Isolation: Day 158 New Deftones!!!

Musically speaking, I can't imagine better news than the imminent arrival of a new Deftones record, in just barely a month, at that. Even the way the band announced Ohms - out September 25th - is a work of art. Apparently, the Deftones put coordinates on their twitter feed, and one fan drove to those coordinates and saw a roadside billboard add for the album. Pretty cool, no? Normally, I hold off on listening to single songs more than once before an album this important to me drops, but I just mainlined this one about five times in a row and it has me rabid for the entire album. Pre-order Ohms HERE.

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I ended up making it into the comic shop yesterday to pick up my books, and let me tell you, I had quite a haul. I've barely even cracked into the stack, however, of the two books I have read, one gave me ultimate happiness. This is going to be something only diehard fans of the old Marvel Comics Transformers series will be able to understand, but in Simon Furman and Guido Guidi's Transformers '84: Secrets and Lies issue 2 - which serves as a prequel to the Marvel series and thus, put events before the Ark's fateful crash landing into prehistoric Earth, we had a hell of a call back to the original series. Furman and Guidi show us Lord Straxus moving into Darkmount for the first time and discovering his newly appointed Decepticon outpost has its own Smelting Pool. This draws on one of my favorite comics EVER - the seminal Transformers #17, written by original Transformers scribe Bob Budiansky, with art by Don Perlin and Keith Willaims, published by Marvel Comics in 1986.

Issue 17 was such an eye-opener for me. I'd originally preferred the Transformers cartoon continuity to the Marvel comic, which I did not buy every month and which often seemed to run contrary to some of the big, cosmic ideas the show went for after the 1984 theatrical movie. That was until I read issues 17 and 18, which showed us what was going on back on Cybertron, and what was happening was Lord Straxus feeding Autobots to his smelting pool! These issues were populated with characters that were not in the cartoon or toy line, and this really fed my imagination, to the point that I tried to make a Lord Straxus and some of the other characters out of Legos so I could incorporate them into my own ongoing continuity which I had devised in my play sessions with the figures.

Transformers '84 has been full of nods to the original Marvel series, which Furman took over from Budiansky about halfway through the original run and really made his own up until it ended somewhat unexpectedly with issue 80 in 1991. Several years ago, Furman and Guidi came back for a new series that continued the original continuity, Transformers: Regeneration One, which was one of the books I could not stop talking about during its two-year run. '84 is definitely a worthy successor (or predecessor, being that it's a prequel).

**

Playlist:

The Cure - Standing on the Beach

Thou - Summit

Thou - Heathen

Santogold - Eponymous

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

**

Card:

More Disks, which makes perfect sense, as K and I have begun hatching a plan that involves a large sum of money.

Isolation: Day 157

I love EVERY song on Hangman's Noose, The Thirsty Crows' debut album on Batcave Records (order HERE). But after living with it almost two years now, I have to say, I think this is my favorite song on the album.

Although that may change again. The whole thing is just so damn great.

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I've been meaning to post this trailer for Netflix's upcoming The Devil All the Time. I never made it around to reading Donald Ray Pollock's 2011 novel of the same name, but it's been on my radar for a while (so I have no excuse other than the to-read list is large enough to put that island of plastic refuse in the Pacific look like it's no bigger than a bottle cap).

The movie adaptation, directed by Antonio Campos and starring, well, pretty much everybody, looks riveting and moody. The trailer oozes Southern Gothic suspense, and Robert Pattinson looks downright foreboding in his role as what appears to be a charlatan preacher. Mr. Pattinson really has turned out to be quite an actor.

**

Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

Santogold - Eponymous

Portico - Living Fields

The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

Atrium Carceri - Kapnobatai

Le Butcherettes - A Raw Youth

The Cramps - RockinnReelinInAucklandNewZealandXXX

The Cure - Pornography

Converge - The Dusk in Us

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Ancestral Recall (pre-release single)

Thou - Summit

**

Card:

to my original Thoth deck, where I find the Princess of Disks waiting for me. My day may be a dragging, uphill trek through mundane, everyday tasks.

One aspect of this card that always strikes me is the way the rock outcropping the Princess stands behind resembles both an altar - for tribute and focus - as well as a goat turning to look behind it. Also, the branches from the trees in the immediate background look not just they belong to the forest, but also to the the Princess and her altar-goat, too. This populates the card with nothing but Earth-bound textures, a key tip-off that this is one of the purest cards in the suite of Disks, from which not a lot of emotion, logic, or Will creeps through, suggesting labor. Which is exactly where I'm at in my process of re-entering the world of Kim and Jessie.

Isolation: Day 156 Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou

 

Yes please! Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou have a collaborative album coming from Sacred Bones, dropping on - how perfect - October 30th. You can pre-order May Our Chambers Be Full HERE.

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NCBD today. It's been a few weeks since I've been in to collect my books, so I'm really going to try and make it in today.

First up is the second issue of Aftershock's Dead Day. It's been a minute since issue #1, so I'll no doubt re-read that first. As I'm sure I've said here a thousand times, I'm generally pretty exhausted with the Zombie genre, however, every once in a while something new comes along that gives it a fresh spin. This book appears to be doing just that.

Gideon Falls #24 - speaking of re-reading older issues, I really need to find the time to go back and start Gideon Falls over from the beginning. I'm keeping up with the story month to month just fine, however, I'd really like to experience everything thus far in a tight burst; this book is so freakin' out there, I really want to let its odd narrative wash over me and see what more I get out of it.

The second issue of Simon Furman and Guido Guidi's newest chapter in the Transformers original comic Universe that started in the 80s at Marvel hit the stands today, and already has me panting - look at that cover! Shockwave vs. Grimlock? I don't geek out over much that holds this beloved brand's name anymore, but these guys are definitely my window into that world.

Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

Iress - Prey

Mastodon - Fallen Torches (pre-release single)

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Lustmord - Hobart

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Exhalants - Bang (pre-release single)

P I n K O/Exhalants - Eponymous Split 7"

The Birthday Party - Hee Haw

The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart

Mötorhead - 1916

Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death

Le Butcherettes - A Raw Youth

Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell

La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again

Second Still - Violet Phase

Cocksure - TVMALSV

Savages - Silence Yourself

**

No card today.

Isolation: Day 154 Darling 666

 Holy cow! Dorthia from Windhand has a new band with Gina Gleason from Baroness? Count me in!

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I was pleasantly surprised by not one but two movies yesterday. First up, We Summon the Darkness, which I'd originally blogged about my plans to rent a few months back when it first premiered on VOD. That never ended up happening, and the flick fell off my radar until Jonathan Grimm alerted me to the fact that it hit Netflix recently.

 

 This flick is 100% worth your time. I loved it; yes I saw a big WTF moment coming a mile away, but I think the filmmakers knew most folks would and added an extra little twist that I did not. Plus, who cares about twists when the characters, setting, mood, and overall layout of the film is this fun. We Summon the Darkness is a really good time that doesn't take itself too serious and knows how to get down and dirty in the mud and blood with Satan!

Next up, Host on Shudder. This is a 56 minute flick that was filmed during COVID shelter-in-place on Zoom. 

Yes, that's right. On Zoom. I know what you're thinking; stop thinking it. This one's scary as hell and quite a good time.

Granted, I watched Host in my ideal setting: alone, stoned, with all the lights off and totally focused on the film. It's 56 minute runtime helped in that, because these days an uninterrupted movie is almost an impossibility. 

**

Playlist:

Santogold - Eponymous

Perturbator - Dangerous Days

JK Flesh - Depersonalization

X- Under the Big Black Sun

X - Los Angeles

Dead Swords - Enders

Iress - Prey

Iress - Flaw (pre-release singles)

Card:

Back to the Raven Deck for this morning's Pull:

Old rules reassessed and rewritten? Or get off your lazy ass? I did a fair amount of work getting back into the sequels for Shadow Play over this past weekend. Not a lot of writing; mostly digging in and re-reading the bible for the series, plus the copious amount of notes I have on it. Feels good. That said, the Tower pops up to remind me that although I told myself I would send a query letter a day, it's been at least three days since I actually have, so I need to get back on that ASAP.

Sunday Bandcamp: Iress

This one takes me places. Far off places, that sift and swirl with dark but life-affirming energies. I have a feeling I will be hanging out with this band for a large part of the week while writing. Fabulous stuff. Pre-order upcoming album Flaw HERE.

Isolation: Day 152

 

I never realized this song is an homage to Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. It's obvious, really, but somehow I missed it. 

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Let's talk about Comics. In fact, let's talk specifically about one comic: Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples' Saga.

 

I had honestly not realized that issue 54 of Saga came out two bloody years ago! I mean, like every other die hard fan, I am very aware that the cliffhanger lingers, but two years? Wow. All I can say is, I am absolutely fine with the hiatus, knowing that when Saga does return, the tracks will be greased for month-after-month, on-time issues. My gut tells me before the end of this year, but we'll see.

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Something occurred to me earlier today as I sat finishing my re-read of Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. The idea that the narrator Clay may be responsible for some of the atrocities that occur 'off-screen.' His sister's dead cat; the girl tied up and murdered at the Palm Springs party a year before. There's a number of horrible events he can't be responsible for in the book, thus is Clay and his peers soulless, vapid world, but Clay's disassociation from the people and world around him - a disassociation we revisit in the 2010 sequel Imperial Bedrooms only to find Clay may well have grown into a psychopath over the intervening thirty years between books - feels like it might just hide a burgeoning killer. My theory then is this is not a concrete interpretation, but definitely an element of the character that planted the seeds for Patrick Bateman in Ellis' second novel, American Psycho. Bateman himself then evolves in Ellis' 2005 masterpiece Lunar Park. 

In finishing Zero, I took to the internet to see if anyone else has ever discussed these possibilities, and though I didn't find that, I did find a fantastic article about Zero, which you can read HERE and is absolutely worth your time if you're an Ellis fan.

After finishing Zero, I am now on to Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. As I mentioned here recently, although I have read almost all of Palahniuk's work up to and including Pygmy, this is my first time reading Fight Club, being that I've been away from his work long enough now that I find myself at a place where I don't feel like my love of the movie will work against my reading of the work it is based on. I'm very much looking forward to comparing and contrasting the novel with the film, something I would have possibly had trouble doing previously.

**

Playlist:

Protomartyr - Agent Intellect

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

X - Los Angeles

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Otis Redding - Otis Blue

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

**

Card:

Back to my original Thoth deck for today's Pull:

 

I have a complicated relationship with the Wands suit. Where wands are Will and a more logic-based interpretation, ten is Malkuth, and therefore wholly of the material world. This basically tells me I'm spending too much time distracted by shit like movie and tv, and that I need to spend more time working. It was a good feeling yesterday when I passed the final version of Murder Virus - now 100% the title of the new book regardless of whether I end up publishing it through THV Press or not - off to my first beta reader. For the first time since mid-March, I closed all Scrivener documents pertaining to MV and re-opened those for Shadow Play Book Two. Now, the real work begins.

Isolation: Day 151

It's official! October 30th, Mr. Bungle's The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny is out via Patton's Ipecac Recordings. Thanks to Mr. Brown for the heads up, because I've been slammed all week and would have completely missed the chance to snag a copy of that Ruby Red 2 LP vinyl! Pre-order HERE.
While I've been a Bungle fan since Brown turned me on to their self-titled debut back in High School, and I spent a good deal of my time on Napster in the late 90s downloading bootlegs of their older, demo stuff, I never really got into the original, thrash version of the band. That said, seeing these songs a few months ago, played by musicians who are older and wiser, I became convinced if they recorded it, Easter Bunny had the potential to be one of the greatest thrash records to come out in decades. If Raping Your Mind is any intimation of what is on the rest of the record, I'm pretty sure I was correct.
Sure, I'd love another weirdo Bungle album eventually, but in the meantime, I'm welcoming this one with open arms.
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NCBD this week was another no-go for my pull, which is fine, because I haven't picked up my books in two weeks now. One of the companies I always look forward to checking is Vault, and this week, I notice a collection for a series I'd not noticed previously. This looks pretty damn interesting, and I've ear-marked it for a little research.

This collection just came out, however, I'm going to look for the individual issues first, as I love the art and design of the originals' covers. Here's an example:

There's such a throw-back feel to this, but not like a comic, more like the old paperback books I used to read as a kid. LOVE this.

**
Playlist:
Concrete Blonde - Eponymous
Concrete Blonde - Free
X - Wild Gift
X - Los Angeles
Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
Contours - Essential 
Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST
X - Under the Big Black Sun
The Birthday Party - Hee Haw
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Hank III - Straight to Hell
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Francesco Zampaglione and Andrea Moscianese - Tulpa OST
Brainiac - Smack Bunny Baby
Vitalic - OK Cowboy
Aerosmith - Pump
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
Moderat - II
Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
The Bangles - All Over the Place

**
Card:

Let's do another multi-deck spread:

For this one, I used one card from the Raven Deck, and two from my mini Thoth - both decks gifts to me from my good friend Missi, who now has my new book Murder Virus - that's the name I'm sticking with - as my first beta reader. Missi Birthday was yesterday, so there's a lot of her energy in this spread. The Tower is a toppling of old conventions, though here I don't take it as pointing to the 'Old Guard' publishing industry, but my perceptions of it. Work is the hard work and determination I need to maintain (another query sent a few days ago), and Lust is a warning about the lust of result. Those of you who know anything about Magick know lust of result is one of the major blockades to achieving one's Will.