Abby Sage - Smoke Break

 

I love love love this song! A random dalliance with NPR this past Saturday introduced me to Abby Sage's Smoke Break, and since, I have been unable to get it out of my mind. This appears to be a single, as with the other tracks I've found on Apple Music by Ms. Sage, so I'll be following her and can't wait until she releases a full album!

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I went back into a bix box theatre this past Saturday and saw David Bruckner's The Night House. An all-around good experience (We hit a matinee, so there were about five folks other than us there), and the movie was outstanding. A SUPER slow burn, to use a somewhat tired term, The Night House trusts its audience enough not to over-explain everything. This one's sure to spark some "What the fuck?" conversations in all the right ways. There's also a certain logic to its mechanisms that really drives home the fact that Bruckner and screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski are exactly the right folks to be working on the new iteration of Clive Barker's Hellraiser.

Rebecca Hall and Barry's Sarah Goldberg turn in great performances, and the story goes places you're never gonna see coming, always an added plus.
 

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Playlist:

The Plimsouls - Everywhere All At Once

Etta James - Eponymous

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full 

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

White Lung - Eponymous

White Lung - Paradise

The Joy Formidable - Into the Blue

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Yola - Stand For Myself

Zeal and Ardor - Calloway (Single)

Boy Harsher - Careful

CCR - Bayou Country

David Bowie - A Reality Tour (Live)

Nicholas Elert - The Stylist OST

Abby Sage - Smoke Break (Single)

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

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Strength in what you know. Words of wisdom Lloyd, words of wisdom. I could use them. Short story is driving me CRAZY.,

Knocking on the Skeleton Tree

 

I fell back into Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 2016 album Skeleton Tree album unexpectedly yesterday. I had forgotten how good this record is. Definitely for the quieter moments in life, but exquisite in a way nothing else Cave has done. This is part of the reason I've been unable to get into the 2019 follow-up, Ghosteen - the two albums feel so much alike, Ghosteen strikes me as redundant. I'm certain this is my problem, and that I've just not hit on it at the right moment yet, so I'll keep trying.

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Hungry for new on new Horror movies coming out, I found this teaser for Frida Kempff's debut feature Knocking on Bloody Disgusting. This one looks fantastic!

 

This is totally one that would play for free at this year's Beyondfest in the Speilberg theatre space at the Egyptian if that theatre wasn't under construction by new owners Netflix until 2022. As is, because of how I scheduled my first trip back to the Midwest since February 2020, I may not be heading to Beyondfest this year, but if by some miracle the switch of venue to what I'm assuming will be the Los Feliz 3 and Aero Theatres moves the annual fest to a different spot on the calendar, I'll definitely be trying to see Knocking on the big screen. If not, it hits VOD on October 19th.

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Playlist:

Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST

Soulsavers - The Light the Dead See

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree

The Twilight Singers - Powder Burns

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Tropic of Cancer - The Sorrow of Two Blooms 

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers be Full

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Code Orange - Underneath

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Follow my intuition? It's funny, at this exact moment, that would line up perfectly with the post I did earlier in the week where I mentioned blowing up my life. I'm chomping at the bit to leave L.A., to leave my job, for everything in my professional life to change. I just don't know how to effect that change. 

Sabotaging Tommy Jarvis

 

Quite possibly, my favorite Black Sabbath song. Although that is probably as difficult to stick by as a mother picking a favorite child.

Sabotage is without a doubt my favorite of the band's albums. The music is phenomenal - really a step beyond anything they'd done before. They kind of split the difference between their blues roots and the shaping of Heavy Metal they began on Paranoid. However, it's the lyrics that really seal the deal on this one for me. There's such an air of prophecy and revelation. 

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NCBD:

Jesus, my wallet just jumped out of my pocket and took off down the street. Look at this list!

So I was wrong about issue #4 being the finale. Here we go.

This series is so imaginative, so original, and so f*&king gorgeous I just can't believe it. Every issue gets weirder, but never at the cost of the story's inner logic.

I have to have this Skottie Young cover. I'm not generally one of those folks who feel the need to have everything he does - his work is always cool, but it's only when he draws certain classic, larger-than-life Marvel characters that I feel the need to add them to my collection. 

 

Been a minute. Since Lazarus moved to this format, I enjoy the individual issues so much more. That said, with the gap between, I lose A LOT. It's about time for a re-read (which I've been saying for like three years now).

Love this Peach Momoko cover. I dug the first issue of Moon Knight's new ongoing, so I'm interested in where the story is going.

I am really digging this book, and it's great to be back on something with Tony Daniel's art. Waaay back in the day, he was the highlight of Todd McFarlane's Spawn series when I still read it in the mid-90s. I traded in all those Spawns back when I moved to LaLaLand, however, I'd be lying if I didn't say I've actually thought about rebuying a few, just to revisit Tony's art. Now, thankfully, I don't have to. Instead, I can read a well-written book that he illustrates. Win-win.

Coming down to the final days of Nick Spencer's run. I just learned that after he leaves with Amazing Spider-Man #74, the new series will feature Ben Reilly instead of Peter Parker. 

Yeah, I totally did a double-take on that one, too. 

I'm tempted to jump off again, however, the idea of bringing the clone back (or was Peter the clone?) is too interesting to pass up. At least for a while.

Sweet Declan Shalvey cover on this one. This series is fun as hell, and I love seeing the various bounty hunters whose figures I coveted trying to fuck Fett over. Makes for a helluva story.

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Last week my copies of Never Hike in the Snow and Never Hike Alone arrived. I missed out on backing Alone, but was able to make it in on Snow. Monday night, I finally had some time to sit down and watch both films.

 

I'll take this over almost any other F13 feature film any day of the week. F13 is one of those franchises that I want to like so bad, but I almost never do. 

 

Vincent DeSanti does such a fantastic job, not only in stripping these down to what makes the concept of the series great but as Jason himself. Yes, that's the director lumbering in for every kill! And bring back Thom Matthews reprising his role as Tommy Jarvis!

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Playlist:

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

MadLove - White with Foam

Danzig - Thrall - Demonsweatlive

Danzig - Danzig 4

Deftones - Ohms

The Neverly Brothers - Dark Side of Everything

Razor - Armed and Dangerous

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Harnessing the raw power of an idea and honing it into something tangible. 

The Joy Formidable - Interval

Another single from the forthcoming album Into the Blue, which is out Friday, August 24, but which you can still pre-order on the band's website HERE.  

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I don't know anything about this new Mike Flanagan Netflix show Midnight Mass except that it's Mike Flanagan. 

What else do I need to know?

Also, it looks like this might fit into the Seaside Horror subgenre I've grown rather fond of recently, so that's pretty cool. And really, Netflix has a damn good track record with Horror these days, so I'll definitely be watching this one when it drops.

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The new episode of The Horror Vision is up. This time, we do a deep-dive into James Gunn's Horror DNA. From writing the screenplay for the Dawn of the Dead remake to Slither, Belko and even a bit on his Troma roots. Check it out!

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Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog

The Black Queen - Infinite Games

The Joy Formidable - Into the Blue (pre-release singles)

Deftones - Koi No Yokan

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A larger perspective. Ritual and union. Hmm... not entirely sure how to read this. It may point toward an idea I've had kicking around in my head now for about a week, but I'm unclear if it would be an allusion to it being a valid engagement, or a waste of time.

Brand New Cherry Flavor Tastes Great!!!

A little MadLove to start the week. My Favorite track from an album that's pretty much all favorite tracks.

 

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This show blew me away. I haven't taken to anything like this in a while. 

First: Brand New Cherry Flavor is, I think, pretty much Season 5 of Channel Zero, Nick Antosca's former anthology series on SyFy. If you haven't seen that, all four seasons are currently on Shudder and are 100% worth your time. They are fantastic. Basically, SyFy canceled it, and Netflix gave him to do something similar. Channel Zero's seasons are all stand-alone and all adapted from Creepy Pastas. BNCF is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Todd Grimson. The book is way out of print, but don't worry - someone is bound to remedy that with a new edition any minute now.

Second: Mr. Antosca is unapologetically a huge David Lynch fan, and there's a ton of that 'flavor' that he brings to his work. It's especially here. It's in exactly the most respectful, awesome way, too. Not imitation, but influence. I expand on this idea a bit in the new episode of The Horror Vision that drops tomorrow. At the time, I'd only seen the first episode of BNCF. K and I watched that Friday night. Yesterday, we did the remaining seven episodes because we just couldn't stop. 

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Playlist:

MadLove - White With Foam

David Bowie - Young Americans

Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus

The Veils - Total Depravity

Grinderman - Eponymous

The Replacements - Tim

Bjork - Post

The Hillbilly Moon Explosion - My Love for Evermore

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Yes, please. 

Powder Burns

 I will always hear the chorus to this song as 

"I'm ready - I'm ready - to hurt somebody." 

These words fit with the image of Greg Duli at the time, and it fits with where I was mentally. Not that I was angry and ready to hurt somebody, but I was ready to blow up my old life and start a new one. And that's exactly what I did.

I used to listen to The Twilight Singers' Powder Burns every day, compulsively. I probably had a low-grade addiction to cocaine by the time I left Chicago in 2006. It wasn't an everyday thing, but it was around me every day I worked at the bar where I tended, so things were moving in that direction. When I moved to the West Coast, I effectively shut that down. (Who moves to LaLaLand to stop doing blow?). A lot of the artists who affected me the most after this all had public personas that included similar pastime pursuits. Duli was one, plus, there was this additional melancholy attached to falling in love with his music, as my friend Brian had always heralded Duli's first band, The Afghan Whigs, as a major influence, and I just hadn't been there at the time to share that with him. I never bothered to take Brian's suggestion seriously because I had not yet encountered anything in my life that prepared me to fall in love with Greg Duli's music yet. Shortly after Brian died, I moved. By the time I did, I was hooked on the Whigs' Gentleman, and soon after 1965, and then, in 2006,  Powder Burns. 

This album is epic. I honestly believe that about every facet of it, from the songwriting, arranging and playing, to what Duli was going through in his life at the time, to the fact that the band recorded the album in a studio in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. If you read interviews with him from the time, you'll hear him discuss how the feeling of being in the wreckage of a major culture center crept into the feel of the record. It's there, oh yeah. Everything feels like it's lying in a pool of rubble, the ceiling's split open and falling, the wind is howling just outside, and you're trapped with your demons by the light of a single, solitary candle.

When I fell back into Powder Burns recently, I realized it's been a long time since I really listened to it. I still dabble with old pastimes when I return to the city I fled, although it's been a few years. I don't know if this re-engagement with the album is my inner demon fixing to make a phone call for the five days I'll be in town at the end of September, or if I'm just reclaiming the entire dejected persona for something I'm writing. That's the thing with this craft, you never really know who you are when you're working on something that puts you in the driver's seat by utilizing your life experiences. I guess only time will tell...

Danny Elfman and Trent Reznor

Not sure if this collaboration is stand-alone or will be part of an album, but either way, it's cool as all hell to hear these two icons make music together. 

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I finally had a chance to watch Andrew Thomas Hunt's Spare Parts last night. Really solid, old-school exploitation flick with a big ol' heart of Girl Power gold.   

Gory,  Guttural and glib, this one made a perfect second feature after my first viewing of George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, which I'd not seen since its theatrical run.

 

There is no love lost between me and the original Mad Max franchise. I'm actually planning to give it another try, or at least skip forward to The Road Warrior and try to judge that separate from the first film, which I watched for the first time since childhood ten years ago and found to be a complete disappointment and waste of time. Fury Road takes the admiral path of foregoing trotting out that racist cunt who played the titular hero in the original films and instead subs in the always fantastic Tom Hary, then basically makes him take a backseat to Charlize Theron's Furiosa. Overall, I can't say this fourth entry in the series has anything but the most basic plot, but it really doesn't matter. This one is so frenetic from start to finish there are times when I think I'm watching it at 2x the speed.

 

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Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity

Orange Goblin - Frequencies from Planet Ten

Grinderman - Eponymous

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Nothing - The Great Dismal

The Neverly Brothers - The Dark Side of Everything

Realize - Machine Violence

MadLove - White with Foam

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I'm hoping this is an indication that the work I'm doing on this short story will pay off. Right now, finishing it - no, not just finishing it, but nailing it - seems a continent away. I've worked on it every day but one this past week, so I'm putting the effort in and I can definitely see it shaping up. That said, there are still some wonky elements. It's not smooth yet.