
If you've not seen it, this one is definitely worth your time. And if you dig it but don't have HBO Max, I can assure you, if Raised By Wolves isn't enough to justify the cost of a few months subscription price, then the Turner Movie Classic suburb of the app more than makes it worthwhile.
WTF?:
I saw this on Ghost's youtube channel, called and received a cool little message that included this picture.
I feel like Ghost is going back to their old-school weird, counter-intuitive approach to marketing, and I like it.
Playlist:
Pearl Jam - Vs. *
Justin Timberlake - Justified
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Plagarism EP
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Urge Overkill - Oui
Pike Vs the Automaton
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Burial - Antidawn
Beach House - Once Twice Melody
...........................
* I still get a chill everytime I listen to the opening track on Pearl Jam's second record, "Go." I've never been a huge fan of the band or even this particular album - Ten is spotless start to finish, Vs has its ups and downs for me, although I love more of it than I don't. But the energy in this opening track and the emotional charge to Eddie Vedder's vocals is powerful stuff, mate.
Card:
One of the things I love about the High Priestess, and this Raven Tarot High Priestess my friend Missi made me, is the inclusion of Joachim and Boaz, the two pillars from King Solomon's temple. They represent Love and Understanding, Knowledge from unifying the two. When I look at this card, I see the Kabballahistic tree of life between the two pillars, and the High Priestess sitting in front of the image, occluding several of the sephiroth. Not just any sephiroth, either. She is blocking the lower spheres of perception, making it difficult to discern the path from where we are, to those higher planes of consciousness at the summit of the tree. This card, then, often reminds me that although the path to my intended goal is unclear, unifying disparate information, or simply acting out of love and understanding, will reveal the path I need to take. This is especially pertinent at the moment. The 'rough day' I referenced above - now two days behind me as I type this final part of this post - involved a failed biopsy on my right lung. Long and the short of it is, I have had a condition known as sarcoidosis for several years now. Actually, probably more like a decade +, it just took the doctors a bit to figure out what it was. Sarcodosis is a chronic inflammation disease, and not necessarily as troublesome as the word disease implies. However, it's something you keep tabs on. So every 6 months or so, I go in for CT scans so my Pulminologist can track the amount of difference between my pulmonary inflammation - has it increased or decreased. At one point, they tried treating it with the steroid prednisone, however, that produced a side effect that gave me terrifyingly blurred vision, thus, my doctors promptly removed me from the treatment.
During the pandemic, I did not see my Pulminologist. Also, I'm a typical male in the respect that I hate going to the doctor and following up on this type of shit. Whatever. I have already excepted that this is probably what will eventually kill me. Fine - let's just push that off as far as possible, right?
Anyway, this past October I went in for my first CT scan since May 2019, and in reviewing the images, my doctor saw a 1cmm shape that, "may be nothing, but let's be sure."
Yes doc. Let's be sure.
So a biopsy is ordered. Or it was supposed to be. November came and went and I never heard from the doc's office. We moved into December and I figured now it's the holidays, so I'll wait until January. Come the first week or so of 2022, I start calling to talk to someone.
I cannot get through. At some points, there's not even an answering service on the line, it just rings and rings. I start to fear the doctor has died or retired or something. Then I get a phone tree, and am able to leave message.
I never hear back.
Okay, what the absolute fuck, right? Finally, about three weeks ago, I finally get someone. They transfer me to an amazing woman in booking that is mortified at my experience when I describe it to her. She sets out to book the biopsy as soon as possible, does, and I go in this past Thursday. Only, the little fucker they need to access - via a 26cm needle inserted through my back into my lung - is behind a fucking rib. We spend a great deal of time practicing various combinations of my holding my breath, exhaling, etc, all to try and get the doctor performing the procedure a shot at accessing the spot in question. During this, my right lung begins to collapse.
Needless to say, that's where we stop.
I spend the better part of that day in the hospital on oxygen, having X-Rays every two hours to make sure my lung is reinflating on its own.
It is.
During this time, I have nothing to occupy my time, so I spend six or seven hours basically meditating; practicing very specific, purposeful deep breathing. I figure it's good for me all around, and should hopefully help my lung regain its proper shape. I am trepidatiously discharged that evening. I'm in pain and still somewhat short of breath, but I'm markedly better. I watch episode of Raised By Wolves 2, then turn over and go to bed at about 7:00 PM. I sleep 11 hours and 18 minutes and wake up feeling great. The pain in my back, side and chest that came from the inserting part of the procedure is reduced by about 60%. My breathing feels better still. I go in at 9:00 AM for another X-Ray and talk to the doc afterward. The lung is still partially collapsed, but I have a follow-up with my Pulmonologist on Monday and we will decide how to proceed.
Which brings me back to the High Priestess.
This has, as I feared it might, paused our move. Not for long, but the path to our goal has become obscured. I have to figure out how to get a sample of this damn thing, and I'm pretty sure it's going to require being put under and attached to a machine that can breathe for me. Not a fan of this idea, however, if it will provide the results, it has to be done. I already know the other option is, since this might be nothing, to wait and see if it gets bigger, which would be alarming but would also, in theory, make it easier for them to get a sample. Not sure I want to wait, though, especially because once we move, I'm fairly certain I will be switching to a PPO insurance plan, which traditionally includes more out of pocket expenses.
But I want to charge forward, cut a path through to the results I want as fast as I want them, because I want out of this fucking state. I want to be closer to my friends and family in Chicago, and I want to get away from the place where liberals act exactly like conservatives, and ubran expansion continues unchecked into realms that will absolutely damage the infrastructure of the city and, consequently, its inhabitants' lives. Elected officials in most states suck, but California - and LaLaLand in particular - is off the fucking charts. I need calm, less traffic, and some semblance of sanity.
