Sunday Bandcamp: Psychetect

It's been a minute since I revisited Psychetct's Extremism. I bought this back around 2015 or 2016. I haven't been the headspace for this kind of thing for a while, but stumbling across it again on my old iPod earlier today, I couldn't help but be transported into a landscape of digital madness. The focus and restraint showed in Extremism's creation and continuity is a bit baffling to me, in all the best ways.

Isolation: Day 144 - New Mastodon

Well, maybe not exactly new Mastodon, as the forthcoming Medium Rarities, out September 11th, is, as the title suggests, a rarities collection, and not a full-blown new album. Either way, I'm excited. It's been three years since Emperor of Sand, and I am fully ready for new music from these guys.

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Last night, it was with great fervor that I rented Amy Seimetz's new film She Dies Tomorrow. Wow. This is one I'll be mulling over for months to come. It's not that there's necessarily something deeper than what's on the screen, but the film is an interesting idea - and extrapolation of linguistic, sociological, and psychological idea already out there - executed by Semitz's unique and confident voice. It's a voice that is wholly her own, although you'll be able to make some comparisons when it comes to tempo and restraint. It's the confidence I'm smitten with here; this is not going to be a popular film, but the writer/director doesn't care. And she shouldn't. That's the point.

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Playlist:

Poe - Hello

Exhalants - Bang (pre-release single)

Moaning - Uneasy Laughter

Contours - 20th Century Masters

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Mastodon - Fallen Torches (pre-release single)

Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.

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 I did a spread today, to see if A) the recently omnipotent Hierophant would rear his head and, B) if so, might I find a little clarity. No V, but I think I may have found some clarification. 

I've recently finished The Secret Life of Murder, which I'm alternately thinking of as A Beast of its Own Momentum, although that title will most likely go to something else. Once finished, though, I decided instead of simply publishing the novel through my The Horror Vision Press, I would try to shop it. That meant buying a Writer's Market - thank god for Kindle, so no phone book sized tome laying around, waiting to be discarded in a few months. It also meant figuring out a way to make the book slightly different. The version I'm shopping has a different title - a far simpler title, and not necessarily one that I approve of. The idea here is to try and use this to my advantage, to usher in a larger audience and paycheck. Selling out? Who cares - that's an argument for a younger man. As the world unwinds, I find that all I really want to do is be able to buy a piece of land somewhere in Washington state - somewhere away from major cities - and have my little enclave. This is the first step on that experiment.My plan also means sending query letters, something I used to find distasteful, but which I now recognize that I am 100% terrified of. I find this near-paralyzing fear confounding, but its there alright. So for the better part of a week I sat twiddling my thumbs, making excuses of why I wasn't ready to do that yet. Until the first of the three draws of V The Hierophant recently, which basically says this is the dogma you left behind, but for the moment, face it head-on. This new spread then, tells me I have to put in the work doing this, and it will pay off and change my world.

David Lynch Theater: The Mystery of the Seeing Hand

 Extra posts may be a common thing for a while, as I'm attempting to work around the frustrations I have with the new blogger format. Also, I haven't posted enough from David Lynch Theater of late. Here's a recent favorite.

Isolation: Day 143

The Two Minutes to Late Night covers EP is up until Midnight tonight and it is packed with goodness! Here's my favorite track. Download HERE. Remember, proceeds go to The Cancer Research Inst. and the artists who contributed!

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I just went back and looked at yesterday's post - the HTML embed codes I used didn't translate! This is because Blogger is changing its interface, and I have to say, the new one SUCKS. It's taking me forever to write these now, so after more years than I can remember off the top of my head, this site may end up closing up shop. We'll see.

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Last week Eibon Press released the fourth and final issue of their adaptation/expansion of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I ordered issue one a few weeks back, loved it, and went back and ordered the rest yesterday.

There are several editions of these, with various bells and whistles. I went for the basic ones - no signature or art prints - simply because I'm not really one for all the extras. Just give me the book.

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Playlist:
Mike Patton - Mondo Cane
Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
Contours - 20th Century Masters
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Soviet Soviet - Endless

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Wow. Okay already.

What is happening here, what I am trying my best to follow through on, is submitting query letters for the new book. I sent my first yesterday. I'll send another today. The Hierophant represents the established order - ie the traditional publishing industry - and although I've eschewed it for my two previous releases, and will sidestep it again if I don't drum up any agent or publisher interest by October - I'm attempting to use the new book to go down that route. We'll see. I'd rather just publish it through The Horror Vision Press, but why not try the other way, too?

Isolation: Day 142

Had an itch to crack out The Heartbreakers this morning. Classic. Somewhere I have the files for a perfectly curated edition of L.A.M.F., as provided by White Trash Soul Blog. This morning I just went with what I found on Apple Music, the L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes (Remastered). I haven't compared the two, but I know the one up on White Trash Soul takes mixes from all the different international releases and compiles what they deemed the best of each song. It's good. So is this. That's the beautiful thing about great music - in most cases, the soul comes across no matter the mix. 

In most cases.

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Tomorrow, August 7th, from Midnight to Midnight, Two Minutes to Late Night is making their Covers Only release available for purchase. Part of the proceeds go to The Cancer Research Institute, the rest to the musicians contributing. Great causes both. 

If you're unfamiliar with Two Minutes to Late Night, it's essentially a Late Night Talk Show format show created by comedians Jordan Olds and Drew Kaufman, and the show's theme is all METAL! They release episodes complete with guests and skits, the house band is Mutoid Man with occasional guests, and they also release cover videos that pull in all kinds of guests, all playing synched over the internet. Here's one of my favorites from their recent releases:

And yes, that's Max Fucking Weinberg on drums!

Two Minutes to Late Night's website is HERE. Their bandcamp is HERE. I'm not really sure where the covers album will be available, but I'm pretty sure it will be through one of these two sites, or when the following video premieres, they will tell us there. 

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Playlist:

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

Nirvana - Nevermind

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Ministry - Toronto 1986 (Live)

Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP

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Loud and clear. 

Isolation: Day 141

Mr. Brown sent me this last night, and after watching it, both K and I are immediate fans. I can't wait to dig into The Hu's catalogue, which you can peruse and purchase from HERE.
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A new trailer dropped for Season Two of The Boys.



The trailer is a bit overdone, but I'm still excited to see where this goes.

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NCBD:

Not a lot this week. I did notice this coming from Vault, and I'm curious. Back in the early/mid 90s, I wasn't a RPG'r, but I loved Vampires. I know the entire genre is cliched now, and maybe it was back then, too. I didn't know that. I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire when I was a senior in High School, and I LOVED it. This was shortly before the movie - which I'm not a huge fan of - and reading that first novel in Rice's Vampire Chronicles coinciding with my purchasing Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses (the digipak version, of course). I'd smoke out and lay around devouring the novel, while listening to Peter Steele's voice sing of Blood and Fire, and Suspended in Dusk, and Steele's voice became Louie's voice. I haven't gone back to those novels in since I read them; I'm not even sure I'd like them now. Back then though, Rice's fiction had me ravenous for more Blood Lore, and in this way I discovered White Wolf Publishing's Vampire: The Masquerade. My Chicago comic shop Amazing Fantasy carried a lot of books as well (thank you Garrett!), and I believe that is where I bought my first Masquerade novel. I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one it was, it left a bit of an impression on me. Enough that I'm curious to see a comic series reviving the line.

A few years back, when my friend Missi turned me on to Poppy Z. Brite's fiction from the 90s, it kind of scratched a long-standing itch for this kind of Goth-Pageantry fiction, and it's probably the hangover from reading her Lost Souls last year that has me tempted to pick this up.


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Playlist:

Young Widows - Settle Down City
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Metallica - Master of Puppets

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Keep going despite fatigue. The wheel turns, so says Ka.

Isolation: Day 140 - Vólan!

Vólan is a band from Moscow I'd never heard of until this morning when this live session from Audio Tree popped up on my youtube feed. Pretty awesome! You can hit their Bandcamp HERE for more music and merch!

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I'm a pretty big fan of Robert S. Wilson's Nightscape Press, and as such I backed their recent Kickstarter HERE. I'd actually meant to post about this earlier, but there's still twelve days left, and even fully funded, this is absolutely worth contributing to. Nightscape is a fantastic and fully independent publisher, and my hope is they will be around for many years to come.


Previously, I've mentioned Nightscape's brilliant Ashes and Entropy anthology - easily one of the best books I read last year. I also recently picked up Dark and Distant Voices, Nightscape's short story collection by Tim Waggoner. I'm only one story in - ALL my pleasure reading is on hold as I work on final edits of two different versions of my forthcoming novel (I'll explain that at some other point). The point is, Mr. Wilson runs a top shelf company who deserve our support.

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Nirvana - Nevermind
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Urge Overkill - Saturation
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Big picture.