2018: February 27th 8:48 AM

There was indeed music in my head this morning, however I have forgotten what it was. In lieu of that, here's what I'm starting my workday with:



The same way I'm dipping back into 80s music to try and recontextualize it, I'm also moving back among the more recent cobwebs of the 00s - especially the late 00s - and attempting to re-engage with a lot of the music I was into at the time but have since let slip by the wayside. This album is a great example of that; I've never stopped liking Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, or either of the two groups' individual work, I've simply found less time and impetus to fully surrender to the more spooky, occult soundscape-y areas of my collection. When I was into this in 2009-2010 I was not only very interested in the Occult, I practiced it a lot. This means music such as this was perfect for creating and sustaining altered states and temporal anomalies. The only temporal anomaly I experience now are on the dreaded 405. Will re-engaging with this music segue me back into a more occult-involved day-to-day? Maybe. I suppose it's no accident that I start doing daily Tarot readings and this music pops back onto my radar. It's life - let's see where it goes, shall we?

Playlist from yesterday:

Swans - The Glowing Man (disc 2)
Lantlos - .neon
Dio - Holy Diver
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards (truncated listen)
Helmet - Meantime
Windhand/Satan's Satrys - Split (my vinyl arrived!)
Lawrence Whelk - Polks
House of Waxwork Vol. 2

Card of the day:

Balancing vigor with responsibility and action can be tricky. There's that lion almost running away with the Air of Fire's chariot again.

2018: February 26th 7:47 AM

Second day in a row, no music in my head upon waking. Although I began my day with Swan's Frankie M this morning, my work day started with Lantlos. Not sure if I've posted anything by them here yet, but wow, this album immediately endeared itself to me upon a friend recommending it several weeks ago. There's a definite similarity to Fen, another band I love. Lots of blue, jazz tones here, a definite somber, rainy feel.



Playlist yesterday was brief due to a large part of our Sunday once again going to the search for new quarters. And ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner (though I've thought that before).

Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - IV

Card of the day:

Change or fluctuation. Let's hope so.

2018: February 25th 9:11 AM

No music in my head this morning and I'm enjoying the quiet by sprinting through a couple chapters from this very enjoyable romp through 70s and 80s paperback horror:

I've mentioned Paperbacks from Hell here before, I think, but as I've moved into the last third of Thomas Ligotti's first two volumes of short fiction I wanted to take a break and chew through something fun. This is it. Highly recommended.

Yesterday was insanely productive. My own first Horror Anthology will most likely be hitting print and digital in April. Titled A Collection of Desires after one of the stories in the book, it's seven tales of modern terror. I hope you'll give it a try.

Playlist from yesterday:

Grimes - Visions
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Disasterpeace - It Follows OST
Anthrax - Worship Music
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL - PLECTRUMELECTRUM

Watched the first episode of AHS My Roanoke Nightmare. While I loved Hotel and Murderhouse, I've largely avoided or been disappointed by a lot of AHS. This one already has me.

Card of the day:

One of my favorite cards in the deck, both visually and philosophically. From the Grimoire:

"Will synchronized with the imagination. Dreams become reality. Areas of life coming together, falling into place."

All good signs for the endeavors I am currently undertaking, all of which pertain to my writing, or Art.

Can't leave you without a song. This is as relevant as it is awesome:

2018: February 24th

Woke up with a kind of mash-up of two songs in my head. This is a weird one:



and



The Scorpions track being in there is somewhat bizarre because, despite the fact that our drunken celebration's late night playlist devolved into 80s Rock cheese, Scorpions was not a part of that. They have been on my mind intermittently lately, as I keep hearing Rock You Like A Hurricane on the radio at work.


Playlist from 2/23:

David Bowie - Blackstar
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Preoccupations - Cassette
Melvins - Stoner Witch
David Bowie - No Plan E.P.
The Birthday Party - Hits
She Wants Revenge - These Things/Tear You Apart/Spend the Night/Black
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Sinead O'Connor - I Want Your (Hands on Me) single
Prince - Sign O' the Times
Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited
Anthrax - I'm the Man E.P.
Proto Music: The Best of 80s Radio*
Skid Row - Eponymous
80s Rock Hop Scotch**
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Elvis Presley - Simple Minds - single
Joe Walsh - In the City - single
Jerry Jeff Walker - Don't it make you Wanna dance? - single
Grimes - Symphonia IX (My Wait is U) - single
David Bowie/Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth
............

* This is a selection I made shortly after joining Apple Music, the week after Christmas when I flew home for my Uncle's funeral to be specific; it contains the songs I consider some of the essential radio fodder of my youth in the 80s:  Phil Collins, Don Henley, Golden Earring, Red Rider, Billy Squire, The Police and Peter Gabriel.

** This was a drunken Keller and I taking turns reminiscing about 80s rock we liked. The session included Dokken, Cinderella, Dio (who I have always staunchly disliked but may have warmed to last night thanks to Keller) and Tesla.

..........

You can see I've been slowly re-evaluating and re-contextualizing a lot of 80s rock into the sonic tapestry I weave around myself. Some of it only fits for nostalgia, some may have a place outside that nostalgia. We'll see.

Card of the day:

Nothing in the Grimoire on this one. Courage needed for victory to opposition.

2018: February 23rd 4:35 AM

Well, just like that. Finished my second pass through on the project and passed the Scrivener session off to Keller. We meet tonight to discuss moving forward with it, then celebrate. I had my own little party with K to celebrate one stressor lifted, ended my musical day with Anthrax - State of Euphoria on vinyl and, fittingly, woke up with the final track off the album, Finale, blaring in my head. Growing up, as a Freshman or so in High School, Anthrax was my band (before Alice in Chains Dirt came along and knocked them off their throne). I had all their albums except their first two, Fistful of Metal and Armed and Dangerous, on cassette. Still have and listen to some of those cassettes. State of Euphoria was always my least favorite, and now I am just not sure why. I mean, it's nowhere near Persistence of Time - still my favorite - but it's really good and features songs about Blue Velvet and Stephen King's Misery, and just generally rocks.



Yesterday's Playlist:

OOIOO - Gold and Green
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Mastodon - Once More Around the Sun
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Prince - Paisley Park
Prince - Purple Rain
Madlove - White With Foam
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Anthrax - State of Euphoria

Card of the day:

"Appears after trauma. Period of rest invested with planning."

My notes in the Grimoire don't seem to fit so I'll have to look deeper into this one, which is good, because part of why I'm doing this, other than to reconnect with Tarot after almost two years away from it, is the Grimoire is largely unfinished.

2018: February 22nd,

Woke up with Coast to Coast, the second track on Tune-Yards new album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life in my head. I can't find a good version of it to embed here so instead here's the Melvins covering The Butthole Surfers in honor of the fact that the new Melvins album is out soon and features Jeff Pinkus on second bass for the entire album:



So good...


Playlist from 2/21:

Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Brookville - Life in the Shade
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Soma
House of Waxwork Vol. #2 OST
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST

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

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire:

Indicates greater objectivity/clarity
Healthy balance of emotions and intellect
Good time to make decisions
I can see clearly now the rain has gone

Hmm... Well, the convolutions thicken with the prospective move; the place we had settled on is out, a potentially better place has popped up and I suppose this is telling me to balance my approach inspire of exhaustion (which I haven't so much as half the right to claim as K does).

Oh! Check this out - Metallica Garage Days Re-Revisitied reissue; the CD comes in a limited edition long box like CDs used to come in back in the day. $10 bucks for the second of the only two albums by this band you need to own? Check!

2018: February 21st, 4:23 AM

More Bowie in my head upon waking. It's a wonderful way to open your eyes:



Playlist yesterday:

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. #1
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
Somnium Nox -
David Bowie - Dollar Days*
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Playlist: K**

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

* I had been thinking about listening to David Bowie's Blackstar to start off my writing session but was tired and a little out of sorts so I figured I should stick with the music I know works for these sessions, i.e. lately Deafheaven. However, before I could choose one of their albums, my iTunes jumped into random and picked Dollar Days. I treated this as something of a sonic Tarot pull and listened to the song. Lyrics for it are HERE - I'm not sure how these pertain to my life at the moment, rather hope they don't. It's a great song, one of the saddest deliveries on a final album filled with sad deliveries. I'm going to re-engage with the album today, as my original impetus for almost picking it yesterday was realizing it'd been quite a long time since I had, preferring for the last year or two to stick to Bowie's older material and also some of his more obscure, probably because as awesome as Black Star is, it's an emotional tour de force.

** The second or third CD I made for K after we started dating. The part of the playlist we made it through before dinner looks like this:

Card of the day:

Interesting interpretation when I juxtapose this card resurfacing with the 8 of Swords almost popping out of the deck as I shuffled (I always shuffle three times - unless I'm around a lot of people I know, like at work, and want to avoid being super ostentatious - and cut once). The 8 of Swords is, of course, Interference, and in keeping with that we are poised to move but have a sudden setback. The 2 of Disks coming up confirms putting our heads down and plowing through.