Live Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs!

 

KEXP dropped a live session with British Sludge Punks Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs a few days ago, and I'm here to tell you it kicks some serious arse! Check it out and if you dig, head on over to their Bandcamp HERE and grab the new record Land of Sleeper! 

Mr. Brown was the one who turned me onto these lads when the album dropped, and I've been spinning both the new one and 2020's Viscerals - both fantastic albums of grimy, heavy slabs of Slunk (see what I did there?) 

I hear so many different influences in these guys: The Wipers, Sabbath, Melvins, and Idles all spring immediately to mind. That said, this is a 100% original sound, which is difficult to do in the sludge world. 

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NCBD:

Once again, here are my picks for #NCBD!

As of issue 13 I realized that my theory that Danny Ketch was now a product of the Weapon Plus Program was off; instead we have some weird corporation developing weapons with aspects of Hell in their DNA? Super weird, and I'm curious to see where this goes.

I confess - I was not blown away by Nightmare Country's return last month with Glass House #1. Also, so the full title now is The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country: The Glass House? That's a lot of sub-titles. Regardless of naming aesthetics, James Tynion IV has my complete trust. Also, what a cover!!!

I love the simplicity of this story so far. I also love the mechanics of the two worlds in juxtaposition to one another.

Saga!

First X-Men: Red since coming back from Sins of Sinister, and we're looking at a cover of Storm amidst a pile of dead Xaviers. The mind reels at what insane cosmic blasphemies Al Ewing and Jacopo Camagni have in store for us now that Arakko is back

 

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Watch:

A new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer dropped earlier in the week.

At some point, despite loving every one of Nolan's films up to and including (especially!) The Dark Knight Rises. For my money, Nolan's Batman is the only cinematic Batman. That said, I always loved his non-IP films better, with The Prestige ranking as one of my favorites of that decade. Yet, I missed Interstellar in the theatres then sat on my hands when it lived on Prime for the better part of 2016, skipped Dunkirk entirely, and even mismanaged my fervor for Tenant due to not being able to see it in a theatre during its COVID-era release. After seeing this trailer for Oppenheimer, I'm not letting this one get away.

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Playlist:

Chamber of Screams, Clement Panchout & Mxxn - Murder House Original Puppet Combo Soundtrack

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Soundgarden - Super Unknown

Tamaryn - The Waves

DIR EN GREY - The Marrow of a Bone

            

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Card:

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

Doubling up on Swords suggestions Conflict, however, cut with the Page (Princess in Thoth) of Cups, I'd say this refers to news of the quiet dissolution of multiple social and business problems this morning.

 

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Network

Mr. Brown and I have been doing vinyl swaps now that I live within a day's drive. This most recent one goes back to, I think, February. We pick out six albums we want to expose the other to, then hand them over until the next time we see one another. The albums in my most recent bag from Brown included Steve Earle's 2021 J.T. and it is exceptional.

Other than a few failed attempts at getting into Copperhead Road back around 2008, the only thing I really know about Steve Earle is he did a stint on HBO's brilliant Treme, where unlike most of the other Louisana musicians who appeared on the show as themselves, Earle played fictional local musician Harley Watt. 

The linear notes for J. T. tell the story of Justin Townes Earle, the first son and, by his own right, accomplished musician/songwriter who recorded and toured for nine studio albums before he passed away at the age of 38 in 2020. J.T. then, is Steve Earle and his band The Dukes recording a selection of his son's songs (one original closes out the album). Pretty powerful stuff. I'm not familiar with Justin Townes Earle's stuff outside of spinning this record half a dozen times now, but I can see why the term "genre agnosticism" keeps coming up when I read about him. The track I selected today has a very early 90s jangle pop sound hidden amidst its straight country leanings.

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Watch:

Sunday night K and I sat down to watch Sidney Lumet's 1975 film Network.

I'd seen half this movie back in the USPS Netflix days, when whatever DVD release they stocked needlessly split the 2-hour and 1-minute film onto two discs, apparently unknown to the service, who only sent me one disc. After that, well, Network faded to the back of my mind until I noticed it on HOBOMAX recently.

 

 

The prescience of this film - released in 1975 - is staggering today. This predicts EVERYTHING about our media-defined reality in 2023: The "Howard Beale Show" almost seems a template for every influencer, toktik "star" and social media celeb. The lengths the network will go, the manner in which everyone who doesn't agree falls quickly in line when they see the reactions of the masses (republican party 2015 anyone?) and the general disconnect Diana Christensen has from the world and the people around her - for anything other than the television - is so spot on with our world it's frightening. I really want to try and hit Cronenberg's Videodrome in the next day or two now, as I think these would be a perfect double feature.
 

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies

Fen - Epoch

A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms

Sleep - The Sciences

The Sword - Warp Riders

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

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Card:

I felt compelled to stay with the Thoth Deck for this morning's Pull, so here we go:

• 4 of Cups Luxury - 4's traditionally denote stability, and when Crowley named his version of the 4 of Cups "Luxury" he did so as an intimation that, removed from the Earthen themes of Disks (pentacles), the luxury here is a stable, healthy emotional mind frame. This is the opposite of manic, which incidentally, is how I've felt the last two days.

• Prince of Swords - the Intellect when applied to the interconnectivity of relationships, whether they be personal or Earthly (ie legal and the like) - this is the road out of manic ville - thinking with purpose.

• 8 of Swords Interference - Pretty self-explanatory; it pains me to say that, when my mental gears are not processing something I've just read, watched or listened to, my thinking tends to be rather passive. I get carried away on flights of fancy very easily, resurface and often have nothing to show for it. THIS is what eats my productivity as a writer, but it also leaves my mind lazy. This then, is what I have to watch out for, as it produces a lethargy that then manifests (eventually) as a manic state. 

I definitely could see how Network ties into this; television in general. 

Cruising Near Dark

From the 1987 OST for Kathryn Bigelow's inimitable debut film, Near Dark, one of about three vampire movies I can't live without. 

Tangerine Dream was such a solid choice for scoring this film, and I'd say it just accentuates William Friedkin's obvious influence on Bigelow film. The early scene in the film this song scores is one of the most era-defining moments of 80s Horror for me. I didn't see Near Dark until well after its release, but the sights and sounds of this sequence somehow sum up a large part of the texture I remember from the mid-to-late 80s. 

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Watch:

Saturday night, K and I finally sat down and watched William Friedkin's 1980 thriller Cruising.

 

I remember some time back when Netflix was still by mail, I watched Friedkin's French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. and realized, "Oh shit, this is the same guy who did The Exorcist. Wow."

I've never been one to get into an artist and just consume everything they've done immediately. There's still one Bret Baston Ellis book I haven't read; there are several Irvine Welsh novels I'm keeping on the back burner, and I've not heard more PJ Harvey than I've heard. This isn't to say there's any reason I'm avoiding these entries in the respective artist's canon except that I want to make sure there's something on deck. With Friedkin, I'm sure I looked up his filmography and made some long-forgotten notes, but I didn't exactly jump on anything else right away.

Sometime around 2013, titterings began for the restoration, release and revival house screenings of two "lost masterpieces" - 1977 Sorceror and Cruising. I remember mid-week screenings popping up at the New Beverly Cinema or the Silent Movie Theatre. I remember not having the money to go, or to buy the newly released DVD because my live was getting ready to explode. Ten years later, I finally sat down and watched Cruising and it absolutely blew me away, although not in the manner I expected. 

Friedkin is the best kind of sneaky when it comes to what he shows his audience. He manipulates his story via the medium of film by how he edits, what he puts in and what he leaves out of his script and its dialogue. Also, there's a level of casting manipulation here that I didn't understand at first, but after I read THIS ARTICLE. There is such mastery of film as a medium here, but not in the usual ways. Yes, the craft - the cinematography, writing, acting, all of it is superb, but the mastery I'm referencing here is the way Friedkin compresses his narrative into the actual physical act of showing it to us on screen. This isn't anything 'new,' however, I don't know anyone who has done it quite like this before. 

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Bongripper - Satan Worshipping Doom

Atrium Carceri - Kapnobatai

High on Fire - Death is this Communion

High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Sleep - The Sciences

SQÜRL - Silver Haze

Gaupa - Myriad

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Steve Earle - J.T.

Trombone Shorty - Too True

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs

        

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Card:

A single Thoth card for my Pull today:

When one path closes, the trick is sidestep the disappointment and watch for the next opening sure to arise in the wake. 

 

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Lighthouse Horror as a Subgenre

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First, some appropriate music to set the tone:

 

As I originally mentioned in an earlier post today, seeing the trailer for Torture Star/Marevo Collective's upcoming (May 18th!) new game No One Lives Under the Lighthouse, I felt compelled to talk a bit more about Lighthouse Horror as a burgeoning Subgenre. Yeah, I know it's pretty easy to get carried away with subgenres, but I feel like this is becoming as legitimate a 'thing' and there's a wealth of great entries that people interested should know about. 

First: What a spectacular setting, right?  I mean, an abandoned lighthouse island with rocky crags and descending spiral staircases lends itself so well to Horror that I just feel this is made to be. No or limited electricity, an ever-present "man vs. nature" throughline, pervading darkness and let's not forget the isolation - Oh! the isolation! Such tasty morsels for a Horror story to lean into. 

Lighthouse Horror is interesting because there's a fairly small and finite number of permutations to get the ball rolling. Either someone is being shipped out to a lighthouse because the operator has gone missing/mad/died, or the characters are rotating in for their shift and something horrific transpires. The isolation is a large part of the Horror, and keeping this in mind, the setting is perhaps optimum for slow-burn formulas, especially where the characters' psychological state becomes increasingly unmoored, slowly sinking them into madness. 

Being that the entire purpose of the lighthouse as a structure is to keep away the darkness and act as a beacon to those traveling through it, the subgenre is also ready-made for metaphors, and Lovecraftian sea monsters slot into these tales nicely as well, whether you consider them metaphors or not.

The argument for adding Lighthouse Horror as a subgenre begins, as far as I can tell, in 2017. That's the year Cold Skin by Xavier Gens came out. This takes a Lovecraftian route with its use of a lighthouse location to tell a Horror tale, and it fits like a glove! 

From there, of course, Robert Eggers's The Lighthouse came out just two years later in 2019. This takes the more psychological route with the location, although there are folks that argue there are some Lovecraftian moments sprinkled throughout, just in a decidedly more subtle. The "Can I Play With Madness" themes of this film prove pretty aggressive by the end, and as I've said on this page before, I can't think of a better example of the admittedly overused logline, "A slow descent into Madness."

More recently, Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino kicked off their Bone Orchard Mythos with The Passage, a graphic novel that takes place entirely on a lighthouse island and contains some genuinely haunting images. There are overarching monstrous themes in the Boneyard Mythos - which is still developing in subsequent series - and while I'd say the aspirations are Lovecraft-level, this is 100% Lemire and Sorrentino's own thing, which is refreshing. There are some images in The Passage that rank as the most effective I've seen in a Horror Graphic Novel since Pornsak Pichetshote's Infidel and some very smart uses of a drone to deliver them.

What route will No One Lives Under the Lighthouse take? With first-person games a perfect vehicle to elicit very real paranoic responses from their players, this might be the closest some get to a real lighthouse Horror experience ourselves (let's hope so!) 

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Ghost of Vroom!

New music from Mike Doughty's Ghost of Vroom! If you're a Soul Coughing fan like I am, this is the closest thing to that sound Doughty's done since their breakup back in, well, a loooong time ago. The new album, Ghost of Vroom 3 is out later this year, although no hard date has been announced.

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Watch:

Rewatched Kevin Phillips' Super Dark Times on Shudder last night. Man, this one is heavy.

I'm not going to post a trailer because I think it's best to go in cold on this one. Yes, that's my recommendation for every movie, however, we can't always control that. This one is from 2017, so if you haven't seen it you may already have an idea what it's about. If not, just watch it. Damn.

What I will say is A) Kevin Phillips NAILS high school. I mean, he just crushed it - so many little non-sequitur moments that surround the characters and mean nothing other than to reinforce where our minds are at this age. Anger, Angst and Rebellion. "No I don't need your fucking help, lady!" one background character screams at one point, and it's just spot fucking on. B) This deals with a trauma that an event in my life in high school shares some DNA with. Phillips nails the state of mind that followed it. Again, he CRUSHED it.

 

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Play:

Ask and ye shall receive: new Puppet Combo-like game No One Lives Under the Lighthouse by Torture Star and Marevo Collective hits a bunch of platforms - Switch included - this month!

 

Spooky AF! There are some images in this trailer that seared into my brain the moment they appeared on screen (@1:22 - WTF???). What a spectacular setting; an abandoned lighthouse island with rocky crags and descending spiral staircases lends itself so well to this aesthetic. I can't wait to play this game!

NOTE: if you read this post earlier and remembered it being longer, fret not! You are correct - I've expanded my "Lighthouse Horror as a burgeoning subgenre thoughts in a separate post HERE.

No One Lives Under the Lighthouse is out May 18th!

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Playlist:

Sleep - The Sciences

Windhand - Eternal Return

Earth - Live at Third Man Records

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

The Sword - Warp Riders

Bongripper - Satan (single)

Crowbar - Planets Collide (single)

Gaupa - Myriad

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

            

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Card:

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

• 20 Judgement is Aeon in Crowley and Harris's Thoth deck. Regardless of which you go with, this is a card of Redemption. It also suggests a pivotal sequence and the holography of cause/effect.

• Seven of Pentacles is a card that denotes Victory/Completion of Earthly matters

• Queen of Pentacles, in this particular case, is offering the advice that I actually stop thinking with my emotions on Earthly matters and begin applying a more staunch lens of discernment.

In other words - I'm spending too much money on vinyl. 

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New Music from The Hives!

 

Yesterday the world got an absolutely KILLER new track from The Hives, whose last proper record, Lex Hives, was eleven years ago!!! What a comeback, though. This track rocks and the video is a glorious homage to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead.

The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons is out August 11th; pre-order HERE.

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Play:

Bloody Disgusting ran a short story about Armor Games Studio's announcement for their new first-person Horror/Mystery game The Tartarus Key. After watching the trailer, I am one hundred percent in on this one:

 

Being that I've only come back to playing video games in the last year with my purchase of a Switch, I don't know that much about what's out there. I'm sure there are more of these - Nun Massacre is my current obsession, and while I wait for more Puppet Combo games to eventually become available on Switch, I've been wanting to find more of these. 

I think my love for this type of game goes back to the original Shadow Gate, which I played on a friend's PC in the 80s, then on the original Nintendo system later in that same decade. That game always gave me such a wonderfully immersive effect, and Nun Massacre gives me the same effect, except amplified by about 1000.

 

The Tartarus Key is out May 31st on a bunch of platforms, and I'm just happy one of those is Switch.
 

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Playlist:

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

The Sword - Age of Winters

Wolfpack - Lycanthro Punk

Karl Casey - XX EP

The Hives - Bogus Operandi

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Sleep - The Sciences

Locrian - Return to Annihilation

Windhand - Eternal Return

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I

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Bright New Disease Renders Martyrs Livid

 

Boris and Uniform? Holy F*ck - talk about a shot in the arm first thing in the morning! From the forthcoming album Bright New Disease, out June 16th on the always stellar Sacred Bones Records. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

A short and sweet NCBD this week. Here are my picks:

And we are back to our regular 616, Krakoa timeline. Thank You! I started re-reading Immortal X-Men from the beginning yesterday just to prepare.

My suspicion is I won't be reading Sons of X beyond the first issue,  I'm curious about the overall transition back into the regular, Krakoa continuity from the Sins of Sinister timeline. I will say that I reread Sins of Sinister: Dominion a few days ago and had a slightly better experience with it, and I'm curious how Mother Righteous's role might develop in the reinstated timeline.

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Watch:

Looks like Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's hard-to-find 2011 Masterpiece Livid is now on Shudder: 

 

I picked a region-free disc of this one up sometime in the last year or two and was completely blown away. There's such a Fairytale quality to this film - visually, Vivid reminds me a lot of the music from long-defunct band Miranda Sex Garden. Gossamer-thin realities that come across more like a fable out of time than a modern movie, except that's there too. 

 

Also, Livid isn't the only renowned but difficult-to-find Masterpiece that popped up on Shudder. It's not often that I dig a movie like Martyrs, but despite its unparalleled cruelty, Pascal Laugier's opus more than earns its place in the "must watch at least once column." Just be prepared - it's not easy.

When I watched Martyrs, it was back when Netflix still 'rented' movies through the mail. I wasn't certain what I was in for, but the film had come feverishly recommended to me by my good friend and Horror Vision Co-host Tori. I smoked up, sat down in the middle of the day, and for the first 45 minutes, felt like I was watching a movie that, well, before long, I realized I was not watching. Maybe that's a convoluted way of saying that from the onset, Martyrs seemed as though it was going to be the first great 'Haunting' film I'd seen in some time. Then something happens to a character and I suddenly had the prescience to see where the film was headed. I remember that feeling because my stomach literally dropped*. From there, my resolve was tested, until in the final moments of the film, Laugier blew my mind.

*****

*Incidentally, Laugier's 2018 Incident in a Ghost Land includes a moment that had a very similar effect on me. 

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Playlist:

Mastodon - One More 'Round the Sun

Beach House - Become EP

James - La Petite Mort

The Sword - Warp Riders

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

King Woman - Doubt EP

Windhand - Eponymous

 

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Card:

Since I utilized both my Thoth and Bound Tarot decks for yesterday's Pull, I specifically wanted to go to Missi's Raven Deck for today's Pull.

Buckle down. 

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RIP Jeff Hanneman, Ten Years Gone

 

Today is the ten-year anniversary of Slayer Guitarist Jeff Hanneman's death. Hanneman's work inspired a generation of guitarists; almost every solo and riff the guy wrote is a classic, so choosing a favorite is tough. That said, "Spirit In Black," from 1990's Seasons in the Abyss, is one that always makes me stop and listen. The sinewy, circuitous path Hanneman shreds up and down the neck just blows me away every time.

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Watch:

I finally had a chance to see Ari Aster's new film, Beau is Afraid last night:

 

Okay, so I went into this film knowing nothing about it other than a few references I've seen to it being a "Nightmare Comedy." While we probably all know enough about Nightmares and comedies to be able to marry the two theoretically, I had some trouble picturing what this term would mean, let alone in the hands of Ari Aster. After seeing it, I will say this: Nightmare Comedy is the perfect summation of this film. Beau is Afraid is Anxious, breathtaking and sometimes horrifying. Also, it's very, very funny; I laughed out loud quite a bit, with one scene in particular evoking what was probably my longest laugh since either Barry season 2 episode 5 or the South Park: Pandemic Special. 

I just couldn't stop. 

Granted, the scene in question would likely horrify others, but by saying that, I don't want to mislead anyone. This isn't a "Horror" film and there's nothing as severe as the most memorable events from Hereditary or Midsommar. Or, perhaps it's better said there are some fairly severe moments - some that evoke Midsommar especially - but in Beau, these elements are not presented with the same severity. So, while visually, or in concept a few scenes create similar violence, in Beau that violence is, remarkably, played for laughs. 

And it works. 

This feels like Aster's "Gilliam" piece, but I also detect notes of Gondry, the Cohen Bros, and Peter Weir. I'm typing this portion of this post about two hours after leaving the theatre on Monday night, and I'm honestly considering going back tomorrow and seeing it again. There's a thrill to the discovery of what this movie is that I won't be able to recreate now that I know its arc, but would still be damn fun to try.

 

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Playlist:

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss

Slayer - Show No Mercy

The Darts - Snake Oil

Screaming Females - Desire Pathway

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Card:

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

I did something a bit different for today's Pull; I started with the Bound Tarot and then decided to see what a similar, three-card spread in Thoth would look like. Here's what I got:

Victory over unconscious motivations obscured by two elements fighting one another - Will and Money.

Approach emotional obstructions in an elegant fashion and Will should increase. 

Taken together, this is a hodge-podge of what I already know: I'm slipping on discipline in several areas and it's affecting my output. Victory (completion of a project) is obscured by a failure to place logic over emotion. In order to achieve the desired outcome, decisive action must be taken. 

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

I'm not entirely certain how Joy Orbison came to mind this past Saturday morning as I sat in bed working on another new short story, but once I hit play on this track, I was immediately transported back to the dim evening light of 2009, when I spent a lot of time bumping the single that had "Hyph Mngo" on one side and "Wet Look" on the other*. I don't know exactly how long it's been since I listened to Joy Orbinson's music, let alone thought of it, but I'd wager a decade isn't too far off. A quick search of Apple Music revealed Joy's been consistently busy over the last thirteen years, and I had a wonderful morning tapping the keys and listening to everything I've missed. 

* That's a misnomer - I didn't actually have the physical single, but the digital tracks.

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Watch:

I watched quite a few flicks this weekend. Here's a rundown: 

Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl brought in another stellar episode of The Last Drive-In this past Friday, which helped assuage my blues that Yellowjackets took the week off. First, a flick I'd never really cared for previously, Kevin Tenney's Witch Board:

 

I remember seeing the tv spots for this one during its original theatrical release in 1986. As a ten-year-old, those spots freaked me right the hell out, but the movie never made it onto my screen until 2011 when I bought a used copy at Amoeba Music. Needless to say, Witch Board fell extremely short of my heightened expectations, and I immediately gave that copy to a friend at work. I didn't think anything could make me enjoy this one after that, but I have to say, it's just a totally different experience watching a flick like this with the Drive-In crew. I still wouldn't profess to be a Witch Board fan, but I had a damn good time with it Friday.

The Last Drive-In's second flick was 1975's The Devil's Rain, which features Ernest Borgnine as a red-cowl-wearing Satanist. I love this flick, and it'd been a while, so even though I ended up falling asleep during it on Friday, I restarted and finished it yesterday. That ending!

Predating the Satanic Panic by just a couple years, this is the post-Hippie fallout in America in the 70s: It makes me laugh that so many people entertained the idea of large, active "Satanic Cults" operating all over the U S of A in the dark, psychic corridor following Peace, Love and Understanding. I feel like this movie spins directly out of that idea. 

Saturday I received a call from my Cousin Charles, who had just watched John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness for the first time. This made me realize I hadn't sat down with some Carpenter in a while, so I planned a double feature and kicked it off with Big Trouble in Little China:

 

I'm not sure there's a movie I know of that is more quintessentially 'Me.' I first saw Big Trouble in 86 or 87 -whenever it first hit VHS - and that put me at 10 or 11 years old and 100% in Double Dragon, Snakes Eyes and Storm Shadow, and any stories that included underground caverns and realms. BTiLC has ALL of that, and it shaped me in a way I'm still trying to tap into in my writing. 

I followed one Carpenter favorite with another, 1987's Prince of Darkness: In terms of John Carpenter's films, I always say Prince of the Darkness is my favorite, but the caveat I add is you have to just take Big Trouble out of the ranking - it's always going to win. The Thing and Halloween are both up near the top as well, but the mechanics of the story in Prince of Darkness always blow me away, as well as how effective the film is with such an obviously diminished budget from JC's better-known films.

Finally, Sunday afternoon I finally dug out my old DVD copy of Doug Limon's Go and showed it to K. Here's the trailer:

Maybe it was because I caught the tail end of K watching the Train Wreck: Woodstock 99 doc on Netflix Saturday afternoon, but I had the late 90s on the brain, as awful as they were. Anyway, this flick was introduced to me by friends after we got into a fight with a bunch of gangbangers at, where else, the Crazy Horse II in Vegas. I'm not a strip club kinda guy, but I've been to a few in my early 20s. This was by far the highlight, and not because it was a strip club, but because we literally had to run out of the club, jump a taxi line and steal someone's cab to get away in one piece. After all that, one of the friends with me remarked how much like a sequence in Go the whole thing was, and when I professed to not having seen the film, he showed me.

 

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Joy Orbison - Apple Essentials

Spotlights - Seance EP

Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Windhand - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Body Maintenance - Beside You

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

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European Doom

 

While looking around online for a vinyl copy of Mars Red Sky's 2011 eponymous masterpiece, I stumbled on yet another absolutely outstanding French Doom/Stoner band I'd not heard of - Witchfinder. Taken from their 2019 album Hazy Rites, you can order a super sweet bundle of gorgeous vinyl from these guys via Mars Red Sky Big Cartel Shop HERE. You can also order the anniversary edition of that aforementioned MRS record. I've got a very nice mail day coming up in a few weeks.

I have to say, so far France is my favorite exporter of Metal. Between Blut Aus Nord, and now these two bands, I feel an epic, otherworldliness in the music made there the likes of which, I've not heard elsewhere. All three bands are among the most unique and creative in their particular 'genres,' and I love the idea of old-world European creepiness informing their approach, sound and aesthetic. Just looking at the album artwork for Witchfinder, and hearing the band's incorporation of pipe organ into the music definitely lends their sound a darker sound than a lot of other Stoner/Doom bands. 

 

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Read:

I finally re-started Alan Campbell's God of Clocks, the third and final entry into his Deepgate Codex series. 

I really wish I'd been able to roll right from the first two books into this one, but that trip to LaLaLand interrupted that - I didn't want to carry a Hardcover with me on the plane, or around in my backpack as I walked all over L.A. The joke was on me, of course, as my friend Chris ended up gifting me several books while I was there, one of which was that Hardcover edition of Stephen King's Fairy Tale I just talked about reading a few weeks ago.

I'll not lie - I love Campbell's writing, but it's proving difficult to switch back from King. There's just something so pragmatic about Stephen King's prose. Talk about 'every man.' Campbell reminds me A LOT of Mervyn Peake, and as such, it takes a bit more time to visualize his descriptions. Not a bad thing, and definitely a good exercise for the ol' attention span, which took a bit of a hit of late. Not a big deal; I'll knuckle down and use God of Clocks to readjust my concentration, and that will help with several more of the books I have coming up in the next few months, probably most notably, Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange, which I'm absolutely frothing at the mouth to read.

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Playlist:

Druids - Spirit Compass (EP)

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

Fen - Epoch

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast S7E10: Mr. Misery 

Cartoonist Kayfabe - X-Men 273

Cartoonist Kayfabe - Hellboy: Crooked Man

Projexploitation 3615 code Pére Noël (1989)/ Ep 14

Mars Red Sky & Queen of the Meadow - Eponymous (single)

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Ritual Caster - Gravity Cosmonaut

            

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Card:

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

 

• Seven of Swords - Sephirothic Association is Netzach, which instantly conjures the word "Victory" for me.

• Eight of Swords - Sephirothic Association, Hod. Splendor. 

• King of Cups - or in Thoth-speak, Prince of Cups, the Intellectual aspects of Emotion, a conundrum if there ever was one. 

What's this all add up to? Well, I'd say having the two consecutive numbers in the same suit fall one right after the other implies Process, i.e. there's a formula. My creative juice runs best in an Ad Hoc, stream-of-consciousness that I've had to learn to wrangle, especially when it comes to Shadow Play Books 2 & 3, which I've outlined and am (trying) to write concurrently. Or rather, I was. That approach kind of became subsumed by those flaring, creative energies again, and things have become somewhat murky. I'm assuming this Pull is telling me to buckle it up tight, once again.

Pulling two consecutive cards like this, I think it's important to note that when you look at the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the path between these Netzach and Hod is the 27th Path, also known as The Tower Path, or in Crowley's words, "The Blasted Tower or House of God." This is a path where if you are ascending from the lower, Earthly realms, you must sacrifice, or learn to part with your ideas of the world, your "ego scaffolding" and begin to give yourself up to something higher. If you're descending, you must take the thrill and emotion of "Victory" and transmute it into something useful. In other words, the idea you think is great can only actually be experienced as great if you can wrestle it into a tangible form.

That's writing, to a "T."

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New Music from PJ Harvey!!!

 

From the forthcoming album I Inside the Old Year Dying, out July 7th on Partisan Records. Pre-order HERE. 

It's been a minute since we've had new music from Polly Jean. I listened to this multiple times in a row when it popped up in my feed last night, and each time the song opened a little bit more, like some dark, grueling flower. I love her music so much - no one else does to my brain and nervous system what Ms. Harvey does. There feels like a growing history in her work, as though each new record contains the sum total of everything that's come before, and I'm eager to hear this entire album.

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Watch:

Neon dropped the trailer to It Lives Inside yesterday:

 

I only needed to watch the first thirty seconds or so to know I was in. Trailers are beginning to be the bane of my existence. Exaggeration? Yes. Of course, but seriously, I can only imagine how much more I would have enjoyed Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise had I not been forced to sit through the trailer before every movie I have seen in the theatre since January. So many moments that might have won me over fell flat, so I'm taking action and abstaining from trailers altogether. I'll still post here, but that's it. 

Caveat: I'll still watch trailers for Marvel stuff because that tends to be all I watch of those anymore. It's with Horror films especially, I'm slamming the door. 

Back to the flick - bringing in Indian folklore is such an awesome thing. I've been thinking a lot about Remi Weekes's 2020 film His House and Pornsak Pichetshote's graphic novel Infidel - both use other cultures as jumping-off points and both rank among the most effective Horror stories I've experienced in years. It Lives Inside looks as though it will further explore bringing Horror from other cultures to viewers, and that's a lot more interesting than, well, just the same old Deadites over and over (sorry Evil Dead Rise - I'm your friend but I'm not sure I'd sleep with you).

 

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NCBD Addendum:

Just have to report back that Sins of Sinister: Dominion completely sh*t the bed. Not impressed; possibly the worst X-Event book wrap-up since the late 90s. 

The logistics of 'solving' the set-up of a timeline gone 1000+ years into the future under the widespread genetic influence of a narcissistic madman like Nathaniel Essex was so jumbled and non-specific, it felt rushed and loose in its storytelling and logistics. I would wager that the story ended up becoming so dense that it would have taken another three issues at least to actually write their way out of this; instead, we fall back on that annoying, "Quick, use your power in conjunction with mine and we can stop this." I'm exaggerating, but not entirely. Also, while I dig Mother Righteous and Rasputin IV, this series ends up feeling as though its sole purpose was to move them into the present-day cast, another annoying X-Trope I've personally had enough of for one lifetime. I know, I know - then stop reading! Well, I enjoyed more of this series and the Immortal/Red than I haven't, so this isn't so much a swearing-off as it is a "WHY?"

There were, however, a few genuinely cool set-ups in this issue, the biggest being the question of who is the Dominion if the 1000+ Sinister isn't? My guess is there's a Sinister who already retrieved his Moira engine and reset the timeline, making his (or her) way into the higher dimensional plane. Also, good to get Moira back into the action, though if she'll stay front and center or tuck back into the shadows is anyone's guess. I'm guessing the line, "This is my story" suggests the former.

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Playlist:

Dorthia Cottrell - Eponymous

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Holy Serpent - Endless

Windhand - Split EP

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland

Spotlights - Love & Decay

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

            

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Card:

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

 

 Going to do this a bit differently today:

• King (AKA Prince in Thoth) of Cups - Sephirothic Association is Tipareth, always my shining star on the Tree of Life. This is the Airy aspect of water or where the Sword and Cup meet. Like sex, a joining of two halves to make a whole. Emotional depths must be honed by intellect

• The Emperor - Rules, albeit not malevolent ones, they're also brutal in their pragmatism. Nature. This infers strength, decisiveness to the point of instinct, and high energy.

• Seven of Swords - In Thoth, Futility. Overwhelming decisions that we see the two cards above prompt for a swift resolution. Difficult or not, to carry on we must make decisions quickly and continue our course.

I actually think this is meant as advice for a friend more than for me. Life is difficult, even the smallest decision can overwhelm, let alone the big, life-changing difficult ones. Employ the swift and brutal energy of nature, roll with the punches. You won't come out unscathed, but you will come out, heal, and carry on, that much stronger. 

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Death Folk Country

 

From Windhand singer Dorthia Cottrell's second solo record, Death Folk Country, released last week on the always fantastic Relapse Records. You can order a copy HERE. 

I'll admit that I don't know Dorthia's first solo record, 2015's self-titled, as much as I should considering I'm such a huge Windhand fan. In fact, I don't think I've listened to that one since it came out. I jammed Death Folk Country last week and it really hit the spot, and now, spending time with both records this morning, I can definitely draw a parallel: Cottrell's solo acoustic records are sort of to Windhand what Alice in Chains' every-other-album, acoustic EPs were to their proper albums. There's a strong vein of Cottrell's aesthetic that informs Windhand's sound and imagery, and those elements are on full display in these stripped-down arrangements of acoustic, peddle steel and the other various atmospherics touches Dorthia peppers these records with. As an artist, there is a bleak beauty to Dorthia's music - both in those aforementioned arrangements and in her vocals/melodies, and all of it ties together nicely into that over-arching aesthetic. 

Also, can I say that I love the album title Death Folk Country because I actually think that's a perfect descriptor for the music she makes in her solo career, and on this new album in particular? I guess I just did.
 

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NCBD:

Being that I was off work the last two days while K and I hung out in Dayton, OH, Wednesday feels a bit like Monday, and I'm starting my week with a pretty awesome NCBD. Here are my picks:

The final issue of the ill-fated Donny Cates, Ryan Ottley Hulk series. Most folks seem to hate this one, but I loved it and am sorry to see it go. Cates and Ottley took some HUGE swings here, and although Cates jumped off a few issues back, I feel like Ottley's done a great job maintaining the tone. Really hoping to snag this Skottie Young cover.

The end of Sins of Sinister. Despite what I perceived as a rough start, the Hobby Store SciFi of the last few issues has endeared SoS to me quite a bit. Up next for the X-Books, "Before the Fall." Not entirely sure what this will consist of, and I doubt I'll read all the titles, but there are a few that look as though they will interest me.

Being that I have not been reading the tie-in "Event" book, The Armageddon Game, I kind of feel like I've lost my compass for the ongoing TMNT series. Hoping that gets alleviated soon. 

LOVE this cover so much - total throwback to the earliest days of TMNT and, in a broader sense, early 80s indie comics in general. 

Halloween in the world of WTFPFH? Sign me up! This one's world is really starting to open up, and I'm curious to see more people and places through the eyes of characters outside the now-defunct Academy.

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Watch:

A few days ago, Bloody Disgusting posted the trailer for a new Slasher flick called The Curse of Wolf Mountain.

 

Some cool imagery here, and I'm definitely curious as to the story. That said, I'm not going to lie: when I see an indie flick - especially if it's a Slasher - that has people like Felicia Rose, Robert Englund, Bill Mosley, or in this case Tobin Bell and Danny Trejo, I become a bit weary. These good folks are genre icons who earn a considerable chunk of their living doing cameos in any movie that can afford them. Their names then bolster the perceived appeal of those flicks. Nothing wrong with any of that, except sometimes it seems like those flicks don't have a hell of a lot going for them besides the cameos. Wolf Moutain's trailer is ambiguous enough that I cannot properly "read" much about it quality-wise, so we'll have to wait for the film's release on May 9th to find out. That said, as I stated at the top, with some of what we're seeing in this trailer, Wolf Mountain has a very real chance of being a solid modern Slasher along the lines of Random Acts of Violence or The Ranger.

 

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Playlist:

Television - Marquee Moon

The Sword - Age of Winters

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle

Funkdoobiest - Brothers Doobie

Guordan Banks - Keep You in Mind (single)

NIN - The Slip

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child

Gang Starr - Hard to Earn

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Windhand - Eponymous (reissue)

 

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Card:

When I travel, I always have my mini Thoth deck that Missi gifted me years back in my bag. However, when I went to do a Pull this past Monday from Dayton, OH, I couldn't find the deck. Now, I knew it was in the bag - this is a multi-compartment backpack, and I've become fairly convinced there's a portal to some small space dimension in the damn thing, so that items disappear, then reappear later. This was the case with the mini Thoth, as I found it yesterday while packing for our return trip. Anyway, this morning I felt like those cards had something to tell me, and when I pulled them from the small cloth pouch they live in, one card was turned over atop all the others.

The Ten of Disks can be a murky card on its own; are we talking about monetary wealth or amassment? Define wealth?  Most likely, as this is the Disks or "Earth" suit, however, there's more to Malkuth than just coins. Bearing this in my, next, I shuffled and pulled two accompanying cards to clarify the reading:

Swift action or, perhaps more appropriately read Conflict,  can be the deciding factor that helps achieve completion. 

Loud and clear - I've had a couple days off from writing, as there was zero time on our trip (that's not usually the case; I normally make time wherever we go), but I need to finish this short story I've had poised for completion today and get it submitted to the short story market it's intended for.

 

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A Slip of the Nun's Blade

 

This old NIN song from 2008's The Slip popped up in my feed this morning and it kinda hit the spot. I'm in Dayton, Ohio - a city I adore but don't make it out to all that much anymore. I spent a lot of time here in the late 00s, though, so seeing this track surface felt a but like the Universe giving me a thumbs up.

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Watch:

I watch Amoeba Music's What's In My Bag periodically, but special thanks to Mr. Brown for pointing me toward this episode with Seal. I'm starting the video at a particular point near the end; watch that and then start it over if you want to hear this beautiful man gush about Bowie, Alice in Chains and a host of other music:

 

I don't know very much about Seal's music. I avoided it a lot when I was younger and more limited, however, at some point, I realized you just can't argue with the greatness of "Kiss From A Rose." That led me to wonder about listening to some of Seal's full albums, which I haven't really done yet, and I'm not really in the headspace to do at the moment. I'll get to it eventually, though.

 

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Play:

I have become obsessed with Puppet Combo's Nun Massacre! This game scares the crap out of me. Here's Survival Horror Network's no-commentary walk-through; I won't be watching it, as I want to experience all this for myself, but I guarantee if you're a Horror Movie fan and you sit down, maybe ingest some mind-altering party favors and watch this in the dark with headphones or the sound up, this will affect you the way you want Horror Movies to.

 

Nun Massacre induces a paranoia that I really appreciate, and as I alluded to above, this game has the effect I long for back from the days when I discovered a lot of the Horror Movies I love now, but as an adult, very few new ones provide.

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Danzig - Eponymous

Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?

The Sword - Warp Riders

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Judas Priest - Painkiller

Bill Withers - Apple Music Essentials

High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense

Chamber of Screams - Murder House (Original Puppet Combo Soundtrack)

Karl Casey - (White Bat) XX EP

QOTSA - Rated R

 

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RIP Prince - 7 Years Gone

 Eight years? And what's up with April? Jesus.

13 Evil Fairy Tales Dead Under 30

 

Greg Puciato has become one of the most interesting artists working in music today. Setting aside Dillinger Escape Plan as the legends since their retirement, Puciato has done dark electronic music with Telefon Tel Aviv's Josh Eustis in The Black Queen, Hardcore/Thrash with Killer Be Killed, toured as part of Jerry Cantrell's band, and all that and everything in between with his two solo records, both of which I adore. Now, he teams with more like-minded souls (from Every Time I Die and Fit For An Autopsy) in Better Lovers. What's it sound like?

It sounds awesome.

The first single dropped the other day and big props to Mr. Brown who sent it my way, as I totally missed it. No word on an album proper, but after seeing tour announcements yesterday, the smart money's on something coming down the pipes in the next few months, so there's one more thing to look forward to.

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Watch:

Last night at 7:00 PM K and I caught Clarksville's first screening of Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise. I had exceedingly high hopes - never a good thing going into a movie, let alone a new installment in a series I have loved for a very long time. But Fede Alvarez's entry in 2013 blew me away (still blows me away, in fact), and all I wanted from this was that same feeling of Deep Horror Intoxication 2013 gave me. Did Evil Dead Rise succeed?

Yes and no. First, I really enjoyed the film, and I think Lee Cronin did a helluva job. However, those pesky expectations tapped on my shoulder for the entire runtime. 

MY problem, not the film's. 

Evil Dead Rise is not as intense as 2013; don't get me wrong - this film is f**king intense, but Rise spreads its assault thin and only really explodes in the last act. Common for a Horror film, of course, and not something to traditionally detract points for. That said, I did feel the set-up of the characters - all of whom I loved - affected the film's pacing, so that Rise felt stretched a bit thin when compared to 2013, which sets its tone and story up so quickly and efficiently and jumps into the carnage so eloquently that it's just not fair to compare. 

Everyone in the cast did an excellent job and the FX are fantastic - like REALLY fantastic. The violence and gore felt a skosh subdued compared to Fede's, but I realize all these comparisons between these two films are unfair. I've always retained a staunch "Don't compare 2013 to the original films" stance, so surrendering to this prejudice here is hypocritical. Also, Tapert produced Rise and Campell and Raimi executive produced, so their fingerprints are all over this new entry. Bearing all this in mind, I think once I'm over the initial viewing, I'll see it again (next week), and have a deeper experience.

All in all, SEE IT IN A THEATRE!!!

            

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Read:

Yesterday, I finished Stephen King's latest novel, Fairy Tale. My good friend and A Most Horrible Library Cohost Chris gifted me a copy while we were hanging out in LaLaLand last month, and I tore into it on the plane home. This is the first new King I've read since 2010's Doctor Sleep; I say this not as a point of dismissal or obstinance, but to illustrate that, although I've loved every book by Stephen King I've ever read, I just haven't read enough of his work. I've always thought that eventually would like to read everything, but I rarely actually work on that. There are so many other authors I love as well, most considerably more "independent" than King, and I tend to fall sway to their work one right after the other. "First world problems" disclaimer aside, what a wonderful problem to have: how do I read everything I want to before I die?

Anyway,  all this talk is really just to set up the fact that I had no idea what I was in for with Fairy Tale. I should have guessed, because it's quite fantastic. 

The story remains rooted in its very human, very relatable characters and their lives dealing with grief and aging for nearly the first two hundred pages, and if that sounds like it might be too much set up, it's not. I could have read about Charlie, his father, Radar and Mr. Bowditch for the entire 600 pages. That story sets up the bigger picture, and once it gets going, there are quite a few white-knuckle moments in this one, and that's the kind of reading I really enjoy. The book is Epic, and as I've come to expect with Mr. King, his epics are among the most readable I've ever encountered. 

Add into the mix the fact that the chapters are illustrated by Nicolas Delort and Locke and Key's Gabriel Rodriguez. King mentions in the afterward - which was just as enjoyable to read as the damn book, if considerably shorter - that the illustrations were key in giving the book the feeling of, well, old Fairytale collections, and I tip my hat to him at the wonderful attention to detail here; it just makes the book that much more enjoyable.

In 2010 I read Doctor Sleep and loved it, and now, thirteen years have passed without my even realizing and Fairy Tale blows me away. I've got a pretty intense list of reading planned for the next few months, but when the decks clear, I'm penciling in more King. I always forget just how much I love his writing.

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Playlist:

Cartoonist Kayfabe - TMNT 7 with Eastman and Laird        

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Better Lovers - 13 Under 30

AAWKS - The Electric Traveller (single)

AAWKS - (Heavy on the Cosmic)

Clutch - Blast Tyrant

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Chile

Led Zeppelin - Presence

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Card:

Switching it up back to my original Thoth deck for today's Pull:

Creative breakthroughs can arrive at a destructive cost and often must be tempered by keeping one foot in the 'Real World.'

This feels like a nice little indictment of the creative process, or I guess more accurately, an acknowledgment that my work ethic is sound. I learned a long time ago not to mix heightened emotional or perceptive states with writing. Yes, both can be useful for ideas, but actual writing while intoxicated by either substances or emotions never produces sound work. Not sure why I'm being reminded of this now, other than maybe I just needed a nice Jungian pat on the back.

 

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New Music from The Ocean!!!

It's been a minute since The Ocean released something that really blew me away. I think that has more to do with me than them, but it remains a fact. 

These guys have been spearheading new corridors of Metal/Post Metal/Whatever since the early 2000s. I got hip to them kind of on accident, back somewhere around 2008 when I picked up Fluxion on a whim. The frenzied fandom that album birthed reached its zenith with the 2010's twin releases Heliocentric and Anthropocentric. I still consider those records to be the pinnacle of what Robin Straps and crew have achieved, however, that is not to say I didn't love 2011's Pelegial, because I did. 

When the group returned from a five-year hiatus in 2018 with Phanerozoic I, I was in an entirely different headspace, so while I've listened to and liked that record as well as its 2020 companion Phanerozoic II, they haven't quite moved the needle with me the way some of the previous records did. Watching this video, however, I'm blown away by the production and feel like The Ocean has something great in store for us once again.

This video is a HUGE step forward, and I can only guess that, with as ambitious a band as The Ocean has become over its now 23-year history, Straps and Co. may have grown to harbor visual ambitions accompanying their sonic ones. 

What would that look like? 

Well, I'm not entirely certain, but it would probably start with what they have released for the new song "Subatlantic," harbinger of the new record Holocene dropping May 19th on the band's own Pelagic Records. Pre-order HERE.

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Read:

Allow me a small if egregious addendum to my NCBD post yesterday. 

After acquiring and reading Nightcrawlers issue three, I was floored to find not only was the burning skull of Galactus in the issue, but my knee-jerk interpretation of the image was 100% incorrect! What we have in this issue isn't Galactus being destroyed in a swathe of cosmic fire, it's GALACTUS AS A SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE, or in laymen's, Galactus as a Ghost Rider!!!

Wow. Just wow. Hats off to writer Si Spurrier - the same guy who named the Black Knight's goat-headed servant Philip - and artist Alessandro Vitti for bringing this to life. Here's what I think is a preview pick from next week's Sins of Sinister: Dominion one-shot that appears to feature this awesome new version of the planet-eater front and center.

 

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Playlist:

Jackson Browne - Somebody's Baby (single)

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear Is a Cruel Master

The Ocean - Subatlantic (single)

High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

ZZ Top - Rhythmeen

Young Widows - Old Wounds

High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine

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Card:

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

 

Temperance is Art in the Thoth deck, and since the Bound Deck has become my staple and I've had to adjust back to the classic interpretation of the card, I've come to look at this one as a balance between Temperance and Art, Art being a more Bacchanalian pursuit. So looking at this spread, I'm seeing the balance between logic and heart as the achievement that will transform one of my projects (World often acting as nomenclature for the Worlds I'm creating, or Projects, to put a more definitive linguistic point on the matter).
 

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