13 years... wow.
Friday, April 14, 2023
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Dreaming of the Demeter
New music from Nabihah Iqbal's upcoming second record, Dreamer, out April 28th on Ninja Tune. You can pre-order HERE.
Watch:
Though I hated Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark enough that it made me kind of retroactively dislike André Øvredal's previous flicks I'd seen and liked, I recognize my tendency to overreact to things like this.
My reaction to Scary Stories isn't that different than, say, the reaction I had when I read the first issue of Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin, way back in 2005. Shortly after reading that, I gave half my Sin City issues. I don't really regret that, but it's extreme, I'll admit. In recognizing that, I've been meaning to rewatch The Autopsy of Jane Doe again, and now that the trailer for his The Last Voyage of the Demeter has landed, well, I am cautiously optimistic!
This is apparently an adaptation of a single chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula - how cool is that?
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Valley of the Sun - The Chariot
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
The Sword - Age of Winters
The Sword - Gods of the Earth
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Steve Earle - J.T.
Lord Buffalo - Tohu Wa Bohu
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Clutch - Blast Tyrant
Intronaut - Habitual Levitations
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me
Ghost gave us an Easter surprise by announcing a new five-song, all-covers EP due out May 18th on Loma Vista Records. You can pre-order HERE.
These between album EPs the band releases are generally hit or miss with me; I love 2013's All You Need is Ghost - not so much with 2016's Popestar, which had one of my favorite tracks from the band (Square Hammer) and a bunch of fascinating covers, most of which I just don't ever feel the need to go back to that often (although their "Missionary Man" is admittedly pretty cool). One thing Popestar confirmed for me is that Tobias Forge's ambitions are boundless, and I'm fairly certain at some point in his future, he will craft a Musical that will catapult him into the even further reaches of success.
Juxtaposed against Popestar, Phantomine feels like it may split the difference; while I'm not familiar with "Hanging Around" by The Stranglers, I'm excited as hell to hear them do Television's "See No Evil," Iron Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera," not to mention Tina Turner's 80s Thunderdome anthem "We Don't Need Another Hero." I just don't know what to expect that one to sound like.
There's also a video for this track up on youtube, however, it's age-restricted and only viewable HERE.
I am SO excited about the return of James Tynion's Nightmare Country. The first arc made it into my Favorite Comics of 2022 list, and I have no doubt this new arc will continue the glory. The closest thing I've seen to having Sandman back again.
My growing fondness for Jeff Lemire's work prompted me to pick up the first issue of this new Phantom Road series and I thought it a great set-up for a Horror story.
Hot on the heels of my Sins of Sinister reread, the final issue of Storm and the Brotherhood will hopefully prove another total mindfuck.
X-Men Vs The Brood. 'Nuff said!
NCBD:
My haul for NCBD today:
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?
Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me (single)
Kyuss - ...And the Circus Leaves Town
Holy Serpent - Endless
Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
I'm having a lot of trouble interpreting this pull. More than I have perhaps ever had on any other. So I'm going to have to dig a bit. First glance, it feels like an acknowledgment that sacrifice can bring you to the threshold of change, but you have to be careful about the changes you make.
Cold Sweats in the Basement, Baby!
Jonathan Grimm drove down a few days ago and we had a fantastic extended weekend drinking beer, watching movies and bullshitting. Grimm is definitely a stabilizing force in my life, not to mention a huge influence, and his visit really supercharged my creativity again. We capped the evening yesterday driving to Nashville and seeing Lord Buffalo, Valley of the Sun and Church of the Cosmic Skull at the awesome Basement East. It feels fortuitous indeed that the first show I see in my new state was at this venue, because I loved it. Basement East reminds me a lot of my favorite venue back in LaLaLand, Echo Park's Echoplex. I'll be keeping their calendar firmly in mind from here out, as it's the kind of venue I'll take pretty much any excuse to return to, again and again.
Watch:
Curious to see this entire film. I love the idea of teenagers playing with a makeshift "Hand of Glory," though I didn't watch enough of the trailer to see if it actually came off a "hanged murderer." Makes me want to dig back into some of my Arcana and see what Eliphas Levi or, perhaps more appropriately, Alan Moore might have to say about how stringent the cocktail that produces that particular Magickal accoutrement is.
Playlist:
Etta James - (Third Album)
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Locrian - Return to Annihilation
Locrian - New Catastrophism
Godflesh - Nero EP
Behemoth - The Satanist
Etta James - The Second Time Around
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light
Various Artists - Jonathan Grimm's Stoner/Doom Spotify Playlist
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Holy Serpent - Endless
Bettye LaVatte - Scene of the Crime
Pigs x 7 - Viscreals
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Where this might normally make me think some form of unpleasant emotional change is jump up the road, I instantly read it as a lifting of my already generally unpleasant emotional state that dug in during my extended stay in LaLaLand and has left me off-kilter and unusually anxious since.
Saturday, April 8, 2023
RIP Vivian Trimble
Easily my favorite Luscious Jackson track from an album that is almost all 'favorite tracks.'
I haven't even thought of this group in years; hearing about Vivian Trimble's death at age 59 immediately made me want to hear this song.
Watch:
Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor's Cartoon Kayfabe has quickly become one of my favorite shows on youtube. I've spent a lot of time in the past two weeks hanging out listening to them interview a wide spectrum of creators, and when I woke up this morning and saw Richard Corben is their latest, I got pretty damn excited.
A living legend, Corben is. Super cool to hear him talk with these guys about the industry and what makes him "him."
Playlist:
Bettye LaVette - Let Me Down Easy: Bettye LaVette in Memphis
Godflesh
Godflesh - Post Self
Crystal Castles - II
Luscious Jackson - Fever In Fever Out
Friday, April 7, 2023
Immoral & All Seeing
I still find myself thinking about Wayne Shorter's recent passing. I'm by no means a huge fan; I say this not to distance myself from his work, but to respect those out there who are much more committed. Truth is, I started dabbling in Jazz when I was still a teenager thanks to Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, but I was way more into it in my twenties. Since moving, I've gotten back into many artists I've been away from for a while, but I still don't spin enough Jazz to be considered anything more than a passing fan. Yet, this music echoes inside me in a way nothing else does. I don't feel like a have a lot of room in my life for it, which is unfortunate, but Jazz is music that requires attention to appreciate, and as I've aged and the world has fallen apart and injected me with its anxiety, I have less and less attention; it's something I fight for on a daily basis.
As I said upon Mr. Shorter's passing, there is something in his work - whether solo or his collaborations with Miles Davis - that sounds like a conjuring to me. It puts me in a very particular headspace, and in reflecting on his passing, I'm wondering if there is anyone making music today that might have the same effect. Or if the "Jazz Ritual" sound that Shorter and Davis - especially on Bitches Brew, Sorcerer and The All Seeing Eye - summoned into this world is all but gone now. I feel that's likely, as our world is very different from the one where this music was composed. If there were "Jazz Spirits" or "Demons" that came to this plane as a result, where are they now?
Deep-Space Salvage, or DSS for short, is the name I've finally arrived at in my head for those stories that pull me back into the kind of home-brewed, SciFi prevalent in 1980's Hobby Shops and indie comic books. Think TSR and old-school Guardians of the Galaxy. Think comics written by Bill Mantlo. A deep-space enclave where everything is old, rusted, down-and-out. It's the future but nothing is new, progress has flatlined or reversed, and everything is falling apart. That's where Kieron Gillen has taken us in Sins of Sinister.
There are no superheroes here - that's reserved for the regular Monthly X-Book, which anchors the line to its original intent. Instead, here and in X-Men; Red, S.W.O.R.D. before it, and partially at work in Immortal X-Men, we have very meticulous, long-game genre stories that branch off into many different styles and territory, and S.o.S. is definitely DSS.
Watch:
Wow. Now, this is an interesting idea:
I subscribed to the channel immediately, and plan on giving this a full go. I was pretty stoked just watching along for a moment, as the music, different voices and sound FX told the story.
Read:
Re-reading Sins of Sinister from the beginning now, because my memory sucks. Also reading again because this week's Immoral X-Men really stayed with me.
The thing with the core of the X-Books now, and especially this Event and this issue in particular, is these are no longer superhero books. These are hardcore SciFi. I've talked about my love/hate with genre here before - I don't really go for big, tropey works like Space Opera or High Fantasy, primarily because I just feel like much of those corners of genre just repeat (and expand in some cases; credit where it's due) the most influential work that precedes them. I know there are a million people out there who would tell me I'm wrong, and that's fine. But I avoid those traditional genre lanes and look for stories that do their own thing. By the time we get to the events in Immoral X-Men #3, we're essentially in a deep-space salvage SciFi realm.
By the time we arrive at this last panel, page three of Immoral #3, you can see the filth and decay. You can also see a monstrously sized Exodus, now something much more than the mutant zealot we all know and love so well. This issue reminded me A LOT of Daniel Warren Johnson's Beta Ray Bill mini-series from a few years back, and like that series, Sins of Sinister is surprising me with how much I'm enjoying it overall, especially when I didn't read the entire thing (I have not been buying that third title, Nightcrawlers, although I'm thinking about going back and picking it up) or like everything I've read.
Playlist:
Gang Starr - Hard to Earn
Godflesh - Slavestate EP
Godflesh - Pure
Godflesh - Cold World EP
Godflesh - Love and Hate
QOTSA - ... Like Clockwork
High On Fire - Surrounded By Thieves
Lustmord - Dark Matter
Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye
Miles Davis - Live at the Filmore West
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Circumstances drift and Change rears its head. It will be tempting to interpret this change as negative, but the reminder in the cards today, me thinks, is that interpretation dictates the positive/negative aspect of change. Change is always good in some respects, it can just be mighty difficult to remember and 'see' that.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
New Godflesh Single!
The first single from Godflesh's forthcoming album Purge. LOOOOOVE that sample from Gang Star's "Brainstorm"! I pre-ordered this about a month ago when I first saw the announcement, you can follow suit if you go HERE.
Watch:
Good news! Holy Spider is coming to Netflix (of all places) tomorrow, April 7th!
I've wanted to see this since last year's Beyondfest, and after missing it there, my friend and colleague-in-casting Professor John Trafton has spoken about it at length, so I'm pretty excited to finally catch this one.
Read:
Speaking of John Trafton, his new book is up for pre-order from Wayne State University Press:
If you've read any of the essays John has up on his website JohnTrafton.com, you'll understand why I'm pretty excited to read this. Although I left LaLaLand behind, the mystique of that early Twentieth Century City of the Stars remains. Movie-made Los Angeles will no doubt explore and expound on that era in ways I've yet to ascertain.
Playlist:
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Shrinebuilder - Eponymous
Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Massive Attack - 100th Window
Spotlights - Seance EP
Godflesh - Hymns
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
INXS - Kick
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
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