Alice in Chains - Sweet Leap Live 1991

 

Discovered this randomly yesterday. Badass - to hear Layne do Ozzy's introductory, "All right now!" just puts a Horror-movie-sized SMILE on my face! It's not the full track, but it's enough. This video was posted by Nerojotun on their Youtube channel, which is filled with Alice in Chains stuff. Check them out HERE.

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Watch:

K and I rewatched Jordan Peele's NOPE Saturday night. Hot damn - this movie is absolutely my favorite of Peele's films, and that's saying something because I really dig all of them.

All the characters are so endearing and relatable, human and distinct. It doesn't 'give' the viewer anything - totally drops everything in front of you the entire time and just lets you either pick it up and piece it together or not. Peele's not concerned with convincing or converting anyone; he just wants to make killer cinema. And he does. 

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Play:

Cosmic Horror Metroidvania for Switch? Holy shit, sign me up:

Voidwrought hits Switch on 10/24. Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for posting about this one, as it was not on my radar at all. 

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Playlist:

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

Crystal Castles - (II)

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Undreamable Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Nahab

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)

Alice in Chains - Dirt

The Replacements - Tim

Silent - Modern Hate

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Card:

Card for today:

"Structure, time and space. Laws of growth and decay. Completion." - That's from a book I have named Keywords for the Crowley Tarot. I like this because, to me, Fortune - The Wheel in traditional Tarot - is an example of the laws of space and time. Simply put, what goes around comes around. I don't believe in Karma, per se, but as a concept, I think it's close (I just don't like the word, probably because hippies adopted and ruined it). 

Alice in Chains Dirt - 32 Years Old Today

 

One of those records that changed my life. Happy Birthday, Dirt. Love You!!!

The Mystery Lights - Cerebral Crack

Another fantastic find courtesy of Mr. Brown. I love this record! It reminds me a bit of The Monks' Black Monk Time, a bit of The Black Lips, and a bit of a general "Nuggets" era garage band or bands I can't quite put my finger on. Order the new album Purgatory directly from the band's Bandcamp HERE, from Daptone's new Rock subsidiary Wick Records HERE.

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Watch:

Last night, K and I went to the theatre to see the new E.L. Katz/Simon Barrett film Azrael. Solid Post- Apocalyptic Survival flick. It's also part of what I've come to think of as the "Subtraction Apocalypse" subgenre - you take an apocalyptic event and then remove a sense from the survivors. Josh Malerman's Birdbox takes sight, A Quiet Place takes sound, Azrael has its own spin.

If you're even remotely interested in seeing Azrael in the theatre, do so soon - this one is definitely not going to last past next Thursday on the big box screens. That said, it's another Shudder/IFC collaboration, so it should be on Shudder in 2-3 months.

Also, Coralie Fargeat's Reality+ short film was the subject of a recent article on Bloody Disgusting (read the article HERE), and while I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, I wanted to leave it here as a placeholder. 

I haven't found a Director whose work has grabbed me like this in a very long time.

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Playlist:

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

Ministry - The Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Taste

White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000

The Damned - A Night of A Thousand Vampires

Joy Division - Still

Type O Negative - Dead Again

The Mystery Lights - Purgatory

METZ - Up On Gravity Hill

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New Music from The Cure!!!

 

New music from The Cure! From the album Songs Of A Lost World, out November 1st. Pre-order HERE. I definitely wasn't expecting to see this today. I'd heard some titterings that amounted to, "The Cure are up to something," but that's about the extent of any foreknowledge I had of a new album. Full Disclosure: I can't remember the last new Cure record I listened to, kind of left them at Blood Flowers - which I don't know hardly at all - but I'm curious. 

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Watch:

Ready to have your heart ripped open again? The Last of Us season two is coming. Here's the teaser, which I'm not even going to bother to watch.

 

As I'm sure I mentioned here previously, I have never played the Last of Us game, so the storyline is completely new to me. I dig it; however, I will say it's A LOT emotionally, and season one took me a bit to get through. It's more difficult to watch a post-apocalyptic story with such emotional weight when you basically live in a post-apocalyptic world.

 

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NCBD Addendum:

A quick word on the new DSTLRY book, The Missionary, that I mentioned yesterday. Stay away. Awful. Reminds me of when Todd McFarlane and a bunch of the other "hot" artists at the moment split off and formed Image. Yes, Image Comics ended up being a very good thing, but most of those first gen guys should have stuck to art, as they really only approached writing as a means to string a bunch of awesome pictures together. Which, admittedly, was the comic zeitgeist at the time; however, that was also mainly because of them.

Anyway, I couldn't even make it through the first issue of The Missionary. I might try again - Jason Howard's art is fantastic - but man, it's just not good. There's a scene early on with the demon possessing the main character, where they're having this interior monologue back-and-forth that just feels so cheesy; I experienced a similar cringe to the one Beetlejuice Beetlejuice inspired in me several nights ago. Maybe it's because I'm a little over half through my third reading of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, wherein the prose is intelligent and elegant, to say nothing of the plotting and storytelling. Miéville's work unfolds so intricately that I don't have time for a book that seems to be shooting for a goofy take on Angels and Demons, wearing a sort of artistic clumsiness on its sleeve as part of its style. 

No thanks.

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk Edition)

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

The Coasters, The Brains & Rezurex - Yakety Yak (single)

Rezurex - Bat Music for Bat People

Beastmilk - Climax

Various - Return of the Living Dead OST

Various - Rocktober Blood OST

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

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John Bonham

44 years ago today. Damn. Maybe When the Levee Breaks is old hat to some, but I'll never get tired of this song, and what's more, this song IS the drums. Not just how they're played, but how they're recorded. 

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Steely Dan - Schlitz Jingle

 Thanks to my good friend Seth for sending this my way, catchiest thing I've heard in some time.

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NCBD:

An interesting haul awaits me later today. Let's see what I'm bringing home for NCBD:

The first issue of Michael Walsh's Frankenstein brought great joy to our house! K loved it, I loved it, and we're both rarin' for more.

Saga issue 69 gets the most appropriate and Saga-like celebration of the number I could have hoped for. I still love this book, despite the cooling of the fervor that settled in with all the hiatuses. 

Ryan Stegman's art on Donny Cates' Venom run a few years ago drew me into that title, and now he's writing a book with Jason "Trees" Howard on art? Definitely picking up this first issue, at the very least. Also, this will be my first Dstlry book. Here's the solicitation, cribbed from League of Comic Geeks:

"Bryce Hunter is a devoutly religious man whose faith is shattered when he catches his wife being...Intimate with an Elder from his church. This harrowing event sends Bryce spiraling into the hands of a demonic entity named Uvydus, Instead of rejecting possession, Bryce ACCEPTS Uvydus. Bryce wants to learn to be “bad” and Uvydus wants to be “less than completely evil.” But before Bryce can use this new partnership to finally live a little, the world's greatest Exorcist sees Bryce as his greatest challenge. But that's not even the worst of it as a murderous group of demons breaks free from Hell and threatens to re-shape earth into a kingdom over which they rule!"

The penultimate issue. Let's see that boom stick, sir!

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Watch:

Another Autumn is upon us, so that means a new V/H/S flick is just around the corner.

 I dug last year's, but these are still usually a mixed bag for me. Still, taking the idea of "Beyond" to this series might make for some very cool ideas. 

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Playlist:

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

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Card:

Today's card for study is I: The Magus.

Skill and/or Wisdom. Magick. Take initiative.

You know, when I set out to 'study' these cards more, I had grand designs to really dig deep. I certainly have enough stores of knowledge on them assembled. That hasn't actually happened, though. I really haven't been doing anything different than I normally do, drawing a card for the day and writing out its interpretation/possibilities. I want to change that, but there's just not enough damn time at the moment. 

Looking at Crowley's The Book of Thoth, I'm reminded that he refers to this card as "The Juggler." 

New Music from Dance with the Dead

Okay, newish music from Dance of the Dead, as I've meant to post this one for a while now and keep forgetting. That neon green cross in the thumbnail is something I'd pay to have hanging on my walls, so you can say it caught my eye.

From the new EP Dark Matter, out October 25th. They also have a tour coming up, dates for which you can find HERE. 

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Watch:

Last night, K and I finally saw Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This will be the last time I give Mr. Burton A) the benefit of the doubt and B) my time. 

 

Such a waste of a great cast. It's painful to realize that Mr. Burton is very clearly not the same person he was when he made his mark on pop culture, and it's even more painful to watch him try desperately to recapture that person and fail every time. The last movie by him I saw was Dark Shadows, and that, too, made me cringe about his entire aesthetic, which honestly has always been his main appeal. The problem with style over content is, eventually, if it wears out, it's welcome for want of substance. 

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Playlist:

The Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

The Jesus Lizard - Rack

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light

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