The Twilight Singers - Live with Me/Where Did You Sleep Last Night

 

A wonder live rendition of the opening track from the Twilight Singers' 2006 EP A Stitch in Time, which as a bonus, flawlessly morphs into a cover of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." 

I got chills at the end when Dulli yells, "Mark Lanegan ladies and gentlemen!"

It's been quite some time since I doubled down on any Twilight Singers. This EP and the corresponding album Powder Burns also released in 2006, along with Lanegan's 2004 Bubblegum were intricate daily rituals for much of my life during the mid-to-late 00s. They're also slightly synonymous with drugs - no surprise there. To me, these records so perfectly capture the fabric of my mental life at that time, it brings back a huge rush of thoughts, feelings and ideas that are otherwise haphazardly placed in a closet at the back of my psyche. It's good to take that stuff out and brush it off every once in a while.

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Read:

I'd been trying to read the works of T.E.D. Klein for the better part of a decade, but until very recently, everything was out of print. I eventually found the story "The Events at Poroth Farm" in a Kindle-only "Megapack" of the Cthulhu Mythos. The story has fuck all to do with Lovecraft, but hell, forty stories for $0.99, I'll take it.

This is the kind of thing that flits in and out of my radar, so months go by where I get busy obsessing over other things, then something puts the enigmatic Klein back in my thoughts and I look around on Kindle and eBay again. The holy grail of his work would appear to be the 1985 novel Dark Gods, which goes for upwards of $40 for a Mass Market Paperback on eBay. It's only a matter of time until someone puts Klein's stuff back in print...

And now that is exactly what is happening. Two recent purchases I've made:

This first volume is a novel. A reprint of Klein's 1984 novel The Ceremonies, also long out of print. I snatched up a paperback copy of this the second I saw it hit Amazon, however, I will say, the binding looks like it will split and fall apart before I'm finished reading this one. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you have a 400+ pages book and its binding is barely an eight of an inch thick, well, that's usually a pretty crappy edition. 

And here's one from Pickman's Press I just saw this morning on Kindle. I grabbed the digital right away for this collection of short stories, poems and an interview. "Poroth Farm" is included here, which is nice, as are what looks like an essay on Arthur Machen's "The House of Souls", a story I recently short-listed when I picked up a Complete Works volume of Machen's work. So far, I'm three stories in, and can already tell you, "Well-Connected" is already worth the $5.99 I paid for this one. Fantastic story.

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Playlist:

Mark Lanegan Band - Bubblegum

Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral

Post Stardom Depression - Prime Time Looks A Lot Like Amateur Night

QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze

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Card:

Looking for answers, but something remains obscured.

Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell - The Raven

 

I originally posted a track from this Lanegan/Isobel Campbell collaboration album back when it was released in 2010. That's over a decade ago. Trite "Time Flies" sentiments aside, I'm beginning to feel like we're lucky any of us are still here with the way the world has changed since then. Anyway, I love "The Raven" because it's just so damn cinematic. Also, there's a definite air of homage to Nick Cave here. That track from 2010 - "Who Built the Road" has more than a passing similarity to Cave's duet witih Kylie Minogue, "Where the While Roses Grow." Gentle bell chimes, hushed, breathy vocals, and an overall somber and reflective atmosphere to the album as a whole make this a late-night, dim-light album, and the juxtaposition of Isobel Campbell's voice with Lanegan's is just beautiful, especially when the strings swell beneath them.

You can still grab the complete record on digital over its Bandcamp page HERE.  The entire thing is fantastic, with styles ranging from this quasi Italian Western cinema to sultry Motown-esque soul, to quiet, contemplative ballads that meander through your mind and emotions like a slow-moving snake. SO good.

Also, file this in "Made my Day" -  how about this cover by Two Minutes To Late Night's Gwarsenio Hall? 

Super cool. 

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Watch:

This one looks like it's going to be one helluva fun ride:

I love the Cheap Thrills-meets-You're Next vibes here.

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Playlist:

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release)

Allegaeon - DAMNUM

Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP

Warren G - Regulators (single)

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Silent - Modern Hate

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Card:

I've been jumping back and forth between my two decks - The Raven and Thoth - in an effort to see if any of my recent pulls line up. So far, not really, but they definitely tell an over-arching story:

Change - don't struggle against it. I can't help but wonder if this is intentionally a dovetail with what I see as the beginning of a very tumultuous five years for the world as we know it.

Mark Lanegan Covers Alice in Chains

 

Alice in Chains' "Nutshell" has always been a devasting song to me anyway, but hearing Lanegan sing it a few days after learning of his passing, well... damn. That's about all I can say.  

Thanks to Mr. Brown for sending this one my way.

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Listen:

New Greg Puciato record in June, and the lead single is f*&king fantastic!

 

I've become quite a fan of Reba Meyers over the last two years, and even though I didn't dig that new Code Orange single that dropped a few months back, I dearly want her making music in my life. Her presence her only makes this an even better song than it already is. Mirrorcell is out June 22nd on Puciato's own Federal Prisoner label, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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Watch:

Serial killer stories are not my bag, however, THIS is fascinating:

 

K and I mainlined Netflix's The Sons of Sam over the last two nights and I have to say, I nearly fell down a rabbit hole. Here's a case that sits at the very heart of the "Satanic Panic" era of our country's history. Watching this put me on a precipice of re-reading Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Fatale, which definitely dovetails with that dark, post-60s vibe I find so fascinating.

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Playlist:

Zombi - Digitalis

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

sElf - What a Fool Believes (single)

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

The Twilight Singers - A Stitch in Time EP

Greg Puciato - Lowered (pre-release single)

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Card:

How perfect is this, what with all the Satanic Panic stuff I've ingested over the previous few days:

Take your influences where you find them, it's not wrong to follow your intuition.

Gutter Twins - Idle Hands

 

The Gutter Twins - Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli - performing "Idle Hands" on David Letterman. Easily my favorite song by the Twins, not because their other material is lacking, but because Lanegan channels a fucking demon with the low end on his voice in this one. The album version is sonically preferable, but how good is it to see these two icons playing side by side?

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Listen:

Thanks to Mr. Brown for messaging me about this one dropping - I'd missed it completely.

 

I am SO hoping this means there's a new Whigs full-length on the way. Also, wondering if Dulli released this earlier than expected as a statement on Lanegan's passing. Super awesome track, can't wait for more.

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Watch:

Tomorrow on Shudder:

 

The trailer Hellbender one played a few weeks ago during the halfway point of the Joe Bob Brigg's Valentine's Day Special. I've been looking forward to it since, and it finally hits tomorrow on Shudder.

 

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Playlist:

Boy Harsher - The Runner OST

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

The Gutter Twins - Adorata

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy

The Afghan Whigs - I'll Make You See God (single)

Mark Lanegan Band - Here Comes That Weird Chill

QOTSA - Songs for the Deaf

Chrome Canyon - Director

Cult Leader - A Patient Man

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Card:

The watery aspect of water. From the grimoire: "Deep, Emotional Realms of Personality." I'm plumbing ideas of Deep Personality in a new writing project I'm using to bridge the huge gap I've suffered in working on the second Shadow Play book. This is a short, probably a serialized piece for No Sleep, since the other was so well received, and it's keeping me writing while so many interruptions have made it impossible to hit any kind of a continuous stride while working on the novel. 

Earth Featuring Mark Lanegan - A Serpent is Coming

 

From Earth's 2014 masterpiece Primitive and Deadly, featuring the late Mark Lanegan on vocals.

 

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NCBD:

A pretty smashing Wednesday at the shop, if I do say so myself:

Fucking LOVE this cover. 

Deadly Class! Only a few more issues. I'm getting both excited and sad.

I would say I'm annoyed at how long this one has taken to come out, but when you look at the work involved, I think it's totally understandable. I mean, the detail on the cover - let alone on the pages inside - is almost mindboggling. 

Prince Robot? Me thinks I smell a flashback.

This was accidental. I heard that Beta Ray Bill appears in Donny Cates' Thor #22 and picked it up late last week. When I did, I realized that issue is part four of a storyline called "The God of Hammers". I grabbed the first part - Thor #19, but quickly realized there were no copies of 20 or 21. Apparently, they sold fast, and reprints of 20 hit this week with 21 following next. All this has really just primed me with hype for a comic I normally don't care anything about. 

I still love Two Moons, but resolved to wait to read this arc until it finishes, I was just missing too much going month-to-month. 

As long as this continues to be primarily about Moira and Mystique, I'm in. 

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Read:

I was just about fed up with H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward when I arrived at the Fifth section of the book, V. A Nightmare and a Cataclysm. Here's an excerpt: 

"The next few rooms he tried were all abandoned, or filled only with crumbling boxes and ominous-looking leaden coffins; but impressed him deeply with the magnitude of Joseph Curwen’s original operations. He thought of the slaves and seamen who had disappeared, of the graves which had been violated in every part of the world, and of what that final raiding party must have seen; and then he decided it was better not to think any more. Once a great stone staircase mounted at his right, and he deduced that this must have reached to one of the Curwen outbuildings—perhaps the famous stone edifice with the high slit-like windows—provided the steps he had descended had led from the steep-roofed farmhouse. Suddenly the walls seemed to fall away ahead, and the stench and the wailing grew stronger. Willett saw that he had come upon a vast open space, so great that his torchlight would not carry across it; and as he advanced he encountered occasional stout pillars supporting the arches of the roof. After a time he reached a circle of pillars grouped like the monoliths of Stonehenge, with a large carved altar on a base of three steps in the centre; and so curious were the carvings on that altar that he approached to study them with his electric light. But when he saw what they were he shrank away shuddering, and did not stop to investigate the dark stains which discoloured the upper surface and had spread down the sides in occasional thin lines. Instead, he found the distant wall and traced it as it swept round in a gigantic circle perforated by occasional black doorways and indented by a myriad of shallow cells with iron gratings and wrist and ankle bonds on chains fastened to the stone of the concave rear masonry. These cells were empty, but still the horrible odour and the dismal moaning continued, more insistent now than ever, and seemingly varied at times by a sort of slippery thumping."

Subterranean exploration and Stygian catacombs are among my very favorite things- they tickle my imagination in a way I cannot express in words. This story went from being a massive chore laced with veins of Lovecraft's meandering prose and racist tendencies to being everything about his writing that made me fall in love with him in the first place, and I am very happy I stuck with it.

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Playlist:

Chrome Canyon - Director

Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

Metallica - Kill 'Em All 

Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers

Mr. Bungle - The Night They Came Home

Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

Mark Lanegan - Straight Songs of Sorrow

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Card:

This card is all about balance to me, and I pulled it right after texting with my friend Missi about finding balance. Her's is off today (this is Tuesday night), and so is mine. Between my lung issues and now an identity theft issue that came up last night, I definitely feel unmoored. But it's all about planting a solid foundation and using that to find a center of gravity. From there, things will unfold at a more controllable rate. 

RIP Mark Lanegan

 

Jesus. Wasn't expecting this yesterday. Talk about an iconic voice. Lanegan came to my attention the same way he did many people my age - via the Screaming Trees' "I Nearly Lost You" when it was featured on the seminal soundtrack album for Singles. I couldn't care less about the movie, but that soundtrack, it's one of the ages in my opinion. And "I Nearly Lost You" is one of the best tracks on an album of all great tracks. From there, I kind of got into the Trees, but I was always way more into Lanegan's solo and journeyman stuff he did after the band broke up. Personal favs have long been the work he did with Greg Duli on The Gutter Twins, his time in QOTSA, and of his 2004 solo record Bubblegum, which is another perfect album.

For an artist who left us such a wealth of material, I'm going to make him my featured artist for the remainder of the week (or the next 7 days, whichever comes first).

Forest Circles - Poison Leaves

I know nothing about Forest Circles - I'm not even sure where I encountered their name. But I'm glad I did. Super cool, moody Autumngaze - yes, I do believe I'm coining that term - and it fits my mood at the moment perfectly. Can't wait to hear more.

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Watch:

Friday night, K and I watched an excellent documentary on The Doors.

 

The Thumbnail for The Doors: When You're Strange caught my eye on Prime Video and after watching the little sample clip, I saw Jim Morrison climb out of a wrecked car on the highway near Joshua Tree, walk down the road hitchhiking, and eventually get picked up by... himself? 

What really floored me was, this appeared to be an actual piece filmed by Morrison. I was so intrigued I started the film and was immediately sucked in. Johnny Depp narrates, and no matter what you think of the man now, this was a reminder what a bastion of class he is. There's so much raw, unseen footage of The Doors in this one, I was floored, and fully recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in the group. 

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Read:

Now that Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Primordial is finished, I went back and re-read the entire 6-issue story in one sitting.

Wow.

Part Grant Morrison, Part David Lynch, all kinds of mind-bending and thought-provoking, Primordial was definitely created to be read in a single sitting. The issues are tight, and the art/script hit that synergistic level from the jump, so that you fly through this and only slow down to try and figure out what you're actually seeing during the sequences that involve the three animals sent into space in 1957 and 1961 (two monkeys by the US in '61, one dog by the USSR in '57). The narrative really uses Sorrentino's art to play with the concept of extraterrestrial life, how it would exist outside of our dimensional perceptions and what it would be like to actually experience encountering something like that. Honestly, I found the entire read as awe-inspiring as some of Morrison's most heady stuff, and it left me thinking about it for days.

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Playlist:

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

Pearl Jam - Vs

Urge Overkill - Oui

The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy

Forest Circles - Poison Leaves (single)

Chrome Canyon - Director

Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)

Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)

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Card:

I'm exhausted, so while I'm recording my pull, I'm not attempting to interpret it (at the moment).