77s - You Don't Scare Me

Full disclosure - adding this song from the 77s' 1984 album All Fall Down was an eleventh-hour switcheroo. In truth, I don't recall ever hearing of the 77s before last night, when this song played over the closing credits of Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill and Joe Hill's Black Phone 2. 

F*#king track made an impression, to say the least.

I drove home on the 24 with both windows down, around 11:00 PM, blaring this track, and it felt GOOD. About as good as blasting "Rock You Like A Hurricane" felt leaving my first theatrical viewing of Ti West's Maxxxine* last July. Something about an awesome, swanky rock song pumping out the windows into the night air.

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I know that song's not actually in Maxxxine, but it fit the mood of the moment just fine.

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31 Days of Halloween:

There's a lot of trepidation surrounding Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's Black Phone 2. The trailer looks fantastic, but A) like all goddamn Bluhouse trailers, it shows too much, and B) how do you follow that first film? 

I've been a fan of these two since Sinister. I stand by that one, regardless of that unneeded final scene. The atmosphere is so... heightened. I don't know that the film scares me, but I know it scares the characters. That's something I'm not sure I've ever put into words before, but it's accurate. The success of that first Black Phone film - what these two did with Joe Hill's wonderful but curt short story, it just seemed impossible to follow through on. Not the case. 

As annoyed as I've become seeing this trailer before every movie for the last month or two, somehow, it doesn't actually give that much away. That said, I'm posting this here for posterity's sake; if you haven't seen the film yet, don't watch it. The less you see, the better. Why? Because Black Phone 2 is visually and sonically STUNNING.

That should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Derrickson's career. The two standout additions here are the use of grainy, 16mm film stock that signifies an altered state of awareness and Atticus Derrickson's score.

Both the 16mm technique and Atticus Derrickson carry over from the duo's "Dream Killer" in V/H/S/85. I'm not the biggest fan of that particular franchise; however, seeing that segment on the big screen two years ago is something I reflect on quite a bit. The visual textures Derrickson creates, and the way they're accentuated by the score (and a cameo by Throbbing Gristles' Hamburger Lady) make such a strong sense impression... It's unlike most cinematic things. Same too with Black Phone 2. I'm not saying it's the best thing since The Shining, but this style is unlike anything else I've seen. There's a nostalgic element, but I think that's the atmosphere, not the actual technique. 

Either way, if you dug the first one, Black Phone 2 is well worth your time.

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy/The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)/All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining/The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)

15) They Live in the Grey/John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)

16) The Black Phone 2

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Playlist:

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Odonis Odonis - Eponymous (pre-release singles)

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Dream Division - The Devil Rides Out

Goblin - Phenomenon OST (Wax Work Edition)

Ghost - Infestissumam

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Cursed Moon - Rite of Darkness

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem

Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside

77s - All Fall Down

Beastmilk - Climax

Throbbing Gristle - Hamburger Lady (single)

Throbbing Gristle - Slut Bait (Live at the I.C.A. London single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Nine of Swords

• VII: The Chariot

• Eight of Wands

Anxiety, Willpower and Action. Meaning, I have to do something about the anxiety currently haunting me. That's pretty vague, but I don't have a lot of gumption in me at the moment, so leaving this here to possibly decode later. 

In Praise of Bacchus

Can you feel it? October is in full dying mode. The plants K and I worked so hard to keep alive all summer long through the heat are succumbing to the dying time. So am I, sonically speaking. So yeah, here's one of my all-time favorite tracks from one of my all-time favorite bands, so perfect for Autumn. I think that, after I post this, I'll get high, open another beer and read Dawn: Lucifer's Halo. Just list those autumns so long ago.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I had the really cool experience of finally seeing George A. Romero and Stephen King's original Creepshow on the big screen last night. Regal is doing a Horror movie a day in October, and this week is the big week for me: Creepshow last night, John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness tonight (never thought I'd have a chance to see this one at a theatre) and The Black Phone 2 on Thursday. Black Phone is not part of this month-long repertory stint; I'll be back at that next week. 

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy/The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)/All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining/The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982)

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NCBD:

Tomorrow's Pull at Rick's Comic City, Clarksville. 

LOVE this cover. I'm getting Shockwaves vibes from the thing in the background. Very cool.

As usual, it'll be a minute before I get my hands on the last couple Z News, but I always love to look at the covers and wonder what bizarre copy Mr. Zdarksy and crew will throw at us on any particular topic. 

So, The War turns out to only be 3 issues? The solicitation on League of Comic Geeks starts with, "the stunning conclusion...".  I'm both bummed and relieved. Even though the second issue of this series didn't hit me as hard as the first did, this is all so relatable it's insane. Ennis and Cloonan should collaborate more often - I definitely think she captures the darker aspects of his characters. 

I'll always support the Laphams, and after only one issue of Good As Dead, my doing so is rewarded. This book feels like it's going to be a wild ride. Nobody does crime comics like the Laphams. Sure, Brubaker and Phillips are at the top of their game, but this is something else entirely. There's always an element of low-key magical realism in the Laphams' work, and it often just springs out of nowhere. 

Another Night Force issue. Cool. I'm looking forward to how the two teams play out. G.I. Joe still feels like the Energon Universe book with the most to prove, and I'm hoping something big will come into play soon. 

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Playlist:

Black Tape for a Blue Girl - Remnants of a Deeper Purity

Blindfolded and Led to the Woods - The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes me

Testament - Para Bellum

Tool - Aenima

Tear for Fears - The Hurting

The Damned - Evil Spirits

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

sunn O))) - Eternity's Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & Reverential EP

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Type O Negative - October Rust

Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Skinny Puppy - Mind: the Perpetual Intercourse

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Five of Wands

• Six of Swords

• Four of Pentacles

Conflict, Science (skill) and a base of power. Sounds like it's time to circle the wagons. 

Ritual Howls - Going Upstate

It hit me today (writing this on Sunday) that Ritual Howls' Into the Water will be ten years old next year. That, in retrospect, made me reflect on how it's now been a decade since everything in my life got rewritten for the better. Not many folks get to start over again and improve their existence exponentially. I did, and these guys were one of the first bands I found waking up in that new life, this record in particular. So it will always be special.

Listening to this, the closing track, in the early night, winding home on the country road that takes me out of Clarksville proper where I sometimes write and into the unincorporated area where we live looked very much like this video. It was just kind of a perfect moment for October. 

Oh yeah, Ritual Howls have a new album dropping on Halloween this year. You can hear the singles and pre-order the Neon Green Vinyl over on their Bandcamp HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy/The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)/All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining/The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

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Playlist:

Slaughterhouse - Sick and Tired EP

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime Tandem

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius

Perturbator - I Am the Night

Deftones - private music

White Lung - Eponymous

White Lung - Sorry

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

Mark Ronson and RAYE - Suzanne (single)

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Ministry - Psalm 69

Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Ritual Howls - Ruin (pre-release singles)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Page of Wands

• IV: The Emperor

• XXI: The World

Completion. To get there, though, I need the person holding the 'keys' to have an epiphany. Or maybe I'm the person holding the keys? If that's the case, I had the epiphany today. This is all vague, but I'll just say, working really hard on getting Black Gloves & Broken Hearts published by the end of the month. One big roadblock, and it's not me, it's the Emperor. 

Day of the Dead!

 

Started my Thursday morning off with John Harrison's Day of the Dead Soundtrack. There is no way this album isn't a massive influence on Boards of Canada.

This is interesting - this youtube post is from the 2022 Numenorean Music release of the score. Unlike the Waxwork vinyl edition I actually listened to, this changes the opening track of the album from "Main Title" to "Dead Suite," a track that essentially merges the first five tracks from the Waxwork edition. It should be noted that, without doing hardcore research, the Waxwork edition purports to be the definitive edition, and the accompanying essay by Harrison backs that up. From the Waxwork website:

"In 2013, Waxwork Records and composer John Harrison unearthed the original, lost 1985 master tapes containing the complete DAY OF THE DEAD film score from the attic of a recording studio in Pittsburgh, PA. After restoring, mixing, and mastering the complete musical cues for vinyl, Waxwork assembled a definitive and deluxe release of the film’s classic synth heavy score, approved by both the composer and director George A. Romero."

I actually had a bit of fun cueing up the vinyl with this youtube track and playing them simultaneously. In doing so, I was able to note their identical nature until a divergence that occurs at approximately 13:08 on the Numenorean version.

Unfortunately, the Waxwork is often out of print. However, if you go HERE you can sign up for notification when they bring it back, which they do so periodically. I can say this is easily one of, if not my favorite, record I have by them, so it's 100% worth it if you're a fan.

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31 Days of Halloween:

Ti West's first film, The Roost (2005), is criminally unavailable, and while I have a DVD I purchased from Blockbuster back in the 00s (it even has an embossed Blockbuster logo on the plastic of the inside front cover), this one is almost as hard to find as his follow-up, Trigger Man. Someone put these on Blu-ray! Seriously! 

Anyway, The Roost has become a semi-annual Halloween watch for me - thinking it made its way to annual this year - and I sat down with a vape pen and a beer to enjoy it last night. This one never disappoints, so while looking for a trailer to post, I came across the youtube channel Horror Channel Return, which has it up in full. Again, I can't feel bad posting this, because the film is just not available for people to watch. So I'm reposting it here, with the hopes that you'll buy it when and if you can, but also, that you'll head over to Horror Channel Return and check out the other cool stuff they have up. At a glance, I saw Rocktober Blood, so, yeah, instant sub.

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

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Read:

I'll admit, I had a few reservations about the end of Daniel Warren Johnson's run on the Energon Universe Transformers title and Robert Kirkman taking over. In retrospect, that's assinine. Kirkman wrote one of my favorite comic series of all time - The Walking Dead. Not only wrote, but kept it my favorite monthly book from the time I began reading it monthly with issue #25 to the end with issue #193. Favorite because it sustained a level of engagement, surprise and fervor that entire time. That's thirteen years!!!

As a lovely outro to series artist Jorge Corona (see also, The Me You Love in the Dark), he illustrates the first handful of pages, a Decepticon 'pep rally' of the violent sort, as Megatron returns to his rightful (?) place as leader. I LOVE the reasoning Megatron employs here - that all the "Domination! Oppression! and Conquest!" they enact is all in the name of eventual peace. Brilliant! So many parallels...

If this is any indication - and I'm certain it is - we are in for quite a ride, especially with Kirkman also writing the auxiliary Transformers book, Void Rivals. I think things are really about to get fun.

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Tonight (single)

Joy Division - Still

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime Tandem

Slaughterhouse - Sick and Tired EP

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Jammes Luckett - May OST

Sam Hain - Unholy Passion

White Lung - Paradise

Slaughterhouse - Fun Factory

John Harrison - Day of the Dead OST

Fred Myrow & Malcolm Seagrave - Phantasm OST

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Page of Wands

• XIII: Death

• II: High Priestess

Creative Energy leads to a "death" - a complete change in scope for an already established idea. 

Mark Ronson & RAYE

It is rare to find music that you instantly bond with. That turns a Saturday night at 12:30 AM at age 49 into an event you cannot turn off. That makes you open another bottle of beer. That makes your heart pump like you've suddenly, unexpectedly fallen in love. That is RAYE. A chance encounter on KCRW on the way home from a great night out in L.A. that turns into an hours-long exploration of an artist's catalogue and yields a new obsession.

While the song above is the one that got me, I've been listening to Raye's 2023 album, My 21st Century Blues, for the last three days and it is stuck. In. Me. Head!!! Flashes of Hip-Hop and R&B, slick production and layered vocals really make this record stand out. Also exciting is the fact that Raye has a new album releasing next year. The pre-order is up HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

After rewatching Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 film [REC] this past Monday night, I feel I can definitively say that I think this is the single best use of the found footage Horror trope/genre out there. In fact, the only thing that might top it is [REC]2.

 

[REC] gets you to drop your guard early on, and then, when shit goes down, quickly becomes increasingly savage. If you haven't seen these but ever wondered what a demonic possession movie would look like with the contagion mechanics of a zombie film, these first two [REC] flicks are for you.

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

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NCBD:

This week's pull list over at Rick's Comic City, Clarksville:

One more issue of Batman: Dark Patterns to go after this. One of the best Bat-series I've read, and while I'll be sorry to see it go, with a character that is strip-mined as much as Bats, I'm glad Watters and Sherman are leaving us wanting more instead of overstaying their welcome. 

While I recall enjoying the first issue of this Event Horizon prequel mini-series, I don't remember it. I'm not the biggest fan of the flick - I dig it, but each subsequent viewing since my first has diminished it a bit. That's not to say there's a lot of mythology contained in that film that I'd like to see explored - hence my interest in this series. Like probably everyone else who has seen the film, I want more Hell dimension! This book promises to give it to us. 

Things are heating up in Springfield and beyond. Curious to see where the various threads are going to coalesce. I've been into G.I.Joe again in general, as evidenced by the fact that, earlier this evening, I spent 20 minutes lost in a rabbit hole about the character Sci Fi, a character I never owned or knew anything about. 

A new Horror comic from Spectrevision? Sign. Me. Up! Here's the solicitation, culled from League of Comic Geeks:

"Chicago, 1967. Magazine writer Harry Kean is dispatched to rural Indiana to investigate the sudden disappearance of Becky Plume, a local teenager who stepped into the national spotlight with staggering photographic evidence of a recent UFO sighting. Frustrated to leave his developing stories in Chicago—and the wife he’s hoping to win back—Harry sets off to expose a hoax but instead finds himself in a labyrinth of high strangeness involving a missing girl, her boyfriend, a UFO, and some mysterious black-clad visitors circling at the perimeter of a mystery more vast than Harry could possibly imagine."

I have no idea what this new SIKTC one-shot is, but, of course, I'm here for it!

And finally, Robert Kirkman takes over writing Transformers with issue #25. Looks like a potentially significant change in the book's tone, so I'm curious to see how this unfolds. 

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Playlist:

Dreamkid - Daggers

YUNGBLUD - Idols

Burial - Untrue

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Drab Majesty - Careless

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Faetooth - Labyrinthine

Type O Negative - October Rust

Tones on Tail - Everything!

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Spotlights - Love and Decay

Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Queen of Cups

• Knight of Pentacles

• XI: Justice

Strong emotional responses can lead to Willful advances in compensation. 

That's pretty weak, fortune-teller vague, but I'm tired, so that's all I have at the moment. 

lords. - bleeding out

 

I've been growing increasingly obsessed with lords.' single "Bleeding Out," perhaps because I can find next to nothing about them online. This song has the proverbial "it," even if I can't really explain what that it is. It's a feeling. A lonely, haunted exploration of desolation, doom and despair, but also an infectious, cyclical, creepy energy that keeps it moving and pulls you in. Well, it pulls me in for sure. I wish I could post a Bandcamp or something, but other than a Soundcloud and an Instagram, there's no trail for these guys, which just makes it even creepier in an age of oversaturation and instantaneous communication. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

While in L.A. this past Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting two places I had never been before. The first is Gardena Cinema. This is a family-owned, single-screen theatre at 14948 Crenshaw Blvd, Gardena, CA 90249 that, while I lived here, was a first-run theatre that only played big Hollywood movies. Franchises and the like. They had an all-day Universal Monster-thon and some friends and I had the pleasure of seeing Jack Arnold's Creature From the Black Lagoon in Real D 3D. 

I've loved this flick since I was a child, and it's one of Kirsten's favorites, too, so I've seen it a lot. After seeing it restored in 3D, I can honestly say I feel like I've just seen it for the first time. The restoration and conversion must have been a painstaking but rewarding process, as this just looks so good!

Next up, I finally made my way to Vidiots in Eagle Rock. Part video rental store, part theatre, I'd been wanting to hit this place up since it opened in June of 2023, a little bit less than a year after I moved. I feel like the heavens must have aligned on this trip, because while I would have been willing to go see pretty much anything there, it turns out my visit coincided with a screening of one of my all-time favorite films, Luky McKee's May.

I have no trouble admitting that as the movie began, I almost burst into tears. I love this one so much, and to see it on the big screen after all these years, side by side with some good friends - two of whom had never seen it before - was an experience that will resonate for the remainder of my life. 

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road/The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"/Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D/May

5) The Strangers

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Playlist:

lords. - bleeding out (single)

Drug Church - Prude

Maddie & Kenta Yacht Rock Playlist

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

NIN - I'm Afraid of Americans (single)

David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans (single)

David Bowie - The Stars (Are Out Tonight) (single)

Ozzy Osbourne - Tonight (single)

NIN - With Teeth

Faetooth - Labryinthine

Mark Ronson & RAYE - Suzanne (single)

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime Tandem

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

The Cure - Alone (single)

Drain - ... Is Your Friend (pre-release singles)

The Bronx - American Heartattack (single)

Dreamkid - Chrissy (single)

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Card:

While I'm traveling, I'm using the mini Thoth Deck that Missi gifted me many years ago. Still, I have to offer a reminder that creator Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot has been my day-to-day deck for over a year now (buy HERE), and Grimm's new deck, the Eldritch Lace Tarot, is up for funding right now on Kickstarter HERE.

Just the one card for today, a reminder to hit the ground running on my book as soon as I return to my daily life later today. Traveling back from L.A., I will say, I kept the thread going by writing two of the four days I was gone. Small sessions, but some important groundwork was laid, and I need to continue that today and tomorrow, despite the shit storm that is likely waiting for me 'at the office.'

Revocation - Dystopian Vermin

 

I'm traveling, so I'm not as up-to-date as I'd like. Flew into LAX yesterday and it's been wham-bam since, with no slowing down in sight. Fuck - I'll be 50 in March, and I had to fight ALL my 49-year-old lethargy for this trip. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and all that. Still, I can't complain - seeing good friends, eating Lee's sandwiches every chance I get, and going to see some solid flicks, even if I might not make it to any Beyondfest screenings while I'm here. Anyway, here's a video for one of my favorite tracks from Revocation's new record, New Gods, New Masters, out last week on Metal Blade. Order the album HERE, and if you get the chance, see these guys live. I saw them back in 2014 on the Summer Slaughter tour and although they were unknown to me at the time, I was a fan by the time their set finished. 

This song is just savage! No other word for it. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

Two nights ago, I had the treat of seeing Tobe Hooper's 1981 Carnival Slasher The Funhouse on the big screen. Regal Theatres is hosting a Horror movie night every night for the duration of October, and I thought it was awesome that they kicked the month off with this underseen gem. 

I remember hearing about this back in the day and it basically being out of print, because it took me quite a few years to track down a fairly cheap copy of the DVD. No idea where that went, and while I'm not sure this is one I'd add to the collection again at this point, I treasured seeing this in a theatre. 

The tally so far:

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road/The Funhouse

2)  Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"/Cabin in the Woods

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Read:

As I mentioned a few weeks back, one of the books I'm reading for my Shadow Play Book Two research project is Richard Ellman's Oscar Wilde.

I'm finding this book very engaging, and what's more, it's kickstarting a lot of interest in the Renaissance, which, admittedly, I know very little about. 

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Playlist:

Wojciech Kilar - Bram Stoker's Dracula OST

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Revocation - Teratogenesis EP

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters

Slow Crush - Thirst

Burial - Untrue

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boy Harsher - Careless

HEALTH - DISC0=PART II

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Three of Swords

• Knight of Swords

• Five of Pentacles

Disappointment, ambition, hardship or isolation. 

New Music From The Subways!

Holy smokes, has it been a minute since we had some new music from The Subways! I was initially going to post this last Friday, but then I realized it wouldn't debut until Friday afternoon, and I completely forgot about it. Seeing it in my drafts, I became excited all over again. I mean, NEW music from The Subways?!? Sure, this song doesn't herald a new album, just a comp, but STILL! Hearing this band again, I remember how much I love their first album. 

 

That new compilation is called When I'm With You, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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NCBD:

Pretty cool NCBD this week, as I've added a few outliers to my pull. 

I'm not sure I'll be buying Matt Fraction's Batman title in perpetuity, but I definitely had to grab this second issue just for the way the cover complements issue #1. Also, I did really dig that first issue, so who knows? Dan Watters' Dark Patterns is ending soon, and I've kind of grown attached to having a monthly bat-book. We'll see. 

I don't know much about Spider-Man Noir, but I dug the character in Across the Spider-Verse, and I love the design and concept, so I'm giving this a shot. Also, Erik Larsen returns to a derivation of the character that made him famous, so that feels like something I want to be here for. 

It just dawned on me now that we're six issues from SIKTC #50. I can feel this title building toward something, as it has gone backward into the past to propel us into the future. I don't know if I've said it here before, but I've carried a distinct idea for a while now that this book isn't going to go past 75 issues, so we may be closing in on a whole new world here. 

Like Spider-Man Noir, I don't know a helluva lot about Zatana, although I've probably read a skosh more with her than our Cage-voiced web-head up there. How could I not buy a one-shot with this title on the first day of Halloween? 

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Watch:

Puppet Combo made a movie!

Okay, yeah, this isn't going to win any awards. It also might ultimately prove a bit of a chore to get through. But hit damn if I'm not psyched to A) Support Puppet Combo's first film and, B) see some of their game imagery come to life on the big screen. If this goes well... imagine a Nun Massacre film? 

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Playlist:

NIN - The Downward Spiral

David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails - Back in Anger 1995

David Bowie - No Plan EP

NIN - The Fragile (Disc 1)

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Mitch & Ira Yuspeh - Seven Doors of Death OST

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Slow Dive - Thirst

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond OST

lords. - Bleeding Out (single)

lords. - Singles playlist

Cryo Chamber - Echoes of the Hollow Earth

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Cups

• II: High Priestess

• Six of Cups

There's that apathy again. So weird how certain cards in this deck just stick to me. I've never had this with any other deck. So we're looking at that disinterest I'm showing the digital world, and we see it undercut by cloudy logic; am I missing something? Am I mixing nostalgia with reason? 

Joy Division - Atmosphere

I've officially felt the change to my Autumnal self, and as such, Joy Division has been creeping into my daily listening more and more. In honor of that, I thought it pertinent to start the week with a favorite. 

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Watch:

In preparation for the first part of Stranger Things' final season arriving in November, K and I began rewatching the series from the very beginning. With all the delays and general negative cultural cache that's accumulated around this one, I'd forgotten just how goddamn awesome ST actually is. 

In particular, I'd forgotten that they tie Brennan's experiments in Hawins to Project MK Ultra, a topic that has fascinated me for well over twenty years at this point. It's nice to dip back into this and see it holds up to the way I remember it - pretty much perfect. 

For me, a lot of that negative cultural connotation comes from how long this whole thing has gone on. I remember watching Season Four, which I loved, back in the Spring of 2022 and seeing a lot of publicity that the next season would be out the following year. The premiere of Season Five on November 26 will be 3.5 years since Season Four premiered. That just seems crazy to me. So much momentum built up and dissipated, and for what? I'd wager that Netflix had the Duffer Bros. work up a spin-off in the interim, something that could be advertised when the show finally ends with its finale this coming New Year's. That's fine, but man, I don't know - if this show wasn't so damn good, I would have jumped off a long time ago.

But as I stated above, it is that good, so I'll just swallow that annoyance and get on with stoking my fan embers in the two months I have left before November 26th.

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Playlist:

Joy Division - Closer

David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails - Back in Anger 1995

David Bowie - Scary Monsters

Revocation - New Gods, New Masters

Mastodon & Lamb of God - Floods of Triton (single)

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Pasco 637 - Cuando Acecha la Maldad (single)

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

The Black Queen - Infinite Games

lords. - bleeding out

lords. - single playlist

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Neurosis - Through Silver In Blood (single)

David Bowie - Outside

Radiohead - Kid A

NIN - Pretty Hate Machine

Annihilator - Never, Neverland

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

Deftones - private music

The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood

Intensive Care & The Body - Was I Good Enough?

Netherlands - Vapors

Soundgarden - Bad Motorfinger

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Cups

• Seven of Swords

• Knight of Cups

Loss of engagement or apathy as a way to trick my mind out of the rut it's been in the last month or so. I'm not talking about a debilitating rut; I'm getting a lot of outlining accomplished on the Shadow Play sequel, but I've been preoccupied with the internet and my phone in general and that always leaves me feeling like shit. Digital hangover. So I've convinced myself I don't care about those connections anymore, and it's worked wonders. With the way now cleared, I simply have to follow where my nature takes me. Which is, of course, my own personal aesthetic, expressed best through writing. 

Russian Circles - Conduit

Eastside Bowl in Nashville is now easily my favorite venue near me. I was expecting Young Widows and Russian Circles to play on the tiny stage in the room off to the left when you walk in the door, the place where the Twin Peaks Day/David Lynch tribute was held back in February. And while that would have been nuts, instead I learned that Eastside Bowl is considerably larger than I thought. We were directed to the far end of the bowling alley, where an arrow pointing left denoted "Venue." One long, gently sloping, carpeted corridor later, we were standing before a stage in a room that reminded me a lot of a smaller Bottom Lounge. Needless to say, the show was fantastic; Young Widows KILLED it, and Russian Circles... wow. I'm not sure how I slept on these guys so long. I had a few tracks on a mix CD back in the early to mid-2000s, but that's it. Needless to say, I'm a fan now. Here's a favorite track off their most recent record Gnosis that sounded massive live in that room.

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Watch:

Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride received a trailer a few days ago. 

As is my habit of late, I only watched about twenty seconds of this before I shut this off. Don't want to risk overhype or overexposure, both very real threats to a pure theatrical experience in 2025. I can say, I've liked Maggie since Donnie Darko, and I'm super happy to see her in the Director's chair for this. 

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Read:

When I declared the remainder of my non-comic book reading for 2025, I knew there'd be a few minor exceptions. One of those came up the other day, when in preparation for an upcoming episode of The Horror Vision: Elements of Horror on The Company of Wolves, I picked up the beautiful 75th anniversary edition of Angela Carter's collection, The Bloody Chamber, which contains the story Carter and Director Neil Jordan adapted for the 1984 film.

First, Alex Konahin's cover art is magnificent. Second, I feel like I've just uncovered a missing link between old-school folk horror literature, such as Arthur Machen, and 80s authors like Robert Dunbar. I'm limiting myself to the pertinent story for the time being, but I can't wait to rip into more in a few months. 

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Playlist:

Deftones - private music

The Soft Moon - Criminal 

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

The Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum

The Damage Manual - Special Edition

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Pelican - Flickering Resonance

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Pentacles

• Ace of Swords

• Page of Wands

Stability seems to waver around me of late, and yeah, that feels about right. I'm constantly fighting back dark shit in my head about the future - my future, the world's future, et al. It definitely feels like a recent breakthrough of Will has me in a slightly better place than I was in a week ago, and the Page of Wands seems to suggest this isn't a fluke but a new beginning awash in inspiration. We'll see... 

September 25, 1980

John Bonham died 45 years ago today.

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Young Widows - Call Bullshit

My friend Chris is in town and we're heading to Nashville's Eastside Bowl tonight to see Young Widows and Russian Circles. Here's a track from the Widows' new album, Power Sucker, which is currently on my best of list for the year. 

You can check out more tour dates and merch for Young Widows on their Bandcamp HERE.

Also, Russian Circles' Bandcamp can be found HERE.

I'm relatively new to Russian Circles, but Young Widows I've been digging on since back when their debut Settle Down City landed in my mailbox. 

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NCBD:

I'm off today so I'll be heading into Rick's earlier than usual to pick up my books. Here's what's coming home with me for NCBD, September 24, 2025:

One issue remains after this month's Void Rivals before we are catapulted into the eagerly anticipated Quintesson War. Crossovers and Events are generally not my thing, but being that the entire Energon Universe is kind of one big crossover, I'm hoping Kirkman and company show the big two how to do these correctly. I've expressed my love of the Quintessons here before, so to have them up front for six issues is going to (hopefully) be a dream come true.

Now one of my most anticipated books each month, Zander Cannon's Sleep continues to keep me hanging on every issue. 

I was just talking about this on a recent episode of The Horror Vision, so I'm overjoyed to see the second chapter of James Stokoe's Orphan and the Five Beasts finally hitting the stands. The art in Stokoe's pages must take an insane amount of time, so I'll be reading this one slowly, with a keen eye on all the details that make Stokoe's work so rewarding. 

I'm behind on Condon and Alan Love's News From the Fall Out, but the first issue left quite the impression, so I'm looking forward to catching up this week and getting current. 

Regarding this cover: As a life-long fan of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with virtually no good adaptations of the source material or even just jaunts with the Headless Horseman, you have my attention, Mr. Spears. Please - the floor is yours. 

As I mentioned in Monday's "Card" section of this page, I'm still putting off my Lazarus reread that is meant to be a welcome refresher before jumping into this final Lazarus series. This series just hits too close to home these days. 

I started buying this Death of the Silver Surfer series for the covers, but the story is turning out to be pretty good, even if we all know there are no real stakes here. Still, even though I don't have much interest in most of what Marvel is doing at the moment, I always keep my eye out for mini-series, as there have been quite a few over the last five years or so that I really liked. The Death of Doctor Strange was incredibly good, and while this isn't that, it's keeping me hanging on from issue to issue. 

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Watch:

Last Saturday night I sat down and watched Brandon Christensen's latest flick, Night of the Reaper. Here's a trailer that won't spoil anything:

This one is a bit of style over substance, but not intentionally so, and it's pretty fun. That said, the "twist" did not feel earned at all, and I'm still a little bit confused as to whether the logistics actually work. Still, this would make a fun Friday night beer bottle flick for sure. 

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Young Widows - Settle Down City

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Drug Church - Prude

Led Zeppelin - Live EP

Roy Ayers - Ubiquity

Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road for the Hit

Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse

Joy Division - Still

Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• Queen of Cups

• Queen of Pentacles

• Nine of Swords

An abundance of feminine energy is never a bad thing; Coupled with the Nine of Swords, I take this as a "pay attention to what the women in your life are saying" connotation. 

Opeth Covers Alice In Chains

Being that I'm a fairly big fan of both these bands, I'm not sure how I never came across Opeth's cover of Alice in Chains' "Would?" Now that I have, I have mixed feelings. It's an excellent cover, don't get me wrong. That said, it reminded me just how awesome the AIC original is, and kind of just left me wanting to listen to that on repeat, over and over again.

But I don't listen to Would? or anything else on Dirt on repeat. This is a special album that is very personal to me, and with something like this, I'd be afraid of robbing even just a little bit of its power. 

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Watch:

Last Thursday, K and I took in a screening of Justin Tipping's new film HIM. Produced by Jordan Peele, this one is getting a lot of negative critical reaction. For myself, someone who holds pretty much nothing but disdain for both American football and modern hip-hop aesthetic - two factors that weigh heavily in this one - I absolutely loved it.

I still think this is one of the best trailers I've seen in recent years. It really whets the appetite without giving any actual plot away (though, I would argue, they should have held back some of the imagery divulged herein).

There's a lot about this film that makes me think it's essentially a skin of The Substance, but HIM is dressed in so much surreal, stylized imagery specific to Tipping's vision that it definitely stands on its own. 

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Playlist:

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond OST

Dean Hurley - Flower: Tales From the Occult Library

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Deftones - private music

Deftones - Ohms

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

INXS - Kick

The Bangles - All Over the Place

Billy Joel - The Stranger

Steely Dan - Aja

Deicide - Eponymous

Deicide -  Legion

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Kane Parsons - Backrooms OST

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Tinderbox

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• King of Pentacles

• Five of Swords

• X: Wheel of Fortune

Abundance, conflict and the inevitability of change. Not liking the sound of that at the moment. I suddenly know A LOT of people who have lost their jobs after working for their respective companies for years. I feel like Alien: Earth has really exacerbated my fears of Corporate life in this world, and now massive layoffs make it hard to dismiss those fears as nonsense. Pushing off that Lazarus re-read for a while longer, too. Don't need any more paranoia than I already have. 

Annihilator - Sixes and Sevens

Some old school Canadian Thrash from Annihilator to punch us in the face and remind us it's Friday! From the 1990 album Never, Neverland. This one takes me back to the days of dubbing random tracks off 88.3 WXAV, St. Xavier University's radio show. So many great musical discoveries.

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Watch:

Wow - I did not expect to find a trailer for Deathgasm II today! 

Really interesting setup for a sequel. I like the Ghostbusters II, "Nothing worked out for us after we saved the world," angle. And the idea of having an undead, flesh-eating zombie in your metal band is, well, how did no one ever think of that before? 

Not sure if this one is going to be in theatres or not, but one can hope. 

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NCBD Addendum:

Walking into Rick's Comic City yesterday, I had zero idea that David and Maria Lapham had a new series from Image hitting the shelves this week. 

A crime comic with a small-town scope, the first issue of Good As Dead sets a pretty mean stage. We meet the Valade Family, who run the local criminal enterprises and own the bridge that puts the small border town of Port Lindon on the map. In the other corner, we meet Sheriff Calhoun, who wants nothing more than to put down the Valades. We get the intimation that the Calhouns and Valades are two of the town's founding families, with something of a Haffield/McCoy history between them. After a couple of catastrophic events play out, Sheriff Calhoun doubles down on getting justice, especially when a pretty severe turn of events leaves him with little more than a week to live...

So yeah, this is going to be great! 

This has that Lapham, modern Southwest Noir flavor BIG TIME, and was a joy to read. There can sometimes be a bit of a disconnect with the Laphams' story compression techniques, but their stuff always wins me over in the end, so here's to at least two more issues (hopefully more, that's all that has been solicited thus far).

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Jim Williams - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched OST

The Divine Comedy - Promenade

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

The Soft Moon - Eponymous

Night Sins - Portrait in Silver

Joy Division - Substance

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division - Closer

Joy Division - Still

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

Ilsa - Preyer

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

Deftones - private music

Annihilator - Never, Neverland

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. 

Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck. 

• Four of Swords

• Five of Cups

• Queen of Swords

Rest and recuperate after a major disappointment. Doing so may force honesty where before there was none. 

Not vague at all. I don't really want to go into it, but I'm reading the 'rest' as holding off on sending a pretty sensitive email until tomorrow morning, when I was going to send it tonight. Never really a good idea to send a sensitive email in the middle of the night with a couple beers in you.