2019: Blood Machines!

This morning I backed the Blood Machines Kickstarter, something I'd not heard of until two days ago. In a nutshell, Blood Machines is a soon-to-be film by French director Seth Ickerman that is based on a video he made for Carpenter Brut's song Turbo Killer back in 2016. You can read more about the evolution of this project and see some more nifty behind the scenes stuff HERE. Backing is officially over for this and the film is fully funded - and then some - so it looks as though this amazing project is going to see the light of day!

Here's the original video that sparked all this off:



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Watchlist from the last two days:

First episode of AMC's Adaptation of Joe Hill's wonderful lovel NOS4A2. Did not like this at all, but I'll give it a chance. AMC is definitely one of those networks that won't really go all into a show until it's proven to have an audience.

Also, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, which I'm always shocked isn't discussed more as the obvious key influence to Dario Argento's Suspiria. Bava crafted a gorgeous Giallo with this film, and it very much satisfies every time I watch it. And the score! Why isn't this available on vinyl? Waxwork or Mondo - I'm looking at you guys. Someone give the music in this film a new great new edition!



Also, caught a bit of Dead Birds last night on Shudder.tv and now really want to go back and watch the entire thing.



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Playlist from

Stereophonics - Just Enough Education to Perform
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible 20
Sigur Rós - 22° Lunar Halo
Sigur Rós - Variations on Darkness
Sigur Rós - Takk
Sigur Rós - ( )
Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum

Playlist from 6/06:

Man or Astro-Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Golden - Eponymous
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

2019: June 5th Stereophonics - Mr. Writer

Wow. It has been a minute since I dug into Stereophonics. So long, in fact, that I'd forgotten how great this band is. And this particular track comes from a great album, too, although one that can be difficult for me to engage with, since it mentally and emotionally ties my thoughts back into The Yellow House, a band I was in that I loved, but that ended abruptly. That's tough; bands breaking up are a lot like couples breaking up. There becomes an entire subset of people and music and corridors of thought that you end up having to put to the side to avoid those messy little nerve triggers. With Stereophonics - and more specifically the album Just Enough Education to Perform, which I'm listening to for the first time in at least ten years as I type this - those triggers kick in on the second track, Lying in the Sun. I remember hearing this song for the first time after The Yellow House was already really up and running, playing shows and getting our name out there. I remember hearing this track and thinking, "Hey, that's a lot like what we're doing. Cool." It meant a lot at the time, to have a band that was successful in a way that we wanted to be, that had a similar aesthetic. Stereophonics weren't really all that big in this country, but at the time almost nothing worth hearing was. They had a solid fan base probably everywhere else in the world, and they were cool. That's what was largely missing from the 00s. Not many people were cool anymore; that aesthetic - which granted can go sideways real fast and make you look like a douche - was replaced mainly in the 00s with people yelling and screaming about their prozac, how messed up they were, and the like. Bands like Stereophonics and BRMC were cool.

My introduction to Stereophonics also dovetailed with my first trip abroad: I remember walking into the first hostel in Dublin in January 2002, and this video was playing on the tele. The track has always had the particular ability to spin me back in time to that exact moment, the way the air tasted, the electricity of being somewhere new. Which is always something to be experienced sparingly, so as not to wear out the Magick.

Hearing these tracks this morning, I'm blown away; the songs and my responses to them are a reminder that I am a completely different person today than I was during The Yellow House. Which is precisely how it should be, but it's interesting to step back every now again and remember.

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NCBD! Very excited for these, especially The Walking Dead. If you're reading it, you know why!

Found out recently this series ends with a double-sized issue #30 in July, so this is the penultimate chapter! Expect even more insanity than we've had, which is really going to be saying something when all is said and done:

Despite initial confusion, I ended up loving the Lapham's Lodger series for IDW's Black Crown. And now, I'm excited to be back with the old gang again in Stray Bullets:

The start of a new, and apparently longer, arc. This book is aces. Read it:

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About the time I posted yesterday's blog I realized I was sick as fuck and not going to work, so I spent June 4th confined to bed, where I finished Gemma Files' Experimental Film. A powerhouse; such a great novel. Creepy, well-written, and almost clinical in its plotting. I wondered if the climax would go as large as the plot teased, and if so how that would work. There's that moment where, depending on how supernatural or numinous a novel's plot has teased, Speculative or Weird Fiction has to make a decision to either go full-bore, bringing the 'monster' on camera or not. Ms. Files goes all the way with it, and she does such a fantastic job with it. Nothing seems ridiculous. That's the trick. You have to give the reader something they've never seen before and make them believe in it. And Experimental Film does that very well indeed.

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Watchlist yesterday was another episode and a half of Doom Patrol. SO fun watching Cliff Steele kick nazi ass while Dead Kennedy's blare on the soundtrack. I can't recommend this show enough.

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Playlist from 6/04:

Cat Rapes Dog - Maximum Overdrive
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair

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Card of the day:

Remain open to the influence of the Universe. Pretty sure unexpectedly digging into old Brit rock and staying home from work (and feeling guilty about it) for the second day in a row are the direct manifestation of this draw. I've been sick or not feeling well (read: exhausted) since the 19th of May, and the recurrences from what seems a tiny bug are due, I think, to a lack of rest. So yesterday I didn't leave bed, save for about an hour where I sat in the living room and listened to two records while reading. Also, I didn't allow myself to write at all. I put all the anxiety and expectations and frustrations of this final edit under the bed for a day and just did nothing but read Gemma Files. Today, while once again planning to stay in bed, perhaps I will work on reading the book.

2019: June 4th Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Trailer!

To say I have extremely high hopes for this one is an understatement. I know, I know; that's never a good idea. That said, when was the last time GDT let us down?

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Good news! Just to prove I'm not an anti-DC Comics curmudgeon, I watched the first two episodes of the DCU app's Doom Patrol last night and it is AWESOME! So happy for this. A fabulous cast, dark yet often hilarious vibe - thanks in large part to Alan Tudyk's narration - and stories ripped right from Grant Morrison and Richard Case's seminal early late 80s/early 90s run, but altered in a way that really keeps the spirit of the book's madness. Such a joy to have this. Also, watching this made me realize it's probably been 12 or 13 years since I originally read Morrison and Case's run, so I'm starting that today. More like this DCU, please!



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Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - In the House of Strange Affairs
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult -  Confessions of a Knife
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - I See Good Spirits, I See Bad Spirits
Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips
Man or Astro-man? - 1000X
Man or Astro-man? - Intravenous Television Continuum
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. 1: △△

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Card of the day:

Pure Will is what will be required from me to competently finish the novel; I've read this thing now multiple times, but it's been multiple versions as I've refined the plot. This was my first heavily plotted novel (my first novel that's going to see the light of day in a published capacity), and as such there's plot detritus hanging around my head from other versions. This final, post-Beta Reader go-through is to catch any last minute spelling or grammatical errors, neither of which should be possible at this point, as a human Beta Reader can miss something - though Missi didn't miss much - but Scrivener, Grammarly, and Vellum should not. I'm finding the first two have indeed missed a few small errors, and it's freaking me out. There's a predilection for reading absent-mindedly when you have had this much contact with something, and thus I'm requiring Pure Will to stay as focused as possible while reading. I'm roughly 40% of the way through, so I've adjusted my goal to end-of-week I order the first proof, so we'll see.

2019: June 3rd Chelsea Wolfe Covers Roky Erickson (RIP)

I've been so ensconced in my little final edit bubble, I only left the house this weekend to run errands on Saturday, and I've had the phone on Airplane Mode for the better part of the last three days. This means I did not know Roxy Erickson passed away on May 31st.

I wasn't as exposed to Roky's music as many, but I discovered the 13th Floor Elevators in my Ex's CD collection in the 00s and was immediately drawn to the sound, if only in a small way. The Elevators always seemed like a band I hadn't known I knew about, if that makes any sense. Their music - or what I knew of it through that one "Best of" disc - felt like an archetypal piece of Americana that informed a lot of the other, more top-level stuff I was into. And I believe that's exactly what it was. In 2014 I covered a Post-Elevators Erickson song in a band I was in (I Walked with a Zombie), and during that period, I did some subsequent digging into Erickson's music and found what I believed was one of the quintessential "Nuggets" artists. If you're unfamiliar with Nuggets, there's an entire subset of bands and artists that carved an archetypal niche in 60s Rock music, referred to mostly as Psychedelic. Many of these bands never made it beyond the status of Garage Band. Many of them became better known in the modern era through radio shows like Little Steven's, and subsequently a series of Anthology albums titled Nuggets. In this way, these bands and their aesthetic became an aspect of left-of-center popular cultural, and that's where the Elevators and later Roky's music lived until it began to inspire an entire new generation of artists in the 90s and, more so it seems to me, the 00s, when bands like The Black Angels brought them a little farther into the cultural vernacular of Rock Music.

Anyway, I'm dangerously close to talking about things I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Chelsea Wolfe's cover is gorgeous; a fantastic send-off. Roky Erickson, Rest in Peace.



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Watchlist report: Well, I made it through everything from Friday morning's list I am likely to, plus some. Here's the scorecard:

Godzilla - skipped it. Not a huge fan by any means, and despite the fact that the film looks beautiful and fun-as-hell, after deciding against it Friday night, we just couldn't find the time to go see it amidst my editing schedule.

Swamp Thing - Disliked this very much. The usual DC shenanigans of getting the look down and then putting only the most perfunctory work into building characters and story. Swampy's origin itself has been altered in a way that's so convoluted by the end of the pilot, it doesn't bode well for the future, imo.

Ozark - Season Two Finale - FUCKING BRILLIANT.

The Perfection - I'd purposely avoided reading anything about this film, but had been anticipating it for a few weeks, since I heard about it on the Shockwaves Podcast. Loved the first half, felt the second half became something that betrayed that first part. Not terrible, but uneven and thus, frustrating.

Deadwood - FUCKING BRILLIANT. A fitting, beautiful end to one of my all-time favorite series.

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Playlist from 6/01:

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Zeal and Ardor - Live in London
Zombi - Shape Shift
Zombi - Spirit Animal
Bloody Hammers - Lovely Sort of Death
Bloody Hammers - Under Satan's Sun

Playlist from 6/02:

Sunn O))) - Domkirke
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST
Jóhann Jóhannson - Mandy OST

No card today.

2019: June 1st Bloody Hammers - From Beyond the Grave

Bloody Hammers is a band Jonathan Grimm just turned me onto. Really cool stuff. They've got a new album out June 28th from Napalm Records, you can pre-order it HERE.

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All that debating on what to watch last night, and we ended up getting through one episode of Ozark before K fell asleep; that's about the time I realized we actually went into yesterday with three episodes remaining, not two. Once she was out, I put on Swamp Thing and promptly fell asleep, too. So yeah, epic fail.

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Playlist from 5/31:

The National - High Violet
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Faith No More - King For a Day
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
The Cure - Pornography
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above the Night

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Card of the day:

"Unfailing determination toward your goal."

That shakes it. The two major adjustments on Shadow Play will be done by the end of the weekend and the book will be submitted for Proofs on Monday.

2019: May 31st Dark Season 2 Trilogy Trailer

Just under a month until the second season of Netflix's Dark drops and they reveal it's going to be a finite story done in three seasons? I really couldn't think of better news for this show. Dark already feels extremely symmetrical, so it's awesome to hear that symmetry goes all the way through into its DNA. And why do I get the feeling that the 'Everything is connected' line is going to be especially true for Dark? Can't wait!

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Tough decision for this evening: Godzilla: King of Monsters, Swamp Thing or the Deadwood movie? All three premiere today; the very definition of First World problems.



Or



Or



Whatever our decision, in preparation, I signed up for my 7-Day Free Trial of the DCU app through Firestick last night. Really had to fight the urge to start Doom Patrol, but that has to wait a little bit; we still have two episodes of Ozark left to watch. The general plan is binge Doom Patrol and keep the subscription for the duration of Swamp Thing. Also, I noticed the 2015 Constantine show is on there; not a perfect adaptation of the character storywise - as I remember the episodes range from fantastic to terrible - but Matt Smith is perfect casting as John Constantine, and from the few episodes I did watch back when it aired, there were some gems. So while we have the DCU, might as well take advantage and re-watch and finally finish that series as well.


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Playlist from 5/30:

How to Destroy Angels - Welcome Oblivion
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Bloody Hammers - Lovely Sort of Death
Ritual Howls - Into the Water
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Jaye Jayle -No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Isaac Hayes - Tough Guys OST
Marilyn Manson - AntiChrist Superstar
Monolord - Rust
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Sigur Rós - Variations on Darkness

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Card of the day:

Old paradigms dissolve, new ideas shape the future. My Beta Reader is all but finished with Shadow Play. The art's done (I'll reveal it here soon); all I need to do is one last concentrated read through and it's go time!

2019: May 30th - 3 Days Until NOS4A2 Premieres!

I just realized that AMC's adaptation of Joe Hill's NOS4A2 premieres this Sunday. How the hell did I miss this trailer!?! I can't wait for the show, as the book is probably my favorite Joe Hill novel. Well... Heart-Shaped Box might be neck-and-neck with it, but they're both exceptional, outside-the-box horror fiction.

Of course, this comes at a super busy watch-time, as K and I are still working our way through Ozark; on Season 2 now and it's really getting dark. Literally. I noticed last night that, where Season 1 was had a very blue pallet, Season 2 is shot extremely dark; almost darker than anything I've seen in this level of show. Not a complaint though, because it works! It's a tonal accompaniment to the characters' descent into their maelstrom that reminds me of Paul Schrader's Autofocus, which begins very pastel and slowly grows into darker and darker hues as Bob Crane's descent into addiction. Boy does it work. And Friday I'll be signing up for the DCU app for the duration of Swamp Thing. Also on the slate for that subscription window is a binge on Doom Patrol. And now we're adding NOS4A2! This might be the very definition of First World Problems, not having enough time to watch all the things I've been looking forward to, but that's what I come here to talk about; I'll leave politics and the rapid decline of civilization for limited real-world encounters, because I'm pretty fucking sick of seeing it discussed online!

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New episode of The Horror Vision is up! Topics of discussion include but are not limited to Mike Mendez's The Convent, Emma Tammi's The Wind, Pledge, The Nest and Valencourt Books' Paperbacks from Hell subscription service, the newest installment of Mortal Combat, and a whole lot more!

Apple
Spotify
Google Play

Or just catch us on our website, The Horror Vision.com

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Watchlist from the last few days has been Ozark Season 2, David Cronenberg's Rabid, and actually, last weekend I had a viewing of Cronenberg's Videodrome, one of my all-time favorite films.

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Playlist from 5/28:

Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips
Earth - Primitive and Deadly
Wasted Theory - Warlords of the New Electric
Wasted Theory - Defenders of the Riff
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Primus - Frizzle Fry

Playlist from 5/29:

PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
Natural Snow Buildings - Night Coercion into the Company of Witches
Numenorean - Adore
Anthrax - Persistence of Time

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No card today.