Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Set Galactus's Hiding Mask Aflame!!!


A little Wino and his friends in The Obsessed to start our day. This tracks slams; love it!




NCBD:

My picks for this NCBD; another slow week, but that's fine with me. Quality of quantity, right?


Loving this series. The throwback to the excesses of 70s and 80s rock gods is always welcome these days. Especially when the story gives us rock gods that worship Satan!!! Also, although the story is slightly obvious in some regards, insofar as to where it's going, the overall big picture of what that will mean is delightfully vague. 


I didn't read the first two issues of the Sins of Sinister series Nightcrawlers, however, being that this is the final issue before the closing Sins of Sinister: Dominion one-shot brings the sub-series to a close, and being that I've grown to actually really dig this series, I thought I'd pick this up. Who knows? Maybe I'll grab those first two issues eventually, too. Either way, seeing Galactus's burning face behind Mother Righteous totally sold me on this "A" cover.

That's one of the really cool things about these Marvel "possible future" stories - the degree to which the creators can totally fuck with everyone and everything. I feel as though it used to be, at the very least, every possible future would have Logan in it. Not this time. And although I doubt very much we'll actually see a Galactus flambé in this issue, just the fact that they could suggest this on the cover makes me feel like a kid again.




Watch:

 
After reading about Scott Walker's upcoming film The Tank on Bloody Disgusting a few days ago, I'm intrigued. Reviewer Meagan Navarro very specifically states, "So much about Walker’s narrative structure and stylistic choices evoke ’80s creature features," (Read Meagan's full review HERE). That very much makes me take the possibility of shortcomings aside and want to see this flick. I think back to James Wan's Malignant a few years back - it took a good thirty or so minutes of laughing at that film's shortcomings before I got what Wan was doing - he made a 70s Giallo, and went so far as to build in the associated shortcomings from that particular style/era of film. This 'authenticity or bust' aesthetic we've seen in recent years - I could argue Psycho Goreman has this to a degree as well - is fascinating to me; a real breath of fresh air. I love the idea of filmmakers saying, "It's not enough to just add synthetic VHS tracking lines to your film" - the equivalent of the "vinyl" audio effect that adds pops and crackles to an audio track - "you have to be true to the essence of what we think of when we think of those films!"

Anyway, I'm none of the theatres in my area are playing The Tank - Clarksville's Regal is pretty great, but it's not that great - so I can't wait to watch this on April 25th (thereabouts) when it lands!




Playlist:

Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child
CCR - Cosmo's Factory
The Obsessed - Lunar Womb
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Kyss - ...  And the Circus Leaves Town
The Sword - Warp Riders
Bill Dogget and His Combo - All His Hits
            


Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.


In order to bring a project to completion, first emotional matters must be transformed into something useful through an act of Will.

Direct commentary on the process of writing. Well, the adage fits with any artistic endeavor, I suppose, but I'm applying it directly to my own process, which has begun to mutate for the better thanks to two separate but concurrent events. The first was Jonathan Grimm's three-day jaunt out to our new home. The guy is a self-made success with his art, and it's inspiring beyond almost anything I've encountered in some time. Maybe ever. The second came in the form of some thoughts on writing in one of the more recent This Is Horror Newsletters (which you can sign up for HERE and which is totally worth your time for the interviews alone, if not the contemplations of craft that sometimes come burrowed inside the missives).

What's that have to do with today's Pull? Well now sheriff, I don't rightly know. Pulls are not always straightforward. In fact, they're never as on the nose as my quick interpretations might make them appear. There's a lot of gooey ambiguity in the way they interact with the subconscious, and sometimes, you just contemplate the cards and see what associations they lead you to. Piecing it together - if you do - might take considerably more time. Hopefully, in the meantime, you've arrived at something useful. Like I just did.



Tuesday, April 18, 2023

The Boogeyman's Milk Leg

 

Man, this track takes me places. Some of those places are imaginary, and some are memory-laden ephemera from the early 2000s. Despite being released in 2013 - the year Mr. Brown sent me this record that's taken ten years to fully gestate an appreciation for - something here really reminds me of the particular era of my life circa 2000-2004. I think it's because my first real exposure to jazz-tinted metal came during that time when my friend Hammerstock turned me onto Cynic's brilliant 1993 album Focus. Whatever the case, I played Habitual Levitations a lot in the year or two surrounding my exposure to it, but haven't really visited since. Turns out, it fits like a warm glove.




Watch:

I didn't watch the first trailer for Rob Savage's upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman, and I'm not watching this one, but as usual, I'm posting it here for posterity's sake:

 

Nothing but good feedback surrounding this one, so I'll definitely be catching it in the theatre. I'm still searching for a new film to really scare the hell out of me; I know Evil Dead Rise is going to be an ordeal, or at least I hope it's going to be, but if this can accompany follow that as a genuine bone-shaking scary movie, then 2023 will be looking pretty good at the halfway point when The Boogeyman arrives on June 2nd!
 



Read:

Although I won't be watching the trailer for The Boogeyman, I'm digging out the first edition copy of Stephen King's Night Shift I found at a Las Vegas thrift store ten years ago or so and re-read the story it's based on - also called The Boogeyman - for the first time in quite a few years. 


This was a FIND for sure, and the first time I'd read really early King. Although I discovered him in High School with The Gunslinger, then read a handful of his other novels, I never dug into his early short stories until I found this. I'm less than 100 pages from the end of King's newest novel, Fairy Tale, but I should be able to slip this quick re-read in just to prime my excitement for Savage's new adaptation.




Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
The Sword - Warp Riders
Kyuss - ... And the Circus Leaves Town
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)
Godflesh - Nero EP
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
            


Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.


To arrive at the best decision, and truly be fair and uncompromised by emotion, you have to be honest about your emotions toward the situation. I have no idea what this is in reference to at the moment, so I will do what I always do in situations like these - leave the spread on my desk today, so it's always in front of me. Sometimes that's the best way to unlock something you're stumped on.
 


Monday, April 17, 2023

Someone Put Something In My Drink

 

This past Saturday, April 15th was the 22nd anniversary of Joey Ramone's death, and I totally missed it. I guess I never before put together that Pete Steele died on 4/14 and Joey Ramone on 4/15. I'm a considerably bigger Type O fan than I am a Ramones fan but talk about legendary. Here's one of my favorite Ramones songs in tribute. 



Playlist:

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Holy Serpent - Endless
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?
The Bridge City Sinners - Here's to the Devil
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
 


Saturday, April 15, 2023

Telekinetic Yetis & True Detectives

 

Telekinetic Yeti's guitar tone is beyond anything I've ever heard before. I've been throwing last year's Primordial on here and there for the last year or so, and I dug it, but something happened this past week and I just can't live without it now. 

That tone!

I've recently begun playing guitar again after an almost eight-year hiatus, and as I run scales and modes and just generally fall in love with the instrument again, I'm listening to a lot of music specifically for tone. There's Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and this. Those are probably my three favorites at the moment. 

I've also discovered the band's 2017 album Abominable.  You can hear how they hadn't quite dialed in their tone and sound just yet, however, that doesn't prevent it from being another awesome long player! 

You can order Telekinetic Yeti's monolithic slab of music from their Bandcamp HERE, or, if you want vinyl like me, from Tee Pee Records HERE.




Watch:

True Detective always revs me up and then ends up disappointing on some level. I mean, Season One is among my all-time favorite things, but I hate the ending. Hasn't stopped me from watching it nearly ten times since it came out, though. Season Two... well, let's never speak of that again. And I loved Season Three but it also ended so soft and convienent that it robbed some of the thunder.  


This new Season, however, has Iss López as show runner and, if I heard correctly, director. If you've seen López's film Tigers Are Not Afraid, you probably understand why I have such high expectations for this. Kind of the same high expectations I had for Season Three when they originally announced Jeremy Saunier would be series director. Saunier had some form of disagreement with showrunner/creator Nic Pizzolato (surprise), and bowed out after only two episodes. Pizzolato handled most of the directing for the remaining episodes, and I thought he did a mostly fantastic job, but I still wonder what that season would have been like if Saunier had been aboard for the entire thing.

Anyway, no hard date on the premier yet, but I'm betting August or October. Either way, I'm in.
 


Play:

I had not played video games since the original NES - well, I did my fair share of DDR back in the early aughts - until I came across Puppet Combo and his game Glass Staircase. The game had a very Argento vibe, and Puppet Combo's love of 80s Horror VHS struck me as so endearing I couldn't say no. That was five or so years ago and although I bought it, I couldn't really figure out how to play it effectively on my computer. I was happy just to support them, though.

Fast forward to my birthday last year and I saw that Puppet Combo's newest game at the time, Nun Massacre, was getting a Switch release. I plunked down the money and ordered a Switch, bought the game, but ultimately became frustrated adjusting to its play peccadilloes and kinda forgot about it in my obsession with Game Kitchen's Blasphemous.

 

This is the newest game, and I guess it's only available on Steam, which is something I'll most likely never tap into. Still, wanted to spread the word and share this awesome trailer.
 



Playlist:

Metallica - 72 Seasons
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Telekinetic Yeti - Abominable
Church of the Cosmic Skull - Is Satan Real?
The Sword - Age of Winters
High on Fire - Death is this Communion
The Sword - Gods of the Earth
The Sword - Warp Rider
Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master
Ruby the Hatchet - Planetary Space Child
         



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
         


Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.