Scream with Me, You Beautiful Man-Thing, You!

 

Yeah, I guess Michael Graves is a proud boy or whatever now, but once upon a time his unfortunate nationalist tendencies hadn't floated to the surface yet and he took over as the first Misfits singer I gave a shit about since Danzig. Wait, maybe he was the first after Danzig? I don't even remember anymore. Whatever. Either way, I had to post this track because of what you'll see in the next section of this post below. Regardless of his politics - which mind you, is mostly third-person related to me - I adore his two albums with the Misfits.

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Read:

From the final page of Marvel Comics' new Spider-Punk mini-series. What an idea - a Misfits-inspired revamp of Taskmaster!

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Dollar Bin:

If you've followed any of my comic/pop culture writings for long enough, you've heard me talk about my affinity for Marvel's 1986 failed New Universe line. I remember the ads building hype for this as if they were published yesterday:

I tried a few of the New Universe titles when they first dropped, but none of them moved the needle enough to make me spend my allowance on them monthly. Then, something amazing happened:

The Starbrand character accidentally nuked the city of Pittsburgh and the entire line of books changed, basically became a terrifying allegory for 80s Cold War Nuclear Panic. It was amazing!

After the one-shot graphic novel that changed the status quo of the line - aptly titled The Pitt - the 8 books in the NU turned into four, and things got dark AF. Shortly after came the four-part, Prestige Format series The War, which I believe ended the first iteration of Marvel's New Universe.

When these were coming out, I know I had books 1 and 2 of The War, but I don't remember having 3 and 4. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have bought them, but who knows. I'm pretty sure I don't still have now, although similarly I don't remember ever parting with them. Recently however, I found books 3 and 4 in the Dollar Bin at the Bug. Score! Now I just have to either find or re-buy the others and I can finally read the entire series.

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Plastic:

Speaking of Marvel Comics - Jesus F*&king Christ do I want this:

Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending the advert for this my way. I'm not sure I'm ready to pony up $275 bucks for this, but... damn! If it had been anyone but Man-Thing, I wouldn't even be entertaining the idea. I'll always have a fascination with Slime/Swamp/Sewer characters (what does that say about me???).

The psychedelic variant of Marvel's Man-Thing drops tomorrow from Mondo. 

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed

Mark Lanegan Band - Here Comes That Weird Chill

Helmet - Aftertaste

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Reflections - The Color Clear 

Ghost Bath - Moon Lover

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

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Card:

I don't even have it in me to interpret this at the moment, but it looks like a pretty big warning about letting emotional pile-up affect carefully laid plans.

Carpenter Brut - Color Me Blood

 

I completely forgot the new Carpenter Brut dropped earlier this month! Thankfully, a message from my good friend Jacob reminded me, and, after several days of indulging in Leather Terror, can say this is easily my favorite of Mr. Brut's work. Every song is great; here's my current fav, a kind of classic darkwave synth nightmare with a killer beat.

I really want the double red vinyl for this one, but being that there's an almost thirty dollar shipping fee on it from the UK, I'm sticking to the digital release for now. Also, vinyl lust aside, Leather Terror is another example of an album that I do not believe warrants the double vinyl format. Three songs on a side? I feel like constantly flipping a record like this detracts from the experience of listening to it. Regardless, if you want to, you can order it HERE. 

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READ:

Warren Ellis recently posted a Pay-What-You-Want, 10K short story on his Orbital Operations site. The story is called Watchtower, and you can read it HERE. I have no idea what it's about; doesn't matter. It's Warren Ellis, and it's far too infrequent we get a piece of prose from the man (not a complaint; he's a busy dude who writes for a living). 

I've mentioned it here before, but his Orbital Operations newsletter is one of my favorite things in life. His musings on the writing process are among my favorite things to read, and I've discovered quite a bit of good music and literature through the recommendations he includes. If I had to pick a favorite of his work... well, I can't. It's all just too good. But you can sign up for the newsletter HERE and you can start with either his first prose novel Crooked Little Vein HERE, his semi-recent revamp of DC's Wildstorm line - which is free on Kindle Unlimited and Comixology at the moment and TOTALLY worth your time; unlike anything you'd expect a DC comic to be - HERE, or just click over to Netflix and fire up his Castlevania series, which I really do need to finally finish.

I'm way overdue for a re-read on this one, and it's been kinda calling my name from the shelf. 

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Watch:

A group of my friends were able to hit the movies on Saturday afternoon for the last scheduled showtime of Goran Stolevski's new film You Won't Be Alone. 

Talk about not what I expected at all. 

I really enjoyed this one, though, in a way where I can tell you, a lot of people may not feel the same. Especially with the somewhat misleading trailer. You Won't Be Alone requires a certain level of commitment from its audience, and its journey is one that really takes you on a personal journey with the main character, alternately played by several different people, but mostly helmed by Sara Klimoska. The story of a young girl who is kidnapped by a witch and turned into one of the hag's own shapeshifting kind, this is not a Horror movie, but a journey to find a life denied, and it's quite beautiful. I'll admit, I (and pretty much everyone I was with) had a hard time for the first 30 minutes, but after that, I adjusted to the rhythms and mission of the film and really kind of fell in love. 

That's not to say there aren't Horrific elements. However, that is most definitely not the point here. The Horror is a life denied, not the blood and guts. That said, the film's take on witches is one of pretty extreme Body Horror at times, and it can be quite visceral. 

I believe I've posted the trailer here before, however, I'd rather just go with the poster, as it's not misleading in the least. I get that they have to turn the trailer into something that will put people in seats at the theatre, but I really think there might be some backlash on this one.

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Amigo the Devil - Everything is Fine

The Veils - Total Depravity

Grinderman - Eponymous

Scratch Acid - Berserker EP

Huey Lewis & the News - Sports

The National - High Violet

Nurse with Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Orville Peck - Bronco

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Card:

Yesterday, for the first time in weeks I slept over nine hours. I feel like that recharged some batteries, and the coming week doesn't look quite so bleak as the last one did going into it. This card sometimes denotes inner power, and I'm guessing that recharge will help balance me for the week's ordeals.

Helms Alee - Tripping Up the Stairs

 

New music from the always crushing Helms Alee! I became a bit obsessed with these guys in the spring of 2019. Work sent me to our branch in Spokane, Washington. It was my first time there, and I kind of fell in love with the place. Different cities have different textures, and Spokane's texture is one of earth, rocky brutishness, so you'll understand when I tell you that every night I walked to The Steamplant for dinner and downed multiple pints of their wonderful Octoberfest - a fluke it was still on tap in April! Afterward, I would walk around the city with my ear pods in, either jamming Alee, Jaye Jayle, or Melvins.

New album Keep This Be the Way drops on Sargent House Records April 29th; you can pre-order a copy HERE.
  

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Watch:

Here's the trailer for what is, in my opinion, an underseen Horror gem, Colm McCarthy's Outcast.

Kind of an Urban decay folk Horror piece, I caught this one a few years ago and loved it. Now that it's finally returned to Shudder, I can't recommend it enough. If McCarthy's name sounds familiar, it's because he went on to direct the film adaptation of M.R. Carey's novel The Girl with All the Gifts, Black Mirror's The Black Museum episode, and a bunch of Peaky Blinders and Ripper Street episodes. 

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Read:

 

Tom Johnstone's new novel Song of Salome is out on Omnium Gatherum, and although I've never read his fiction before, I've heard a handful of positive reviews for his debut collection Last Stop: Wellsbourne, also published by Omnium back in 2017. Here's the description; I think you'll see why it sold me: 

"Maybe it's better if some movies stay lost. It's 1965, and Herb Fry is reminiscing about the time about twenty years before when a reclusive collector sent him to track down a movie that shouldn't exist. The studio destroyed every copy after its tragic first screening. But we all know lost movies have a habit of being found. Prepare yourself for a trip into the cinema's heart of darkness to discover an early talkie whose soundtrack is a killer."

Available on the Omnium website linked above, or wherever you get your books!

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Playlist:

Quicksand - Slip

Bauhaus - Drink the New Wine (single)

Bauhaus - Go Away White

Bauhaus - Boys (single)

Alien Sex Fiend - The Legendary Batcave Tapes

Pike Vs the Automaton - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

The Smiths - How Soon is Now (single)

Godflesh - Post Self

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Helms Alee - Keep This be the Way pre-release singles

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Card:

Everything is fluid as I finally received the answer to a question from a few weeks back. If you'll recall,  I kept pulling the Hierophant and shortly thereafter spoke about my daily diet of caffeine and heavy metal and how it appears to be affecting my ability to get good sleep. In trying to help me interpret these pulls, my good friend Missi mentioned the card was probably trying to tell me that I was hung up on something that was ultimately getting in the way. 

See where I'm going with this yet?

My morning ritual has always been making a full 30+ ounces of coffee first thing, drinking it over the course of my twenty minute drive to work and the first hour or so of my day, then proceeding to make more. 

And more.

I probably drink between 50 and 65 oz of coffee a day, and I think this is the problem (ya think?). Soooo - beginning yesterday, I am now eschewing that first 30 oz, instead waiting to have my first cup when I arrive at work. 

I remember when I was a bartender back in the early 2000s. My regulars - mostly middle-ageders - would watch me drink pot after pot of black coffee and remark how one day, that would change. I always thought that sounded insane, however, I think I have arrived at that exact place. I'd never give up black coffee, same as I'd never give up beer, but I definitely need to cut back. My fitbit tells me my heartrate is normally in the 80-90 range throughout the day, which, when I tell people that, usually gives them pause. Yes, I'm forty-six and starting to feel it.

Fuck.

Crowded House at the Crossroads

 

The newer guys at work are all in their early 20s, but they can seem to get enough of 80s pop radio. I think I've heard Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" everyday for a least two weeks, and the fact that I seem to just love it more and more - after loving it for most of my life now - really says something about what a great tune this is. Kinda has a similar feeling to Tears for Fears, and it makes me wonder how much it was influenced by Orzabel, Stanley and Hughes, whose Songs From The Big Chair came out about a year before Crowded House's eponymous debut. Either way, great song.

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NCBD:

Dude! It has felt like a goddamn year since the previous issue! Seriously, Jed McKay's masterstroke of bringing in the House of Secrets as Moon Knight's new Midnight Mission has me 100% over my wishy-washy attitude toward this title. ALL IN!

Am I just sucking Marvel's dick at this point? Maybe. But I have to admit, I'm curious as hell.

I've missed Vault. The moment I saw the title and cover, I knew I'd be giving this book a shot. 

I've been geeking out so f*&king hard over Immortal X-Men that I almost forgot the tapestry of interstellar espionage, politics, and betrayal picks back up this month where S.W.O.R.D. volume two left off a few months ago. 

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Read:

I was not lucky enough to score this variant when Symbiote Spider-Man: Crossroads issue #1 came out. I didn't even know it existed until I just did an image search for this post. However, after finally tracking down the fifth issue of this series, I did a re-read and can tell you, THIS is my favorite era of Spider-Man. Black costume, pre-Venom, 80s NYC. And it meshes perfectly with one of my favorite Hulk eras - his exile to the Crossroads, circa early 300s, written by the inimitable Bill Mantlo. All that Hobby Shop SciFi stuff I was attempting to explain in the previous post? Mantlo was definitely one of the architects of that for me, and it makes perfect sense that the man who inherited The Incredible Hulk from him - Peter David himself - wrote a story that perfectly meshes several major eras of these characters into one really cool story. And yeah, it has Devil Dinosaur in it, too! Can't beat it, 'nuff said!

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Playlist:

Quicksand - Slip

Year of No Light - Consolamentum

M83 - You and the Night OST

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

The Mysterines - Reeling

Orville Peck - Pony

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Card:

Yes. I need Strength. Long day.

Dreadstar

 

Sweden's Watain has a new album on the horizon and the new single features Farida Lemouchi from The Devil's Blood and Molasses on guest vocals for part of the song. "We Remain" strikes me as the kind of track you need to hear in the context of the entire album that surrounds it in order to fully appreciate it, but it's a spooky track, with elements of The Devil's Blood and even a hint of Type O in the keys near the end.

Always great to hear Farida's vocals. Also, really cool video, directed by Johan Bååth. You can pre-order the new album The Agony and Ecstasy of Watain from Nuclear Blast records HERE.   

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Dollar Bin:

After a rough couple days at work last week, I spent about a good half hour flipping through the dollar bins at my home away from home, Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug. Here's one of the gems I walked away with:

Jim Starlin's Dreadstar, published by Marvel's Epic Comics - sort of their version of Vertigo before there was a Vertigo - was a book I saw on comic shop shelves back in the 80s when I first started going to Heroland Comics in Worth, Illinois (the location attached to the Post Office on the Southwest corner of 11th and Harlem), and All American comics in Orland Park, on the second floor of a long-gone strip mall somewhere around 151st and LaGrange. These were the first two shops I ever frequented, and I'd make my poor Mother wait in the car while I went in and looked around for probably over an hour somedays, soaking in all the books that intrigued me but I couldn't afford to spend my money on. Dreadstar registered as something I might be into but wasn't quite sure; I've always dug SciFi, but when I was younger I was quite discerning when it came to anything I thought might be second-tier compared to my (then) first love, Star Wars*. In the last few years, I've really begun to look at the various waves of SciFi that hit post-Lucas, seeing a lot of it as forming a sort of genre in and of itself. The smelting pool of comics, TSR role-playing games, arcade games and knock-off SciFi movies (Creature, I'm looking at you, albeit with something approximating love) have formed a kind of gestalt in my mind, a nostalgic feeling that there was something very special brewing with the more street-level, hobby/comic shop SciFi than I'd previously given credit. This gestalt has become something of an unachievable haunting; I try to think about it in defining, cohesive terms. I try to channel its atmosphere, tone and texture. I fail to do any of this with any degree of accuracy that allows me to completely possess it. So when I see a book like Dreadstar that I associate with being possibly instrumental to this nearly ineffable sub-genre I loosely refer to as simply Hobby Shop SciFi in my head, I grab it. 

Thus, I picked up issues three and four of Dreadstar and sat just flipping through the pages, enraptured by what I'd found for a mere dollar. These books feel like a piece of history. SciFi history. 80s history. My history. And maybe that's what all this comes down to, a nostalgic tickle I can't scratch; a deeply entrenched tapestry of memories and memory triggers that move further away the more I try to reach them. Because, you know, you can't reach the past, you can only catch occasional glimpses from our limited, human perspective. And isn't that what an awful lot of SciFi tries to undermine and eclipse? 

*Don't even get me started on how much condescension I reserve for pretty much every iteration of Star Trek.

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Destroy:

 

I. 

Can't. 

Fucking. 

Wait.

 

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Playlist:

M83 - Saturdays=Youth

Quicksand - Slip

sElf - Breakfast with Girls

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Drug Church - Hygiene EP

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love's Refrain (single)

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

sElf - Gizmodgery

Prince - Sign O' The Times

David Bowie - Let's Dance

Dance with the Dead - Driven to Madness

Crowded House - Don't Dream it's Over (single)

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights... Camera... Revolution

Ghost - Impera

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

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Card:

Balance is definitely something I struggle with these days. It's not just the ever-present, background hum of anxiety and existential horror the world of 2022 elicits, it's my reliance on caffeine and heavy metal to get me through the day, which works, but is also difficult to come down from even 15 hours after I wake up. Sleep is a luxury that I do not get enough of, and my ongoing deficit has been wreaking havoc with my cognitive skills and motor functions. I spend so much time during the day re-revving my engine that it's hard to 'chill' later on. I would resort to smoking ludicrous amounts of dope, except I'm trying not to smoke based on my lung condition, and the tincture I have has unpredictable onset times and effects. 

Immortal Funhouse

 

Goddamn if I don't still love every track on Deftones' 2012 (ten years!!!) Koi No Yokan.

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Watch:

 

Tobe Hooper's 1981 carnival-themed slasher flick Funhouse just came back to Shudder, and I had forgotten how insane this flick is. The third act climax alone is enough to leave me going, "Jesus, this is totally f*%king coo-coo. If you haven't seen this one - or if like me it'd been a while - it's definitely a good time to revisit.

 

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Read:

I spent the latter half of this week completely enraptured by and re-reading the first issue of Kieron Gillen's Immortal X-Men. 

One of the things I liked least about this new, Krakoan era of the X-books is the change in the portrayal of Mr. Sinister. I have always been a HUGE fan of the old-school Sinister introduced in the Claremont-era of Uncanny, with his limited appearances enhancing his, well, sinister aspect. He reeked of dark schemes and unparalleled violence. Now, however, Sinister almost feels like comedic relief at times, and I experienced a considerable degree of cognitive dissonance at this new persona during HoX/PoX. However, Gillen has changed that with this issue, which is entirely from Sinister's perspective and drops the Godfather of all reveals in the book's final page. I literally exclaimed out loud when I reached the end, and have been picking at the ramifications ever since.

 

I've been so into this, I did something I never do - I took to youtube to try and find people talking about this. (I'll be honest, I'm so tempted to try and restart Drinking with Comics, call it the Immortal Drinking with Comics, and only talk about this, however, there's a host of reasons I can think of not to do that, so I'm staying on the sidelines and listening to others talk. So far, this is the best video I've found.

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Playlist:

The Mysterines - Reeling

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

King Woman - Doubt EP

Cypress Hill - Back in Black

Perturbator - I Am the Night

U2 - The Joshua Tree

U2 - War

Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral

Entropy - Liminal

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Jim Williams - Titane OST

Ministry - Moral Hygiene

David Bowie - Scary Monsters

Ghost - Impera

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Ghost - Infestissumam

The Besnard Lakes - ... Are the Roaring Night

Boy Harsher - Careful

Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher

Tears for Fears - The Tipping Point

Quicksand - Slip

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

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Card:

Past: Making ideas actionable

Present: Continue to work at what I've put in motion

Future: The work isn't enough. This will require an inner guidance, known to most as intuition. 

Pretty spot-on with what I'm working on, which I believe is soon to reach its conclusion.

Year of No Light - Objuration

 

I discovered this purely by chance and it's AWESOME.

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NCBD:

March goes out with a BANG (and other such onomatopoeia). Gonna be a big haul today. Let's dig in:

All of the Rick Remender books I've been following since he left the Big Two behind and launched Giant Generator are either over or ending, and for a moment I was a little worried about where I'd get my fix. I've heard good things about The Scumbag, but honestly, when that book began, I'd had quite enough of scumbags in real life and wasn't really jazzed about reading a book with one as its main character. Maybe I'll go back and check it out at some point, but in the meantime, A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance has earned a place in my heart. This is like the best action/revenge/espionage/crime flick not on the big screen, with a bafflingly endearing main character we know next to nothing about and a bunch of walk-ons that pretty much get aced a few pages after their introductions. This is a fast-paced, widescreen example of the kind of synergy that happens when a writer finds the right artist, as RR did by enlisting André Lima Araüjo.

I love this book! It's a pretty out-there approach to Bruce Banner and Hulk, and it really shouldn't work at all, yet somehow 100% does, right down to this first story arc's title; Smashtronaut! How goddamn METAL is that?

Cautiously optimistic for Kieron Gillen's run to take Hickman's set-up and really do something special. Oh, and look at that, speaking of Jonathan Hickman, he's writing another X-book!

I've never been a huge fan of the vagueries of the "unlimited" books, but with Hickman at the helm AND Declan Shalvey on the pencils, well, I'm all in.

Let's go street level for a minute:

Another great indie crime book from the extended Brubaker/Phillips family. I'm really digging this one and feel pretty certain it's going to end up a streaming show sooner rather than later. 

This is apparently a big deal, another female turtle named Venus? I'm unaware of the character but will follow this book wherever it goes.

Double the killer Eastman covers this month with the yearly annual, a tradition I largely eschew, except for with this book.

And I'm hanging around with this new Ghost Rider for at least this second issue. I feel like the tone of the art isn't quite dark enough for the character, however, that first issue may have presented itself that way based on the fact that Johnny Blaze was essentially being gaslit into thinking he was living the perfect suburban life, so let's see if things darken now that the cat's out of the bag and ol' flame head is back in control. 

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Playlist:

Opeth - Width of a Circle (single)

Nothing - Downward Years to Come

MadLove - White With Foam

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Year of No Light - Consolamentum

Nurse with Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith

Newsletter Playlist (under construction)

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Card:

Okay, this is beginning to feel like someone's set my house on fire and I'm too busy looking for the handle on the faucet to call 911. What the hell are you trying to tell me???

Opeth - The Width of a Circle

I'll admit - I was pretty disappointed to see this pop up in my youtube feed, click on it and find that it's NOT a cover of the David Bowie classic by the same name. That said, I don't take to very much of the music Opeth makes these days, but I dig this. 

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Dollar Bin:

Welcome back to the Dollar Bin, one of my favorite corners of any local comic shop to spend some time digging through. This week's find: 1985's Moonshadow!

Talk about a book that's been on my radar for decades - maybe as long as I've been seriously reading comics - yet one I haven't actually picked up until now. Originally published through Marvel's Epic comics - kind of their Vertigo a full eight years before Vertigo existed - Moonshadow's J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth's coming of age, modern fantasy. I remember leafing through this one when it was still on the stands, probably near the end of its 12-issue run, so circa 1986. I would have been ten. This and Stray Toasters were books that initially confused the hell out of me as a die-hard disciple of Larry Hama's G.I.Joe, however, those books also planted the seeds for me to eventually see the potential that lay in the comic format beyond superhero books. I recently scored issues 1-4 in the dollar bins at the Comic Bug, and am looking forward to reading them.

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Watch:

I remember seeing the thumbnail for the first Wyrmwood movie on Netflix for years but never being motivated to watch it. I've had plenty of people whose opinions I trust recommend I do just that, but for whatever reason, I just haven't. Now there's a sequel on the way, and I'm still not certain how I feel about these flicks:

It's not that this looks bad, it just looks kind of repetitive. If anyone out there has seen these and vouch for them - because apparently like five of my good friends aren't enough - let me know. 

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Playlist:

Sugar - File Under: Easy Listening

Quicksand - Distant Populations

The Mysterines - Reeling

Ministry - Filth Pig

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed (pre-release)

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror 

Lower Dens - Escape From Evil

Opeth - Deliverence

Code Orange - Underneath

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Card:

Again with the damn Hierophant. What the hell am I missing? What am I so blindly adhering to that it's impairing me in some way?

The Mysterines - The Bad Thing

 

Holy F$*k! My good friend Jacob sent me a link to the new album by The Mysterines yesterday and when I dug into it, I very quickly realized it's freaking fantastic! I hear a bit of Savages, some Polly Jean Harvey, and overall a band I immediately fell in love with. So much so, I just bought tickets to see the band on May 4th at the Peppermint Club, a LaLaLand venue I've yet to attend. This will be my first concert since, well, you know, and I guess it stands as a testament to how much I dig this group that I effortlessly decided to go. 

I remind myself constantly that I won't have access to this kind of show soon, so I need to enjoy the things about L.A. that I love now, while I'm still here.

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Read:

After burning through all those Lovecraft stories a few weeks back, I became seriously shanghaied by his The Unknown City. This is one I'd definitely read before - and enjoyed quite a bit, might I add. For whatever reason though, this time, it's just not doing it for me.

So, prompted by a conversation with a friend who had just read it for the first time, I decided to re-read The Colour Out of Space.  For this, I'm switching back and forth between the Kindle version and the one I have in this old anthology I acquired somewhere long ago at what I'm assuming was a second-hand bookshop somewhere:

This nifty little volume was published by nyrb classics (that's New York Review of Books, not the name of a new Lovecraftian species) and contains stories by Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce and Arthur Machen, as well as several other iconic cosmic/folk/weird fictions writers. I've read most of what's in here - this is a shelf volume I pull here and there and read from, and it's a great example of the kind of anthology a publisher can pull together with a coherent theme and a little bit of backing when the contents are mostly - if not completely - in the realm of public domain. 

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Playlist:

Ghost - Impera

Hyperia - Silhouettes of Horror

Electric Youth & Pilotpriest - Come True OST

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

King Woman - Celestial Blues

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

The Mysterines - Reeling

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

Deftones - Gore

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Card:

Standstill that requires a dose of either cash or luck or both to achieve a truly remarkable result. I'll keep this in mind throughout the week, as it seems to me there are several possible applications at the moment for this spread. 

S.E.S. Soundtrack Excerpt Saturday: Electric Youth & Pilotpriest - Modern Fears

I'm doing a bit of mental restructuring and wanted this site to match. This is kind of my forward-facing mental pocket - a place I can tip out the contents of my head and sort it into something shareable with others, so it makes sense that it would grow and change the same as I do.

For S.E.S., I wanted to have one day a week where I could just put up a piece of music that, at that moment or in the moments leading up to it,  has contributed to my current mental state. I also wanted to find a way to be more consistent posting without having to throw down the sometimes cumbersome regular format I employ. There was a time when not every post on these pages was as long as the current structure I've been working with for the last few years, and mixing and matching the two should keep my posting more consistent.

Pilotpriest and Electric Youth from the soundtrack of Anthony Scott Burns' (aka Pilotpriest himself) film Come True, which was on my top ten last year and which I am in desperate need of a rewatch. 

The vinyl soundtrack is courtesy of Waxwork Records and can be purchased HERE. It's divided between both artists, with several tracks being collaborations or remixes. Here's my favorite credited to Pilotpriest:

A Blasphemous Nun Massacre at the Hexie Mountains!

 

A new video from Orville Peck's recently released Bronco, Chapter 1. I can't wait for the entire album to land and my vinyl to arrive. If you haven't already, you can scoot on over HERE to pick one up for yourself.

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Watch:

Despite working slightly more than a full day yesterday, I had a pretty damn good 46th birthday. Nothing fancy. Homemade burgers and Demons 2 kicked things off, as I picked up that stunning Synapse Films double feature of Lamberto Bava's two Demons films back when it came out a year or two ago, and still hadn't set eyes on their transfer of the sequel.

 

Ironic that I could only find Arrow Video's trailer for their restoration of the film, but whatever. The Synapse transfer is gorgeous, and I'm quite happy with everything about it.

Later, to end my night, I threw on one of my recent favorites - Joe Begos' VFW. It'd been a minute since I'd seen this one, but I feel like all the beats are seared into my head thanks to that one magnificent Beyondfest double feature back in 2019. 

I love this flick so damn much. Both this and Begos' Bliss are films I feel like I could watch every day. In lieu of that, I tend to just toss them on when I can, to re-experience not just the film, but that glorious final Beyondfest at the Egyptian, my favorite place in LaLaLand, now owned by Netflix.

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Play:

Not only did my Nintendo Switch arrive yesterday, but I was able to pick up Puppet Combo's Nun Massacre from the online game store!

 

The game, like Glass Staircase before it - which I'd bought on my Mac a few years ago and quickly gave up on without a controller - is a bit difficult to get used to for someone who hasn't ever really played 360, immersive games, but very well worth the pangs of the learning curve. The atmosphere is stellar, and when the titular Nun takes to stabbing you to death, things get pretty intense. Definitely recommended for anyone who digs Horror and Games. Reminds me a bit of my all-time favorite Video Game, Shadow Gate, which still influences my personality endlessly, despite not having played it in decades at this point.

Despite all this love I'm heaping on Nun Massacre, however, it was another game I picked up at the same time that I spent the most time with. Thanks to a recommendation by my Horror Vision cohost King Butcher, I grabbed Game Kitchen's Blasphemous:

The image of that giant baby with its eyes stabbed out, held by a monster as it tears a person limb from limb sealed the deal. This is some insane shit, and I'm absolutely in love with this game, which was obviously designed by a bunch of Metal Head Stoners (my people) who were very much influenced by the Castlevania series, which, back when I played video games on the original NES system, was a favorite (especially part 2: Simon's Quest).

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed

Drug Church - Hygiene

Quicksand - Slip 

White Lung - Paradise

Every Day (is Halloween) Playlist (Reveal in upcoming April 4th Edition of the newsletter)

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Card:

Back to my Thoth mini. My intention was a three-card spread, however, this card literally jumped out of the deck at me:

A solid foundation to build from takes good, strong effort and clear thinking. Pertinent, as we just had another phone conversation with our Tennessee realtor. Things are moving forward, and I'll post more about it here when our machinations fully lock into place.

New Music from Bauhaus

 

Today is my 46th birthday, and it looks like the four original members of one of my favorite bands saw fit to get me a little gift. That's right, a new track from Bauhaus, and one utilizing the ol' Exquisite Corpse technique we last saw them employ on my favorite Bauhaus album, The Sky is Falling. Hopefully, this means we have a new album coming. I personally LOVED the band's most previous album Go Away White - the first post-break-up. 

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Play:

I surprised the hell out of myself yesterday by ordering a Nintendo Switch. Why?

 

I think I first got wind of Puppet Combo's low-fi indie games after reading a Bloody Disgusting article a couple years ago. Other than a love for DDR, I haven't played video games since the original Nintendo, so as much as I loved Glass Staircase when I bought it for my computer, I really didn't have the time or gumption to play it. But Puppet Combo's overall 70s/80s horror-inspired games are so damn cool to look at. Well, an article on BD yesterday announced his game Nun Massacre was hitting Nintendo Switch today, and I took it as a sign. Couple with that an interest King Butcher, my co-host on The Horror Vision, has stoked in me with the reviews of the newest Metroid game and Valfaris on previous episodes of our podcast, and I figured it was a win-win. 

Plus, how the hell do I pass up a game called Nun Massacre?

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Drug Church - Hygiene EP

Spotlights - The Age of Decay (single)

Deftones - Rosemary (single)

Peturbator - I Am the Night

Bauhaus - Drink the New Wine (single)

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Card:

I felt like my Thoth mini deck (thank you, Missi!) hadn't been seeing any real action of late, so I decided to do my birthday pull using it. Here we go:

All good signs for prosperity. Which is a relief. Our plans to exit LaLaLand keep getting pushed around. First my medical shit, then the Nashville market - another reason to dislike Angelenos - now work stuff. The move is imminent, however, I also have a CRAZY idea for a short film project that the Universe seems to be telling me to reach for, so maybe I'll be here just long enough to try.

New Music From Blut Aus Nord!!!

 

Many thanks to Heaven is an Incubator for posting about the new Blut Aus Nord album Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses, out on May 20th 2022 from the always awesome Debemur Morti Productions. This sounds like a return to the 777 era of the band, so one track is really just a big freakin' tease. 

Pre-order the album HERE.

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NCBD:

A light week this week for NCBD. Good. I spent quite a bit last week.

Saga! So happy to have this book back in my life, and awesome to see Lying Cat on the cover this month.

The fourth issue of X Deaths of Wolverine was the best one so far and has had me anxious to read this finale. 

A new stand-alone Horror anthology? Like, in the vein of The Silver Coin perhaps? Whatever the flavor, how the hell do I pass up a cover like that?

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Plastic:

I can't believe they made this:

And I can't believe I got one without paying through the nose. So damn cool.

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Playlist:

Drug Church - Hygiene EP

Entropy - Liminal

Author & Punisher - Krüller

SOM - The Shape of Everything

Johnny Marr - Call the Comet 

Metallica - Ride the Lightning 

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Blut Aus Nord - That Cannot Be Dreamed (pre-release single)

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

I'm taking this as a considerably more literal interpretation than I normally would, throw up some horns and jam some Slayer today.

Rammstein - Zeit

 

What a weird coincidence this is. It's not all that often that I listen to Rammstein. They're definitely a band a dig, however, unless it's the two songs on the Lost Highway soundtrack, there's a pretty specific time and place for sure. Late last week I cracked out Rosenrot, and now look - new album Zeit out April 29th! Pre-order the album HERE.

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Watch:

This past Saturday, before the return of my annual St. Paddy's celebration, I caught a mid-day showing of  Ti West's new film X at the local AMC. I've posted the trailer here before, back when it first dropped, but here it is again:

X is fantastic. Don't read or listen to anything about it, other than me telling you right here to go see this one on the big screen. You won't regret it. In keeping with West's glorious style, this is a very loud quiet film. It's bloody and human and strangely sweet at times. 

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Dollar Bin:

Back for another Tuesday afternoon digging in the ol' dollar bin:

Despite my allegiance to Vertigo at the time of its release, I had never even looked through an issue of House of Secrets until two weeks ago when I found the first story arc from the 1995 reimagining of DC's House of Secrets. And yet, in spite of that, several of the covers in this arc loom in my comic book knowledge as extremely iconic images. Especially issue #2.

There's definitely an element to this series that makes me see Vertigo's mid-90s style storytelling as very brand specific, however, since nothing I know of looks or reads this way anymore, any problems I had with this first arc - this reinvention's arbitrary relocation of the titular House to Seattle, Washington in an obvious attempt to capitalize on the *ahem* grunge movement, the fact that every character in the book is in a band or fucking someone in a band, the then-current newsworthy societal plot points. Unfortunately, STDs and molestation have always been problems in our society, however, the ignorance and fear that limited allowed them to grow to epidemic proportions became a campaign slogan themselves, and a talking point for societal criticism. Not a bad thing, but also, the approach to a lot of the tv and literature that took a swing at incorporating such a hot button issue often feels trite and misguided. There's a bit of that here, or, I'm just out-of-phase with my residual 90s self.

Regardless of little gripes, this first arc was a good read and I was overjoyed to put all six issues into my short boxes for a mere $6.00.

Also, Teddy Kristiansen's art is most definitely iconic and hits the sweet spot created in my soul by similar artists such as Marc Hempel and Peter Gross. There's something so Grimm's Fairytales about this style, and as I intimated above, it's one we don't really see anywhere anymore (if you know of a place to find it, let me know!)

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Playlist:

Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence

The Pogues - If I Should Fall from Grace with God

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & the Lash

U2 - The Joshua Tree

John Carpenter with Alan Howarth - Big Trouble in Little China OST

Every Day (is Halloween) Newsletter Playlist: You, the Knight and the Music

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Judas Priest - You Got Another Thing Comin' (single)

Til Tuesday - Voices Carry (single)

Ghost - Impera

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Card:

Past = XXI: The Universe

Present = I: The Magus

Future =  7 of Wands: Valour

Holding fast to a protocol - the word I'm using here in place of the more loaded 'belief' - I have established in a previous moment will put me in the position to successfully recreate something that has changed with time, never been completed, but remained a part of me. 

Pop Scars

 

Svarte Greiner's new record Devolving Trust was recorded in the "Once bombed-out Schneider Brewery, Berlin," and the acoustics are as much an instrument here as anything else. This is some serious atmosphere. Absolutely gorgeous in the darkest possible way, this brings me back to a headspace I lived in daily back around 2006. I found this one when comics scribe Warren Ellis mentioned it a few days ago on his Morning Computer, and within a few moments of checking it out, I was enraptured. However, this is not Wednesday-morning-at-work music, so I had to put a good solid listen on the back burner until later. 

And later it was. Loooong day Wednesday. It wasn't until about 5:00 PM that I had the chance to really dig in, and as I said, it did not disappoint. Once I was in Greiner's sonic conjuring, I couldn't listen to anything else for the next several hours. Actually, for the rest of the night.

You can pick up Devolving Trust HERE from Miasmah Recordings. 

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Watch:

A trailer for Brendan Muldowney's new film Cellar dropped a few days ago and it looks fantastic:

 

I've said it here before, but we need more Ancestral Horror, and this looks like a good start!

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Read:

I was completely blown away to walk into the Comic Bug this past Wednesday and meet Pat O'Malley, author of the new comic Pop Scars. I picked up the first two issues, and they're freakin' fantastic! A highly polished, super-bright grindhouse exploitation Hollywood Revenge flick delivered in the comic format, I love this book and can't wait for issue 3. 

This book is nuts: violent, funny, pop, and bloody. Very much the kind of book I look for when I'm scouring the shelves of a shop for something new and independent. The plan is to have Pat on an upcoming episode of A Most Horrible Library, so I'll definitely update here when that happens. In the meantime, here's a LINK to his Frightening Tales on youtube.

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Playlist:

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me

The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy and the Lash

The Tossers - The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Flogging Molly - Float

Exhalants - Atonement

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Perturbator - I Am the Night

U2 - The Joshua Tree

U2 - War

Faith No More - Angel Dust

Ghost - Impera

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

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Card:

Roll with the punches - I had an incredibly unproductive writing session today. So what? I'm not going to let it keep me from trying again tomorrow.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

 

I'm not going to be able to really celebrate until Saturday, but in the meantime, there's Pogues and Guinness.

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Watch:

You can really tell I've drank all the Marvel kool-aid now, eh?

 

A friend at work showed me this trailer for the upcoming Event Book Judgment Day, and I will say, I'm curious. I'm not very hip to the Eternals, however, the idea that in their fervor to rid the Earth of "Deviants" they've determined that mutants are one and the same, well, it's a good idea for a story.

Judgment Day lands in July - I think - and although I'm not certain I'll be reading it, I will probably be at the very least staying peripherally abreast of the beats and outcome.

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Playlist:

Tones on Tail - Everything!

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

Spizm - B4uDIE

Bryce Miller - City Depths

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Rammstein - Rosenrot

Mark Lanegan - Blues Funeral

New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too

The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me

Svarte Greiner - Devolving Trust

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Card:

Dogmatic regimes - outdated thought that threatens to lock your mind in a box of its own making - the worst kind. Hmmm... No context for this at the moment, unless A) the pull is the cards being playful, as I just had a conversation yesterday about The Hierophant with the person who colored and gave me these cards, or B) it's commentary on how far up Marvel's arse I am at the moment that I'm posting a trailer for an event book. Either way, always good to have a playful reading.