Powermad - Slaughterhouse

 

Over the last two weeks, I had the distinct pleasure of watching several of David Lynch's films I had previously missed on the big screen at Nashville's Belcourt Theatre. The Belcourt's retrospective on Lynch's work was comprehensive; a true celebration of the man's life and art.

I spoke about seeing Eraserhead/The Grandmother in a previous post, but this past weekend my cousin Charles and his wife Lauren came down to visit us, and Sunday afternoon, the four of us caught The Straight Story on 35mm. I'll talk about that below, but suffice it to say, for Monday night's screening of Wild At Heart, Powermad's "Slaughterhouse" rang EPIC on the Belacourt's sound system. I never got into this band back in the day, but I was definitely aware of them, mostly through ads in Thrasher magazine. 

Released in 1989, this would have come at the height of my "Skate or Die" phase; man do I miss that. The last time I rode a board was circa 2011 in San Pedro; the hills almost killed me, and I kind of backed off again after that, only to have a friend accidentally break it a year or two later.

How the hell did I get here from where this began? Oh yeah, Powermad!

The bit with Powermad doing backups for Sailor's Elvis serenade really clues you into Lynch's mindset on this film. There are times when I'd almost liken Wild At Heart to Lynch's version of a Farce. Sailor's singing and mannerisms, Marietta's, well, everything, and Crispin Glover's joyfully insane Del are all so far outside the realm of seriousness for a film that can still take itself very seriously, that they help make this one unique, even among the greater body of Lynch's work. 

The two images that stand out on the big screen are the sequences of roiling fire and Bobby Peru's teeth. Nightmare fuel, that.

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Watch:

David Lynch's The Straight Story is an underseen masterpiece. I say that as a lifelong Lynch fan who, although I own the film on DVD, had only seen it twice before, and never at the Cinema. That changed this past weekend, and I can tell you that this film is a deeply moving character piece that wet my ocular sockets consistently from start to finish.  

Seeing this film on 35 mm was an entirely new experience; Lynch films on the big screen are heightened, almost altered states; few people who have experienced Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive in the cinema would contest that. Those are films that incorporate Neo Noir and Psychological Fugue/Horror elements that lend themselves to inducing altered states. The Straight Story is something else entirely. It is a story about family, love, and redemption. It is firmly rooted in the "real" world, so its altered state is a sharply emotional one. It's a beautiful and slightly disconcerting thing to let David Lynch lead you on a journey like this, but by the end, it makes you feel wonderfully alive.

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NCBD:

Finally, after being pushed back several months, we have the finale of James Tynion and Joshua Hixon's The Deviant!

To say I've been waiting for this is an understatement. Thinking about sitting down this weekend and re-reading the entire series in one sitting. One of my favorite books in forever. 

I keep thinking this cover is an homage to an issue of Larry Hama's original GI JOE comic at Marvel, but that may not be the case. Either way, pretty cool. Maybe I'm starting to warm up to this book a bit more? We'll see.

Now that I know Epitaphs From the Abyss is ending at issue 12, I'm cherishing each one of these even more. And as I say so often with this book, LOVE this cover!

Güs! 'Nuff said!

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Playlist:

Sqürl - Third Man Records Session

Melvins - Hold It In

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

Vinyl Williams - Lansing (single)

Flogging Molly - Swagger

The Pogues - Hell's Ditch

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE:

Grimm currently has a Kickstarter running for his ... And the Night Stares Back Vol. 2 coloring book, which features some of the art from the Hand of Doom Tarot. I backed this instantly, but there's no way I would ever apply color to Grimm's beautiful B&W art.

• V: The Hierophant

• Knight of Swords

• Five of Wands

Knowledge (or information) wrested from a perceived opponent can require Will to make work. 

This is straight-up on point with my work at the moment, where I actually feel like I have a bit of a "Moriarity" at the moment, and the knowledge they disseminate to me often feels occluded or guarded. Maybe even false.

Happy St. Paddy's - Flogging Molly Float

Happy St. Paddy's Day, everyone!

I celebrated on Saturday with some Guinness, some Jameson, and my annual reverence for Phil Joanou's State of Grace, which I just love more every time I see it. And I've watched it every year for maybe 20 years. 

Also, if you haven't heard, Flogging Molly frontman Dave King has some health issues that forced the band to cancel their most recent tour, so maybe stop by their Bandcamp and plunk down some silver for one of their albums. Mr. Brown recently recommended the live 2006 Alive Behind the Green Door, and I can attest that it's fantastic. 

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Watch:

David Cronenberg's The Shrouds opens in select cities on April 18th and nationwide a week later. Really looking forward to this one.

This trailer doesn't reveal too much, but it also doesn't 100% whet my appetite for the film. That doesn't mean anything, though, as just the fact that Cronenberg has a new film on the immediate horizon has me excited. I really liked Crimes of the Future; actually felt like it was the first truly transgressive film I'd seen in a theatre in a very long time. Not sure if this will be a similar experience, but it doesn't matter. Cronenberg is Cronenberg, end of story.

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Playlist:

Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 1

Marilyn Manson - Lest We Forget 

Marilyn Manson -We Are Chaos

T. Rex - The Slider

'Til Tuesday - Voices Carry

New York Dolls - Dancing Backward in High Heels

Buster Pointdexter - Eponymous

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy and the Lash

The Who - Live at Leeds

Blind Willie McTell - Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order (Vol. 1)

Sqürl - Third Man Records

Flogging Molly - Alive Behind the Green Door

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Voice Carry (Voices Carry)

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'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" is, in my opinion, one of the strongest singles of its era. Released in 1985, for a song every source I consult says was an MTV staple, I swear I cannot remember hearing this until circa 2006 when I moved to L.A., where they played it on the radio on a daily basis. I don't remember ever hearing this on the radio in 1985 or at any other time during the 30 years I lived in Chicago. 

Part of the reason for this may be that we didn't have MTV at our house growing up, a point of infinite frustration for a kid in the 80s (and one I am thankful for now). A friend down the street had it, though, and "Music Television" was on a lot at his house. I can remember some rather oddball songs ("Shoot that Poison Arrow" for one), but not this one. 

I also listened to A LOT of radio from a young age. Some of the songs that populated my sonic landscape from as far back as 1982 were "Rock the Casbah" (an instant lifelong favorite), as well as everything Huey Lewis and the News, Prince and Duran Duran. Whatever station I heard all that on had to be playing "Voices Carry." I just missed it.

Or maybe I didn't miss it. My reaction to hearing this song the first time was immediate infatuation, as if, even though I had no memory of it on the surface, my subconscious had long ago embraced it. I was listening to a lot of modern pop in 2006 (Justin Timberlake's first record, Kyle Minogue, etc), making mix CDs I dubbed "Satan's Discoteque" and arranging playlists that included everything from George Benson to Throbbing Gristle. The point is, "Voices Carry" would have fit right into my scatterbrained sonic ethos at the time, especially because its production is a great example of that lush, 80s vibe that M83 would recontextualize a few years later and make me hungry for again.

Listening to the entire Voices Carry album while I write this, I'm blown away. The whole eleven-song cycle is fantastic, and really, for a band dubbed "New Wave" in their day, there are moments that dovetail with what was going on with 80s Rock at the time. The guitars on "Don't Watch Me Bleed," for instance, have a healthy but tasteful application of both Chorus and Reverb that make each note shimmer in the way bands like Kix and Warrant would live and breathe by a year or two later. This is a great revelation since I enjoy that production technique but not bands like Kix or Warrant. 

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Watch:

Interesting little teaser that popped up on Bloody Disgusting recently. Saw this earlier and it made me fire up the song, hence today's post. 

There's not really enough here to make a very good assessment, but Voices Carry is the debut feature from Writers/Directors Abby Brenker & Ellyn Vander Wyden, and I'm always interested in supporting new voices. 

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Read:

My good friend and Horror Vision cohost Butcher pointed me to the upcoming Giallo-inspired comic mini-series You'll Do Bad Things. This was 100% off my radar, but damn if I didn't have my shop add this the moment I saw this cover:

Here's Image Comic's solicitation blurb, plucked from the irreplaceable League of Comic Geeks: 

"It's been ten years since the release of He Came in With a Smile, the true crime smash hit that chronicled the brutal murders committed by the Nursery Rhyme Killer. But in the decade since its release, its author Seth Holms hasn't produced another title. He wants to write a story with a happy ending, but every time his fingers clack across the keyboard, it always ends in his character's death. Worse yet? These tales of blood and barbarity that flow so freely from Seth's mind are starting to happen in real life."

Nothing we haven't seen before, but that can be said of a lot. It's not the idea but what you do with it, right? Written by Tyler Boss - whose 2021 series Dead Dog's Bite was a favorite of that year - with art by Adriano Turtulici, I am very much looking forward to this one. 

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Playlist:

Melvins - Houdini Live 2005 (thanks, Mr. Brown!)

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

The Bronx - The Bronx (IV)

James Brown Presents: Funky People

The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & the Lash

Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power (1973 David Bowie Mix)

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Live Deftones 2025

 

Courtesy of the Watch Your Head YouTube Channel, which I just subscribed to. Packed with Los Angeles fair, the channel describes itself as "South Central L.A. Locals Mainly concert videos, estate/garage sale treasure hunting, and raw and unfiltered daily street life videos."

Some really cool stuff, especially when I'm feeling homesick for my second home!

There's titterings of a new Deftones record on the way, and I'm hoping it soon. I haven't watched this full video yet, so not sure if there's any new material in here. We'll see. Just from the opening two songs, though, this must be career-spanning. 

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Watch:

I love Flying Lotus' music, but thus far, I haven't cared for his theatrical outings. Kuso just felt gross for the sake of being gross, and his entry in the VHS series, "Ozzy's Dungeon" from VHS '99 was... I guess I enjoyed it? I don't know. It's not that I think the cinematic work FlyLo has done is bad, it's that I expect so much more. And when I saw the trailer for his new film Ash in the theatre recently, I got the feeling I'll finally be getting it!

Really just speechless that I get to see this in the theatre. So cool! Opens March 21st - can't wait!!!

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Read:

I wanted to take a moment to say, A) I think my reading of yesterday's Tarot pull was right on, as when I arrived at the shop, there was exactly one copy left of both Batman: Dark Patterns and Mine is a Long Lonesome Grave, which I took to be a kind of 'reward' for my introspection. Not to rest on my laurels, I immediately put down to be subbed to both of those and The Hive - which interestingly enough had a stack of copies for issue #2 remaining, so either it's selling exceptionally well, and they ordered a lot, or the first issue did great and the second is dead in the water. Either way, I'll have my copies going forward.

Re-reading Lonesome Grave issue #1 and following it directly with #2, my initial excitement for this book is confirmed. This is a fantastic Revenge Story with what appear to be Black Magick or Voodoo flourishes. Southern Gothic A.F. Reminds me more than a little of Southern Bastards, a book I loved so much and which just disappeared. I haven't been this excited about a book in a while now. Looks like it's only four issues, but who knows. Maybe this will be like Into the Unbeing and have several iterations.

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Playlist:

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

The Bronx - The Bronx (II)

The Bronx - The Bronx (III)

The Bronx - The Bronx (IV)

D'Nell - 1st Magic

Razor - Armed and Dangerous

Foster the People - Torches

IDLES - Joy As An Act of Rebellion

Steely Dan - Aja

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Queen of Cups

• Page of Wands

• Two of Wands

Probing emotional depths can take an unprecedented amount of Will. To actually go deep and get to the issues that might be causing balance to waiver. 

A reminder of something I learned last week in an unlikely place: Interrogate Reality to the fullest extent of your being, and sometimes, that Reality is not the one around you, but inside you.

Live Drug Church for NCBD!

Live Drug Church from Glasgow, courtesy of David Tan Films. Do yourself a favor and check out their YouTube channel. I just found these folks, and they are packed with awesome multi-camera live show recordings!

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NCBD:

Pretty decent pull this week:

I love Dan Watters' Batman: Dark Patterns series. The first storyline wrapped up last issue, so this is the start of the second, which will run to issue six and round out the series. 

One of those my DwC cohost Mike Shin holds for me at the shop in Chicago, so I'll have a bunch of Z News waiting for me when next I travel North. So much fun.

Have we ever gotten Void Rivals and Transformers in the same week before? We must have, but seeing this today feels exhilarating. Maybe it's just because...

... Bruticus is on the cover! I've professed my love of all Combaticons here previously I'm sure; in fact, I just pre-ordered the new Vortex figure from HasbroPulse last week. Can't wait until I have them all and can combine them into Bruticus, maybe chase my cats around with him.

I loved the first issue of Justin Jordan's Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave and I'm coming back for more! Like I mentioned below, though, I neglected to add this one to my Pull (I think), so I may have to have the shop order me one. Either way, going forward, this is on the list!

Take what I said about ...Lonesome Grave above and apply it to the second issue of A.J. Lieberman and Mike Henderson's The Hive. A street-level crime story with some odd flourishes; I'm very intrigued to see where this one is going. Add it to the list!

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Watch:

One of the trailers I've seen in the theatre of late that really catches my eye is Ryan Coogler's Sinners. Not the best title, but damn if this doesn't look fantastic.

The mythology behind Robert Johnson and the "Crossroads" has long fascinated me, and it seems like Coogler is doubling down on that here. There's just something about this era of American history when it mixes with the Supernatural. It really works for me. Can't wait to see this on the big screen!

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Playlist:

Erik Truffaz - The Walk of the Giant Turtle

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

The Body - No One Deserves Happiness

New York Dolls - Dancing Backward in High Heels

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Antibalas - Where the Gods Are In Peace

Metallica - Garage Days Re-revisited

Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese

Buster Pointdexter - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• 0: The Fool

• XVIII: The Moon

I think this Pull actually explains something that just happened while writing this entry, or at least helps me understand why it happened.

I had this entire post penned and saved, I opened a new window to download the picture of today's Tarot Pull and when I came back, large chunks of what I'd written were gone. Only, this wasn't a case of  "I forgot to save." I titled this entry last, but that is still here. Missing are my comments under the trailer for Sinners, the entire NCBD section, and all the tags I'd added. 

I'm sure this is just a weird glitch, but these are things we should pay attention to from time to time. In this case, I think I'm taking away that I've been continuing on my comic book life as before, and that's a mistake. With Diamond going or gone, the landscape is changing. I typically forget to put myself down for books to be added to my Pull, and thus, I miss stuff. Specifically, 

 

I'm sure I've spoken about Portishead's third album, Third, here at some point, and I know I've posted my favorite song from my favorite album of theirs. Third has a quality not many albums have. It sounds to my ears like a mapping of my own personal mental interiority. I'm not sure I can adequately explain that without filling up a few pages; suffice it to say, this album lived in my blood from the moment I first heard it upon release in April of 2008. 

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Watch:

I drove up to the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville last night to see David Lynch's Eraserhead on the big screen for the first time. Needless to say, it did not disappoint.

Poster by the inimitable Marko Manev.

The sound design in this film is amazing, and to finally behold it on the big screen... man! I've seen many of Lynch's films at the theatre - everything from Lost Highway after (except The Straight Story) as they came out, as well as Blue Velvet and the original Twin Peaks Pilot, but never Eraserhead. This was everything I thought it would be. Also, the audience had a special treat, as The Belcourt is pairing many of their David Lynch Retrospective across the month of March with some of his short films, so I also had the distinct pleasure of seeing The Grandmother.

I'd seen this before, but not in years and not on a big screen. The Grandmother may be even more unnerving than Eraserhead; I'm not the first one to say it, but many of these early-period Lynch films have an unmistakable "Industrial Nightmare" feeling to them. I had indulged in a deep drag from my vape pen before the screening, only to realize by the time The Grandmother began that it hit me SUPER hard. So I went into both films completely ripped and had a full-on hallucinatory experience, which was a bit difficult to manage at the time, but eventually worked out to be an extremely memorable experience.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Satanized (single)

TVOTR - Young Liars E.P.

TVOTR - Final Fantasy (single; 2004 Recording)

TVOTR - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

The Bronx - IV

Ghost - Infestissumam

D'Nell - 1st Magic

Roy Ayers - Ubiquity

Isaac Hayes - Three Tough Guys OST

Isaac Hayes - Truck Turner OST

Led Zeppelin - Presence

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Drug Church - Prude

Fugazi - 13 Songs

PJ Harevey - Rid of Me

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

Portishead - Third

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New Music from The Jesus Lizard!

From the notes on this video: 

"This new song, along with "Cost of Living" and "Westside", will make up the Record Store Day 2025 Exclusive FLUX EP, out April 12th in independent record stores. This will be the only physical release of these three songs, on Black Vinyl with an etched b-side."

It's been so good to have these guys back again, for however long this lasts.

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Watch:

An Irish Horror film that takes place during the Great Famine of the 1800s and is entirely in the Irish language? Directed by Irish Filmmaker John Farrelly, this one looks incredible!

SO hoping this rides the Folk Horror wave into theatres. Looks stunning; creepy, dark and remote. Read more HERE on Bloody Disgusting. There doesn't appear to be a release date yet for An Taibhse - which translates to The Ghost - but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Infestissumam

D'Nell - First Magic

Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

Miranda Sex Garden - Velventine (Single)

Caffeine Mit Cocaine - Supra Summus (Feat. Diamanda Galás)

Vitalic - V Live

Laura Cannell - A Compendium of Beasts Volume 1

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