The Bronx's New Record: Bronx IV

Damn! This just came out and I missed it.

Watch Primus & Stewart Copeland Jam

via Copeland's youtube channel. Awesome.

New Laird Barron Collection in April

image courtesy of http://darkwolfsfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/

About two years while I was still at the bookstore, one of my regulars recommended Laird Barron's "Weird Fiction" to me. That's a flag phrase with me. You may have noticed I'm a bit of a Lovecraft fanatic and Weird Fiction is, along with authors such as Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, a moniker most colloquially associated with ol' Howard Phillips . Also, there was something about the manner in which my customer described Barron's work - an immediacy and a sureness that imparted to me the idea that I would become a fanatic for this man's work as well.

I did.

image courtesy of goodreads.com

I began with The Imago Sequence and Other Stories. I read that so fast my freakin' head spun. It was a bit of work locating a copy, but in the interim of leaving the store and starting my new job some friends opened their own book store here in the Southbay, the-ever touted Bookfrog, and they were kind enough to order it for me (because they order everything and anything at request).

Next was Occultation, which came out shortly after finished Imago. Another anthology, Occultation was an even better, more consistant read. The infinitesimal tendrils of dread Barron had begun sowing through my heart in The Image Sequence were growing stronger in Occultation, and I was starting to get glimpses of the bigger picture behind the cracks and corners of his work.

image courtesy of grimreviews.blogspot.com

That picture came full on clear, complete with hideous gray eyes and wickedly aspiring teeth when The Croning was released some months later. Barron's debut novel The Croning is a deeply inspiring work that deftly examines the mundane yet terrifying aging process within the context of immortality, dark ritualistic aeons and things that go bump in the night. It is a fantastic first novel as both a stand alone entity and - what's more important to the fanatic in me - to the cosmic scope of the mythos Barron is creating.

image courtesy of imdiebound.org

Like Lovecraft, Barron's tales are in a shared world or Universe and overlap in sometimes obvious (i.e. character swapping) sometimes nearly invisibile ways. Like the fabled Butterfly Effect one character may do something in one story and it will reach fruition in another. This is Lovecraft-esque without falling into the admittedly overdone trap of writing within Lovecraft's world. This is a very talented author using that as the template and saying, "Now how can I do this, but make it my own?"

For two or two hundred more stories, I'm in.

The Black Angels - Don't Play With Guns

Melvins Do Black Betty from Forthcoming Covers Record

The first song we've heard off of April 30th Melvins (and friends) cover album Everybody Loves Sausages. Thanks be to Mr. Brown for the heads up.

What is not addressed in the article is why JSBX - or what is commonly an abbreviation for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is on the graphic. Are they somehow involved in with the track? There was no mention anywhere that I looked.

I Feel an Ethyl Meatplow Binge Coming On...

My Conundrum with the New MBV

image courtesy of walrusmusicblog.com

So I just ordered the vinyl package for the new My Bloody Valentine album. Said package came with the 180 gram vinyl, CD and the digital DL. So the tracks are in my possession, and I'm dying to listen to them, HOWEVER, here's my conundrum.

From the MBV website:

"This vinyl album has been recorded as an analogue album. It was recorded on 2 inch 24 track analogue tape and mixed onto half inch analogue tape and mastered with no digital processing involved. The vinyl is a true analogue cut, i.e. it hasn't been put through a digital process during the cutting process unlike over 90% of all vinyl available today."

Okay, so do I go ahead and listen to the tracks as digital entities, or do I wait (the vinyl/CD's aren't being shipped until the 22nd due to manufacturing) and let such a beautiful and meticulous record find my ears the first time the way it was meant to? It's been fairly easy avoiding the tracks thus far on youtube and pitchfork and whatnot (which is why I've nto posted any here), but now that they're on my computer?

I'm going to attempt to wait, but brothers and sisters, as they say in hell, it ain't gonna be easy!