Pre-orders for Murder Virus are Live!

 

Off the top of my head, you know what'd be cool? Some new music from King Woman in 2021. I'll keep checking their Bandcamp and hope for the best.

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Pre-order:

The culmination of eleven months of work is finally official! Murder Virus releases everywhere on March 23rd - one day before my 45th birthday and exactly 374 days after the early morning trip to a barren Trader Joes to wait in line for scraps that convinced me I'd be crazy not to dig out the manuscript for the first successful piece of long-form fiction I ever wrote, dust it off, and re-write it.

2007 - in order to cope with the constant insanity of working retail for the first time in my life - as a manager to boot - I wrote The Secret Life of Murder, a novel about a murder virus that moves through the population, causing people to kill one another in epic scale. The idea was to create a harmless microcosm where I could vent my frustrations with fictionalized violence. It was my first attempt at writing a novel that I actually thought worked, and I always kept it in the back of my mind that I would dust it off one day and re-write it. Well, what better time than during an actual viral pandemic? So that's why the second Shadow Play book was delayed - I literally shifted gears in the middle of writing it to focus on this. 

The title Murder Virus, which I hated at first, worked its way into my brain stem and eventually convinced me to love it, especially after a friend compared it in simplicity and 'high concept' to Fight Club, which also sounds pretty generic until you actually read it. That's my feeling with this one, too. Murder Virus is a lot darker and stranger than I realized while writing it, and the story does not end up anywhere I could have predicted. This makes it my favorite thing I've written to date. I'm extremely proud of this one, and obviously, because of the infusion of mental, physical, and historical elements of the past year, it's special to me and will no doubt always remain so; a time capsule of 2020 and where my head and emotions were while navigating the most difficult year (so far) of my life.

You can pre-order Murder Virus from Barnes and Noble HERE.

You can pre-order Murder Virus from Amazon HERE.

And the pre-order for Murder Virus from Indiebound isn't up yet but should be in a day or two (same with the Barnes and Noble paperback - right now they only have the ebook added to their site).

If you have a brick-n-mortar book store and really want to do me a solid, ask them to order a few copies from Ingram. They'll know how to do it. Oh, and thanks for reading!

Also, as always, that beautiful cover design was my concept executed well above my expectations by Jonathan Grimm. His website is HERE - check it out!

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Playlist:

White Lung - Eponymous

Beth Gibbons, The Polish National Radio Sympony Orchestra & Krzysztof Pernderecki - Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3

Danzig - Danzig III: How the Gods Kill

The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex

Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin

The Maine - You Are OK

Windhand - Eternal Return

White Ward - Live Exchange Failure

Nirvana - Bleach

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss

King Woman - Doubt EP

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Card:

 

Applying this card to the announcement above.

Ashen Grey Clouds of Doom Bring Purple Rain

As I continue to work my way through that stack of records that Relapse Records put out in 2020 and that I won for their 20th Anniversary, one of the bands I had no experience with whatsoever is Inter Arma. Garbers Days Revisited is an all-covers record, and I have to say, my first listen was super fun. Opening with Ministry's "Scarecrow" - super relevant to my recent listening habits - the group move through versions of "Southern Man", "March of the Pigs",  and "Running Down a Dream", to name a few. All these versions range from sludged-up to more or less straight forward, such as the above Prince track. 

Very cool record with one of my favorite album covers in a while, so I'll definitely be digging deeper into the Inter Arma catalogue.

 

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Read:

Not realizing that Bernie Wrightson's graphic novel adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is out of print, I ordered what I thought was a copy from Amazon a few days ago. What arrived instead was the illustrated novel that features 40 of Wrightson's drawings.  Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed - I've read Wrightson's sequel, Frankenstein Alive, Alive,  but never that original. What makes it worse - the book goes for a minimum of $150 used with the nice version garnering between $300-$500 - is Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein adaptation was a book that routinely sat on the shelves at the borders I helped manage for years, and I just never got around to buying it. 

Regardless of the letdown,  looking at the illustrated novel, I realized it's been since Junior High since I actually read the original, and this new version has a bunch of cool supplemental material - a forward by Stephen King, a "historical context" essay and timeline, and the 1831 introduction by the author herself. Needless to say, this is my next read.

Looking through the illustrations, I realize what a shame it is I came to really appreciate Wrightson so late, as Mr. Wrightson's work is only describable as exquisite.

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Playlist:

Bit of a 90s parade of late, but that doesn't happen all to often, so I'm going with it:

Death - Human

Faith No More - The Real Thing

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (Deluxe)

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

Disappears - Pre Language

Garbage - Eponymous

The Maine - You Are OK

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

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Card:

As I often view this card as a nod toward saving money or 'nesting,' I've taken recent interpretations to possibly reference avoiding tempting social situations. I've had about five social outings - all super small with only one or two other people outside my own household - in the last year (hence this blog's brief stint titled 'Quarantine Junkie'), but recently, I've felt the urge to see a friend or two. Nope. Time to batten back down that Will and get the course set straight ahead. I recently came across this article that should serve as enough of a reminder. The idea of our air quality being so adversely affected by a record number of cremations is baffling - we're living in the setting for a Sci-Fi Horror Film, and not even aware of it on a day-to-day level. 

She Knows

As much as I dislike everything about this band from about 1994 on, I feel like I've reclaimed a bit of myself by finally being able to come to terms with the fact that the Billy Corgan who recorded the music for these first two Pumpkins albums was replaced by some lame doppelgänger from planet suck around the time the band started recording Melon Head and the Infinite Sandwich. 

Love this track, takes me back.

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Watch:

 

Yeah, I'm back in the Marvel game. Feels good.

 

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Playlist:

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

Cocteau Twins - Garlands

NIN - Broken EP

Dream Divison - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

Exhalants - Atonement

Nirvana - Bleach

Faith No More - The Real Thing

Blueflowers - Relapse E.P.

 I'm pretty sure I've confessed my love for Blueflowers' 2018 album Circus on Fire somewhere in these pages before, but recently, I've been falling deep into their 2019 Relapse E.P.

Blueflowers' sound drips with the kind of sultry, otherworldly space that Chris Issac's music does, or David Lynch's cinema. It's lush, spooky, and sensual, and I absolutely adore it.

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Watch:

We had a bit of a marathon last night. Even on Fridays, it's not often I can stay awake long enough to watch multiple movies, so when I do get that kind of momentum, I exploit the hell out of it.  

We started with yesterday's episode 5 of Wandavision. I'm not going to post anything about it here, but needless to say, I am salivating at the things this show is setting up!

 

This one would have been in my 2020 top five at least if I'd seen it before year's end. It had me from start to finish, and was probably at least partially responsible for supercharging my motor enough to make it through another flick afterward. I'm posting the trailer here, but my suggestion is to not watch it - just go in blind. I did, and it made for an awesome ride!

 

I've avoided this one for years, but now that Wandavision has me flying high on the MCU again, I figured I'd go back and watch/re-watch all the movies to date in the chronological order they take place in the continuity of the MCU. Turns out, I really dug this one, and it was totally the right time for me to see it, as so much dovetails with the current storyline in Wandavision.

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Playlist:

Human Impact - Genetic (single)

20 Watt Tombstone - Wisco Disco

Led Zeppelin - Presence

NIN - Get Down Make Love (single)

NIN - Burn (single)

Various - Spawn OST (Manson and Sneaker Pimps & Butthole Surfers and Moby tracks only)

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Dream Division -  Beyond the Mirror's Image

Human Impact - Genetic

 
Somehow, I either missed or forgot that Human Impact released a single in September of last year. "Genetic" is a terse little fist to the throat, wrapped up tight in Human Impact's trademark, snarling severity. Hopefully, this is a sign of more new music to come.

 

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READ:

I did a lot of catching up on current comics over my brief sabbatical from work earlier in the week. Here's what I read and my take:

I didn't realize The Boys: Dear Becky was ending with issue #8 until I read issue #7. Now that the whole thing is out, I re-read it all from the beginning and enjoyed it quite a bit. The Boys is a really uneven epic in my eyes, with moments of emotional brilliance surrounded by what I've come to think of as Garth Ennis just being Garth Ennis. It worked the best in Preacher, but as with the regular Boys series, Dear Becky tends to step back up into the sublime just as you start to feel jaded about the ridiculousness. Overall, if you only know the show, you probably don't need to go back to the source material - The Boys is possibly the best example of an adaptation-for-screen that has completely trumped its source material - however, if you know and dig the original comic series, Dear Becky will scratch the itch.

Having only just read Laura Marks and Kelley Jones's Daphne Byrne a few months ago, our Deep Dive into Hill House Comics on a recent episode of A Most Horrible Library made me want to revisit this stunning Gaslamp-era New York. It's soooo good. Kelley Jones really just brings the creep factor up to eleven here, and it makes for a really fun, pleasing story with all the fixings - widows betrothed to the Devil, ghastly visions, malevolent visitations, and surly, Hackney con artists using peoples' grief and the rise of spiritualism to take advantage of them. 

This one came out in October, but I just read it, then kept it hanging around in the stack so I could read the short story and other backmatter stuff that rounds out every enormous issue of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus, an economy based dystopian world that I have become more and more convinced maybe the closest thing to what the world is going to look like by the end of my lifetime. Equal parts thrilling and intriguing, there's espionage, military strategy, human drama, and action. 

I'm using the image for the upcoming HC collection of Hellblazer: Rise and Fall, but if you can find the single issues, that's the way to read this one. The Black Label, Magazine format is perfect for this story, possibly the first new Hellblazer story in years I've actually really liked. This is the 'softer' JC we've seen in recent years, without that trademark Vertigo edge, however, there's still edge to be had, there's homage to previous creators all over the place, and maybe I just really wanted to like A) a new JC story and B) really wanted to like one of these Black Label books, because I dug this one. Three issues, doesn't overstay its welcome, is pretty humorous at times, and still captures some of the Black Magick Heart of the character. 

 

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Playlist:

Genghis Tron - Cloak of Love

Human Impact - Genetic (single)

The Soft Moon - Criminal

Helmet - Meantime

P.M. Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss

Small Black - Duplex (single)

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon (pre-release single)

Small Black - Best Blues

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Arctic Monkeys - AM

16 - Dream Squasher

Calexico - The Black Light 

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Card:

Stop abruptly and switch gears. 

Martin Gore - Mandrill

New instrumental album from Depeche Mode's Martin Gore dropped last Friday on Mute. This is the first I'm hearing about it, but I am digging it! Order HERE.

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INTERVIEW:

As I mentioned last week, Chris Saunders and I recently had the chance to sit down with comics scribe and artist Jeremy Haun on The Horror Vision's A Most Horrible Library podcast. Available on all streaming platforms, our site, and youtube, it turned out to be a really interesting discussion:

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Watch:

I've been off work since Saturday afternoon. K and I took a "mental health week," which I for one needed very badly.  We've watched a lot of stuff in that time, which is all logged on my letterboxd. Two of the highlights were:

 

Much thanks to Mr. Brown on that one. Such a delightful film.

Terminal is a bit of a mess story-wise (although not enough to take away from the experience), but is absolutely gorgeous to look at. That usually isn't enough to get me on a film's side, but Simon Pegg goes a long way, and the obvious Guy Ritchie love helps more than it hurts. Ms. Robbie is pretty great in this one, too (as she usually is).

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Playlist:

Let's do something different. Let me take you back to last February when I wrote in these pages how I'd received a Golden Ticket from Relapse Records. This was a random win, based on my pre-ordering of Steve Moore's OST for the 2019 Joe Begos film Bliss. The contest was held to commemorate Relapse Records' 30th Anniversary, so needless to say, there's been a ton of Relapse bands in my playlist of late, as I slowly work my way through all this glorious vinyl. 

Razor - Armed and Dangerous

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

Portishead - Dummy

Valkeyrie - Fear

Zombi - 2020

Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0

Bangles - Different Light

16 - Dream Squasher

Nothing - The Great Dismal

Helmet - Meantime

Human Impact - Eponymous

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Dream Division - The Devil Rides Out

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

The Blueflowers - Relapse EP

The Blueflowers - Circus on Fire

Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Age of Mirrors

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Card:

Such an appropriate card, as I will be returning to work this morning after five days off and, as management, need to deal with two employees in a considerably more severe disciplinary fashion than I am used to. Enforcing common sense makes me salty, so I will have to keep my more... robust approach to the language in check.

Genghis Tron's Dream Weapon

Wow. I haven't really checked in on Genghis Tron since 2005's Cloak of Love EP, when I fell in love with the track "Arms," putting it on a bunch of mixtapes (ie CDs) and playlists in the early days of iTunes. After only a handful of records in the 00s and nothing since 2008's Board Up the House, Tron is back and have a new record coming March 19, on Relapse Records! Pre-order Dream Weapon HERE.

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Watch:

Okay. Wandavision was trying my patience up to and into the third episode, but as of last night's? SOLD.

The same way my favorite X-Men team will always be the Australian hide-out 8-piece of Storm, Havoc, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Longshot, Dazzler, and pre-body shop Psylocke, the Avengers team that sticks in my head is from the same era:

It's not a stellar team, and I can't even say I was a huge fan of any of these characters at the time, but the impending 'End' of the team - very similar to Claremont's Dissolution and Rebirth arc in Uncanny X-Men at the time - coupled with the weird juxtaposition of knowing next to nothing about over half this team, made me interested as hell. Also, the fact that on the cover of Avengers 298 it appeared Dr. Druid was fighting Thor using a Zoid is what probably proved my impetus for picking the book up to begin with:

I digress, big time. However, that's the point. Seeing Monica Rambeau resurface in the hottest current Marvel franchise blows me away and just really makes me take a happy spiral down memory lane. Plus, Kat Dennings? YES PLEASE. Marvel, you have me really interested in seeing how this plays out.

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Playlist:

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings

CCR - Willy and the Poor Boys

Ministry - The Last Sucker

The Big Pink - Velvet (Single)

Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh 

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Card:

I can't help but assume this is referring to the fact that we have had two days of glorious rain in LaLaLand and now that I will be off for the next five days, the sun will return and I will be unable to actually enjoy the weather. My folks back home will laugh at this, but the struggle for moisture and rain-soaked atmosphere is real.