2019: July 6th

Short post today. I Really felt like opening this morning's post with some Frank Black, or Black Francis, in this case. From 2010's NonStopErotik, an EP that, despite rabidly collecting this man's material since the 90s - thank you to Mr. Brown for passing the obsession - I don't know all that well. This record kind of fell into the cracks for me, coming out shortly after Grand Douchy's 2009 Petit Fours, Black's collaboration with his wife, Violet Clarke, an album I was obsessed with and listened to near constantly for years after its release. I pulled NonStopErotik out recently, and have been reacquainting myself with it. Oh My Tidy Sum is probably the stand-out for me.

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Via the might Bloodydisgusting. That scene with the buck is gnarly! I had not heard of this one before, but it looks great, so I'll keep my eyes out for release.

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Playlist for 7/05:

Black Francis - NonStopErotik

Orville Peck - Pony

The Pixies - Bossonova

Preoccupations - Eponymous

Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys

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Strong card, strong start to the day. Lots of work for me today, so I need to get one it.

2019: July 4th - The Soska Sisters Share Rabid Trailer!

RABID from FrightFest on Vimeo.

Big awesome surprise to wake up yesterday and see the Soska Sisters had released the trailer for their upcoming remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid. I'm a fan of the Cronenberg film, but definitely feel there's room to remake it. And who better than the body horror twins who gave us American Mary? Can NOT wait!

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Wednesday night we saw Midsommar, Ari Aster's brilliant and crippling follow-up to last year's Hereditary. I loved it, probably consider it a modern masterpiece, a film in the ranks of an Apocalypse Now or The Shining. Aster is a visionary.

Before the show, the newest issue of Fangoria arrived on my doorstep. I took one look at the cover and knew I'd be waiting until after seeing Midsommar to crack this 40th Anniversary issue open.

When I did open the issue, I found a stunning article that consists of Jordan Peele interviewing Aster about Midsommar. Jesus, what the hell more could a horror fan ask for? Totally worth the price of subscribing, which you can do HERE.

Immediately after our Midsommar viewing, my co-host Anthony Guerra from The Horror Vision and I did a reaction episode. We split it into a non-spoiler and spoiler section, very clearly delineating it for anyone that wants to listen but hasn't seen the film yet. My advice is go in as blind as possible, then listen, but either way, here are those links:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play


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By now, hopefully everyone reading this who cares about the spoiler will have heard that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's The Walking Dead came to a surprise end with this week's issue #193. For the price of a regular issue, 193 delivered a triple-sized issue that was everything I could have wanted from the series finale for one of my all-time favorite comics, plus there's a long letter in the back of the book from Kirkman, talking about the reasons for ending the series here, the emotional tribulations of doing so, and a bit of a peek behind the curtain on his writing process over the years.

I can't even begin to describe the void losing this series creates in my life, but I will attempt to tonight at 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, when Mike Wellman and I do a surprise Drinking with Comics Memorial to The Walking Dead. We'll be streaming live on the Drinking with Comics Facebook Page, so stop by - you might just see me cry.

Funny thing, that this happened just after my existential crisis a few weeks back, the one about collecting comics and a life's worth of accumulated stuff. By my calculation, with all the books I read that are either definitively ending or are on indefinite hiatus, I'm going to be down to about six or seven monthlies by the fall, and that suits me just fine at the moment.

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Playlist from the last two days:

Uniform and The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing
The Body - No One Deserved Happiness
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Willie Nelson - My Way
The Go Gos - Beauty and the Beat
Calexico - The Black Light
The Beatles - Abbey Road

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No card today.

2019: July 3rd Uniform and The Body - In My Skin

Yesterday's drop of a new Uniform and The Body track, a track that heralds a new collaborative album by the bands, sent me scurrying back to 2018's Mental Wounds Not Healing. It'd been a minute since I listened to this one, and in the course of several rotations in my headphones, I definitely gravitated toward track 5, In My Skin, as my favorite on the album. I spent the morning listening to this, and a sizable portion of my evening listening to that new track Penance, which I absolutely love.

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BIG spoiler news in the world of comics hit me pretty hard yesterday. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say this Friday night, Mike Wellman and I are planning, "A very special episode" of Drinking with Comics as a kind of memorial to something I love very much.

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NCBD:

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Playlist from 7/02:

Uniform and The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Bob Mould - Sunshine Rock
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Minsk - The Crash and the Draw
Uniform and The Body - Penance (Pre-release Single)
Uniform - Wake in Fright

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No Card today.

2019: July 2nd - New Collaboration from Uniform and The Body!

The Body is clearly the Brian Michael Bendis of bands, as they are more prolific than anyone I've encountered maybe ever. The new album - which is another collaboration with Uniform (see last year's Mental Wounds Not Healing) - is titled Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back and is available for pre-order from Sacred Bones HERE.

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New episode of The Horror Vision is up! Topics of discussion include but are not limited to Godzilla: King of Monsters, The Perfection, The Dark Backward, and our movie of the week, Josh Lobo's I Trapped the Devil! Check it out:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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K and I watched the first episode of Nicolas Winding Refn's Too Old To Die Young last night. Wow. I've been excited for this for a while, not only because it's Refn doing long form, but Criminal scribe Ed Brubaker is involved with the writing! What a collaboration, eh? Anyway, the first episode is eerie as hell in a completely down to Earth, Neo Noir way, which was exactly what I'd hoped for this series. Can't wait to dive back in!



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Playlist from 7/01:

Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate
Black Polygons - Lobélia
The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin
Thom Yorke - Anima

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Card of the day:

Balance in a time of crisis. Unexpected Symmetry. Hmm... I'm reading this more about the little swords at the top and bottom, the small details you can overlook when focused on the major plot points.

2019: July 1st (Sweet) Mental Revenge

This song got me through some shit a few years back, and it came up in my mind last night. I hadn't realized it's actually a Waylon Jennings cover, so here's that version, too:



Gram Parsons and the Burrito Bros. have been drifting back into my thoughts, so I think I'm easing into a bit of a country jag. Been a while, and I'll welcome it. Also, my first pilgrimage to Joshua Tree National Park in about five years is coming up in August, so that's probably what's pushing me back to this music. Might even dust off the acoustic.

Might.

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Playlist from 6/30:

Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate
Thom Yorke - Anima
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Orville Peck - Pony
The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin
Roy Orbison - Sings Lonely and Blue

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Card of the day:

A storm's a brewing...

2019: June 30th Orville Peck Live WFUV

For anyone doubting this man is the real deal. I get chills listening to this song, either studio or here, live in the WFUV studios. At this point, Pony is cresting Spotlights' Love and Decay for my album of the year spot. It's a tight race, and I'm bludgeoning my brain with both albums mercilessly, but Peck's sound holds infinite potential, and his spotlight falls on poetic obscurities the likes of which resonate with me in ways I do not even understand. I'm sure I can say the same about most of my favorite albums, but right now this feels infinitely more than that, if the sentiment makes any sense.

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Currently reading a story in Robert S. Wilson's Ashes and Entropy anthology entitled Red Stars/White Snow/Black Metal by Fiona Maeve Geist. I can't quite tell if it's the most brilliant story in the collection yet - it might be - but it's got me. A disgraced and discarded journalist receives a second chance in the form of an assignment that quickly becomes a bloody immersion into pocket European Black Metal-inspired death cults - or at least that's what I think is happening. Geist's prose is as delicious as it is pretension, which is not necessarily a bad thing, if it lands. It's one of the longer stories in the book, and my reading keeps getting hammered into bite-sized chunks due to my schedule, but so far, Geist goes on my 'Watch' list as someone I would very much like to read more from.

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K and I finished Dark Season 2 this morning. Brilliant. So complex, but not needlessly so, this season turned the Donnie Darko-meets-Twin Peaks analogy I've been using for the show on its ear. We're in an entirely new landscape by the end of the final episode, and knowing the next season is the last is a good feeling. I have no doubt that unlike previous shows with staggeringly complex storylines and character dynamics, Dark will stick this landing, because the creators already know how the story ends.

Very fucking important.

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K and I bought our tickets to see Midsomar this coming Wednesday night. We'll be accompanying my Horror Vision co-host Anthony and his girlfriend, so the plan is to record a brief, spoiler-free reaction to the movie for the podcast and put it up that night. So along with last night's episode - which should go up tomorrow - that'll be three episodes of The Horror Vision in just over a week! Wow. I haven't watched anything but the initial teaser for Ari Aster's follow-up to last year's magnificent Hereditary, but I'll leave the latest trailer here, just in case someone reading this hasn't heard about the film, which I expect to be fantastic:




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Playlist from 6/29:

Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
Grimes - Visions
Thom Yorke - Anima
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Beach House - 7
Curtis Harding - Fave Your Fear
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Lovett - The Wind OST
L7 - Scatter the Rats.

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No card today.

2019: June 29th David J and Chrysta Bell - Bela Lugosi's Dead

I was not expecting to come across this in my youtube feed this morning. How utterly fantastic.

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Yesterday I watched Josh Lobo's film I Trapped the Devil. LOVED IT!!! Fantastic concept, fantastic execution, with outstanding performances by everyone involved. The film is available to rent on Amazon right now for $6.99. Absolutely worth it. Here's the trailer:



We're going to do another Horror Vision this evening and I've already slated this as the movie we'll be watching/reviewing, so that'll be up early next week. In the meantime, I will definitely be adding Mr. Lobo to my list of directors who I keep a close eye on. Also on the list, for reference, are Ti West, Joe Begos, Larry Fessenden, Paul Thomas Anderson, and, of course, David Lynch.

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Playlist from 6/28:

Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le mani destre recise degli ultimi uomini
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Windhand - Eternal Return
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Lovett - The Wind OST
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

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Card of the day:

Card of the day: Beware delusions. I think this is a warning on my part to sift back through the insanely complicated story I outlined yesterday. It might be too complicated to actually pull off. But it might not be...