Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks 2017 Tease

The wait is becoming unbearable.

Thanks to Mr. Brown.

John Carpenter's Utopian Facade

Killer.

New Dillinger Escape Plan - Symptom of Terminal Illness

As you can no doubt tell from my previous post, I have a really hard time admitting I like anything Metallica has done since the 80s. I do not have that problem with DEP. If October 14th is the release date of what will truly be their final album, we will be losing not only one of the greatest live bands ever (of course they can't possibly perform the way they do on into middle age) but also one of the most interesting evolutions in heavy music.

Either way, end of not, this track is awesome and like nothing I would have expected from them.

Another new, Good Metallica song

If CERN's P.A. is on the fritz, a new, GOOD record by these guys might herald the end of all things

What the hell has gone wrong with the time/space continuum? Someone please go check CERN's particle accelerator and make sure we haven't phased our Universe into another, better one. I mean, TWO new, GOOD songs by they who shant not be named? Wow. I'm still not holding my breath, and whether or not the new Metallica album is good or not probably won't affect my life in any way shape or form. But maybe it will.

Maybe...

Youth in Bloom - Crescent Waves

Very cool, shoegazey track with just the right amount of a nostalgic vibe that harkens back to the 90s. There's a definite resurgent zeitgeist of this stuff recently. Or at least there is in LA where Part Time Punks has turned me onto a lot of great new bands doing this kind of slightly retro sound. Anybody else out there feel this way too? If so, recommend me some bands.

If you dig, the digital E.P. is only $5 on their bandcamp HERE and the vinyl is $10 HERE.

Mike Mendez's Don't Kill It

Ever since The Convent Mike Mendez has been a director who I keep my eyes peeled for new projects from. After just posting the trailer to The Last Heist not so terribly long ago now we have another film from him, this one with none other than Dolph Lundgren playing a demon hunter! If anyone else was running this show I'd probably avoid it, but I'm pretty sure this will be great.

Goat Girl - Country Sleeze

Love this. Has there ever been a crappy band on Rough Trade? Order the 7" here.

Giraffe Tongue Orchestra - Blood Moon

When this video began I thought for sure I was going to hate it. I've been waiting for Giraffe Tongue Orchestra's first record with bated breath and usually I'm already that anticipatory toward something I hold off watching or listening to anything until I can hit the entire record as a whole. Well, the album drops this Friday but I couldn't wait when I saw this in my inbox this morning, courtesy of Mr. Brown. And like I said, from the opening thirty second or so I thought I'd made a mistake.

Suffice it to say this is why we don't judge books by their covers - or videos by their opening moments. I was laughing out loud by 2:15 in.

Giraffe Tongue Orchestra, by the way, is the new band that features the following humans:

Ben Weinman (founding member of Dillinger Escape Plan)
William DuVall (Alice in Chains)
Brent Hinds (Mastodon)
Pete Griffin (Family Guy, Dethklok)
Thomas Pridgen (The Mars Volta)

Yeah, that's why I've been waiting with bated breath. Drops Friday - go snap that little bastard up at your local independent record store. I'll be hitting LBC's Fingerprints after work.

For The Love of Comic Books...

... is a new column I started on Joup. It's the replacement piece for Thee Comic Column and meant to be considerably more interactive with my fellow writers at Joup. In this inaugural edition I talk about Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser's new series from Image, Kill or Be Killed. It's awesome. Read my thoughts here.

Pearl Jam - Porch on SNL 1992

I'd never seen this before. Not the biggest Pearl Jam fan - love first and most of the second record, pretty much stopped after that. I've always respected them as a band though, even if it's a once in a blue moon event for me to actually throw one of those two records on to listen to.

Until recently. I spoke about the reasons why I am currently indoctrinating myself with music from my high school years in this week's edition of The Joup Friday Album. Both those first two PJ records fit into that, especially the first one and especially this song. I got chills watching this a minute ago, so I had to jot it down here for posterity's sake. Enjoy.

Dumb Numbers video Stars David Yow, features Kimmy Robertson

So good to hear David Yow on vocals again. Even better to see his performance on the screen. I laughed out loud several times, loved 'Lucy''s cameo and will be utterly surprised if this doesn't clock in as the best video I see this year. I was unfamiliar with Dumb Numbers before this but after a little digging around I found this and have realized I can no longer live without this band.

Opeth - Sorceress

Opeth is amazing. And though I haven't been able to get into anything the band has done since they began down the prog path on Watershed, I still enjoy keeping tabs on them. This new track is no different. I probably won't buy the record, but I'm glad Opeth is still out there challenging themselves and making great music. This is the title track from their new record, out 9/30.

And actually, before I go I want to drop a link. Directly after I just stated I would probably not buy Sorceress I read Max Frank's opinions on the record over at Metal Sucks and I have to say, it might just be the reference to Davis and Friedkin, or the comparison to Fleetwood Mac, but now I think Sorceress might be the first Opeth post Watershed that I really try to sink my teeth into.

Unholy Cow! New Ghost (and it's AWESOME)

This band gets better and better. Can't wait to see them next month!

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - One More Time with Feeling

Last night I went to Hollywood's historic Egyptian Theatre to attend the premiere screening of Andrew Dominick's new film One More Time With Feeling, the documentary that follows Nick Cave's creative process for the new album Skeleton Tree, out today. The film is dark and beautiful; a true document of a family's grief in a time of unrelenting tragedy.

Skeleton Tree was on sale a day early at the select theatres that participated in last night's screening. Of course I purchased a copy and listened to it on my drive home after the screening. Both the album and the film are massive, world-rending documents of Nick Cave at this point in time and space. There is so much pain, so much chaos in the wake of his loss, and brother it's stitched in wounds across both these two pieces of art.

You'll notice I keep coming back to the word 'document' while referring to the film and now the album. There's no other word for either, and while that's to be expected of the film - as it is a 'documentary' - my reference to the album in the same capacity deserves some explanation.

In 2014's film 20,000 Days On Earth Cave talks about his creative process. He talks about and shows us his office - an integral part of the creation of every album; a room within which Cave gestates his ideas; a room that eventually becomes both a shrine and a tombstone to the album of the moment. A room that he eventually finds easier to replace than to strike back to zero. At the time this window into his process felt like an enormous revelation for me, and yet in retrospect it was really no real surprise at all. Cave's output is almost more literary than musical and as such I'd always indirectly imagined him growing into the space around him while creating*. Seeing it in 20,000 Days on Earth (pictured above) that space felt very womb-like; apropos, as his ideas eventually do shatter their chrysalis and emerge into the world as albums, books, movies. All the output from Cave and his band we know and love, all of which have previously had one thing in common - the final product a much-slaved over work of intricate perfection.

Skeleton Tree is not this AT ALL.

Skeleton Tree is a document - a beautifully flawed "capture" of time and emotion; a raw, emotively heavy excretion of pain and suffering and a sudden uncertainty expressed by Nick Cave and his world by Nick Cave and his world. Everyone involved is in pain, everyone involved is overcome by emotion, and everyone involved does not quite see what the next chapter will bring. A hard-won certainty - at his life, his career, his process, his mind and his family - is gone and Cave stands on a precipice that seems both devastating and sickeningly exhilarating. Andrew Dominik is a friend of Cave's and as such was allowed unprecedented access to both his process and grief. Thus, One More Time with Feeling is a hard watch. It is also a must for fans of Mr. Cave's. This is a man's soul laid bare through his process and its resulting art, and it is beautiful in the way that cemeteries, death and sorrow so often are despite the fact that from our perspective we are unable to see them as such.



Godspeed Nick Cave. My heart - a mere whisper in the darkness surrounding your world - goes out to you and your family.

...

 *An image I believe first struck me when I first attempted to read his novel When the Ass Saw the Angel - a book I did not finish and have been meaning to come back to now for about eleven years. Might be time.

In A Valley Of Violence

I feel as though I have been waiting for the new film by Ti West forever. I remember feeling the same way for The House of the Devil and despite that wait resulting in particularly insane levels of expectation I was not disappointed. I seriously doubt I will be for In a Valley of Violence, despite the presence of possibly my least favorite actor of all time (I won't name names, but here's a hint). Ti West's new feature film is out October 21st. I am posting this trailer here but would like to note that I have not and likely will not watch it. I want to go into this one as blind as possible.

Swans Live

Last Friday night I saw Swans live at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. This tour, supporting the group's newest record The Glowing Man, is the last in the current line-up Swans founder/mastermind Michael Gira has been utilizing to record a truly stellar run of albums that have completely re-invented/re-invigorated the group over the last few years. I'd not seen Swans live before - I've really only gotten fanatically into them since 2012's The Seer - and I wanted to be sure I did before this iteration ended. It was at amazing; in every sense both an ordeal and a learning experience.

You simply cannot understand the sonic experience of Swans live until you see them. You just can't. When you hear things like 'they play dangerously loud', even if you're not necessarily discounting the statement as hyperbolic, you still just cannot imagine HOW LOUD it is.

Pain. Yes, pain.

And while this is a bit of a bad thing, it is also awesome in the truest sense of that very over-used word. Awe-inspiring. 60% of the experience Friday night was observing the physiological reaction my body was having to the sound waves unleashed upon it. Then there was the psychological reaction, and the emotional. It was, in a very real sense, an altered state. A magickal one. At that volume the music has a palpable physical presence - you know what it's like when something alien invades your personal space? That begins to approach the presence I'm talking about. It was, incredible.

If you have the chance to see Swans before this tour is over and you want something unlike anything else, please go. Michael Gira is a true artist/shaman/catalyst and we need to support people like him, so they continue to do the things they do. But I would add, if you do go, bring ear plugs. You may choose to forgo using them, but at least give yourself the option.

The video is not from the show I saw, but I thought it a good example of what the band looks and sound like live. Without the volume I describe above, of course.

Mike Caputo's Island Exotica

Mike Caputo is a friend of mine from waaay back in the Old School. Great guy. I haven't seen him in years but every once in a while social media leads to an interaction and I'm always thrilled by the life he's leading in Hawaii. Caputo is the original free spirit, balancing our middle-aged responsibility with an eternal sense of fun and, more importantly, happiness. He surfs, he shoots photography, has an amazing IG account where he posts series of photo shoots that recreate classic movies (his Big Lebowski series is my personal favorite) and now he even makes short films.

Here's the first one Mike shared with me. I love it.


Island Exotica: Super 8mm Surfing from Mike Caputo on Vimeo.

New Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Video - Jesus Alone

Good lord, based on this track alone prepare for Skeleton Tree to be both beautiful and devastating.

Black Sabbath - After Forever

Coming back home to my native environment in the Midwest during August is a toss up, however it's one that's worked pretty much to my favor two years in a row. But I ain't pushing it; back to October from here on out. I miss Autumn, a season we don't have where we live now. That said, I can't complain; for two years in a row I've gotten a minimum of the hot, muggy crap and instead had some really nice thunderstorms and a generally cooler atmosphere than I would have expected. In the midst of that kind of cooler temperature I've been able to hit the woods and explore some old haunts. I spent a lot of time in the forest preserves of the greater Chicagoland area during my formative years and one of the things that always accompanied them - other than a particular green and leafy vegetable consumed via smoke inhalation - is Black Sabbath. It is, in a word, in my blood.

I still listen to Sabbath on a somewhat regular basis, going through seemingly unprompted jags from time to time back home in my adopted Los Angeles, but it's not quite the same. And usually there's a whole host of new music that demands my making new Chicago memories with when I come home to visit. This year though, maybe because of the rain and the forest preserves, I'm stuck on an Endless Loop of Sabbath while I'm here. And "After Forever", a song I've always loved as part of the overall oeuvre of the band but never really focused too much on for its individual traits within that oeuvre, has become something of an obsession for me at the moment.

Master of Reality, the record upon which the track in question is found, has never been one of the go-to Sabbath records for me. Well, really the entire run of albums the band put out with John "Ozzy" Osbourne are go-to records, but within that run there are favorites I harbor. Mine have always been the Eponymous first record, Vol. 4 and the band's masterpiece, Sabotage. Surprisingly to many, even their often maligned second to last with John, Technical Ecstasy probably clocks more yearly spins that M.O.R. Which is interesting when you stop to consider that at least three of the tracks on M.O.R. are among my favorite Sabbath tracks. "Into the Void" was one of the first tracks I ever heard by the band and both that and "Lord of the World" have what might be my favorite riffs by Iommi. And the quiet "Solitude" has always captivated me with it's eerie, serene beauty. Despite all this, the record has always struck me as a bit abbreviated. "Embryo" and "Orchid", the two instrumentals that serve as introductions for longer, thicker tracks are both beautiful, but when you have a thirty second and a two minute instrumental that count as two of eight tracks that comprise a record, weeeellll... And yes, several of the other tracks are rather meaty, but I still always feel M.O.R. is over before it begins.

Anyway, because of this stigma I've created for my relationship with this record - still an amazing record - "After Forever" has spent the last fifteen years perpetually slipping below my radar. So I guess now, while the rain's flowing and the forest preserves of my hometown call to me, I'll give it its due.

Volume knob set firmly at 11.

Gravitysays_i - Quantum Unknown (Riveted Eye) Official Audio

I'm currently traveling in the Midwest and amidst the endless hours of trying to see all my friends, trying to eat all the food that I so dearly miss (but am glad I do not consume save for once a year) and the subsequent celebratory imbibing that accompanies both there have been few quiet moments for peace.

Not a complaint.

Still, at 40 there is no possible way I can keep up the pace I have in years past on these trips and I find myself in need of a few hours of downtime.

This morning was it. Rest and relaxation with a head full of hauntings, most good, some undetermined at this point. My book is done - in the hands of my first two 'beta readers' and I'm working on a new short story. While doing so I realized there's a whole host of things I haven't gotten to yet, not the least of which is the new record by Gravitysays_i, a record the group's publicist very graciously sent me and I haven't had a chance to ingest yet. So I spent some time this morning sipping hot, black coffee and giving Quantum Unknown a first go round. Not only was I not disappointed (I was completely unfamiliar with Gravitysays_i previously) but I found it was the perfect record to spend a couple of hours decompressing and taking an account of the 'inner landscape' after all this hullabaloo. Give the first officially released song a gander and then grab Quantum Unknown from Inner Ear Records on September 16th.

Ritual Howls - Spirit Murder

best band photo ever?

So this dropped yesterday. The new album by Ritual Howls, Into the Water, is a breathtakingly dark contemplation on - these ears - broken cityscapes, dangerous situations and the endless enigma of frustration that defines modern life.

Song title sooo makes me think of Barry Adamson's Soul Murder. Just saying.

Yeah, it's fucking fantastic. Buy it here.

Well, This is a Surprise: Metallica's Hard Wired

I never thought I'd be posting a Metallica song on this blog - certainly not one written after 1988. But I'll be damned if this isn't a great, very old school without sounding contrived (ahem, death magnetic) track that, while Some Kind of Monster may have forever killed my opinion of these guys as artists, well, I can jam to this. Or at least the vestiges of 16 year old Shawn that still blares Master of Puppets now and again can. Shit, just listen to that fucking solo - it sounds straight off Kill 'Em All.

Fucking terrible album cover though, so I didn't use that as the graphic.

New Pixies song Talent

The announcement for the next Pixies record Head Carrier entered the world via email sometime within the previous month. Being on their mailing list I saw it, however in the constant 75 mph I've been moving I still haven't really had a chance to listen to or read anything about it other than the fact that it drops on 9/30 and you can pre-order it in many different forms HERE.

The initial reunited-era Pixies record Indy Cindy seemed to catch a lot of flak online - not really sure what that was about because to me, as a long-time fan of the band, and one that honestly would have preferred Mr. Black continue his solo career to reuniting the past, I La La LOVED it. Indy Cindy sounded like the next logical step from 1991's Trompe Le Monde, so I am very much looking forward to Head Carrier.

But let's get another Grand Duchy or Black Francis record sometime soon (OR Frank Black and the Catholics for that matter- now we're talking!)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - One More Time With Feeling Official Trailer

Chills.

Ritual Howls - Going Upstate

Continuing my new found love affair with Felte Records and their exemplary roster of talent, early this past week I pre-ordered the forthcoming new album by Ritual Howls. Three tracks were made available to me immediately upon purchasing Into the Water and I've been beating them into my brain ever since in long writing sessions with the iPod on. Without really sounding like them, these guys remind me a little of what I love about early My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. This is some dark stuff, like music you might hear while descending into the basement of an enemy just as the acid kicks in.

Love the music, love the album cover and again, LOVE Felte Records.



You can check out Ritual Howls here and Felte Records in general here.

Turkish Leather on wax is my next purchase and I'm chomping at the bit to get it. Until then, make mine Felte!

Adam Wingard's The Woods is really...

Well, this is everywhere by now but I'm at work so this is the first chance I've had to post about the fact that one of my newest favorite horror directors, Adam Wingard's upcoming film The Woods has been revealed to be nothing other than a new installment in...

The Blair Witch Project.



Words cannot summate just how excited I am. I have always considered the original Blair Witch Project to be the second scariest movie I have ever seen (coming in behind The Exorcist of course). I also really dug the sequel for its tone and pragmatic "we already did that now let's do the exact opposite" approach. And now, well, from what we're hearing after the press viewing, 2016's Blair Witch may enter into the upper echelons of that 'scariest flicks of all time" list.

Also worth embedding is the teaser for The Woods, simply for juxtaposition and, well, I really dig the way they used this version of Every Breath You Take.

Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 2 Trailer

Now please.

Nite Fields - Depersonalisation

Beginning with my introduction to Odonis Odonis a few weeks ago, I have slowly succumbed to a wonderful, all-encompassing musical abyss named Felte Records. It's been years since I considered myself as having a 'favorite record label' but with Felte I feel I can once again make that claim. Their roster of talent is crazy good and seems styled after my own personal tastes (and probably yours too if you read this blog), their products and business approach are fantastic and, well, talk about friendly - when my vinyl version of Post Plague arrived in the mail the other day the fine folks at Felte had thrown in another record for free.

For Free!!!

I had not had the pleasure of hearing Nite Fields previously but once I saw that cover (pictured above) I immediately made the plastic incision and extracted the beautiful piece of black vinyl within, cued it up on my new record player and within moments the opening strains of lead track 'Depersonalised' pulled my consciousness into a beautiful, black spiral from which I have only reluctantly emerged to switch back to the throb and punch of Post Plague. The two make a great juxtaposition and I highly recommend both. Depersonalisation by Nite Fields can be ordered here and Post Plague by Odonis Odonis here.

Go forth and support an awesome independent label!!!

RIP Alan Vega

Wow 2016. Umm... stop?

Well, the man was 78, so it's not super unexpected. That said, Suicide is very much the mega-influential American band that 98% of people don't know about. I'm not saying that to be pompous, it's just a shame that they achieved a broader spectrum of exposure. Then again, it's a shame, but not a surprise, because there is next to nothing overtly approachable about Suicide's music.

For some of us however, that in and of itself is an attribute. Henry Rollins had a statement earlier, and I'm sure his radio show this evening was dedicated to Mr. Vega. Rollins wrote an amazing column that talked about Suicide sometime last year in his weekly LA weekly column. If I can eventually find it online I'll post a link here. Needless to say, he had the perfect summation of how Suicide's music generally goes from confrontational and alienating to impactful and mesmerizing.




Mr. Vega did a lot of other music as well. This song, a collaboration with A.R.E. Weapons, is one of my favorites.



Safe passage to the other side Mr. Vega. You earned it.

Food For Thought - Election Comic Kickstarter

Back in the early episodes of Drinking with Comics we had an episode that overlapped with one of the many local creator meetings that take place at Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug and brought one Cassidy James up to speak on behalf of a comic he was kickstarting, Gun Up Paintball. I hadn't seen Cassidy in a while and ran into him a month or so ago during an event at the shop. He told me about a new comic he had waiting in the wings called Food For Thought and it sounded like a lot of fun to me; I'm so disgusted by the entire election but can't seem to stop following it (for the record I don't consider myself a liberal or a conservative - I don't want any of 'em in office, btw) and a book that poked fun at any of the candidates sounded right like it might be just what a lot of us need to blow off some steam at the seemingly endless campaign trail shenanigans that we've been choking on for months now. If this sounds good to you too give the video above a watch and contribute to the Kickstarter HERE if you can. I'd really like to see this book get up off the ground. With Cassidy's words and Livan Ivan Cornejo's art I think this could be a truly entertaining and timely book.

Odonis Odonis - Needs

Almost every year without fail I stumble across a record that immediately announces itself as my favorite of the year. This certainty usually arises within the first song, which always makes the record feel that much more powerful. Yesterday I sought out Canada's Odonis Odonis and was immediately struck with the certainty that, while I have and will no doubt hear a lot of other amazing new music this year, Post Plague is going to be my #1 come year's end.

Mike Mendez's The Last Heist

In his weekly column for LA Weekly sometime early last year Henry Rollins discussed how much fun he had shooting a new movie called The Last Heist. Now, I am a Rollins fan, but even moreso the director of this film turned out to be Mike Mendez, who is responsible for one of my all time favorite flicks The Convent back in the very early aughts. Mr. Mendez has not done a whole heck of a lot since then (not a criticism), so this news made me very excited. I waited for sometime, confused He Never Died* with the forthcoming film, and then dropped my guard.

And of course, then it hits. Played here in LA last weekend. Damn!

Anyway, I'll be taking a page from Tommy at Heaven is an Incubator's Joup column Thank God For VOD! and watching this one very soon. Looks fantastic!



..............

* Which is also great!

Deafheaven - Gifts From the Earth

Fuck yeah! I really have to give Sunbather another chance, because ever since Mr. Brown sent me New Bermuda for my Birthday back in March, I have become increasingly infatuated with it.

Tennis System - Such a Drag

Seeing these guys and Adult Books open for Eagulls tomorrow night. Psyched.

Get Out of My House - Kate Bush

Aside from the obvious fact that Gaimen named Morpheus's realm after the title of the album, doesn't this record - especially this song - sound exactly like Sandman reads?

I LOVE that.

Eagulls - Velvet Official Music Video

The second Eagulls record caught me by a bit of a surprise; the band's 2014 eponymous debut is a frenetic celebration/re-appropriation of late 70s/early 80s Post-Punk sounds, most especially The Cure's Pornography. New record Ullages is considerably more down-tempo and depressing. In a GOOD way. Where the debut is still a bit more accessible Ullages is growing on me - not that I didn't like it to begin with, but it tends to usher in a bit of a Pall over my mood. Well, today was a completely rainy, overcast day in LA and as such this record fit perfect. Which reminded me they released a video recently that I hadn't gotten around to seeing.

Grimes - Kill V. Maim

Based on my historical music video preferences I should hate this.
I do not. I LOVE it.
I feel like Grimes just made a better version of Sucker Punch than ZS did.

Terra Tenebrosa - Ghost at the End of the Rope

I'm on the Debemur Morti mailing list and I found a link to this in my inbox today. The Blut Aus Nord circa The Work Which Transforms God influence is obvious but not overplayed. I need to hear more, but thus far I dig this.

You can pre-order the new album The Reverses here.

Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats

@macafro first told me about Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats a couple of years ago. And they promptly fell off my radar. Well, a couple of months ago they popped back on my radar and became a a steady rotation in my daily life. Especially 2015's The Night Creeper album, and this song in particular!

Grimes - Visions

...Is my choice for this week's edition of the Joup Friday Album. You can hear the album and read what I have to say about it on that link above, and you can watch the video for Oblivion below.

Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe

Simply put, I Love Fede Alvarez's 2013 continuation of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead SO MUCH that I would follow him to hell and back (Love Panic Attack! too). So when I heard about his new film Don't Breathe - although I'm bummed it's not another chapter in Mia's corner of the Evil Deadverse - I was stoked for another movie from him, especially one with such an awesome concept.

And Jane Levy to boot!

Pale Dīan - In A Day

I heard this on Part Time Punks radio show on KXLU this afternoon while I was stuck in traffic - it was sandwiched between old Cocteau Twins and Isolation Ward. This is the only song on the bandcamp so far, with the album proper to be released in early June on Manifesto Records.

I. Can't. Wait.

*Love*

Guordon Banks - Keep You in Mind

Wow. Love this song. Reminds me of old school Al B Sure!

The Kills - Heart of a Dog

New Kills. 'Nuff said. Not a huge fan of these types of videos, but here I really like how and where they utilized their backgrounds.

June 3rd is the new record (pre-order here), which I've rabidly been waiting for since seeing them live for the first time last year at Pomona's Glass House. They're not playing LA on their current tour - San Francisco is the closest they're coming and as much as I'd LOVE to road trip up, that is not in the cards at the moment.  But if they come near you go. Trust me.

Negativeland Co-Founder Passes

Okay, can we agree that 2016 is a little bit out of control with the musician deaths? The legendary musician deaths?

Richard Lyons - I didn't actively know his name until last night. I was stranded in W. LA due to nightmare-level traffic, sitting at a Coffee Bean writing about Prince's death when the following text came through:

Much like a lot of Prince's later work I hadn't kept up with Negativeland in a while. The last piece I saw/heard was the Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak and that was in 2002 while recording at the wonderful Apocalypse Cow recording studio in Montgomery, Illinois where proprietors the Brooks Brothers brought me up to speed on the then-latest NL project. But Negativeland's work takes time to appreciate and that's something I've had considerably less of over the fifteen years since. Even with a record store like the pretty much all-encompassing Amoeba relatively nearby I just haven't kept up. That however, does not change the fact that Negativeland - the group Mr. Lyons helped co-found, released a handful of albums that I did encounter in the past and that had enormous impact on my life, mind and art.

The first of these was Helter Stupid, which I seriously cannot recommend enough. That said, what Negativeland does isn't exactly music so you have to reasonably curate how and when you engage with it. Think of this more as media-splicing/sound collage with the intent of deprogramming some of the more residual and insidious modern day marketing shrapnel that gets lodged in our circuit boxes just by driving past billboards, catching a few moments of television while sitting in the dentist's waiting room or suffering through even a few small moments of terrestrial radio while in the office.

Helter Stupid, in true NL fashion, samples the group's "breakout" track - I'd imagine they'd laugh at that - Christianity is Stupid. This made a HUGE impact on me at the time, and it's confrontational yet hilarious delivery very much influenced a project Mr. Brown and I did in the early 00s - C-Building Kids.

Brown took to the group even more than I did, and scooped up the group's descertation on the 'cola wars' and advertising in general, Dispepsi pretty much the day it came out. This one was in heavy rotation in our rehearsal space; at the time we were in a band called Schlitz Family Robinson that actively tried to incorporate strange recording techniques/samples/sonic detritus into our sound and Dispepsi opened up all kinds of new doors for us in that regard.

Richard Lyons and Negativeland helped further introduce me to new and left-of-center ideas for what 'music' can be, or maybe more appropriately what a band can be. Hearing about his death - and holy cow two other members of the band having also passed on since 2015 - has left me feeling a little bit older than even the Prince exodus did.

Read all about Richard Lyons in a great article on Consequence of Sound here and enjoy Christianity is Stupid below.

Rest in Purple

I almost posted something when I heard the news of Prince's death this morning but I stopped myself. I was at work, entering long strings of data into a spreadsheet and trying to jar myself awake by listening to Iron Maiden on my headphones. During the resultant trance-like state two things happened simultaneously: first, just as one song ended and another was about to begin I overhead two of my co-workers talking in a vague way about what sounded like a celebrity death. Second, a text bubble popped up on my phone. It was from my friend Ray. Without stopping my typing I looked down and saw this:

The two disparate streams of  information collided in my mind and in total shock I said the following sentence very loudly, "What? Prince can't be dead!" I said this so loud that one of the girls who works in another department came over to see if I needed help. A few minutes later she left and another person from a department even farther away came over and gave me a hug. He was wearing purple, of all colors.

Now, I am not a the biggest Prince fan. But I am a Prince fan. Especially the Prince who helmed the Revolution for the iconic record/movie Purple Rain. As for his other music, there's lots I like and some I could never hear again and not care. As Tommy from Heaven Is An Incubator laments in his own post pertaining to this momentous loss for the music community, because of our age Prince's music was something of a backdrop to our generation's entire childhood. Growing up in the 80s Prince was EVERYWHERE, literally. And it wasn't just the songs he performed, it was also the material that he wrote for other performers: Sheila E., Sheena Easton, The Bangels, Morris Day, Stevie Nicks. As I got older the extremely unique sounds Prince made with his music followed me, often in sneaky or almost subconscious ways. The first song on Public Enemy's masterpiece Fear of A Black Planet, "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" is loaded with samples of Prince's guitar. Skinny Puppy's bleak and brilliant Last Rites has snippets of Prince's weird, over-flanged percussion laced throughout. Later still, one of my all-time favorite bands - Ween - covered Prince, lovingly lampooned him and downright homaged him on many, many occasions. But the older I became the more Prince's influence on my musical life remained peripheral; the cassette copy of Purple Rain that my cool, older cousin Jim gave me for Christmas the year it came out was worn out long ago and the only Prince I'd had in the collection through my thirties was a beat-up copy of Sign O' The Times on vinyl and a double-disc greatest hits my ex-wife had brought with her to our twelve year sharing of a music collection. When she moved out all that went away. Luckily though...

Every year from Memorial Day to Labor Day Hollywood Forever Cemetery hosts something called Cinespia - an organization that projects movies on the side of a mausoleum in the cemetery's enormous - and beautiful - grounds. Ray and I, along with several of our other friends, go to as many of these Saturday night screenings every year as possible. Two summers ago Cinespia showed Purple Rain. I hadn't seen it since the 80s and Ray's a fan so we went and it completely re-inspired me to love Prince. Again, not all his music, but for that album in particular. I've long said that when he's gone Prince would be remembered as probably the single greatest driving force in the Pop music of the 80s. After watching Purple Rain and then re-buying and binging on it hardcore for a few weeks I had an even deeper realization about this record:

As far as records go, Purple Rain is the Philosopher's Stone of the 80s.

Now, when I say Philosopher's Stone I need to quantify what I'm talking about. I've approached this concept previously but in less specific terms. Obviously in every decade or 'era' of music there are movements, fashions, trends and scenes. And somewhere within all those dark and incestuous nooks and crannies I believe there is one album that perfectly sums everything else up. For the 80s I would argue that album was Purple Rain. Prince's 1984 masterpiece is a microcosm of nearly everything musical that surrounds it; there's elements of Funk, Soul, New Wave, Metal (that serpentine guitar lick in Computer Blue? Those blast beats in the last third of Darling Nikki that I never noticed before I reengaged with it? Metal baby); Purple Rain has it all and what's more all of those seemingly disparate elements are perfectly synthesized into a coherent whole. That's the key. For perspective I've argued elsewhere that the 90's Philosopher Stone album was the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head, another synthesis of the musical world around it.

(Incidentally, I don't think we have enough distance from the 00s yet to determine what might be that era's Philosopher's Stone, but I'd also argue in a few years we might look back and say that because of the democratization and decentralization of music that particular era ushered in there actually might not be one).

With all of this said I need to end this diatribe before I become any more grandiose. Not possible you say? Believe me, it is. So to finish I will leave you with a video a friend showed me a couple years ago. This thing just blew me away. No matter how you feel about the musicians that are on stage to begin with, watch this all the way through because at approximately 3:28 this rendition of what might just be my favorite Beatles song becomes god-like. And Prince? Rest in Purple sir. Rest in Purple.

Remember That Time When...

Nice shorts, douche

....is a new rotating column Grez started on Joup back in January. I picked up the thread this morning amidst reports of G-n-R's Las Vegas show by remembering the time in 1992 when Axl Rose cheated me out of 15 free concert tickets to see his band. Read about it here.

Drinking w/ Comics Special Guest: David F. Walker

Luke Cage all the rage? Can't wait for Danny Rand? Well, watch Mike and I talk to the man writing 'em in Marvel's Power Man and Iron Fist. And check out Mr. Walker's website for a whole boatload of goodies!

New Perturbator May 6th!!!

While I've been secluded trying to finish the novel that does not want to be finished I've almost missed out on a bunch of great music. Luckily while writing this afternoon I threw on an old favorite and was inspired to check up on what Perturbator has been up to.

Good thing I did because the new record, The Uncanny Valley, drops in just about two weeks!

I cannot wait to get this, as it feels like I've been listening to Dangerous Days for years at this point (probably because, like Heavenisanincubator, I haven't been able to stop listening to it in voracious aural jags since Dangerous Days was released!). The Uncanny Valley is a sequel to DD, taking place 40 years down the road and set in Neo Tokyo. What a fantastic description for such visual music.

Check out She Moves Like a Knife and then high tail it over to the aforementioned best got-damned music blog in the megaverse for the official, 8-bit animated music video to yet another new track from The Uncanny Valley, this one titled Sentient. And go pre-order the album from Blood Music, the hardest working indie record label in the business!