Another new single/new album announcement my travels have left me behind on. After seeing The Soft Moon live several years ago for their 2016 album Criminal, I can attest to the fact that, as much as I dig Anthony Vasquez and crew's albums, they're way better live. Regardless, I'm psyched for the new album, Exister, which drops 9/23 on the always amazing Sacred Bones Records! Pre-order HERE.
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Saw this dropped and wanted to post it here for posterity's sake:
As per usual, I am not watching the trailer, just salivating until 4:2 drops. I still just don't understand how every season of this show is able to get exponentially better than the previous.
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I'm not really getting a lot of time to read while we're out here. Since we arrived, it's been pretty hectic. We almost made an offer on a house last night, but there were two we were interested in that didn't hit the market until today, so we held off. Thing is, the one we almost made an offer on has an open house today, and so does one of the two that goes on sale today. So we could end up screwed. Fine. That'll suck, but I always read shit like that as "Wasn't meant to be." I'm not a believer in Fate, but I have reservations about EVERYTHING at the moment, so I'm happy to let the Universe act as an Equalizer.
No, not that Equalizer. Oh well, you get it.
Anyway... I haven't had a chance to read much, but I will say, I burned through the comics I bought the other day at Rick's Comic City - GREAT Shop and SUPER nice people - and I cannot get Immortal X-Men #3 out of my head.
Characters I've always loathed and found nothing but boring:
1) Charles Xavier
2) Magento
3) Mystique
4) Destiny
Characters I now find endlessly fascinating:
See 1-4 above.
I love the graphic representation Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck used to show us Destiny's Precognitive sight and at the same time tease possible future events. Also, I loved how big they went with the one future they did show us, simply because they're never going to show us it again.
What the hell is that? Giant Exodus possessed by The Phoenix Force eating Mr. Sinister (who manages to re-set the timeline first anyway?) This is some crazy shit, but the craziness is fleeting compared to the "game of thrones" going on and the character development. As Dave Buesing from Comic Book Herald points out in the most recent "Talking Krakoa," this is the first deep or probably even good character study on Destiny EVER in X-comics. That says a lot.
Then there's Mystique, I've never cared for her. When the original X-movies began to use her as a major character I always kinda scratched my head. Even for years after that, whenever I would dabble with an X-book again, I never bought Mystique's post-movies position as a now-major character. All that has changed. Hickman started it, and Gillen is CRUSHING it continuing this fascinating series.
Playlist:
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - 1957-1972 (Live)
The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues
16 Horsepower - Low Estate
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Card:
Okay, based on my brief run-down of the last few days above, this is a sight for sore eyes. 10 of Disks: Wealth doesn't promise anything, but "A solid foundation" definitely equates to "A good home" in my mind, always has. So okay, let's go out and find a fucking house!
The Founder/Guitarist from iconic Horror Soundtrack Prog group Goblin passed away at 70. Goblin has many amazing tracks and albums, this may be the greatest.
Also, along with guitars, Morante played the bouzouki. How about that? If you're like me, you might find yourself suddenly wondering if that's the instrumental layers in some of their music you could never quite place before.
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I know there's not a lot of Goblin's music in the intro scene to Dario Argento's Suspiria, however, it feels like there's more than there is, right? I believe that's because Goblin crafted such a fantastic score - and I'm under the (possibly mistaken) assumption that they wrote the music without having viewed the final cut of the film - in such a way that it mixes perfectly with the nightmare logic of Argento's cinematic aspirations.
I love the way the music hard stops when they cut from what Susie sees to the medium close-up of her walking. The direction, editing and score suggest she's not seeing what is actually there, which, if you think about it, fits the film perfectly from start to finish. Or rather, she's seeing what is there but what no one else can see. She's entering a Nightmare. Massimo Morante ladies and gentlemen. Rest in Peace, sir.
Playlist:
Orville Peck - Pony
Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl
Gordon Lightfoot - Greatest Hits
The Soft Moon - Him (pre-release single)
Hank Williams III - Straight to Hell
The Essential Dolly Parton
Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color
Card:
Open to new influence, awareness and new life. Not sure any of that really does me any good at the moment. Both K and I are having MASSIVE doubts about our plans for TN. There are a ton of reasons, but a lot of it boils down to it may not be exactly what we thought, we're priced out of the area we wanted and our second choice isn't nearly the same, and even though we've seen some houses we love and almost jumped on, there's the idea that, find the perfect home, move in, and if you have nothing around it to make you happy, in six months it's a prison and that will make you resent it and maybe your partner. And fine, so don't move, but the thing is, I really don't know where the hell we're going to live if we don't move here. Stay in LaLaLand paying insane rent? There's really nowhere else we've thought of, so we would have to take some serious time. In my head, there's also the idea that, if this shit with my lungs goes south, I want to be able to get her into a house that's hers before I check out. That's probably paranoia, but that doesn't mean it isn't clouding the situation.
Really digging this new track from Preoccupations that not only did Heaven is an Incubator post about recently, but both my good friends Jacob and Mr. Brown sent me last week (or the week before, we are now officially in a blur, ladies and gentlemen). It's been some time since we had new music from these guys, and I'd forgotten just how much I love their Eponymous and New Material Records (not to mention the Viet Cong stuff).
The new album Arrangements is out September 9th, and you can pre-order it now HERE. I'm currently on a ban from anything pending our move, but that shouldn't hold you back.
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I feel like someone sent me something about this one a few months back, as the title rings familiar. After watching this trailer, however, I don't know. The first feature from Writer/Director Zach Cregger, this is new to me:
Holy smokes. SOLD. What a fantastic trailer - it gives us so much of the aesthetic but gives NOTHING away (I'm assuming). Bill Skarsgård is beginning to be enough to make me stop and consider anything he's in, so there's that, and the 'tunnels under suburbia' angle is right in my sweet spot, so my arse will be in a seat come 8/31.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
The Mars Volta - Blacklight Shine (pre-release single)
The Soft Moon - Him (pre-release single)
Preoccupations - Ricochet (pre-release single)
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - 1957-1972 (Live)
Card:
Fortify your position. Definitely apt. I'm having massive "is this the right thing?" thoughts as we look at houses.
Holy cow - NEW MARS VOLTA! This news still caught me by surprise, despite the fact that Mr. Brown sent me a message yesterday about a show at Chicago's Aragon Brawlroom in early October. I'm hoping this heralds a new album on the horizon, which it almost certainly does because even though this official video for "Blacklight Shine" is over 11 minutes long, well over half of that is the percussive section that accompanies the images of dancers; the actual single on streaming services isn't even three minutes in duration, and thus, just about the shortest Mars Volta song that's not a 'lead-in' track EVER.
Oh yeah, how cool is it that Omar directed the video?
NCBD:
Since I'm traveling, a lot of these will be waiting for me in my pull box back home. Some of them, however, are books I haven't yet added to my official list, and instead have been scooping up off the shelf with reserve the last few months. Those, I'll be stopping at a local shop to pick up. I'll probably go with Rick's Comic City.
I'm still reeling from how awesome issue three of this new iteration of The Amazing Spider-Man was; hoping number four continues on the same path. There's really something classic about seeing Spidey duke it out with a bunch of street-level hoods, even the goofy ones like the Rabbit or whatever the chick with white rabbit ears calls herself.
Three issues of Deadly Class remain after this one. I'll admit, because of all the time jumps in "A Fond Farewell," I began to lose my compass as to where we were a few issues back, but I'm assuming this comes from not seeing the big picture to the final arc yet, and also, reading it monthly.
The final issue of Homesick Pilots, and another one I kind of got lost in a few issues back. I'm planning a series re-read as soon as I get home. This book has been nuts in the best possible way, and there is nothing else out there that even remotely resembles it. I mean, Grunge-era haunted house ghost mech suits employed by the military to fight other ghost mech things? It even sounds nuts. I'll miss this one, but I'm always glad to hold a completed story in hand and relish its completion. Better to leave 'em wanting more than to overstay your welcome.
The first issue of I Hate This Place was great. Let's see where we're going, because all signs point to cattle mutilation - which is disgusting and terrible, but a part of alien mythology that always fascinated me for all its oddness. I mean, why cattle? Regardless, I'm digging the way this one seems to be mixing that Alien lore with haunted houses and a classic slasher set-up. Kind of a kitchen sink aesthetic, which can be tricky, but so far here, has me intrigued.
Do I even have to talk about how I wait for every issue of Kieron Gillen's Immortal X-Men with bated breath? I thought not. On my pull, but I'm picking it up anyway, cuz there's no way I want to wait.
I feel like the art in this Moon Knight book is getting a bit cartoony, which is something I usually don't go for in comics (there are exceptions and East of West springs immediately to mind), but so far, I love what MacKay is doing with the characters, so I'm hanging on.
A new limited series continuing one of my favorite one-off storylines from back in the early 90s?
If you don't know or remember, back in late 90/early 91, for three issues the world thought Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben were dead, and in their wake, Spidey, Grey Hulk, Logan and Danny Ketch as Ghost Rider took over to avenge their deaths. I haven't re-read this one in a long time, and it was clearly a gambit to boost sales on "The World's Greatest Comics Magazine" and garner ever more exposure for four of the most popular characters of that era (Punisher would fit that bill too, but he doesn't show up until the last page of the final issue in a kind of meta-commentary on the situation by writer Walt Simonson).
Anyway, Marvel's doing a lot of these 'in-continuity' throwback series lately: iconic writers of the 80s and 90s go back and flesh out these classic eras. I've dug Symbiote Spider-Man by Peter David and the X-Men Legends that Walt and his wife Louise wrote for their OG X-Factor team, so of course, I'm giving this a try.
I hadn't been reading this current New Mutants until last issue, when "The Labors of Magik" storyline began. Look, reading the X-books in the 80s, I was... twelve when the original "Inferno" came out. It is still, to this day, the best X-Men Event or Crossover ever. Also, as a pre-pubescent male, The Goblin Queen and Ilyana Rasputin gave me something to live for in some ways, if you know what I mean and I think you do. So all of that is imprinted on me pretty deep. Thus, anything that references back to that storyline is immediately on my radar. They've toyed with this stuff before - wasn't Maddy or Magik or both Queen of Hell before? Or wasn't there another Inferno, before Hickman's new masterpiece that had nothing to do with Limbo or Magik at all? I believe so, but I ignored them. And if the first issue of "Labors of Magik" hadn't been as good as it was, I would have bowed out right away. But it was good, and I'm here again for part two.
Man, I remember when great indie books like Newburn were all I read. Now, they're kinda the minority in my monthly spending habit. Doesn't change the fact that Newburn is awesome, though.
HORROR. That is all.
Being that this is the final issue of X-Men, volume five for Duggan and Larraz? I hope not, but being that A) this is the last issue before the now annual Hellfire Gala, B) this is the final issue before Judgment Day, and C) no writer/artist are listed in Comics CLZ for issues 13 and 14's solicitation, I'm inclined to think maybe. I hope not, as I've LOVED this run. Either way, last issue dropped a BOMB, so let's get to picking up the pieces.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Card:
There's no surprise to me that I pulled this one again today. Got the news that my boss's boss is leaving the company, and that puts my keeping my job once I move in question.
I should clarify: I'd previously worked out that I'd be stepping down as Assistant Manager and taking a pay cut to focus on the international logistics side of my job, which exponentially increases every year and leaves me little time to actually 'manage' anyway.
Receiving this news shook me a bit, but it really hit K hard. Which I totally get. But receiving this "Temper Emotion with Reason" message two days in row indicates that we shouldn't make the assumption that I won't be able to keep the job. We also shouldn't assume I will. We have to approach the entire situation reasonably, which I definitely had flashes of yesterday. We looked at a lot of houses yesterday, several with our Real Estate Agent Josh (who is awesome), and several more just using Josh's portal. Zillow and Google Maps to triangulate areas where we saw things we wanted to look at. During those drives, we saw a lot of industry here with positions open. When K dug around online after we got home, there's a lot of stuff out there - whether local or 'remote' - that I more than qualify for. And I won't lie - I got a huge ego boost from totally crushing my officiating speech/duties at my Sister's wedding on Saturday. So I know I could find something good. Maybe better. The downside to losing the position I have now - or rather the new version of it I would have upon moving - is that, despite the fact that it's challenging, once I drop the management side of things - which is KILLING me at the moment - my job will be very cush in that I will have a large workload that will keep me on my toes, but it's a workload I am familiar with and enjoy.
I'm traveling, so any posts here will probably be abbreviated and sporadic. I'm not really a Skynard fan, however, after hearing the Deftones cover this one on their B-Sides collection that came out a few years ago, I realized I very much dig this song.
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I don't know anything about Luke Boyce's upcoming flick Revealer, which debuts on Shudder this coming Friday, however, here's the trailer:
Being that I'm traveling and have had a lot of my time spoken for over the last week, I missed last Friday's penultimate episode of Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In, where the trailer for Revealer played between movies. The following day, however, I saw this tweet and subsequently looked into the film:
This entire thing just makes me so happy, for Luke Boyce, for the movie, and for us, because this flick looks awesome! 80s Chicago? Mandy color-palette? I'm in.
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I finally began reading The Song of Salome by Tom Johnstone, published by the always wonderful Omnium Gatherum.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous pretty much on repeat, all day, every day. When I have a chance to listen to music, that is.
Card:
Bridging emotion (Cups) and reason (Air, Princes).
I feel like there's a lot of that right now, as we set up shop in Tennessee looking for houses, my parents in tow. I love my parents but haven't lived with them in over twenty years, or near them, aside from when I come home to visit every year, and I'm finding they are... a little bit of a challenge. Prince of Cups is one of the cards that represents me pretty well, as I'm pretty good at mitigating emotion with reason. Let's hope I can
I had no idea Julee Cruise did an album with Kid Congo Powers. Holy cow - what a fantastic pairing of musicians.
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Whoah:
Kudos to Shudder for putting this one out there. I've never been a rabid Gwar fan, as some of my friends, but I love them, and the one time I saw them live - Halloween (I think) circa 1999 (again, I think), they were awesome. Dave Brockie's death was a sucker punch from out of nowhere, but I've admired the band's perseverance and can't wait to see the band's history from start to present, as I have a lot of gaps in my knowledge of them.
NCBD:
Here's the haul; I've got a lot of reading to do before I head to the airport this afternoon:
The first issue of Moon Knight's turn at the Black, White & Blood series was fantastic, so I've really been looking forward to this second issue.
Love that cover; turns out it's more disturbing seeing The Corinthian's eye-mouths eat meat than the human eyes we're used to seeing them gorge on.
Really hoping this issue quells my reservations about where this one is going, because I like A Town Called Terror quite a bit so far.
I dig West of Sundown A LOT. There's a lot of Penny Dreadful influence, but not in a bad way.
I'm just loving the idea of setting this book primarily on Arrako, the former planet Mars. Also, I love both these damn covers, but that second one - I so want to see Storm and Brand go head-to-head.
And finally, the book I've been anticipating for months hits shelves this week:
With the success of Brubaker and Phillips' Reckless hardcover graphic novel series, I'm excited to see more creators go that route. And after the absolute creep-out of last month's Bone Orchard preview, I have super high expectations.
Here Julee Cruise's haunting vocals and Angelo Badalamenti's equally compelling music provided the soundtrack to one of my favorite scenes from Twin Peaks, Season One: The hike to find Jacques Renault's cabin!
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To once again refer back to that Netflix trailer dump from last week; GDT and Panos Cosmatos working together as part of a GDT anthology series?
Sold! Also helming episodes are Jennifer Kent, David Prior, Guillermo Navarro, Keith Thomas, Catherine Hardwicke (on a thus-far untitled episode that has H.P. Lovecraft credited as a writer), Vincenzo Natali, and Ana Lily Amirpour!
Playlist:
Julee Cruise - The Art of Being A Girl
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
Def Leppard - Hysteria
Angelo Badalamenti - Dark Space Low (Hour-long version HERE)
Yard Act - The Overload
Card:
The watery, or emotional aspect of our Earthly drives/desires/needs. This is a presumption since I won't be house hunting in Tennessee for about another week, but I think this is a good reminder that we have to temper our emotional drive to get the hell out of California with the pragmatic realities of actually doing this smartly and successfully.
Also, the Queen of Disks always reminds me to survey my 'Kingdom' and appreciate where I am and how I got there, especially the people in my life who have helped. If you're one of them - and you very well might be if you're reading this and I know you - thank you. You've helped bring me to this point in my life.
Circa its release in 2002, Mr. Brown gifted me a copy of Julee Cruise's The Art of Being a Girl. This is Cruise's third album and her first since 1993's second collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, The Voice of Love. The sound of this one is all over the place in the best possible way, and I would argue slots in perfectly with that early 00s 'electronica' sound that eventually became ubiquitous. The light, almost mystical sound of this particular track always takes me places, in keeping with all of Cruise's previous work. What we see here and in the subsequent album My Secret Life, her 2011 collaboration with former Dee-Lite DJ Dimitry is an artist who is never content having one sound. Cruise knew her strengths, and she knew how to suss out the best partners to help that sound evolve.
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I'm still playing The Game Kitchen's Blasphemy, and I've made a vow not to buy any new games until I finish it. I don't have a hell of a lot of time for games, but Blasphemy is addictive enough that, considering it's the first video game I've played in probably close to 30 years, I do find myself enmeshed when I pick it up. Because of this, I'm close. Close enough to figure that by the time Rose-Engine's Signals hits Switch on October 27th, I should be ready to embark on its gorgeously horrific journey, made evident with this trailer:
Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for introducing me to this one, as I'd not heard of it before. You can read their article HERE.
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I re-watched Summer of 84 last night for the third time, and I have to say, especially with this viewing following Stranger Things' amazing fourth season (part 1), I love this film even more. HERE is a link to the brief Letterbxd review I did last night that kind of sums up my feeling about the film, and in case you're unfamiliar, here's the trailer:
Afterward, K and I threw on Shudder TV and stumbled into Peter Carter's Rituals, a film I've been wanting to watch since just before it hit Shudder. Again, you can read my brief review HERE.
Very solid film, and as I say in the review, I'll need another viewing to fully 'get' it.
Playlist:
King Dude and Julee Cruise - Sing Each Other's Songs For You
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
Brand New - Science Fiction
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Blut Aus Nord - Dismarmonium: Undreamable Abysses
Card:
Page of Cups again, eh? Interesting that, in only three recorded readings so far with this deck, two of them are the same. I take this to mean that I really didn't pay close enough attention the first time I drew this card, two days ago. I'll also admit at this point that, since I am solely used to using the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck, I am not used to having Pages as part of the Court Cards.
Crowley famously reinterpreted quite a few aspects of the traditional Tarot for his deck. We can sum up his Court Cards as such:
Being that Grimm's Bound Tarot utilizes the traditional paradigm, I have not yet developed that ease with which my mind should read the Page as Princess, but in today's reading, I may have received such a solid example of interpretation factoring immediately into real life, that hopefully, the lesson will persevere.
From the grimoire:
The Earthy aspect of Water; Dreams can become Reality.
I literally woke up this morning after dreaming about officiating my Sister's wedding in less than a week and found my brain immediately transcribing the dream into what has now, several hours later, become the foundation for my speech. So I literally turned my dream into Reality. I'm assuming my first pull of this card the other day was the first indication - amidst my mounting anxiety at not having started the speech - that I needed to listen to the dreams of the event I've been having. I did not heed the first instruction, so the cards gave me the same recommendation a second time.
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
From the Split Single Sing Each Other's Songs for You, on which King Dude does a very sedate but ultimately charming version Rockin' Back Inside My Heart.
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Continuing on that Netflix Trailer dump from a few days ago:
"From the creators of Dark." That's all I needed to know to get excited about 1899, which I feel like I've been waiting on for a really long time.
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One of the things I've been meaning to do for a couple years now is to begin re-reading Wrapped in Plastic magazine. This was a Twin Peaks/David Lynch-focused magazine published from roughly 1992 to 2005 by Craig Miller and John Thorne. In the wake of Julee Cruise's death, I decided to pull out issue 61, which has Cruise on the cover and chronicles the 2002 Twin Peaks Fest, which she attended as a guest.
In doing this, I realized that the first issue Cruise appeared in, October 1993's issue 7, was one of the early issues that came out before I knew about the magazine. My collection runs issue 16 through the final issue, June 2005's issue 75, with a reprint of issue #1. I never made it around to filling in those gaps, and obviously, with Cruise's death, the going eBay price is, for the moment, astronomical. That said, issue 7 has a gorgeous cover, and I wanted to post it here:
Wrapped in Plastic was a HUGE part of my life for about ten or eleven years, and I flip through the issues often, however, I haven't really read one in ages.
Playlist:
Julee Cruise - Falling
Julee Cruise - The Voice of Love
Julee Cruise - The Art of Being a Girl
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Ghost - Impera
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Card:
Dipping once again in Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for today's reading:
My general definition of the Four of Swords is based on Crowley and Freida Harris' Thoth, which subtitles the card as Truce. That said, I've decided I am not going to look at the Bound Tarot in the 'learned tradition of tarot, but in a more personal interpretation.
Decisions that hang heavy over your head: this card evokes a tough decision that will open the door for indecision to immobilize you. I'm not sure if this has to do with something coming up at work, or our impending trip to Tennessee in about a week's time, when we will begin looking for our new home. Our pre-approval came back as a win yesterday, so with that out of the way, we really just have to get there and try and find something. By the looks of what we're seeing online, our new focus in Clarksville may mean we have to decide between several places, all of which seem fantastic. I can see how that would be a crippling decision.
(Obviously, most if not all of the homes we're seeing now as available on our Real Estate Agent's portal are going to be under contract before we get there, however, what we are seeing is an indication that there are a lot of places that will tug at our heart strings.)
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Talk about bad news to wake up to. Julee Cruise's voice and visage has been a part of my inner world ever since the night Twin Peaks Season Two Episode 14 aired; losing her to suicide at 65 feels a bit like a seismic shifting of my personal history's plates. The old world is definitely slipping away. In keeping with my recent M.O., thus beginneth Julee Cruise week.
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Amidst a lot of discussion about the "Whole Season at Once" business model beginning to fail (see the cancellation of Archive 81), Netflix dropped a handful of great trailers the other day, as if to remind us of their potency.
We'll see. However, any reservations I have about their adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman - arguably one of the greatest comics of ALL TIME, this trailer has me salivating for August:
Wow. I mean... I am almost speechless. Here's to hoping it's as good as it looks; Locke and Key looked pretty good when the first trailer dropped, as well, but I quickly forgot everything about Season One due to a lot of the changes and found myself thinking I should just re-read the series the next time I want to visit Lovecraft (not bloody Matheson!).
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This past Wednesday, Zeb Wells and John Romita, Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man #3 hit the stands. This is Legacy issue #897. I've Liked this series so far, but this issue... Jesus. This is the best Spider-Man comic I've read in... well, a long time.
There's a visceral pulse to this one that I definitely did not expect; watching Tombstone - a character I've loved since his introduction back in the 80s, circa Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man issue #139 - beat the living daylights out of a defenseless Spider-Man really affected me, as did his childhood origin. I was really only planning to read this book until #900, but if Wells keeps this up, I'm not going anywhere.
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
Mike Doughty - Live at Ken's House
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Windhand - Split EP
Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
Orville Peck - Pony
Pixies - There's a Moon On (pre-release single)
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling (single)
Grand Duchy - Petite Fours
Card:
A nice warning about the gathering slothfulness I've been so afraid of for a while now. I'm not writing enough. I need to remedy that.
Pistols wise, I loved Danny Boyle's Pistol. I've watched every doc I know of, read and re-read Noel Monk's tour biography 12 Days on the Road (can't recommend that one enough), but none of that prevents me from adoring Boyle's spin. K and I even teared up at the end, and not for the reasons you'd think.
Watch:
I had not even heard of this film, but it looks fantastic.
Charlotte Colbert's first full-length film comes to us as a "Dario Argento Presents," and from the visuals, I can see why he would be involved. A lush, Gothic aesthetic with a British sentiment.
NCBD:
A decidedly light NCBD. Thankfully.
I've decided I'm continuing with this new iteration of ASM at least until the legacy issue #900 hits in a month or two. After that, we'll see. So far though, this has been a pretty great title.
That Texas Blood returns with the start of it's third story arc. If it's even half as good as the previous one, well, look at that cover. How could it not be?
The cover says it all - a Hulkified God of Thunder! Banner of War has proven a super fun, big-swings story and I'm hoping that as it comes in for a landing, it just gets crazier.
Playlist:
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Tin Machine - Live at La Cigale, Paris, June 25th, 1989
This past Friday on The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl hosted Hellbender, the sixth movie by the prolific and endlessly fascinating indie filmmaking Adams/Poser family.
During the interview segments of the broadcast, the family revealed that not only is H6llb6nd6r an actual band they play in, but Ship to Shore media are releasing their debut record on vinyl.
I immediately pre-ordered the vinyl, despite an estimated ship date of Q4 2022 and the fact that, hopefully, by that time I will no longer live at my current address or even in California. Because of this, I used my parents' address in Illinois. However, there is the very real possibility they may also end up near us in Tennessee, so I'm hoping that, when all this finally happens, I will have enough time to go into the order and change the shipping address.
You can pre-order H6llb6nd6r's Side A from Ship to Shore Media HERE. The entire record is currently streaming on all platforms, and it's fantastic.
Cast:
A new episode of Southside 90s dropped concurrently with the newest installment of my Newsletter, which appropriately enough features a "Giant-sized" 90s playlist that chronicles all of the bands and albums I associate with those long-ago days spent playing in bands and smoking pot, getting crazy and watching friends build flamethrowers out of fire extinguishers. Sound insane? Yeah, it kinda was.
The stories are only going to get weirder from here out, so if you're listening, buckle up.
Watch:
My good friend and Horror Vision cohost Ray kicked off his summer outdoor movie series Cineray this past Saturday with one of the coolest double features I've seen in a while. First up, my first-ever viewing of Tango and Cash:
Next, and I had no idea this movie existed, was John Stamos and Vanity in an all-out 80s action movie called Never Too Young To Die. Feat your eyes on this glory:
Yeah, it's ridiculous, and maybe it was the tall cans of Stone's Hazy IPA I was sucking down, but it really hit the spot.
Playlist:
H6LLB6ND6R - Side A
Various - Lost Highway OST
David Bowie - A Reality Tour
Duende and David J - Oracle of the Horizontal
Deftones - Gore
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
Card:
I was SUPER excited to receive my copy of The Bound Tarot, which my friend and occasional co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm recently released. I'm extremely proud of Grimm - I watched him work on this deck over the last year and his skill never ceases to amaze me.
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Page of Cups indicates a predilection for following your Creativity, which, as of yesterday, is where I'm at again after weeks of spinning my wheels.
I'd be willing to wager there's another post on this page from about four years ago with the same title. I remember discovering David J's stunning tribute to David Bowie about as vividly as I remember receiving the text that told me of the Alien's passing. This is the perfect ode - sorrow at a passing lined the bittersweet memories of what that person meant.
Watch:
With only one-and-a-half episodes of the six-episode run, I can honestly say that despite the conundrum of seeing thumbnail advertisements for Danny Boyle's Pistol with a Disney+ watermark - because I'm assuming since Disney owns HULU and Pistol is a HULU original their network will distribute it in some foreign territories - I'm having A LOT of fun with this one.
This is very much Steve Jones' story, so I thought it only prudent to juxtapose my endorsement with John Lydon's rebuttal to the show. Because, you know, there is always creative license.
I'm always going to believe John over everyone else involved, however, the story is one that mesmerizes and recharges me enough that I'll listen to everyone's version of it.
Another awesome new song from the upcoming sophomore album Mirrorcell, by former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato.
You can pre-order Mirrorcell from Puciato's Federal Prisoner Records HERE.
NCBD:
This week is another super fun one. Here's why:
I have NO idea where Rick Remender & André Lima Araújo's A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance is going. Hell, I'm not even sure how long this book will run. Is this a Deadly Class/Black Science, 30-50 issues kind of story, or a 10-and-done like Tokyo Ghost? I'm sure that information is available somewhere online, either in an interview with Remender or the book's solicitations, however, I prefer not to know. All I do know is it's swift, often disturbing, and yet still has a positive energy to it.
I surprised myself in the weeks since Ghost Rider #2 - I would say this may be my most anticipated book now, below of course Immortal X-Men. I definitely detected some Clive Barker influence in the second issue of old flame head's new series, and that was enough to make me want more. Think about it - why not apply a Barker-esque Horror vibe to this title/character?
See, you couldn't come up with anything there, could you? So here's to hoping the book delivers (that monster truck cover isn't doing the series any favors, but hopefully that's all it is - a cover).
I was on the fence with Little Monsters simply because I'm trying - totally unsuccessfully, I might add - to limit what I buy until I move. But the first two issues got me to come back for three, and the first page of three dropped my jaw, so I'm in.
After my recent re-read of issues 1-8 of James Tynion IV's The Nice House on the Lake, I've been waiting for issue 9 with a lot more anticipation. Such a great character study of people at the end of the world. If, that's what this actually is, which is in question at the moment.
Maybe it was just momentum from Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but I loved issues 1 and 2, and this is a mini-series, so I'm sticking with Strange while Clea is running the show.
I know nothing about this one, but a Horror book called The Closet that shows a little kid playing in front of a closet that no doubt scares him seems like a great set-up. When you add in the fact that James Tynion IV is the author, well, count me in.
Just began re-reading What's the Furthest Place From Here last week, so issue 6's release is well-timed to say the least. I love this one.
Issue one wasn't really my thing, but I enjoyed it enough. I'm mainly buying this one because K is into it.
Playlist:
Ghost - Infestissumam
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Various Artists - Lost Highway OST
The Mysterines - Reeling
Card:
Hopefully, this card bodes well for renewed creative energy. Because mine needs some renewal.
BIG thanks to Mr. Brown for cluing me in on the fact that there's a new John Doe record out on the always delightful Fat Possum Records. You can order Fables in a Foreign LandHERE.
Watch:
Warning: This trailer may give some plot points away.
Michael Shannon in the die-hard tropey creepy neighbor role? SOLD.
Read:
I gave up on the book I've been slogging through for the last few months, Helltown by Jeremy Bates. It's well written, it just did not connect with me. I've moved on to a novel I've been wanting to read for years, and which only recently came back into print via Drugstore Indian Press.
So far, at only about 200 pages into its 608-page runtime, this is every bit as majestic as I'd expected. Klein needs more credit - he's a master of his craft and appears to be setting up a magnum opus that I'd wager influenced Clive Barker's Great and Secret Show, another of my favorite novels. I'd commented on this edition back when I bought it last year, specifically on my fears for its binding, which for this many pages, seems weak. That said, so far so good.
Also, it's interesting to note that the first and for a long time only story by Klein I had read, Events At Poroth Farm, seems to have been a short born of the author excising and reworking a section of The Ceremonies, probably due to frustration with the novel in its original form, misgivings he has shared publically on more than one occasion.
Also, it should be noted that in checking out DIP's website, I realized they have also reprinted Klein's most heralded volume, the looooooong OOP Dark Gods, which I plan on ordering ASAP.
Playlist:
Yerusalem - The Sublime
The Bronx - II
Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy
Deftones - White Pony
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Bexley - Lost in the Moment EP
Bexley - Eponymous
John Doe - Fables in a Foreign Land
Cypress Hill - III: Temples of Boom
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Def Leppard - Diamond Star Halos
Def Leppard - High 'N' Dry
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Revocations - Teratogenesis
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Card:
I always equate this particular card with emotional strength and support, so I'm reading this as it pertains to giving someone else the support they will soon need.
