Brainiac - Smothered Inside

 

Mr. Brown recently set me up with a vinyl copy of The Predator Nominate, a newly published "lost" demo from Dayton, Ohio legends Brainiac. If you don't know the Brainiac story, it's one of the saddest in 90s indie rock. A fantastic band cut down right as they began achieving the status they so greatly deserved when their vocalist/guitarist/keyboard/chief songwriter died in an automobile accident. Since the tragedy in 1997, members have gone on to start Enon, Model/Actress, Shesus, and probably about another dozen bands I'm forgetting at the moment. Recently, following the Transmissions after Zero documentary, those surviving members released a small cache of "Basement tapes," which appears to be book-ended by this, the EP that, if I understand it correctly, would have followed their final EP, Electroshock for President. Electroshock has always filled me with a great melancholy - hearing the direction the band was headed excites the mind to what would lie ahead. Now, we get a glimpse, and it's a pleasure to breeze through these nine tracks and think about how they might have heard if the band could have finished. 

 RIP Tim Taylor, alongside The Jesus Lizard, Brainiac was probably my favorite 90s band from that independent scene. 

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Watch:

Super bummed to have finally got around to watching Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese's 1899 on Netflix, only to find out the streaming service canceled it.

Perhaps not quite as riveting as the creators' previous Netflix show Dark, which is just about the best time travel narrative I've ever encountered, 1899 had a lot of elements recognizable as having come from the same minds as Dark, but with a pretty grandiose SciFi leverage at its core. Big cliffhanger and we're getting nothing else. Remember when Netflix first started the streaming revolution and they said they'd bring back any popular canceled show from the last few years? Well, now they seem to cancel at the drop of a hat. I'm hoping many Odar and Friese do what Mike Flanagan did after NF canceled his Midnight Club and exit the company in search of a better deal elsewhere. 

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Playlist:

Brainiac - The Predator Nominate

The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Iress - Prey

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Code Orange - Underneath

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs

David Bowie - PinUps

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Kermit Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band - Throwback

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A slightly darker-than-normal shot, so apologies. In a bit of a hurry this morning as I pound black coffee and prepare to drive 6.5 hours up to a cabin in the woods where I will spend a blissfully intoxicated weekend with three of my oldest friends. Now, if one of them can just help me translate passages from this book I found at an old antique shop...

Truth Hits Everybody

 

I've been in the mood for The Police lately, and I can't think of a song I like more at the moment than Truth Hits Everybody from their absolutely perfect 1978 debut, Outlandos d'Amour. Talk about a track that will make you start bouncing your leg under the desk. 

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NCBD:

My picks for this week's NCBD:

Donny Cates is off this book, and Ryan Ottley is continuing what I can only assume is the story they conceived together, but this one only has a few more issues, and then Marvel is ending it and will no doubt begin a new Hulk book. I most likely won't be there for that - losing this one in the middle of what I thought was a pretty unique Hulk story is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Still, until then, I'm still enjoying Hulk Planet. 

Holy sh*t! Do my eyes deceive me? Wow - only a year later. Part of me wants to ignore this just because it's been so long, but oh, what the hell. At this rate, we'll get the conclusion in issue three in 2024, so at least it's not a big financial commitment. Hahaha.

TMNT is kind of creeping back toward the fence for me. 137 issues is a long run; I've had this thought before, though, just after the book's 100th issue, and that lull really only lasted half a year tops and then things got great again, so I'll hang. I probably just have fatigue from this Armageddon Game event taking place that I'm reading this without paying attention to.

 

Boss is back on main art, so I'm happy and can finally go back and re-read everything preceding this to welcome him back. Again, no offense to the artists that filled in, but Boss's style is just so much of this book that having him take a break directly after a hiatus was not a good thing, in my opinion.

Jeez - there was already an X-Men roster vote that I missed? Has it already been a year? Wow. Well, Havoc's out after Dark Web, and big things are afoot, so we'll see. In the meantime, welcome back to The Brood!

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Watch:

After years on the outer regions of my peripheral awareness, I finally watched George Sluzier's Spoorloos, or The Vanishing. Wow.

I loved this. A lot, and I'm happy to be recording an episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror that will cover this next week.

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Playlist:

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

The Police - Regatta de Blanc

Various - Joe Begos' Bliss Spotify Playlist

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP
Deftones - White Pony

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Kermit Ruffins w/ the Rebirth Brass Band - Throwback

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

There's conflict, Change and more emotion than you can shake a stick at. Those two 10s mean I'm way too grounded in Malkuth at the moment - Earthly matters battering the inside of my skull. 

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Not entirely sure how I came to have Faetooth's 2022 album Remnants of the Vessel in my Apple Music, but I stumbled across it there the other day, and it provided a pretty big leap in my mood. Really cool, doomy, deathy album that doesn't sacrifice the downtrodden mood when it goes full-on death-growl heavy. The band hail from "The depths of Los Angeles" (love that) and the album was voted Spin Magazine's #1 album of the year? I'm shocked Spin has such good taste.

 

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Read:

I blew through Alan Campbell's Scar Night over the last week and started book 2 of his Deepgate Codex series on Sunday. I'd read Iron Angel sometime around 2010, so there's not too much I remember. 

Fifty pages in and it's a perfect follow-up to book one, which really fleshes out the world and adds a host of new characters who really up the stakes. We're outside Deepgate and moving into a bigger world, and I'm just as enraptured by Mr. Campbell's prose here as I was in Scar Night. This really is one of the best Fantasy series I've ever read, with just the right amount of Steam Punk influence, without trying to tick all those "Write a Steam Punk Novel" boxes that, while I admit I sometimes have a soft spot for, began to feel endlessly tiring around 2012. 

Also, I think the last time I read these, I had not yet read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy and reading the Deepgate books now, I can very much appreciate the influence Peake's seminal series had on Campbell. That said, the influence is in no way overzealous, but rather hard-coded into the prose, which makes the experience of re-reading these ever more pleasant than before. 

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Watch:

Speaking of Steam Punk Fantasy, check out this trailer Bloody Disgusting posted about a few days ago:

 

Moon Garden looks like a film that will harken back to the Fantasy epics of my 80s youth - The Neverending Story, Legend, Etc. Totally blown away by the first half of this trailer, and then I turned it off so as not to see too much. Ryan Stevens Harris' new film can't come soon enough.

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Playlist:

Trombone Shorty - For True

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Wolfpack - Lycanthro Punk

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Deftones - White Pony

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1

Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP

Television - Marquee Moon

Brainiac - The Predator Nominate

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Some big ideas/influences here that all seem to shore up ideas about Emotional Conflict being the result of too much unfocused Will. Sounds about right; I'm in a really good routine working on the new book, and it has occurred to me previously that when I'm at a creative spike, I become overly sensitive. 

Fuck Buttons Came From the Woods

 

A little Fuck Buttons to start the day. Been awhile since I jammed these guys. Still one of the best electronic shows I ever saw - circa 2010 at LA's Troubador.

 

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Watch:

Tell me this doesn't look like a bowl of fun:

 

Yeah, the 80s Summer Camp Slasher has been done to death, and maybe this won't work as well as the trailer suggests, but when done correctly, with a dash of something new, this genre still makes my blood sing. There's a full write-up over HERE on Bloody Disgusting.

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Playlist:

C-Building Kids - Shitting in the Urinal

Cocksure - Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E.

Metallica - Hardwired

Karl Casey - XX EP

Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

In order to transform, Understanding and Balance are required. This is kind of what I'm in the middle of at the moment - I've been on a tear working on Shadow Play Book Two, and it's transforming before my eyes. However, while wholly invigorating, the actual act of this Transformation can lead to an overzealous tendency toward flights of fancy. The writing must remain balanced and joined to the inherent understanding I'm developing - in other words, let the book talk through me, and don't get in its way.

Jarvis is a Homewrecker!

 

From Jarvis Cocker's 2009 album Further Complications. Not sure what brought this to mind yesterday, but it had been years since I jammed this record, and it still totally holds up (of course).

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NCBD:

My picks for this week's NCBD:

The end of the storyline and the end of my time following Marvel's Alien comics. Exactly like that first year after they launched, we come to the end of the first arc with promises of this insanely horrific Alien-Lady that, to my knowledge, they still haven't actually introduced. This series was fine, but not enough for me to continue when it returns.

A book that just barely stayed on my recently abbreviated pull; I'm still not done with this one. Especially when Danny Ketch is returning this issue and he is apparently now part of the Weapon X program? What????

The Sins of Sinister stand-in for X-Men: Red. I'm very curious to see where this goes.

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Watch:

Picked up my tickets to see this tomorrow night:

 

One thing about Skinamarink I love, despite not being able to make it through the movie in the theatre or at home, is I believe its success has opened the doors for a lot of way lower-budget Horror to get a shot at a big screen run. That's a win-win for everyone, and it should launch some interesting, non-Hollywood careers, also a win-win.

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Playlist:

The Smiths - God Save the Queen

The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

Chameleons UK - Strange Times

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

Pulp - A Different Class

Metallica - Hardwired

Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent

Christopher Young & Lustmord - The Empty Man OST

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

Trombone Shorty - For True

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Completion of a project forestalled by obfuscation due to an overly emotional predilection. More commentary on my mental health, which is pretty much continuously at risk due to my living arrangement. 

There Is A Light in the Bottomless Pit That Never Goes Out

In a Smiths mood this morning. Sometimes Morrissey's biting observations and poetic turns of phrase just hit the spot intellectually, to say nothing of Marr, Rourke and Joyce's music, which transports me to a very specific place in my head, more feeling than thought. That's why this group worked so well for the time it did - Morrissey anchors you while the music compels the soul to soar. 

Of course, to enjoy any of this, I've had to maintain my ignorance of what an unbelievable twat Morrissey has become over the years. 

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Watch:

Browsing the Just Added on Shudder, I followed a hunch - a hunch that all Irish Horror Films are fantastic - and clicked on Billy O'Brien's 2005 Isolation. 

I could not find a serviceable trailer, and also,  I think the less you know about this one going in, the better you are. Believe me, however, when I tell you that my hunch continues to prove correct because Isolation is fantastic. A taut little creature feature with notes of The Thing and Alien, only set on an Irish farm.

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Read:

Completely off the cuff, I began re-reading Alan Campbell's brilliant Deepgate Codex trilogy over the weekend. About a third of the way through the first book, Scar Night (2006), these have a special place in my heart, and I am ashamed to say I never finished the trilogy by reading that final book. 

Back when I first moved to LaLaLand in 2006, I was working at a Borders bookstore as an inventory supervisor. Myspace was the thing at the time, and through its messaging, author Alan Campbell - then relatively unknown, as Scar Night was his first novel coming off the success of having helped write the Grand Theft Auto game - messaged me. Seeing that I was a pretty vocal champion of China Mieville's work at the time (still am), Campbell reached out to tell me about his book, which is set in the city of Deepgate - a city that hangs from chains suspended above a bottomless pit.

No way I wasn't going to read that!

I bought the book when it came out in Hardcover, and continued to buy Campbell's books as they were released in that manner. By the time book three came out, though, I was probably in the middle of something with a completely different tone, and it wasn't the time to reread the first two and go into number three. 

And the years lapsed...

Back around 2019, I picked up and plowed through the first two books of Campbell's subsequent series, The Gravedigger Chronicles. These were immediately among my favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels ever - we're still waiting on that third book though, and from time to time the thought that we may never see it (the Author, who is not active on social media, has stated that the third book in the series is finished, however, the publishing deal he had went south and the book remains, well, suspended by metaphorical chains above the abyss that was once the publishing industry). That particular sadness darkened my door this past week, and thus, I grabbed the Deepgate Codex with the intention of loving it so much again that the power of that love might somehow aetherically find Mr. Campbell and transmute into a resolution for that final book. 

And yes, Scar Night is just as good as I remember. Maybe better. And no, aetherically is not a word. Well, not until now.

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Playlist:

Lustmord - The Others

Fvunerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

Karl Casey - XX

Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP

Final Light - Eponymous

Ager Sonus - Book of the Black Earth

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Special Interest - Endure

Motörhead - Ace of Spades

Anthrax - Attack of the Killers B's

Aerosmith - Pump

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark

Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner

The Jesus Lizard - Goat

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise

Silent - Modern Hate

Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire

Metallica - Hardwired... 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A reminder that balance is what supports harmony, and balance is not achieved by the narratives about others we sometimes tell ourselves repeatedly. I've 100% done just this, and it's not without a breakthrough of Will that I will be able to smooth things over. 

Lord of this World

 

From 1973's Master of Reality, a perfect record. I leaned heavily into this one last weekend while in Chicago, so when I walked into Rick's Comics City yesterday and saw that variant cover of Dan Panosian's new book Black Tape, I kind of felt as though I manifested it.

Tulpas have been on my mind again because, you know, Department of Truth.

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Watch:

Rob Savage's Host impressed me to no end, and I've been waiting to see what he does next. Somehow, I missed that he followed Host with a film called Dashcam, however, I think I'll leave that off the list until after I see what he does with a non-found-footage film. And Savage has a big one coming out in June:

This adaptation of Stephen King's short story The Boogeyman is receiving a lot of hype - word is it's terrifying, so I am excited at the prospect of seeing a film in theatres that might actually induce some fear in me. 

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Read:

Here's a book I did not mention as one of my picks for yesterday's NCBD simply because I was on the fence and trying very hard not to start new series. How do you say no to this cover, though: 

Black Tape #1 is all set up, but that's fine. Even if I don't continue with the series - which I'm betting I will - I'm happy as hell to own this cover. Here's the press description of the book:

"Jack King was a rock'n'roll god who projected a stage persona on par with the devil. After Jack dies on stage, his widow, Cindy, grapples with grief and struggles to protect his legacy, unaware that she is being surrounded by dark forces that covet the master tapes to Jack's final, unreleased album - a heavy metal masterpiece that just might open a doorway to hell."

Great premise, so let's see where it goes.

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Playlist:

Thought Gang - Eponymous

Anoni Wit & Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra - Pendereck's Polymorphia

Krzysztof Penderecki - Metamorphosen

Krzysztof Penderecki - A Polish Requiem

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

Karl Casey - XX EP

King Woman - Doubt EP

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Metallica - ...And Justice for All

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Tens in Tarot are interesting. On one hand, there's a sense of closure, of completion and accomplishment. On the other, you realize when juxtaposing the Tarot with the Sephiroths on the Tree of Life, Ten is where we enter Malkuth, and thus, the most materialized in the regular, physical world. This tells us that, what we consider a success or accomplishment in our physical lives, can conversely be seen as the farthest movement away from anything spiritually compelling. Which makes sense in a lot of ways. Today's pull builds on yesterday's Emotional question, suggesting that to transform from yesterday's Eight of Cups to today's Ten, a transformation of Will in order. What's more, there is a decision or leap of faith that will be involved.  

So today's Pull gives me the insight into yesterday's that I never arrived at. This is a direct nod to the fact that I'm attempting to change my daily writing routine - which has never been in better shape - by moving from driving to a coffee shop and paying $4.22 a day to sit and write to staying at home and saving that money but getting the same level of removal and concentration. I know this can be done because I did it during the pandemic when I wrote/re-wrote a novel sitting at the kitchen table in our Redondo Beach apartment. I just have to do it here now. 

Quick reminder: if you dig those cards above from Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, he has an insanely awesome Kickstarter going on at the moment:

RIP Tom Verlaine

 

RIP Tom Verlaine.

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NCBD:

A considerably more mellow NCBD than I've had in a while and I like it!

Kinda glad to see Dark Web go. I mean, the series started great, but really overstayed its welcome about the time Peter began working at a Daily Bugle in Limbo. Dumb, as was the whole Rek Rap manifestation. Hopefully this "omega" chapter will dig back in and give us a satisfying ending. 

Due to reassessments, this is most likely my last issue of Moon Knight. It's been a solid series, even though I never really warmed up to the art. I can't necessarily say I'll miss it, primarily because the big reason that I stayed around this long was what they did with making the House of Shadows the new Midnight Mission. I really thought there would be more with that, but we've been playing with vampires for most of the series since then.

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Watch:

Last Thursday I saw Brendon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool at my local theatre. I really dig being able to say that. Then, on Sunday in Chicago, I saw it again. 

My first impression was this was my least favorite of his three films. After that second viewing, I'd put it right up there, just behind Possessor. I'm still unpacking, and The Horror Vision will be releasing an in-depth discussion on the film next Monday, but for now, my knee-jerk from directly after that first viewing is a quick, spoiler-free read over on my Letterbxd.

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Playlist:

Chat Pile - God's Country

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

Joy Division - Still

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land

Mascara - Hla-11Tf

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

Various - Shadow Play Two Writing Playlist

Lustmord - The Others

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

David Bowie - Outside

Slayer - Live Undead

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Bonny Doon - Longwave

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT

Trombone Shorty - For True 

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Elements of Change that might be emotionally difficult will be better faced with a partner. No idea what that's about, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit it freaks me out a bit. I'll be chewing on this one all day. My new way to do that is to leave the three-card Pull out on my desk all day, so I'm constantly looking at it. Kinda a visual version of hearing music in the background and having it grab you. Revelations are not always won through direct engagement.

Mascara - Half Light Aftermath

Hailing from France, Mascara is a band I know very little about. I picked this up after hearing the guys at Cinematic Void talk about the latest single, which this song is on. I really dig this and recommend checking out their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Let's talk about David Lynch's Inland Empire.

 

I have to laugh at the idea that a trailer was cut for this film. I mean, this tells you nothing except Laura Dern is in the movie. I plan on writing a bit more extensively at some point, possibly on my Letterbxd, but for now, suffice it to say that while I love this film as an example of how David Lynch's mind works, I find it nearly inscrutable and a bit of a chore to watch in its entirety. I always think back to seeing this in Hollywood when it premiered. What I experienced that night was what I have always described as an absolute free fall - the film swallowed me whole, and I did not become lucid until the moment when Beck's "Black Tamborine" kicked in. Resurfacing, I had absolutely no idea how long I had been sitting in that theatre; it could have as easily been four hours as forty-five minutes. That's one of the best theatrical experiences of my life, the experience of being so taken over by a film. Translating that to at-home viewing, however, has been unbelievably difficult. I must have attempted to watch the Inland Empire DVD a half dozen times since it was released in '07 0r '08, and every time I failed. Until yesterday, when I watched it with headphones on. 

Yes. Headphones.

You would not believe the sound design in this, and while I still felt the burden of sitting through the entire three hours, I made it and am glad I did.  While I can't see myself ever frequenting this film like I do most of Lynch's other works, I'm glad I own it and look forward to whenever the next time I watch it - as long as the tv I watch it on has blue tooth.

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Support:

Jonathan Grimm has his new Kickstarter up, and I'm blown away by the artwork he's produced for this.

 

I've known Grimm for a long time, and he has come a long way with his art. In the last year, however, his talent has grown exponentially, as has his business plan. Having all the risk removed from these campaigns before even launching them should instill a confidence in his fans and supporters that is equal to the awe his work inspires. Solid Dude, Incredible Artist. Honored to call him a friend.

 

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Playlist:

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone

Anthrax - Persistence of Time 

Mascara - Hla-11Tf (single)

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Mascara - Cameo Blue Estate EP

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Card:

Back to the Thoth deck for today's single card pull:

The Airy aspect of Water, so Will applied to Emotion. Sounds like this is still pointing to that same Emotional Breakthrough I keep missing on my recent daily spreads - and I believe I just figured it out. In jogging back through the other posts, I realized I've been reading these in a completely distracted state. On Friday, 1/20/23 my Pull had an Ace of Cups at its center, however, the two days this week I mistakenly read as a reiteration of that were actually Ace of Wands, thus Intellectual Breakthrough. Or an achievement of Will. This, I believe is a reference to a slight incoming lifestyle adjustment in terms of finally being removed from my salaried Associate Manager position I stepped down from in August when I moved and shifted to a work-from-home position. Not a huge change, but you'll be seeing a lot fewer picks for NCBD for starters. Hence, Will Power Adjustment.

The Doom That's Coming to Gotham...

 

I stumbled across this pre-release track from the new Industrial band Insolent yesterday while writing, and really dug it. The album is titled Drain - which I love - and comes out February 24th via Sentient Ruin. You can pre-order on Insolent's Bandcamp HERE.

 

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Support:

I've been talking about this on recent episodes of The Horror Vision, but Author Laird Barron is in the midst of some pretty serious health problems at the moment. Being a professional writer - and a great one at that - it should come as no surprise to anyone that the man does not have health insurance. Thanks to John Langan (author of The Fisherman) and Mike Davis (from the Lovecraft Ezine Podcast), a GoFundMe went up for Laird. Here's the information; kick in if you can:

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NCBD:

Here are my picks for this week's NCBD:

Dark Web still? Okay, let's hope this is better than issue #17. I feel like, if this had wrapped up faster, I wouldn't be losing interest.

The mini-series end! Creepshow has been an uneven ride, but overall I dug it. Will I return if it does? Not sure...

I hadn't even heard about this one until last week. With the success of last year's The Last Ronin - success the book 100% deserves - this was inevitable. I'm totally down with going back into this world and seeing how we got to where that story took place.

It's always a good Wednesday when there's a new issue of Saga waiting for me.

I've been kind of excited for this one. Full disclosure: The 'twist' at the end of Immortal X-Men #10 seems like too big a swing that is just going to bring this whole carefully balanced house of cards down around Gillen's ears, but I hope not. 

The end to a fantastic mini-series that, I thought, harkened back to the way Chris Claremont did X-book miniseries back in the day. 

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Watch:

It's been quite a few years since I last read Mike Mignola's The Doom That Came To Gotham mini-series.  A prestige-format, 3-issue mashup of H.P. Lovecraft's The Doom That Came To Sarnath and Mignola's Gotham By Gaslight timeline (I think), I loved this series when it first came out back in 2000-2001. 

Now, it appears there will be an animated adaptation:

I've seen a few of the other Batman animated adaptations. Well, I've seen The Dark Knight Returns and didn't necessarily love it. But I think I'll definitely give this one a chance whenever it hits HOBO MAX. 

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Playlist:

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

Off! - Free LSD

Bonny Doon - Longwave

Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins - Garlands

Realize - Machine Violence 

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

Insolent - Inner Tomb (pre-release single)

Godflesh - Post Self

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Man, that emotional breakthrough is really insistent, isn't it? What aren't I doing? Or is is something I am doing that shouldn't be? Looking at Old Scratch and then Justic, I find myself wondering if I'm mistakenly waiting for something I am not due to receive? 

Department of Neon Truth

 

I rewatched Nicolas Winding Refn's 2016 The Neon Demon yesterday and was once again completely blown away by it. The visual textures are sleek and beautiful while remaining as soulless as the industry they house in the story. This is perfect for Julian Winding's throbbing, minimalist techno (not calling it EDM, sorry).

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Watch:

Interestingly enough, not a day after I read an article about Huesera: The Bone Woman in the latest issue of Fangoria, the trailer dropped: 

 

The first feature from writer/director Michelle Garza Cervera and distributed by the delightful XYZ Films; I'm kind of chomping at the bit to see this one. Something about the mythology at play here really fascinates me.

 

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Read:

Last week I doubled down on my James Tynion reading and picked up the first four trades of Department of Truth. This is research for an upcoming deep-dive Butcher and I are doing for The Horror Vision; the project began as a lay-everything-out for Tynion's Something is Killing the Children mythology; only before we could get going, The Book of Slaughter dropped and kind of answered everything we were going to attempt to draw conclusions on. However, knowing the overall premise of Dept. of Truth, I began to realize the real deep-dive is seeing how these two connect because I am almost certain that they do. 

We'll obviously get more into it on the show, which will hopefully drop in about two weeks, but for now let me just point out that in SIKTC, the thing that manifests the monsters is belief, and the titular Department in DOT's entire job is managing belief in conspiracies because the big secret of the world is that if enough people believe in something, it becomes reality.

There's a layer to my enjoyment of DOT I hadn't anticipated, and that's that it looks and reads almost exactly like a late 80s/early 90s Vertigo title. I'm still picking away at the first couple trades of Peter Milligan and Chris Bacchalo's Shade The Changing Man from 1990-1991, and there are so many similarities, it's unreal. Add to that the Bill Sienkiewicz-like art from Martin Simmonds, and I've realized this is a book I should have been reading from the beginning. Better late than never, though.

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Playlist:

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Various Artists - Twin Peaks (Limited Event Series Soundtrack)

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

The Police - Synchronicity

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

Off! - Free LSD

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Katatonia - Sky Void of Stars

Cliff Martinez - The Neon Demon OST

Final Light - Eponymous

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil

Special Interest - Endure

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A strenuous emotional sacrifice to achieve a goal. (that's a crappy reading, but I'm short on time)

Metallica - Screaming Suicide

 

I'll say this: while I'm not favoring this track nearly as much as I did "Lux Aeterna," I can't help being fascinated by my out-of-the-blue turnaround interest in Metallica of late. Nothing will ever make me care about anything they released after the Eponymous and up to Hard Wired, but I have to say, these guys seem to have found themselves again. Maybe we're both going through some nostalgia trip together and reconnecting at the right time. I don't know. For now, I'm along for the ride again.

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Watch:

I think Twin Peaks has me in the mood for late 80s/early 90s thrillers because last night K and I watched Nicholas Kazon's 1994 Dream Lover. Here's the trailer:

 

Another obvious Peaks connection here is Mädchen Amick as the female lead. This is the kind of specific-to-the-era, early 90s thriller that Spader excelled at, and his chemistry with Amick really propels the movie to its clever and almost hysterically dark final moments. All in all, a solid three-star if you allow for the inflation of aesthetics. 

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin 

Bonny Doon - Longwave

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

LCD Soundsystem - New Body Rhumba (single)

Special Interest - Endure

Fleshwater - Baldplate Driver (single)

Botch - One Twenty Two (single)

Mascara - HLA-11Tf (single)

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

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Slow 30s Room

My first re-watch of the original Twin Peaks since 2016 is digging up all kinds of deep memory and psychological stuff that has 1990/1991 fresh in my head again. I will never be able to overstate my gratitude that I found this show when I did, as a 15/16-year-old stoner; it changed me for all time, for all the better. This morning, while I sat on my porch drinking coffee and reading from Lynch's Room to Dream, I played several of the soundtracks on my turntable - I still have all the CDs, and I put up the $77 back in 2011 for the digital music archive Lynch released through his website - ALL the music from the series. Everything. Then Mondo put out Twin Peaks Season One, FWWM, and the two soundtracks from the 2017 series on vinyl a few years ago, and I grabbed them all. 

So I get around to The Return's score and hit "Slow 30s Room," and immediately remember that, at some time in the not-so-distant past, I found this hour-long loop of the track on youtube. 

Presto - here you go.

Also, Happy Birthday David Lynch!!!

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Watch:

Since moving, I have fallen a bit behind on all the podcasts I listen to; my primary podcast time was in LaLaLand traffic, and being that I work from home now and pretty much listen to music all day, there's no equivalent time. So I have to make that time. To accomplish this, I've begun making a concentrated effort to set aside time, usually on Friday afternoons, specifically for podcats. In this way, I've knocked out a few of the Bret Easton Ellis show but not much else.

One podcast I am currently behind on is the brilliant Cinematic Void. Cinematic Void is a monthly cult film screening series in Los Angeles at L.A.'s American Cinematique Theatres, as well as a pretty damn great Podcast with online Cinemadness Screenings that showcase some of the best in Horror and Exploitation Cinema. For some time now, The Void has been hosting January Giallo screenings in L.A., and now it appears they have locations in both Massachuttes and Chicago, as well.        

I don't think I've been to Chicago's Music Box since I saw Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep premiere there back in 2002. I am heading into town next week, but unfortunately, I probably won't make a screening. I wanted to put the word out there, though, for all my Chicago folks. I can vouch for The Void's programming, so next year I will be all over this!

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Read:

David Lynch and Kristine McKenna's Room to Dream is currently having an indelible effect on my mornings. This book puts me in such a good mood; it's remarkable. The book has led me back to my recent inclinations to begin meditating again, and this time, I think I'm going to attempt Transcendental Meditation, something I've always been intrigued with but felt self-conscious about.

When I began serious meditation back in my former life, circa 2014, I used an hour-long tone I constructed using fundamental principles of the Binaural Approach - something I'd learned about and messed around with long before it became a hokey product called binaural beats that populated the 'new age' section of music shops. Using a tone generator, I built a multi-layered mediation track in Pro-Tools and would take periods out of every day in totally random places to use it. For one regular spot I favored, I'd walk up to Olympic Blvd, just North of Bundy in L.A. There's a CBTL there, so I'd grab an Americano, then walk down Olympic to a bench-like ledge in front of an office building there, and with my headphones in, I would sit and meditate for 9 minutes. This is directly across from a bloodbath and beyond store and a block or so down from a Trader Joe's, so it's a high-traffic area. I always got an extra charge out of creating a little bit of novelty in the middle of this area where all these L.A. People tended to be so L.A.

Anyway, because I'd meditate anywhere back then, I avoided trying TM because making audible noise just seemed as though I'd be really calling attention to myself, which in turn would make me self-conscious, which would make it impossible for me to actually achieve any kind of meditative state. I no longer have any of those problems, and after things went a bit batty in 2015 (a story for another day), I have been reticent to use that old Pro Tools track. Thus, my impending return to Meditation will require something new. Reading Room to Dream, I think TM might be just the thing. First, though, I want to re-read Lynch's book on the subject, Catching The Big Fish.

 

Hearing the first-hand accounts of the people in Lynch's life talk about the change that TM produced in him when he first began practicing, I think this could be a very good tool to rid myself of some of the residual anger and frustration that I've fallen prey to lately, living with and helping to take care of an elderly person who just epitomizes a lot of the ignorance and blind consumer mindset I have such a hard time with in the human race. 

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Playlist:

The Police - Synchronicity

David Bowie - Outside

Talking Heads - Fear of Music

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Iggy Pop - The Idiot

Iggy Pop - Every Loser

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life

Final Light - Eponymous

Godflesh - Pure Live

Low Cut Connie - Get Out the Lotion

NIN - Hesitation Marks

David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia

U2 - War

G Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

I love an easy Pull! An emotional breakthrough that will provide a solid foundation for moving forward with a sustainable degree of patience and cohesion.

They Might Be Giants - Minimum Wage

It's been quite some time since I listened to 90s alternative stalwarts They Might Be Giants, but I cracked out a few discs over this past weekend and put them in the car (It's also been a while since I listened to a CD in the car). 

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NCBD:

Here's what's on tap for NCBD this week:

Love that cover. This book is a mixed bag - I dig it, but I don't know that I feel enough momentum to continue after this arc. We'll see. 

I'm reading House of Slaughter monthly for the duration of this arc. In catching up a few weeks ago, I have to say the consistency isn't great. The first arc that concentrated on Aaron and Boucher, who returns this issue, was pretty good. The second one - I just didn't get it. 

Okay, Cates is gone. Let's see how this series continues on to its conclusion in April. 

The final issue before Immoral X-Men starts. Great cover- can't wait to see where this goes.

This one's on the chopping block. I love Shalvey's writing and art, and maybe it's just the book seems to be so sporadic that it doesn't actually feel like a series to me. 

The penultimate issue of Phantasmagoria. I've been keeping up with reading monthly, but I can't wait to read it all in one straight shot after next month's final issue.

Not gonna lie; I'm not feeling this series. That being said, being that DeMatteis penning a sequel to his original story, I'm in for the long haul, which is only another two issues anyway, so no biggie. 

The final issue of Strange, before Doctor Strange relaunches in a few months. I'll miss this book; what a fun ride McKay and Company have brought us on. And to think, I picked up the first issue entirely on a lark!

Still not reading the "Event" this ties into, and definitely not feeling that I need to. 

I'm waiting for Boss to take over the art again before I go back and re-read everything. Despite reading the entire series up to the hiatus in July, a lot disappeared during that break, and the fill-in artists - by no fault of their own - really made re-entry upon the book's return two months ago rough. I need to sit down and go through it all again. 

After all the love I gushed on Dark Web last week for ASM 17, I ended up fairly disappointed in that issue. Hoping this doesn't fizzle out now that we're in the climactic moments. That is what Events and Crossovers tend to do, though, so we'll see. 

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Playlist:

They Might Be Giants - Flood

David Bowie - Black Star

David Lynch and John Neff - BLUEBOB

LABRY'S - Eponymous

Blvck Hippie - If You Feel Alone At Parties

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

A001 - Nyctophobia EP

Lustmord - Hobart

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Various - Dirt Redux

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Meathook Seed - Embedded

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

These four cards flew out of the deck while I shuffled this morning, so I figured it would be important for the day's Pull to log them all. I'm not in a place at the moment where I can interpret this - I'm fried from a nearly 11-hour work day yesterday and looking down the barrel of a similar situation today.

Seven Days of Bowie: Day 7 - Cracked Actor (Live 1974)

 

I thought I'd end with something older since, this time, I focused so singularly on the later period of Bowie's work for most of the entries. That was, of course, intentional: I personally have always been drawn to the latter years more than the early ones, and it was through my appreciation of some of those later albums that I worked backward. Not to say I didn't dig Ziggy Stardust or Diamond Dogs when I was initially exposed, but I didn't get them as complete albums until later. The singles always wowed me, but I often didn't understand how they 'fit' into the context of the larger album they arrived on. 

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Watch:

The trailer for Season Three of The Mandalorian dropped last night:

Mando season three doesn't look like much based on the trailer, but it goes without saying that, as someone who grew up with but has disowned Star Wars but created a complicated caveat for my love of this show (and the Boba Fett show), I'm all-in until proven otherwise, which I doubt will ever happen.

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Playlist:

They Might Be Giants - Miscellaneous T

K's 70s Playlist

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Taping into the power of something bigger than myself will lead to a solid foundation from which to proceed. I can't help but read this as alluding to my current writing projects, but... oh, wait. I think I just got it. Now let me put this out of my mind so as not to taint the result. I'll confirm here later on if this means what I think it means.