Anything Declan Shalvey has a hand in I will read. I'm stoked that the artist of one of my favorite series (Injection) is also a kick-ass writer!
Thus far, this alternate "What If?" book has my attention. I adore the OG spidey black costume, even before it became Venom, so this is cool to see.
YES! Summer camp slasher - 'nuff said!
I almost forgot about this series; I feel like its release has been a touch sporadic. No matter, three issues left after this one. Aquatic Horror never felt so good.
This series is gorgeous. Really digging it, and if I can get my hands on this variant cover, all the better.
Loved issue #1, let's see how #2 is.
Marvel is really monetizing Spider-man these days, but I've become a sucker for Nick Spencer's take on the book, even if it is jam-packed with more plot than you can shoot a web at.
Playlist:
Prédateurs - Les Discrets
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
I missed posting for the anniversary of Peter Steele's death back last month, but the Drab Four have been on my mind.
It's funny, over the last few years I've fallen into the habit of almost exclusively listening to Type O in the Autumn. Which is weird, because if I was forced to name a 'favorite band' it would probably be them (or Ozzy-era Sabbath). The reason for this weird confinement of their music is something I have been aware of, but not really analyzed.
Until yesterday.
In listening to Type O's final album, 2007's Dead Again, I realized the reason I largely reserve their music for Autumn is that out here in California, we do not have any of the recognizable features of my favorite season. October feels a lot like August, feels a lot like April, etc. After living the first thirty years of you life in the Midwest, the seasons become ingrained in you, in your thought processes and emotions and all kinds of other inner-working, hard-wired stuff. When I moved to the west coast about a year before Dead Again was released, I had to get used to the lack of burning leaves, thunderstorms, and a general sense of what I'll rather dramatically call 'the dying time.' Thus, I established early on a sort of "Internal Autumn" ideal, almost a mantra for my favorite time of year. This usually kicks in during the start of September and lasts through the first week of November. It's how I convince myself that I'm living in Autumn when I'm really not, an homage to the way I lived the years of my life that shaped me. This works, however, I think the inner autumn thing has become more difficult to sustain the longer I'm out here, that much further away from the experience of a real Autumn. Thus, I came up with this idea that if I reserved Type O - still the most Autumn band for my money - exclusively for that time of year, it would help sell this whole charade.
And as is often the case in psychoanalyzing yourself, now that I've picked this apartment, it feels freeing, because I WANT TO LISTEN TO TYPE O NEGATIVE ALL DAMN YEAR LONG.
So let's start here with Profit of Doom, the third - and possibly weirdest - track from Dead Again.
Damn, Pete. We fucking miss you.
Watch:
One of the movies I've been waiting for this year is Maximiliano Contenti's Red Screening, AKA The Last Matinee. I don't know a lot about this one, but check out this bee-oootiful trailer:
I've become quite a sucker for Neo-Giallo, and Horror flicks that take place in movie theatres always work good for me, so I'm jazzed for this one, which will be in theatres on August 6th and VOD August 24th.
Playlist:
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Lantlôs - Lake Fantasy (pre-release single)
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Anthrax - Among the Living
Card:
The 8 of Wands always feels like it's a premonition of good things to come, creatively. I need that right now; things have been slow and syrupy and I need to get myself moving again. The idea is in another week or so, since I am now fully vaxxed, I'll begin walking to my writing spot again. This should help me get back on track, so hopefully the card is a good omen.
A new show by the creators of Dark? I'd heard about this last year, but completely forgot about it.
READ:
You may know C. Robert Cargill's name best as the co-writer of 2012's brilliant Horror movie Sinister. He's also a novelist, and although I'm unfamiliar with most of his work, I began his new novel Sea of Rust recently and can tell you it is fantastic.
The novel takes place in a world devoid of humanity. It's our world after the AI war that wipes us out, after AI factions off into super mainframe intelligence - there are two and the denizens of the novel refer to them as OWIs, or One World Intelligences - and rogue robots who fight for the freedom not to succumb to the edict of trading their selfhood for the ease of becoming part of the hivemind. There are so many analogs to our world here that it's crazy; from the Corporatization of everything to individuality in the age of our own accelerated (social media), that the book has an uncanny ability to feel in harmony with our lives even during the, frankly, pretty damn well-written action sequences. I'm really digging this one, and am moving Mr. Cargill to my 'pay attention to everything he does' list.
Playlist:
Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City
Myrkur - Folkesange
DJ Muggs the Black Goat - Dies Occidendum
Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine
Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork Issue #1 OST
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
Card:
Ah, restraint. Thank you for the reminder. Here's the mantra for when I'm scouring ebay for things I do not need: I WANT A HOUSE.
Goddamnit, does it feel like forever since Stranger Things Season 3? It sure does to me. The good news is, when Season 4 gets closer, K and I have a full rewatch of the entire series planned.
Started the day yesterday with some Effigies. Been a minute, almost forgot how much I love these guys. Old school Chicago punk rock - still hits as hard as it does now as it did when I first heard it in the early 90s.
Read:
Everyone in my house had their second shot yesterday, and just like the first one three weeks ago, it's rendered me nearly immobile. That's a bit of an overstatement, however, I took a nap afterward and woke up feeling like chewed-up dog biscuits, so I'm off work again today. The morning marine layer is pretty intense outside, so the air is cool and charged with the Ocean. Windows are open, I'm breathing fresh air, and from somewhere nearby Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is playing. If I felt up to going to get some eggs and corned beef hash this would be a perfect morning.
While sitting in bed this morning, I'm doing some reading, going back and reading the afterward sections on two graphic novels I've read in the last month and absolutely loved:
Eibon Press's Bottomfeeder is a heartfelt work of sleazy Grindhouse Horror and I could not have loved it more. There are moments I can only call, "Stark raving terror" that are unlike anything I've seen in a comic (or a film) before. That said, it's also a class act; this is exploitation for exploitation's sake, however, it's clear to me that Stephano Romano, Shawn Lewis, Patrick Carbajal and everyone involved weren't just out to fill the pages with hateful dissonance, but to tell a fucking awesome story, as well. There's a lot of love for late actor Joe Pilato, who was originally attached when this was a screenplay, and who gave his blessings for the use of his likeness as the main character, Detective Joe Angell. You read this gnarly romp through tits, blood, and guts and then turn to those final pages and read Lewis and Romano extolling their love of Pilato as a friend and mentor and you get a little teary-eyed. Because Bottomfeeder is something unlike anything else, and that uniqueness makes for a special experience when you consume it. The Horror is real, meaningful, and executed masterfully.
Pun intended.
You can hear Chris Saunders and I interview Jay Fotos about his fantastic Rising Rebels graphic novel over on the A Most Horrible Library podcast. I read the book three weeks ago, after my first dose of the vaccine, but I had yet to go back to finish reading the extensive afterward section. There are author's notes that trace everything from the original impetus for Rising Rebels to the monster designing process but there's also a collection of Danny Marianino's 80s Once Upon A Time column, which is among the finest retrospective romps through the era of my childhood I've read.
My opinion is any diehard Horror fan would love both of these books, so if that's you, you can pick up Bottomfeeder over on Eibon Press's website HERE, and Rising Rebels is probably most readily available from Jay Fotos's eBay Store HERE.
Playlist:
The Effigies - Remains Nonviewable
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
Neurosis - Given to the Rising
SURVIVE - Mnq026
Genesis - Invisible Touch
Ice-T - Power
Card:
Exactly what I will need to get through the next two days and hit the ground running on Monday. My mantra: Keep your eyes on the prize: two weeks from yesterday I will be sitting on the patio at a local brewhouse drinking a pint of beer.
This one's been in my head since I broke out Ice-T's sophomore record Power a few days ago. Interesting how something that, technologically speaking, sounds so archaic, could be so catchy. Is there hope for those old-school 80s sounds yet? You know, the ones that came preloaded on consumer-grade Casio keyboards by the time we hit the mid-90s? The Night Court bass, Pan Pipes and the like? Maybe. I believe that's what a contingent of artists that hovered around the moniker Hypnogogic Pop attempted in the 00s, but in many cases, that attempt failed. IMO. Hearing this track now though, perhaps the time is ripe for someone new to come along and reclaim some of these weird 80s textures.
Watch:
Having read the two comic series as they came out, the first in 2014, the second a year or two ago, I enjoyed Cullen Bunn's The Empty Man, so when I saw there was a movie, I became both excited and hesitant. Then I saw Lustmord did the OST, and I knew I had to watch it.
I dug this one. The ending fell a bit flat for me, but overall, Director David Prior really conveys a heavy sense of forbidding that was a blast to experience. There's a great sense of dread - made palpable at times by Lustmord's brand of creepy cosmic textures. The funny thing is, in watching this, I don't believe it felt so much like an adaptation of the material from the comic, as much as it did the comic if it had been a novel by Laird Barron.
Playlist:
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST
ILSA - Preyer
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Card:
I'll be paying special attention to Big Ideas today.
I stumbled across the record by the band Vreid two days ago and quickly went from being impressed by their ability to conjure and own a lot of old school metal tropes to completely blowing my mind by moving through a network of decidedly non-metal elements to flesh their sound out into a pretty unique beast. Listen to the track above, then go on and hit play on this.
I kept thinking the Apple Music algorithm had moved me onto another band. The album does that, slowly incorporating other, decidedly non-metal ideas into its progression in a way that makes it a journey, which is very cool, and apparently exactly what I needed.
NCBD:
Okay, so I actually went and bought every back issue The Comic Bug had on the shelf for this newest Amazing Spider-man series, which means I have now read issues 49-64. I say this, because despite the storyline feeling a bit weighed down by plot threads - I mean, there are a f*&king LOT of them - I've kind of fallen for this book. There's a very Uncanny-Xmen-Chris-Claremont feeling at how writer Nick Spencer sets up future plots/reveals via one and two-page asides. This creates some serious Gottasees that build over the course of, in some cases, a lot of issues. Case in point, who was the extra corpse that Carli Cooper found among the bodies Kindred exhumed? They drop this with a two-page scene in issue 57, and we still don't know, going on 8 issues later! It's stuff like this, and a mounting idea that Spencer seems like he might be setting up to undo the "Brand New Day" stuff from back in 2008 that pushed all the old-school, Peter-and-Mary-Jane stuff aside in favor of streamlining Spidey for younger readers. Either way, I'm super intrigued at where this is all going.
One issue left after this. Love this series, and love its covers, especially this one.
The first two issues were so much fun, how can I not come back for more? I'm still not jumping on the Carnage train, however, the stories in the second issue of the titular symbiote's Black, White & Blood book felt like horror films, which is super cool to see a major "Fan Favorite" like this treated that way.
Another penultimate issue for a mini-series that I'm currently following. Short and sweet, and even if we don't hear from Pendermills, this and 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank have cemented Tyler Boss as someone whose work I will follow.
If you didn't know Larry Hama is writing an Iron Fist comic, don't feel bad, neither did I. I'm new to the character, however, I jumped at the chance to pick up a new, finite Hama project and so far, so good.
This book definitely skews a little more "classic Image" than I normally like. That said, I'm digging it and will follow it for the time being.
Playlist:
Deftones - Ohms
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Vreid - Wild North West
Boy Harsher - Careful
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Card:
Death is just the beginning, right? It's funny, yesterday my interpretation of the Queen of Disks was so on the nose that I'd used the words "Responsibility" and "Culpability" in discussion probably five times by 9:00 AM. I'm curious if my standard reading for Death as Change or Metamophasis will be as on the nose.
Sampa the Great is new to me (see below), but I am digging on this entire record.
Watch:
A couple weeks ago my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Wellman sent me this interview with Mike Patton. Fantastic discussion, but of special interest here is his mention of Sampa the Great, who I'd never heard of before and whose 2019, award-winning record The Return is currently blowing my mind. Here's my favorite track (so far) on an album where there are a lot of tracks and all of them are good.
What I love best here is the fact that, if you go to the All-Music entry on The Return and check the credits, almost all of the instrumentation is real, very little in the way of samples. Plus, all of it hits that 70s Soul/ R&B sweet spot I love so much. You know, back before people considered crap like beyonce R&B.
Playlist:
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Perturbator - Excess (Single)
Perturbator/Author & Punisher - Excess n (Single Remix)
Vreid - Wild North West
Sampa the Great - The Return
Deftones - Ohms
Ice-T - Power
Card:
The Queen of Disks always feels like a bit of an indictment to me. Kind of the spiritual or theoretical equivalent of Dante's change experiment in Clerks (yeah, I know that's an odd reference to tie into Tarot). While your better self (or Star self as I always imagine Crowley called it and didn't) is looking the other way, are you participating in something you shouldn't? The goat up front staring at us, essentially breaking the fourth wall, is a reminder you should always be aware, because others are whether you realize it or not.
There's a reminder of culpability here that I like, and whenever I see it, I try and run a mental checklist to see if all my ducks are indeed in a row. Interestingly, I feel like there's an element of that in The Return, as the record is peppered with dialogue snippets - mostly third party phone messages by Sampa's friends - that seem bent on making her understand something the world around her expects of her, but that she herself has left behind. And that's part of culpability, too, making sure that just because the world expects something of you, if it doesn't align with who you actually are inside, you're not falling in line. Keep your ducks in a row, not theirs.
After discovering Death Valley Girls late last year via (I think) the Henry Rollins radio show on LA NPR WKRC and having a brief moment with their then-new album Under the Spell of Joy, I kinda forgot about them again. However, the album popped back up on my radar last week during my black-out period here (BUSY!), and I've been listening to it ever since. Excellent album, which you can pick up from Suicide Squeeze Records HERE.
Watch:
I watched quite a few movies over the last five days or so since the last time I posted, however, Donald Cammell's White of the Eye may have left the biggest impression on me from those films I didn't already know. My co-host Tori talked about this one on the most recent episode of The Horror Vision, and our fellow cohost Anthony hit it square on the head when he described the film as a "Southwestern American Giallo."
You're going to have to be in the mood for 80s tropes, i.e. gratuitous guitar over sweaty sex scenes, and mullets like you may have never seen before, but if you can put you're head there and imagine you're watching this one late at night on a local affiliate at around 1:00 AM on a Saturday, you'll do just fine. Stand out performance by David Keith, who kind of transcends his "poor-mans Kurt Russell" thing and really does something cool with his role.
Playlist:
I'm not even going to try and log everything I've listened to, because I on a good day I usually mess that up. Here's what I remember:
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Gram Rabbit - Music to Start a Cult To
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility
CCR - Bayou Country
Deftones - Ohms
Lustmord - Hobart
Card:
My second shot of the Pfizer Vaccine is coming up this Thursday, so let's see if it knocks me out as hard as the first one did.
Oh man, how did I miss this last July? Would have come in handy.
NCBD:
Here's what I'll be picking up today for New Comic Book Day:
I'm pretty excited about this new Daniel Warren Johnson Beta Ray Bill series.
Deadly Class returns! What's more, issue 45 bumps the timeline up to 1991 - notice Marcus' shirt - and I can't wait to see how Rick Remender handles the era of my own teenage years.
Two hyphenated superheroes? Man-Thing and Spider-Man, seeing as how I've really been digging Spidey again and Man-Thing is an all-time favorite, this should equal a win-win for me.
Two Moons is dark, proto-American West Horror tied into Native American folklore. What more do I have to say, other than so far, I love it.
Playlist:
Belbury Poly - The Gone Away
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Gost - Behemoth
Zombi - Cosmos
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Minnie Riperton - Ten Best
GWAR - Scumdogs of the Universe
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Huey Lewis and the News - Weather
Card:
My old friend, The Fool. He's never too far away, is he? The voice of inexperience and novelty, a reminder that everything old is new again, and sometimes you have to look beyond your routines to make any progress.
I woke up one day last week and literally, before I could even climb from bed, thought, "Unchained Melody is one of the greatest songs ever recorded."
Now, I've know this song my entire life, and I've long enjoyed it, however, this was something different. I don't know where this contemplation and pronouncement came from, because I don't know that I've heard Unchained anytime recently. But there it was, and when I got to work and put in my headphones I had to concur that, yes, this song is epic.
Watch:
Here's one of my favorite new scenarios: I come home from work tired at least two days a week. I settle onto the couch with my pillow and my cat and throw on a movie. Usually, my go-to's for this situation are either Shudder TV or Prime. I almost always end up falling asleep within the first ten minutes or so, then wake up in the last three-quarters of the flick. In the best-case scenarios, whatever I see when I open my eyes prompts me to rewind all the way back and pick up where I dozed off. This happened yesterday with Rusty Nixon's 2017 Residue.
I LOVED this flick. I don't know that I've ever seen anything with this tone before, a kind of deft balance between humor, Horror, and Neo-Noir. Everyone nails their parts, the FX crew is cognizant of their limitations and do an outstanding job working within it (LOVE the Puppetry), and the mythology is just vague enough to leave me desperately wanting to talk about the flick and just specific enough to indicate the filmmaker knew what he was doing and stuck to it. All in all, this is one of my favorite finds in a while, as far as flicks that passed me by from recent years.
Playlist:
Zombi - Shape Shift
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
The Marvelettes - The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Levitation Sessions
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Tomahawk - Immobility
Suburban Living - Always Eyes
P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss
Various Artists - Valerie and Friends
Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death
SURVIVE - Mnqo26
Gram Rabbit - Music to Start a Cult To
Just Once in My Life - The Righteous Brothers
16 - Dream Squasher
Etta James - Second Time Around
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Card:
Center your strength, eh? Okay, that seems like good advice right now.
New video for Deftones' "Ceremony", the second track on last year's Ohms record. Great track.
NCBD:
Yesterday was NCBD, so here's what I picked up. Mike Wellman and I will be talking about these books and more tonight on the Drinking w/ Comics NCBD Round-up, streaming live on our FB page at 7:00 PM PST:
I'm still not sure I'm in for the long-haul on Marvel's Alien series, but I dug the first issue and am curious where it goes. For now.
I keep saying I'm logging off the newer Spidey titles, but I'm just feeling the character so much right now that I find I cannot.
I love that this character finally has a new series, and when I recently realized Dane's goat-headed butler is named Phillip, and really just wanted to buy Si Spurrier a beer.
I'm not a fan of the extended Symbiote family, however, I had such a damn good time with the first issue of this series that I have to come back for the next. Plus, visually, all these Black White & Blood books Marvel has been doing are outstanding.
And of course, last but certainly not least:
TMNT ongoing has been my flagship book for some time now, and I don't see that going away any time soon. Look at that cover!!!
Playlist:
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling
Gram Rabbit - Music to Start a Cult To
SURVIVE - Mnq026
The Joy Formidable - AAARTH
Sampa the Great - The Return
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Tiamat - Clouds
The Righteous Brothers - Just Once in My Life
The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - Definitive Pop Collection
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Always Be Full
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Last of the Great Storm Warnings
Card:
Another "invest in structure" pull that slots in timely after Tuesday's pull.
This past weekend I stumbled on the band Voyag3r. Never heard of these guys before, and I think Apple Music did me a solid by rotating Lord of Doom Fortress in right after a Steve Moore track. I'm still getting used to this new update Apple has that makes their service a bit more like Spotify by continuing to play music after whatever album you're listening to ends. I both like and dislike this feature, but in this case, definite mark in the "Pro" column, because as I said, I don't know that I'd ever have heard Voyag3r otherwise.
Listen to the outro of this track. It's gorgeous. After it ended, I listened to the entire record and absolutely loved it, so I'm on board. LOVE the use of guitars with the synths, it really makes these guys stand out from a lot of the other synthwave stuff out there. You can head over to Voyag3r's Bandcamp HERE and check out their music, or dial them up on your favorite streaming service.
So F*&king down.
Playlist:
SURVIVE - Mnq026
Blood Spore - Fungal Warfare Upon All Life
György Ligeti - Essentials
John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death
16 - Dream Squasher
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow: Live at CBGB
Card:
Prioritizing Earthly concerns, or in layman's terms, starting to save $$$ again. I did really good last year, but some unexpected car maintenance set me back last month. No biggie - gotta keep the machine running, right? Anyway, April was that rare bird where I had three paychecks in 30 days, so this is a reminder to roll into May feeding my savings account again. Can't keep paying rent forever, even in LALA Land.
New Zombi! I'm still blasting last year's aptly titled 2020 and here there is, more on the way! Pre-order from Relapse Records HERE.
Watch:
Our entire household received our first doses of the Pfizer Vaccine on Thursday afternoon and it subsequently knocked me on my ass. I had flu-like body ache, fatigue and borderline nausea until yesterday. Which was fine, because I called out from work on Friday and other than having to work five hours on Saturday - which sucked - and interviewing comics artist and entrepreneur Jay Fotos for A Most Horrible Library afterward (episode out now), I basically watched a bunch of stuff, read a lot, and got some writing done. Oh yeah, and sleep. I slept A LOT.
Watch-wise, first up was Andrzej Zulawski's Possession, which I'd been wanting to see for a long time but is fairly hard to come by. Luckily, Anthony from The Horror Vision has several European Region copies and I now have a Region-Free player, so the stars aligned and my mind was literally blown.
I'm seriously planning a second viewing of this one SOON, because I really need to unpack it.
Friday night, Joe Bob Briggs returned with the first episode of The Last Drive-In. I'm a huge fan of JBB, however, after about thirty minutes of Lloyd Kaufman's Mother's Day, I jumped ship. I respect the hell out of the Kaufman's and Troma, but thus far, I've never had a single one of their movies work for me. This one was no different, so instead, K and I rented Travis Stevens' new film Jakob's Wife.
Starring Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, there was pretty much no way this one would miss for me, and it didn't fail. Solid Five Stars on Lettrbxd.
I'm finally going back and re-watching all the Marvel MCU flicks that I missed due to total Superhero burn-out. If you're keeping track, I loved Ms. Marvel, and now loved Spider-Man: Homecoming!
Wow. I knew these flicks would all be good, however, damn! This one was awesome. K and I both LOVED Homecoming and now can't wait to watch Far From Home.
Finally, Saturday night we watched Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon's Freaky. Everyone told me this one was great, and they were all 100% correct. Loved it!
As my good friend Missi said, "Vince Vaughn was born to play a seventeen-year-old girl!" Amen!
Playlist:
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Zombi - 2020
Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility
K's 70s Playlist
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
Pilotpriest - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
John Carpenter - Lost Themes III
Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather
Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery
CCR - Bayou Country
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier
Numenorean - Adore
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Revocation - Teratogenesis
Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Zombi - Shape Shift
Zombi - Escape Velocity
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Voyag3r - War Mask
Various - Valerie and Friends
Card:
Definitely feels like a Victory that A) I received that first dose of the vax, and B) I'm back into a pretty great vibe with Shadow Play Book Two!!!
Now that that's taken care of, let's get into some comics!
NCBD has become a much bigger deal to me since Mike Wellman (AKA Mike Wahlman) and I resurrected Drinking with Comics. Here's what I'll be picking up today and (hopefully reading) before tomorrow at 7:00 PM PST when we live-stream the new episode and talk about all this stuff on our FB page! If you miss the stream, the edited episode will be up early Friday. That's the schedule we've set and are attempting to stick to for the foreseeable future. Now on to this week's books in...
PULL LIST:
I'm really feeling Spiderman lately, even though I'm not super into the way Peter Parker appears to be a teenager in his monthlies and an adult in the regular Marvel titles (as evidenced in The King in Black, which I broke down and bought all five issues of last week and overall enjoyed). Spider's Shadow is a kind of limited "What If" that asks What if Peter had become Venom. As for Non-stop Spiderman, this will probably be my last issue of it, however, the current Falcon and Winter Soldier show has my blood up for some Baron Zemo, and he made his appearance in the final pages of Nonstop #1, so I'm back for more Zemo!
I'm not really a huge follower of Red Fang - they're a solid band, they just don't really stand out to me. That said, I LOVE this video.
Read:
Pretty psyched to have been sent a digital copy of Osaka Mime from Behemoth Comics for review on our A Most Horrible Library podcast. This book looks NUTS, and I am all about finding out more everything I can about whatever the hell monster is on this cover:
Super cool. Chris and I should be reviewing this one on our new episode, dropping next Monday morning (Sunday night at Midnight if you do the youtubes).
A very special thanks to Behemoth Comics and creators Andy Leavy, Hugo Araujo, and Robin Jones for sending this our way.
Playlist:
Judas Priest - Firepower
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Card:
Significant in that I just sent a Beta copy of a short story I've been trying to solve for almost three years to my good friend (and constant beta reader) Missi. The story is 99.9% there but still feels incomplete; not start to finish, but something textural inside its narrative feels weak. I'm hoping Missi's insight will help me realize what, if anything it is (because it is totally plausible, when you've working on something for this long, to get into a headspace where you can't finish it, even when it's finished).
I'm back on this reassessing the 80s kick, wherein I dig back into a lot of the music I dismissed or, in some cases, openly mocked in my 20s.
The Scorpions were a staple of pre-Grunge radio and a band whose singles I had a particular affinity in my pre-teen years. It would have been around the age of six or seven that I first heard their stadium-packing single "Rock You Like A Hurricane," a song that, at the time, sounded like the heaviest thing imaginable to my young ears, and helped steer me into metal. By '91 however, all these operatic-style vocalist-driven guitar-heavy bands had worn out their welcome, and I never bothered to look any further.
Fast forward to last week when, while unable to stop listening to 80s-era Judas Priest, I went scrolling down the neon corridors of Apple Music looking for another comparable band to unearth.
Scorpions are where I landed.
Covered by Testament on 1997's Signs of Chaos comp, it was my good friend and Horror Vision cohost Tori who pointed me toward Scorpions' 1977 album Taken By Force, specifically mentioning this song. I was not disappointed in the track, and in fact, despite some of the Scorp's other 70s-era albums not striking a chord with me, this one 100% did the trick. More proto-metal than butt rock, even the ballad "Born to Touch Your Your Feelings" has a dark, ominous allure that reminds me a bit more of some baroque Opeth song at times than Winger (in music only, as I can't rightly compare the vocals). This makes sense; as far as I know, what put the Scorpions to bed in the early 90s wasn't a predilection for mascara and cheese, but endless rotation and what sounds to me now, looking back, like an over-reliance on Producers who grouped them in with everything else 'happening' in generic hard rock at the time. I.E. everything Smells Like Teen Spirit would obliterate in 1991. I'd still rather jam Teen Spirit on most days, however, there's definitely a place for some Scorpions in my world.
Watch:
After catching up on Falcon and the Winter Solider this weekend (Mardripoor!!!), wee watched two flicks this weekend, both of which I enjoyed more than I initially thought I would:
First, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. This stands as probably my favorite movie K has introduced me to. I loved it, and I especially appreciated that they 'stuck' the landing.
Next, the recently released Wrong Turn reboot, which I cover pretty extensively on the new episode of The Horror Vision that went up this morning.
My motivation for watching this one, as I've not seen any other entries into the series (except maybe the first way back when it came out on video) was simply as an act of balance.
On THV's previous episode, my cohost Butcher gave the film a bad review, and as an attempt to provide the benefit of a second perspective I decided to install a 'Second Chance' policy on the show. This is where when one of us gives a new film a bad review - which is totally acceptable and not something the second chance is meant to overturn - someone else will watch and review it as well. In some cases, this will add a possible positive review, and in some, I suspect it will only strengthen the argument against. However, the internet is awash with negativity, especially in regards to movie criticism, and I want our show to be held apart from that rampant, often collegiate negativity. Bad reviews are inevitable in film critique, however, I want our criticism to be better than just name-calling and rampant negativity.
Playlist:
Judas Priest - Firepower
Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Pilotpriest - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Zombi - Cosmos
Blanck Mass - No Dice (single)
Scorpions - Black Out
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Foster the People - Torches
White Lung - Paradise
Razor - Live! Osaka Saikou
The Rods - Live
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Card:
Balance is exactly what I am striving for this week. Last week was a manic roller coaster wherein I accomplished absolutely nothing and tied my stomach into a knot that finally untangled yesterday after nearly 9 hours of sleep and a cleaning frenzy.
A little old-school Deftones for you. Love this album, but I've fallen into the habit of forgetting about it due to the fact that Apple Music ranks it as "Various Artists" and, thus, puts it in with the "V" artists instead of my other Deftones stuff. Of course, I still have the CD, but with the car stereo out of commission, those aren't nearly as handy as they used to be.
Great track. I love the crickets. I'll forever be grateful to Jacob and Jeremy from Blue Karma for convincing me to give this record another chance, back in '06.
NCBD:
Since Mike Wellman and I brought back Drinking with Comics, I've been buying way more stuff than I normally do. Big Two stuff, even. Later tonight we'll be live-streaming another DwC NCBD run-down on our FB channel, with the edited video to follow tomorrow. In the interim, here are the two surprise big hits this week, both of which I absolutely LOVED.
I don't think I've ever liked a Geoff Johns comic before, but then again, everything I'd be even remotely familiar with would be DC, and I wanted to give the man a chance. Glad I did, because Geiger's first ish knocked my socks off! Great art, and a really cool story, with a super-intriguing final image that guarantees I'll be back for more.
An anthology comic that centers around a cursed (?) silver coin and the various lives it affects, each issue by a different creative team? Well, if this first installment was any indication, I'm in for the duration. I love that this is the second historic (1978) rock band comic horror comic I'm reading at the moment, Home Sick Pilots being the other (90s).
Playlist:
Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Judas Priest - Firepower
Valkyrie - Fear
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Card:
Insatiable. That feels about right because I'm really unable to concentrate, I'm eating too much, drinking too much, and not writing enough. I think I've run out of patience for this stunted COVID existence. I've been attempting to sign up for Vaccination, but it's mostly just making me frustrated as all hell. Looking toward the horizon and hoping to see better days and a return to productivity.
