Full Live Set: Thee Oh Sees

Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for posting this. Thee Oh Sees live at LA's wonderful Echoplex last week. Within the first minute and a half of this video you can see just how much fun this show would have been to be at.

Bob Mould - I Don't Know You Anymore

This song/video actually made me cry. Well, not great racking sobs, but it got me a bit teary-eyed. Part of this is recent nostalgic reflection on my own part of the loss of the record store, and part of it is Bob Mould's tone here - so much like the tone on one of my all-time favorite records, Mould's Sugar: Copper Blue - really hits me in the emotional breadbasket.

I can still remember the first time I heard Copper Blue, or any of Mould's music for that matter. It was 1993 and on the way home from an Anthrax/White Zombie show at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom, tired and sore and stoned, Mr. Brown put on Sugar's Copper Blue to detox us from an all-out metal assault. It was perfect, and it's engrained that particle night, practically floating home on Lake Shore Drive at sometime after midnight, Brown driving his maroon red station wagon at a comfortable fifty-five miles an hour, Mould's emotionally provocative hooks etching into my heart and making me feel as though all is right in the world. Mould's 2013 record, Silver Age, was a return to this kind of sound, and now it appears that his just-released-today Beauty & Ruin is as well. You can order the new record directly from Mr. Mould on his website here. Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending me the link to this video and always keeping me in the loop on new Mould.

Here's to ten more albums at least Mr. Mould!

Stream New Godflesh EP Decline and Fall

Released via Avalanche, inc. earlier today. Buy it on the Godflesh's Bandcamp here.

Perturbator - She is Young, She is Beautiful, She is Next

Via Bloody Disgusting. This is just fantastic. Also, the upcoming record this is taken from, Dangerous Days, has one of my favorite album covers in recent memory.

image courtesy of Blood Music

Mini Doc on Selim Lemouchi's Art and Inspiration

Fascinating.

Watain - Waters of Ain

Several years ago my good friend and Metal Curator extraordinaire Tori lent me Watain's Lawless Darkness. After a few precursory listens the album fell back into the ever churning void of music that lays just beyond my reach in this internet age of "everything available all the time". In the throws of one new release or another I'd essentially completely forgotten about Watain, even as my appreciation for certain crevices within the Black Metal dimension has deepened. Then, earlier today - much after the fact - I learned that Selim Lemouchi, the founder and main driving force of The Devil's Blood died in March. There is a wonderful tribute to Selim on Metal Sucks. If you were a fan read it, as it will give you a very multi-faceted look into this fascinating artist. The remembrance links or mentions several peripheral Selim appearances and this Watain song - on which Selim performs the outro guitar solo - is chief among them. Sitting here listening to Waters of Ain and marveling at the power of it I quickly dug Lawless Darkness back out of the virtual banks on an old mac and have begun to get better acquainted with it. Good stuff, when you're in the mood.


I hope Selim found what he was looking forward after he slipped through the gates of the silver key...

Mastodon - Chimes at Midnight

I don't totally love this track yet, but I like it, and Mastodon has proven to be a band whose music really filters in through the nooks and crannies only after I can sit and really absorb an entire album over the course of several sittings. The A and B parts of this song are both awesome, but I'm drawn much more at the moment to the slower, melodic guitar of the B sections. It has a cosmic feel to it, a distance that is not relatable by human language or emotion. And I like that. It makes it feel enigmatic and magical, to a degree.

Very much looking forward to Once More 'Round the Sun on June 24th. And honestly, I've never contemplated paying $69.99 for a vinyl no matter what it came with before, but if you follow that link and see those lithographs of the artwork by Skinner, well, if I have the money I just might. Hanging that on the wall in my home seems as though it might turn said wall into a doorway to Cykranosh.

Ghost B.C. Papaganda Episode 2

Published almost two months ago I'm not sure how I missed this one. Well, actually yes I am. I've been so consumed with the end stages of writing my novel that I've not really paid attention to anything else. Well, besides comics.

At any rate, Infestissumam remains in regular rotation on my record player and the more of these guys I see the more I genuinely like them. Usually this much 'behind the scenes' would have a negative impact on a band so 'steeped in mystery' but I really think Ghost are musical and marketing geniuses, or at least the employee one of the latter.

The Doom That Came to Gotham...

image courtesy of lovecraftzine.com

...is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, on Joup.

True Detective Titles Peaked!

Admittedly this circulated back when True Detective's first season was in airing. I watched it through half-closed eyes then, not wanting to know ANYTHING about the new HBO show until I was able to actually watch it. However, as with anything pertaining to Twin Peaks, I was unable to completely look away. Now that I've begun my second viewing of Detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart's slow descent into a southern gothic hell, I'm re-watching this and really appreciating it.

Ray Wise Wants Twin Peaks Rumors!

I LOVE Ray Wise. And hot damn if Welcome to Twin Peaks isn't just about the best Twin Peaks-related site ever.

Just sayin'.

Bernie Wrightson & Steve Niles' Frankenstein Alive, Alive!

image courtesy of comixology.com

Issue #3 of the sequel to Bernie Wrightson's original visual adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel hit the stands this past week and as such is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, over on Joup!

The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast

image courtesy of miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com

Along with all the writing I have been doing lately I've been reading a lot. Thanks to my friend Missi's guidance I went through several old Stephen King novels I'd never read before - Cujo and Pet Sematary. Then I binged HBO's True Detective and came out the other side of it needing something else. I found a few pretty good podcasts that critically discussed the show and once I'd burned through them I ended up falling head over heels back into Lovecraft. From here I found the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and kind of became obsessed with it. Hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer are an absolute pleasure to listen to as they and some occasional guests discuss every Lovecraft story in its own episode - or in many cases several episodes. If you love Lovecraft, please do yourself a favor and dig into this - it has enhanced my appreciation of a writer I've been into for well over twenty years and that my friends, is just not easy to do!

The Walking Dead issue #127

image courtesy of thewalkingdead.com

See, this is why I gave up on the show. The Walking Dead has been consistently the best comic I've read monthly for almost ten years now. And it just keeps getting better. I won't venture into spoiler territory, which I guess is why this is going here and I'm not writing this week's Thee Comic Column about TWD #127, but when Kirkman said he was changing the landscape of the book, he was not bloody kidding!

My personal feeling after reading this issue and acclimating to the new status quo is the end game of the book begins here. I don't think the series will end any time soon, but I think there's more behind it at this point than ahead of it. Of course once the core book wraps I'd bet Rick's hand that Kirkman will "Executive Produce" at the very least one spin off written by someone else and following other characters in this world he has created. But for now, things have definitely changed and I for one am 100% on board.

New Blut Aus Nord

Via Brooklyn Vegan, who has all the pertinent information on this split BaN is doing with another French group, P.H.O.B.O.S. And I will say it right now, as big a fan of Nord as I have become in the last three years or so I ended up not really loving their last effort What Once Was... Liber III. Perhaps I did not give this record a fair enough shake but despite my anticipation, when I really had the time to sit down and listen to it I just didn't feel as though it was very much more than re-hashing some of their other material around that time. Granted, Vindsval and company had just done something like five releases in a year and a half, so it seemed only natural that not all of it would clear the high water mark - when a band as prolific as Nord releases something I consider a misstep I certainly do not hold it against my opinion of them. These guys consistently delivery amazing and ground-breaking music, and at a fairly rapid-fire rate. So if I don't personally care for something they do, I can basically just wait for the next release and bam, there's the genius moment again.

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #6

Wherein A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor sits in with Mike and I for the entire episode! We talk about Larime's fantastic book, horror movies and music's role in his creative process. We interview local comic creator Cassidy James about his Kickstarter for his new book Gun Up Paintball and a trip to The Comic Bug for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014!

Twin Peaks Missing Pieces

Oh man. Now I'm going to have to buy a blu ray player and a tv from after 1995.

It's worth it.

Rob Zombie's New Horror Movie?

via Bloody Disgusting. I have NO idea what this will be but despite my dislike of H2 (beautifully shot, and that's the only good thing I can say about it) and subsequent relative disappointment in the Lords of Salem - which looks amazing but I was unable to make it all the way through due to what I perceived at the time to be an amazingly sluggish pace* and next to no plot advancement from the inciting incident into almost the end of the second act, I am excited for this. Mr. Zombie's much touted, "I'm done with horror" scared me. Whether he balks or slams one out of the park, I like Zombie on the Horror hound side. I don't want to applaud what may be a diminutive situation for him - being stuck inside a genre he wants out of - but what can I say? House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects are, in my mind, modern classics of the genre (even if they do wear their influences on their sleeve. So what? It makes it so you can watch them and go, "Oh! Zombie loves House by the Cemetery too! Awesome!) and aspects of the Theatrical cut of Halloween turn what is essentially an over-explained and unneeded remake into a beautifully rendered piece of cinema.

...........

* I intend to give Lords of Salem another chance as a lot of folks whose opinions I respect loved it and in the film's defense, I tried watching it after I'd been up for almost 24 hours, so what I perceived as a 'sluggish pace' may have actually been me nodding off.

First. Constantine. Trailer.

At the VERY least they cast this right. Whew.

Seriously though, this first trailer for the upcoming Constantine trailer opens on a nice bit of continuity from the Vertigo book - Ravenscar. It also eludes to Astra, which really seals the deal for me. Also, the trailer appears to go out of its way to assure us that all of the elements the *ahem* movie eschewed (American instead of English, dark hair) this has fixed. Have they fixed Chas from being a little kid? Hopefully. And yet for all of these checks in the plus column the trailer does go on a bit long and at times reminds me maybe a bit too much of that ill-fated film from 2004, what with the CG and ancient evil rising bit. Still, how often do we get to see Occult symbols on nbc?

I'm in.

Drinking with Comics Issue 5 (includes David Lapham interview)

It just occurred to me that I never posted the newest issue of Drinking with Comics here, despite it having gone up early last week. This was another 'landmark' for us in a series of landmarks - landmarks not because they're incredible but because we are still refining the formula and this particular issue adds a new and at the time somewhat unexpected ingredient - a live studio audience!

A few weeks before we filmed issue five - which was back at the beginning of April - a great guy named Ivan contacted us via our Facebook page and asked if we allowed a studio audience. Honestly I'd thought about maybe one day trying that as I'm a HUGE fan of Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman's Hollywood Babble On podcast, which has an audience that really adds to the show, so you know, emulation is the most sincerest form of flattery, or whatever. But the real reason why the idea of having an audience appealed to me is the entire impetus behind Drinking w/ Comics is those wonderful late-night, beer-complimented conversations my friends and I have when gathered together and the feeling that gives me. I'm not a very social guy, but when it comes to comics I can and will talk to anyone about them. So yeah, we told Ivan we'd definitely be up for an audience and now, going forward, it looks as though that will be a regular feature. It's taken some re-thinking of our production set-up but we're still honing that regardless. You'll notice in this issue the Science Officers - Sara and Erin - have their own mic and it ended up mixed waaay louder than we'd meant to mix it. However, the process for editing is a fun but lengthy one, and the process of actually uploading the finished product to youtube is gruelingly long - hours - so we probably won't go back and change it. It's not that big a deal anyway, and it's another note to jot down to make the next issue that much better.

Speaking of the next issue, we filmed issue 6 the day 5 'hit the stands'. Look for that in about a week - hopefully - and expect another guest, as we were thrilled to welcome A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor for the entire episode! The final issue of the current arc "Killing Game" - yes named after a great Skinny Puppy song from my favorite Skinny Puppy record Last Rites.