Exhalants Live 2019

 

Fired up some Exhalants over the last few days and man! This band is just so damn awesome. I can't believe this video only has 23 hits. Please - if you dig this, spread the word and repost something of theirs where you know like-minded people may see/hear. Exhalants deserve to be heard. 

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NCBD:

Our second to last NCBD of 2022 is choke full O' comicky goodness. Here's what I'll be picking up today at Rick's Comic City:

I'm still not bowled over by this new Marvel Alien series, but I dig it and am curious to see how this storyline evolves. 

My first month as with SIKTC in my pull. SO excited to continue monthly with this book after finally catching up on all the trades. 

Continuing J.M. DeMatteis's return to the seminal storyline he penned in the 80s. 

This one just keeps putting a smile on my face. Jed MacKay never takes this book where I think it's going, and for that, I'm grateful.

I really have no idea how long this book will run, if there will be different storylines, or if everything will continue to spin out of these first few issues. But that not-knowing is what I'm probably digging most at this point. 

I have to say, I'm not digging the absence of Tyler Boss's art on What's the Furthest Place From Here since it returned last month. Nothing against this month's artist Sweeney Boo, but just like last month's fill-in artist Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, they have a big job replacing Boss's iconic style - a style that defined the series from its beginning. Ortiz did great, but for the first issue back after a hiatus, issue eight just didn't feel right. Let's see how it feels today.

After Amazing Dark Web: X-Men #1's impromptu reunion of Spider-man and his amazing friends, I've come around on Firestar, who really just hasn't had much of a presence in the MCU besides that early 80s cartoon in all the time I've been a fan. Maybe that's changing.

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Watch:

Scare Package was a very pleasant surprise in 2020. Now, the sequel is getting immediate praise. Here's the trailer:

 

Is it just me, or is there a heavy "Scary Movie" vibe here? I am not a fan of those movies, so hopefully, that hot take is completely wide of the mark. Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge hits Shudder tomorrow, so in about 24 hours, we'll know.

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Playlist:

VAAAL - A Wounded Fawn OST

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live At Ronnie Scott's Club)

Silent - Modern Hate

Snake Eats Boy - Ocupado (single)

Nun Gun - Mondo Decay

Chat Pile - God's Country

Embrace - Eponymous

Special Interest - Endure

The Mysterines - Reeling

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Deth Crux - Bloody Christmas (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Again, today I asked a very specific question and received a pretty specific answer. Let inspiration guide the final process for the project I can't seem to finish and a breakthrough will occur. I'll have to be watching for the breakthrough, however, as at this point, I can't see the forest for the trees.

7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 7 - Dance of the Dream Man

 

If there's a more iconic piece of music out there from the last forty years, I'm not sure what it is. Saving the greatest for last - although the show's iconic theme "falling" could be argued to hold that title - thus ends my seven-day observance/tribute to one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. A heart-rending loss and, if you'll indulge in a moment of maudlin sentiment, a very large reminder that as we age and move toward our own outro from this reality, the icons we encounter and make a part of our own lives will leave and force us to remember that, yes, it is all deteriorating around us. We'll always have the man's music, but knowing he is gone feels a lot like when we lost Bowie - a large chunk has disappeared and left a hole in things.

But, as Dr. Jacoby might say, we carry on. Well, Major Briggs would probably say that. Jacoby would probably recommend doing some blow.

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Watch:

After Christian Bale's performance in Amsterdam, he's back on my radar. Here's the trailer for his latest film, The Pale Blue Eye (great title!):

Not sure what to make of this yet, other than it is gorgeous. I really dug Scott Cooper's previous flick, Antlers, so while there's almost no chance this will be in a theatre anywhere near me, I will be waiting for its release on Netflix on January 6th.

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Season One OST

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

Drug Church - Tawny EP

Exhalants - Atonement

Jamie Lidell - Multiply

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Understanding what I want is the only way to achieve it. Sounds like a no-brainer, however, when applied to fiction writing, I can assure you, it is not.

7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 6 - She Would Die For Love

 

"She Would Die For Love," from Julee Cruise's 1993 album The Voice of Love, produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch. The instrumental version earned considerably more momentum as the opening credit sequence soundtrack the year before in Lynch's much-maligned prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The the latter is the version I am more familiar, and taken, with, but both have their merits.

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Cast:

This morning The Horror Vision launches a new spin-off podcast, The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror. This is a project that brings in my good friend Missi, as well as the other THV folks when they're able. My 2022 Wrapped from our hosting platform Anchor shows The Horror Vision created more content this past year than 77% of our contemporaries, and that felt good. This new show is something I'd been wanting to do for a while: a place where we could talk non-genre flicks that contain Horror Elements. And oh, what a list we have so far! The first episode is on Jim Jarmusch's beautiful, beautiful film Only Lovers Left Alive, but from here we have some films I cannot wait to talk about. Here's a small tease:

Ryan Gosling's Lost River

Nicholas Verso's Boys in Trees

Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward

David Lynch's Lost Highway

And a whole lot more beyond those. That's just scratching the surface! The first episode is now on all streaming platforms - you can even hit play up on the little Spotify widget in the upper right-hand corner of this page. 

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Watch:

Saturday night I caught Lorcan Finnegan's new film, Nocebo:

Another solid film from Finnegan, who popped onto my radar with his Without Name. 

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Read:

I finishe Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs last night in one Heruclean jaunt of reading that lasted most of the evening and well into the small hours of the night. Just like the first time I read it, back in 2006 upon its release, I could not put those last two hundred pages down. Having only gotten back into reading Welsh after a self-imposed hiatus (his voice tends to affect my own writing, and I wanted to steer clear of that for most of the projects I've been on for the last decade), I'm temped to say this is Welsh's best behind Glue, which will most likely always remain my favorite. Secrets is fantastic though, and creates such unrelenting pathos for all the characters through rotating first-person accounts from nearly the entire cast, that when you reach the last act, well, it's fraught with tension. He sets up several really great "gotta-sees," and balances them in such an expert way that you often lose sight of one for whichever is currently "on screen," only to have Welsh juggle them in front of you again and immediately re-ignite your curiosity for what's been in the background for several chapters. 

Really great book. Now, I'm feeling that void of having just finished a great book and really wanting to jump into one of Welsh's newer books that I haven't read. Not sure that will happen before the end of the year, so I will most likely pick Will Carver's Psycopaths Anonymous back up. 

I began it directly after I finished Hinton Hollow Death Trip and quickly realized my genre interests had shifted a bit. From what I did read, there's a definite Fight Club influence here, although not in an egregious way. I loved HHDT, so I'm very much looking forward to more Carver!

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Playlist:

Zombi - Shape Shift

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Rodney Crowell - Christmas Everywhere

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

More on the money front, which has been an open loop for a while. I need to square this CC bill soon, before the no-interest period runs out, but hidden costs continue to keep the balance level. This is nothing dire, but it would definitely be nice to be at 0 by year's end. 

7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 5: Blue Velvet

 

The first non-Twin Peaks David Lynch film I watched, way back when Twin Peaks the original series had only recently ended and sent me into an obsessive flurry for more of his work, was 1986's Pacific Northwest Small Town Noir Blue Velvet. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but Angelo Badalamenti's grand opening credits theme immediately told me it would be more greatness. 

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Watch:

Last week, I watched Travis Stevens' new film A Wounded Fawn. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again.

 

I am nothing shy of completely blown away. Everything about this one is fantastic; sure, there will be cries of "elevated horror" but f*ck that; if you read these pages you know I like my Bill Lustig as much as I do my A24. There is such a staunch tone to this film, from Ksusha Genenfeld's camera work to VAAAL's enigmatic but resonating score, that A Wounded Fawn instantly became my favorite of Travis Steven's films - no easy task considering how much I dug last year's Jakob's Wife. 

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Zombi - Shape Shift

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Metallica - Lux Æterna (pre-release single)

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

In Slaughter Natives - Plague Walk My Earth (single)

In Slaughter Natives - Ventre

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Pretty blunt - transformation through the sacrifice of earthly matters; in other words, a direct answer to an anxiety loop open in my mind: Knuckle the f*ck down and pay off the credit card before the no-interest period expires early next year.

7 Days of Badalamenti - Day 4: Meatloaf Mambo!

 

From Bob Balaban's 1989 surrealistic WTF Horror/Comedy Parents. Badalamenti is not the main composer on this one; that's Jonathan Elias. However, he does contribute two stunning tracks that totally help make the aural signature of the film.

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Watch:

Two nights ago I watched Eric Pennycoff's new film The Leech on Arrow Video's streaming service. This immediately jumped into my top ten films of the year. Not in my top ten Horror films, because The Leech isn't really a Horror movie, despite containing definite elements of the genre. 

Graham Skipper, Jeremy Gardner and Taylor Zaudtke Gardner all turn in outstanding performances in what I was happy to discover is a completely batshit crazy film about religion and the secrets its practice sometimes hides for people. I loved everything about this one and can't recommend it enough.

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Dark Water OST

Public Memory - Veil of Counsel

James Luckett - May OST

Lustmord - Dark Matter

White Lung - Premonition

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

In order to attain emotional the fulfillment I seek, I have to put in the work and be prepared to undergo a transformation. This is pretty vague, or at least my reading it. As usual when I garner a head-scratcher, I chalk it up as something to watch for in my interactions throughout the day.

7 Days of Badalamenti - Day 3: Booth and the Bad Angel

 

From Booth and the Bad Angel, 1996's collaboration with James lead singer Tim Booth. The entire record is fantastic - this is one I ordered around the time it came out and didn't quite 'get' for a few years. But I was a Badalamenti completist, or at least as a pre-internet kid with limited funds could be at the time. I chose this particular track because, although I've never actually been able to confirm it, I believe it is the only song on the album that Badalamnenti contributes vocals to. 

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Watch:

Upcoming Horror flick Thorns looks like it's either going to be a fantastic Hellraiser-in-space riff on Event Horizon or a clumsy mess. 

Kinda difficult to tell from the trailer, right? I mean, there's plenty that looks cool from a distance, obscured by the quick cuts of the trailer's edit, but will those effects look cheesy in a more sustained experience? Only time will tell. I can say that I'm in need of an Event Horizon viewing. It's been over a decade, largely because the last time I watched the film, I found it to be a bit underwhelming when compared to the revelatory first viewing I had, many moons ago. Some films just live better in our memories.

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Read:

After finishing Night of the Demon last week, I dialed it back to a previous intention and began re-reading Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. I haven't read this since it first came out in 2006, within a few months of my moving to L.A. I remember finishing it the night before getting on a plane to fly back to Chicago for a visit. 

A strange novel that has Welsh's unique flourish that makes his take on anything supernatural not only realistic but unique beyond anything I've seen in any other authors' work. Now that I think about it, I suppose the same way Spanish Authors tend to have a certain recognizable tone for works of Magical Realism - informed by location, religion, cultural distinctions and peccadilloes, the same would hold true for Scottish Authors. The idea that Welsh's work tips at times into its own version of Magical Realism actually makes a lot of sense. Either way, this is a weird one, mixing Welsh 

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Playlist:

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST (Detroit Side)

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Public Memory - Veil of Counsel

VAAAL - A Wounded Fawn OST

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Season One OST

Angelo Badalamenti and Tim Booth - Booth and the Bad Angel

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Godflesh - Messiah

Ifernach - Capitulation of All Life

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Mixing in some of the dark thoughts I shy away from may help to fully realize an intellectual conundrum that has been causing me great pain. ie the unfinished short story I've been writing and re-writing off and on for going on four years. 

7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 2 - Who Will Take My Dreams Away

 

For Day Two, I wanted to go with my favorite track from The City of Lost Children OST that Badalamenti did for Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's hauntingly GORGEOUS film from 1995. 

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Watch:

A few months back, I read some advance praise for Writer/Director Paul Owens' first feature film, Landlocked. Finally, a trailer has landed:

Owens apparently built this narrative around old home movies, a fantastic idea that, in the wrong hands, would no doubt go horribly wrong. If this trailer and Fango's praise are any indications, here the execution meets the concept.

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Colors of the Dark Podcast Episode 49

Zeal and Ardor - Firewake (single)

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

The Mysterines - Reeling

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Hot take on all these Cups? Don't let my emotions get the better of me. 

7 Days of Angelo Badalamenti Starts Now!

 

Well, it goes without saying that I'm doing a "Seven Days of Angelo Badalamenti" in honor of his passing. Let's start here, a video my good friend Jacob sent me yesterday to mark the man's exit through the big, red curtains. 

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NCBD:

What an irregularly slow NCBD. If I hadn't picked up some new titles, I'd be spending almost no $$$ this week. Can't have that, apparently...

I was hesitant going into Dark Web, but this Zeb Wells Event is so dripping with original Inferno vibes that I can't help but love it. 

Yeah, like I said above. I love it so much, double-dosing this week.

And, speaking of Events (fuck!), all this pre-emptive conjecture for the upcoming Sins of Sinister has me so fascinated with the idea that there are numerous Sinister clones running around the Marvel Universe that I'm now fascinated by this Mother Righteous characters and reading Legion of X. Damn again!

Ah! I can't love this horror show more. 

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Watch:

Speaking of Twin Peaks, Butcher from the Horror Vision has mentioned Steven C. Miller's The Aggression Scale several times, but this past weekend, as we recorded The Horror Vision episode on Joe Begos' Christmas Bloody Christmas, I finally cued the film up and when I saw the cast not only included three Twin Peaks Alumni - Ray Wise, Dana Ashbrook, and Derek Mears, but Jacob "Solomon" Reynolds from Harmony Korine's Gummo, well, there was no way I wasn't watching it right away. 

I was not disappointed.

This movie is brutal in the most enjoyable way because it's the bad guys that get f*cked up the most, and it's fun watching it. 

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Playlist:

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Knorkator - Widerstand ist zwecklos

Ifernach - Capitulation of All Life

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Deth Crux - Bloody Christmas

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ten Crack Commandments (single)

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

Pop Will Eat Itself - Cure for Sanity

Neurosis - Given to the Rising

Isis - Panopticon

Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner

Rein - Reincarnated

Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP

Battle Tapes - In Too Deep EP

Battle Tapes - Polygon

Final Light - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Collaboration has been coming up a lot, so I need to re-focus on something I've been struggling to maintain. A big writing project that I make headway in and then have to set aside to tool around with short stories I am submitting to various publication markets. The trick here is to make more time and use it wisely, something I'm not always good at doing.

RIP Angelo Badalamenti

 

††† - Sensation

 

Really digging this new ††† PERMANENT.RADIANT EP, especially of late, opening track Sensation. The chorus has an epic slamming that kind of marries a slow, sensual plod ala When the Levee Breaks (not quite, but ballpark) to what sounds like the fanfare of some futuristic stadium rock. Add onto that all the swirling keys, guitars, and some cool vox FX on Chino, and you get a fantastic album-opener and lead-in to that brilliant first single, Vivien. 

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Watch:

Since it was only in the theatres for about a week, we missed David O. Russell's Amsterdam on the big screen but finally caught it on HBO Max last night.

 

This is the film that failed so hard at the box office - undeservedly so, in my opinion - that I've heard titterings about it being the death knell for anything that could be called an "adult drama" rolling out big and wide at theatres. If that's true, it sucks. I'll be sure to be more diligent about getting out to see those films on their first weekend because that might be all we get while Marvel and their clones - some of which I also am a fan of - further strengthen their stranglehold on every big screen in the major movie houses.

I think back to Autumn/Winter 2007. I'd been in L.A. a little over a year, and the Regal Cinema at the Rolling Hills Terrace on Deep Valley Drive was my perpetual weekend spot, primarily because they had a killer Soundsystem and were not afraid to turn it LOUD. That year, I saw so many great films - none of which were, if I remember correctly - genre. No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Charlie Wilson's War, spring immediately to mind. I can't help wondering if we'll ever see a roll-out of non-franchise films like that again. 2019 was a brief return to form; however, the pandemic may have been the real death knell for non-event films, the kind where two adults go to see a film unattached to properties or characters they are familiar with. And there's nothing wrong with big-budget, superhero blockbusters - I just hope that's not all there is to choose from on the big screen. Because I love seeing quiet, contemplative films like The Banshees of Inisherin at the theatre as much as I do whatever the next Avengers or whatever.

But I totally side-stepped my own set-up with my maudlin reverie. How was Amsterdam? Pretty damn good. I'll specifically say that Christian Bale is fantastic, as are all the performances. The script is a bit overly ambitious and the plot suffers from that, so there were moments where I was a little annoyed at what began to feel unmanageably dense, but those performances really anchored the film for me. 

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Playlist:

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Zeal and Ardor - Firewake (single)

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Lustmord - Dark Matter

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

It will require an effort of Will to make the breakthrough that will move me into the next phase of a project. 

New Zeal & Ardor!!!

 

Excited to see that, apparently, Zeal and Ardor are now on Sub Pop Records. With this kind of state-side distribution, it should no longer cost an arm and leg in shipping to order their records! Perhaps it was to celebrate that contract, the band just released a two-song single!

What a great day to wake up to! Last few days, no lie, my stress level has had me hovering at the "punch a hole in the window" stage. But I woke up a little while ago feeling fairly refreshed, and now I'm putting the finishing touches on this post, drinking coffee and listening to the new ††† EP, PERMANENT.RADIANT that dropped, counting the hours until I can hit play on Joe Begos' new flick, Christmas Bloody Christmas, now probably my most anticipated film of the year. I'd wanted to drive to Chicago to see it, but after spending $500 at the dentist over the last week, there's just no feasible way to swing that. My hope, though, is that, like Terrifier 2, it makes enough $$$ at the box office this week to see a bigger roll-out next week. If that happens, it's bound to end up here. 

If you need help figuring if Christmas Bloody Christmas is playing by you, here's the link Begos put on his IG - it literally lists every theatre the film is playing. So crazy that, with all the smaller cities its rolling out to, it didn't come to Clarksville. Our Regal, which is pretty good and had Terrifier 2 for almost a month, had the new Martin McDonough and the George A. Romero Dawn of the Dead 3D, but instead of lining CBC up, they still have Prey for the Devil? WTF?

Life is good. If you're having a tough time at any point today, stop and think about the people and the stuff you love. It will HELP!

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Watch:

New Brandon Cronenberg film? Sign me up.

 

I cannot overstate how unbelievably happy I am that we only had to wait about three years for the third film from Brandon Cronenberg. Possessor is still one of my all-time favorites, and with this cast and premise - what little of it may or may not be clear from this trailer - Infinity Pool looks likely to rank pretty high with me as well. Out January 27.

Neon is just a fabulous company, isn't it?

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Playlist:

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent (pre-release singles)

Fvnerals - The Light

Final Light - Eponymous

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

Federale - No Justice

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

The Mysterines - Reeling

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Metallica - Kill 'em All

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Ask and ye shall receive your answer: I usually don't specify when I pull, but today I focused on my recent re-engagement with Shadow Play Book 2. The writing comes and goes, mostly rewarding while I'm doing it, then frustrating after. But I keep wondering if this is actually going to work. Well, apparently, if I am strong enough to persevere, I will get my outcome.

Fvunerals - Ashen Era

 

A special thanks to Heaven Is An Incubator for turning me on to Fvnerals. Their music has been an integral part of my afternoons as the sun sets earlier and earlier, I click over and let the slow wash of their dreary but beautiful, doom-laced music.

"Ashen Era" is the second track released from the band's forthcoming album Let the Earth be Silent, out February 3rd on Prophecy Productions, which also serves as home to one of my long-time favorite black-gaze bands, Fen. You can pre-order the album on Fvnerals' Bandcamp HERE.

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NCBD:

Here are my picks for this week's NCBD:

Another crossover? Yeah, I'm going to give Dark Web a shot. I really dug the lead-on issue of Amazing Spider-Man two weeks ago. Hallows Eve is a great character name and design, a sort of female Hobgoblin, which I'm sure some folks will roll their eyes at, but based on my lackluster reception of recent iterations of old Hobby, I see this character as a welcome addition to Spider-Man's rogues gallery, which has contained more than a few Halloween-themed characters.

The final issue of Daniel Warren Johnson's Do A Powerbomb. I won't lie, the end of the last issue went big in a way that I didn't exactly love, but I can't wait to see how this plays out regardless. Love this guy and his work.

What a cover! I don't love this Diesel character, however, I think a lot of that has to do with its name. I'm hoping once he and Flame Head tangle, things will get brutal because this book has definitely had some brutal moments thus far. 

I cannot wait to read this issue. After the previous issue of Immortal X-Men, I began reading about upcoming comics and saw that there is another, a smaller event coming up called The Sins of Sinister. Despite my usual trepidation with events, this one I will be reading with gusto.

Another final issue. Night of the Ghoul has been a fun Horror mini-series, which is a format Scott Snyder has always seemed to excel at.

The intensity dial continues to be slowly raised in this first iteration of Marvel's Predator series, and I'm digging that a lot. While I do think this will ultimately read better as a trade, if you're a Predator fan new or old, check this out. 

I love that every year since its inception, Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips do a Christmas Special for their weird fiction/southern gothic detective book That Texas Blood. Last year's was a great way to outro from the intensity of the arc preceding it, and no doubt this will function much the same. 

I'm a bit behind on TMNT, so I need to catch up soon. Some of that is due to avoiding the Event books for Armegeddon Game, as I'm not sure if I should be reading it to make sense of the last few issues. 

Abigail Brand's duplicitous (triplicitous?) agenda has been revealed, so all sorts of shit is no doubt about to go off. I don't think I've looked forward to Cable's presence or reaction in a story this much since the original X-Force 7 when Sauron "killed" Sam Guthrie. 

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Watch:

I've been teetering back and forth as to whether I wanted to subscribe to the new Horror-centric Streaming app Screambox. If you look up what's available, there's a lot of exclusive stuff, but not necessarily anything I want to see. The rest of their catalogue reminds me a lot of scoping out Shudder back at its relative inception, circa 2013. That said, as the company continues to produce and buy new films, my interest is growing. Case in point: 

Writer/Director Cristin Ponce is getting a lot of acclaim for this one, 

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Playlist:

Bobby Fingers Episode 2

Fvnerals - Wound

SQÜRL & Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

Dreamkid - Eponymous

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Ideas + Collaboration can lead to strife. Differing opinions. I drew a clarifier to see if a compromise is likely, Knight of Pentacles, which suggests to me that it may require an act of Will (i.e. be difficult or put me out of my comfort zone), but yes, compromise is likely.

Spooky Action At A Distance

 

In preparation for the recording of the first episode of our new spin-off podcast, The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror, I rewatched Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive last night. I have to say, not only do I think this is one of the coolest films ever made, but I think about it almost every day. There is not a lot that moves the needle as far as inspiring me to make music again, but watching or thinking about this film does in a BIG way.

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Watch:

THIS will be in theatres? I won't hold my breath for it to come to Clarksville, however, I'm not averse to planning a trip to Chicago for this (if it even plays there).

 

This might tie Barbarian for the best trailer I've seen all year. Whether the movie lives up to the absolute lo-fi DREAD displayed here will remain to be seen. Below I've posted Skinamarink's summary, courtesy of the mighty Bloody Disgusting, whose article on the film is HERE: 

“Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. To cope with the strange situation, the two bring pillows and blankets to the living room and settle into a quiet slumber party situation. They play well-worn videotapes of cartoons to fill the silence of the house and distract from the frightening and inexplicable situation. All the while in the hopes that eventually some grown-ups will come to rescue them. However, after a while, it becomes clear that something is watching over them.”

If, like Christmas Bloody Christmas, which I had also planned to travel for, I can't make the trip north for Skinamarink, then the good news that, also like Joe Begos' new film, this will be released on Shudder is a welcome balm. I would drive back and forth twice a month if I could, but the logistics of life do have a habit of getting in the way of plans like that.

Really looking forward to seeing this, the first feature from Kyle Edward Bell.

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Last year at Severin Films' Black Friday sale, I picked up the Night of the Demon restored Blu-Ray and, perhaps more excitedly, Brad Carter's novelization that Severin commissioned in their possibly over-zealous roll-out for this widely unknown regional Horror film from 1980. 

After finishing Barry Adamson's Up Above the City, Down Below the Stars I was tempted to jump into David Lynch's biography, Room to Dream. I figured I could use a palate cleanser though; Adamson's book was the best book I read all year - or at least my favorite - and I need to put something genre between it and the story of another creator I adore. So I cracked open Brad Carter's translation of this bizarre little Bigfoot tale...

Confession: I've yet to watch the Blu-Ray. I'd seen a good deal of scenes from Night of the Demon a while back on youtube; not a place I generally go to watch movies, but before Severin's remaster, this film was almost as much a legend as Bigfoot itself. Now forty or so pages into the book, I have to say, it is quite well-written. I know the basic story here and it feels quite a bit more substantial as prose than film. Some of that is obviously the hindsight employed, but also I think it speaks to Carter as a writer, and I quickly cued up a few of his novels for future reading, in particular the novel Saturday Night of the Living Dead. 

As for Night of the Demon, I'm particularly interested in how the novel handles the "cult" subplot of the story, which didn't really get the treatment it deserved in what I saw of the film, which admittedly was not the whole thing. Carter gives all the characters involved extra development, which in some cases may have been a thankless task. Being asked to novelize a forty-something-year-old regional Horror film must be comparable to being asked to take agent listings of a house in need of updating. However, where someone else might have been happy to just recreate the schlock seen on the screen, Carter's extra level of care and attention really make this feel like it's going to be a far superior vehicle for the story.

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Playlist:

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Pete Shelley - Homosapien

Uriah Heep - Abominog

Metallica - Lux Æturna (pre-release single)

Revocation - Netherhaven

Tyler Bates - The Punisher OST

Fvnerals - For Horror Eats the Light

Fvnerals - Wounds

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Previous issues with my finances (intermittent but seemingly unending fallout from identity theft) will come to a resolution. 

...Johnny One Note Here

As I mentioned here a few days ago, I recently finished Barry Adamson's autobiography, Up Above the City, Down Below the Stars. It's a fantastic read; a sometimes heartbreaking deep-dive into the origins of the Manchester Post-Punk movement. Thrilling not only because Adamson is such an engaging narrator, delivering the story of his life in a quasi-Noir tone that totally fits Manchester in this era (think of the Joy Division biopic Control), but also because he names and describes so much music - a lot of which I have never heard before. The track above is a perfect example; I knew nothing of the Tubby Hayes Quintet until Adamson describes hearing the Live at Spot's album (renamed Down in the Village if you seek it out on streaming) for the first time on his father's new record player. He describes the way the opening horn attack blew his mind, and sure enough, I had the same experience. That is some smoking horn to open a set with! 

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Before I left L.A., I actually had a chance to see a test screening of Cocaine Bear. I ended up not being able to make it, and now, after seeing the trailer, I wish I would have canceled whatever else I did and gone to this instead:

This. Looks. INSANE. I mean, in every great way a film can be insane, this looks as though it will check those boxes. 

 

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Playlist:

Alan Haven - Image (single)

Kermit Ruffins - The Barbeque Swingers Live

Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronny Scott's Club, London 1962)

Metallica - Lux Æturna

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Blondie - Eponymous

Ruelle - Emerge

Drug Church - Tawny EP

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP

Zola Jesus - Arkhon

Harry Nilsson - Without You (single)

T. Rex - The Slider

Roxy Music - Eponymous

Alice Cooper - Killer

Barry Adamson - Back to the Cat

Magazine - Real Life

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast S6E27

Low Cut Connie - Get Out the Lotion

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

The Knitters - Poor Little Creature on the Road

Magazine - Secondhand Daylight

Serge Gainsbourg - Historie de Melody Nelson

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

The Birthday Party - Hee-Haw

The Birthday Party - Pleasure Heads Must Burn (DVD)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call

Barry Adamson - Moss Side Story

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Obscured influences come from a place of benevolence and should be accepted in order to further emotional security. Pretty broad scope, so I can't really pinpoint what this is addressing yet. But I'll keep my eyes open for obscured influences, of which there are no doubt many afoot in all of our lives. 

The Cure - A Forest

 

In the mood for some early Cure today, specifically Seventeen Seconds. It's funny, a few months ago, I'd felt as though I might have lost my connection to this band. Not really sure why, but it felt like the entire part of my inner scaffolding that bonded with these guys' early albums had just dissipated in the tide of time. Nope. 

Seeing this video is crazy. I stumbled across early pictures of the band recently and completely forgot how they looked before Robert Smith developed his signature look, back when any images of the band were grainy and distorted, giving a further sense of the otherworldly to their music.

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I can't believe we're getting an adaptation of Don Delillo's White Noise!

  

 

One of my favorite books since I read it in the 00s, I just can't imagine how this adaptation is going to work. I'd seen the title and thumbnail advertised somewhere a few weeks or months ago but figured there was NO WAY this would be Delillo's seminal Cold War novel. Surprise! It is.

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NCBD:

A VERY mellow NCBD today, and I'm going to try to keep it that way. I've been fighting the urge to order those last two Something is Killing the Children trades so I can hurry up and be current, so maybe since this week is so light on monthlies, I'll do that. Regardless, here's my picks for the week:

I'm assuming this book will not last in its current incarnation for much longer, with Clea Strange as the main character, so I'll enjoy it while this lasts. With no previous knowledge or attachment of the character, and no interest in reading a monthly based around Stephen Strange, this has been the most delightful of surprises. Every issue is great. 

Issue #2 of Jeremy Haun's new Horror story The Approach, and by the look of this absolutely insane cover, it's shaping up to be quite a beast. 

I didn't love the second issue as much as the first, but I'm still pretty happy with this one. I think that has a lot to do with my love of Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men #244, "Women," which followed the then teams female members - Storm, Dazzler, Betsy Braddock and Rogue - going out on the town and getting into trouble. Same concept here; in fact, I can tell writer Leah Williams is drawing on that one, to a degree, and it shows. I love how this began with Dazzler, Boom Boom, Jubliee (who was introduced in that classic 244), and Laura out drinking and ended up being a bloody A.F. battle with vampires. Another instance of the 'monsters' of the Marvel Comic Universe making their presence known, as we sneak closer to seeing some (or all) the Midnight Sons characters introduced in the MCU.

Pay attention DC - alignment is important.

 

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Playlist:

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

Jessica Moss - Galaxy Heart

Tune-Yards - WHOKILL

Tune-Yards - sketchy.

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP

Tyler Bates - The Punisher Main Title

Metallica - Lux Æturna (pre-release single)

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

The Doors - Riders on the Storm (single)

Kermit Ruffins - The Barbeque Swingers Live

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

The conclusion of a project will require change in order to work around confusion and/or conflict.

Call Me, Bobby Fingers

 

I've never been the biggest Blondie fan, but I've also largely remained to everything but the singles. They've long been one of those bands I keep meaning to dig into the back catalogue, and just never remember. Well, between the OST for Paul Schrader's 1980 masterpiece American Gigolo, which I just watched for the first time a few months back and became enraptured with, and now the Showtime series of the same name, I've been inundated with "Call Me" off and on for weeks, and I have to say, it is a fantastic song. I always liked this one, but now I'm seeing something deeper. So, motivated by that, I've begun digging. So far though, nothing matches this one.

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Yes! Bobby Fingers has a new diorama video up!

 

Oh man, this guy is my hero. I haven''t watched this yet, but the subject matter for this, his second diarama video, is so in-line with his first, and both seem culled from the 80s pop culture detritus that I favor for fun-making. 

 

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I finally began Barry Adamson's Autobiography, Up Above the City, Down Below the Stars this past weekend. Adamson earned a perpetual place in my heart with his albums Moss Side Tory, Soul Murder, and of course, As Above So Below. This was all after his work on the Lost Highway OST in 1997 put him and his album Oedipus Schmodipus brought him to the awareness of, well, of anyone paying attention to the kinds of music that Trent Reznor included on that Soundtrack.

As Above is still my all-time favorite by him, but I've followed Mr. Adamson's career ever since. I grabbed a copy of his first short film The Therapist back in 2011, and had the total joy of seeing him perform live, solo, at L.A.'s The Hotel Cafe in... I'm not even sure when. 

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Beer:

Now that I'm officially into my first real winter in sixteen years -  I know the season doesn't officially start until December 21st, however, it's cold - my appetite for darker, thicker beers has returned full force. My palate would usually shift for a week here or there while in L.A., as nights did get down to the 40s on a regular basis, however, Tennessee is decidedly closer to what I grew up with. Already seeing the 30s and we're loving it. 

Anyway, while I still always have cans of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on hand, I've really been peppering in more Porters and Stouts on an almost daily basis. This is somewhat propelled by my neighbor Vincent, who I've befriended and who loves dark beer. He's brought me quite a few Crowlers from his (and now our) favorite Clarksville brewery Tennessee Valley Brewing, and to return the favor, while in Chicago recently, I picked up a sixer of something for him.

Three Floyds is one of those entities that 100% deserves all the hype and mania they fostered during the 00s. Every beer I've had by them has been insanely consistent in quality, and their aesthetic - kind of a Doom Metal/SciFi/ComicBook thing fits the beer perfectly. There's always an air of blue-collar debauchery that undercuts what, in my mind, are very high-brow concepts, and I love that. 

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Playlist:

Metallica - Lux Æturna (pre-release single)

Blondie - Autoamerican

Various - American Gigolo OST (1980)

Zola Jesus - Arkhon

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak)

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A slightly more ambitious pull today. The card that started this fell separate from the deck during shuffle, so I started there. An accomplishment of Will can make a Dream come true. A breakthrough with my Art will come via collaboration. Again, spot on! I've really become shocked that Grimm's Bound Tarot has essentially replaced the Thoth as my go-to deck. That seemed impossible; I'm not one to own a lot of decks. Sure, there are scores of amazing ones, but I have never owned a deck just because of how it looks - I've always struggled with reading and thus, felt it an imperative to limit the number I have to the ones that I use and bond with. That's been exactly Thoth and, later, Missi's Raven Deck of Major Arcana, which by definition, serves a different purpose altogether. Broader. But Grimm's deck has really become something I reach for multiple times a day, and I feel my readings and intuitions stoking again (I lost a lot after my Tarot debacle in 2015, which is described somewhere in these pages).

Metallica - Lux Æterna

 

Maybe I'm just in a holiday mood, but I think I actually dig this new Metallica song. This would then be the first new song by the band I've liked since the Black Album, when I was a teenager, riding high on their previous records, and didn't know any better (fan inertia - it's a thing). Believe me, I am dangerously self-aware (most of the time), and I'm so I realize that whenever I discuss this band, I have a sarcastic, cynical tone, and yet, I still talk about them. It's a defense mechanism. Part of me will never be okay with liking anything this band does because of what they have become. And conversely, I suppose, part of me will always want to like - well, no. Pretty sure that's not the case. I think Some Kind of Monster pretty much ruined any good will I had toward them.

But I saw this new track from the forthcoming 72 Seasons album dropped and, unlike anything they've released in years that I've been aware of, I couldn't help but click on it. Maybe it's because I root for Robert Trujillo, and regardless of what I think of the band, want him to succeed. Talk about a rags-to-riches story with a happy ending (when I moved to San Pedro and joined the YMCA there, I saw the enormous check he donated, as it used to be framed on the wall). 

The first thing here that grabbed me - the production is AWESOME. Listen to those drums. Wow. Sure, the main musical ideas are all kind of recycled from previous iterations (did you hear the little bit of Whiplash, in the guitar solo especially). But overall, music alone - heightened as it is by the production - I dig. I'll never be a fan of how Hetfield sings now - probably because of those embarrassing songs that were plastered all over the sonic landscape of the late 90s. Give me fuel? Ugh. Or, that Bee-otch song? Jesus - that did more to sink his vocals than anything. And that, combined with my self-conscious defensive approach will no doubt keep me from ultimately engaging with this on any real level, but overall, this feels like a 'win' for these guys. 

It might also be said, in a more positive vein, that I've been impressed by a couple things about these guys. First, they play so much, they're tight AF. This isn't a band that physically rests on their laurels, and I'll give 'em that. Sets I've seen listed over the last few years include older albums from their "good" period (Kill to Justice) in their entirety. And what was the thing with them playing in Antarctica? Can you imagine hearing The Call of Ktulu in Antarctica? I mean, not that anyone was there for that show, but still. Pretty cool idea. 

So, I'll probably check this album out when it drops, and I'm sure I'll report back here. Until then, if you're so inclined, you can check out the pre-order page for 72 Seasons HERE. 

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Watch:

With some trepidation, K and I binged the remainder of Showtime's American Gigolo series last night. After only three episodes, I'd become irritated with certain elements of the show and was pretty close to jumping off. However, in the end, I'll say that, while there is some pretty dumb writing that ends up being major plot mechanics (there is NO way Julian saw that hand tattoo from that far away), overall I enjoyed this.

 

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say I'd recommend it. Well, maybe. Jon Bernthal is absolutely fantastic, and I have to say that, while initially, I could not stand Rosie O'Donnell's character Detective Sunday, she ended up really winning me over. 

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I finally have jumped into James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera's Something is Killing the Children and I'll tell ya, the book is worth the hype:

I'd read and reread the first five issues twice earlier in the year, when my buddy Gerald at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach gave me a "going away" present and knocked half off a pack of the David Mack covers of those first five issues. Something about it, though, didn't really register. In the interim, I learned about the body bag covers that the prequel series, House of Slaughter, have gotten, and began picking those up at Rick's Comic City purely on a whim. This, plus my Horror Vision cohost Butcher's regular admonishments that I needed to, "get on this, man" finally won out, and I followed his advice (knowing I would not regret it). I ordered trades 2 and 3 on Amazon the other day and read them in a day.

This series is fantastic. I won't go into spoilers plot-wise, however, I'll just say that the fact that the first three trades all take place over the course of basically a day or two, with most of that hinging on one insane night in Archer's Peak, well, it did a lot to bring me into the story. Now, I have to pick up the fourth and fifth trades, because I've already begun buying it monthly as of issue 26.

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Playlist:

The Men that Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing - Now That's What I Call Steampunnk, Vol. 1

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast The Shards (about the first eight hours)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

The emotional aspects of Will and the Willful aspects of emotion - a tad jumbled until you add in the idea that this confusion is probably what has been hampering a decision intimidated by the Ace of Pentacles. Not sure I've dialed this in exactly, but that's probably also part of the confusion, the fact that I have more than one decision that's overdue based on conjoined elements of what I want for the real world and what I want emotionally.