Hinton Hollow Headphase

 

Flew home from Chicago yesterday after a post-house buying week where I tried like hell to relax. I mostly succeeded, thanks to all my dear friends who were more than happy to drive to my folks' place in the woods of Palos Park and sit on the patio for hours on end.

I'm using Boards of Canada's Dayvan Cowboy today because Boards are on of my two most commonly used airplane soundtracks - the other is Burial - and in spite of the fact that I usually use either the In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP or Geogaddi as flight-long loops in my earbuds, yesterday I went with 2005's Campfire Headphase because I know it the least. And I realized at once that I know it better than I realize. Dayvan is Probably my favorite track. The guitar on this album is incredible, and I always mistakenly think is performed by Bibio, whose style is extremely similar. Either way, this record is fantastic, as are all the BOC outputs, and it helped make my flight smooth and a partial extension of my relaxation (as much as one can relax on a plane).

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Read:

Well, I blew through most of Donnie Goodman's The Razorblades In My Head on the trip, read a shit ton of comics I bought at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville (soon to be my new shop, I'm happy to say. Great store, SUPER awesome, friendly people), and took a trepidatious cue from Warren Ellis' most recent newsletter and picked up Will Carver's Hinton Hollow Death Trip on Kindle for $0.99. 

I read it in three days.

I suspect this will be the best book I read in 2022. It is dark and disturbing, but not in the ways I initially feared. But it's also one of the most human books I've read in some time, and it ended up making me want to be a better person. Not that I don't always want to be a better person, because this is literally a goal I think about on daily basis. However, it's something I think about after I've made stupid comments like, "Fuck that guy for not using a turn signal, if I were going to be a serial killer, those are the people I'd kill," and the like. And really, while there's nothing wrong with venting, c'mon. Also, and this has been hovering on my consciousness for decades, ever since I first tried it in 2001, but I think I'm going to stop eating meat for a while. I'm not going to go completely 'full-hilt' on Vegetarianism, however, meat bothers me. It always has, or at least since my early twenties. Morrissey's right - meat most certainly is murder, and it's one of the most fucked up elements of our modern culture I can think of. But I am programmed, from the youngest of ages. This is not my parents' fault, it's just what happens with systemic issues that people are born into generations after being installed. Sure, earlier versions of humans might not have had a choice - or really, maybe they did. It's not like plants didn't grow while early humans were spearing bores on the planes - but once we had agricultural systems in place for producing substitutes, well, why didn't we switch?

It doesn't matter. There's no way I'm going to say, "I'm never going to have a hamburger again," because I fucking love hamburgers, and in fact, am thinking about eating one right now. But I won't. While we were in Tennessee, something entirely different prompted me to declare I'm giving up "plated meat" dishes, which I only occasionally eat anyway. But we're heading to the store today for a post-trip restock, and we're thinking about picking up some of the Impossible stuff, to try and use it in some recipes K makes where the dish isn't dependent on the meat's flavor or texture. I'm hoping it works, as it's not only the principle issues of eating meat that is prompting me but goddamn if I didn't eat more red meat in the last three weeks than I have in probably a year, and I'm feeling it.

Also, yes, Carver's book had a little something to do with it. The man identifies himself on his Twitter profile as "Drinker. Non-preachy Vegan" and I'd agree with that. But his ideals come through in Hinton Hollow Death Trip, and they affected me for sure. In a good way.

I'll keep you posted. 

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Watch:

Bloody Disgusting had a pretty big Upcoming Horror Movies for July trailer dump last week. Here's one that caught my eye:

 

I'm not 100% on this one, as there are a few things in the trailer that give me concern, chief among them being that, although as a lifelong Lovecraft fan, I'm a sucker for anything with his name attached. This also means I am literally a sucker because adding HPL is an easy way to market a bad movie. Still, the goat-head silhouette effect seen near the end of the trailer makes me hopeful (despite also being a sucker for goats in Horror).

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Playlist:

No way to list it all. Here are some of the staples, along with some new stuff:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

Sleep - Volume One

Karma to Burn - V

Billy Idol - The Roadside E.P.

CCR - Bayou Country

Sleep - The Sciences

Orville Peck - Bronco

Witchcraft - Legend 

The Sword - Age of Winters

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The Company Band - Eponymous

Ween - a couple recent live shows, all curated by Mr. Brown. It appears the boys are digging deep into their back catalogue that included "Cornbread Red" and a couple from Craters of the Sac.

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Card:

The first thing I did upon returning home was pull out Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for a reading:

A call to relax and enjoy, but also a warning about intoxication and the indulgences it can bring. This feels prescient, simply because my plans for today are "Pack and Drink."

The Bagman Cometh

Heaven is an Incubator posted the new album by Spain's Calderum. I'd never heard of these guys (this guy?) before, or the idea that anyone was meshing Black Metal with Dungeon Synth. I mean, talk about a sound you didn't know you wanted but you've been anticipating for years!

You can pre-order the Vinyl like I did, or the cassette from Death Prayer Records in the UK, just head over to Calderum's Bandcamp HERE.

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Write:

I just posted a story called The Bagman Cometh over on the Horror Amino app. I had a lot of fun doing this one, and a longer version will ultimately be included in my forthcoming FREE short story collection Its Soil Be Murder. To read the current version, go HERE. 

The piece is a mashup of random pictures from my phone, all used to prompt the story. I really dig this one; it plays with the whole Creepy Pasta/Urban Legend thing, while also bringing back a character from a short story I wrote waaaaay back in the early 00s but still need to publish. Maybe I'll put that in the Free Collection as well.

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Back:

Hasbro Pulse began a new Haslab campaign yesterday, and unfortunately, I caught wind of it early enough that I have about a week to struggle with whether or not to cough up $299 to back this:

Christ. One of my all-time favorite figures, the HISS Driver, working treads and the kicker? That fucking working beacon. 

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Playlist:

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

Krallice - Demonic Wealth

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses

Ruby Friedman Orchestra - Fugue in La Minor (single)

Pink Milk - Ultraviolet

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Various - The Void OST

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Card:

Reminding me to make completely 'Scientific' decisions tomorrow at the home inspection; I must not succumb to emotion for or against the move. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we go back to LaLaLand and start a new plan.

Tasting the Flesh of God

 

Thanks to Mr. Brown for turning me into the fact that Hellfest 2022 is streaming all the bands' sets. Of course, I'm most interested in Godflesh, a band I still hold out the hope we'll be getting another new album from sooner rather than later. Justin K. Broadrick is a very prolific, very busy man, but how do you turn your back on your baby when your baby is Godflesh?

 

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NCBD:

Still out of town, but I'll probably pick these up anyway and just let my shop know not to pull.

Is this the end of the first arc for What's The Furthest Place From Here? or the start of a new one? 

Jesus, it's only been two weeks since the previous X-Men Red. Based on the events of that book, I'm REALLY looking forward to this one. 

Love this book, and the fact that I have no compass for how long this series is ultimately shaping up to be. Feels very open-ended, and like there could be a much bigger story here for Sonny and Xavier than I first suspected. Rick Remender - I love you!

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Watch:

I can remember seeing the opening to Lewis Teague's Alligator so long ago; the scene of the father flushing his little girl's pet baby alligator down the toilet has stayed with me for most of my life. Thanks to Shudder, I've finally seen the entire movie.

I LOVED this flick! First, I had no idea Robert Fucking Forster was the lead! Also, hell, what a great Alligator!

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Playlist:

Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light

Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

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Card:

Confusing influences speak to the idea that we may have a lot of questions at our inspection tomorrow. There's a lot of 'Authority' at play, and juxtaposed with Will and the expediency I always associate with the Knight of Swords, the mental stamina that card tends to radiate, I think we may need to make some decisions that will be completely ours, i.e. not the kind of thing we can refer to our Realtor, the inspector, or the unbelievably valuable advice my parents have given to us in all this.

On the Run Across the Country

 I took K and my folks to see Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's adaptation of Joe Hill's short story The Black Phone yesterday. This film 100% holds up to the magnificent impression it made on me at last year's Beyondfest; one of my favorite scenes (in a film with a lot of "Favorite Scenes") is the one that utilizes Pink Floyd's classic "On The Run," from their perfect 1973 MASTERPIECE Dark Side of the Moon. 

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Watch:

Here's a new Horror flick that drops on VOD this week from Dark Star Pictures and Bloody Disgusting films:

Wow! There are some pretty gross bits in here; loving that Body Horror has seeped into the overall Horror genre DNA.  

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Read:

Since switching from a Kindle to an iPad, I'm having trouble reading digital prose. I would love Kindles if they weren't total garbage machines made to be discarded when the new ones come out - you can accuse a lot of tech of that, however, I've had several Kindles over the last few years, and most of them don't last more than a year or two tops. The iPad was an investment I made primarily for artistic reasons, and I still have my one functioning Kindle, however, I'm already traveling with my Macbook, Nintendo Switch (for the plane, mainly; made the hours disappear), iPhone, and now iPad, so I didn't want to add yet another device to my already burdensome backpack. Anyway, I'm sorely missing reading, so while I was tooling around on Twitter last night and landed on author Donnie Goodman's book The Razorblades In My Head, I Eat Its Seeds, I ordered it. 

What a great cover! And while you can't necessarily judge a book by its cover, I've been following Goodman's account for a little while and he's made an impression as a kindred soul, so of course, I'm going to read the man's book! I report back when I receive it and begin!

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Playlist:

Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

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Card:

Had to get in an actual Spread, as opposed to the daily, one-card pulls I normally do.

"Never mind what you would normally do."

Things are going to change quickly, and navigating those changes will require an abundance of love and support to get through. Not sure if that's a good reading or a "things are going to get tough" one. Obviously, I'm reading this as reference to the fact that we bought a house 2000+ miles away from where we live now. I will be going 'Remote' with my job, and there's a chance that, after a last-minute management change in the upper echelons of our company, that might put me on a chopping block. My ace is NO ONE can do what I do as fast as I can. I'll be stepping down from Management - which should improve my stress levels, as well as my opinion of the human race - and focusing on the International Logistics end of my job, already more than a full-time position on any given day. So I think I'm safe. But it's going to be a mountain to climb just to pack and move. So an abundance of love and support is exactly what we'll need. 

No More Lives To Go, Elvis.

 

One of my most anticipated albums dropping this year is Greg Puciato's sophomore Mirrorcell. I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced a few months back, despite the fact that I wasn't sure where I would be living at the time of its release on the first of July (I used my parents' address, but there was speculation that they might move to TN as well). Regardless, our trip is more than halfway done now, we made an offer on a house that the seller accepted, so once the inspections and everything go through, I'll be able to lift that pre-order ban. Regardless, the album hasn't shipped yet, but Bloody Disgusting broke the news that Mirrorcell dropped early on Puciato's Bandcamp.

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Watch:

On Saturday, K and I took my parents to the local AMC to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. I am NOT a Baz Luhrmann fan. Perhaps I shouldn't say that, because I've never actually been able to sit through one of his movies. I find his childish little "Look how anachronistic I am" proclivities to be infuriating, and the fact that he may be made the first good visual adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, only to eschew the Jazz music that is central to the book's themes for Hip Hop makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs directly into his face. I never bothered seeing that Gatsby (friends who did warned me to save myself, that the beauty of its visuals would only drive me crazy played under the soundtrack), but I'll say, this Elvis movie looked great. Plus, my Pops really wanted to see it. So we went.

 

On the way in, I almost made the statement, "If I hear one lick of Hip Hop or other modern music, I will get up and leave." Good thing I didn't, because of course, there are at least two instances in the first half of the movie with Hip Hop in the soundtrack. 

It's so embarrassing. I mean, it's not that it's Hip Hop; if Luhrmann was adding Portishead, or Mastodon, or whatever other 'future music' to the film, I would have been equally pissed. He reminds me so much of Tim Burton - Lurhmann's idea of who he is as an icon or "brand" gets in the way of the decisions as to what's best for the movies he makes. The film also spruces up some of Elvis' music with a sometimes irritating modern twist, and some of the editing is a bit ridiculous in the amount of effect and flair. It works sometimes - more at the end of the film - and other times, not so much. Just looks like they were cutting it together in weird ways for the sake of making it a "Baz Luhrmann joint."

Still, the movie - despite all this - is fabulous. Austin Butler is FANtastic as The King, and Tom Hanks - Jesus. Really well done, and the script is great. 

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Playlist:

Powerman 5000 - The Notable Rot

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher

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Card:

Solid foundation - perhaps a literal nod to the fact that we made an offer, they accepted the offer, and now we have to go through the inspection process. One of those inspections? You guessed it: Foundation. A lot of work still to come.

Allegory of the Moon's 9 Patients

 

Wow, not totally sold on the song yet, but I LOVE the video (how many times can you say those words?) From the forthcoming album Patient Number 9, out September 9th. You can pre-order HERE, which I broke my ban when I saw I could add this to my order:

Yes. I'm a f*&king sucker. I just can't help but picture our cat Sweetie curled up with this on the couch (she has a teddy bear she curls up with now, so not unheard of).

If I've not said it here previously, I find it endlessly fascinating that my own apparent "Mid-Life Crisis" consists of a reversion to obsession with the Action Figures, Super Hero Comics and Metal I loved as a kid. 

Pretty good Crisis to have.

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Watch:

Rob Zombie's brother Spider One has his first film hitting Shudder courtesy of Shudder and RLJE Films. Here's the trailer that dropped two days ago:

  

I'm not a Powerman 5000 fan, despite posting a track from their 2020 album The Noble Rot that sounded pretty good back sometime last year. Wasn't enough to inspire me to check out the rest of the record (I'm actually remedying that as I type this by downloading it on Apple Music to check out later). Anyway, this looks like it could be cool, so I'm laying aside any musical prejudices I might or might not have and going to go in with an open mind.

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Playlist:

Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

CCR - Bayou Country

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Card:

We saw two more houses yesterday and attended an open house for the one we almost put an offer on two days ago. The two new ones didn't hold a candle to the one we re-walked, so we made an offer, just went in at the asking price. They had until 12:00 PM today to respond, and right up to the wire, the seller's agent reached out to ours and asked for an extension. We replied with EOD. I'm still feeling a bit of uncertainty, but I'm trying to just put myself back in my mindset at home in LaLaLand (i.e. - other than my friends and the abundance of culture we'll be leaving behind, I hate L.A.). If someone bids even a dollar over us, we're going to let this one go and reassess. I can't help thinking it's funny that on a day where there was an open house, the seller's agent hasn't talked to their client; seems this is probably a strategy while they maybe wait on some last-minute second offer. The Moon always denotes hidden influence/agenda. 

We'll see.

Understanding the Day: A Solid Foundation

Another new single/new album announcement my travels have left me behind on. After seeing The Soft Moon live several years ago for their 2016 album Criminal, I can attest to the fact that, as much as I dig Anthony Vasquez and crew's albums, they're way better live. Regardless, I'm psyched for the new album, Exister, which drops 9/23 on the always amazing Sacred Bones Records! Pre-order HERE. 

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Watch:

Saw this dropped and wanted to post it here for posterity's sake:

 

As per usual, I am not watching the trailer, just salivating until 4:2 drops. I still just don't understand how every season of this show is able to get exponentially better than the previous.

 

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Read:

I'm not really getting a lot of time to read while we're out here. Since we arrived, it's been pretty hectic. We almost made an offer on a house last night, but there were two we were interested in that didn't hit the market until today, so we held off. Thing is, the one we almost made an offer on has an open house today, and so does one of the two that goes on sale today. So we could end up screwed. Fine. That'll suck, but I always read shit like that as "Wasn't meant to be." I'm not a believer in Fate, but I have reservations about EVERYTHING at the moment, so I'm happy to let the Universe act as an Equalizer.

No, not that Equalizer. Oh well, you get it. 

Anyway... I haven't had a chance to read much, but I will say, I burned through the comics I bought the other day at Rick's Comic City - GREAT Shop and SUPER nice people - and I cannot get Immortal X-Men #3 out of my head.

Characters I've always loathed and found nothing but boring:

1) Charles Xavier

2) Magento

3) Mystique

4) Destiny

Characters I now find endlessly fascinating: 

See 1-4 above.

I love the graphic representation Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck used to show us Destiny's Precognitive sight and at the same time tease possible future events. Also, I loved how big they went with the one future they did show us, simply because they're never going to show us it again.

What the hell is that? Giant Exodus possessed by The Phoenix Force eating Mr. Sinister (who manages to re-set the timeline first anyway?) This is some crazy shit, but the craziness is fleeting compared to the "game of thrones" going on and the character development. As Dave Buesing from Comic Book Herald points out in the most recent "Talking Krakoa," this is the first deep or probably even good character study on Destiny EVER in X-comics. That says a lot. 

Then there's Mystique, I've never cared for her. When the original X-movies began to use her as a major character I always kinda scratched my head. Even for years after that, whenever I would dabble with an X-book again, I never bought Mystique's post-movies position as a now-major character. All that has changed. Hickman started it, and Gillen is CRUSHING it continuing this fascinating series.

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Playlist:

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - 1957-1972 (Live)

The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues

16 Horsepower - Low Estate

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

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Card:

Okay, based on my brief run-down of the last few days above, this is a sight for sore eyes. 10 of Disks: Wealth doesn't promise anything, but "A solid foundation" definitely equates to "A good home" in my mind, always has. So okay, let's go out and find a fucking house!