Sunday Bandcamp: Psychetect

It's been a minute since I revisited Psychetct's Extremism. I bought this back around 2015 or 2016. I haven't been the headspace for this kind of thing for a while, but stumbling across it again on my old iPod earlier today, I couldn't help but be transported into a landscape of digital madness. The focus and restraint showed in Extremism's creation and continuity is a bit baffling to me, in all the best ways.

Isolation: Day 144 - New Mastodon

Well, maybe not exactly new Mastodon, as the forthcoming Medium Rarities, out September 11th, is, as the title suggests, a rarities collection, and not a full-blown new album. Either way, I'm excited. It's been three years since Emperor of Sand, and I am fully ready for new music from these guys.

**

Last night, it was with great fervor that I rented Amy Seimetz's new film She Dies Tomorrow. Wow. This is one I'll be mulling over for months to come. It's not that there's necessarily something deeper than what's on the screen, but the film is an interesting idea - and extrapolation of linguistic, sociological, and psychological idea already out there - executed by Semitz's unique and confident voice. It's a voice that is wholly her own, although you'll be able to make some comparisons when it comes to tempo and restraint. It's the confidence I'm smitten with here; this is not going to be a popular film, but the writer/director doesn't care. And she shouldn't. That's the point.

**

Playlist:

Poe - Hello

Exhalants - Bang (pre-release single)

Moaning - Uneasy Laughter

Contours - 20th Century Masters

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Mastodon - Fallen Torches (pre-release single)

Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.

**

Card:

 I did a spread today, to see if A) the recently omnipotent Hierophant would rear his head and, B) if so, might I find a little clarity. No V, but I think I may have found some clarification. 

I've recently finished The Secret Life of Murder, which I'm alternately thinking of as A Beast of its Own Momentum, although that title will most likely go to something else. Once finished, though, I decided instead of simply publishing the novel through my The Horror Vision Press, I would try to shop it. That meant buying a Writer's Market - thank god for Kindle, so no phone book sized tome laying around, waiting to be discarded in a few months. It also meant figuring out a way to make the book slightly different. The version I'm shopping has a different title - a far simpler title, and not necessarily one that I approve of. The idea here is to try and use this to my advantage, to usher in a larger audience and paycheck. Selling out? Who cares - that's an argument for a younger man. As the world unwinds, I find that all I really want to do is be able to buy a piece of land somewhere in Washington state - somewhere away from major cities - and have my little enclave. This is the first step on that experiment.My plan also means sending query letters, something I used to find distasteful, but which I now recognize that I am 100% terrified of. I find this near-paralyzing fear confounding, but its there alright. So for the better part of a week I sat twiddling my thumbs, making excuses of why I wasn't ready to do that yet. Until the first of the three draws of V The Hierophant recently, which basically says this is the dogma you left behind, but for the moment, face it head-on. This new spread then, tells me I have to put in the work doing this, and it will pay off and change my world.

David Lynch Theater: The Mystery of the Seeing Hand

 Extra posts may be a common thing for a while, as I'm attempting to work around the frustrations I have with the new blogger format. Also, I haven't posted enough from David Lynch Theater of late. Here's a recent favorite.

Isolation: Day 143

The Two Minutes to Late Night covers EP is up until Midnight tonight and it is packed with goodness! Here's my favorite track. Download HERE. Remember, proceeds go to The Cancer Research Inst. and the artists who contributed!

**

I just went back and looked at yesterday's post - the HTML embed codes I used didn't translate! This is because Blogger is changing its interface, and I have to say, the new one SUCKS. It's taking me forever to write these now, so after more years than I can remember off the top of my head, this site may end up closing up shop. We'll see.

**

Last week Eibon Press released the fourth and final issue of their adaptation/expansion of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I ordered issue one a few weeks back, loved it, and went back and ordered the rest yesterday.

There are several editions of these, with various bells and whistles. I went for the basic ones - no signature or art prints - simply because I'm not really one for all the extras. Just give me the book.

**

Playlist:
Mike Patton - Mondo Cane
Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
Contours - 20th Century Masters
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Soviet Soviet - Endless

**
Card:


Wow. Okay already.

What is happening here, what I am trying my best to follow through on, is submitting query letters for the new book. I sent my first yesterday. I'll send another today. The Hierophant represents the established order - ie the traditional publishing industry - and although I've eschewed it for my two previous releases, and will sidestep it again if I don't drum up any agent or publisher interest by October - I'm attempting to use the new book to go down that route. We'll see. I'd rather just publish it through The Horror Vision Press, but why not try the other way, too?

Isolation: Day 142

Had an itch to crack out The Heartbreakers this morning. Classic. Somewhere I have the files for a perfectly curated edition of L.A.M.F., as provided by White Trash Soul Blog. This morning I just went with what I found on Apple Music, the L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes (Remastered). I haven't compared the two, but I know the one up on White Trash Soul takes mixes from all the different international releases and compiles what they deemed the best of each song. It's good. So is this. That's the beautiful thing about great music - in most cases, the soul comes across no matter the mix. 

In most cases.

**

Tomorrow, August 7th, from Midnight to Midnight, Two Minutes to Late Night is making their Covers Only release available for purchase. Part of the proceeds go to The Cancer Research Institute, the rest to the musicians contributing. Great causes both. 

If you're unfamiliar with Two Minutes to Late Night, it's essentially a Late Night Talk Show format show created by comedians Jordan Olds and Drew Kaufman, and the show's theme is all METAL! They release episodes complete with guests and skits, the house band is Mutoid Man with occasional guests, and they also release cover videos that pull in all kinds of guests, all playing synched over the internet. Here's one of my favorites from their recent releases:

And yes, that's Max Fucking Weinberg on drums!

Two Minutes to Late Night's website is HERE. Their bandcamp is HERE. I'm not really sure where the covers album will be available, but I'm pretty sure it will be through one of these two sites, or when the following video premieres, they will tell us there. 

**

Playlist:

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

Nirvana - Nevermind

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Ministry - Toronto 1986 (Live)

Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP

**

Card:

Loud and clear. 

Isolation: Day 141

Mr. Brown sent me this last night, and after watching it, both K and I are immediate fans. I can't wait to dig into The Hu's catalogue, which you can peruse and purchase from HERE.
**

A new trailer dropped for Season Two of The Boys.



The trailer is a bit overdone, but I'm still excited to see where this goes.

**

NCBD:

Not a lot this week. I did notice this coming from Vault, and I'm curious. Back in the early/mid 90s, I wasn't a RPG'r, but I loved Vampires. I know the entire genre is cliched now, and maybe it was back then, too. I didn't know that. I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire when I was a senior in High School, and I LOVED it. This was shortly before the movie - which I'm not a huge fan of - and reading that first novel in Rice's Vampire Chronicles coinciding with my purchasing Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses (the digipak version, of course). I'd smoke out and lay around devouring the novel, while listening to Peter Steele's voice sing of Blood and Fire, and Suspended in Dusk, and Steele's voice became Louie's voice. I haven't gone back to those novels in since I read them; I'm not even sure I'd like them now. Back then though, Rice's fiction had me ravenous for more Blood Lore, and in this way I discovered White Wolf Publishing's Vampire: The Masquerade. My Chicago comic shop Amazing Fantasy carried a lot of books as well (thank you Garrett!), and I believe that is where I bought my first Masquerade novel. I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one it was, it left a bit of an impression on me. Enough that I'm curious to see a comic series reviving the line.

A few years back, when my friend Missi turned me on to Poppy Z. Brite's fiction from the 90s, it kind of scratched a long-standing itch for this kind of Goth-Pageantry fiction, and it's probably the hangover from reading her Lost Souls last year that has me tempted to pick this up.


**

Playlist:

Young Widows - Settle Down City
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Metallica - Master of Puppets

**

Card:

Keep going despite fatigue. The wheel turns, so says Ka.

Isolation: Day 140 - Vólan!

Vólan is a band from Moscow I'd never heard of until this morning when this live session from Audio Tree popped up on my youtube feed. Pretty awesome! You can hit their Bandcamp HERE for more music and merch!

**

I'm a pretty big fan of Robert S. Wilson's Nightscape Press, and as such I backed their recent Kickstarter HERE. I'd actually meant to post about this earlier, but there's still twelve days left, and even fully funded, this is absolutely worth contributing to. Nightscape is a fantastic and fully independent publisher, and my hope is they will be around for many years to come.


Previously, I've mentioned Nightscape's brilliant Ashes and Entropy anthology - easily one of the best books I read last year. I also recently picked up Dark and Distant Voices, Nightscape's short story collection by Tim Waggoner. I'm only one story in - ALL my pleasure reading is on hold as I work on final edits of two different versions of my forthcoming novel (I'll explain that at some other point). The point is, Mr. Wilson runs a top shelf company who deserve our support.

**

Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Nirvana - Nevermind
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Urge Overkill - Saturation
**

Big picture.

Isolation: Day 139

The beginning of this song is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard on piano. I fell down a bit of a Don Shirley rabbit hole yesterday, and in doing so, came across again some articles that posit 2018's Green Book was a racist film. THIS is the problem with the left; everything is a problem. Every man's a rapist. Every white person is racist. Four years of captain goatfucker in office and everyone loses their fucking minds. The way forward is not to one extreme or the other. It's COMMON SENSE. Until the day this prevails (not holding my breath), I'll use music like this to remind me how beautiful the world is by listening to music like this. Thank you, Don Shirley.

**

The Final episode of HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark aired last night. Slightly anticlimactic, but of course that's the bane of most True Crime.

Next up, we're finishing the last half of the final season of Breaking Bad. halfway through, I realize there's a reason I've put off revisiting this show. The emotion destruction that accompanies Season 5 Part 2 is unlike anything else I've seen in serialized television. I love this show for the craft, the concise nature of the storytelling, but it really beats me up.

After that? I think we're going to do one both K and Mr. Brown have recommended to me - Halt and Catch Fire.



I've been looking forward to this for some time, so even though there's a boatload of shows to dig into, this one is next.

**

Playlist:

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Led Zeppelin - Coda
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
Roly Porter - Kistvaen
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Jeffery Alan Jones - Most Beautiful Island OST
François-Eudes Chanfrault - Computer Assisted Sunset
Ghost - Opus Eponymous
Ghosts of Glaciers - The Greatest Burden
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Don Shirley - Don Shirley's Best
Don Shirley - Total Expressions

**

Card:

Time to pay closer attention to the rules for a bit, especially those I place upon myself. Things may have gotten a bit loosey Goosey of late, with Quarantine-Fatigue, or possibly from the contemplation of actually making it through the tunnel and out into the light again.

Sunday Bandcamp: Dead Swords

Holy shit, where has this been my whole life? I stumbled across New Jersey's Dead Swords while tripping off this awesome record that Heaven is an Incubator posted a few days ago. Talk about an algorithm!

This album goes deep, so strap on some ear goggles and disappear to another dimension.

Isolation: Day 138 The Royal Screw

I cannot get enough of this album! It is perfect, and this song is probably my favorite (I'm rotating through the track list day-by-day). The drum sound on this record is a total throw-back to old school Rhythm and Blues, while having the advantages of modern technology. The alto sax that peppers through the verses evokes Boots Randolph, while the chorus horns hit hard and serve as a good-natured reminder that former Dap-King Thomas Brenneck produced this collection of perfection. Finally, the vocals are perfect - striking a bit of an evocation of classic Van Morrison while still being completely Adam Weiner, snark and energy going full throttle.

**

Last night K and I watched the indie film Cosmos. Loved it! In fact, I kept thinking "I never knew astronomy could be so riveting! This reminded me of Darren Aronofsky's π, not in style or tone at all, but simply because the filmmakers made something most people see very little in and make it thrilling (in π it's math).



Cosmos was directed by brothers Elliot and Zander Weaver and stars a total of four freakin' people, and it's one of the best examples of 'more with less' I've seen in a while. True, the score is definitely heavy, and really helps to dramatize situations that might have had slightly less impact, but overall, this one get a four-and-a-half star from me.

The Weavers' production company is Elliander Pictures, website is HERE.

**

Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangan's Noose
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
JK Flesh - Posthuman
Dead Swords - Enders
Low Cut Connie - What Has Happened to Me (pre-release single)
JK Flesh - Depersonalization
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won

**

Card:

Turning once again to the Raven Deck, I get a nod to follow my instincts. I think this card is a vexing counterpoint to the 4 of Wands' continuous advice.

Isolation: Day 137

Mr. Brown had to remind me several times to look up Low Cut Connie, and when I finally did, I understood and became extremely thankful for his persistence. So far, 2015's Hi Honey is all I know, but MAN is it a fantastic album. This is a tie for my favorite track - so far - with Royal Screw, which I might just post here tomorrow.

**
As of yesterday, my short story Pentagram Girls is available to read for free on Wattpad, just follow the widget below:



If you dig the story, you can follow the widgets to the left to order the book - I have a 'quarantine special' of $.99 for the Kindle copy running now, so that's a pretty great deal, if I do say so myself. Also, that fantastic cover art is from my good friend and often co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm. If you dig his art, check out his site HERE.

**

Playlist:

Primus - Frizzle Fry
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues
Orville Peck - Pony
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Joy Division - Closer
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Dead Swords - Enders

**

Card:

I keep getting this card because I shake my head like I understand and heed the advice contained therein, then turn around and do the exact opposite.

Isolation: Day 136

It was a real disappointment to learn that Shane Carruth - whose films Primer and Upstream Color are among the best films made in the last twenty years - is not a very cool person. I won't go into everything, but aside from numerous accounts of his assholery to everyday people, it appears that he may have made public certain aspects of his estranged relationship with director Amy Seimetz in a weird attempt to sabotage the release of her new film, She Dies Tomorrow. I'm not sure this is exactly what's going on, but regardless, I wanted to see this film before all this happened, now I'll be making it my Friday night watch next week when it drops on the 8th, just to help bump the film's numbers. Looks awesome, and seeing Jane Adams and Tunde Adebimpe from TVOTR is just too good to be true.

**

K and I caught up to the current episode of HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark last night. This show is a powerhouse of emotion and terror, and although I usually don't have the stomach or nerve for true crime - I prefer my horror to have at least a dash of supernatural so it doesn't color the world around me any darker than I already perceive it - this is one I would recommend to everyone. I've loved most of what Michelle McNamara's husband Patton Oswalt has done since someone turned me onto Feelin' Kinda Patton in the mid-00s. To see this side of his life, and the lengths Michelle McNamara went to hunting a decades-old killer, it's inspiring.



**

Playlist:

Primus - Frizzle Fry
Count Raven - Storm Warning
Angel Witch - '82 Revisited
Testament - Titans of Creation
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

**

Card:

Another pull from my beautiful new Raven Deck:

So I'll be paying more attention to my intuition.

Isolation: Day 136 - New Sumac

A couple years ago, I caught Sumac live opening for Converge. Fantastic band. I kind of forgot about them after that, but with this lead track off their forthcoming album out October 2nd on Thrill Jockey - Pre-order HERE - I'm all in.

**

NCBD:

Finally! We haven't been waiting for this new Brubaker/Phillips graphic novel for very long, but it's felt like a millennium! These guys are aces, and if you subscribe to Brubaker's email newsletter, you will have seen his announcement that they are releasing three original graphic novels over the next year as part of a new series. He hasn't released all the details yet, but he did include a few pages of the finished product, and it looks fantastic. Of course.

I'm a bit on the fence with this one, but I'm absolutely down to give Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips' That Texas Blood the benefit of a few issues to lock into place.

I LOVE this cover! So old school, black and white TMNT. This book just gets better and better, breaking new ground with world building no longer beholden to the old iterations.

**

Playlist:

Mitch and Ira Yuspeh - Seven Doors of Death OST

Godflesh - Streetcleaner

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

JK Flesh - Depersonalization

Baroness - Gold and Grey

Blueneck - Repetitions

Primus - Frizzle Fry

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

**

Card:

I was super excited to draw a card this morning from my new deck, one my good friend Missi colored for me. The deck is just the Major Arcana, but that's super cool. I know a few people who only draw with the Majors, and I've kind of always wanted a deck to do that with. Broadstroke answers can be insanely helpful.

Of course I shuffled the hell out of the deck - I could feel the energy Missi put into these things - and what card flips out on its own and lands face up in front of me? The Fool, of course, because I'm beginning a new journey with a new deck. Not replacing my beloved Thoth, but adding to it, in a way.

I've never been one to have multiple decks, but this is special and I love it. Look at how gorgeous this card is! I'm christening this deck the Raven Deck, after Missi. 

Isolation: Day 135 - Kilroy Was Here

I was elated to see this trailer yesterday. Ever since Tusk, I've been on the outs with Kevin Smith; I used to be a huge fan of his films and his podcasts. Even when his material wasn't great - Clerks II - I always gave him the benefit of the doubt, simply because I'd heard him talk about his creative process and the industry numerous times in person or on his podcasts, and always considered him an aspiration. The thing about Tusk that sunk that boat was despite the fact that Michael Parks gives a fantastic performance, and the cinematography and set design is fantastic, it felt stupid and ill-conceived, not to mention a total tonal mess. Why didn't he get the benefit of the doubt that time? Well, in the year or two before Tusk, Smith began talking about how pot had become a major part of his creative process, allowing him to follow through on ideas he normally would have dismissed. Guess what? That's not a good thing, to jettison your internal quality department by way of inhibition dampening drugs. Hey, I'm no angel. I drink and smoke often. That said, I rarely work on major projects when under the influence. I might get a breakthrough idea while stoned - that happens somewhat often - but I also know when I sober up what to discard as fanciful crap and what to keep. Tusk feels like a pretty good idea that went off the deep end, I'm guessing due to Smith's state of mind while writing it.

All that aside, Kilroy looks FANTASTIC. I'm super happy to be excited about a Kevin Smith project again, especially one that's horror.

**

I received my copy of Eibon Press's The Beyond #1 yesterday, and I'm excited to confirm that this is not a straight adaptation of Lucio Fulci's film. There's a lot of background here, with the issue ending where the film begins, so that we get an interesting backstory for Schweick and Liza. Very cool, and the art is just fantastic in all its gory goodness!

The fourth issue finale comes out this Friday, and I'm pretty sure I'll be ordering the rest of the series then. Eibon Press's Fulci page is HERE. If you dig Fulci, support a truly independent company!

**

Playlist:

Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Metallica - Master of Puppets
The Stooges - Funhouse
The Smiths - Panic (Single)
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Brainiac - Bonzai Superstar
Savages - Silence Yourself
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

**

Card:

Lots of feminine energy this week so far. Makes sense. 

Isolation: Day 134

Following up yesterday's Sunday Bandcamp feature of JK Flesh's 2012 Posthuman with his newest release. Depersonalization dropped at the beginning of the month on Hospital Productions, a label I am completely unfamiliar with. Buy on cassette HERE.


**

After watching that video of Henry Rollins geeking out over Rhino's 50th Anniversary box set of The Stooges Funhouse, I knew there was no way I was going to spend $400 on it, so I did the next best thing. My copy of Raw Power on CD disappeared a few years back, so I decided to finally replace it with Vinyl. Huge bonus, too, because without even realizing it, the copy I picked up has four sides - the complete 1973 Bowie mix, and the complete 1997 Iggy mix, both remastered, both sound great.

Bowie Mix:


Iggy Mix:


There's some insane differences between the two mixes, and where I used to prefer the Iggy mix hands down - it's the first way I ever heard the album - after spending part of Friday night comparing the two side by side, I think I'm split perfectly down the middle. The one huge sticking point has always been Penetration, which I prefer with the chime. However, the remaster of Bowie's mix shows what older copies on disc don't - the chime is there, and slowly creeps into the mix, where in the Iggy mix, it's pretty much in your face from the jump. Both have merit, especially when you factor in some of the insane levels Bowie mixed Pop's vocals at. Having Iggy sit that far on top of the mix doesn't always work, but on a few tracks, it gives the music an even more intense feeling of chaos.

**

Playlist:

Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power
My Bloody Valentine - MBV
Discharge - Never Again
Heads. - Push
Gösta Berlings Saga - Konkret Musik
Baroness - Gold and Grey
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Mannequin Pussy - Patience
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
JK Flesh - Depersonalization

**

Card:

Taming creative force with strategy. This is PERFECT, as Saturday I put myself in a bit of a tizzy in regards to what I'm doing with the new book. There's so many avenues out there for authors now, but it's hard to figure out exactly what to do. This leads to stalemate, a feeling of paralyzed frustration that comes from the paradox of choice. Weathering this will be no small feat, but it is possible.

Bandcamp Sunday: JK Flesh

There's a great interview with Broadrick on daily Bandcamp HERE.

Isolation: Day 131 New Jaye Jayle!

Another track from the forthcoming album Prisyn, out August 7th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

**

I've had Fulci on the mind of late. Yesterday after work I threw on The Beyond, and my love of this flick - which is still pretty new, as previously I just did not get it at all - prompted me to go to Eibon Press and finally order one of their Fulci comics, specifically the first issue of The Beyond, the signature edition that comes with the premiere of the US version of the film's soundtrack by Mitch and Ira Yuspeh.



The edited, US version of the film, re-titled 7 Doors of Death, was the only one available here until Quentin Tarantino helped Grindhouse Releasing put out The Beyond in its original form in 1996. The 7 Doors of Death version eschewed Fabio Frizzi's soundtrack for one by the Yuspehs.

The comics Eibon Press makes all look fantastic. I've been curious about their Fulci stuff for a while, but I've been unsure if the books are simply adaptations of the films or extensions of them, the latter what I'd be interested, the former not so much. Either way, the inclusion of the score on this package - even if its not vinyl - is what ended up sealing the deal for me. And worse case scenario, I have a cool comic based on the film, too!

**

Playlist:

Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
La Matos - Summer of '84 OST
M.I.A. - Arular
Baroness - Gold and Grey
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
House of Pain - Same As It Ever Was

**

Card:

I get it. I've been tempted to tinker with the finished product. I've seen this card enough lately to know I should just leave it alone and concentrate on moving on.

Isolation: Day 131

I've had The Smiths on the brain of late, particularly The Queen is Dead, and even more particularly this song. I love Morrissey's lyrics, but even more, I love his delivery of the lyrics. "Dreaded sunny day, so let's go where we're happy, and I meet you at the cemetery gates" is a hysterically subtle indictment of 80s Goth culture - a considerable part of the band's fan base - that is beautifully countered by genuinely thought provoking and despondent lines like, "All these people, all those lives, where are they now? With loves and hates and passions just like mine, they were born and then they loved and then they died."

It's just so damn good.

The Smith are a band that, when I'm into them, I feel my love for each song and album deepen with each listen.

**

Last night, K and I finished Dark Season Three.

Holy. Shit.

In the interest of understanding the insanely well-written intricacies of this series, we'll be starting season three over again tonight. This time, however, we're going to follow every episode we watch at night by listening to the Digesting Dark podcast episode pertaining to the episode. These guys really know the show, and both K and I are really looking forward to having some third person insight into this one, because no one else we know is watching this, and it BEGS to be discussed.



**

Last week, the Maniac Cop trilogy dropped on Shudder. I've been wanting to see the original for years but haven't had much luck. As far as I knew until Arrow's recent release, the Larry Cohen created, William Lustig-directed Action/Horror classic had not been in print for quite some time. How was it? Exactly what I expected, and wonderful for just that reason. It's not everyday you have Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins in the same flick.



**

Playlist:

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Tamaryn - The Waves
The Soft Moon - Deeper
Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done
Me and That Man - New Man New Songs Same Shit Vol. 1
The Stooges - Funhouse
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band


Card:

Big influences spur a new project. Yes. Very big. Not a new project, but a new direction for the current book as I've decided to take a completely different tack than I was originally planning.

Isolation: Day 130

Mr. Brown sent this video to me yesterday and it absolutely made my day! Henry Rollins' excitement for music is an enjoyable thing to experience, and watching this has made me miss listening to his radio show on Los Angeles Public Radio KCRW (Link directly to his show, where past episodes are streamable HERE). The show used to be my regular Saturday night thing, but that was years ago, and as soon as KCRW moved him to Sunday at 9:00 PM, it killed my patronage. I've been meaning to make a habit of streaming the shows the day after, and I think this video was just what I needed to finally make that happen.

As far as the subject of the video, Rhino's Funhouse 50th Anniversary pressing - it's awesome for sure, but not something I'd shell out $400 (plus, as Brown pondered in a text, what about shipping on a box that size?). Still, it's a pleasure to hear Rollins geek out about that which he loves, and it's definitely infectious.

**

Two nights ago I woke up from an after-work nap and found K about fifteen minutes into a movie I'd never heard of before. I sat down and ended up getting sucked in, especially when I saw that Hannah Gross and DAVID CRONENBERG both had roles in the flick (as does Aaron Poole). Albert Shin's Disappearance at Clifton Hill is a weird little flick, visually gorgeous, and with definite Lynch influence. Until I looked the film up, as we were watching it, I began to suspect it might be a Brad Anderson film, as Clifton definitely feels like something Anderson might have done around the time he made The Machinist or Transsiberian.



The film is currently streaming on HULU, and is definitely worth your time.

**

Playlist:

François-Eudes Chanfrault - Computer Assisted Sunset
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Melvins - Houdini
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
The Stooges - Eponymous
The Stooges - Funhouse

**

Card:

Too much to get into at the moment, but let's just say I re-thought the book and am going to try something a little bit different with it than I originally intended.

Isolation: Day 129

Kind of a slow news day, so to speak, so I landed on this via Brooklyn Vegan. Apparently, Metallica has been doing "Metallica Mondays" which sounds like some weird food theme at a Chili's restaurant, but is actually a kind of cool quarantine coping mechanism the band has been doing for their fans. As my interest in this band stops after about 1988, this video is of particular interest to me. 1983 at Chicago's Metro? As a young metalhead in the 90s who would go on to frequent shows at the Metro, this is the kind of show I often dreamed of having been able to go back in time and see. Now, thanks to Metallica, I can. You have to get through a rather annoying minute or so of Lars talking about... not really sure, but I have to admit it. As hard as I am on these guys, they often come off pretty cool to their fans.

**

NCBD tomorrow is another short lister this week. Action Lab's Sweet Heart #2 finally hits the stand - this was another one I'd mentioned a few weeks ago, only to realize I had my dates completely out of order.

Other than that, the first issue of a new Image book called Bliss caught my eye recently:

The cover art is obviously gorgeous, but what really has me curious is this book's solicitation description from Image that ends with, "Breaking Bad meets Neil Gaiman's Sandman."

Huh?

The first issue of a two-arc maxi-series, I might just pick this one up. (Yes, I'm still attempting to limit taking on new books. No, it's not always easy.)


**

Playlist:

Cypress Hill - III: Temples of Boom
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Sleep - The Sciences

**

Card:

The urge to do bad is often extremely strong. It's part of the flow of life to balance that out with positive stuff.

Isolation: Day 129

16 is new to me, but I'm digging their new albums Dream Squasher, just released on Relapse Records!

**

Saturday we ended up having an impromptu Danny Boyle double feature. It started with his latest film Yesterday, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm not a very big Beatles fan, but I can definitely recognize the impact they've had on the world, so the idea that their music would disappear is a pretty interesting one, especially when your main character is the only person on Earth who remembers it.



Once Yesterday, I followed up an itch I've been meaning to scratch for quite some time now, and put on Boyle's 2011 Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. I hadn't seen this one since it was in the theaters:



Slumdog holds up 100%. Loved it.


**

Playlist:

Cypress Hill - Elephants on Acid
16 - Dream Squasher
Coheed and Cambria - The Aftermath: Ascension
Various - James Brown's Funky People Vol. III

Card:

New, big things.

Sunday Bandcamp: Dead

An awesome two-piece I found while snooping around at the Wäntage USA label's Bandcamp page. These chaps are from Australia, and they make some heavy freakin' tunes.

Isolation: Day 127

Back in the 90s, Cypress Hill completed the holy trinity my friend Jake and I were musically obsessed with, the other two groups being Black Sabbath and Type O Negative. I hung with the Hill all the way until Skull and Bones, but even my fan inertia couldn't get me to listen to that one for very long before I bounced, and I've never looked back. The few tracks I've caught wind of on subsequent records felt watered down and lame (What's Your Number? Really?), and without Muggs at the helm for ten years, I was definitely not interested.

Until now.

IV ended up in my rotation recently, and I found once I'd listened to it the first time, I couldn't get it out of my head. My favorite will always be III: Temples of Boom, specifically because at the time of its release, I'd never experienced an album that affected me the way that one did. There's a sick undercurrent to its amalgamation of Muggs' music and production and the cartoonish violence of the lyrics that just left me feeling unsettled for the first few listens. Full disclosure, this was the year Jake gave me a glass bong for my birthday, so I was really high most of the time I was listening to it.

At any rate, IV is the first of their albums to show a crack in their sound; I really dig about 80% of the record, but the stupid sex rhyme and an over abundance of down-tempo tracks on the B side means it starts strong and peters out. I'd forgotten how strong that first half was, and after falling back into it, I noticed the group released an album in 2018. I decided to give it a try.

Elephants on Acid is fantastic! There's probably too many songs again, but over all I am absolutely loving this album. Muggs in on 100% of this one, and it feels a bit like a sequel to Temples of Boom, with similar imagery and aural textures; lots of sitar and otherworldly atmosphere. The opening track takes this a bit overboard, and initially I almost turned the record off because of this. However, I hung in for a full listen, and immediately went back for a second. It feels like old Hill, but not in the way that, say, Rick Rubin returns old metal bands to their former glory by basically creating a caricature of their original sound. This feels fresh at the same time it feels old school. and I'm assuming that's because the group has stripped away ideas of doing anything other than being true to what they are.

I was especially pleased with the track above because it brings back Sick Jacken from The Psycho Realm, whose first album is an underrated 90s hip hop classic.

Now, if only I still had that bong Jake gave me...

**

Last night's viewing:



Also, I did House By the Cemetery with commentary the day it arrived, and saved the actual movie for last night. It didn't disappoint. Never does. "Mommy..."

One of the extras on the main disc is the original TV spots for the flick that aired back in '81. Tell me this doesn't sound like Brother Theodore's character from The 'Burbs did the voice over:





**

Playlist:

Cypress Hill - IV
Cypress Hill - Elephants on Acid
The Psycho Realm - Eponymous
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Brainiac - Smack Bunny Baby
The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

**

Card:

An abundance of ideas, projects, and interests, it takes a greater strength than usual to narrow things down and get anything done at all.

Isolation: Day 126 - Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor Gets a Trailer!

I feel as though I've been waiting for this trailer forever. Now that it's here, I really just want the movie. The real shame is, if not for COVID, Brandon Cronenberg's sophomore flick would most likely be premiering at Beyondfest. As it stands, I guess I'll be doing a big VOD event for it when the release is finally announced (please announce soon!)

**

Late last week I caught wind of William Lustig's company Blue Underground having released a 3-Disc, 4K Blu Ray edition of Lucio Fulci's House By the Cemetery. I love this flick - while it took me a while to come around on The Beyond and City of the Living Dead (I love both now), House has always been a film that fascinates me. So as soon as I saw this, I ordered it. Pricey, but worth it.

The restoration is, as with all Blue Underground's restorations - gorgeous. If you go to this edition's page on Blu-Ray.com (HERE), you can read about the transfer and see some screen shot comparisons. The second disc is filled with extras, including a lot of interviews with the actors and crew, and the third disc is a CD edition of Walter Rizzati's brilliant score for the film.

**

Playlist:

Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST
Primus - Antipop
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Moderat - II
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Elephant Tree - Habits
Cypress Hill - IV
Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Agnes Obel - Citizen of Glass
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

**

Card:

Power struggles, internal or external. I'm taking this as a warning that discipline will be needed to fully reintegrate my writing time back into The Secret Life of Murder, now that my belabored short story Fixation on a Coworker is finally finished.

Coworker proved extremely difficult to write; I worked on the thing off and on for a year and three months. I finally brought it in at ~7700 words, then decided I wanted to try submitting it to a publication I recently discovered called Infernal Ink. Some of my stories skew into what I'd call Erotic Horror, and this story especially plays in that arena. There's an overarching theme - or character actually - that runs through these stories, so even though they are stand alone, they're part of a bigger story slowly forming in my head. Anyway, Infernal Ink's submissions cut off at 5K, so I knuckled down and decided to practice one of my favorite parts of writing - editing. I cut the story down to 6K, then down another thousand to 5K.

It felt good! The story as it was is probably perfect at 6K. Chopping it down more wasn't easy, but I eliminated a supporting character arc that originally dovetailed with the protagonist's, eased the throttle back on some of my more descriptive passages, and landed it clean. It was at that point I realized Infernal Ink's submissions are closed, as their upcoming October issue will be the magazine's final issue as they switch gears to focus on book publishing.

Waste of time? Not. At. All. The editing process really bolstered my confidence in a story that otherwise had me running in prosaic circles, and that's never a bad thing. Plus, I found an awesome publisher/magazine in the process (all the issues are on Kindle for under $3).

Isolation: Day 124 - The Sandman on Audible

Previously, I've had no interest in audible, as I'm not one for audio books. This changes everything. A star-studded audio presentation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman? Count me in.


**

I'd been under the impression the final episode of Borrasca was to drop this past Monday, so imagine my surprise when the episode - at a paltry 33 minutes - cut off in an unceremonious manner. Creator Rebecca Kingel had previously said the podcast would wrap with ep 8, so I figured the finale might have been too long for their standard format, making them split the finale into two. I was all set to wait until next Monday when I received word the second part dropped yesterday.

It is amazing.

Easily the scariest fiction I've encountered in any medium for the past several years, the wrap up is filled with revelations and tragedy, and contained a sequence that held me so strongly under its narrative influence that the world around me kind of disappeared for a while. I'm sold on Cole Sprouse as an actor, and very much hope there will be more of this, or at least, another teaming of Klingel and Sprouse.

I really can't recommend this one enough. Earlier, I realized that, along with all the podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc), all the episodes of Borassca are on youtube as well, so I'm posting the first one here as a way to spread the word. I's that good.



**

Playlist:

Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST
Palesketcher - Jesu: Pale Sketches
Mannequin Pussy - Patience
Exhalants - Band (single)
Le Matos - Summer of '84
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
DAF - Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen

**

No Card Today.

Isolation: Day 123

Last week, Metal Blade Records announced the new album from Germany's reigning Post-Metal champs The Ocean. Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic drops on September 25th. Pre-order HERE.

I've followed The Ocean since I stumbled across 2007's reissue of Fluxion in the metal section of a local record store. The group is hot and cold for me, in that I have and love all their albums in theory, but not all of those records are practical listens for me. 2005's Aeolian and 2007's Precambrian have their 'I have to hear that song right now' tracks, but overall are so academically 'post-metal' that, although I appreciate their sonic integrity, I find listening to them for any extended length of time often cumbersome. That said, Fluxion and 2010's pair of albums Heliocentric and Anthropocentric are year-round go-to's, and 2013's Pelegial also easily fits into regular rotation. I'm not quite sure where last year's Phanerozoic I fits into my listening routine yet, primarily because the record kind of got lost amidst a ton of other albums that held my attention for most of the year.

**

A new episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast went up yesterday. I've added the handy little widget in the upper right-hand corner of this page where you can listen or follow over to our page on Spotify, since this is the service most of our listens seems to filter through. In this episode, Ray and I go Dynamic Duo and talk about Natalie Erika James' Relic, Jeffrey A. Brown's The Beach House, as well as a bunch of other cool stuff. Also available on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and Google Play.


**

NCBD - I messed up and posted this week's books here last week, so I'll be picking up those today.


**

Currently reading:

Last week I finished Mark Frost's The List of 7 - very good Victorian mystery novel. Thoroughly enjoyed, and although I was tempted to start the sequel, 6 Messiahs, instead I started Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country in anticipation of the upcoming HBO adaptation. At a third of the way in, the novel is as fantastic as the trailer looks, so I'm doubly excited now:



The book is very much not what I expected, and that's good. Reading it is a cathartic, as being a long-time Lovecraft fan - we're talking since '92 - I had built up a pretty big head of fandom steam before I ever realized HPL was a completely racist xenophobe. Through the mid-to-late 90s, as his personal correspondences were published, I made it a point to avoid them, as that's when the depth of his ignorance really became apparent (it's in the writing, but not exactly overt, especially not when you're younger and not as skilled at reading into things). Still, as more has come out, it remains more difficult to balance being a fan of his fiction with abhorring his personal philosophies. The first book I read that really played with this was Seamus Cooper's The Mall of Cthulhu, where the protagonists are accosted by a skinhead group who have adopted worship of Lovecraft's entities (great book and only $2.99 on Kindle at the moment). That was a comedy though. Lovecraft Country is not. A taut exploration of this country's racists underpinnings (that just won't seem to go the fuck away), the story is less about Shoggoths and more about human monsters.

**

Playlist:

The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed
Mannequin Pussy - Patience
United Future Organization: 3rd Perspective
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
Charles Mingus - Blues and Roots
Cypress Hill - IV
Raury - Indigo Child EP
The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucingen
Palesketcher - Jesu: Pale Sketches

**

Card:

"A temporary culmination of events or labors. A well-deserved breath." I'll take it.

Sunday Bandcamp: Mannequin Pussy

While snooping around online for a copy of Pygmy Shrews' The Egyptian on vinyl, I stumbled across a cross reference to the band Mannequin Pussy.

Awesome band name made even better by the fact that the band is pretty awesome, too!

Isolation: Day 120

Some time back in late 2018, my good friend Jesus gifted me a Blu Ray copy of the film Summer of 84. At the time when I first watched it, the film seemed a little too derivative of Stranger Things. Kids on Bikes felt like it was becoming the new Steampunk, i.e. ubiquitous to the point of losing me. Still, I ended up digging the movie that first time.

Yesterday, I came home from work and, as has become my custom, cuddled up with my cat on the couch to take a nap. I generally put Shudder TV on, find something mildly interesting, and nod in and out while I watch. This has been a great way for me to see a lot of films I can't commit to in the course of my regular, evening viewing. Anyway, 84 came on and I fell into it. I felt pretty much the same for most of the movie, and then the last ten minutes or so happened and I finally 'got' what the filmmakers were trying to do. Much like Twin Peaks purposely took on the language of the night time soap opera in order to completely subvert it, Summer of 84 puts on a Stranger Things costume just to turn it on its head at the end. Chilling is the only word I have for it, especially after seeing on Reddit where in a post-screening interview, the directors - François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell -  stated they would never make a sequel because - and this is me quoting someone paraphrasing - "The terror was from the ending as it was, and to make a sequel would take away some of the effect."

That's fucking hardcore.

**

The new issue of Fangoria arrived this past Thursday. Look at that cover! The cover story is based on a comic strip Patton Oswalt sent in to Fango in 1984, and the print the entire thing. It's fantastic.

With information about Fangoria's parent company Cinestate coming out on how they ignored one of their producers who sexually harassed women on set coming on top of former Fango head of acquisitions being accused of harassment, it seems that everyone is jumping ship from the magazine.

Not me.

I don't really understand cancel culture in general, but this is insane. The moment the Cinestate story broke, Fangoria Editor in Chief Phil Noble, Jr. posted that Fangoria was looking for new owners, and the head of acquisitions in film had been on board for probably a year since coming over from the same position at Dread Central's film division. He stepped down from Fango immediately, and from what I've seen, there's no suggestion that anyone at Fangoria even knew about his actions. So why then did Shockwaves, Mick Garris, and a host of others dump their association with the beloved Horror mag? Why did one of my favorite new authors not only pull his upcoming book from Fangoria's publishing imprint, but also post a letter to his social media saying that although he has never sexually abused or harassed anyone, he realizes this may have hurt people and he apologizes (I think that's what it says. It's really confusing)?

This apologizing for for nothing is a panicked overreaction in the age of the SJW and cancel culture, and I think it sucks. People are pulling their association with the magazine as a preemptive strike, which is seems more than a little like being guilty until proven innocent. Until someone shows me Fangoria itself actively ignored or fostered this stuff, I'm sticking in as a fan.

The re-launch has been such an amazing vessel for critical and thought-provoking Horror discussion. Much more than the later days of the original magazine's iteration. I never consistently read any of the horror mags when I was younger, but I'd pick them up on occasion and, through the 00s when I worked at Borders, read them on break. By that time, Fangoria paled in comparison to Rue Morgue, in my opinion. No longer the case. Rue Morgue and Horror Hound are still great, but the new volume of Fangoria is fantastic from an academic perspective, and I think everyone who is afraid of the SWJs swooping down on them are going to regret their actions, especially if it tanks the magazine. If you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't do anything wrong. Period. I reject absolutely the idea that everyone on Earth with a penis is a rapist by default, and although I absolutely believe predators of any kind need to be stopped, outed, and punished, guilt by association is not a good thing. One of my closest friends in high school turned out to be a murderer and rapist, and at the time that came out, a lot of people cast suspicions and, on a few occasions, borderline accusations at those of us who hung around him. Although he was my friend, I didn't know what he was capable of, and I certainly did not condone or take part in it. That's the example I use as my guide.

**

Playlist:

Brainiac - Bonsai Superstar
The Chameleons UK - Strange Times
The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
Le Matos - Summer of '84 OST
Zombi - Shape Shift

**

Short story almost finished, time for something new.

Isolation: Day 119 - Soul in Isolation

Over the last week or so, I've fallen back into The Chameleons UK pretty hard, and now Strange Times is a daily double listen (at least). I can't explain how much this album affects me; when I first found it in 2015 I was at a precipice, an unknown crossroads before me. It empowered the part of me that knew how everything would turn out, even if another, bigger part refused to go along with it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't add the caveat that, in my opinion, to really get the maximum effect of this song, it must be listened to in the context of the entire album, or at the very least, immediately followed by the next successive track on the record, Swamp Thing. Talk about an extremely powerful double-hitter.

**

I was SUPER excited to come home from work yesterday, smoke out, and watch Jeffrey A. Brown's debut feature The Beach House on Shudder. I knew nothing about this one going in except a blurb I saw that called it "Cosmic Body Horror."

I was not disappointed.

The Beach House takes an everyday situation, makes it awkward, so that a lot of the expectation is based on social mores. The film then balances on a precipice of possibilities, slowly turning up the tension, never quite doing what I expected it to. Which is almost always a great thing.

This one would make a great double-feature with Richard Stanley's The Color Out of Space, as the two films have similar themes and color palettes. Strong tone, great visuals and camera work - some nice juxtapositions of macro and micro with the lens - and eventually, squirm-inducing effects. Highly recommended, but wait for when you're open to a slow unraveling.



The Beach House was the first in a two-day, self-styled event viewing program that culminates tonight with the VOD premiere of Natalie Erika James' Relic. Without theatrical premieres and fests to look forward to, this is the way I stay sane and psyched for Horror Cinema!


**

Playlist:

Various Artists - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Series Event)
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
The Chameleons UK - Strange Times
Lissie - My Wild West
Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses
Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
Exhalants - Bang (single)
The Obsessed - Lunar Womb
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
Mannequin Pussy - Patience
Pygmy Shrews - The Egyptian
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley (Expansion)
EPMD - Unfinished Business
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Holy Porter - Kistvaen

**

Card:

Personal or global? I think we know the answer to that one, although I don't really have any conflicts (that I know of) at the moment.