New Pixies! From the forthcoming new album Doggerel, out September 30th. You can pre-order HERE.
NCBD:
Well, we won't have our automobiles until the end of the month. This has become the final challenge with the move, as otherwise, I feel as though we're pretty settled in. Last weekend I rented a car, and I'll probably do so again Friday, so I guess this is what I'll be grabbing at Rick's Comic City on the 12th:
Issue 6 was the Legacy #900. It was cool, but a total departure from the "Street-Level" Spider-Man that has me loving this new book. I also have never given a toss about Norman Osbourne, as he was well and truly dead in the 80s when I read Spider-Man, and thus, not really a factor in any of those stories. But I'm digging this enough to keep coming back for me... for now.
I'm hesitant about following all of these. I've dug the X-Books that tie in and Judgment Day #1, but Eve of Judgment was not for me. I just can't get into The Eternals. So, if this one focuses on them, I'll be skipping it.
I'll be picking up the #1, but remain hesitant on adding this. Great timing, though, what with Prey winning over the hearts and minds of Predator fans everywhere.
I just realized A Town Called Terror is ongoing! I had been laboring under the idea this was limited series, and that it was developing too slowly for there to be any satisfying story arc here. This changes everything!
Playlist:
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Forhist - Eponymous
Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I – Fathers of the Icy Age
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II - Saturnian Poetry
Explode Into Colors - Quilts E.P.
Card:
Back to my Thoth Deck, which I realize I've been neglecting a bit. Continuing with the 3-Card Spread, which I'm thinking will be the norm from here out, I'm seeing a lot of somewhat chaotic but 'soft' forces at play for the day. Nothing huge will happen today, but emotional waters run deep and the same inspirations that help build my personal world, could also potentially damage it, especially in light of what may be a fascinating revelation.
Hmm. This feels like complications are brewing in the house, and I can only look in one direction for that. K's Mom started out really good and positive, but this not having our car thing is making her squirrely. I mean, it's making all of us squirrely, but one thing I can definitely say is, as Perry once observed, "Elderly are like children." It causes her to act out. Which can be frustrating, to say the very least. I'm taking this spread as a suggestion to shore up my personal Dominion and follow my better nature, despite whatever happens.
Like me, you may have been recently introduced to U.S. Girls via Netflix's The Sandman, where episode five featured THIS song. That song is awesome and makes quite the impression, but in checking out the 2015 album it hails from, Half Free, I can tell you that every track is awesome. This one, in particular, made quite an impression on me. Am I hearing traces of Prince-like songwriting and arranging? And Portishead... definitely Portishead. Great vibe and ironic, because I was only just recently waxing philosophical about how I miss the Trip Hop vibes of artists like Portishead and Poe.
We're six episodes into The Sandman, and it is spectacular. I never thought I'd see a proper, nearly panel-for-panel adaptation of this book that had such a huge impact on me as a teenager, but here we are.
The way things are shaking out, it looks as though this first season will contain two of my all-time favorite/most personally influential issues - John Dee's 24 hours in the Diner and the Cereal Convention. Watched the Diner last night, and it delivered, so I'm psyched to get to the Convention.
Being that I like this so much, I can't help but be reminded of last year's Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix, and the fact that they unceremoniously canceled it shortly after the first season dropped.
Watch:
I believe this is the same trailer that ran post-credits at Ti West's X. I still can't believe how far beyond my expectations Ti West's return to cinema has been:
Now that I'm somewhat settled in TN, I'm anxiously awaiting this year's Beyondfest announcement so I can ready myself for the nightmare of trying to buy tickets for their tenth anniversary. I've been attending for all but the first year (didn't know about it then), and I'm certain Pearl will screen, most likely with West and Mia Goth in attendance for some form of Q&A. I'm banking on my boss flying me back to work in L.A. that week, so hopefully, this should all go kind of smoothly and not cost me much.
Listen:
One of my favorite moments of my cross-country drive last week was while my co-pilot was sleeping in his seat next to me, middle-of-the-night, with the Weird Studies podcast on my earbuds (I use the ambient sound pass-through so I can hear everything going on around me). This episode, in particular:
Hearing Phil Ford and J.F. Martel discuss anything is an intellectually stimulating pleasure, but hearing them talk Twin Peaks? Priceless. That said, the conversation begins with Twin Peaks: The Return's infamous episode 8, but uses that as a jumping-off point to expound on the physical and physic changes in our reality that the Trinity Detonation ushered in. Their idea - which I will only very briefly summarize here in an effort to get you to head over to your favorite Podcast Platform and listen to the episode, is that using Lynch's Garmonbozia - pain and suffering - as something of a quantifiable metric, a particular 'flavor' of fear, a discussion can be had about how the world has changed since 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945.
Playlist:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Now that I work from home - a scenario that has been slightly frustrating due to Amazon's delay on nearly everything I've ordered for my home office - the lack of a commute means I can make my daily Tarot pulls considerably more in-depth.
Starting in the Middle, with Past on the Left and Future on the Right, I'm reading this as my tendency to overthink and psychoanalyze everything has bound me. Somewhere inside that circuitous cavern of thought, however, is an epiphany, or at the very least a sublime moment of understanding. Applying a fresh perspective will open that up.
I think this is in relation to my home-from-home situation, which feels completely scattered at the moment. I need to build my space and from there, things will become better defined.
One of my favorite tracks on Ghost's Impera, an album where I love every track. Is it madness to say this is my second favorite of their records (behind Infestissumam)? I don't care. I love this record.
So, after packing all day last Saturday, and loading all day Sunday, my good friend Keller and made it from LaLaLand to Clarksville, TN in a day and a half! It was awesome. We left immediately after packing (he helped a bit near the end, but I wanted him crisp to drive first-shift, knowing I would be exhausted. My Horror Vision Brother King Butcher and our friends Maddie and Kenta really threw down with us on the move - no easy task when you realize that K's Mom pretty much had, once again, not packed much of anything before day-of). Keller drove from 11:00 PM Sunday, 7/31, until around 7:00 AM the following day. We stopped at a gas station in Flagstaff, AZ, and accidentally hit the skirt of the truck on the concrete bumper guarding the pumps.
Thank god for that bumper.
This is a 20-Foot uHaul truck, and as you might imagine, there's a learning curve. However, everything was ultimately fine because we paid $199 for uHaul's Safemove insurance. SO worth it, and honestly, we were already paying close to $7000 for the truck - it would have been half the price if we trekked over the border into Nevada, however, the monetary benefits would not have outweighed the sanity benefits of picking that truck up down the street from our house.
So my first driving shift began about 7:40 AM (we hit a McDeath's near the gas station for a breakfast sandwich and COFFEE). I'd come to peace with going back to eating meat the week before - that's something I'll hopefully correct again soon, and while I try to avoid McDeath, you really have little choices on the roads between states, so again, I accepted the circumstances for what they were. That shift lasted fourteen hours - I was on fire! Seriously, I did not want to relinquish the vehicle. It was as though I had tapped into something. I've read and thought a lot about the hypnogogic states long drives induce, but this was something even more powerful. I've always thought there is Magick in this country, in the sheer size and what that does to our consciousness as we traverse it, and I think that's what Keller and I tapped into while driving.
So shifts:
Keller: 11:00 PM-7:00 AM
Shawn: 7:40 AM-9:00 PM (time shift puts us at local time ~11:00 PM
Keller: 11:30 PM-3:00 PM
..
I-24 kind of divides Clarksville into two textures. Where we stayed last month with my parents was West of the 24, closer to Fort Campbell, and it has a bit more of a hodge-podge feel. Still nice, but it's a lot of strip malls with Vape stores and Payday loans shops. East of the Highway is decidedly crisper. It's mostly new developments, new stores, etc. When K and I rolled into town with my folks at the end of June, we entered the city through the West side and honestly, it knocked our expectations down a few pegs. After getting priced out of the Murfreesboro/Lavergne/Smyrna area by Angeleno homeowners, seeing this side of Clarksville felt a little like a defeat. When our Realtor eventually explained the divide and showed us around the East side, we felt a lot better, hence why we bought the house that we did. However, as the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so I carried an almost unconscious, background anxiety around with me through the sale, inspections, packing, etc. When Keller and I drove in, Siri had us go a totally different way, using the 31, which is essentially a long, scenic surface street. A bit stressful with a 20-Foot truck, but it totally did the trick. All my low-level disappointment evaporated. I fucking LOVE it here. K and I sat outside on our back porch last night and watched a lightning storm.
Watch:
We haven't had the internet, and we haven't had any time to watch anything, but if all goes well, tonight we'll be digging into some of what we missed. Here's where I'm planning on starting:
And, of course:
While I've been fairly skeptical about what feels like the nearly impossible feat of adapting Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, I am hearing nothing but good things from people I know. Of course, it remains to be seen how I feel about it - as Sandman is one of my all-time favorite and most influential comics, but my mind is open.
Read:
Finally going to start reading James Tynion's Something Is Killing the Children, thanks to Gerald at the Comic Bug, who sold me a set of the first five issues with David Mack covers for half-price as a going-away gift. Look at these:
So far, I'm in. Issue One is a FANTASTIC set-up.
I'm glad I waited to start this (although for investment purposes, I wish I had that first-printing #1). Tynion's 3-issue The Closet just wrapped this past week, and it cinched him as one of my favorite current writers in comics, so I have a nice big run of SIKTC ahead of me to look forward to.
Playlist:
Orville Peck - Bronco
Ghost - Impera
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Zombi - 2020
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic
Calexico - The Black Light
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Ella Fitzgerald - Best of, Vol. II
The Bangles - Different Light
Anthrax - Worship Music
Cults - Static
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Deafheaven - Ten Years Gone
The Contours & Dennis Edwards - Motown Rarities 1965-1968
SOD - Speak English or Die
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
The first pull here was done on Wednesday, August 3rd 2022. The second night in the new house. K didn't arrive until the following night, so this was Keller and I hanging out after a second hard day of unloading. I had procured some Mushrooms from a friend back in LaLaLand and saved them for this trip, so when we knocked off for the evening, we opened fresh beers and ate about 2 grams each.
First, yes. I shuffled.
The fact that I laid down 13, 12 and 11 is crazy to me. I read this as the sacrifices I endured (saving $, dealing with all the difficulties of moving your life across country) to perform a massive life-changing ritual (the drive), rewards me. And I'm feeling that reward. Everyone loves this house: Keller couldn't get over it, Kirsten loves it, her Mom loves it, and Sweetie loves it. Oh, and I love it.
My good friend Keller and I hit the Palladium for Anthrax's 40th-anniversary tour. It was a fantastic night with a fantastic friend - the man who is driving with me in a 20-Foot Uhaul starting Sunday night at 7:00 PM, LA to Clarksville.
The Modello tall cans were flowing. The Palladium was hot as Hades, and with my lungs, after a mile-and-a-half walk from Keller's to the venue, it didn't take me longer than five minutes to realize that, despite my best intentions, wearing a mask in that fucking place would be impossible.
Black Label Society opened - great at what they do, but not really my thing. The five-plus minute behind-the-back guitar battle Zakk Wylde and his guitarist Dario Lorina tore the stage up with during the penultimate number of their set was pretty mindblowing, but really, I was just antsy for Anthrax. They did not disappoint, despite the fact that they only played twelve songs. But oh, what a great twelve songs. Here's the setlist:
1) Among the Living
2) Caught in a Mosh
3) Madhouse
4) The Devil You Know
5) Keep it in the Family
6) Metal Thrashing Mad
7) Anti Social
8) I Am the Law
9) In the End
10) Only
11) Bring the Noise - with Chuck D!!!
12) Indians
When they brought out Chuck D, I seriously teared up. I stepped away from Anthrax for most of my twenties and early thirties, but I always held the reverence for Persistence and Among. Persistence was the first record I bought by them - from a fucking Phar-Mor no less, and it made them my band back in the day. Sure, I loved Metalica, Slayer and Megadeth, but Anthrax always spoke to me the most, and it was great to see them again, this time the first for me with Joey, as the only previous show of theirs I attended was during High School, when Mr. Brown and I caught the John Bush-era 'Thrax at Chicago's Aragon Brawlroom - complete with Quicksand and White Zombie opening. That was another amazing night with another amazing friend, and I still remember the ride home in Brown's car, when he popped in Sugar's Copper Blue, we rolled with windows down and hit Lake Shore Drive on a crisp night that was twenty-nine years ago to today. Talk about crazy synchronicities here, on the even of my urban exodus.
Video from Matt Bower's youtube channel, which is pretty cool, so head on over and give him some love HERE.
Read:
Inspired by an episode of the Weird Studies podcast and a slowly rekindled desire to dip my toes back into the Occult, I pulled Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice off the shelf the other day and began reacquainting myself with it.
I bought this 17 or 18 years ago from The Atlantis Bookshop in London, and while I've read parts of it, Crowley's writing has always been so opaque to me, that frustration has always ultimately thwarted any serious attempts to read this in its entirety. Eventual failure or not, I'm feeling like it might be time to give it another go.
Playlist:
I've been so busy finishing out my last week in-person at the week at work, I've not had a chance to post in some time, so of course, if I actually recorded everything I've listened to it would be quite the egregious scroll for you, dear reader. Instead, here are some highlights up to and including today, July 30th, 2022:
Trail of the Dead - XI: Bleed Here Now...
Anderson .Paak - Malibu
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Milk Cult - Love God
Various - Daptone Gold
Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell
Anthrax - pretty much all their albums, all day. Fuel for the endless day of packing
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
John Cale - Fear
Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move
Ozzy - Ultimate Sin
Card:
My intention was to do a big, involved spread for my departure, but I have neither the time or the strength for that. Here then, is a three:
Collaboration, honed through conflict/change, leads to a new status quo. Or something like that. Again, exhausted. This is a pretty pivotal moment in my life, so I should try to revisit this when I'm not falling asleep while I type.
You can pick up Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot deck HERE.
Moving is hard. I mean, like, REALLY hard. But it's one of those things in life you just have to do, so I put my head down, charge through night after night packing (endless, endless) and drink. But maybe beer isn't enough...
New Afghan Whigs! How Do You Burn is out September 9th (My Mom's birthday!). Pre-order your copy HERE.
Watch:
Over the last few years, I've actually become quite a fan of the John Wick flicks. Sure, Part III wasn't quite up to snuff with the first two, but you can tell every shot of this series is executed in a way that lovingly expresses a weird, violent beauty. Now, part IV:
On my birthday, no less. Will it live up to the others? Well, with Keanu, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick returning, it will at the very least scratch the itch the other entries in the series instigated.
Read:
When I did my NCBD post this week, I forgot about the new Daniel Warren Johnson book I didn't even realize was out.
I have no idea what this book is about, and I don't give a toss about wrestling, but it's DWJ and in picking up the first issue on Butcher's recommendation, of course, it's f*&king GORGEOUS. I don't know what it is exactly about Johnson's art that connects with me so much, but I feel like he definitely grew up with similar influences, and those influences come through in everything he does, whether it's Beta Ray Bill or this.
Acceleration. No shit. Tearing the house apart, going through every single thing we own. Convincing a family member to get rid of things that sat in a storage space for 40 years. And I'm driving out of LaLaLand NEXT SUNDAY!!! So yeah, things are moving really fast.
Wow. Dead Cross returns with a song and video that immediately make me like this album better than the last. Can't wait. Dead Cross II drop October 28 on Ipecac, Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
Over the last year, I finally did what everyone told me to do and watched Cobra Kai. Holy shit - this show is awesome. For someone who saw the first two Karate Kid flicks as a kid and never since I was floored by how much I dig this show. But hey, it is really well done.
Season Five and an entire valley of Terry Silver's domestic karate terrorist program? Wow. Looks fantastic.
How about some Slayer to start the day, eh? One of my all-time favorite tracks from them.
NCBD:
Short week (thankfully):
After that big Silver Coin reread over the weekend, I can't wait for this new issue.
Watch:
I for one LOVED Halloween Kills. Now, granted, I really dug DGG's Halloween 2018, too, until I rewatched it at home. Not that I hated it or anything, but that second, smaller viewing revealed a bit of a lackluster sheen that was no doubt covered up by the big, opening night, theatrical viewing my friends and I had first with that one (listen to our just-after-leaving-the-theatre review HERE). And I've only seen Kills the one time, again in the theatre, although not on opening day. Still, I dug pretty much everything but the ending, which proved to be a HUGE question mark. It catapults this new requel approach into possibly super-supernatural territory, so I really have to see Halloween Ends before I can make an overall judgment, Either way, this is going to be fun as hell in the theatre come October!
Visceral, to say the least. And call me old-fashioned, but the old hand-in-the-garbage-disposal is always a gag that makes me flinch.
Playlist:
Bria - Cunty Covers Vol. 1
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak version)
Ghost - Impera
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Fast-paced change? CHECK! I love how all my pulls are reflecting the heightened frenzy and complication party of my preparing to move across the country. Batten down the hatches, not long now!!!
Listening to Orville Peck's Bronco a lot these last few months since it dropped, and I've done that thing where pretty much every song rotates in as my favorite for a bit. A few weeks ago, it was the album closer "All I Can Say." Great duet that prompted me to look into Peck's guest Bria's work.
Cunty Covers Volume 1 dropped last year, and I'm pretty sure had I heard it then, the EP would have made it onto my year's best list. Wow. My favorite track on an album of favorite tracks, here's Bria's rendition of John Calle's "Buffalo Ballet." You can order the album from Bria's Bandcamp HERE.
READ:
I spent Saturday morning re-reading Michael Walsh and friends' The Silver Coin, then my co-host Butcher and I did a two-hour FULL SPOILER retrospective on the entire series for The Horror Vision, available now on all Podcast Platforms.
Then Sunday, I spent the morning re-reading Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss's What's the Furthest Place From Here. Man, you can't get much better than these two series. While you can hear plenty of my thoughts on The Silver Coin in the episode mentioned above, I'll just use this space right here to tell you that WTFPFH is probably going to end up being my favorite book of the year.
There is just NOTHING else out there like this book. Sure, I could make comparisons to Teenagers From Mars and Black Hole, among others, but WTFPFH cuts the modern realism with a heaping dose of what the actual fuck? and it makes for a fun, quirky read that I really can't wait to see further unravel, because there is NO way to anticipate where the hell this one is going. Love it!
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
John Cale - Black Acetate
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
... And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead - XI: Bleed Here Now
Withered - Veloren
The Sword - Age of Winters
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Earthless - Black Heaven
Helms Alee - Keep This Be the Way
Sleep - Volume One
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
'
Another reminder that change is a'coming? Really? As if I don't know (he says while he's out of breath from packing).
Anthrax's fan-chosen live album XL dropped yesterday, and while you can tell Joey is struggling a bit on some of the songs, overall this is a blast. Love these guys, can't wait to see them at the Paladium at the end of the month, my outro show from LaLaLand.
What a great way to exit, eh?
Watch:
I have to tell you, all the way until I hit play on the new trailer for Rob Zombie's The Munsters remake, I assumed I would hate what I saw. You know what though? This looks visually fantastic and fun as hell:
I also appreciate the fact that it's a love story? I mean, part of why I assumed I would not give a lick about this film is I had a really hard time imagining what RZ would do with this property - he hits the same note with his stuff so often that I just couldn't imagine a departure. That's not a complaint - despite regular complaints and disappointments, I generally like most of what he's done cinematically.
Playlist:
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
Baroness - Gold and Grey
John Cale - Black Acetate
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Anthrax - XL
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Bexley - Eponymous
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Struggle? Oh yeah. Getting some people to start packing is like trying to get a liar to tell the truth. Still, the card reminds me not to give up, and that even when I feel totally immobilized, there will be a new card tomorrow (unless this one resurfaces. That would make me cry).
Andrei Tarkovsky has only ever barely been on my peripheral, but thanks to Criterion Channel, I just had the opportunity to watch his 1979 film Stalker.
I still need time to unpack this one before I can talk about it, however, let it be said that I absolutely LOVED this film. Talk about 'location porn.' The visual aesthetic of this film perfectly aligns with my innermost aesthetic - something that goes back to when I hunted around my yard for half-full culverts and dirt mounds, shattered bricks, twisted metal, anything to have a location for my action figures.
I've been obsessing over Stalker in my head for the last two days, and this inspired me to look for a podcast discussion of it. Well, boy did I find it.
The Weird Studies podcast is fantastic! Hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel not only deep-dive the film, but their discussion of philosophy, art and life feels absolutely refreshing in the stifled academic pretense of our time. I've already subscribed, and intend on Weird Studies keeping me company for many a commute to come (while I still have a commute, that is).
Watch.2:
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I cannot wait for this movie!
Against all odds, this really moved the needle for me. I "broke up" with Kevin Smith about the time I sat through Tusk, which could have been fantastic, but had James Laxton's gorgeous cinematography and a stellar Michael Parks performance destroyed by adolescent whimsy. I used to be a big fan of his films, but now, well, I still hold Chasing Amy in extremely high regard - the acting! - but other than that... not so much. Clerks II had its moments but was overall depressing. I'm not saying Smith makes bad movies (sometimes, sure), but overall I feel like I just outgrew him. This, though, looks like it will be a nice way to revisit that original film and these characters. My mileage varies with most of them, but it's been a minute and I didn't go within ten feet of that Reboot movie, so I think I may enjoy the Quick Stop one last time.
I have Alice in Chains on my mind. Mr. Brown often clues me in on the Pitchfork Sunday Review, where every Sunday a writer looks back on an iconic album. Yesterday was Dirt - one of the most important of my "forever albums," and it made me dive back in head-first.
I've never been much of a Pitchfork guy, but when they hit it, they really leave a mark on me. This was one of those times.
NCBD:
Back home (for now) in LA, so I'll be heading to the Bug to pick up this week's books, which are plentiful:
Some big events kicking off in TMNT and the X-Books, which have the second annual Hellfire Gala followed immediately by Judgment Night (which I'm still not sold on). Also, I'm not necessarily going to jump on this new Mandolorian series, but I definitely want to check out the #1.
Playlist:
Ghost - Impera
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Karma to Burn - V
Black Sabbath - Never Say Die
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Faith No More - Sol Invictus
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
This gives me a teensy bit of an idea of how things are going to be as I prep for leaving LaLaLand. So far, no, things have not necessarily been the way I expected, but nothing has been a straight-up rug, so that's good. The idea in life is always to go in with loose expectations (if any at all), lest you succumb to disappointment despite a triumph.
Very curious about Addison Heimann's Hypochondriac, which Bloody Disgusting's John Squires says, "gives us Donnie Darko vibes." No quicker way to get me interested. Here's the trailer:
Read:
I had previously noticed the solicitation for Pentagram of Horror, a new anthology Horror comic created by Marco Fontanili, but the shop didn't order any (or was sold out), and I kinda forgot about it from there. Fast forward to Tennessee a few weeks ago and I was able to snag issue 2 from Rick's Comic City. I just read it this morning, and I have to say, I loved it.
Pentagram of Horror reminds me A LOT of The Silver Coin, though not in an imitation way. Having only read this second issue, I can say that the story here was very well told, with Fontanili's writing and art working together in such a way that it really strengthened the tone. Very horrific, stand-alone, but with a wide enough scope that it feels cinematic.
Can't wait to track down #1.
Playlist:
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Orville Peck - Bronco
Sal Salmena - Bria
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
Greg Puciato - Mirror Cell
The Sword - Age of Winters
Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST
Various - Lost Highway OST
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Flew home from Chicago yesterday after a post-house buying week where I tried like hell to relax. I mostly succeeded, thanks to all my dear friends who were more than happy to drive to my folks' place in the woods of Palos Park and sit on the patio for hours on end.
I'm using Boards of Canada's Dayvan Cowboy today because Boards are on of my two most commonly used airplane soundtracks - the other is Burial - and in spite of the fact that I usually use either the In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP or Geogaddi as flight-long loops in my earbuds, yesterday I went with 2005's Campfire Headphase because I know it the least.
And I realized at once that I know it better than I realize. Dayvan is Probably my favorite track. The guitar on this album is incredible, and I always mistakenly think is performed by Bibio, whose style is extremely similar. Either way, this record is fantastic, as are all the BOC outputs, and it helped make my flight smooth and a partial extension of my relaxation (as much as one can relax on a plane).
Read:
Well, I blew through most of Donnie Goodman's The Razorblades In My Head on the trip, read a shit ton of comics I bought at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville (soon to be my new shop, I'm happy to say. Great store, SUPER awesome, friendly people), and took a trepidatious cue from Warren Ellis' most recent newsletter and picked up Will Carver's Hinton Hollow Death Tripon Kindle for $0.99.
I read it in three days.
I suspect this will be the best book I read in 2022. It is dark and disturbing, but not in the ways I initially feared. But it's also one of the most human books I've read in some time, and it ended up making me want to be a better person. Not that I don't always want to be a better person, because this is literally a goal I think about on daily basis. However, it's something I think about after I've made stupid comments like, "Fuck that guy for not using a turn signal, if I were going to be a serial killer, those are the people I'd kill," and the like. And really, while there's nothing wrong with venting, c'mon. Also, and this has been hovering on my consciousness for decades, ever since I first tried it in 2001, but I think I'm going to stop eating meat for a while. I'm not going to go completely 'full-hilt' on Vegetarianism, however, meat bothers me. It always has, or at least since my early twenties. Morrissey's right - meat most certainly is murder, and it's one of the most fucked up elements of our modern culture I can think of. But I am programmed, from the youngest of ages. This is not my parents' fault, it's just what happens with systemic issues that people are born into generations after being installed. Sure, earlier versions of humans might not have had a choice - or really, maybe they did. It's not like plants didn't grow while early humans were spearing bores on the planes - but once we had agricultural systems in place for producing substitutes, well, why didn't we switch?
It doesn't matter. There's no way I'm going to say, "I'm never going to have a hamburger again," because I fucking love hamburgers, and in fact, am thinking about eating one right now. But I won't. While we were in Tennessee, something entirely different prompted me to declare I'm giving up "plated meat" dishes, which I only occasionally eat anyway. But we're heading to the store today for a post-trip restock, and we're thinking about picking up some of the Impossible stuff, to try and use it in some recipes K makes where the dish isn't dependent on the meat's flavor or texture. I'm hoping it works, as it's not only the principle issues of eating meat that is prompting me but goddamn if I didn't eat more red meat in the last three weeks than I have in probably a year, and I'm feeling it.
Also, yes, Carver's book had a little something to do with it. The man identifies himself on his Twitter profile as "Drinker. Non-preachy Vegan" and I'd agree with that. But his ideals come through in Hinton Hollow Death Trip, and they affected me for sure. In a good way.
I'll keep you posted.
Watch:
Bloody Disgusting had a pretty big Upcoming Horror Movies for July trailer dump last week. Here's one that caught my eye:
I'm not 100% on this one, as there are a few things in the trailer that give me concern, chief among them being that, although as a lifelong Lovecraft fan, I'm a sucker for anything with his name attached. This also means I am literally a sucker because adding HPL is an easy way to market a bad movie. Still, the goat-head silhouette effect seen near the end of the trailer makes me hopeful (despite also being a sucker for goats in Horror).
Playlist:
No way to list it all. Here are some of the staples, along with some new stuff:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Sleep - Volume One
Karma to Burn - V
Billy Idol - The Roadside E.P.
CCR - Bayou Country
Sleep - The Sciences
Orville Peck - Bronco
Witchcraft - Legend
The Sword - Age of Winters
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Baroness - Gold & Grey
The Company Band - Eponymous
Ween - a couple recent live shows, all curated by Mr. Brown. It appears the boys are digging deep into their back catalogue that included "Cornbread Red" and a couple from Craters of the Sac.
Card:
The first thing I did upon returning home was pull out Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for a reading:
A call to relax and enjoy, but also a warning about intoxication and the indulgences it can bring. This feels prescient, simply because my plans for today are "Pack and Drink."
Heaven is an Incubator posted the new album by Spain's Calderum. I'd never heard of these guys (this guy?) before, or the idea that anyone was meshing Black Metal with Dungeon Synth. I mean, talk about a sound you didn't know you wanted but you've been anticipating for years!
You can pre-order the Vinyl like I did, or the cassette from Death Prayer Records in the UK, just head over to Calderum's Bandcamp HERE.
Write:
I just posted a story called The Bagman Cometh over on the Horror Amino app. I had a lot of fun doing this one, and a longer version will ultimately be included in my forthcoming FREE short story collection Its Soil Be Murder. To read the current version, go HERE.
The piece is a mashup of random pictures from my phone, all used to prompt the story. I really dig this one; it plays with the whole Creepy Pasta/Urban Legend thing, while also bringing back a character from a short story I wrote waaaaay back in the early 00s but still need to publish. Maybe I'll put that in the Free Collection as well.
Back:
Hasbro Pulse began a new Haslab campaign yesterday, and unfortunately, I caught wind of it early enough that I have about a week to struggle with whether or not to cough up $299 to back this:
Christ. One of my all-time favorite figures, the HISS Driver, working treads and the kicker? That fucking working beacon.
Playlist:
Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands
Krallice - Demonic Wealth
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses
Ruby Friedman Orchestra - Fugue in La Minor (single)
Pink Milk - Ultraviolet
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Various - The Void OST
Card:
Reminding me to make completely 'Scientific' decisions tomorrow at the home inspection; I must not succumb to emotion for or against the move. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we go back to LaLaLand and start a new plan.
Thanks to Mr. Brown for turning me into the fact that Hellfest 2022 is streaming all the bands' sets. Of course, I'm most interested in Godflesh, a band I still hold out the hope we'll be getting another new album from sooner rather than later. Justin K. Broadrick is a very prolific, very busy man, but how do you turn your back on your baby when your baby is Godflesh?
NCBD:
Still out of town, but I'll probably pick these up anyway and just let my shop know not to pull.
Is this the end of the first arc for What's The Furthest Place From Here? or the start of a new one?
Jesus, it's only been two weeks since the previous X-Men Red. Based on the events of that book, I'm REALLY looking forward to this one.
Love this book, and the fact that I have no compass for how long this series is ultimately shaping up to be. Feels very open-ended, and like there could be a much bigger story here for Sonny and Xavier than I first suspected. Rick Remender - I love you!
Watch:
I can remember seeing the opening to Lewis Teague's Alligator so long ago; the scene of the father flushing his little girl's pet baby alligator down the toilet has stayed with me for most of my life. Thanks to Shudder, I've finally seen the entire movie.
I LOVED this flick! First, I had no idea Robert Fucking Forster was the lead! Also, hell, what a great Alligator!
Playlist:
Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light
Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Card:
Confusing influences speak to the idea that we may have a lot of questions at our inspection tomorrow. There's a lot of 'Authority' at play, and juxtaposed with Will and the expediency I always associate with the Knight of Swords, the mental stamina that card tends to radiate, I think we may need to make some decisions that will be completely ours, i.e. not the kind of thing we can refer to our Realtor, the inspector, or the unbelievably valuable advice my parents have given to us in all this.
I took K and my folks to see Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's adaptation of Joe Hill's short story The Black Phone yesterday. This film 100% holds up to the magnificent impression it made on me at last year's Beyondfest; one of my favorite scenes (in a film with a lot of "Favorite Scenes") is the one that utilizes Pink Floyd's classic "On The Run," from their perfect 1973 MASTERPIECE Dark Side of the Moon.
Watch:
Here's a new Horror flick that drops on VOD this week from Dark Star Pictures and Bloody Disgusting films:
Wow! There are some pretty gross bits in here; loving that Body Horror has seeped into the overall Horror genre DNA.
Read:
Since switching from a Kindle to an iPad, I'm having trouble reading digital prose. I would love Kindles if they weren't total garbage machines made to be discarded when the new ones come out - you can accuse a lot of tech of that, however, I've had several Kindles over the last few years, and most of them don't last more than a year or two tops. The iPad was an investment I made primarily for artistic reasons, and I still have my one functioning Kindle, however, I'm already traveling with my Macbook, Nintendo Switch (for the plane, mainly; made the hours disappear), iPhone, and now iPad, so I didn't want to add yet another device to my already burdensome backpack. Anyway, I'm sorely missing reading, so while I was tooling around on Twitter last night and landed on author Donnie Goodman's book The Razorblades In My Head, I Eat Its Seeds, I ordered it.
What a great cover! And while you can't necessarily judge a book by its cover, I've been following Goodman's account for a little while and he's made an impression as a kindred soul, so of course, I'm going to read the man's book! I report back when I receive it and begin!
Playlist:
Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Card:
Had to get in an actual Spread, as opposed to the daily, one-card pulls I normally do.
"Never mind what you would normally do."
Things are going to change quickly, and navigating those changes will require an abundance of love and support to get through. Not sure if that's a good reading or a "things are going to get tough" one. Obviously, I'm reading this as reference to the fact that we bought a house 2000+ miles away from where we live now. I will be going 'Remote' with my job, and there's a chance that, after a last-minute management change in the upper echelons of our company, that might put me on a chopping block. My ace is NO ONE can do what I do as fast as I can. I'll be stepping down from Management - which should improve my stress levels, as well as my opinion of the human race - and focusing on the International Logistics end of my job, already more than a full-time position on any given day. So I think I'm safe. But it's going to be a mountain to climb just to pack and move. So an abundance of love and support is exactly what we'll need.
One of my most anticipated albums dropping this year is Greg Puciato's sophomore Mirrorcell. I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced a few months back, despite the fact that I wasn't sure where I would be living at the time of its release on the first of July (I used my parents' address, but there was speculation that they might move to TN as well). Regardless, our trip is more than halfway done now, we made an offer on a house that the seller accepted, so once the inspections and everything go through, I'll be able to lift that pre-order ban. Regardless, the album hasn't shipped yet, but Bloody Disgusting broke the news that Mirrorcell dropped early on Puciato's Bandcamp.
Watch:
On Saturday, K and I took my parents to the local AMC to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. I am NOT a Baz Luhrmann fan. Perhaps I shouldn't say that, because I've never actually been able to sit through one of his movies. I find his childish little "Look how anachronistic I am" proclivities to be infuriating, and the fact that he may be made the first good visual adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, only to eschew the Jazz music that is central to the book's themes for Hip Hop makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs directly into his face. I never bothered seeing that Gatsby (friends who did warned me to save myself, that the beauty of its visuals would only drive me crazy played under the soundtrack), but I'll say, this Elvis movie looked great. Plus, my Pops really wanted to see it. So we went.
On the way in, I almost made the statement, "If I hear one lick of Hip Hop or other modern music, I will get up and leave." Good thing I didn't, because of course, there are at least two instances in the first half of the movie with Hip Hop in the soundtrack.
It's so embarrassing. I mean, it's not that it's Hip Hop; if Luhrmann was adding Portishead, or Mastodon, or whatever other 'future music' to the film, I would have been equally pissed. He reminds me so much of Tim Burton - Lurhmann's idea of who he is as an icon or "brand" gets in the way of the decisions as to what's best for the movies he makes. The film also spruces up some of Elvis' music with a sometimes irritating modern twist, and some of the editing is a bit ridiculous in the amount of effect and flair. It works sometimes - more at the end of the film - and other times, not so much. Just looks like they were cutting it together in weird ways for the sake of making it a "Baz Luhrmann joint."
Still, the movie - despite all this - is fabulous. Austin Butler is FANtastic as The King, and Tom Hanks - Jesus. Really well done, and the script is great.
Playlist:
Powerman 5000 - The Notable Rot
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher
Card:
Solid foundation - perhaps a literal nod to the fact that we made an offer, they accepted the offer, and now we have to go through the inspection process. One of those inspections? You guessed it: Foundation. A lot of work still to come.
Wow, not totally sold on the song yet, but I LOVE the video (how many times can you say those words?) From the forthcoming album Patient Number 9, out September 9th. You can pre-order HERE, which I broke my ban when I saw I could add this to my order:
Yes. I'm a f*&king sucker. I just can't help but picture our cat Sweetie curled up with this on the couch (she has a teddy bear she curls up with now, so not unheard of).
If I've not said it here previously, I find it endlessly fascinating that my own apparent "Mid-Life Crisis" consists of a reversion to obsession with the Action Figures, Super Hero Comics and Metal I loved as a kid.
Pretty good Crisis to have.
Watch:
Rob Zombie's brother Spider One has his first film hitting Shudder courtesy of Shudder and RLJE Films. Here's the trailer that dropped two days ago:
I'm not a Powerman 5000 fan, despite posting a track from their 2020 album The Noble Rot that sounded pretty good back sometime last year. Wasn't enough to inspire me to check out the rest of the record (I'm actually remedying that as I type this by downloading it on Apple Music to check out later). Anyway, this looks like it could be cool, so I'm laying aside any musical prejudices I might or might not have and going to go in with an open mind.
Playlist:
Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
CCR - Bayou Country
Card:
We saw two more houses yesterday and attended an open house for the one we almost put an offer on two days ago. The two new ones didn't hold a candle to the one we re-walked, so we made an offer, just went in at the asking price. They had until 12:00 PM today to respond, and right up to the wire, the seller's agent reached out to ours and asked for an extension. We replied with EOD. I'm still feeling a bit of uncertainty, but I'm trying to just put myself back in my mindset at home in LaLaLand (i.e. - other than my friends and the abundance of culture we'll be leaving behind, I hate L.A.). If someone bids even a dollar over us, we're going to let this one go and reassess. I can't help thinking it's funny that on a day where there was an open house, the seller's agent hasn't talked to their client; seems this is probably a strategy while they maybe wait on some last-minute second offer. The Moon always denotes hidden influence/agenda.
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