Stray Toasters!

Bill Sienkiewicz's Stray Toasters is the topic of discussion in this week's Thee Comic Column over on Joup. This book freaked me out as a kid and, honesty, still freaks me out to this day.

Body Count Covers ST's Institutionalized - and it's Awesome!

My friend Missi just told me about this. I laughed out loud.

Lake Street Dive

Wow. My friend Michael just showed me this. Reminded of Erika Wennerstrom from Heartless Bastards, Otis Redding and yeah, a little Amy Winehouse.

The Raveonettes have a new album out!

Funny, just the other day I found myself thinking that there had to be a new Raveonettes on the way - they tend to release a record a year. And lo and behold, PE'AHI came out July 22nd. This is the first video - and yes, be careful of the strobe. It didn't affect me the way the NIN Came Back Haunted video by David Lynch did, but just be careful.

The Afghan Whigs Cover The Police

And it is freakin' awesome! Listen to those intro drums - like a fist coming out of a bouquet of flowers. Dulli owns on this track - his vocals match the guitars, the vulnerability laced with menace and a hint of defeat. And such a crystal clear mix - focus on the hi hat, let it ride up on top of the mix in your perception. It's, well, it's magic.

8 Bit Twin Peaks Credit Sequence

Do I even have to say how awesome this is?

Special thanks to Ali Troubadour for sending me this. Thank you Ali!!! And to the folks at Filthy Frackers, I say well done!

Pulp Karaoke Contest Winner is... 9?

This is awesome. Via Brooklyn Vegan. I'll admit I checked out after about half the song and really just had to go put on the actual Pulp track, but this is worth some attention if for no other reason than it's really a bit surreal.

Drinking with Comics Issue #11

Drinking with Comics issue #11 is up! Our guests are Aspen Comics' Vince Hernandez and Siya Oum, talking about there new books - respectively - Damsels in Excess and LOLA XOXO, as well as SDCC 2014, variant covers, gas masks and, um, beer.

Of course.

Dark Day: RIP Robin Williams

I just received a text message from my good friend Dave - it brought with it terrible news. No, I did not know Robin Williams, I didn't even see all his movies. I always felt like I was as selective in watching what he is as he was apparently un-selective in choosing what to star in. That's not a judgement - if doing some of the work that he did that seems, to me, subpar it enabled Mr. Williams to take some of the gargantuan roles that he left tattooed across my memory, than more power. If you know me well enough to have ever really talked movies with me you know doubt know that often touted Mr. Williams as both one of the greatest dramatic actors of our time as well as one of the funniest.

Now he's gone and we'll never get another World's Greatest Dad, The Fisher King or Dead Poets Society.

Fuck.

Along with the powerhouses listed above some of my favorites - big or small - were Insomnia, Death to Smoochy, One Hour Photo, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Dead Again.

KITTYGATO

I saw this band tonight at the release party for Guns A'Blazin! #2. Great set.

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance

I first heard this about a year and a half ago via Heavenisanincubator. I fell in love immediately. However this was at a time when I was so steeped in finding new music that an awful lot of bands I discovered ended up getting pushed off the plate by a constantly expanding wave of newer stuff. And newer stuff. And newer stuff...

Well, this popped up into my head again today, I spent about fifteen minutes searching through the incubator and once again found Feuerbahn's bandcamp.

Of particular note, I think, it track four, "Triumphwagen". Kind of Seventeen Seconds era Cure meets Fen. Kind'a.

Surreal Sermons - Laird Barron Interview

I have not had time to listen to this yet but I can't wait. I'm in the process of re-reading Laird's book Occultation and I'm planning on making something of a character map of it and his other books. There's a lot of overlap and I thought it'd be fun to kind of diagram out who recurs and what connections lay beneath the surface. I'd never heard Jeremy Maddux's Surreal Sermons before but am now planning on making it one of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. Here's the page, give it a listen and if you dig there's plenty more episodes.

Rob Zombie Talks 31

One more I'm referencing from Bloody Disgusting today. Interesting news on the new Zombie movie 31, including a description that sounds awesome! Remember Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, Arcade's Murder World? Well...

Go here to read about more about 31, watch and listen to a whole lot more information on the project and, if it suits your fancy, back it!

New Opeth Track

Via the mighty Bloody Disgusting, a new track from the forthcoming Pale Communion LP. I have not loved some of the music Opeth has made since they have become a quasi prog band circa 2006' Ghost Reveries. However, I recognize that this is entirely based on the fact that Mikael Akerfeldt wants to keep the project ever moving forward. The band still makes - quality wise - some of the greatest metal music in history and simply because of the pure beautiful majesty of Blackwater Park they always get the benefit of the doubt and the utmost respect from me no matter how I take to their newer material.

Guardians of the Galaxy...

...is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column on Joup. However, this is not a review of the film, so much as an exploration of what this movie means to comics and how time and technology have, specifically in the case of Sci Fi, affected the way we interpret Story.

Kevin Smith's Tusk Gets a Trailer

And it looks better than I imagined. Oh I do love Michael Parks...

One thing of note here is that during Smith's two episode stint on Bret Easton Ellis' podcast back around the beginning of the year the two talked about the Stanley Kubrick conspiracy doc Room 237 and Smith told Ellis that the idea of Kubrick's visual symmetry in his films was something he actively took away from the documentary and applied to Tusk. I dare say you really see it in this trailer.

Finally! Joe Hill's HORNS Has a Trailer

Get More: 

Movie Trailers, Celebrity News

Horns was the first book by Joe Hill I read, back when I worked for the book store and stumbled into an advanced reader copy. It was great and it led me to read his first novel, Heart Shaped Box which was even better. Since then I routinely keep up with everything the mad does. Just based on the source material alone this movie should be fantastic, and although I don't always love what director Alexander Aja does, he has a lot of talent.

Drinking with Comics Issue #10

Issue #10 of Drinking with Comics just went up! A return to basics. Of particular note is the sketch that leads things off. Had a blast doing this one!

Old News: Watch the Constantine Pilot

This isn't breaking news or anything, I've only just gotten around to finding the time to watch the Constantine pilot and thought I'd share it in case there are any other stragglers out there like me.

Suburban Gothic Trailer

Via Bloody Disgusting. This looks fantastic. The tone the lighting alone conveys is worth the price of admission - or VOD if it doesn't make it into wide release. And really, you had me at "Ray Wise" but John Waters doing a cameo? FAN-tastic!

RIP Tommy Ramone

RIP Tommy Ramone, last original member. NOW it truly is the end of the century, adjust your calendars accordingly.

Cocksure - Klusterfuck Kulture

Recently my good friend Chris turned me on to the fact that Chris Connelly has a new band with Jason Novak of Acuman Nation. The band is called Cocksure and their debut EP Klusterfuck Kulture is available for a mere $3.99 at the bandcamp linked above. This is easily my most listened to new music of the year, and I've only had the thing for about a week (Thanks again Chris!). It's fantastic - a perfect synthesis of everything great about old school industrial but without feeling like a throwback or re-hashed ground. I spent the week in the cryo-lab with this spinning over and over on my ipod, six, seven listens in a row, each time finding something new to love about it.

I read this somewhere however now I can't find the confirmation, but I believe the full album is apparently due next month in August on, of all labels... WAX TRAX! Now that is fucking awesome. Both Touch and Go and Wax Trax pressing new music for the first time in years this year? Awesome.

CORRECTION: The single was on Wax Trax, the album, out August 12th, can be pre-ordered now on Metropolis Records.
.........
* I love most incarnations of Ministry but Connelly-era is my favorite

Nick Cave and 20,000 Days on Earth

image courtesy of meltcomics.com

Last night my wife and I attended the premiere of the new film 20,000 Days on Earth. It is a fictional documentary about Mr. Cave, and probably my favorite film of 2014 (definitely up until this point it is). Read about it on Joup here, where I've also posted Mr. Cave and his Bad Seed's masterpiece And No More Shall We Part as my entry into this week's The Joup Friday Album column.

Drinking with Comics Issue #9

PodCrashed by Chris Gore! Recasting the Avengers, Batffleck, Saranac White IPA and the worst comic book cover gimmicks of the 1990's (Chromium). Plus, a whole lot more!

Crystal Castles - Year of Silence

Working on the novel to this right now. LOVE Crystal Castles II. The other two records... not so much.

Horror and Kelley Jones' The Hammer...

image courtesy of readingbypublight.blogspot.com

... are the topics of discussion in this week's Thee Comic Column on Joup.

HOLY!!! NEW FAITH NO MORE

One of two new Faith No More songs performed earlier at Hyde Park in London on July 4th, 2014. Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for posting about this. And thanks to youtube user Felipe Faúndez for having the best audio on one of these I've found yet. 

Don't know the name of this song yet. I've seen a bunch of guesstimates but that's napster-era 
crap. The band will name it when they're ready to name it.

Big Black - Bad Penny

Big Black's Songs About Fucking came out in 1987. Ministry's Twitch came out in 1986 and their follow-up The Land of Rape and Honey came out in 1988. I'm a massive Ministry fan, especially their late 80's period, so this is not meant to be a critical or derogative observation. My theory has always been that the change in Ministry's sound during this era, while not directly obvious in terms of sonic texture, was definitely influenced by Big Black's drum machine-driven sound. Bad Penny is possibly my favorite song on an album where I adore every track.