Listen Now: Junior Jr.

I've been meaning to post this one for a while. My friend Duf is a great example of someone taking charge of his life. A few years ago he opened a comic shop in Elizabeth City, NC. Here's their FB page. Next, recently Duf took his love of music and parlayed it into a band. They played their first show last month, and although the footage doesn't quite do them justice, here's a taste; I'm super excited to hear the album Junior Jr. makes - I think it will be outstanding based on the songs we're hearing now.



That solo at 3:12!



Duf has confided in me there's a video coming for their song Guns A' Blazin - I'll break 'premiering' that here the MOMENT it goes up.

2018: April 27th 9:21 AM

My obsession with the Arctic Monkey's 2013 album AM has been slowly growing over the last year or two. The radio at work - which I usually drown out with my headphones - bled lead single Do I Wanna Know? constantly from the time of its release until... well, I'm not sure when. In that time, when I would hear it I loved it, and I already loved the band's 2006 debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, but I'd lost track of the band after that and when I attempted to catch up, I can't say I took to Favorite Worst Nightmare or Humbug as much. Part of that may very well just have been me checking back in too late and finding they hadn't remade the first record - not that I would have consciously wanted that, but sometimes I hold exceptional albums against the rest of a band's career. At any rate, I grabbed A.M. two years ago or so and haven't let up since. The last few days though, it sealed the deal and it's been the record I most look forward to playing when I wake up. I don't always indulge that urge, but when I do, those 12 songs fill my blood with joy. Here's the one I woke up wanting to hear today:



No post yesterday in all my running around but I'm playing hooky today, my cousin and his wife are in and will be attending Drinking with Comics tonight, where one of the books I'll be talking about is most assuredly Ales Kot and Danijel Zezelj's Days of Hate, which I can't stop telling people about. 9 PM, streaming live on the Drinking with Comics' FB Page.

Playlist from Thursday, 4/26:

Afghan Whigs - In Spades

Arctic Monkeys - AM

Queens of the Stone Age - Villains

Dead Cross - Eponymous

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Afghan Whigs - Black Love

Card of the day: 

More Hod; also, note the Hebrew letter Shin at the Child Horus' feet - in further Kabbahlistic terms, this connects the card to the Shin Path on the Tree of Life. Shin is the Left Hand Path, which is associated with imbalance, hence the stigma on 'The Left Hand Path', or dark magick. Can't say that totally hits home with me at the moment, but I've been known to express interest (see my Nameless annotations), so perhaps this is a warning to avoid the urge to explore these systems if the inclination recurs, which honestly, I guess since the move, it has - putting hands on my collection of odd and arcane books culled from various places and people over the years makes me want to open them again. Plus, Scrying keeps coming up again. That's not inherently bad, but it can lead to some bad things if you're not careful.

2018: April 25th 5:13 PM

Still riding pretty high off that Windhand/Ruby the Hatchet show the other night. Still recovering a bit from it, too. Here's another Ruby song, straight from the show the other night (I love how at 18:23 the person filming shamelessly zooms in on Jillian Taylor's bum).

Yesterday's playlist:

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain

That last entry was a weird, off-the-cuff dalliance to see if a newer Ozzy album would be even remotely interesting. I'm not a huge fan of his solo stuff, but I grew up with it. Black Rain is produced well, the music isn't far outside of what you've come to expect from the Ozman, but the vocals are kinda meh. Not really a surprise. Funny how the night after I dine at the Rainbow Room - which was a staple of the 80s LA Sunset Strip Glam/Hair Metal scene, I listen to both Appetite for Destruction (for the first time in yeeeaarrss) and Ozzy.

Card of the day:

I drew this card early this morning to start my day. I don't feel very much in the way of stability or power though. 

2018: April 24th 3:08 PM

Windhand blew the fucking door off The Roxy last night. So did opener Ruby the Hatchet, who I strongly recommend you check out. Here's a taste:



These folks were straight out of the 70s - the keyboard player had a shirt for The Band on and the drummer had a Funkadelic Maggot Brain one. Awesome! All-around good time.

Ate before the show at the 'legendary' Rainbow Room; this is the place where Lemmy from Motorhead famously drank most nights, and as an interesting dovetail there was a scene in The Last Days of Jack Sparks that took place there, so it seemed fitting. The Rainbow Room isn't great - I've lived in LA twelve years next week and that's the first time I've gone, not in a hurry to return either. But, they had a pretty good burger, and they had Ballast Point's Sculpin on tap - I usually don't go for fruit flavors in my beer, and I'm not sure if BP adds the grapefruit flavor or if the profile comes from the way they roast their hops, which I believe is the case with one of the Goose Island IPAs, but Sculpin has to be about the most drinkable IPA ever. Switched it up to Lagunitas IPA for the show once we arrived at the Roxy - also my compatriot and I each took two gummies - 'cuz, ya know, it's Windhand - and I was feeling pretty amazing by the time the band came out.

Playlist from yesterday:

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Eponymous E.P.
Windhand - their half of the split with Satan's Satyrs
Windhand - Soma
Jucifer - If Thine Enemy Should Hunger
The Veils - Total Depravity

Card for the day:

A change in paradigm, eh?

2018: April 23rd 4:48 AM

Tonight! At long last, Windhand at the Roxy. I can NOT wait!



Dorthia Cottrell has one of those voices - it's one for the ages in my opinion. There's a haunted, cryptic quality that fits the music perfectly. And whether she's buried in reverb behind at wall of doom or upfront and exposed, it's the same.



Playlist from yesterday:

Etta James - Eponymous
Etta James - The Second Time Around
The Fixx - Phantoms
The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealand
Roy Orbison - Greatest Hits
The Soft Moon - Eponymous
The Thirsty Crows - E.P.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Mind Control
The Veils - Total Depravity

Card of the day:

Ebb and Flow. From the Grimoire: "If we struggle against the seasons, we will fall. However, when you turn (change) with the ebb and flow, you will reach a stationary peace from which your actions can harmonize with the power of Life's turning wheel."

I take this as, "Stay Limber today, kid," so let me start with some stretches before I head off into the day.

2018: April 22nd 12:29 PM

Still no dice on the damn Sleep vinyl. I'll give in tonight after work and listen to it on Apple Music. You can't win 'em all!

Listening to the Cramps live in Auckland, New Zealand. This vinyl is from Vengeance Records, a label started by The Cramps to release live and little-heard music on. The album in question, RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX is a testament to the absolute grandiose insanity of this band in their heyday.



I finished reading The Last Days of Jack Sparks - I gave this one a solid 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. For a first novel, I'd say Jason Arnopp knocked it out of the park. Next up, a quick re-read of The Author Startup by Ray Brehm and then The Book of Joan.

Playlist from 4/21:

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Windhand - Soma
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Savages - Silence Yourself
Cigarettes After Sex
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Card for the day:

Interesting that I continually see some of these cards pop up. This one is beginning to perplex me, so I consulted an outside source. I'm having trouble relating to its perpetual springtime rejuvenation energy whoo-ha, however I found an interpretation, categorized as creative energy that needs an outlet, and that seems to fit. Need to find the time to jump back on T12, which I've really only picked at the last two days.

2018: April 21st 2:39 PM

Never did get around to that Sleep record yesterday. I'm headed to Long Beach later today after I get off work, so I may just wait and try and pick up the vinyl then. I'm really saving that first listen for ideal conditions, i.e. smoke and vinyl.

It was announced recently that Oz/Osgood Perkins, director of The BlackCoat's Daughter and I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and son of Anthony Perkins, will be directing the film adaptation of Paul Tremblay's brilliant novel A Headfull of Ghosts. I can't wait, and it made me want to go back and re-watch The Blackcoat's Daughter, which I loved despite an interruption in the middle of my initial viewing last year. Here's the trailer in case you haven't seen it:



Not much of a playlist yesterday:

Metallica - Garage Days Re-revisited
Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Card of the day:

Again! I think this is pointing to the fairly lackluster first day on the Keller project, henceforth abbreviated here as T12.

2018: April 20th 1:23 PM - New Sleep Album!!!

Well, my intention was to wake up on my day off, go get my oil changed and then hit Fingerprints Record Store in Long Beach to procure a copy of Sleep's brand spanking new album - the first in how long? 20 YEARS? - The Sciences. But after my mechanic Mike diagnosed my ride was in need of new brakes all around, that didn't happen. One Uber ride later I'm still waiting to be called to come and pick her up, not that it's a problem; the down-time has given me an opportunity to dig back into the project with Keller, which he passed back to me on the 5th and which I am only just now starting to work on. Because of all this, and I guess maybe because in a teensy way I feel like observing the 'holiday' this year simply because if Sleep waited to 4/20 to release it I should probably observe to enjoy, I've not dug into either my one hitter or the album, which despite lack of vinyl is very much available on Apple Music. Not to fear; there's some good, quality lounge time coming up later today, and I'll be using it to check up on what All, Matt, and Jason have crafted for us this time. Here's a song whose title I absolutely love, even if I haven't heard it yet. The way these boys work pot references into Science Fiction environments is amazing, not cheesy at all, the way most popular music hands intoxication.



The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up HERE yesterday.

Playlist from 4/19:
Boy Harsher - Country Girl E.P.
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man E.P.
Deafheaven - Playlist
Drab Majesty - Careless
Metallica - Garage Days Re-revisited
Alice in Chains - Sap
Alice in Chains - Facelift


Card for the day:

Should I just assume this points to the futility to which I have attempted to save money recently? About to lay out about $600 for brakes and all I can think is I'm sure glad I bought those Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tickets four days ago, because I wouldn't have bought them after this.

The New Judas Priest Record...

... Is pretty f*&king awesome!

2018: April 19th 7:26 AM

That new Deafheaven yesterday made my week! Also, the fact that tix go on sale Friday to see them in August - and Drab Majesty is opening!!! Couldn't be more ecstatic. Now I need to look into the other opener, Uniform, who I am totally unfamiliar with.

With the release of Honeycomb, I've finally got a good number of one-off tracks by the band to make a nice playlist from their split 7" material and E.P.'s. Looks like this:

From the Kettle Onto the Coil
Honeycomb
Punk Rock/Cody

And come to think of it, I may add their Demo E.P. from 2010 to that as well.

Playlist from yesterday:

Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do
Windhand - Soma
Boy Harsher - Country Girl
Deafheaven - HoneyComb
Blur - Eponymous
Deafheaven - Playlist (see above)

Card for the day:

Again with this guy! Interesting. I'm heading into Hollywood tonight for a business meeting, let's see what kind of journey that takes me on (I know there are other interpretations, the journey just seems to always fit where I'm at - always moving).

New Deafheaven!!!

Album on July 13th on Anti. Titled Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, after Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. Pre-order HERE.

2018: April 18th

Seeing Windhand this coming Monday at the Roxy. Psyched does not even begin to describe my anticipation.

Episode 6 of Dark sealed the deal; I can't tell any of these damn people apart half the time, but this show is gorgeous and I am deeply intrigued at just what the hell is going on. A friend at work just clued me in to the fact that there are some family trees online and I'm hoping that will help, because I love the show, but I keep getting extremely confused.

Playlist from 4/17:
Mudhoney - March & Fuzz (disc 2)
The Brains - Out in the Dark
The Jesus Lizard - Rash E.P.
The Stooges - Eponymous
The Soft Moon - Deeper
The Ocean - Aeolian
White Hex - Gold Nights

Card of the day:

Well, wouldn't you know. Two days in a row? Hmm... Perhaps I need to let something go? But what?

2018: April 17th 5:22 AM

Wow. R. Lee Emery was bad, but at least he lived a full life. Harry Anderson? That sucks.



Like Cheers, Night Court is one of those iconic 80s sitcoms that is extremely nostalgic for me but also totally holds up, unlike a lot of the shows I spent too much of my youth glued to the tv for. And Harry Anderson was, obviously a huge part of that. Dead at 65 is too young.

On the other hand, THIS made me laugh out loud. Good luck sir.

Playlist from 4/16 (A lot of vinyl):

Boy Harsher - Country Girl
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Soviet Soviet - Endless
Nirvana - Bleach
Mudhoney - March & Fuzz (disc 2)
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Iwan Rebroff - Singt Weisen von Wodka und Wein

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Baggage. The Princess tries to ascend but has a massive tiger wrapped around her neck, cloying to her shoulders. Being that she is the Earthy aspect of Will, this is the Lust of Immediate Earthly Result weighing down or interfering with her Will. Sepheriothic Correspondence is Malkuth (10; Earth)."

Funny to do Hod, Chokmah, and Malkuth in a two-day span that's an interesting looking path on the Tree of Life; you can't go directly from Hod to Chokman, an ascending route, without passing through Tipareth. You can, however, take a bullet straight from Hod to Malkuth.

I'm not fluent in the Paths; perhaps I need to spend some more time on them in the near future.

2018: April 16th 11:31 AM

Took K to see one of her favorite singers, Emily Kinney, Saturday night at the Hotel Cafe. LOVE this venue. So far I've seen Barry Adamson there, Vintage Trouble, and now Miss Kinney, who - despite my ability to connect with her music lyrically -  has to have one of the best female voices in the business sans the highly trained stuff, i.e. Opera. Her band was damn fantastic as well; her guitarist Adam Tressler opened the night with his own material and it was great. He apparently recently released an album where every song is about lesser known Presidents, and he played one track from that, '31', which was outstanding. Adam's material runs a wide gamut, but the cornerstone of it all is he is one awesome guitar player; most of the set was him playing alone with just his Fender and some pedals - which he did not overuse - and it was captivating. When Adam did slowly bring up more musicians near the end of the set, first adding keys, then bass and drums, then female vocals, the set culminated in a fantastic track reminiscent of late 70s Elton John and Traffic. I've yet to discern the name of that song while rooting around online for his music, however I did find this, and I really like it for multiple reasons, one of which is absolutely that it's inspired by Vonnegut:



I finally finished the Ligotti anthologies and moved on. What a difference it is reading something fluent and not quite so scholarly. Again, not that I didn't dig some of the Ligotti, or appreciate it in its entirety for its place in the evolution of Horror and Weird Fiction, but it's nice to jump back into something a little less self-important. Recently, my good friend Jesus gifted me a copy of a book I'd not heard of before, and although I've a couple on-deck that I'm chomping at the bit to get to (The Book of Joan and Experimental Film, to be exact, with soon-to-be-released Laird Barron and David Peak breathing down my neck), I picked up Jason Arnopp's The Last Days of Jack Sparks and simply could not put it down until I was about 200 pages into its 376 page length.

This book is great. It's not horror, but it has horror elements, and what's more, there have been several scenes thus far that are legitimately scary. Like, like over-your-shoulder-while-you're-reading-it-at- 3:00AM-on-the-couch scary. Which I LOVE, and which is quite rare even for the Horror genre.

Playlist from yesterday was virtually non-existent and let's not even start on Saturday - I guess until the move with K's Mom is done, Sunday remains a day I just cannot find the time to post (yeah, but I found time to read 200 pages of a novel, eh? Maybe there's something to this day of rest stuff, eh?).

Playlist from the past two days (kinda):

The Soft Moon - Criminal

Man or Astroman - Defcon 5...4...3...2...1

Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split

Twin Peaks Limited Event Series Soundtrack

Card for the day:

And Sunday's Card, which I drew in the morning but never had a chance to contextualize:

So... a lot of Cups. Heavy emotion? Not really. Indolence could point to the fact that I didn't post yesterday. It would be interesting if the same thing happens next Sunday, card and all, since I've been kind of flaking on Sunday posts. Other than that, there's not a lot of room for lethargy in my life (though I did call out from work today; still working though). 8's match up to Hod on the Tree of Life, and we know from Alan Moore's Promethea, which is essentially a Grimoire masquerading as a Comic Book (well, that's where I know it from; obviously the correspondences predate Mr. Moore) that Hod is the Sepheroth of Language, relating to Hermes, Intellect and Communication. Now, here it gets even more interesting - I called out today, so that's my indolence, but I did so because I couldn't sleep. After a couple of hours laying awake, I woke up and dug back into Jack Sparks - and came across something I'd never read, heard or thought of before. While locked in a mostly friendly philosophical debate, Combat Magician Sherilyn Chastain argues to Atheist Jack about Science being a closed door, as short-sighted a system of belief as religion. She invokes Robert Anton Wilson, which immediately makes me love her character even more, and his Multiple-Model Agnosticism. She also argues, to summarize it, that Modern Science is a generalization of the laws of Greek Grammar.

Huh?

I'm quoting directly from the book here, and there's no plagiarism or disrespect meant; I HIGHLY recommend Mr. Arnopp's novel.

"The entire Enlightenment project was about rediscovering stuff the ancient Greeks knew. And because it's coded so heavily on that Graeco-Roman knowledge, there's whole gaps of things they didn't have words for."

Holy Moly. Never thought of it like that before, but it's obvious, even if it takes a bit of a cognitive workout to fully work that into as large a context as modern science*. But so here we have my indolence leading me to an idea new to me that centers on Language. The 8 of Cups through and through.

Also, in the Cycle of Cups, the 8 is where emotion that in 7 Debauch has gone from positive to negative with hints of addiction, becomes altogether Broken. This is, of course, followed by The 9 of Cups - Happiness. Not sure how all of this equates to me, but it's been a while since I deep-dove into a pull, so this is more an exercise at this point.

The Knight of Cups is always interesting, the Fiery aspect of Water, so there's an energy from opposites. From the Grimoire:

"Threatened by emotional deluge, the answer is within reach (note the Knight on the card reaching for the crab of revelation). The deluge is not without its rewards. Act fast and be careful not to drown." Sephirothic Tree of Life association on this one is Chokman. Hod and Chokmah, eh?

NEW GHOST!!! Rats

Almost forgot - Ghost dropped this earlier today or yesterday. I haven't watched/heard it yet, so I'm gonna post it and watch for the first time right along any one discovering it here. Album is in pre-order HERE. It's title is Prequelle and the cover art is fantastic:

2018: April 14th 3:03 AM

Haven't been to bed yet. Drove into Hollywood after work, met up with Keller and talked shop for a bit before heading to the Teragram Ballroom in DTLA for The Soft Moon.

They were incredible. Here's the thing though, opener Boy Harsher - who I'd not heard of before - left a massive impression as well, almost too massive for The Soft Moon to top. Now, that sounds ridiculous when I re-read it, and really I think the exaggerated impact has to do with the fact that I'd never heard Boy Harsher before and they really just blew me away.


In love with this band right now.

Playlist from yesterday:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus Dig!
The Red Chord - Clients
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited
Public Image Ltd - First Issue
Boy Harsher - Yr Body is Nothing

Card for the day:

Definitely sated on experience after this weekend: the Nick Cave movie Thursday, Soft Moon/Boy Harsher last night and tonight (because it's Saturday, even though I haven't been to bed yet) is Emily Kinney at the Hotel Cafe. Gonna be ready to lay low for a bit until Windhand in two weeks.

2018: April 13th 12:03 AM

Friday the 13th and I'm going to see the Soft Moon!!! Here's some awesome F13 stuff to enjoy:





New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE.

Playlist from Thursday the 12th (a mention that will become ironic later this year):

Odonis Odonis - Hollandaze
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Ben Frost - By The Throat
Monolord - Rust
Pigface - A New High In Low
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (Concert Film)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Card of the day:

Always nice to see this one, especially when I just received the proof of my first book cover! Should I reveal it yet? Naw... not just yet.

2018: April 12th 8:35 AM

Going to see this tonight:



New issue of Gideon Falls hit the stands yesterday. I have it with me in my bag, hopefully I'll get a chance to read it today.

Also, picked back up on Dark on Netflix. I had a lot of trouble with this show at first, mainly because the default was overdubs instead of the original German with subtitles. Now that I have that worked out (thanks Charles!) we're back in and it is captivating. I'm still having a bit of trouble keeping track of who is who, but overall the show is so fascinating and absolutely beautiful that I can't wait to have a few hours to just binge some of it.



Playlist from 4/11:

Ghost - Popestar E.P.
Man or Astro Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Ghost - Infestissumam
Algiers - Underside of Power
Aerosmith - Eponymous
The Ocean - Pelagial

Card for the day:

Breakthrough! Always love seeing this card, especially close to the completion of a project that has been lingering.

2018: April 11th 7:12 PM

Last night we went and saw A Quiet Place. I can't stress this enough: SEE IT IN THE THEATRE. A theatre with GOOD sound. Excellent film, and outstanding use of sound. The score is a bit overdone early on, but the juxtaposition between quiet, i.e. ambient sound, and quiet, i.e. NO sound (one character is deaf), and sound, like BIG sound, is just fantastic and makes for an awesome theatrical experience.



Playlist from yesterday:

Venue - 8 song demo (circa 2001)
Preoccupations - New Material
Soft Moon - Eponymous
Isaac Hayes - ... To Be Continued
The Who - Who's Next

Just finished Si Spencer and Sean Murphy's John Constantine Hellblazer trade City of Demons. Excellent late-era Constantine story, highly recommended. Has a marvelous climax and then a nice, cinematic outro.

Also, read what had to be my favorite story in the Ligotti Anthology, The Cocoons. Short, sweet and to the point. Body horror with a nightmare finish. Very atmospheric and creepy as all hell. If you've read it, or subsequently read it based on my recommendation, Ligotti himself comments on the story at the prompt of a question HERE.

Card for today (which, despite the late arrival of this entry, I pulled at 5 something this morning:

Professionally, this card can mean a willingness to scrap with others. This fits; I don't talk specific work stuff here, but there are people in other departments not living up to their responsibilities and I've taken to throwing down the gauntlet on them. Take care of your shit, right?

2018: April 10th 8:23 AM

I kind of need this album right now:



Playlist from 4/09:

The Ocean - Heliocentric
The Red Chord - Clients
Myrkur - M
Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age


Card of the day:

Change because something big has changed with my approach to Parish Fenn, and something bigger with our lead character. And now, I finally feel like I get her.

2018: April 9th 4:55 AM

Yesterday was chock full of tension. Not bad tension, but the kind that accompanies just barely getting a bunch of stuff done that had to get done. Chief among these integral events was getting the Art ordered for my anthology's cover. This opened up a bunch of research I didn't realize I would have to do, like trim size and paper color. And ordering the art held up the day's bigger task, which was moving some of K's mom's stuff. That's going to be an ongoing thing over the next three weeks, and it's difficult. Still, it all went fairly smooth in the end. No time for a post though, so I'll try to miniaturize the day herein, beginning with the card I pulled yesterday, which was the Nine of Cups: Happiness.

Playlist from the 7th:

Grifteskymfning - Likpsalm
Myrkur - M
Blut Aus Nord - Deus Salutis Meae
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Lustmord - The Word as Power
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Playlist from the 8th:

Myrkur - M

Card of the day:

This I take as a direct nod to the deep dive I'm about to pull on the first issue of Parish Fen, which is in need of some tweaking before I pass if back off to Grimm for the art, which has been started and looks absolutely Amazing.

2018: April 7th, 11:07 AM

I've been clocking a lot of hours with the first album by Myrkur; first listens since 2015 when it made my best of list.



Playlist from yesterday:

Myrkur - M
Blut Aus Nord - MoRT
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Pigface - Gub
Morphine - Yes

Card of the day:

Hmmm...

2018: April 6th 6:57 AM

I cannot wait to read this:

From the Word Horde website:

It’s been years since the groundbreaking debut of black metal band Angelus Mortis, and that first album, Henosis, has become a classic of the genre, a harrowing primal scream of rage and anger. With the next two albums, Fields of Punishment and Telos, Angelus Mortis cemented a reputation for uncompromising, aggressive music, impressing critics and fans alike. But the road to success is littered with temptation, and over the next decade, Angelus Mortis’s leader, Max, better known as Strigoi, became infamous for bad associations and worse behavior, burning through side-men and alienating fans.

Today, at the request of their record label, Max and new drummer Roland are traveling to Ukraine to record a comeback album with the famously reclusive cult act Wisdom of Silenus. What they discover when they get there will go far deeper than the aesthetics of the genre, and the music they create–antihuman, antilife–ultimately becomes a weapon unto itself.

Equally inspired by the fractured, nightmarish novels of John Hawkes, the blackened dreamscapes of cosmic-pessimist philosophy, and the music of second-wave black metal bands, author David Peak’s Corpsepaint is an exploration of creative people summoning destructive powers while struggling to express what it means to be human.

Cover Art by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Cover Design by Scott R Jones

Pub Date: April 30, 2018

New installment of Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday. Read it HERE on Joup.

Playlist for 4/05:

Cypress Hill - III: Temples of Boom
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Soundgarden - Down on the Upside
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Preoccupations - New Material

Card for the day:

There is some extremely fascinating reading on this card HERE. I don't have time this morning to comb that particular text for correspondences to my daily life, so I'm going with the idea that The Magus reminds us of the creative Will that shapes all life. Self-manifestation, which fits because I intend to finish editing the last two stories in the anthology today or tomorrow, then it's just shoring up the cover art.

Terry Gilliam Finally Did It!

Mr. Brown sent me this first thing this morning! Can't believe it is finally happening.

2018: April 5th 4:54 AM

Happy Birthday Jake! Still miss you my friend. You've missed a lot... but then again, a lot of what you've missed isn't exactly great, so maybe you're better off. Still, I think about you damn near everyday. Here's one of our favorites:


I'm going to supersede the Divine Feminine thing I've been doing with my listening for a Jake day today, in honor of my one-time best friend who passed away when we were twenty-two. It would be his forty-second birthday today (let's be honest, there was no way he was making it this far). Jake and I had a lot of music in common; we'd spend hours smoking pot and just listening. Tried to do a few bands at certain points. One of those, Second Attention, was pretty damn good. Maybe one day I'll upload some of that stuff to youtube or, actually, I'll probably do a band camp. Regardless, Sabotage was one of those albums we analyzed endlessly, and Meglomania in particular, underwent heavy scrutiny to its lyrics, which are amazing.

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying going up later today.

Playlist from yesterday:

Jucifer - If Thine Enemy Hunger
Witchcryer - Cry Witch
Myrkur - M
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Foster the People - Torches
Ministry - Psalm 69
Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Cocksure - TVMALSV

Card for the day:

"Physical prosperity, abundance, and material success."

Nice to see with annual reviews just around the corner and me working my arse off constantly. Also, always good to remember this card represents the total of the spheres of the Quaballahistic Tree of Life: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tipareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth - the last being the sphere of Disks as well as that of tens.

2018: April 4th, 5:15 AM

This song:



I've been clocking a lot of time with the first Zeppelin record recently, both on the original vinyl and the remastered version available in Apple Music, and it's never sounded so damn good. I love all Led Zeppelin, but my binges with the band's music usually reach obsession level only once every two years or so and almost always skew toward the back half of their career. But right now, Zeppelin One is constantly haunting me, and this song is one of the reasons. I've probably not listened to these songs on headphones since the old mix tapes I made off WCKG's Get the Led Out sessions, back when I was a Freshmen or Sophomore in High School, circa '91/'92, and in plugging in directly to my ear canals recently with the remastered version, I've noticed a few things I'm unsure if I was ever aware of before. Chief among these is a faint, eerie backing vocal Robert Plant does around 1:41 in, where he pre-sings the "I can hear it calling me," part of the end of the verse. It chills me, and I like that.

Playlist from yesterday:

Sarah Brighten - Eden
Garbage - Eponymous
Luscious Jackson - Fever In Fever Out
Preoccupations - New Material
L7 - Hungry for Stink

Based on my Tarot pull yesterday, I tried to stick to feminine music and avoid anything aggro. About halfway through the day, I realized the Prince of Cups card had another interesting juxtaposition to my immediate days when I remembered that I've been reading Becky Cloonan and Andy Belanger and Lee Louhridge. It's one of my favorite comics right now and it has a very feminine vibe, which makes its dark, creepy and sometimes downright terrifyingly sexy (yeah, that's a thing) vibe very unique and extremely compelling. It also opens me up to a different tone than I'm used to for my thoughts, letting a little of that feminine side in at angles I'm not used to experiencing them, and that makes the machine feel like its running pretty good.

Card for today:

Obviously another Feminine card, what with Egyptian Goddess Nuit pictured, dousing herself in the waters of the Universe, Stars at her feet.

2018: April 3rd, 5:21 AM

I'd written these guys off a long time ago. When I first heard System of a Down, and it was this exact song, they made a good impression on me. Then I dove a little deeper and found the malaise of the down-tuned, trace elliot 00s guitar-driven metal storm left me cold enough where I wrote off most of the groups that 'made it' during that time. Eventually a few exceptions leaked through, some of them rather begrudgingly . A few days ago at work one of the newer guys on my shift and I were talking music and System came up. He's considerably younger, and had a completely different perspective. I decided to hit that first record back up on Apple Music and, wouldn't you know, I listened to it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Also, I've always dug their completely insane cover of Sabbath's Snowblind that appears on the Nativity in Black tribute anthology record, so I guess I never 100% discounted these guys.



Playlist from yesterday:

The Fall - Early Singles
System of a Down - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Peter Gabriel - Us
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
Soundgarden - SOMMS

Card for the day:

Gallantry, gentleness and a male in touch with his feminine side. This is me, to a degree. Since early 20s, I've always understood and respected the feminine aspects of my psyche, and I often pay homage to them with the music I listen to and how I relate to it while its on. Maybe I'll follow this side of things today and see where it gets me (I've been rather male/aggressive at work lately, not in an alpha male way, but with a lot of things going pear-shaped at month's end, I got pretty aggro. Today I'll play it a bit different, with this card in mind.

2018: April 2nd, 5:07 AM

This song. Wow.



Playlist from 4/01:

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
John Coltrane - Giant Steps

Card of the day:

Two, as one drifted from the pile while I shuffled and made itself known, so to speak:

Ace of Swords was the actual card I pulled. This card is BREAKTHROUGH and I feel that's a direct reference to the fact that in all the busyness yesterday, moving and cleaning and whatnot, I actually managed to get a final edit done on two more of the seven stories for the anthology.

This seems to be piggybacking off the last two pulls in some weird, reverse energy fluctuation. I had the Six of Wands and the Seven of Wands, a influx of energy and the expenditure of that energy, respectively. Now I have the beginning of that triumvirate, where the energy amasses. Fits, if I'm going to make a push this week to finish the editing and the first issue of Parish Fen, which is exactly what I'm going to do, all while hopefully only working about 45 hours between now and Friday and taking an actual weekend off.

New Zeal and Ardor!

Let's hope this heralds a new album or E.P. sometime soon!

2018: April 1st 10:21 AM

Yesterday was a sacrifice - finished the latest Drinking with Comics and put it up, worked in the middle of the day, cleaned and unboxed. Never had a chance to do the blog until later at night and by then March 30th, it's playlist and the idea of pulling a card were loooong gone. I do know that I woke up with this in my head yesterday though:



Nearing the end of Thomas Ligotti's Grimscribe and just finished The Dreaming in Nortown, easily one of my favorite stories in this collection of the author's earliest two anthologies. The story builds a nice, palpable dread by plumbing the depths of consciousness; that nasty little place where waking life and the oneiric plane intermingle. And Ligotti does this in a way that feels reminiscent of Lovecraft's best philosophical terror, i.e. the opening paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu, so there's a nostalgic harmony to my enjoyment of it, as well. That said, the slightly ineffective abstractions meant to masquerade as profound raison d'être for the characters wax and wane a bit in a kind of 'nothing is happening' way; not to say I'm complaining there's no action or monsters, quite the opposite. Once again though, as I have with other stories in this collection, I feel the The Dreaming in Nortown's end doesn't exactly payoff what the rest of the story sets up.

Also recently began Si Spencer and Sean Murphy's older Hellblazer story, City of Demons. So far, really good.

Playlist from 3/31

Tennis System - Technicolour Blind
Cash Money - Black Hearts and Broken Wills
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - The Very Best of
Childish Gambino - Because the Internet
System of a Down - Eponymous
The Verve - A Storm in Heaven
Pink Floyd - the Wall
The Used - Ocean of the Sky
Garbage - Eponymous

New Issue of Drinking with Comics is up!

And I'll be damned, we talk about comics THE ENTIRE TIME!!!

2018: March 30th 5:13 AM

Unboxed and shelved my CDs last night, and listened to U2's Achtung Baby for the first time in a long time while doing so. That's probably why I woke up with this one in my head.

U2 is a pretty polarizing group for me; they're a lot like Metallica or RHCP - I love the early stuff, hate the later/current stuff, and generally dislike the public personas they present to the world. That said, War and Achtung are two unbelievably strong records that help define certain moments of my early life, so they will be with me always.

Playlist from yesterday:

Luscious Jackson - Electric Honey

Silkworm - Firewater

U2 - Achtung Baby

Brian Eno, David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I noticed that Stop Making Sense is currently included with Prime - I've somehow managed to make it 42 years without seeing it so I began remedying that last night, although we didn't make it far before I had to turn in. Today and tomorrow have the potential to be nightmares at work, so it may be a time before I get back to watch the rest. Thus far, three songs in, it is of course awesome.

No Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying today. Next week I'm back at that for sure.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Emotional depths honed by intellect - the airy aspect of water, or the intelligent aspect of emotion. I'm taking this as a sign to temper my emotions (read: anger) over the next two days as other departments play their little end-of-the-month games. Games that always fuck over my department. Okay. I'll keep my mouth to a minimum in the interest of the greater good (read: my paycheck).

2018: March 29th 10:33 PM

Bit late today, eh? Looooooong day.



I'd forgotten how goddamn funny this song is. I remember when The King in Yellow was first released, Mr. Brown sent it to me with the comment that the chorus about the 300 lb psychic baby was hysterical.

It is.

Playlist from yesterday:

Singles OST
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Odonis Odonis - Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
Silkworm - Firewater
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Card for the day, which I actually pulled this morning at 6:32 AM, was indeed, following through from yesterday:

Energy that began with the five of wands Strife, ballooned with Six of Wands Victory, is now expended.

Also, the eye thing is totally a side effect of the prednisone and I am now, at my pulmonologist's recommendation, tapering off of it.

2018: March 28th 11:59 AM

After the Astronaut is the Butthole Surfers album Capitol never released, back at the end of the 90s/early 00s. I don't remember the whole story any more, but basically in the great 'alternative buy-up' that occurred after Nirvana's success, when label execs were plugging their ears and counting their checks from Oh the Guilt, the major labels spent a lot of time scratching their heads and signing checks to bands they thought might be the next "big thing". As long-time stalwarts of underground madness, the Surfers were held in high regard by a lot of people labels deemed to be 'in the know' and they were signed. One has to imagine the man who signed them never went back and actually listened to much of the band's back catalogue, certainly not Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac. Anyway, I think Capitol released two records for the Surfers and then pulled the plug on releasing the third. I ended up finding most of the tracks on Napster back when that was still a thing - that's what I used the sight for, not pirating stuff I could hand band's money for - and have loved it ever since. Eventually most of the content was released as The Weird Revolution album - I've never bothered with that, as it seemed superfluous to my version and the version of my favorite song - embedded above - is just different for me to turn my head back to the one I know. Not sure how the band feels about the Weird Revolution or even who put it out, but that's really just a Wikipedia entry away I'm sure. Anyway, I love this song. A lot. Specifically the way Gibby delivers the lines about Macaroni hanging from his chin and Sadness filling the air for the hurt shirt. 

Playlist from 3/27:

The Wire Tapper #23

Captain Jack - For Ron

Black Sabbath - Masters of Reality
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. #1

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Butthole Surfers - After the Astronaut

Card of the day:

While performing my standard, 3-shuffle pre-draw, the following two card leapt from the deck and landed on the floor.

My subsequent pull was:

I wasn't planning on doing an all-out spread this morning, but let's see what we have. So, going off of my notes in the Grimoire, we get the following:

Knight of Cups - Enlightenment, or perhaps Victory, is within reach, but there's danger of an emotional deluge. Act fast and be careful not to drown.

The Hierophant - a wise teacher, take advantage of opportunities to learn and advance in stature.

Six of Wands Victory - Energy has crested to reward, but this is a pinion card, caught between the fireball of energy in the Five of Wands Strife and the Seven of Wands Valour. This accentuates the 'act fast and be careful not to drown,' or maybe in this case it's be careful not to get burned.

Not sure how this applies to me for the day or moving forward, but it will be good to keep my eye open for it.

2018: March 27th 4:22 AM

Starting the day with The Wire Tapper #23, specifically at the moment a track called "Sevilla Una Maravilla. I wanted to embed this here, as per the norm, however the track is not on youtube and the information provided on the liner notes of the disc point in the direction of a warm circuit.com, I'm guessing a label, which is no longer operative, due to the fact that if you click that link you'll see the domain is up for sale. First another track, the subsequent one on the disc, which I really quite like:




Not finding the warmcircuit or Windup track brings to mind the idea that in this 'high speed age', things appear and disappear quickly, and amazingly almost without track. The Wire Tapper disc itself is a free anthology that would accompany Wire magazine back when I bought it ravenously every month or other month - can't quite remember the schedule - circa 2009/2010. I stopped simply because of the mounting financial issues that culminated with my personal apocalypse in 2015, and the fact that I stopped working at Borders and they went out of business in 2011. Sure I could have subscribed, even felt guilty sometimes that I didn't, as Wire is a truly, completely independent magazine, owned and operated by the staff, who bought the publication out from its former publisher sometime in the mid-to-late 00s. It's still available, and what's more it's available online here, every issue ever for the 2.50 lbs a month (a new concern of mine is space - I just had to throw almost all my old issues away in the move).

Playlist from yesterday:

Singles - OST
Preoccupations - New Material
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Sepultura - Rise
My Bloody Valentine - MBV (Vinyl)
The Soft Moon - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Sabotage (Vinyl)
The Dead Boys - We Have Come for Your Children  (Vinyl)
Angelo Badalamenti/David Lynch - Twin Peaks Archive

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Indicates trouble earlier on that is now revealed/healed. Rest/recuperation. Find the high ground to gain perspective."

Okay, this is of particular interest to me, as today's pull appears to answer directly an insight I had upon waking this morning. If you've keep up with this page you know I've been pulling The Fool a lot lately. This has had me wondering if I'm on more of a 'journey' than I originally assumed, something more than an allusion to my move, now 90% complete. So why still pulling The Fool? Well, there are other interpretations, but that's not it. I hang with my gut on these, and my gut says journey. At the same time, in my everyday life, I've noticed over the last few days, specifically since the move, my eye sight has become horrendous. For example, yesterday at dusk I drove the five minutes to the nearby beer palace for a sixer, and had such a hard time with my night vision that I returned home essentially terrified that I'm going blind. Dramatic? Maybe, but I've begun fearing degeneration due to my Sarcoidosis, a disease I am currently treating with a first six-week salvo of Prednisone, but one that is known to affect the eyes. I've apparently had Sarcoidosis for a long time, possibly over ten years, and because of repeated missed diagnosis by medical professional fools, it was not until I was somewhat dramatically thrown in a local hospital's quarantine area for three days last spring that someone finally figured out what was wrong with me. Well, no, it wasn't at the hospital they figured it out, it was later, when I was first introduced to my current Pulmonologist, who is fantastic. So if I'm finally treating it, shouldn't any symptoms be diminishing, not escalating?

This is the question...

For the record it's not just at dusk or in the dark that my eyesight bothers me, and it's not consistent. I drove to work in the dark yesterday morning without incident, and yet my daylight drive home yesterday was a massive strain. Even over the weekend, Saturday specifically, the day after the move, I had moments of confusion and stress due to not seeing properly in broad daylight. So with all this mounting, I woke up pre-alarm this morning, and the first thought in my head was about what The Fool is trying to tell me. And I thought, "hey, my eyes feel better - maybe I'm just exhausted." Normally I nap at least once a week, but I haven't had that luxury since at least a week before the move. And even if I stay up late, I generally do not sleep in. So I wake up and the first thing I think is, "Maybe my eyes are a symptom of being exhausted?" and then I pull the Two of Swords and, to reiterate for effect, "Indicates trouble earlier on that is now revealed/healed. Rest/recuperation. Find the high ground to gain perspective."

Not sure at this point how the "Find the high ground..." might factor in, if at all, but I think the rest speaks for itself. And I realize that, whether it's a case of 'if you've convinced yourself, that's great' or not, pulling a card a day and making the effort to reengage with my Thoth deck and the Tarot/Jungian system in general has had a similar turn of results as my dream journaling/meditation experiments from 2015 - the more you engage, the more the results become exponentially interwoven in your daily life and, eventually USEFUL.

How's that for Magick?

2018: March 26th 7:25 AM

Currently listening to, my favorite track - thus far - off Preoccupations new album, appropriately titled, New Material. It dropped last Friday and I've been jamming it since Saturday. Really enjoying how this band's sound is carving its own niche. They sound like no one.

Rounding the corner on the Thomas Ligotti. Still not loving it, although the current story I'm on, Nethescurial, will probably bring me back into focus if I can stop my mind from ping-ponging around my new pad, trying to solve everything that needs solving all at once. You can actually read this story on Ligotti.net. Anyone who follows the link and reads it, let me know what you think in my comments; at this point it's really hard to know if my lack of bonding with the bulk of this book is the writer, me (when it's one of those, it's the other as well) or all this upheaval in my life.

Playlist from yesterday:

Preoccupations - New Material
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Fire Walk With Me - OST
The Antlers - Familiars

Card of the day:

Now I need to look into why this one keeps coming up.

2018: March 25th, 8:49 AM

Establishing a new routine for the new pad. It's good that the first thing I want to do when I wake up is write, and now I have a desk with all my stuff on it directly next to the bed.

Saw Annihilation yesterday, the 'second'* film directed by Alex Garland. It probably will not last in the theaters past this coming Friday so I'll just say, if you have the chance, go see it. Now, if you can. As in, right now. It is gorgeous, nightmarish and utterly breathtaking at times. That bear scene... wow.



Playlist from yesterday:

iPod on shuffle
Preoccupations - New Material
Nikka Costa - Everybody's Got Their Something
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair (first LP played on the turntable in the new home, seemed a good choice)

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Financial/material/domestic trouble on the horizon." - for my money this is representing the fact that we just moved into a new place, so I have a bunch of financial 'plates' spinning right now, and they're all going to come down around the same time. I've got a large tax bill, my half of the move-in (which luckily gets us to May 1st, so that's not a huge deal), as well as all the little expenses that sneak up after a move like this. We're in a good place and all of this is doable, it's just until I'm over that tax line I'll be a little anxious, or worried. Now, what the Grimoire goes on to say here is a very good 'fix' for that anxiety, because:

"Worrying about encroaching threats only feed them. Emphasis in understanding and working with this card is it represents the anxiety of the threat, not the threat itself. Under the influence represented by this card, the worry becomes it's own threat."

It goes on to suggest a pattern interrupt; also says, "physically write down the object/cause of the anxiety," which I just did above, so that already feels as though I've transmuted some of the nervous energy.

There's an interesting site on this card here.

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

*Second in quotes because it recently came out that Garland directed Dredd.