The Day That David Bowie Died

Four years ago today.

Locke and Key Gets a Trailer!

I knew this was coming, but I never dreamed it would look this good! More excited for this than pretty much anything else at the moment, and it serves as a nice bookend to the fact that I'm finally reading the series - only have Vol. Six and the one-off Vol. Seven left to go and I'll be completely ready for what looks like, at this point, the series of the year.

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It's time once again for...

Over the last three days I've watched two more episodes, thus rounding out the Season One tier on Mr. Brown's Playlist. First, Season One, Episode thirteen, "Beyond the Sea," which not only featured Brad Dourif as convicted serial killer-turned-helpful-psychic Luther Lee Boggs (aided by another killer named Lucas Henry - see what they did there?), but also had Twin Peaks alum Don "Major Briggs" Davis as Scully's father. Super cool episode; fairly tight script, good character development, and an almost over the top performance from Dourif that was just plain fantastic to watch. Probably my favorite episode so far.



Next up was Season One, Episode Nineteen, "Shapes." Basically a Shapeshifter/Werewolf story set on an Native American Reservation, this episode also featured a Peaks alum, Michael Horse, aka Deputy Hawk. This one was a slosh clunkier than the last insofar as script, but overall, a solid, simple approach to the kind of archetypal folklore that makes this show fun.

Next up - and this I'm very excited for because although the episode resounds in my memory for all its infamy, Season Two, Episode Twenty's "Humbug" is not something I'm one hundred percent certain I've actually seen before.

Can't wait. So far, this little collaborative experiment between Mr. Brown and I has been quite fun, and really, we're just getting started.

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NCBD yesterday:

This book gets more and more insane every month. I'm a little concerned at this point, it might not be able to stick the landing to whatever godforsaken place it's going, but it's still one hell of a ride getting there.

I am so very glad I started reading this book. Seriously, it's the type of dark, Ancestral Horror that used to populate paperbacks in the late 70s/early 80s, and although I was mostly too young to read that stuff at the time, I definitely picked up on its tone while stalking the shelves of the local libraries I used to frequent as a child. The Plot feels like a book that may end up leaving me with a gasp or two, which would be pretty cool, because with TWD gone, I need something to do that for me.

Whenever a major franchise book flips a landmark number, you have to kind of reassess. After the cataclysmic events of TMNT issue fifty, I felt the book took a few issues to really grab me again. Because of that, I've been a little concerned that for all its grandiosity, issue one hundred might do the same.

Nope.

I LOVE the new direction of this book. I won't go into spoilers, but we're finally done paying homage to all the stories of the past iterations of the characters, and are into completely new ground. And it. Is. Glorious, dark, and a little bit sad. And that's exactly where the characters should be. One thing about TMNT - probably the thing that always set it apart for me - for such a zany concept and highly marketable image, Eastman and, in the old days, Laird both excel at taking the characters and the readers out of their comfort zone. So yeah, I can't wait to read the next issue, and TMNT has pretty much replaced TWD as my new "gottareaditrightfuckingnow" title. Which makes me extremely happy.

**

Playlist:

NIN - Year Zero
Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Federale - No Justice
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
The National - Trouble Will Find Me

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Card:

I guess I better start walking...

When the Stars Begin to Fall

Last month I put the first Tomahawk album in my car and listened to it more than I have in more than a couple years. Today I swapped it out for Mit Gas and realized I had forgotten just how goddamn awesome that record is. Nothing against the first, but here's a case where the Sophomore effort totally one-upped the original. Also, while previously contemplating my favorite song on the album, I would always rotate between Mayday, Capt Midnight, and Aktion 13. Today I'm sticking with When the Stars Begin to Fall, which really just makes me want to drive fast and shake my fist in the air in time to the guitars.

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It's been a bit, but join me once again for...

Last night I picked Mr. Brown's X-Files playlist back up with Season One, Episode Twenty-One, "Tooms." This is the sequel to the previous episode on Mr. Brown's list, "Squeeze," which I watched back in mid-December, and enjoyed very much. However, with a show like the X-Files, I knew there would be some ups and downs quality-wise. It's network, in the early 90s, and full old school twenty-two episode seasons. While overall I enjoyed this second part in Doug Hutchinson's creepy AF Eugene Victor Tooms, I didn't really feel the writing was up to snuff. You know you're in trouble when the brooding doctor shows up to free the monster from captivity for no fucking reason at all. This is a common trope, especially I'd guess, at the time this aired, before audiences had been exposed to high-end writing on a regular basis and a flurry of meta-narratives that make them ask questions like, "Hey, why on Earth would this doctor want to get this obviously creepy guy out of the institution that protects the general populace from him?" I mean, maybe there wasn't enough time in the episode to set up a reason, like, say, he wanted to get Tooms out in order to prove a point for a research grant. Or - and I'm reminded a lot of Clive Barker's Nightbreed here - he wanted Tooms free so he can somehow figure out and usurp his longevity. But no, the doctor, played more than adequately by Paul Ben-Victor, just wanted to get Tooms free because the episode hinged on that.

Bad reason.

There were other rather inexplicable actions here as well, and a lot of weird, murky misdirection. At one point, we see that Tooms has entered the sewers to get into a new victim's home. Then we see said victim-to-be's wife fighting a backed-up toilet with a handheld toilet snake, and we're thinking, "I know Tooms can make himself squeeze into small spaces, but is he really in the fucking toilet?" But no, he comes in through a window on the second story.

Huh? Yeah, my sentiments exactly.

My critiques may sound bitter but assure you, they most certainly are not. As I said, I ended up enjoying the episode (again with the bile cave! Ah! How's that for an action figure playset, Todd McFarlane? Make it happen!), and my cynicism is merely the product of disappointment. I've already seen that this show can be damn good, so it irks me when it fails to be so. That's alright. Tonight I take a step backward to Season One, Episode thirteen for what I believe was the first appearance by Don "General Briggs" Davis as Scully's father. Can't wait.

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Fangoia.com launched recently and it is AWESOME! Seriously, how do you augment such a well put together quarterly magazine? With an avalanche of awesome articles. Here's a screencap of what I saw when I logged in for the first time:

And that's before I even looked at the scroll bar.

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The new episode of The Horror Vision went up yesterday. This time, Anthony and I do a dynamic duo episode after we watched Rob Grant's FANTASTIC new flick Harpoon. Strongly recommended. Also discussed, Daniel Isn't Real, Enemy, Sweetheart, and Anthony's season-by-season trek through American Horror Story.

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

As I was posting in those links, I realized I referenced but never posted our previous episode, the one where Ray, Anthony, Tori, and I go right from a visit by Santa (no lie) to naming out favorite horror movies of 2019. The others even go so far as to pick a favorite of the decade, but I was not yet prepared to try and make that commitment. Oh yeah, and we watch Jaron Henrie-Mcrea's The Gateway, AKA Curtain. Totally worth your time. Trailer below:




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Playlist:

Tomahawk - Mit Gas
Etta James - Second Time Around
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Beth Gibbons/Henry Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
V - Budos Band
Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Card:

Solid foundation; I needed that reminder. Editing the first episode of the newest iteration for Drinking with Comics has pushed my writing time to zero the last week. I need to finish and jump back into my outlining for Book Three of Shadow Play. Once that's done, my hope is I'll be able to bang the second book out fairly quickly. I still plan to release it this year.

January 4th, 2020 - New Video from The Thirsty Crows!

Fantastic! This, this is only part of the reason these guys made my "Favorite Albums of 2019" list last week. I love this with all my heart, and the time and detail spent on crafting a video for one of the best songs on an album with pretty much only best songs is appreciated and enjoyed!

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I finally watched Adam Egypt Mortimer's latest film Daniel Isn't Real yesterday, and after viewing it once in the afternoon by myself, the moving left me feeling... vulnerable. A harrowing tale of mental illness that goes to places I absolutely did not see coming, this one rattled around in my head for hours after (still is). Later, K and I watched Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal, a flick I loved when I saw it several years ago. The similarities between the two struck me as anything but a coincidence, and I followed Enemy up with another viewing of Daniel. I can't recommend this one - and Enemy, while I'm at it - enough. I will forever kick myself that I had to bail on it as the second half of the Spectrevision Double Feature at Beyondfest last year, where it played with Color Out of Space.



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Oh. One day last week I re-watched Apocalypse Now for the first time in over twenty years. My suspicion is confirmed - might be the best film ever made. Hyperbolic statement? Sure, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

I picked up the BR edition that has all three cuts - Theatrical, Redux, and Final. Having only ever seen the Theatrical, I listened to the director's recommendation in the introduction and chose the Final Cut, his favorite. I'd have to say, the French Plantation scenes didn't do much for me, and that makes me think the ideal version of this film for me is the Theatrical. That said, I intend on watching all versions in the coming weeks.




Playlist:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Boy Harsher - Careful
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man (Extended)
Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death
Budos Band - V
Arab Strap - The Red Thread
Arab Strap - Elephant Shoe

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Card:

Seems about right.

2019... 2020

Not entirely sure what my impetus was for feeling this song with such gravity on this, the final morning of 2019, but the way the album version is resonating with me at the moment, it felt somehow appropriate. I'm in a very slowed down temp right now, which is unique for me.

One of the reasons I keep this blog, and the reason I started doing the daily playlist log, is to be able to look back from future space and see if I have patterns on a seasonal/yearly/monthly/whatever basis. Because I'm so down-tempo at the moment, I expected to look back at last year and see a lot of slower stuff in those playlist logs, but that's not the case. Perhaps on a larger timeline, some of this will make sense.

One thing I appreciate about being 'turned down' is once I'm vibrating at a slower level, I'm able to ingest slower things in more profound ways. When I'm dialed into speed metal, if I put on Godspeed You! Black Emperor or the Gorecki/Gibbons record, it would disappear in my wake. At the level I'm at right now, I can see more micro-detail, and that's led to some pretty great listens of new and old music alike. I've fallen off over the last month or two in keeping a daily log, primarily because I've really been hunkering down on the outlines for books two and three of ShadowPlay; I've revamped a lot of two based on a new take I've had on three's main arc, and it's taken a lot of work. You'll see a lot of what I've been listening to in a minute, but this slower tempo has both hurt and helped my work of late. I go deeper when I work, but I also feel more tired more often, so there have been more than a few days of my coming home from work exhausted and just crashing. This is the calm before the storm. Or at least I hope that's what it is. Just as man cannot live by Metal alone, Man can also not vibrate too slowly for too long; if you know anything about hummingbirds, when they sleep they can turn down to the point that they slip into what's called torpor, which is a sleep so deep they run the risk of never awakening. Eerie, but prescient, I think.

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I have a tie for the best book I read this year.

 The second book in the Gravedigger Chronicles by Alan Campbell only trumps the first because of the escalation of the narrative and where it goes; both are fantastic beyond words. I was so impressed with these it's really hard to boil it down to a review, the narrative is immersive as hell, and it goes so many weird places. I mean, the imagination on this author is bar none. I really hope the third book, which Campbell says is done but which the publisher of the first two books Tor opted not to put out, eventually sees the light of day, because, you know, The Art of Hunting ends with the mother of all cliffhangers.

In preparation for the second in Laird Barron's Isaiah Coleridge series I re-read 2018's Blood Standard; both are fantastic, but Black Mountain begins to inch us closer to Barron's trademark Weird Fiction stylings, and from what the author has said on social media, the forthcoming third really gets us into a darker, stranger place, so I can't wait for that. Someone option this and make it into a True Detective-Level show NOW please!

Aaaannddd... one more...

.... because Gideon The Ninth was an extremely fun, pleasant surprise.

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I did my favorite non-horror flicks here a few days ago, and I did my favorite Horror flicks on the latest episode of The Horror Vision. Here's a quick image from my Letterbxd:

Also, the best tv show I watched this year was easily DCU's Doom Patrol. And I watched quite a few fantastic shows. Doom Patrol took the cake, though. And the donkey.



I never thought I'd live to see the day when someone brought Grant Morrison's DP run - complete with Danny the Street - to the small screen. When I get down on the state of the world, I try to remember that.

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Playlist:

The National - High Violet
Beth Gibbons/Henry Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Young Widows - Old Wounds
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
Full of Hell/Merzbow - Full of Hell

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My Favorite Albums of 2019

The order is, for the most part, negotiable by day. However, Orville Peck's Pony is absolutely the best and my favorite record of 2019.

Beth Gibbons/Henry Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 - Admittedly, I'm a bit of a rube when it comes to orchestral/classical music. I know what I like, but I don't necessarily know how to find it. Imagine my surprise when I saw Beth Gibbons name attached to this one. Gibbons, along with legendary composer/conductor Krzysztof Penderecki and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra deliver a rendition of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 that makes my heart both swell and sing with all the force of a cinematic thunderhead. Also, fantastic writing music.

Sunn O))) - Life Metal - PERFECT writing music, but beyond that, Sunn O)))'s Life Music, produced by Analog hero Steve Albini, contains a lot of rewarding textures that only reveal themselves after in-depth and multiple - and I mean multiple - listens. Easily my favorite record Sunn O))) has put out since 2009's Monoliths and Dimensions.

Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell - A late entry, this album is as calming as it is strange. Of course, at first glance, the strange is less than apparent, buried behind the subtle, acoustic pop sensibilities on display in the making and arranging of this record. But there's some pretty strange choices here when compared to what you get at first glance, and without having much of a history with Ms. Del Rey's earlier works, this one began as a curiosity for me and quickly grew into a calming obsession.

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen - As much as I love Blut Aus Nord, I've come to terms with the fact that I don't love everything they put out. After a couple years of albums I've tried repeatedly to connect with and failed, Hallucinogen hit me from the opening chord and held me all the way through its runtime. My favorite thing they've released since 2012's 777 Cosmosophy.

The Thirsty Crow - Hangman's Noose - Yes, I am good friends with one of the members of The Thirsty Crows. Yes, I co-host two podcasts with him. Yes, I love his band. Do I love it because he's my friend? Yes, but that's not the only reason I love The Thirsty Crows. I also love them because they are A) Awesome live, and B) the only Rockabilly/Psychobilly band I have identified with since I was head over heels in love with The Reverend Horton Heat back in the mid/late 90s. That scene has broadened considerably, and while I dig a lot of it, I don't love any of it like I love the Crows. Their music is catchy AF, and dusty in a way that feels familiar and pleasing, like leaving the Joshua Tree Saloon at two in the morning hammered out of your skull and meeting people with drugs in the parking lot. "Drinking and drugging 'til six in the morning," yeah, I can't live that life anymore, but I can enjoy wicked ass thrashabilly songs about it.

Federale - No Justice - Another sun-drenched album, this one with enough cinematic flourish as to play like a Robert Altman flick from the 70s. No Justice is up there with my most listened to records this year, and it's been an absolute pleasure learning every nook and cranny of these songs.

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone - What do you get when you have a band with a terrible name releasing an album with a fantastic name? Apparently, a hell of an album. Poppier than everything else represented here, this one scratched an itch that had lingered the last few years, a good dance/electro record with pop sensibilities and fantastic arranging, eschewing bubble gum for a kind of Neon Noir Dance Floor feeling.

Spotlights - Love and Decay - Beautiful beyond words from start to finish. Epic, haunted, brash, and polished, I absolutely love this album.

Boy Harsher - Careful - Dark LaLaLand electro that feels like old Revolting Cocks did the music for an alternate version of David Lynch's Lost Highway.

A dream, a lover's return, a haunted highway at night. Orbison, Lynch, Williams. Desert, tavern, danger. Pony is a place that I have always wanted to go to and now cannot stay away from for very long.

C*nts Are Still Running the World

Jarvis Cocker released a new version of his 2007 track Cunts Are Still Running the World just in time to "celebrate" the election in the UK. And I thought this song rang true twelve years ago? Meet the new boss, bigger slag than the last boss.

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Currently immersed in collating all the year-end stuff I want to spread the word about. This coming Saturday, The Horror Vision will be recording our "Favorite Horror of 2019" episode, but what about just a general "Favorite Films" list? Well hell, Chewy, I haven't done one of those in at least five years. I always want to do one, but never really feel like I see everything in the end-of -year Oscar release schedule that I want to, or perhaps that I feel I need to in order to make a well-informed list. This year? Fuck that. Here's my three favorite, non-horror films of 2019. My plan is to see Knives Out on Sunday, and I'm assuming I'll be able to add that to the list.

Also, despite the venomous oath I swore two years ago upon walking out of The Last Jedi to never see another Star Wars film again - actually, it was to never even watch the old ones again - I will be going to see the new Star Wars film in a few weeks, but only for the same reason I vote. So I can feel justified in complaining.







Joker is the only film in years that I have seen twice in a theater upon original release, and seeing it in 70 mm at the Aero Theatre with Director Todd Phillips in-house for a post viewing interview was one of the theatrical highlights of a year with quite a few theatrical highlights.

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Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy
Brittany Howard - Jaime
NIN - Ghosts I-IV
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Boy Harsher - Careful
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Federale - No Justice
The Misfits - Static Age
The Misfits - Earth A.D./Die, Die My Darling
Preoccupations - New Material
Balthazar - Fever
Cave In - Final Transmission
Meg Myers - Sorry
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Watchmen Vol. 3
Blood Red Shoes - Get Tragic