2018: March 20th 8:56 AM

Let's start with some Zeppelin, shall we?





Attacked the house yesterday. Those who know it wouldn't recognize it. So much to do before Friday, but considerably less thanks to the hangover from hell keeping me out of work yesterday.


Playlist from yesterday:

Introduction to Stereophonic Sound
Urge Overkill - Saturation
King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
Charles Bradley - Changes
Led Zeppelin - Presence

Finished American Horror Story Roanoke last night. You know why it's the best season of AHS yet? Because it's only ten episodes! The one thing that always drags the show down a bit for me is the last few episodes where I always find myself asking, "Why is this still on?". Roanoke's narrative device of adopting reality TV formatting is, of course, an aesthetic problem for me, as I hate and have seen very little reality tv, yet the way they use it I can excuse the form and not hold it against the show. I really thought it was brilliant, especially because they didn't get too many plates spinning. Best and most concise season. And Kathy Bates was phenomenally terrifying, but Susan Berger ... just her statuary appearance in episode 8 left me with nightmare chills. Kudos.

No card today either, because I'm at work and there's just no time.

Almost forgot 3/18's Playlist

Which consisted of this record over and over again all day and all night. No bullshit.

2018: March 19th 4:10 PM

Well, I missed yesterday completely. Yeah, that St. Paddy's/moving out party was a mother fucker. Before I get into that, let's get into a tune for you to read by. I'm still really loving on Saturation; I haven't played it this much probably since it came out:



I didn't actually go to sleep Saturday night until Sunday morning, once for about two hours from 10AM to 12PM - woke up and had breakfast with those who had remained behind to sleep on the couch/floor/spare room (it was really that kind of party. Like we're fucking 20 or something... yeesh). Last breakfast at the Omelette and Waffle House for a while, although I will definitely be driving back to Pedro to eat there again. Still my favorite breakfast place ever. And I ended it how I began there, back the first time I walked through its doors and looked at its menu - Pineapple, Avocado and Sour Cream omelette. The rub was, I couldn't eat the damn thing. My stomach was a roiling sea of chaos and the cacophony of the breakfast crowd slammed through my ears and rattled my head until I nearly lost my mind. We returned home, friends departed and I lay in bed all day and all night, getting up to vomit occasionally, then curling back up and laying fetal in the dark, waiting for nausea to pass me by like some stalking predator in the dark. It was horrible, but not incredibly so. Really, I had anticipated it once I claimed the last third of the bottle of Bushmills as mine and carried it around the party like a glass iPhone.

Playlist from the Saturday, 3/17 was divided between work and the party, which flew well out of control at some point, so I'm probably not getting it all here:

Led Zeppelin - Presence
Fear - Live for the Record
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Monolord - Vaenir

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies
Floggy Molly - Float
Urge Overkill - Saturation

No card yesterday, no card today. I'll get back to that tomorrow. For now, I had to call out from work today and since crawling from bed I've been prepping for the move on Friday.

Oh! My good friend and co-conspirator on the now-underway 3-issue The Legend of Parish Fenn comic book, Jonathan Grimm, sent me a birthday present that arrived today. Four of his absolutely legendary prints, a Phantasm, an Alien, Alien vs. Predator, and Pumpkinhead. SO good. Check out his art HERE. Prints are a fucking STEAL at $10 a pop.

2018: March 17th 9:12 AM

Happy St. Paddy's Day!



Two corned beef in the croc pots at home, a boat load of Guinness, Smithwicks, Bushmills, Jameson, and State of Grace on tap for a late viewing this evening. Life is good.

Playlist from yesterday:

Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (disc 1)
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls
The Bronx - Eponymous
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II (Dialogue with the Stars)
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1 (Vinyl)

Card of the day:

Fitting, eh? As usual, totally in tune because, of course, this isn't "Magick" in so far as special powers from outside, but deeply connected Jungian hoo-ha from the gobbledygook far down inside our minds, the shit that comprises us but we don't understand or aren't even aware of. It colors every action, thought and day. And these cards help reflect a bit of it out into where we can try and draw juxtapositions with it. And here, Completion, because, of course, tonight is the end of my 11 years and 11 months at this place. I don't move until next Friday, but this is the pinnacle. Also, there's harmony here with the fact that, in 2006 when the girl I used to live with and I first got an inkling on moving out to CA, we flew out over St. Paddy's weekend to look at apartments and have her interviewed by her perspective employer. So total Completion. Yes.

2018: March 16th 8:25 PM

Somehow I stumbled back into Urge Overkill yesterday after having not even thought of them for quite some time. This probably has something to do with the fact that in preparation for the move, I am going through my CDs and slimming down the collection. Not a hard thing with Apple Music, although there is still a part of me that will always feel better having some things in a tactile form. That cloud goes down or my phone dies and I can't access The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire or Bowie's Reality at the exact moment I want to hear them and I'm gonna flip. But, not everything needs to stay tactile, and a lot of what does can be trimmed by tossing the cases. It's funny, similar to how Amazon completely changed the way we shop for records - because I for one never thought I'd be into shopping for music online instead of walking stoned through a record store - Apple Music seems to be the service that has redefined my musical paradigm. And I love it, although I still don't like thinking of music as a 'service'. Gas is a service. Power's a service.

I ordered a Boskine 100-space CD wallet and will be tossing the cases on a lot of albums, slipping the discs and liner notes into far less ostentatious space. Doing the same with some DVDs too, another aspect of the collection that took a hit. I was able to pack up and send 14.83 lbs of movies to a good friend whose collection was pillaged a few years back - and his collection was awe-inspiring and an inspiration for my own - so I'm happy to do something to help a friend and clear up my clutter a bit. I just don't need Simpsons, Family Guy, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force seasons on disc when they're all so ubiquitous streaming anyway. Well, I did keep Simpsons seasons 5 and 6. Cape Fear, Clown College and several other of the best, Conan O'Brien-era episodes that remain among the funniest things I've ever seen. That has to be at my beck and call. Always. But there are limits to what I will purge movie wise as there is no comprehensive service for those and The Burbs, Dog Soldiers, May, and at least 100 other movies must remain in my possession, not to mention all the Twin Peaks sets I've amassed over the years... and the other lynch, and the Kubrick, and the...

You get the point. The other thing there's no compromise on is books. I've built a healthy collection, I re-read often, and one day I want Gatsby's library, complete with Owl Eyes. So aside from a few left over peculiarities from my previous roommate, everything stays.

Playlist from 3/15:

The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
NIN - Not the Actual Events
Say Sue Me - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork vinyl)

Card of the day:

Second or third time this one's come up in a week and I've figured it out. My journey is this purge. It's something else. And if sweet, sweet detritus like Urge Overkill floats to the surface for the first time in a while, all the better.

2018: March 15th 9:18 AM

Two years since Tom died. Remember that fucking Death card yesterday? How does this shit sneak up on me? I mean, I was anticipating the anniversary, but I didn't see it coming. I know that doesn't make sense, it's not even what I mean to say, it's just the only way I can think to say it. Tom, I miss You my friend. A lot.

Playlist from yesterday:
Blut Aus Nord - Memorium
Blut Aus Nord - MORT
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Faith No More - Angel Dust
The Birthday Party -
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Gore Motel
The Cure - Collector's Curiosities Vol. 2 (Carnage Visors and Rarities)

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE on Joup.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Enlightenment. Joy, Revelation; Dance: The Triumph of the Spirit."

2018: March 14th 8:17 AM

Happy Birthday Jeremy Musica, wherever you are. Great bass work on this one mate! You are missed.



Playlist from yesterday:

Still going through that same mix from the 00s
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
Deftones - Gore
Eagulls - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Soul Coughing - El Oso

Card of the day:

Well, now that's interesting. For the record, sometimes I've already pulled my card of the day by the time I sit down to write these entries, but not today. You can see then why, even though this card is more about Change than it is Death, there's an eerie correlation with the way I began the post. Per the grimoire, "A necessary change of state, needed in order to advance." Again, I can't help but juxtapose that with the encroaching move of residence.

2018: March 13th 7:16 AM

Have already lost what was in my head upon waking, so here's something I found on an old mix disc from the mid-00's, another time period I'm working to recontextualize into my modern mindset.



I don't think I love the video - although I'm posting it, I still haven't actually watched it. If you can, maybe throw on headphones, close your eyes and just listen instead of watching. This really is a wonderful song, everything about it, from the lyrics, delivery and production right down to the restraint shown with the guitar.

Playlist from yesterday:

The aforementioned Mix disc, which contains a lot of 2007-2009 stuff I might list later.
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House (prompted by finding the track Arms on the disc)
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards
The Antlers - Familiars
Monolord - Rust
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
Windhand - Split (their side of the 7" with Satan's Satyrs)
Goblin - George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork edition - so cool!)

Here's the track that reminded me how much I love Genghis Tron:



Card of the day:

I feel like continually drawing such a great card is a beacon assuring me I am on the correct path. Every man and every woman, and all that. Thanks Aleister.

2018: March 12th 3:51 AM

It was kind of a restless night; we were woken up repeatedly by people in the courtyard/parking area just outside the bedroom window. I'm not going to complain, as this is obvious karmic penance for the old-school weed circle some of my guests on Saturday had going off and on until 3 or 4 in the morning. Usually, I pride myself on being a good neighbor (unless it's to women named Dorothy), but Saturday just veered out of my control. I think there's footage of me doing my DIO impersonation at, like, 11:00 PM. My DIO impression is LOUD. Sorry neighbors. I'm gone in under two weeks, and there's a lot of pent-up stress the alcohol released, so that's what happened. In the give-and-take of communal living, everyone gets a chance to be a dick, and everyone gets a chance at making amends. I'll have been here one month shy of 12 years, and in that time I've pretty much been good enough to have pre-mended anything bad I do, which is good because next Saturday is St. Paddy's. This is commonly a quieter affair: I make corned beef, drink Guinness and Bushmills, and we watch the best damn Irish mob movie ever, State of Grace. This time it just might go off with a little more gusto, because there's a bunch of people, myself included, that want to say goodbye to this place.

I keep referring to parties here, but that's not exactly true. What I host are movie nights. It's generally the same cast of characters every time: Ray, Kenta and Maddy, Robert, Alex, Shailesh, Jesus, Joe, with a few now-and-thens like Keller who attend as well. Generally, everyone arrives between 8 and 9, I cook or we order out, and then we commiserate for a bit, watch a movie, commiserate a bit, watch another movie. These are not parties, per se. Peppered throughout these I'll have a  party here and there, usually in honor of someone's birthday. I think the last rager I had was my divorce party (earned, believe me). This past Saturday though, on the surface a birthday party for Ray and Maddy, was part of a two-step goodbye. We'll all still be able to hang, just not at my place and specifically, not at this place, where I've hosted going on seven years. It's been special, and I think a lot of my attendees - many who are in their twenties and early thirties now - see this place as their first communal, hang-out place. So we have to send it off right.

Playlist from yesterday was super small. Spent a lot of great time with Keller working on out writing project, so music would have been a distraction to two of us so geared toward it.

Etta James - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST (Waxwork vinyl)

My copy of Waxwork's reissue of Goblin's score for George A. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead should arrive today. SO psyched. I didn't do the Waxwork subscription this year, as this is the only release of the five I HAD to have, and I bought my boss a copy as well because he just got a record player and loves old horror, so I thought it was an appropriate 'record player warming' gesture.

Card of the day:

I've always been interested in the reflection in this card. It may simply be a scaling issue, wanting to devote as much of the card's area to the image and thus compressing its mirror image, but it seems more to me like there's a distortion here. This is the watery aspect of water, so we're talking emotions on top of emotion. That can blur things a bit. Also, there's a lot of lunar influence in this card, the Ibis, the crayfish and of course the big ol' moon behind the queen, and moon affects the flow of water, i.e., the tide. It also affects our brains, i.e., lunatic. And being that either the time change, the cumulative stress of work and the encroaching move, and/or my sarcoidosis medication may or may not be disrupting my sleep (hence why I'm up at three something AM on a Monday before work writing this), I feel a bit loony of late.

2018: March 11th 11:34 AM

Waking up gently after a full-on rager last night. One party left; next week it's Guinness, Whiskey, Corned Beef in the Croc Pot and my annual State of Grace viewing.

Three folks who are near and dear to me have birthdays today. Happy Birthday.

Playlist yesterday was immense; I'll try to get it all but at some point it devolves into a song here and a song there:

NIN - The Downward Spiral
NIN - With Teeth
Screaming Females - All At Once
Dead Milkmen - Big Lizard in my Backyard
Violent Femmes - Eponymous
The Animals - Retrospective
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Suburban Living - Video Love
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
ACDC - Highway to Hell
Dio - Holy Diver
Proto Radio Playlist (Phil Collins early stuff, Golden Earring, Red Rider, Don Henley)
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
King Woman -Created in the Image of Suffering
King Woman - I Wanna Be Adored
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Grimes - Art Angels
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Card for the day:

So I'm going on a journey, eh? A journey to... Redondo Beach!

2018: March 10th 11:05 AM

Starting today with Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral because Katie did it for the Joup Friday Album last night and I didn't get a chance to listen to it then.




Filming for Drinking w/ Comics #40 went fantastic - our little comic book reading session at Mike's the night before helped facilitate a show where for an hour and some chance we actually spent pretty much the entire time talking about comics! Should be up in about a week.

Playlist from yesterday:

Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1

Second to last party ever in my pad will happen tonight as I host a birthday party for two dear friends. Next week is my annual St. Paddy's, week after I turn 42 and move for the first time in 11 years and 11 months (remind me to tell you about my 111/1111 thing sometime).

Card for the day:

Strength, stability. Stable material balance. All good signs of things to come based on the outcome from our endeavors (K's more than mine - she really busted her ass on getting us the new place). 

2018: March 9th 7:37 AM

Wonderful night last night. After our move, we will live extremely close to both Mike and Chris from DwC, and in celebration of that we implemented a new, Night Before the show Reading Circle. Mike had us all over for a wonderful dinner and then we sat around and traded off the comics we were itching to talk about on tonight's show. This is a first and Mike gets full credit for the idea  - we always bring a bunch of disparate books to the table and that helps lead the discussions astray. Hopefully this will put us all on the same page. We'll be live on the Drinking with Comics facebook page tonight at 9:00 PM PST, so if you're not doing anything, drop by. One of the books we'll be discussing is a last minute edition to the stack and in two days turned into my most eagerly anticipated book so far this year:

From Image Comics.com:

"The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash, and a washed-up Catholic priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn, an otherworldly building that is alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake. Rural mystery and urban horror collide in this character-driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith." From Image Comics.com



Sounds very "weird fiction" and that's my current wheelhouse, so I'm very much in.


Playlist from yesterday:

Converge - The Dusk in Us
Monolord - Rust
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Ludwig van Beethoven - King Stephen Overture OP 117
Joseph Haydn - Violin Concerto #4 in G

Card for the day:

"The Path to Enlightenment is about to become easier." - hanging out in my new neighborhood last night gave both K and I an enormous sense of happiness. There will now be time for so much more, Art, Love, and definitely Enlightenment. Another card tapping me on the shoulder, letting me know I'm on the right path. Accordingly, I can't help but also draw the juxtaposition with Crowley's maxim: "Every Man and Every Woman is a Star." Crowley had his more than fair share of BS, but he was a prophet to some degree, a human who communed with great, cosmic truths (when, to paraphrase a quote by Peter J. Carroll, he wasn't trying for your arse and your wallet) and that, well, that's one of his most important sentiments.

2018: March 8th 8:35 AM

New Ministry. I don't know how much I like it yet, but kudos to Uncle Al for doing something sonically different. Also, the mouth harp reminds me of their Lay Lady Lay cover, which I'm a big fan of.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Nevermen - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Afghan Whigs - In Spades
Deee-lite - Dewdrops in the Garden

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE, on Joup.

Card of the day:

Now that the big question is resolved, it's time to get back to the ART.

2018: March 7th 10:55 AM

Playlist from yesterday:

Godflesh - In All Languages (disc 2)
Monolord - Rust
The Mutants - Your Desert My Mind
The Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

Card of the day:

"A Positive Result dependent on the actions taken by the Querent." Fitting. We got the place!

Zeal and Ardor Off The Road Sessions

I almost forgot how much I love this band. WHEN NEW MUSIC????

2018: March 6th 4:34 AM

On repeat, in my head, all night long. Awesome song, and more than a little weird when you arrive at Eric Burdon doing that creepy falsetto thing:



Playlist from yesterday:

Godflesh - In All Languages (disc #2)
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Cream - Disraeli Gears
The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Budos Band - Burnt Offerings
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Seedna - Forlorn

I was interested to receive a notification from Apple Music yesterday that the new Teenage Wrist, Chrome Neon Jesus (damn, isn't that just a fantastic title?) dropped yesterday. I like that they did it on Tuesday, the day music used to drop. Now, I'm not certain if that's an industry-wide thing, as in the digital still utilizes Tuesdays as the release date and the physical media uses Friday, but ever since albums began to be released on Fridays I became a little sad. I always liked having Tuesdays as a free-floating island for new album releases, just to give an otherwise deadlocked day in the midst of the five-day quagmire something to shine for. Then again, how often is it possible I go out on any day to pick up new music these days, what with so few record stores left? (Mental note - I really need to get back down to Fingerprints in Long Beach soon).

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Indicates you are in charge of the way your life is unfolding. Striking the harmonic resonance that sees events occur as we would like them to. Planning; thoughtfulness; mojo."

At this point I'm finding it hard to make anything useful; there's one big question on my mind, "Will we get the new place," and as the delay in the answer seems to drag on it causes these daily correspondences to seem pointless. That said, it occurs to me now they have all been positive, except for last Friday, March 2nd's Five of Swords: Defeat, which seen in the current context was probably my portent that I would be suffering through this delay. In keeping with the otherwise positive string of cards, they're actually comforting to me now, as I work this out while I write this and realize the cards have all been breadcrumbs leading to good news we will hopefully receive early today.

2018: March 5th 7:37 AM

Haunted by this song the last two days. It feels amazing to have something like this happen in the age of Apple Music, everything available right now, all the time. Bear with me a bit and I'll explain.



Saturday was a long work day in the midst of 12 days of work in a row. I did about 10 hours and then drove home. We made dinner and then watched Veronica on Netflix. Not bad. Reticent to forfeit the opportunity for a late night I pushed on to another flick, even as K fell asleep on the couch beside me. I'd been trying to watch the Silent Hill adaptation for a few weeks but never finding the time, so I figured this was perfect. I had a pretty good buzz and felt fatigue move through my muscles, so I popped the top on another can of Sierra Nevada and attempted to follow the characters down the rabbit hole into a creepy West Virginia mining town...

I made it through about half the flick and then woke up just as the ending credits began to roll. the Song above immediately caught my ear; at first I thought it was simply because it has that almost ineffable, defeated sound that a lot of songs in the 00's had - a sort of sonic malaise that I believe rolled in on the tide of the first wave of popular musicians and producers raised on prescription 'mood' altering drugs. I sat up and used shazm to identify it, then realized that there was another, stronger and more direct connection to the song. See, back in the early 00s I was still a bartender in Chicago, and every Wednesday night my friend's Brown and Chris would come up and hang out at the bar until I got off. At about 1:30 AM I'd head over to Chris's and we'd continue drinking, Brown would normally start in on some making some food (the man is a divine chef) and Chris and I would usually spend an hour or two playing Dance Dance Revolution. I know - it's weird that in my late 20s, as a Southside of Chicago musician in a metal band, I spent at least one night a week, every week, playing DDR. What can I say? I loved it.

A lot of the music on the game is poppy J- or Euro Dance. Not really my thing, but I could always find some songs that I liked on each of the games. Sitting there on the couch Saturday night, hearing this song for the first time in well over ten years I was immediately thrown back to the way that I felt in the 00s - which probably not through coincidence was my own tired, malaise. I've since tried to locate this one on Apple Music, but despite there being several Silent Hill Soundtracks, this song is vacant.

So it's haunting me. Where normally when I become stuck on/obsessed with a song I just listen to it over and over for a few days, with this I can only listen to it on youtube, so it's creating scarcity, and that scarcity is making the song an event.

It's nice; nostalgic in a way, a throw-back to the days when music was not as easy to come by, when I had to save up the money to go out and buy the album, then listen to it when I had the Tape/CD player available.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - eponymous
High On Fire - Luminiferous
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Godflesh - In All Language (disc 2)

Card of the day:

Ace of Cups: Good news later today? I'll let you know.

Drinking w/ Comics: Nick Cave Mercy on Me by Reinhard Kleist

A short clip (that was all I could cull from the massive cluster of the previous DwC, short clips. If you're curious why, follow us on facebook, scroll down a few posts from the present and see how much of the 3 hour feed from that night you can get through. Hint: Shit gets really bizarre about an hour and seven minutes in. Just saying.) wherein I talk about Reinhard Kleist's BRILLIANT Nick Cave Graphic Novel Biography, Mercy on Me:



New episode coming this Friday, March 9th at 9:00 PM PST. Topics I'm going to attempt to discuss:

2018: March 4th 8:01 PM

No idea what was in my head when I woke up this morning, if anything. This is rounding out the night though:

Long work weekend. Came home a little while ago - it was a nice drive in Los Angeles. Let me say that again, just to savor the feeling of typing eight words that almost never appear together:

It. Was. A. Nice. Drive. In. Los. Angeles.

Low traffic and I was able to mellow into several iterations of my favorite Godflesh song:

Drove slow, absorbing the night. Yeah, I copped a little buzz from my one hitter before hitting the street, it helped ease me into what I'd hoped, a nice, fluid drive; a near hypnagogic state. I can't go there too often these days. It conflicts with the writing. Nice to revisit it from time to time, need to try to do so once a week or so.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous

The Soft Moon - Criminal

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Heroes

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

Ghost - Infestissumam

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Sade - iTunes Essentials

No card today.

2018: March 3rd 6:38 AM

Woke up with this dirge by Windhand in my head:



Playlist from yesterday:

Sleep - Dopesmoker*
Monolord - Vaenir
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Monolord - Rust

*On my iPod; trying to fill in the holes only knowing it on vinyl has left me with.

Card of the day:

See, with one big question in my life right now, one big change that is pending and taking a very long time to play out for answers, it has become extremely frustrating to do these pulls everyday. Yeah, I know Change is coming, I just need it to arrive already.

2018: March 2nd 6:08 PM

This is late compared to how I've been posting here. Long day.

This week I'm filling in for KJVM on the Joup Friday Album. This installment's a bit of a departure for me. Read it HERE and welcome the weekend in with a theatrically evil 80s Metal icon, for better or for worse.

Playlist from yesterday seems 100,000,000 light years away, and I didn't take very good notes, so here goes from memory:

High On Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Sleep - Volume 1
High On Fire - Luminiferous
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Sleep - Dopesmoker (Vinyl, which alters the experience by having to flip the side four times and remove and replace one record with another once)
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Was March 1st national Matt Pike day? Seems like it might have been.



Card of the day for today, which might be viewed a moot point at 6:16 PM, however you can learn a lot about Divination from reverse-engineering a draw:

From the Grimoire: Will indicate failing to achieve a goal. Paired with the 8 or 9 of Swords (which I did, drew two more cards and one was Interference) may indicate treachery. Or "Won't get the job." Hopefully that's not pointing toward the apartment we just applied for.

2018: March 1st

February's final playlist:

Deftones - B-Sides and Rarities
The Animals - Retrospective
The Soft Moon - Criminal
The Soft Moon - Deeper
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Grand Duchy - Petit Fours
The Soft Moon - Eponymous

The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up. Click this big ol' Red thing HERE to read it on Joup.

Card of the day:

Not a lot in the Grimoire on this one. This is one of two cards I've always gone back and forth associating with someone from my past. That's problematic though; you can't assign one card to represent people. Two? Maybe. So what's that telling me? Nothing, really. Not on that track. In other interpretations I'd have to say the Wand of Earth is telling me to watch my money, which is in flux at the moment, which is being pulled in several directions: a hefty tax bill, the imminent move, and a rather large, long-term investment. All that said, I think the Princess here is telling me to act with conviction when the time is right and not be afraid to fork down the green.

2018: February 28th 9:13 AM

Woke up to Sade in my head, so I popped the Deftones version in on my morning drive:



I suspect I will get around to the original version later tonight.

Playlist from yesterday:

Grotus - Mass
Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
Windhand - Soma
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire (which really does need expanding, I just haven't had the time during these morning posts):

Enlightenment. Joy, Revelation; Dance.
The Triumph of the Spirit (which seems especially pertinent in a block of stressful days)
Entry portal to XX Aeon. "Taking the Pill will open your eyes."

Actually, that last bit seems very pertinent, as today I will be seeing my Pulmonologist and beginning my treatment regiment - most likely in pill form - for the Sarcoisdosis that I learned last year has been occupying more and more of the cells in my lungs for, oh, the better part of at least ten years now. No idea where it came from, but it's advancing rapidly now, or at least more rapidly than it has yet. It's known to affect the eyes and yep, definitely feeling that. Also, upon my last visit to the Pumonologist, he asked if I experienced random rashes, which I did not. Now, starting a few weeks ago, I have a nasty little bugger on my right foot. It's time to kick this out before it begins affecting my heart and/or liver. The treatment, Prednisone, will possibly lower my immune system, so I'm kind of expecting to get sick once or twice, but we'll see. So if the day's pull is telling me the pill might open my eyes, is it possible the steroid might have an expected mental effect?

We shall see. Wish me luck.

2018: February 27th 8:48 AM

There was indeed music in my head this morning, however I have forgotten what it was. In lieu of that, here's what I'm starting my workday with:



The same way I'm dipping back into 80s music to try and recontextualize it, I'm also moving back among the more recent cobwebs of the 00s - especially the late 00s - and attempting to re-engage with a lot of the music I was into at the time but have since let slip by the wayside. This album is a great example of that; I've never stopped liking Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, or either of the two groups' individual work, I've simply found less time and impetus to fully surrender to the more spooky, occult soundscape-y areas of my collection. When I was into this in 2009-2010 I was not only very interested in the Occult, I practiced it a lot. This means music such as this was perfect for creating and sustaining altered states and temporal anomalies. The only temporal anomaly I experience now are on the dreaded 405. Will re-engaging with this music segue me back into a more occult-involved day-to-day? Maybe. I suppose it's no accident that I start doing daily Tarot readings and this music pops back onto my radar. It's life - let's see where it goes, shall we?

Playlist from yesterday:

Swans - The Glowing Man (disc 2)
Lantlos - .neon
Dio - Holy Diver
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards (truncated listen)
Helmet - Meantime
Windhand/Satan's Satrys - Split (my vinyl arrived!)
Lawrence Whelk - Polks
House of Waxwork Vol. 2

Card of the day:

Balancing vigor with responsibility and action can be tricky. There's that lion almost running away with the Air of Fire's chariot again.

2018: February 26th 7:47 AM

Second day in a row, no music in my head upon waking. Although I began my day with Swan's Frankie M this morning, my work day started with Lantlos. Not sure if I've posted anything by them here yet, but wow, this album immediately endeared itself to me upon a friend recommending it several weeks ago. There's a definite similarity to Fen, another band I love. Lots of blue, jazz tones here, a definite somber, rainy feel.



Playlist yesterday was brief due to a large part of our Sunday once again going to the search for new quarters. And ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner (though I've thought that before).

Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - IV

Card of the day:

Change or fluctuation. Let's hope so.

2018: February 25th 9:11 AM

No music in my head this morning and I'm enjoying the quiet by sprinting through a couple chapters from this very enjoyable romp through 70s and 80s paperback horror:

I've mentioned Paperbacks from Hell here before, I think, but as I've moved into the last third of Thomas Ligotti's first two volumes of short fiction I wanted to take a break and chew through something fun. This is it. Highly recommended.

Yesterday was insanely productive. My own first Horror Anthology will most likely be hitting print and digital in April. Titled A Collection of Desires after one of the stories in the book, it's seven tales of modern terror. I hope you'll give it a try.

Playlist from yesterday:

Grimes - Visions
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Disasterpeace - It Follows OST
Anthrax - Worship Music
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL - PLECTRUMELECTRUM

Watched the first episode of AHS My Roanoke Nightmare. While I loved Hotel and Murderhouse, I've largely avoided or been disappointed by a lot of AHS. This one already has me.

Card of the day:

One of my favorite cards in the deck, both visually and philosophically. From the Grimoire:

"Will synchronized with the imagination. Dreams become reality. Areas of life coming together, falling into place."

All good signs for the endeavors I am currently undertaking, all of which pertain to my writing, or Art.

Can't leave you without a song. This is as relevant as it is awesome:

2018: February 24th

Woke up with a kind of mash-up of two songs in my head. This is a weird one:



and



The Scorpions track being in there is somewhat bizarre because, despite the fact that our drunken celebration's late night playlist devolved into 80s Rock cheese, Scorpions was not a part of that. They have been on my mind intermittently lately, as I keep hearing Rock You Like A Hurricane on the radio at work.


Playlist from 2/23:

David Bowie - Blackstar
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Preoccupations - Cassette
Melvins - Stoner Witch
David Bowie - No Plan E.P.
The Birthday Party - Hits
She Wants Revenge - These Things/Tear You Apart/Spend the Night/Black
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Sinead O'Connor - I Want Your (Hands on Me) single
Prince - Sign O' the Times
Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited
Anthrax - I'm the Man E.P.
Proto Music: The Best of 80s Radio*
Skid Row - Eponymous
80s Rock Hop Scotch**
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Elvis Presley - Simple Minds - single
Joe Walsh - In the City - single
Jerry Jeff Walker - Don't it make you Wanna dance? - single
Grimes - Symphonia IX (My Wait is U) - single
David Bowie/Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth
............

* This is a selection I made shortly after joining Apple Music, the week after Christmas when I flew home for my Uncle's funeral to be specific; it contains the songs I consider some of the essential radio fodder of my youth in the 80s:  Phil Collins, Don Henley, Golden Earring, Red Rider, Billy Squire, The Police and Peter Gabriel.

** This was a drunken Keller and I taking turns reminiscing about 80s rock we liked. The session included Dokken, Cinderella, Dio (who I have always staunchly disliked but may have warmed to last night thanks to Keller) and Tesla.

..........

You can see I've been slowly re-evaluating and re-contextualizing a lot of 80s rock into the sonic tapestry I weave around myself. Some of it only fits for nostalgia, some may have a place outside that nostalgia. We'll see.

Card of the day:

Nothing in the Grimoire on this one. Courage needed for victory to opposition.

2018: February 23rd 4:35 AM

Well, just like that. Finished my second pass through on the project and passed the Scrivener session off to Keller. We meet tonight to discuss moving forward with it, then celebrate. I had my own little party with K to celebrate one stressor lifted, ended my musical day with Anthrax - State of Euphoria on vinyl and, fittingly, woke up with the final track off the album, Finale, blaring in my head. Growing up, as a Freshman or so in High School, Anthrax was my band (before Alice in Chains Dirt came along and knocked them off their throne). I had all their albums except their first two, Fistful of Metal and Armed and Dangerous, on cassette. Still have and listen to some of those cassettes. State of Euphoria was always my least favorite, and now I am just not sure why. I mean, it's nowhere near Persistence of Time - still my favorite - but it's really good and features songs about Blue Velvet and Stephen King's Misery, and just generally rocks.



Yesterday's Playlist:

OOIOO - Gold and Green
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Mastodon - Once More Around the Sun
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Prince - Paisley Park
Prince - Purple Rain
Madlove - White With Foam
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Anthrax - State of Euphoria

Card of the day:

"Appears after trauma. Period of rest invested with planning."

My notes in the Grimoire don't seem to fit so I'll have to look deeper into this one, which is good, because part of why I'm doing this, other than to reconnect with Tarot after almost two years away from it, is the Grimoire is largely unfinished.

2018: February 22nd,

Woke up with Coast to Coast, the second track on Tune-Yards new album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life in my head. I can't find a good version of it to embed here so instead here's the Melvins covering The Butthole Surfers in honor of the fact that the new Melvins album is out soon and features Jeff Pinkus on second bass for the entire album:



So good...


Playlist from 2/21:

Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Brookville - Life in the Shade
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Soma
House of Waxwork Vol. #2 OST
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST

New installment of Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is HERE.

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire:

Indicates greater objectivity/clarity
Healthy balance of emotions and intellect
Good time to make decisions
I can see clearly now the rain has gone

Hmm... Well, the convolutions thicken with the prospective move; the place we had settled on is out, a potentially better place has popped up and I suppose this is telling me to balance my approach inspire of exhaustion (which I haven't so much as half the right to claim as K does).

Oh! Check this out - Metallica Garage Days Re-Revisitied reissue; the CD comes in a limited edition long box like CDs used to come in back in the day. $10 bucks for the second of the only two albums by this band you need to own? Check!

2018: February 21st, 4:23 AM

More Bowie in my head upon waking. It's a wonderful way to open your eyes:



Playlist yesterday:

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. #1
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
Somnium Nox -
David Bowie - Dollar Days*
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Playlist: K**

.............

* I had been thinking about listening to David Bowie's Blackstar to start off my writing session but was tired and a little out of sorts so I figured I should stick with the music I know works for these sessions, i.e. lately Deafheaven. However, before I could choose one of their albums, my iTunes jumped into random and picked Dollar Days. I treated this as something of a sonic Tarot pull and listened to the song. Lyrics for it are HERE - I'm not sure how these pertain to my life at the moment, rather hope they don't. It's a great song, one of the saddest deliveries on a final album filled with sad deliveries. I'm going to re-engage with the album today, as my original impetus for almost picking it yesterday was realizing it'd been quite a long time since I had, preferring for the last year or two to stick to Bowie's older material and also some of his more obscure, probably because as awesome as Black Star is, it's an emotional tour de force.

** The second or third CD I made for K after we started dating. The part of the playlist we made it through before dinner looks like this:

Card of the day:

Interesting interpretation when I juxtapose this card resurfacing with the 8 of Swords almost popping out of the deck as I shuffled (I always shuffle three times - unless I'm around a lot of people I know, like at work, and want to avoid being super ostentatious - and cut once). The 8 of Swords is, of course, Interference, and in keeping with that we are poised to move but have a sudden setback. The 2 of Disks coming up confirms putting our heads down and plowing through.

2018: February 20th 4:41 AM

Upon waking I was pleasantly greeted by David Bowie:




Playlist from 2/19:

Windhand - Soma
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Lynch and John Neff - BLUEBOB
The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Grimes - Halfaxa
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Funkdoobiest - Brothas Doobie
Tha Grimm Teachaz - There's a Situation on the Homefront


Card of the day:

Enlightenment; you're on the right path. Good things to come. A turning point for the positive - still interpreting this as juxtaposed to the last few pulls, all as an ongoing statement on our prospective move. K and her Mom saw the place yesterday and we have the applications. It is happening.

2018: February 19th 4:40 AM

Another song by The Veils greets me as I break the waters on this side of consciousness:



Playlist from Sunday, 2/18:

Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Windhand/Cough - Reflection of the Negative
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
The Body - I Shall Die Here
Chrysta Bell - We Dissolve

Card of the day:

Overindulgence as a way to mask or meditate pain or problems. Too much booze or smoke, too much imagination not enough reality. Hmmm... doesn't sound like my current state, unless we count the fact that I was so irritated yesterday morning that I smoked at like 10 AM. Rare, but not unheard of on a Sunday. It was absolutely a tactic to attempt to squash the open loop in my head keeping me grumpy, and it worked to a degree, but it also did not interfere with anything that I can think of, as I do not smoke often and the reason for this is typically that I know pot yields a state of mind that is not conducive to writing (much to the contrary of what I thought back when I first began to seriously concentrate on writing). Yesterday however, I partook early enough that by 6:00 PM I was able to have a pretty successful writing session, although I had some trouble keeping my tenses straight in two chapters where I had bafflingly switched to present tense.

I'll just take this pull as a bit of a comment on yesterday and be done with it.

2018: February 18th 11:33 AM

Continuing this somewhat - to me anyway - fascinating record of the music I wake up with in my head, because there's always music there when I open my eyes to a new day, today it was one of the more nuanced tracks from 2016's Total Depravity by The Veils:



I say nuanced and I do not mean it in a negative way; every track off Total Depravity is marvelous, and what's more, The Veils are very good at doing that that thing that I love: all the tracks add up to make an outstanding full album, one that resonates on multiple harmonic levels when listened to as a whole. We're talking sonically, thematically, and overall aesthetically, this record shines. In fact, I'd call it one of the best 'albums' I've heard in years.

Playlist yesterday was sparse. I finally found my CD copy of Shellac's most recent record Dude Incredible so that may be going into regular commute rotation for a while:

The Soft Moon - Criminal
Shellac - Dude Incredible
Deftones - Gore
The Doors - LA Woman (original vinyl pressing - used to be my Dad's and has THIS little nasty on the back of the bright yellow record sleeve).

I pre-ordered Dude Incredible on vinyl back when it was released and Mr. Albini and crew included as something of, I think, a philosophical statement on their preference for analog over digital, a totally unlabeled copy of the album on disc. Lately I've had the strongest hankerings for Shellac while in the car, so although it's been a while since I've pulled the vinyl out at night, during the day I'd several times been frustrated to discover I had no idea where the disc was. I even feared,  due to its unmarked facade, its possible loss in the great divorce tally/purge of 2015. Then a couple days ago I pull out 1000 Hurts on disc and there's the unlabelled missing album on top. I very much count this as a win.

Last night K and I tried to watch both Good Time and It Comes at Night but failed at both. Part of this may have been due to a certain persnickety fatigue six long days of work surrounded by LA commutes had left me with by the time I'd prepared dinner and had a few Smithwicks, but I definitely feel it this lack of connection was not entirely on me. Both films are distributed by A24, whose films I normally fall right in line with, but with my shortage of time to appropriate for watching movies these days, I feel fairly certain I won't be giving either of these another chance. Instead, we're seeing The Philadelphia Story on the big screen this afternoon, thanks to Turner Movie Classics and Fathom Events, and steering tonight's Sunday Night Feature to Dark Song, a film several good friends have given near rave reviews of, and which I'd waited on since first reading about on the Horror Amino community, where there's a wealth of awesome horror information updated on pretty much an hourly basis.

Card of the day:

A lot in my Grimoire about this one, however most of it presupposes the card's value in a spread, in relation to other cards, especially Disks and its representation of Earthly matters. Specifically I see one relating to gambling. I'll keep this in mind, however the one point of primary interest here is the note that the Three of Swords can indicate, "... a current period of unhappiness, not necessarily one to come."

Two reasons for this note's perceived poignancy at the moment with regards to my existence:

I'm not in the best of moods today due to a certain lackadaisical approach to property management by the cunts that run the building that I will soon be moving out of, and two, the "... not necessarily..." part really helps when looking back at the last few days' cards and tracking their ongoing juxtaposition with my moving situation: knowing the Futility of the current situation with finding a new place forces a decision to be made; accepting the Change that will come with that decision, and now the suggestion that unhappiness will not necessarily follow on the tide of that Change, well, the pieces are in motion and I'm helping to keep them that way. My contributions pail in comparison to K's near constant attempts to stay in contact with the other parties involved.

2018: February 17th 3:10 PM

Woke up with this in my head this morning:



Playlist:

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Veils - Total Depravity
The Veils - Nux Vomica
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go
The Bronx - The Bronx (I) AKA White Drugs
Grand Duchy - Let the People Speak (aborted listen*)
New York Dolls - Dancing Backward in High Heels
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Soundgarden - SOMMS (Record Store Day vinyl)
The Animals - Retrospective
....................

* I've tried, and despite absolutely LOVING the first album by Grand Duchy, and despite being an enormous Frank Black/Black Francis fan, I just can't get into this record at all. I keep waiting for the day that it catches me, but thus far, it has not.

......................

We watched Logan Lucky last night. Everything about the flick was solid except except except... I don't really know that it pulls off what it intends to pull off. Still, solid performances all the way around, very well written, likable characters, David Holmes does the music (of course), they use a Monks song in the soundtrack and it left me feeling good and like I want to move to West Virginia.

Ain't that something?

Bought tickets to go see this and I am PSYCHED.

Thursday, April 12th. One night only in the cinema. So I've got that on the 12th and The Soft Moon on Friday, April 13th. There's ALL kinds of synchronicities with my current writing project, but that aside, what an awesome two days of music!

Card of the day:

Change... it's a coming.

The Soft Moon - Burn

Criminal, the new album from The Soft Moon was released earlier this month and so far, this is my favorite track on an outstanding album. Seeing these guys for the first time in April and I can't wait!

Tommy posted the pre-release Choke a few weeks back, check that out HERE.