Kind of an obsession right now. I had never heard of Emma Ruth Rundle until a friend sent me a writing playlist that had this song on it. After a few iterations, this one stuck out. It has a particularly '2 A.M.' sound to me, a tone I've talked about on here at various points in the past. Might be what I need to finish my novel 2:00 AM Corridors, or at least complete the outline. Regardless of how Ms. Rundle's music fuels my creativity, you can find her full albums - including Marked for Death - on Apple Music, and I was excited to see she has a new record in pre-order mode HERE.
Playlist for yesterday:
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Write Dark Things Playlist
Card of the day:
Oppression? In this heat? Yup. That is the word. My sleep is bad, my stomach is bad, my head is heavy. Oppression is the exact word.
Junior Jr. just released the video for Guns A Blazin'! With the final issue of my DwC co-host Mike Wellman and his debonair artist extraordinaire counter part Rafael Navarro's cross-time comic epic close at hand, I can't think of a better song to start my dreary Tuesday morning with.
Playlist from Yesterday:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Card of the day:
Significance of the primary subject of this card - Knight on Horse, flying into the fray. Going toward your goal with no distraction. Funny then, that this morning I feel so distracted. Leave it to the cards to call me out on it.
I know I just posted the full album stream that Deafheaven's record label Anti- put up last Friday, however, I'm still ingesting the album and while it is chock full of wonderful surprises, this song hit me the hardest. Gorgeous. And look, there's Chelsea Wolfe, who I appear to be inadvertently stalking here on my blog.
Playlist from yesterday:
John Carpenter's Lost Themes II
Yep. That's it. One album. We spent the day cleaning and organizing our garage, which has enough storage to essentially be a storage unit, so there wasn't a lot of time for music. Ended the night by viewing my new Scream Factory Blu Ray of John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, my favorite Carpenter film (not his best film, but my favorite). I had a hard time deciding on the collector's edition or the steelbook, as the latter comes with an awesome lithograph. I went with this one because it is my all-time favorite cover art for a dvd/br, artist Justin Osbourne:
If anyone knows where I can get a poster of this, please let me know. I've looked online but found nothing and apparently this edition was originally released with one.
No card today, but let's do the Prince of Darkness trailer to round things out:
To celebrate the Steelbook/Angela Figure exclusive Scream Factory announced last week. I won't be ponying up for it, at least not with the figure (no room for it), but it's pretty damn awesome.
Haven't been on here in a few days. Pulled a trip to Fingerprints in Long Beach on Friday during the day after K and I declared it a mental health day. Traded in a bunch of old CDs that didn't make the cut and used the credit to buy a couple gems on vinyl we'd been wanting.
Did a DwC Friday night and had the delightful Karen Kunawicz from the Manilla Times as our guest. Already editing it, so hopefully I'll have it up mid-week. As always, live feed is on our FB Page in perpetuity.
Spent most of Saturday, from about midnight to 8 PM watching the amazing Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder's The Last Drive In. A 24 hour horror movie marathon, this was basically a 27 hour horror movie party and I loved every second of it I caught (had to sleep for a few hours Friday night/Saturday morning). I'd never encountered Joe Bob Briggs before, and now that I've had a taste I can only hope this isn't, as he says, the last one of these he'll be doing. The entire event is up on Shudder as a season with each movie an episode. Each film has a considerably longer-than-usual runtime, as Mr. Briggs cuts in every so often to offer facts about each film, aside, stories, insights. This is the real draw, and I can only hope I can see him do this again, whether by having more, or through finding ways to watch the old Up All Night events.
Films played:
Tourist Trap
Sleepaway Camp
David Cronenberg's Rabid
The Prowler
Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama
Daughters of Darkness
Blood Feast
Basket Case
Herbert West: Re-Animator
Demons
The Legend of Boggy Creek
Hellraiser
Pieces
Great stuff, eh?
Playlist from the last few days has been sporadic at best with all the movies, so I'll refrain from posting it for now and pick back up tomorrow.
Well, it's 12:27 AM. I've officially called out from work tomorrow. Mental Health day. AND the new Deafheaven just dropped! and their awesome label Anti- is streaming Ordinary Corrupt Human Love in it's entirety. I'm a little pissed that the vinyl copy I pre-orderd the day the album was announced has not shipped yet (or King's Road Merch/Anti- hasn't updated the order status on their website), but I've got it digitally and now I've got all night and all day to listen to it!
There's a Drinking w/ Comics live streaming on our Facebook page tonight at 9:00 PM Pacific Time. Check it out - we've got Karen Kunawicz as a guest. She's the entertainment columnist for the Manilla times and a good friend of Mike's so I'm psyched to talk geek shop with her.
And a BIG Also, Joe Bob Briggs is hosting a 24 hour horror marathon on Shudder starting at 6:00 PM Pacific (that's 9:00 PM Eastern Standard) and other than listening to Deafheaven and doing my show, I'll be watching that.
Comics I will (Try) to talk about tomorrow:
Earlier this evening I watched a flick on Shudder I'd not heard of before. Described as a modern Giallo, Cold Hell defied ALL of my expectations and proved to be a fabulous film. A Giallo that is not content to just hail the flags of the genre, Cold Hell is a story of violence, but more over it is a story of the human heart. That might sound a bit heavy handed, but it's not. Absolutely, positively recommended:
Followed that up with this classic:
Card of the day:
Balance. Kind of feel like that's what I'm doing now, by not going to work tomorrow. Sometimes you have to do that; call it a mental health day.
I've been on a bit of an Electric Mud kick and this was always one of my favorite songs and one of the ways I got into the record, as Cypress Hill sampled this on their first album, which I used to be quite the fan of.
Playlist from 7/11:
Greenhaus - The Unmistakable Sound of Sloth
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
Andre Previn & The London Symphony Orchestra - Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Sinister Whispers: The Wax Trax! Years
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE. Two more to go and it is officially retired.
Card of the day:
Let's take a literal interpretation, shall we? That'd be nice.
Because I'm still charged from that video I posted yesterday for The Culling, and I'm crushing on her pretty hard at the moment.
Playlist from yesterday:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
The Veils - Total Depravity
Various Artists - Twin Peaks Ssn 3 OST
Jeff Grace - House of the Devil OST
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
AND my good friend Chris from Drinking with Comics gave me a sneak peak at some of the tracks on the forthcoming new Thirsty Crows record his band has been recording for Batcave Records. It is awesome!
Card of the day:
Willing a spark of intuition or creativity into a form. Again, the writing analogy. Also, notice in spite of yesterday's deviance, I've gone Fool, Magus Priestess in succession; I have to look into what exactly that can represent, as I've not seen that before.
Also, I'm always drawn to this card for the grid, which represents order to me. And the camel, a representation for the Hebrew letter Gimel, which is the third letter of the sacred alphabet and corresponds to the third Sephiroth, Binah, the Great Mother. Lots of water in this card, and it shows in the feminine (ie the suite of Cups; Emotions) attributes of the card. Thus, the Priestess. And interesting that one of my setbacks in working on Please Believe Me is probably because the main character is both female and elderly, and I'm attempting to find an authentic voice there. I've re-written Heddie Larsen now multiple times to try and find and air of authenticity.
What do you know? A video for my favorite track on Chelsea Wolfe's unbelievable record Hiss Spun dropped yesterday. Creepy AF. I love that they continually show you even less than just enough to intrigue you, provoking rabid contemplation and nightmare like mental recoil and reflex.
Playlist from yesterday:
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night
The Paper Chase - God Bless Your Black Heart
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split E.P.
Card of the day:
Tipareth - shelter from the storm. A healthy balance between emotion and intellect. I can use this, first and foremost in my current writing project, "Please Believe Me," where I'm really trying to nail a genuine reaction to something terrible.
I had a notice in Google to 'rediscover this day' for June 24, 2016 - two years since I saw Eagulls at the Teragram Ballroom in DTLA. That means it's just over two years since Ullages came out, so hopefully these lads have a new record in the wings. I'd like that very much. In the meantime, HERE is the Google Link to my very mediocre photos of the show (I share these merely for posterity's sake, and have never claimed to be any kind of photographer).
I finished Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton over the weekend. Very good novel; first thing I'd categorize as "East Coast Lit" that I've read in a while. No genre trappings at all; nothing wrong with genre, in fact, I guess you could say that 'lit' is kind of a genre to me. The idea comes from working in a book store for five years - I read voraciously and definitely began to see a difference in what was in the Fiction/Lit section and what was in the various genre sections. And of course this isn't a blanket policy. But, you know, William S. Burroughs' Science Fiction is different from John Scalzy's. Neither is better than the other, they just come from different angles. Or, all that's shite. This is the inner workings of my own head, don't think I'm subjugating anyone else with these parameters.
Anyway, it really put me back in a lit frame of mind - I've put off reading almost anything I'd categorize that way for years, from the time I began to write heavily plotted material I considered more genre than anything. Irvine Welsh has released four or five novels in that time and although he's one of my favorite writers, I've avoided them completely. However, after Monsters fired me up again on the lit 'flavor', I broke out Norman Mailer's The Deer Park. This a novel I've had on the shelf for some time. From the first sentence I was in love; The Deer Park is kind of The Great Gatsby in the Southern California desert, a tale of the vices of 1950's Hollywood that has Fitzgerald written all over it. I love it. And I know Gatsby isn't Fitz's Hollywood novel, but there are HUGE similarities, especially, it seems, with contemplations of morality.
The playlist from 7/08/18 was a short one:
Anthrax - Sound of White Noise
Johnny Jewel - Digital Rain
Chromatics - Night Drive
Card of the day:
From the grimoire: "Can represent desire for rebirth or a new beginning." Interesting that I've started the new short I'm working on, "Please Believe Me," three times already, slightly tweaking the way I bring the reader into the world. And it's been a journey so far, a lot of subtle changes in the way I present the characters.
I've been using a lot of instrumental music for my writing sessions of late. Most of the time lyrics don't bother me, because most of the time I write to metal and the lyrics can almost be seen as another instrument anyway, especially with the throatier stuff (hence why I listen to Deafheaven so much when I write). But I've noticed while working on this new short story, tentatively titled, "Please Believe Me," that lyrics have proven a distraction. So the other night I fell pretty hard for the Jim Jarmusch/Jozef Van Wissem stuff, and now today I'm finding Johnny Jewel's newly released Digital Rain and absolute aces album to craft by. Here's a sample:
Oh! Before I forget, happy birthday to my one of my best friends in the world, Sonny V. Despite our distance and life's continued efforts to occupy all our time and keep us apart, I love you sir, and one day we will jam together again. In the interim, I found myself thinking about some of our old comedy skits recently, so here's an oldie but a goodie:
I attended my first Horror Writer's Association meeting yesterday, thanks to the generosity of David Lucarelli. I loved it, the idea of a large group of people gathered to discuss the craft. I found inspiration from pretty much everyone present, and I absolutely cannot wait to officially join and begin attending the monthly meetings! Also, two of the gentlemen in attendance have books I am planning on reading in the very near future. Both are available on amazon, or if you're local, I believe at Dark Delicacies, a horror-shop in Burbank I wasn't really aware of until yesterday. Can't wait to check that out as well.
Zeal and Ardor - EP
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Beak - L.A. Playback
Beastmilk - Use Your Deluge E.P.
Best Coast - Crazy for You
Card of the day:
Working to develop a better understanding of the intricate Universe that surrounds us. This is Magick, the idea of tapping into something greater, and that the energies from doing so flow both ways.
Tommy gave me a new favorite record yesterday with his edition of The Joup Friday Album. The Paper Chase had been recommended to me several times by several different friends, chief among them, I believe, Mr. Brown and Jeffrey Equality Brooks, but it wasn't until Tommy put God Bless Your Black Heart up and I read his interpretation that I actually succeeded in hearing them beyond a track or two (and let's be honest, the immediacy of Apple Music helped immensely as well).
Playlist from Friday, 7/07/18:
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
Beak - L.A. Playback
The Paper Chase - God Bless Your Black Heart
SQÜRL - EP #1
Jozef Van Wissem & SQÜRL - Only Lovers Left Alive OST
Jim Jarmusch & Jozef Van Wissem - The Mystery of Heaven
Jim Jarmusch & Jozef Van Wissem - Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity
My obsession with Predator is at an all-time high. My friend Joe and I walk around all day at work quoting this scene:
Playlist from 7/05:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Grimes - Oblivion
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead (Theme)
David Lynch - The Big Dream
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Crippled Black Phoenix - Horrific Honorifics
NIN - Add Violence E.P.
Perturbator - New Model
In light of recent news, let's have some Them Are Us Too, shall we?
I finally saw A Cure For Wellness. Visually I dug it, and three-quarters of the way through I was still more or less smitten. The last third, where Gore Verbinski couldn't quite decide how he wanted to end the film, just that he absolutely had to wedge in a series of scenes that all felt as though they ended the movie, really toppled the film under the weight of lofty ambitions. A Cure For Wellness just falls apart at the end, and it's a shame. Worth a watch for sure, but even at $9.99 I have buyer's remorse that I picked up the Blu Ray. #firstworldproblems for sure.
Also watched the 1986 Transformers animated movie - the ONLY Transformers movie in my book - for the first time in probably fifteen years. Still pretty damn awesome, and the soundtrack actually bothers me less today. All the ambient/synth-based stuff is great. The hair metal not so much, but again, it doesn't quite bother me as much now as it did fifteen years ago.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.
Playlist from 7/04/18:
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Joseph Loduca - Evil Dead 2 OST
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Card of the day:
Balance. Also, results from hard work or actualization from an idea. This is good; working on a new short story.
How about a little Ted Leo and the Pharmacists to kick off the mid-week holiday?
Get you feeling good? Me too. There is so much Thin Lizzy in that song it's awesome!
The Comic Bug recently bought at massive collection and that means there are about a dozen long boxes (at least) of comics out for $1.00 right now, set up in the middle of their shop. A couple weeks I did some light digging and, as I always am when digging through back issue long boxes like this, I was in the mood for grabbing a few 80s/early 90s copies of Newsprint Marvels. I went with a few issues of The Avengers, specifically #352, 353, and 354. Why? Well, I never really read Avengers growing up, however I did pick up a few issues around this time back in the day and I've always been subsequently intrigued by the way the team - much like Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, often cycled out the 'Big Names' and operated with a cast of C, D, and maybe even E level characters. And you know, that didn't make the stories bad, it actually made them more interesting than just having status quo re-achieved after every arc or crossover.
Also of note in these three particular issues, penned by Len Kaminski and drawn by M.C. Wyman, is the heavy influence of the original Evil Dead movies. You see it a bit in the covers to 353 and 354, but there's a lot of little stuff lovingly cribbed from the ED2 and Army of Darkness. This fits, as these were published right about the time AoD was released.
Great covers, right? I am especially fond of 353.
Playlist from 7/02:
John Frusciante - Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Jane's Addiction - Kettle Whistle
Nirvana - Incesticide
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
The Casket Lottery - Smoke and Mirrors E.P.
Fever Ray - Plunge
White Hex - Gold Nights
Jeff Grace - House of the Devil OST
Card of the day:
Pressure has eased. Yes - perfect. Yesterday was the first day after I handed over the 76k+ second draft of T12 to Keller. Immediate relief, although I didn't come until I walked to my writing spot, fired up the laptop and closed the T12 Scrivener doc, then opened up my short story one and started something new. So yes, the pressure has eased.
Dug out the first John Frusciante solo album yesterday. Hadn't listened to it in some time. Say what you want about the performance/production, but there is something so psychologically intimate about this one. The story that he was basically found living in his own squalor when he recorded this on a four-track is legendary by now, and I no longer even remember if it's true or what the specifics are, but there's some raw shit here, and some of it is genius.
Playlist from yesterday was short:
Underworld - 1992-2002 (disc 2)
Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Deadsy - Commencement
John Frusciante - Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt
