Perturbator - Satanic Rites

I've had a slow start on buying music since the turn of the new year, now an unbelievable almost seven months ago. Because of my continued work on Drinking with Comics I've spent much of the time and money I would usually put into music into comics. Couple this with the intense amount of work I've been pouring to my novel, ShadowPlay Book One: Kim and Jessie and my 40+ hours a week I spend in the Cryogenics Lab at my day job new music has just been hard for me to keep track of/partake in. If it wasn't for Heavenisanincubator, the installments my colleagues Grez, Chester and Tommy provide for Joup's Friday Album column, and of course the mighty Brooklyn Vegan and Bloody Disgusting, I would be fucking lost. In the digital age, if you stop to catch your breath for a moment everyone you've been trying to keep track of releases an album all at once!

Recently I began to remedy this. Within the last two or three weeks I've bought several of the records that have been on my list. The Afghan Whigs' return album Do To The Beast, Liars' Mess, Swans To Be Kind, In Slaughter Natives' Cannula Coma Legio and Perturbator's Dangerous Days. I won't say I like any one of the bunch better than the rest, they're all perfect examples of awesome for the particular moods they suit, however thus far I've definitely clocked the most miles with Dangerous Days. Satanic Rites is one of my favorite tracks on an album that consists entirely of favorite tracks.

Interested? You should be. GO HERE and name your price for the downloadable album or buy the JUST re-pressed digipak CD, which I missed getting by about a freakin' day. The art alone is worth it for the tactile copy.

The Children of Old Leech

image courtesy of WordHorde.com

News of The Children of Old Leech reached me about two weeks ago or so when Mr. Barron blogged about it and the news really made my day! A tribute to the mythos of Laird Barron (pre-order it HERE). Hot damn! Have I mentioned here, as I have repeatedly on Twitter, what a 'cosmic horror' phase I'm going through at the moment? It began with Nick Pizzolatto's True Detective, which in turn made me finally begin Robert Chambers The King in Yellow - a book that had been on my radar since acquiring the totally awesome coffee table book The Art of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos several years ago, the first place I heard of The King in Yellow. Laird Barron's work shares some of the DNA of these weird horror classics but it is very much it's own thing. Mr. Barron's skill with the short story is among the best I've encountered and every story I read by him is an absolute pleasure on the brain. He has several collections, not anthologies so much as what he so wonderfully calls mosaic novels. All of them are great. He also, thus far, has one novel and one novella. If you're unfamiliar with his work my suggestion is to just start at the beginning and work your way through it.

The Imago Sequence - mosaic novel
Occultation - mosaic novel
The Light is the Darkness - novella
The Croning - novel
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All - mosaic novel

The Empty Man... and Trees... and The Superannuated Man

image courtesy of ComicBookResources.com

... is the topic of today's Thee Comic Column over on Joup.

Come to think of it, I've been so busy I've not posted the last two links for my column here. Let's remedy that now because last week's was Warren Ellis and Jason Howard's awesome Trees:

image courtesy of BrokenFrontier.com

And the week before that was Ted McKeever's new book - which I am in love with - The Superannuated Man!

image courtesy of ImageComics.com

New In Slaughter Natives!!!

Thanks to my good friend Chris Widerstrom for the heads up on this one. Pre-ordered mine today. Can't wait - there is just no way to describe the ISN sound without using the words "Horror" and "Apocalypse".

Pre-order Cannula Coma Legio Here

Drinking with Comics Issue #7

We spent last Monday shooting the main part of the show and then Wednesday shooting the True Detective send up intro sequences. Edited all day Friday. I think it was worth it. I have a lot of other ideas on what to do with the show, starting down that road now that we essentially have the main formula down.

RIP Jay Lake

I'm late with this. My good friend and proprietor of my favorite Southbay bookstore The Book Frog Rebecca Glenn contacted me a week ago today to let me know that author Jay Lake had passed away. Several years ago, after wanting to read one of Mr. Lake's books for years I found myself in Berkley, California's Dark Carnival books and it was here that I acquired Pinion, which at the time I mistakenly took to be the first in Lake's Clockwork Earth series. Later I realized Pinion is actually the third book in the series, and it was Becky who ordered the first two, Mainspring and Escapement for me. They are wonderful books and although I only knew Jay Lake through his fiction I'm saddened by his passing. If he was any bit as grand as a human as he was as an imaginative author - which all personal accounts I've read in the past week confirm that he most definitely was - then the Earth lost a marvelous soul last Sunday.

As Kevin Smith would say, big bucket of win.

Brandon Cronenberg's Music Video

I am completely unfamiliar with Animalia's music but this video... wow. The young Cronenberg is definitely keeping his father's 'body horror' alive and well. Antiviral made my best-of films last year. And now this simply made, very effective video. Watching this now I realize that I would very much like a new film by Brandon Cronenberg soon. Please.

Full Live Set: Thee Oh Sees

Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for posting this. Thee Oh Sees live at LA's wonderful Echoplex last week. Within the first minute and a half of this video you can see just how much fun this show would have been to be at.

Bob Mould - I Don't Know You Anymore

This song/video actually made me cry. Well, not great racking sobs, but it got me a bit teary-eyed. Part of this is recent nostalgic reflection on my own part of the loss of the record store, and part of it is Bob Mould's tone here - so much like the tone on one of my all-time favorite records, Mould's Sugar: Copper Blue - really hits me in the emotional breadbasket.

I can still remember the first time I heard Copper Blue, or any of Mould's music for that matter. It was 1993 and on the way home from an Anthrax/White Zombie show at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom, tired and sore and stoned, Mr. Brown put on Sugar's Copper Blue to detox us from an all-out metal assault. It was perfect, and it's engrained that particle night, practically floating home on Lake Shore Drive at sometime after midnight, Brown driving his maroon red station wagon at a comfortable fifty-five miles an hour, Mould's emotionally provocative hooks etching into my heart and making me feel as though all is right in the world. Mould's 2013 record, Silver Age, was a return to this kind of sound, and now it appears that his just-released-today Beauty & Ruin is as well. You can order the new record directly from Mr. Mould on his website here. Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending me the link to this video and always keeping me in the loop on new Mould.

Here's to ten more albums at least Mr. Mould!

Stream New Godflesh EP Decline and Fall

Released via Avalanche, inc. earlier today. Buy it on the Godflesh's Bandcamp here.

Perturbator - She is Young, She is Beautiful, She is Next

Via Bloody Disgusting. This is just fantastic. Also, the upcoming record this is taken from, Dangerous Days, has one of my favorite album covers in recent memory.

image courtesy of Blood Music

Mini Doc on Selim Lemouchi's Art and Inspiration

Fascinating.

Watain - Waters of Ain

Several years ago my good friend and Metal Curator extraordinaire Tori lent me Watain's Lawless Darkness. After a few precursory listens the album fell back into the ever churning void of music that lays just beyond my reach in this internet age of "everything available all the time". In the throws of one new release or another I'd essentially completely forgotten about Watain, even as my appreciation for certain crevices within the Black Metal dimension has deepened. Then, earlier today - much after the fact - I learned that Selim Lemouchi, the founder and main driving force of The Devil's Blood died in March. There is a wonderful tribute to Selim on Metal Sucks. If you were a fan read it, as it will give you a very multi-faceted look into this fascinating artist. The remembrance links or mentions several peripheral Selim appearances and this Watain song - on which Selim performs the outro guitar solo - is chief among them. Sitting here listening to Waters of Ain and marveling at the power of it I quickly dug Lawless Darkness back out of the virtual banks on an old mac and have begun to get better acquainted with it. Good stuff, when you're in the mood.


I hope Selim found what he was looking forward after he slipped through the gates of the silver key...

Mastodon - Chimes at Midnight

I don't totally love this track yet, but I like it, and Mastodon has proven to be a band whose music really filters in through the nooks and crannies only after I can sit and really absorb an entire album over the course of several sittings. The A and B parts of this song are both awesome, but I'm drawn much more at the moment to the slower, melodic guitar of the B sections. It has a cosmic feel to it, a distance that is not relatable by human language or emotion. And I like that. It makes it feel enigmatic and magical, to a degree.

Very much looking forward to Once More 'Round the Sun on June 24th. And honestly, I've never contemplated paying $69.99 for a vinyl no matter what it came with before, but if you follow that link and see those lithographs of the artwork by Skinner, well, if I have the money I just might. Hanging that on the wall in my home seems as though it might turn said wall into a doorway to Cykranosh.

Ghost B.C. Papaganda Episode 2

Published almost two months ago I'm not sure how I missed this one. Well, actually yes I am. I've been so consumed with the end stages of writing my novel that I've not really paid attention to anything else. Well, besides comics.

At any rate, Infestissumam remains in regular rotation on my record player and the more of these guys I see the more I genuinely like them. Usually this much 'behind the scenes' would have a negative impact on a band so 'steeped in mystery' but I really think Ghost are musical and marketing geniuses, or at least the employee one of the latter.

The Doom That Came to Gotham...

image courtesy of lovecraftzine.com

...is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, on Joup.

True Detective Titles Peaked!

Admittedly this circulated back when True Detective's first season was in airing. I watched it through half-closed eyes then, not wanting to know ANYTHING about the new HBO show until I was able to actually watch it. However, as with anything pertaining to Twin Peaks, I was unable to completely look away. Now that I've begun my second viewing of Detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart's slow descent into a southern gothic hell, I'm re-watching this and really appreciating it.

Ray Wise Wants Twin Peaks Rumors!

I LOVE Ray Wise. And hot damn if Welcome to Twin Peaks isn't just about the best Twin Peaks-related site ever.

Just sayin'.

Bernie Wrightson & Steve Niles' Frankenstein Alive, Alive!

image courtesy of comixology.com

Issue #3 of the sequel to Bernie Wrightson's original visual adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel hit the stands this past week and as such is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, over on Joup!

The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast

image courtesy of miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com

Along with all the writing I have been doing lately I've been reading a lot. Thanks to my friend Missi's guidance I went through several old Stephen King novels I'd never read before - Cujo and Pet Sematary. Then I binged HBO's True Detective and came out the other side of it needing something else. I found a few pretty good podcasts that critically discussed the show and once I'd burned through them I ended up falling head over heels back into Lovecraft. From here I found the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and kind of became obsessed with it. Hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer are an absolute pleasure to listen to as they and some occasional guests discuss every Lovecraft story in its own episode - or in many cases several episodes. If you love Lovecraft, please do yourself a favor and dig into this - it has enhanced my appreciation of a writer I've been into for well over twenty years and that my friends, is just not easy to do!

The Walking Dead issue #127

image courtesy of thewalkingdead.com

See, this is why I gave up on the show. The Walking Dead has been consistently the best comic I've read monthly for almost ten years now. And it just keeps getting better. I won't venture into spoiler territory, which I guess is why this is going here and I'm not writing this week's Thee Comic Column about TWD #127, but when Kirkman said he was changing the landscape of the book, he was not bloody kidding!

My personal feeling after reading this issue and acclimating to the new status quo is the end game of the book begins here. I don't think the series will end any time soon, but I think there's more behind it at this point than ahead of it. Of course once the core book wraps I'd bet Rick's hand that Kirkman will "Executive Produce" at the very least one spin off written by someone else and following other characters in this world he has created. But for now, things have definitely changed and I for one am 100% on board.

New Blut Aus Nord

Via Brooklyn Vegan, who has all the pertinent information on this split BaN is doing with another French group, P.H.O.B.O.S. And I will say it right now, as big a fan of Nord as I have become in the last three years or so I ended up not really loving their last effort What Once Was... Liber III. Perhaps I did not give this record a fair enough shake but despite my anticipation, when I really had the time to sit down and listen to it I just didn't feel as though it was very much more than re-hashing some of their other material around that time. Granted, Vindsval and company had just done something like five releases in a year and a half, so it seemed only natural that not all of it would clear the high water mark - when a band as prolific as Nord releases something I consider a misstep I certainly do not hold it against my opinion of them. These guys consistently delivery amazing and ground-breaking music, and at a fairly rapid-fire rate. So if I don't personally care for something they do, I can basically just wait for the next release and bam, there's the genius moment again.

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #6

Wherein A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor sits in with Mike and I for the entire episode! We talk about Larime's fantastic book, horror movies and music's role in his creative process. We interview local comic creator Cassidy James about his Kickstarter for his new book Gun Up Paintball and a trip to The Comic Bug for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014!

Twin Peaks Missing Pieces

Oh man. Now I'm going to have to buy a blu ray player and a tv from after 1995.

It's worth it.

Rob Zombie's New Horror Movie?

via Bloody Disgusting. I have NO idea what this will be but despite my dislike of H2 (beautifully shot, and that's the only good thing I can say about it) and subsequent relative disappointment in the Lords of Salem - which looks amazing but I was unable to make it all the way through due to what I perceived at the time to be an amazingly sluggish pace* and next to no plot advancement from the inciting incident into almost the end of the second act, I am excited for this. Mr. Zombie's much touted, "I'm done with horror" scared me. Whether he balks or slams one out of the park, I like Zombie on the Horror hound side. I don't want to applaud what may be a diminutive situation for him - being stuck inside a genre he wants out of - but what can I say? House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects are, in my mind, modern classics of the genre (even if they do wear their influences on their sleeve. So what? It makes it so you can watch them and go, "Oh! Zombie loves House by the Cemetery too! Awesome!) and aspects of the Theatrical cut of Halloween turn what is essentially an over-explained and unneeded remake into a beautifully rendered piece of cinema.

...........

* I intend to give Lords of Salem another chance as a lot of folks whose opinions I respect loved it and in the film's defense, I tried watching it after I'd been up for almost 24 hours, so what I perceived as a 'sluggish pace' may have actually been me nodding off.

First. Constantine. Trailer.

At the VERY least they cast this right. Whew.

Seriously though, this first trailer for the upcoming Constantine trailer opens on a nice bit of continuity from the Vertigo book - Ravenscar. It also eludes to Astra, which really seals the deal for me. Also, the trailer appears to go out of its way to assure us that all of the elements the *ahem* movie eschewed (American instead of English, dark hair) this has fixed. Have they fixed Chas from being a little kid? Hopefully. And yet for all of these checks in the plus column the trailer does go on a bit long and at times reminds me maybe a bit too much of that ill-fated film from 2004, what with the CG and ancient evil rising bit. Still, how often do we get to see Occult symbols on nbc?

I'm in.

Drinking with Comics Issue 5 (includes David Lapham interview)

It just occurred to me that I never posted the newest issue of Drinking with Comics here, despite it having gone up early last week. This was another 'landmark' for us in a series of landmarks - landmarks not because they're incredible but because we are still refining the formula and this particular issue adds a new and at the time somewhat unexpected ingredient - a live studio audience!

A few weeks before we filmed issue five - which was back at the beginning of April - a great guy named Ivan contacted us via our Facebook page and asked if we allowed a studio audience. Honestly I'd thought about maybe one day trying that as I'm a HUGE fan of Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman's Hollywood Babble On podcast, which has an audience that really adds to the show, so you know, emulation is the most sincerest form of flattery, or whatever. But the real reason why the idea of having an audience appealed to me is the entire impetus behind Drinking w/ Comics is those wonderful late-night, beer-complimented conversations my friends and I have when gathered together and the feeling that gives me. I'm not a very social guy, but when it comes to comics I can and will talk to anyone about them. So yeah, we told Ivan we'd definitely be up for an audience and now, going forward, it looks as though that will be a regular feature. It's taken some re-thinking of our production set-up but we're still honing that regardless. You'll notice in this issue the Science Officers - Sara and Erin - have their own mic and it ended up mixed waaay louder than we'd meant to mix it. However, the process for editing is a fun but lengthy one, and the process of actually uploading the finished product to youtube is gruelingly long - hours - so we probably won't go back and change it. It's not that big a deal anyway, and it's another note to jot down to make the next issue that much better.

Speaking of the next issue, we filmed issue 6 the day 5 'hit the stands'. Look for that in about a week - hopefully - and expect another guest, as we were thrilled to welcome A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor for the entire episode! The final issue of the current arc "Killing Game" - yes named after a great Skinny Puppy song from my favorite Skinny Puppy record Last Rites.

Interview w/ Gun Up Paintball Creator Cassidy James

Art by Marco Roblin, image courtesy of the Gun Up Paintball kickstarter page

Is what's on tap at Thee Comic Column over on Joup this week. Hear what he has to say about his book, the Kickstarter and the process of creating the book!

Big Trouble in Little China - the Comic!!!

image courtesy of introtogeek.wordpress.com

Wow. You know, John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is one of my all-time favorite movies. It has everything I love: that beneath-the-city, sewers-and-secrets mystery, magic, martial arts, and of course Jack Burton! The fact that Bloody Disgusting just blew my mind with this article is worthy of opening a beer and throwing up a toast. Who'll join me?

"Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of liberty never lose a feather."

Larime Taylor Emergency Relocation Fund

This man is an inspiration and I'm lucky enough to now be able to say he is my friend. Please, if you can, help here. Thank you.

Brooklyn Vegan has a BEAUTIFUL Photo Spread on David Lynch @ BAM

see it here. As a bit of a soundtrack for your reading, here's The Pink Room, from TP: FWWM.

Kickstart the Gun Up Paintball Comic

I know nothing about Paintball - except I always thought it looked like fun - but I know comics. After meeting Cassidy James several evenings ago and talking to him briefly about this book he is currently running a kickstarter for I'm convinced this book will be great.

If you can pledge go here and help an independent creator do what he does best!

Mastodon - High Road

I wasn't very keen on this band at first. Then my friend Tori gave me Leviathan about two years ago and it sat in my itunes, which of course is bloated with more tracks than I could ever work around to (though I'm certainly having fun trying!). I gave Leviathan a few perfunctory listens but as with a lot of metal, it didn't penetrate at first. I was hearing the 'metal' but not the subtleties. Then a couple months ago I really fell into the habit of listening to a lot of metal at work - it helps quicken my tempo in the early, early morning, works almost as good as coffee. Now Leviathan is a couple-times-a-week fav and I'm in the market for the rest of their catalogue, so this new track from upcoming record Once More 'Round the Sun (6/24) comes at a perfect time in my life.

Fivre - Trailer

Fièvre (2014) Trailer - For more of the funniest videos, click here

All I can say after watching this trailer is 'You had me at Ether'. At a glance this looks like a cross between Ken Russell's Gothic, Dante Tomaselli's work and Beyond the Black Rainbow. Go read some actual details about this fantastic-looking new film on Bloody Disgusting. Director Romain Basset is one to watch for future awesomeness.

David Lynch - The Big Dream (Official Video)

I am not much of a Moby fan - nothing against him, the music I know of his is good but has just never done enough for me to make me a fan - but here he remixes, directs and apparently shoots a video for a David Lynch song that, as you'd expect from a Lynch fan, I LOVE.

Deftones - Entombed

I come back to this album so much that it has done that thing where, despite the fact that I love almost all of their other albums beginning with White Pony (not the re-issue with the 'rap' version of Pink Maggot) I just always go to Koi No Yokan. It's like a warm blanket of awesomeness and creative inspiration, and every time I listen to it - still!- it blows me away.

REC 4: Apocalypse Trailer

I am such a fan of the original [Rec] 1 and 2, not such a huge fan of 3 because it deviated from the urgency established in the continuity of those first two. If you've not seen these, or you've only seen the American remake titled Quarantine, you owe it to yourself. Soooo much better.

Of course, no US release date yet. Oh, and I couldn't find one with subtitles that would properly embed so here's a link to the aintitcool article that has that.

Nick Cage in a Bear Suit. Boots Randolph. 'Nuff Said

I'm a big fan of Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax. Hell, once you get past the goofiness that's been permanently tattooed onto Randolph's music you begin to see how it is a fairly uplifting take on life. If everything can be reduced to the kind of basic hilarity that Benny Hill trafficked in, the daily absurdities of life set to a soundtrack that really took the piss out of it and all its self importance, Randolph is the one who can do it with his squirrely horn and mocking compositions.

Branching out from here, to take what is the goofiest, squirreliest movie I've seen since The Room and string together all the 'good' parts to maximize the ridiculous effect it quickly becomes obvious the soundtrack to such an undertaking could really only consist of one song in particular. You guessed it, Yakety Sax.

If you've not seen this film do not go out of your way to do so until you have some friends in tow and at the very least a twelver of something good and strong. Dig in, catch a buzz and behold the quixotic madness that is Neil Labute's baffling attempt to remake Robin Hardy's The Wickeman for conventional, modern horror audiences.

Joss Whedon's In Your Eyes

Written and executive produced by Joss Whedon, directed by Brin Hill. I don't know anything about this film. It's existence was announced to me via an email I received from Vimeo alerting me to the fact that it is available to watch for $5 powered by their site.

Gonna have to find the time to do that, but figured I'd help spread the word.

Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri and Dan Green's Wolverine

image courtesy of marvel.wikia.com

is the topic in this week's Thee Comic Column over on Joup. To me, there are several issues of this creative team's run that really forms the backbone of a great character that, unfortunately, has subsequently been done to death. I still dig the ol' Canucklehead, but there are very few writers who still write the character well - probably mostly because of editorial intervention, which I think tends to play way to big a part in monthly, serialized comics by the big two and often has things beside the story or characters' best interests in mind.

Just sayin'.

Lying about Widows

image courtesy of dc.wikia

So this is what I was staring at when I momentarily titled the previous post "New Young Liars Track Streams" by accident. The fifth issue of Drinking with Comics - which we shot three weeks ago but have not been able to align our schedules to edit yet - will feature our Sierra Nevada-ingesting interview with Young Liars/Stray Bullets creator David Lapham that took place when he signed recently at the best comic shop in Southern California, Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug.

Now granted, I don't even think we mention Young Liars in what we recorded, as the return of Stray Bullets was practically all I could think about for most of March. However, Young Liars is a fantastic story in its own right and this particular art is one of my all time favorite comic book covers and it was one of the three books I brought to the event to have Mr. Lapham graciously sign.

As an interesting side bar, you'll see the image is a play on David Bowie's classic Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars record and the moment after Mr. Lapham signed my books that exact song began to jam from the Comic Bug's stereo!

New Young Widows Track Streams

Via the mighty Brooklyn Vegan's Heavy Low Down - a very special Heavy Lowdown, as this is Metal editor/contributor Doug Moore's final dispatch as he moves on to focus his energies on other creative endeavors (read all about it and see their great Doug w/ Cats tribute here). I've enjoyed these Heavy Lowdowns - as I do most everything on the site - so though I hadn't really put a name to them until now I wish Doug the best and will miss his writings on one of my favorite music sites.

Young Widows really mine some interestingly original territory with their sound. This reminds me a bit of Brand New, but not overtly. There's often a sick kind of stilted, foggy slink to their sound, and I dig it.

Black Sabbeth?

I'm re-posting this from my favorite music blog, the brilliant Heaven is an Incubator. I had no knowledge previous to this of the band Gonga, but Beth Gibbons + Black Sabbath is just too good to be true.

I was a fan of Ms. Gibbon's band Portishead from back around the time of Dummy, but it wasn't until the release of Portishead's record Third in... ah, 2007 that one of their records became necessary to me. The pagan-like soundscapes of some of the darker corners of Third fell into that category of music that the first time I hear it some part of me feels as though it were made specifically for me. So it's really no surprise that I feel the way I do about this cover because Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath - along with much of their Ozzy-era catalogue - also hits me that way.

Dillinger Escape Plan - Happiness is a Smile

And then there was Dillinger Escape Plan last night at the Echoplex. I'll be honest - I was a bit afraid. I've seen these guys five times now since I, like so many others, discovered them in '99 when they came out and tore shit up as the opener for Mr. Bungle on the very first leg of their California tour. I've written about this before - DEP scared me then and they've scared me numerous times since (I think I outline it fairly exhaustively here), and it'd been literally ten years since I saw the band in a venue as small as the Echoplex. That was at Chicago's now deceased Fireside Bowl and actually, yeah, that was even smaller than the Echoplex.

But I digress.

My friend Michael went with me and we stood fairly close to the front. And you know, it was still bedlam, especially with the good-natured audience full of surfers and stage-divers, but it was the least-threatening Dillinger show I've seen and had an all-around great vibe full of camaraderie.

Happiness is a Smile is a new song they played last night, released a few months ago on a limited edition vinyl 7" that I didn't even realize was being sold at their merch table last night.

Drat!

Godflesh @ Henry Fonda Theatre 4/22/14

When word first surfaced circa 2010 that Godflesh was reuniting to play a European festival show I became excited. If it'd been in my budget/schedule to fly to that show I would have, but with all the other tantalizing European line-ups (esp. All Tomorrow's Parties and Minehead which - at least in years past - seem to consistently book many too-good-to-be-true corners of my record collection past/present and future) it's just not in my cards at the moment.

Tarot or credit.

But with Godflesh, Justin K. Broadrick is so prolific that I just knew there would be more shows and maybe a record to boot.

Or, given time, many more records.

So when I had the chance to buy tickets to see Godflesh on their first North American tour in a looong time I did not balk. Originally I had it planned where I was going to see them in Chicago at my beloved Metro and then again in LA several days later. Then there were problems with the bands' visas and the tour was postponed. I ended up not seeing them in Chicago, but the LA show this past Tuesday at the always fantastic Henry Fonda Theatre was something of a dream come true. When they came out and opened with the pummeling Like Rats I knew this was going to go down as one of my most cherished concert experiences.

Special thanks to MBMdrums666 who took some fantastic video of the show and put it up online and also to the awesome 80's metal chick who tore shit up with her dancing and kept our little corner of the Fonda free of others.

Deftones Release a Track From Eros

Another one I'm a few days late on. This was written up heavy circa early last week but then got yanked down due to copyright issues. By posting this I certainly do not wish to step on one of my favorite band's toes - I'm just glad this stuff is finally going to see the light of day. And with the Deftones also reportedly working on a follow-up album to their absolutely breath-taking Koi No Yokan, this could be a very good year for fans of the band, of which I am most definitely one.

Eros is the final album featuring original Deftones bassist Chi, who was in an automobile accident in 2008 and passed away after a long struggle in 2013. You can read more about the love and support that made Chi's struggles easier at One Love for Chi.

Queens of the Stone Age - Smooth Sailing Video

I am waaay late on this. My friend and fellow QOTSA fanatic Josh FB'd me to ask my opinion on this like a week ago and I've consistently forgotten about it. Until now.

Hard to pick a favorite track on a record as mammoth as ... Like Clockwork but this is in the top tier. It's so Revolting Cocks it's not funny, and Mr. Homme's trademark snake-snark is at full hilt.

Oh, and in answer to your question Josh, I haven't smiled this much while watching a music video for the first time since Grinderman's Heathen Child back in 2010.

Danzig - Long Way Back From Hell

So yesterday I happened by The 7th House, the Official Fansite for Danzig. There I found news that there are now five tracks recorded for an upcoming Danzig album. This is not the long-talked about covers album, which is apparently finished and due to fall from hell straight into our hands any time now. No, this is from the next Danzig proper album. Now, I'm not going to tell you I dig the last few Danzig records as much as I dig the first few, but I will tell you that Danzig 7: I Luciferi is in my top four of his soon to be ten regular release albums, and that's saying something because John Christ, Eerie Von and Chuck Biscuits are not on that album and previous to its release and my eventual digestion of it (thanks always to The Goatchild for that) I never would have thought it possible that one of those post-original line up records could earn such a hardcore place in my heart. But it did, and that record along with tracks like 1000 Devils Reign, Skull Forrest and Black Angel, White Angel from Circle of Snakes (Danzig 8) and Rebel Spirits, Deth Red Moon and On a Wicked Night from Deth Red Sabaoth (Danzig 9) prove the man can still write some absolutely killer tracks.

To celebrate the news I felt inclined to post the first Danzig song I ever heard, Long Way Back From Hell - still one of my favorite ever tracks by this guy. Back around the time this was released I had no idea who Glenn Danzig was, but in the early 90's my ever-vigilant WXAV 88.3 St. Xavier's University introduced me to a ton of great music. I heard this song while driving in the car with my mom and I remember immediately falling in love with the whole dark tone/blues howl going on. But as was the problem with radio back in the pre-internet days, if you got from point A to point B before the DJ came on to tell you what they'd just played you might well miss your chance to hunt it down. That's exactly what happened in this instance, and it wasn't until sometime Junior year when Jay Stanek ("Did you know Bruce Dickinson was a history major?") lent me Danzig 1 and I heard the opening 'Ah-yeahah' of Twist of Cane that everything came together full circle and I was finally able to worship at the dark altar of Danzig. Previous to that they were just a group on a friend's older brothers t-shirt that kinda freaked me out, circa 1988.

Nothing Cover Low

Via Brooklyn Vegan. This comes less than a day after my good friend Jacob text me that he had ordered me a copy of Nothing's new album, which is available here and from the little bit I've heard, every bit as fantastic as Downward Years to Come, which was my introduction to the band somewhere around a year ago.

Thank you Jacob! And thank you to Relapse for continuing to promote this wonderful band.

Transformers: Regeneration One - The Epic Conclusion

I really hate to see this book go! Seriously, for the record I very strongly dislike the movies. I watched the first one in the theatre and almost had a freakin' seizure from rolling my eyes so much. Hate would probably not be too strong a word. But Simon Furman's run on this, the twenty-years in the making conclusion to his late 80's/early 90's run on the classic Marvel comic is fantastic. It's also the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column over on Joup!