Dean Hurley - Low Harmonic Fanfare/Growth

This track puts you in my exact headspace at the moment. Holed up in the business center in San Jose Airport - a layover on my way to Chicago - I've had a restful day of low impact/low stress. I arrived at Long Beach Airport an hour and a half early and spent most of that time sitting absolutely still, regulating my breathing, giving Tool's Fear Inoculum a second chance. Turns out it's fantastic, and designed around what I would guess is a formidable, uncompromising vision. That said, I've come away from two repeated listens with a newfound respect, but still feeling I'm only ever going to make a connection in it when I'm sitting in an airport, sitting perfectly still. Which isn't often.

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My life reached a stress pinnacle and I had to rethink how I do this blog. My work day is now overflowing, and the writing/business of starting a publishing imprint draws much of the rest of my time. I'm still going to do these entries as often as possible, I just don't know that it'll be every day. Or even every other day. We'll see. But anyone who reads, I thank you for doing so, and there will always be more awesome to come.

**

Beyondfest 2019's lineup is a dream come true. Well, I've been going for something like five years now, and it's always a dream come true. Here's the list - my order of priority is as follows:

• Joe Begos double feature of Bliss and VFW, with Begos, Josh Ethier, and probably a lot more of the cast and crew present. A few years ago when Begos came to Beyondfest with Mind's Eye, I think he brought like, everybody. It was pretty fucking awesome. I can't wait. Highest priority.

• Tom Atkins afternoon triple feature of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps, and John Carpenter's The Fog, with Atkins in person. Let me say that again: with Tom Atkins in person. 'Nuff said.

• Richard Stanley's The Color Out of Space, with Stanley in person. SOLD.

• Joe Bob Briggs - How Rednecks Saved Hollywood. Joe Bob in person, doing the lecture he's becoming very sought after in city after city to do. This man is a low-fi genius, and I look forward to hearing him do his thing in person.

• Tammy and the T-Rex- the newly restored 90s kid's movie that, turns out, was really a heavily edited, gorey A.F. revenge movie where a girl's murdered boyfriend's brain gets put into the body of a T Rex. I haven't seen this in either form, but I've heard it discussed on Shockwaves and I'm IN. Also, it immediately follows the Joe Bob, so that should be nice and easy to maneuver.

There's also a handful of free showings I might try to make, and some unannounced dates, at least one of which I'm crossing my fingers will be The Soska Sisters' in person screening their remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid. That would also get high priority in my book. We'll see. The last three years, getting tickets to a lot of these screenings becomes difficult because every year, Fandango crashes. This year, apparently, they've moved ticket sales to Brown Paper Tickets. Hopefully the handle everything better.

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Another minor logistical problem with buying tickets to Beyondfest this Saturday is, about the time they go on sale, I'll be at Scary Perry's Halloween Store for their Scare Faire. Jonathan Grimm and I have a table - he'll be hocking prints, magnets, stickers and who knows what else with his unbelievable art, I'll have copies of both A Collection of Desires: 7 Tales of Modern Horror and the just-released Shadow Play Book One: Kim and Jessie. Unfortunately, due to some printing errors, I won't have as many copies as I would like, but there's a solid twenty of each, so if you're interested, come on down!

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Playlist from the last couple days:

Budos Band - Burnt Offerings
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Joy Division - Closer
The Ocean - Rhyacian: Untimely Meditations (2017 Version)
The Ocean - Aeolian
The Ocean - Precambrian
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Twin Temples - Shadows
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
White Hex - Gold Nights

2019: August 30th: The Dead Milkmen - Smokin' Banana Peels

I had a difficult time choosing what track to end my Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week with, but in the end, it was always going to be this track. Why? Well, because I can relate; one time Senior Year, I stumbled across some friends at the party house where we all used to hang out, and saw they were removing banana peels from the oven and rolling them into joints. Perplexed and adventurous, I inquired and then partook. I don't know if what happened had to do with the peels, or the fact that one guy had laced them with Tic (tick?)- something I still have no idea what the hell it is. It was a looooong night. And as usual, the Milkmen nail it. Although really, they're kinda making fun of morons that smoke banana peels, but hey, I was pretty dumb at times as a rebellious teenager. We all were, to one degree or another.

Go out and pick up a Milkman album, download one on Apple Music, stream one on Spotify. Whatever. The point is, this is one band that deserves a lot more recognition than they get.

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The new Tool album is out, and I may eat my words later on, but after 75% of one listen, I turned it off. My knee-jerk reaction is that all my grudges against them over the last several years have been confirmed and they've released a completely forgettable record that, honestly, I can't imagine giving a second go-round, though I will, just to give them the benefit of the doubt. Part of my major problems is every song has approximately the same tempo, so it all kind of blends together. Oh well, win some, lose some. The Ocean kind of took over as my go-to prog metal band a few years back, anyway, so I've spent the day listening to their 2010 masterpiece Anthropocentric.

**

Playlist from 8/29:

The Dead Milkmen - Metaphysical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
The Ocean - Precambrian
The Ocean - Phanerozoic I
Type O Negative - Dead Again

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No card or spread again today. Work has been insanely busy, I've been eeking these posts out on my lunch breaks.

2019: August 29th - New Sunn O)))

This is amazing in conception; go HERE and read the 'linear notes' on this upcoming Sunn 0))) record - essentially a daily musical meditation everyone assembled to record Life Metal performed and recorded. That's really just a bare bones explanation, the band's is much more in depth and fascinating.

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I finally watched Turbo Kid last night. Pretty cool. I can't say I'm in love with it as some folks I know are, and it still had to fight for my attention during the first forty minutes or so, but by the end I'd become quite affectionate to it, and will definitely see the upcoming sequel.



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Although this is day seven of Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week, I'm going to go a full Friday-to-Friday, so consider this the 'penultimate' post. And it's about the time I just start posting tracks I love from my first and still favorite album by the band, 85's Big Lizard in My Backyard. I will forever be grateful for Mr. Brown gifted me this for my birthday one year back in the mid 90s. No bullshit - this has shaped a large part of who I am.



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Playlist from 8/28:

Sausage - Riddles Are Abound Tonight
The Ocean - Precambrian
Shellac - The End of Radio
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

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No card or spread today.

2019: August 27th - Pigface Reunion Tour!

Martin Atkins is taking Pigface out on the road! According to what I've been reading surrounding the announcement of this tour, it's been 15 years since the rotating line-up insanity that is Pigface toured; that both surprises me and does not. Surprises me, as when I trace fifteen years into the past it's not quite as far back as it feels like it should be (when did the tide line from subtracting 15 from the current date push up to almost the mid-00s?). Fails to surprise me when you consider Atkins - who I'm a fan of - stop beating the dead horse for all it's worth? Well, in the case of this recent tour, which you can read more about on Brooklyn Vegan HERE, the line-up is fantastic, and I'm definitely considering attending an eventual LA stop. That said, if there's one thing we all of us in this generation of music fans know, you can't go home again, so maybe I might just let this one slide by without thinking twice. We'll see how I feel when a venue is announced and tickets go on sale.

I saw Pigface in 1994 for Notes From the Underground, and it's hard to imagine placing another show atop that one in my memory. Three drummers - Danny Carey (yes, that Danny Carey), Atkins, and the Sugar Cubes Sigtryggur Balduron, plus Genesis P-Orridge, Charles Levi, Dirk Flanigan, En Esch, Lesley Rankine, Mary Byker, Chris Connelly, and who knows how many others. It's really hard to imagine even coming close to the magic that night. But maybe it's not about competing with that. I'd be more concerned that after all this time and the probable malaise that has set in, a subpar experience. I don't know, we'll see. I'm always overly skeptical about reunions; there have been fantastic ones, to be sure. But there have also been shite ones.

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NCBD:

And another book I read comes to and end. Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science has been one hell of a ride. My recent initiative to re-read this one from the beginning stalled, but I'm hoping to get back on that this weekend. Don't want to read the finale until I've dug back through the entire series. There's sure to be many points of confluence/closure with what has come before.

And if City at War isn't hot enough already, issue 97 will most likely up the stakes exponentially as we near the conclusion of the first one hundred issues of the best reboot I've ever seen.

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Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week continues with another more recent track, Big Words Make the Baby Jesus Cry, from the 2012 EP with the same name. As usual, fantastic social mockery from the Milkmen.



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Playlist from 8/26:


Jeffrey Alan Jones - Most Beautiful Island
Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous
Moderat - II
The Ocean - Rhyacian: Untimely Meditations (2017 Version EP)
The Ocean - Precambrian
Sunn 0))) - Flight of the Behemoth

**

No card or spread today.

2019: August 27th American Horror Story: 1984 Trailer

Soooo... this season is an amalgam of a multitude of different slashers flicks from years past? The Burning, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer? Well, even if it looks pretty uninspired, it might be fun. I usually know within two episodes whether or not I want to complete a season of AHS, so I'll give it a try.

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Originally, Wednesday the 28th I was slated to do a signing of my new book, Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach. Unfortunately, due to a production delay with the copies I ordered, I was forced to cancel. The event will most likely be re-scheduled for 9/11, but in the interim, Jonathan Grimm and I will have a table at Scare Faire, the annual Horror Event held in Scary Perry's Halloween Store and Hardcore Hearse Club in Chicago on Saturday, September 7th. Grimm will be selling art prints, magnets, stickers, and all the awesome stuff he does, and I'll have copies of Shadow Play and my first book, A Collection of Desires: 7 Tales of Modern Horror. If you're in the area, stop in and see us. Both of us love to talk all things horror.

**

Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week continues with another classic track, the James Brown-parody RC's Mom, from Beelzebubba. So good...



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Playlist from 8/26:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
The Ocean - Heliocentric
The Ocean - Precambrian
The Ocean - 1.0 Ansia - EP*
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Budos Band - Burnt Offerings

* Not sure this is actually same The Ocean as the other tracks. Researching it online has been frustrating to say the least. If anyone happens to know anything about this, please leave a comment.

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Today's Spread:

I Love seeing this Spread! The juxtaposition of the intellectual refinement of emotion lends itself well  to the pleasures of completion. I have my assignment for the day, and I'll let the cancellation of the signing roll right the f--- off my back!

2019: August 26th Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn

I became esctatic yesterday after stumbling across the trailer for a big-screen adaptation of possibly my favorite novel by Jonathan Lethem. I read Motherless Brooklyn about ten years ago, and I absolutely loved it. In fact, I recently ear-marked several of Lethem's books to read/re-read, simply because it's been some time since I revisited his work; I think the last time I picked up Amnesia Moon at the always delightful Dark Carnival Bookstore in Berkley in the spring of 2012. I blew through that one in about a day and a half, and that's pretty standard for Lethem's work, which I've been interested in since his completely insane re-boot of Marvel Comics' Omega the Unknown back in 2007. Also of note is the fact that Lethem took David Foster Wallace's place as a Literary Professor at Pomona College after Wallace's death.

What a delightful surprise this adaptation is. Can't wait to re-read the book now.

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Day four of my Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week and I'm finally getting around to representing my favorite album, the band's 1985 debut Big Lizard in My Backyard. And what better way to represent the album than with the title track, which is both endearing and hysterical.



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New episode of The Horror Vision went up yesterday. In it, we discuss Ready or Not, revisiting Rob Zombie's Halloween, 1972 oddity Grave of the Vampire, Michael O'Shea's The Transfiguration, and a whole lot more. Also, as our featured flick, we watch and give an immediate reaction to Scott Schirmer's Found.

Check it out:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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Playlist from 8/25:

Etta James - Etta James (Third Album)
Joy Division - Closer
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
FMLYBND - Letting Go (single)
Ghost Bath - Moonlover
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

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Today's spread:

When I pulled these, I had a very specific question in mind: I'm caught in a loop on a story that should have been finished weeks ago. It's repeatedly pulled me away from Ciazarn and really been nothing but a pain in the ass. What's more, although I love the core concept, it insists on going to places I'm not particularly comfortable with. So my question was, do I ditch it and start anew? Well, a path is laid one stone at a time (The Fool), and Victory (6 of Wands) often comes at the hands of Instinct (Knight of Disks). I'll give it one more day, as yesterday's writing session was largely instinctual, as I chopped massive sections out of the story in an attempt to stream-line it around an idea I had late Saturday night. One day, then it's back into the piles for it.

2019: August 25th New Chromatics Video

This new Chromatics video popped in my youtube feed yesterday. Directed by Johnny Jewel, this is a really cool piece that expertly masks what I have to assume is a low production budget. As with his music, Jewel knows his style and tone and has become at creating and adhering to it on the cheap. NOT a criticism.

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Friday night I saw Ready or Not. FANTASTIC! Go see this one - Dark, fun, and gory in all the right places. More of my thoughts - as well as the thoughts of two of my Horror Vision co-hosts - will go up later today in our new episode. I will post a link on tomorrow's page, but in the interim, here's the trailer again. So good.




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Today is day three of my Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week. This time, I'm shooting for what is most likely an obvious favorite of all Milkmen fans, Stuart, from 1988's Beelzebubba. This track basically constitutes the sonic equivalent of comfort food for me.



**

Back on Laird Barron's Black Mountain, 50+ pages in, The Croatoan is a fascinating boogey man.

Being that both Isaiah Coleridge novels were released a year apart starting in 2018, I'm really hoping Mr. Barron is going for a hat trick and that a third hits next year. Coleridge is a fantastic character in both definition and execution, and his supporting cast is no less endearing, so it's only a matter of time until someone scoops this up for a series.


Playlist from 8/24:

The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - B-Sides and Remixes
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart

Card of the day:

Because my world currently revolves around my Art, and the alchemical act of balancing it with my regular life (two faces).