I'm starting my week with Pretty Hate Machine and thought I'd pass it on.
>kl3
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In my absence, A LOT of trailers and announcements dropped via Disney-con (or whatever it's called). A lot of super cool stuff to be excited about, but this tops the pile for me:
I have NO IDEA if or how this fits into the MCU continuity, but Werewolf By Night appears to be a Black and White Grindhouse flick. Also, watch closely and you'll see a glimpse of one of my favorite characters, Man-Thing!!!
Read:
I just have to say that Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips' That Texas Blood has become one of my favorite comics on the stand today. Issue Seventeen was BRILLIANT.
The comparisons to Fargo, both the series and the movie, are unavoidable, but this book is so much more than that.
Playlist:
Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance
The Moody Blues - Knights in White Satin (single, album-length)
Ginger Wildheart - Year of Fanclubs
The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn
Pixies - Doggerel (pre-release singles)
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
The Cure - Disintegration
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Pertains directly to a conversation I had with the creator of the Bound Tarot yesterday while driving back from Chicago. I have inbound new ideas and information for a project I am GIDDY with excitement about.
Somehow I totally missed this stunning single the Whigs released in 2017.
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Maika Monroe is really on my radar of late. True, she was fabulous in both The Guest and It Follows, and both were years ago. Seeing this year's Watcher a few months back at a Beyondfest screening, she really stole the show. And now this:
I signed up for Paramount + again recently so K and I could finish Evil, Season 3, and looks like I'll probably hang onto it a bit longer to catch this on Friday, October 7th.
Playlist:
Various - Return of the Living Dead Soundtrack (Playlist)
The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle
The Misfits - Legacy of Brutality
Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Card:
Re-engaging with Magick this weekend could lead to a breakthrough, but it may also lead to Ruin. I'm pretty sure I know exactly what this is talking about, and my intention remains to stay away.
I discovered Idles two days ago completely by accident. I think.
Since setting up a work-from-home office in our new house, I've been using Spotify more than I ever have. I'll always prefer Apple Music for most things, but there's some great stuff about their competition, too, one of which is how bands will just show up in your 'feed' based on their algorithm. I know a lot of folks hate that word and practice, however, I have found that, while I would never want to solely rely on an AI to find me music, they sometimes come up with some good stuff I had otherwise missed.
Case in point, Idles appeared on my landing page yesterday and I have no idea why. But upon hearing "Never Fight a Man With a Perm" for the first time, I was in love. The album that song is on - Joy As An Act of Resistance - is start-to-finish fan-fucking-tastic!
This video of them performing Never Fight A Man With A Perm literally gives me chills. This is a band that the architects of the BBC's Hyundai/ Mercury Prize in 2019 never would have dreamed would be performing on this stage; seriously, the incongruency of the elaborate look of the set with this snarling mess of a band brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart.
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New Lucky McKee? YES!
I'm betting money this will be announced next week along with the second half of Beyondfest's tenth-anniversary line-up.
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An unexpected surprise yesterday at the comic shop:
With allusions to the works of both Dickens and Dan Simmons, and probably the most refined interpretation of Occult Victorian England since Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s seminal work From Hell, I am totally in for the ride on El Torres and Joe Bacardo’s new comic Phantasmagoria! Also, the title is quite possibly my favorite word in the English language, so bonus points on that. This one is from Scout Comics' Black Caravan line, which is really starting to beef up their presence in the Horror Comic Continuum.
Playlist:
Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance
Idles - Brutalism
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
Pailhead - Trait
Misfits - Static Age
Misfits - American Psycho
Godflesh - Pure
Revolting Cocks - Linger Ficken' Good
Card:
Back to Missi's Raven Deck for a single card signifier today:
Equilibrium for sure. Yesterday everything was out of whack, and I'm weary of bringing that with me into today. I'll take this as a reminder of yesterday's pull - even keel. Weight (wait?) and measure.
This one had me with the opening spoken word segment, dipped a bit, then picked way back up at about 2:20. It's been really interesting watching the Pixies pick back up and add to their legacy. I'd still REALLY like another Frank Black, Black Francis, or Catholics album (that'd be my #1 want), but Pixies have continued to evolve. Most bands like this just swim in circles and relive their glory days. Not these guys (and gal).
The new album Doggerel is out on September 30th; pre-order HERE.
NCBD:
Kind of a big week for NCBD. Here's my planned haul:
Not sure I'll be keeping up with this new Alien series; I dropped off the previous one after the first story arc, figured I'd grab the #1 and reassess.
This new Ghost Rider title is really hot and cold with me. None of the issues have been bad, but a few were spectacular. Wolvie guest-starring so soon isn't really a good sign in my book, but both titles share Ben Percy as a writer, so maybe that's all it is. Either way, c'mon Ghost Rider - "Thrill Me."
I LOVED that last week, Gerry Duggan had the opportunity to write an X-Men issue that didn't solely deal with Judgement Day, which, as I suspected, is beginning to wear on me. I'm hoping the same for this lastest issue of Immortal X-Men. I'd really like the Sebastian Shaw issue to deal with Shaw's place in the bigger picture of Krakoan politics.
Still having lots of fun with this Moon Knight series.
And talk about lots of fun. This one is just fantastic (pun intended).
This wins "Cover of the month" award, for sure.
Tried and true, that's IDW's TMNT.
Of the two books I began simultaneously earlier in the year that bear more than a little resemblance to one another - A Town Called Terror and West of Sundown - West of has ended. Or at least, the first arc has. I enjoyed that book, but I'm not 100% I'll be back if it returns. The same can be said of this one; it's not bad, I'm just not convinced. We'll see; this issue is most likely ending the first arc, so I'll do a re-read and make a decision then.
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With a surprising number of "Gloryhole Horror" flicks hitting streaming lately (2, but still, that's quite a bit considering the subject matter, eh?), The Horror Vision held a very Special episode: our Glorious Gloryhole Death Match. One of the unexpected joys of doing that episode (there really were no others), was discovering the H.P. Lovecraft/Hazel Heald novella Out of the Aeons, which has never been in any Lovecraft collection I have previously owned. I took a brief respite from Sandy Macnair's Carspotting to read about the origins of Ghat (see Glorious, the winner by far of the aforementioned death match) in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Out of the Aeons is available on Kindle for $0.99. First published in 1935 in Weird Tales, I'm really having trouble believing I'd never heard of this one before.
Playlist:
Revolting Cocks - Linger Fickin' Good
The Cure - Carnage Visors
The Cure - Faith
The Verve - Eponymous EP
Type O Negative - October Rust
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Godflesh - Post Self
Godflesh - Pure
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
The Afghan Whigs - In Spades
The Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
The Afghan Whigs - 1965
The Twilight Singers - Blackberry Belle
Calexico - Garden Ruin
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
The Afghan Whigs - Do the Beast
Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance
Ginger Wildheart - The Year of the Fanclub
Miss Piss - Self-Surgery
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spin
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Everything this morning is about approaching things with balance, adaptability, understanding and a keen eye. So something needs a closer look it would seem...
I was holding off on listening to the singles The Afghan Whigs have released from the upcoming How Do You Burn, however, I'm seeing them this coming Saturday night, so I broke down and started getting to know them. Being that the album drops this Friday, September 9th, I'll have all day to listen to it. So far, really great stuff. Not sure it will top In Spades, but that would be quite the feat.
Getting psyched to see "The Revolting Corpse" at the end of the month, courtesy of Mr. Brown. I'm not entirely sure who will be on stage, but either way, it's sure to be amazing.
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K and I wrapped up Evil season 3 on Paramount Plus the other day. As always, this show leaves an ENORMOUS void when it's off. I have a feeling the next season may be the final; either way, with the low-grade anxiety Netflix is resonating with its coy attitude toward Sandman's renewal, it's good to know that the next season of Evil has already been announced.
Next up, Feud!
We'd been meaning to watch this since it aired back in 2017, and our timing proves fortuitous, as a quick look-up on IMDB surprised us with the listing for an upcoming season two slated for next year.
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I finished Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares. Jesus. This was easily his darkest book, and that's bloody well saying something. Still, I loved most of it; it always feels like slipping into a favorite Marathon Shirt when I tackle one of Welsh's novels, and despite several absolutely soul-searing scenes, this was no exception. Next up, Welsh's long-time friend Sandy McNair's tell-all book Carspotting: The Real-Life Adventures of Irvine Welsh.
Like Marabou, I've had this one for over a decade. After this, I'm thinking I may re-read Welsh's 2006 novel Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chiefs, which I haven't read since it came out.
Playlist:
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Charles Bradley - Changes
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
The High Confessions - Turning Lead Into Gold with the High Confessions
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
Willie Nelson & Leon Russell - One For the Road
The Black Angels - Eponymous EP
The Black Angels - Death Song
The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn? (pre-release singles)
It was not until just last week that I realized Melvins had collaborated with Lustmord on an album. THIS is mind-blowing stuff.
NCBD:
We start this week's NCBD with the final issue of Moon Knight: Black, White & Blood.
I Love this series. When they first announced they were doing one of these BW&B for Moon Knight, I was surprised. I'm hoping they do some other left-of-center characters, and that it wasn't just the Moon Knight Disney+ series that spurred this particular title. I'd love to see a Taskmaster or even, hell, a Wilson Fisk, Kingpin BW&B. Come on Marvel, let's see what you got!
One of my most anticipated series since the previous issue. This one is such a great heir to the Neil Gaiman/Vertigo legacy.
Being that issue 3 just came out last week, I'm not entirely sure this will land today. We'll see. Either way, this series is worth the wait.
I feel like it's been quite some time since the previous installment of West of Sundown. That's not really true, I think I've just, you know, moved across country and completely restarted my life since issue 4. Can't wait to read this next chapter.
Probably my favorite cover with Scott Summers on it EVER.
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There was a time when I bought every novel Irvine Welsh released the day they came out. That stopped after his 2012 Skag Boys. Not because I don't love Welsh's work. On the contrary, his prose is a HUGE influence on my own, and being that I had shifted to working on a genre series, I was afraid that influence would hinder my completion of the first Shadow Play novel. Shadow Play ultimately took another seven years to finish, starting and re-starting it. In between, I cranked out a lot more genre work, always keeping Welsh at bay.
Last Sunday, the damn burst.
I'm a saver - if I discover an author who already has a few novels on the shelf, I'll always save one. So was the case with Welsh's 1995 novel Marabou Stork Nightmares. Well, after learning Welsh had just released a follow-up Ray Lennox novel to Crime with The Long Knives. I realized I've now missed five Welsjh novels including this one. To quote Lebowski, "this will not stand!"
So I cracked open Marabou and cannot put it down.
It's crazy to think this was Welsh's second published novel. The narrative is written in the same kind of experimental fashion that Filth is - I don't want to try and explain it here, but needless to say, Welsh finds a pretty insane way to move between main character Roy Strang's coma-narrative and his real life and what he hears while he's inside the coma, bubbling up just below the surface of waking. Which Roy does not want to do. I love Welsh's work so very much, I can't believe I've been away from it this long.
Playlist:
Pink Mountaintops - Peacock Pools
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Megadeth - Rush in Peace
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer Bs
Patty Smythe - The Warrior (single)
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic
Scott H. Biram - Nothing But Blood
Amigo The Devil - Born Against
The Mysterines - Reeling
Young Widows - Settle Down City
Breather Resist - Charmer
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
The way that I will choose to accomplish something will usher in notable change, part of which will be condemnation by someone I respect.
I've got a BIG new project in the works, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people - not necessarily people I know - will give it a big eye roll just for what it is. Unfortunate. "The work that transforms the medium."
Some old Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for this Saturday morning. Live from 1986, no less!
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I have been waiting for this one for quite some time:
When I first read Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism, back in 2018 or so, I immediately bought it for like ten of my friends. I love that book - at the time I finished it, I ranked it as my third favorite novel, behind Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park. I don't know if that ranking would hold up, but maybe. It's a fabulous flick, and with Freaky's Christopher Landon Producing, I have a very good feeling about this adaptation.
Playlist:
S4lem - King Night
S4lem - Yes I Smoke Crack EP
Revolting Cocks - Linger Fickin' Good
Lustmord & The Ocean - Primal (State of Being) EP
The Ocean - Heliocentric
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic
Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction
Lustmord - Hobart
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (Live in Copenhagen)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - From Her to Eternity
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic
Pink Mountaintops - Peacock Pools
Deftones - No Koi Yokan
Ghost - Mary on A Cross (slowed + reverb) single
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Brenton Wood - Brenton Wood's 18 Best
Seasurfer - Zombies
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Disassociation
Card:
Late night Thoth Spread:
Pulled this while up late, finally attempting to get a small NFT venture off the ground. Immediate recognition, but I don't know anything about this world. I need to lean on my good friend Billy Big Beak in order to navigate what's happening. So the reading is pretty clear - what can look like success can actually be a load of BS.
More new Dead Cross! I'm digging what I'm hearing from this second album more than I did the first, can't wait to hear the entire thing, which is out October 14th on Ipecac Recordings. Pre-order a copy HERE.
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This dropped yesterday:
As far as Teaser Trailers go, I think this is perfect. Of course, there's the part of me that wants to see more, but really, I'd rather wait and get it all at once in my first viewing. Hey, it's gotta be better than most of the Dimension sequels, right? Let's hope this 20th Century Fox/HULU pairing the Mouse has going will turn out another unexpectedly fantastic sequel, like Prey.
Quote:
"Having made the world lousy, imagine ye are of significance to Heaven?"
- Austin Osman Spare, Anathema of Zos: The Sermon of the Hypocrite
A little old-school Chicago Industrial to kick things off today.
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This is my favorite thing I think I've ever encountered on the internet. No BS. A HUGE thank You to Seth:
I literally just want to watch this over and over and have Bobby Fingers tell me everything is going to be okay. Seeing this, and sending it over to my former bandmate Joe.Baxter, I can't help but feel like when we finally try and finish recording all that unfinished Christian Fisting material, we should dust off the old "Mel Gibson's a Cunt" song we had, written in the wake of that 2006 arrest that is being modeled here.
NCBD:
It's Wednesday, and that means new comics are on the shelves! Here's what I'm picking up at Rick's Comic City!
Street-level Spidey on a Goblin hovercraft? interesting. Love this cover.
The penultimate issue of Deadly Class!
I definitely liked the twist Marvel's Judgment Day took at the end of the second issue. Hoping this continues to expand that, instead of focusing on what we already know has happened. I get that in the onset of this series beginning, we only really got a 'thin slice' of the siege on Krakoa and holocaust on Arrako, but showing us all the nooks and crannies of those battles is getting a touch old. Issue 2 moved things forward, but then Death to the Mutants moved it back again.
This book is fantastic but truly independent, so there have been a lot of scheduling delays. I'm hoping it actually lands today.
LOVING this new Shaolin Cowboy series. Geof Darrow is an amazing artist, and he's really cooked up an "Anything Goes" world with this one. I pulled out my copies of the previous series and realized the titular character died at the end of it. This means Darrow has been - as he should be - doing whatever the hell he wants time-wise with this odd, post-apocalyptic mash-up series. I need to pick up the collected first series of this and read them all straight through. Not that you have to, because, like I said, I love that Darrow appears t be jumping around.
I'm not 100% sold on this big, TMNT 'Event,' but I'll hang for a while.
From the forthcoming album The End, So Far available on September 30th. You can pre-order the album HERE. I like the video a lot more than I like the song, but I've always been hot/cold with these guys. Still, they've evolved over the years, and that definitely means something.
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The teaser trailer for Benson and Moorhead's new film Something In the Dirt dropped yesterday. Here'sn our first look:
I really can't wait for this one. These guys are Aces in my book.
Lots of big ideas, but I have to narrow my focus for a bit to accomplish what I want.
As usual, the cards are pretty spot on. I'm writing again - been going to local coffee shops after work. I have quite a few short stories on deck, and part of the "following the inner voice" here is figuring out which ones I want to allocate for the free Kindle book I'm aiming to publish shortly before Halloween, and which ones I want to submit.
I'll never forget the first time I heard Metal Church. My second concert ever was at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, Il. 1991, Operation: Rock n' Roll. Metal Church (The Human Factor Tour), Dangerous Toys (Hellacious Acres), Motorhead (1916 Tour), Judas Priest (Painkiller Tour), and Alice Cooper (Trash). As we exited the amphitheater, we were handed cassette compilations that featured a song from all the bands that played, plus Cycle Sluts From Hell, Alice in Chains, and I don't remember who else.
Unfortunately, I don't think I still have this tape, despite having a box filled with tapes that I've lugged with me across the country twice now. Regardless, the Metal Church song on this was "Date With Poverty," and thus, my constant revolutions of this tape burrowed it deep into my brain.
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We finished the regular season of Netflix's The Sandman, then were super happy to see the bonus episode drop with two stories culled from the third TPB collection Dream Country. Both Dream of a Thousand Cats and Calliope were every bit as faithful adaptations of the source material as the overall show was. I really hope they renew this one.
Incidentally, a new episode of The Horror Vision went out today. We do a spoiler-free reaction to The Sandman, and talk about a whole bunch of other things as well, from my first viewing of Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem, to seminal 80s flick Popcorn, to the unique and disturbing films of Andrey Iskanov. Check it out in that little widget just above and to the right, and if you dig, follow us on your favorite Podcast Platform.
Next up, the first episode of Paper Girls. I am a HUGE fan of the comic, but this first episode felt like the show was cramming A LOT into one episode. Still, I'm in for the haul, so hoping it smooths out a bit.
This is another one I really hope hits its stride; Brian K Vaughn fans already had one heartbreak in the last twelve months with Y The Last Man being tossed out after only one season, so hopefully, Paper Girls will hit its mark and find an audience:
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I finished T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies yesterday. Wow. What a book. It's always fantastic to find a literary Horror novel, and this is definitely that. The Ceremonies breathes for a large part of its 600-page length, and the story is all the better for it. This is the kind of prose I love most, where the author isn't concerned with hitting beats or creating a page-turning momentum. The story unfolds slowly, primarily with character development, and when things climax in the final 50 or so pages of the book, it feels well-earned.
Loved this. Can't wait to grab Dark Gods, also recently republished by PS Publishing. Also, a note in reference back to my original post about this edition of The Ceremonies when I first received it: despite my fears, the spine on this one actually held up beautifully. Way to go, PS! You guys rock, thank you for bringing Klein's work back into print, I was getting dangerously close to paying upwards of $50 on eBay for a beat-up old MM paperback copy of Dark Gods before you swept in and saved the day.
Unfortunately, I realize now I missed out on a gorgeous Hardcover with Slipcase edition, but that's okay.
Sharon Jones and the Dap Tones - Give the People What They Want
The Devil's Blood - The Thousand Fold Epicentre
Anthrax - Worship Music
Forhist - Eponymous
David Lynch and Mark Zebrowski - Polish Night Music
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Revelation can Strengthen Will, however, Emotional persistence can hamper Will. I'm not entirely sure what this is speaking to at the moment, but I'll do some reading later today and see if I can't get a better read on this.
After a recent text conversation with Mr. Brown, I fell down a Melvins rabbit hole yesterday. I hadn't heard 2010's The Bride Screamed Murder since back around the time when it came out, and even then it wasn't an album that impacted me at the time (a lot of times, if I'm not in a "Melvins Mood," their shit goes right past my head, then I hear it again at some point and love it immediately). Bride is a fantastic record, one of my favorites of theirs from the last ten years, but the album closer "P.G. X3" might be my favorite track by the band since "A History of Bad Men", on 2006's (A) Senile Animal.
Watch:
My excitement for this is building!
While I wasn't blown away by Season Four at its start, by the end they had me again. The announcement that Mike Barnes returns in Season Five has me think this is definitely an "All the soldiers in a row" moment for the show.
Sharon Jones and the Dap Tones - Give the People What They Want
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Here's a direct commentary on something I've known for some time. As I've gotten back into reading and thinking about the practice of Magick, the major impediment to me actually doing very much with it, is drinking. Which, averaging four beers a night right now, is something I probably do too much of.
Mr. Brown has been telling me to check out Amigo the Devil for months, and while I know I downloaded and listened to part of his most recent album Born Against at some point, I must have been distracted. I say this because he reminded me again this past Friday, and the text just happened to arrive at a moment when I was looking for something new to listen to.
One time through Born Against was not enough.
This one is spectacular. A little Firewater at times, a little Waits, a touch of Zappa even. Really unique and enthralling. Also, laugh out loud funny at times.
Born Against is out on Liars Club Records and can be purchased HERE.
NCBD:
With the contagious period of my plague time over, I'll be heading back to Rick's Comic City to pick up this week's books for NCBD (and wearing a mask just to be extra careful around the employees):
Judgement Day has been pretty good so far, minus that Eve of Judgement title. I find that, after trying multiple times, I just don't like the Eternals as characters. That said, the end of last week's Judgement Day #2 took a very interesting turn, so as long as I don't flip through this and find it Eternal-centric, I'll be picking it up.
I still need to track down issue 1 of Daniel Warren Johnson's Do A Powerbomb, but even after jumping in on issue 2, I'm sold. Interdimensional Monster Wrestling, or something? Awesome, but more the fact that last issue made me cry. This guy is a fucking TREASURE. Makes me reconsider reading his Jurassic League, over at DC...
Well, this final chapter of Banner of War took a few extra weeks to come out, eh? Pretty sure this is my jumping-off point on Thor, but still interested in where Cates might take Hulk after this.
As long as this book stays focused on Madeleine and Illyana, I'm in.
Have you heard The Horror Vision's dissection of the first eleven issues of this wonderful series? No? Here you GO.
I'm really digging this Clea Strange series quite a bit. I think it's kind of scratching an old urge that last year's Defenders series rekindled - reading a kind of out-of-the-way Marvel mini-series. There's a certain joy to be found in skulking around the less bombastic, tentpole corners of the Marvel Universe, and this series is doing a great job of doing what a lot of the big name characters' titles did back in the 80s, before Cap and the Avengers were household names.
I had almost forgotten about this book and the fact that this issue should debut the new team!
Playlist:
Jonathan Grim Art Playlist: John Music
Every day (Is Halloween) Newsletter Playlist: The Immortal 90s
Every day (Is Halloween) Newsletter Playlist: Liminal
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Perturbator - Nocturne City EP
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
Led Zeppelin - IV
Sharon Jones and the Dap Tones - Give the People What They Want
Underworld - Best of 1992-2002
True Widow - Circumambulation
Pseudo Echo - Autumnal Park
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. 2
Card:
I broke out The Raven Deck again. Haven't used it since I packed it, wanted to get its voice back in my head. I've had a couple of frustrating days with office set up stuff, so I definitely had that in mind when I drew:
So this reads pretty clear, but doesn't exactly answer my question. Pretty spot on, as The Hermit is exactly me at this point, having given up the world I knew and focused on a considerably more personal one. That took Strength, but the end result is a Life Change, in this case of massive degree. But we know all this already. So, I figured I'd draw with another deck to clarify:
The Chariot can be seen as a call-to-arms. Marshal the forces because there's conflict coming. In this case, I think I may be taking some luxuries that have come out of this new World too far, and that has weakened my methods, and my place.
All super sound. I'm trying to throw money at problems, and meanwhile, not taking basic steps that cost nothing, but will help solidify the ground I'm standing on. Wealth is not the Chariot. It can be a part of it, but it can also be false armor.
I was sick as fuck with COVID all weekend, so when I wasn't attempting to finish setting up my office, I mostly spent laid out on the couch. Saturday night Ray, Anthony and I did a new episode of The Horror Vision - that's it in the corner on the handy little Spotify widget - a review/reaction to Prey, which I have watched twice now and loved. Being that it'd been so long since we did an episode, we had planned to cover a lot more than Prey, but as the night wore on, I felt increasingly like shit, and eventually had to call it, immediately passing out on the couch (not sleeping in our bed so as to try and prevent spreading Captain Tripps to K, who so far has been lucky enough to not show any symptoms). I woke up around 1:15 AM and, restless from the body aches - easily the worst part of this - I opened a beer and dialed up Shudder TV. The Slashics channel was showing Rocktober Blood, a movie I'd heard of but never actually saw. I caught the film right at the final act, which is essentially one enormous concert, where the fictional band plays four songs.
All of those songs are awesome.
This is total 80s Hard Rock, but I don't care, this hit the fucking spot! Now, do I go back and watch the rest of the flick from the beginning? Not sure yet. But I definitely want to track down the soundtrack.
In looking online for the vinyl, I saw that Lunaris Records put out a new edition back in 2016, and it fetches a pretty penny on Discogs. Damn. What are the chances this gets a repress? Until then, I guess it's youtube.
Watch:
Rocktober Blood left me in the mood for 80s Trash Cinema, so I followed it up with my first-ever viewing of Joseph Zito's 1981 Slasher flick The Prowler*:
Seeing that this one had recently returned to Shudder, I chose to watch it on the 2018 Joe Bob Briggs' Original Marathon. A somewhat perplexing film in that it spends A LOT of time roaming around looking for the killer in a pretty ineffectual and, frankly, time-wasting manner, I still enjoyed it overall. Plus, Thom Bray is in it, and I've long been a fan of him. Also, Tom Savini's effects are fantastic.
And I suppose now I'm set in a tone for a while, because last night, I continued the 80s bender with... The OCTAGON!!!
I first saw this way back in the mid-80s. I was obsessed with Ninjas due to Larry Hama's G.I.Joe comic, so when I stumbled across the final act of The Octagon on WGN Channel 9's movie of the day, I was blown away! A Chuck Norris movie that looked like it had actually taken some of the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow storyline from Hama's opus and filmed it!
Rewatching The Octagon last night, it didn't disappoint. This is by no means a "good" movie, but it's fun as hell. It's interesting how watching it now, I can see how Norris or Director Eric Karson - likely both - had ambitions for the film beyond the standard Martial Arts action movie fair. The film spends the first 2/3rds of its runtime slowly laying out and drawing us (via Chuck) into what is supposed to be an intricate story of international espionage. It doesn't completely work, however, I found it quite endearing that in order to give the audience intermittent doses of what they came for, it sets up a B-story early on that focuses on a bunch of nameless recruits at a Ninja Training Camp. So as the Norris-Mystery story meanders its often perplexing path, we continually cut away to the camp for low doses of Martial Arts fighting.
Pretty slick.
The ending did not disappoint, and overall, although I'm not a huge fan of the Martial Arts Action Genre, this one really hit the spot. Also, the weird echoing voiceovers Norris does that serve as us hearing his character's inner monologue sound SO MUCH like the Central Scrutinizer from Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage album, that I found myself smiling every time I heard it.
........................
* Seeing that William Lustig's Blue Underground did a 4K Blu Ray of The Prowler a few years back, I was hoping to find a trailer for that. No dice.
Playlist:
Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams (single)
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
The Contours and Dennis Edwards - Motown Rarities 1965-1968
Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies EP
Amigo The Devil - Born Against
Man or Astro-Man? - 1000X
Man or Astro-Man? - Your Weight on the Moon
Man or Astro-Man? - Defcon 5...4...3...2...1
Man or Astro-Man? - Experiment Zero
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Various - Joe Begos' Bliss Soundtrack Playlist
Various - Roctober Blood OST
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Sometimes the solutions we come up with for our problems are short-sighted and end up causing a bigger pain in the end. It may be good to listen to someone else for a change.
I only just learned that Blut Aus Nord's Vindsval has an album under the moniker Forhist. This is straight Black Metal, but it's my kind of Black Metal. I love this and have been unable to stop listening to it for the last few days.
Watch:
Very Curious about this one. I'm getting weird Titane vibes, only not in any discernable way. I'm starting to pay attention to what I think will play at Beyondfest this year, this is a certain bet (especially since they tweeted about it after I originally penned the above observation):
Doesn't tell You much, but it tells you enough.
Read:
With all my flying all over the place the last few months, followed by the preparation for and actual move, I haven't been able to make any progress reading T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies, which I started a few months back. Mostly settled, I picked it back up last night and easily fell back into it.
As if I didn't have enough to read, I've also begun a re-read of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade The Changing Man, the classic Vertigo stalwart from 1990.
This book is nuts. The Kennedy Sphinx? Absolutely terrifying in the best possible way. I can't wait to dig back into the first three trades of this.
Playlist:
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. II
Blanck Mass - In Ferneau
Forhist - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Led Zeppelin - IV
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Lost of conflict, sacrifice and planning may end up wasted in the end. How appropo, as I woke up with what I'm certain is COVID, thanks to K's Mom being diagnosed with it two days ago and then hobbling around the house, coughing without a mask.
