2019: March 28th: Helms Alee - Spider Jar

This new track from Helms Alee popped up in my youtube feed via Sargent House's channel. Wow. I know nothing of this band, but that changes today. From the forthcoming Noctiluca, out on Sargent House April 26th. Pre-order HERE.

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Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie is finished. Well, the writing part. I spent a good four hours over the last two days tweaking the layout in Scrivener and Veullum, and it's almost right, but not quite. It looks like I'll be spending all day Friday watching 'how-to' videos for both programs, trying to dial in those last little nuances. Oh yeah, I've also secured my all-important First Reader! Thank You, Missi!

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If you're anywhere near my age - 43 - you remember a time before the Internet, when television required what we now refer to as Event Viewing. I'm not going to say that was necessarily better, but it's funny that, as we get further and further into the paradigm where we control the viewing experience 100% in most cases, there's still those of us who nostalgically long for an occasional movie or show to call the shots. I wouldn't want everything to revert to that paradigm because, hey, I'm freakin' busy, as I'm sure you are. But it's nice to have an event to look forward to every now and again. Shudder knows this. Joe Bob Briggs knows this. That's why, I am excited as all hell for tomorrow night and the inaugural Joe Bob Briggs The Last Drive In weekly Double Feature! I have no idea what JBB is showing, nor do I care. All that matters is that he is hosting.



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Playlist from 3/27:

Bonobo - The North Borders
The National - You Had Your Soul With You (Pre-release Single)
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Brand New - Science Fiction
Windhand - Eternal Return
White Lung - Eponymous
Tamaryn - The Waves

Card of the day:

Balance and Harmony. The imagery on this card, perhaps more than any other in the deck, instills in my chest a calm and peaceful feeling. The Star sifts the cosmic waters of the Universe, which in a way, is what artists do. I feel good. I feel on track.

2019: March 27th - New Music from The National

While even after multiple attempts, I really never developed a taste for The National's much-lauded 2017 album Sleep Well Beast, I am such an enormous fan of 2010's High Violet that I give everything they do a chance. Admittedly, You Had Your Soul With You probably dropped a while ago, so I'm posting it here well after the fact, but I've been careful about getting off on the wrong foot with I Am Easy to Find, the band's forthcoming album on 4AD. With some bands, pre-album release singles can create false expectations for the overall tone of the album. Despite this, something forced my hand this morning, and now I am very intrigued about the full album, which you can pre-order HERE.

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I've been cleaning a lot of music out of my iTunes to make room on my Mac Book, and this morning I was super freaked out to find I can no longer find my Twin Peaks Music Archive tracks. For those of you who remember this, roughly eight years ago, David Lynch released a massive archive of every music track used in the original show. This included all incidental tracks, and every variation of every track. I'm not entirely sure how I would have deleted these, and there's a chance I have it backed up on a secondary drive somewhere (please please please), but until then, I'm sweating it a little bit. Here's a taste of what I was looking for this morning:



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Playlist from 3/26:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Finn Andrews - One Piece at a Time
Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
Emma Ruth Rundle - On Dark Horses
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Brand New - Science Fiction
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
M83 - Saturdays Equal Youth

No card today.

2019: March 26th

Let's go back a few years. Circa 2014. Via Blood Disgusting, I found and fell in love with a podcast called Double Murder. A kind of 'celebrity death match' of horror movies, our hosts Danny and Tim take two horror movies and weigh them for ranking against one another. The criteria is learned and often sophisticated understanding and discussion of content and craft, so it makes for a fantastic listen if you're into Horror as an aesthetic as well as a good time.

Double Murder is a deceivingly intellectual discussion of horror (see their episode Videodrome vs. eXistenz); one of those deep dive shows where you really get to know your hosts in regard to how they approach something you probably also love if you're listening, i.e. horror movies. As with life, over the last few years episodes have dwindled as the hosts' lives have presumably done what all our lives do - run all the fuck over us, stealing our moments and bludgeoning our wills. That's a beating you have to actively work against, and brother, it ain't easy. I mean, some days it can be difficult enough to motivate yourself to do something you love, let alone line up two or more schedules to work on a project. Anyway, due to the dwindle, I'd fallen out of habit checking for new episodes. Then, last week I noticed there was one from last October, a fantastic juxtaposing of Halloween H20 and Halloween 2018. Yay!

Now, here's the thing. Danny! and Tim are from my home town, and that further endears these guys to me. I don't know them, but I'm double rooting for them, in whatever they do. So when Danny! asks Tim for news on his band, Canadian Rifle, I remember that yes! I can look these guys up on Apple Music, a service I didn't have whenever the last time they might have mentioned the band on the podcast and I was listening. I did just that, and was pretty much immediately blown away by Canadian Rifle's 2018 album Peaceful Death. I played this fucker for about a dozen rotations that first day, and it has remained in heavy rotation since. Canadian Rifle's bandcamp is HERE - I'm so ordering some vinyl to support these fellas - and there's a ton of tracks on youtube, Apple Music, wherever fine paperbacks are sold.

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According to Comic List, it's another light week for NCDB. It can be depressing waiting for new issues of A Walk Through Hell and Gideon Falls. However, of note this week is Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science begins its final arc with this week's issue #39. Consulting Image Comics, looks like this last arc will culminate in June with Issue #42. What a great book; looking forward to a deep-dive re-read as soon as Black Science is over.

I'm behind on Punks Not Dead. Issue One of the second arc, London Calling, is still sitting on my desk, waiting for me to re-read the final issue of the first arc before diving into this new one.

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Playlist from 3/25:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Good Son
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Throwing Shade - House of Silk EP
Windhand - Eternal Return

Card of the day:

Another nod toward a new beginning, and a fulfilling one to boot. As I begin to make a list of ideas and scenes for Shadow Play Book Two: The Absence of Light (Tentative title), I'm about to begin actually writing my second collaboration with Jonathan Grimm, a Depression-era, dustbowl circus zombie story called Ciazarn. Not a comic, this is more a prose novella with pictures by Grimm, and judging by what I've already seen, it will be gorgeous.

2019: March 25th

I am loving the new Finn Andrews' record One Piece at a Time. Another album that is perfect all the way through. Currently, this is my favorite song, although I suppose that may change as on an album this strong, all ten tracks will most likely cycle through as a favorite at some point.

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My friend Jesus gifted me a copy of Pornsak Pichetshote and Aaron Campbell's Infidel, and after only  a few pages in, I can attest that all the great things I've read online are 100% accurate. Described as, "A haunted house for the 21st Century, Infidel follows an American Muslim woman and her multiracial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia." Amazing, high concept, right? Well, so far the execution is tense to say the least, and Campbell's art is ridiculous it's so fantastic. Here's a sample:

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Finally watched Ryan Gosling's 2014 debut as Writer/Director Lost River. Wow. I was a little tired through the beginning, blinking out in micronaps, and I thought that might affect my experience, but it did not. Reminiscent of Harmony Korine's Gummo meets David Lynch's Straight Story, Lost River's third act pretty much forever endeared the movie to me. The imagery Gosling puts on screen is breathtaking, and Johnny Jewel's OST is perfect.

Oh, and Ben Mendelsohn and Matt Smith are fantastic as two very different varieties of heavies.



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Playlist from 3/24:

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Bloodlust

Card of the day:

Lots of Earthly concerns, because I've not been as vigilant as I need to be with money. It's very easy to slip, with all of these wonderful boutique companies out there servicing fans of everything from David Lynch to any comic book you've ever read. To move forward, sometimes we have to let ourselves take a few steps back. Does that make sense, or am I mixing metaphors and scenarios? It's early, off to work.

Uncle Acid's Full Wiltern Set Preserved on Video!

Many thanks to youtube user Baby Gorilla, whose channel you should absolutely go check and support with some likes and a subscription; the video content is outstanding! Link to Baby Gorilla HERE.

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I've known for a while that DC has a subscription service called dcuniverse. Anyone who reads these pages knows this should hold no particular interest for me, as especially in the modern day there is very little content DC generates that I'm interested in. HOWEVER, a week or so ago, my good friend Mike Shinabargar sent me this:



I need to see this, like, soon. While I don't have any interest in reading the current iteration of Doom Patrol that DC Comics publishes, I am a HUGE fan of Grant Morrison's 80s run on the title, and according to Mike, the show leans heavily on it, so if this scene is any indication, I am very interested.

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Three Fourths of The Horror Vision recorded our Spoiler-heavy discussion to Jordan Peele's Us last night (Chris out helping manage a European tour with Rezurex!). You can find the Us episode below:

Apple
Spotify
Google Play
The Horror Vision

After the Us reaction, we watched indie horror gem Book of Monsters, which will be the focus of our episode going up early this week. Here's a trailer:



Nice work on getting this one out there, Dread Central!

Playlist from 3/23:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Canadian Rifle - A Peaceful Death
Gary Numan -

Card of the day:

A new beginning of Earthly Matters. Time to double down on saving money - it's been difficult lately and I've been slipping - and time to start outlining the sequel to Shadow Play!

2019: March 23rd - Zeal & Ardor release Live in London!

I should have realized that, a few days ago when they released We Never Fall, that it would be a harbinger of the band's first live album. I can NOT wait to dig into this today.

K and I saw Jordan Peele's Us last night. Despite one of the worst crowds I've shared a theatre with in recent memory, and me being a bit too high to let all the random conversations not affect my viewing, the film is outstanding. Peele is one of the most original filmmakers out there today, and seeing him interviewed recently on both Horror Noire and Eli Roth's History of Horror, it excites me to no end that he embraces Horror as much as he does, and wants to continue to create inside the genre.

Also, that second trailer for Pet Sematary that I had been avoided was foisted on me before the movie last night, and it looks scary as hell.

Playlist from 3/22:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death
Thought Gang - Eponymous
Stan Getz - Focus

No card today.

2019: March 22nd - Deadwood Trailer

Mr. Brown sent this to me yesterday. I am PSYCHED. I mean, with the momentum of just finishing a re-watch of the original series, I cannot WAIT for May 31st, which really, isn't that long to wait at all.

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When my friend Keller showed me this the other day, it absolutely blew me away. Skating Polly have such a throw-back sound to the 90s, but in a way that feels pretty genuine. Siblings, I'd wager their mother and/or father are about my age, grew up in the 90s and exposed their daughters to PJ Harvey, The Pixies, The Breeders, etc, from an early age. This is influence, not imitation, a fine line in today's world. Anyway, this is an older track; Keller discovered them a few months back at the Echo and ended up seeing them multiple times since then. His assessment? They Rock. The musical exchange here, both in the girls' singing and playing, warms my heart.

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K and I finished the first season of Deadly Class last night; the season finale aired a week or two ago, so we were behind. Man! I'm calling it now - best comic book adaptation yet! These characters are insanely alive in the book, but on the show, I don't know, you get more gravity with their emotions and situations. Also, all the deviations from the book? Well, Remender himself is the show runner, so all of it is him writing new material. My favorite new character? I can't believe I'm going to say this, but French Stewart is freakin' fantastic in the role of Scorpio Slasher. Here's a peek:



LOVE Billy's reaction!


Playlist from 3/21:

Skating Polly - On Audiotree Live - EP
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Finn Andrews - One Piece at a Time
Kevin Ayers - Bananamour
Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified
Chasms -  The Mirage
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper
Second Still - Eponymous
Stan Getz - Focus

Card of the day:

The Airy aspect of Water. Emotion curbed with intellect. Is this a harbinger to my workday ahead? Probably, so I'll interpret it as a cue to remain mindful even in instances of explosive emotions. In other words: It might be a trying day. Breathe deep and keep your head up and your mouth (mostly) closed. It's eight hours until the weekend.