A Drink Before the War

From 1987's The Lion and the Cobra. Outstanding song from an outstanding album. Makes 1987 feel so close I can almost touch it.

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Watch:

It's been a while since I'd enjoyed John Carpenter's In the Mouth Of Madness. I'm guesting on John Trafton and Mile Fortune's This Movie Saved My Life podcast next week for the second part of their 1994 retrospective (part 1 is HERE), and Madness was one of the four films we're covering. 

Maybe it's because I just rewatched Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, too, but I'd never realized the influence that both the NOES and Hellraiser series had on this flick until now. I'm not sure if that influence comes more from writer Michael De Luca (who also wrote Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare) or JC himself, but it's definitely there. Also, and I know everyone who loves this movie knows this, but the brilliance of combining Stephen King's popularity with H.P. Lovecraft's ethos in Sutter Cane is one of the great triumphs of homage to either author, in a world where 75% of Horror is homage to one or the other (or both). I'd add that making Jürgen Porchnow look like Neil Gaiman - who would have been rounding the corner on finishing the original Sandman series for DC's Vertigo at the time, adds just the right amount of prescience about Gaiman's inevitable place in the pantheon King and Lovecraft reside over.

 

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

The Reverend Horton Heat - Whole New Life

The Raveonettes - Sing

Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

Joy Division - Substance 1977-1980

Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast

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Card:

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

• Six of Cups - Emotional fulfillment.

• IX: The Hermit - I need a period to regroup. Badly.

• Three of Pentacles - Growth in Earthly terms. Not sure if this is responsibility maturation or windfall. Windfall would be nice.

Watain - Reaping Death Live in Stolkholm, 2022

It only recently came to my attention over the weekend that Watain released a killer Live album last year, Die in Fire: Live in Hell Stockholm 2022. Here's Reaping Death, one of the stand-out tracks on a really great live album. Reminds me a bit of Slayer's Decade of Aggression.

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Watch:

Recently, I subscribed to a streaming channel on Prime called ScreenPix. This is a $2.99, bottom-of-the-barrel kind of streamer, however, there were a handful of flix that drew me in, and at $2.99, well, no real damage. Here's what I've watched on there so far:

 

This was the flick that brought me in. Missi and I recently interviewed Horror Author Extraordinaire Ivy Tholen on The Horror Vision, and as part of that episode, we asked her to pick one movie to talk about. Ivy picked Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers.

Next, I can remember I, Madman on the video shelf going way back (I often confuse it with Dr. Giggles - another flick I still need to see - for some reason. What I didn't know about I, Madman is it was directed by Tibor Takács, Director of The Gate. 

 

Finally, last night, I fired up Klaus Kinski as a peepin' Tom Nazi holdover in David Schmoeller's 1986 what-the-fuck-a-thon, Crawlspace.

Not nearly as 'great' as I wanted it to be, Crawlspace is still very much worth a watch just for Kinski.

 

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Read:

I am absolutely blazing through Stephen Graham Jones' The Angel of Indian Lake. ~250 pages in, this book is a clusterfuck Horror movie in prose; there's SO much going on, an enormous body count, and we still don't really know who or what is behind it all.

I've seen some blurbs with people calling this ' a consuming mess,' but I don't think it's that at all. There's a difference between someone who can juggle a lot of different objects at once and make it look easy and someone who can just barely keep them all in the air. This feels effortless in its complexity. I'm taking notes, believe you me.

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Playlist:

Shellac - To All Trains

The Raveonettes - Sing

The Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Rodney Crowell - Tarpaper Sky

Frank Sinatra - Songs for Young Lovers

Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age

Blut Aus Nord - The Mythical Beast of Rebellion

The Used - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

Watain - Die in Fire: Live in Hell (Stockholm 2022)

Burzum - Aske

Burzum - Filosofem

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.

• Eight of Swords 

• Ten of Wands

• XI - Justice

Transformation, Endings and Just deserts. I'm thinking this is a nod toward Black Gloves & Broken Hearts, which I've just come back around on to finish. 

New Music from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds!

A second single from the forthcoming album Wild God, out August 30th. Pre-order HERE. 

This track is fantastic, but there's still something about every Bad Seeds record since Push the Sky Away that bothers me. I love the aforementioned Sky Away, which definitely ushered in an entirely new era for the band, but I kind of feel like they've been stuck in that mode ever since, with diminishing returns. Diminishing returns not because the music isn't great but because I guess I'm used to the boys changing their sound up every few records. I feel like, if one new record could just be something new, then these last few would really fall into place for me. Either way, one of the greatest artists and bands of all time, in my opinion. 

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Watch:

K and I did a double feature of Until the Light Takes Us and Lords of Chaos over the last two nights; I've seen both films several times, but they never fail to pack a punch.

It was especially interesting watching Jonas Åkerlund's Lords of Chaos again now, as we very recently watched his Netflix series Clark with Bill Skarsgård; some definite similarities.

Not sure if that really comes through in the trailer; however, Åkerlund always gets a recommendation from me, so if you have Netflix, Clark is definitely worth checking out. Also based on a real-life, larger-than-life personality and the "truth and lies" approach.

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Read:

With all the running around I've been doing, it took me a way longer time to finish re-reading Stephen Graham Jones' Don't Fear the Reaper, but I did yesterday morning. Glorious. Next up - and I am excited - book three of the Indian Lake Trilogy:

Fifty pages in and this one has already made me tear up more than once. Jade Daniels is such an amazing, engrossing character, made so real by the mania for the genre a lot of us share. Can't recommend these books enough. 

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Playlist:

The Raveonettes - Sing

Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST

Fantômas - Delirium Cordia

The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love

Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Wild God (pre-release singles)

Rodney Crowell - Triage

Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky

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Card:

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

• Five of Pentacles (Disks)

• Eight of Swords

• Four of Wands

Conflict, followed by transformation (possibly through just desserts), and finally stability. Shit man, that's life in a nutshell. 

How do I apply this to anything in my life right now? Like, today? Weeeelllll... I have a meeting later today with a transportation vendor that has been eating a lot of mental and emotional real estate. Feels like it might be conflict-heavy. I miss the old days, when you could just punch someone in the face. Maybe out of this, we'll achieve the stability we need to make my job a metric shit-ton easier.

Waiting for the End of Time

Nothing will ever replace Barry Adamson's 1998's As Above, So Below as my favorite Barry Adamson album, but this? This might be my favorite song he's ever recorded. 

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NCBD:

Wednesday is the best day of the five-day week because it's New Comic Book Day. Although my pull lists are growing shorter, I still love this day to the core of my being. Here's what I'm picking up today:

The final issue of the third mini-series entry in David Dastmalchian's Count Crowley series. I still haven't read any of these, but I'm familiar enough with the concept to think I'll probably tear into this one from the first issue now that it's finished. Gotta pick up those other two trades...

One more after this, and both are Kieron Gillen, so this should be a proper slog. Let's see what ridiculous bullsh*t they come up with to end the Nathanial Essex Dominion storyline.

It occurs to me - if Marvel is taking the X-Books back to the pre-Krakoa paradigm of individual superhero teams, maybe they can course-correct one change that Hickman ushered in and Gillen really played up that I hate: Mr. Sinister as a dandy fop. I much prefer the version in the 80s, an evil, brooding masochist, to the one of the Krakoa era. In fact, I'd have to say changing Sinister's disposition is the only thing about Hickman's run I don't like, and it's really reached a crescendo of annoyance with all the Sinister Clones running around, complete with different card suites on their foreheads. I mean, I guess it really doesn't matter if they change him back, as I'll be gone. 

I really can't say enough good things about The Six Fingers and its sister book, The One Hand. I think both series conclude next month, so I'd definitely recommend picking up the trades if you're into the idea of a good, quasi-cyber punk, Blade Runner-ish Neo-Noir story. 

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Watch:

Now, please.

Is it just me, or has the release date for the final season of Netflix's Stranger Things been pushed back like, four or five times now? I need a fixed point on the calendar so I know when to start rewatching the series from the beginning. 

Few mainstream things in 2024 are worthy of the hype. Stranger Things is, in my opinion. 

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Playlist:

LCD Soundsystem - New Body Rhumba (single)

LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize (single)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (single)

Mr. Bungle - Violenza Domestica ("single")

LCD Soundsystem - Eponymous

Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Naked Raygun - Over the Overlords

Mad Love - White With Foam

Mr. Bungle - Eponymous

Mr. Bungle - California

The Raveonettes - Sing

Phil Collins - Face Value

Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound

High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

The Flesh Easters - I Used to Be Pretty

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Card:

Back to my trusty, original Thoth deck for today's Pull. 

• Ace of Disks

• 10 of Swords: Ruin

• 9 of Disks: Gain

A possible monetary breakthrough, but apparently one of a tempestuous nature, as the line between loss and gain appears to be paper thin. Curious if this has to do with some stock positions I've been watching act erratically over the last three weeks.

New Music from Oranssi Pazuzu

From a still unannounced forthcoming album due October 11, 2024, on Nuclear Blast Records, I don't think I can dig a band more. After discovering these guys within the last year, I'm falling head over heels for Oranssi Pazuzu and this new single only further cements that.

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Bungle:

This... is an unexpected miracle:

Quote Unquote 1991-1999 is a 6 LP vinyl boxset that includes remastered editions of Mr. Bungle's original three Warner Bros. albums: 1991's Eponymous, 1995's Disco Volante, and 1999's California. All three of those records rank among my favorite, most influential pieces of music. Disco Volante—despite the fact that I haven't listened to it in some time—remains one of my favorite pieces of music ever recorded (right behind Fantômas's Delirium Cordia). Here's the solicitation for the boxset:

"6LP boxset of Mr. Bungle's three legendary albums on Warner Records: Mr. Bungle, Disco Volante & California. Each album comes as a 2LP Gatefold, all packaged together in a metallic foil box. Mastered by Scott Hull exclusively for vinyl from the original mixes (some for the first time ever). Features two alternate takes of inter-program material from the Bungle archives"

I'll say this was a little confusing to order because everything I found linked to this release navigates back to Rhino Records' page for their 1000-copy yellow vinyl variant that sold out instantly. I scooped up my standard vinyl copy from Acoustic Sounds, HERE.

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Read:

Traveling again, so I'm stalled out on Stephen Graham Jones' Don't Fear the Reaper because I didn't want to carry a Hardcover book with me this time, so I'm picking at Clark Ashton's Smith's story "The Black Abbot of Puthuum."

Smith's prose is hit-or-miss with me; his "The Door to Saturn" is one of my all-time favorite Fantasy stories. The Black Abbot is one I've attempted to read before and not made it through, so we'll see how it fairs this time.

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Playlist:

Black Sky Giant - The Red Chariot

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF (pre-release singles)

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets

This Movie Saved My Life Podcast - 1994: A Year in Cinema, Part 1

The Bronx - II

LCD Soundsystem - Eponymous

Wham! - Make It Big

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Night Moves

Boston - Eponymous

The Doobie Brothers - What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish

Scissor Sisters - Eponymous

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

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Card:

While traveling, I have my trusty mini-Thoth deck that Missi gifted me once upon a time. Love this deck. Here's today's Pull, followed by a caveat:

• Queen of Cups

• Ace of Swords

• Seven of Wands: Valor

Emotional or "Watery" Aspect of Emotion, Intellectual Breakthrough and Victory (Netzach). This seems to tell of an internal accomplishment; a breakthrough with one of the (many) things bothering me. This has been affecting my sleep for some time, which is one thing to deal with when you're home and work from home, quite another when you're on the road. 

Caveat: Before I retrieved my travel deck, I found an online "Daily Tarot Reading" site. Here's that spread:

• XV: The Devil

• I: The Magician

• XVI: The Tower

Talk about a different reading! This suggests my day will be filled with Tension, and that I'll be looking to tear down the old and start anew. I post this here just to record the data, as I really put no faith in an online reading service. 

New Music from Zeal & Ardor!

From the forthcoming album GREIF, out Agust 23rd. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Last night, I had the privilege of watching an advance copy of Director Chris Cronin's new film The Moor. Here's a trailer:

I cannot give a film a higher recommendation than I give for this one. The Moor is suspense with a pure Horror center. Ostensibly a slow-burn about child abduction and the aftermath, this one really dances a fine line with the inherently 'thin' moors that turn England's North into a place not easily tread by humans. I won't say whether it ever crosses that line, however, Cinematographer Sam Cronin really delivers the vast and sweeping eeriness of the Yorkshire Moors. Add to that the haunting score by Nir Perlman and this one has a strong otherworldly feel that will suck you right in and hold you until the end.

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Playlist:

Zombi - Direct Inject

Revolting Cocks - Beers Steers and Queers

The Besnard Lakes - ... Are the Roaring Night

Shellac - To All Trains

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Card:

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

• XIII: Death

• Nine of Swords

• Two of Pentacles

Change, climax and partnership. A direct reference to something that has been driving me near-to-mad the last few days. I'll leave it at that for now.

New Music from The Besnard Lakes

 

Is this new single the harbinger of a new Besnard Lakes record? I certainly hope so. LOVE this; it's the Lakes at their Dreamiest, and they can get pretty damn dreamy. Then it kicks in and you feel like you're soaring through the clouds. Guess they picked the perfect title.

You can buy the single over on the group's Bandcamp, HERE.

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NCBD:

First morning back after our mini vacation in Mississippi and I had a fantastic Comic Pull to look forward to. Let's get into what I brought home from Rick's Comic City yesterday! NOTE: I wrote all this before I picked up my comics yesterday, I just didn't have a chance to post this one until today.

I CANNOT wait to read Cobra Commander #5! Everything has been leading to this, and with the Destro and Scarlet mini-series starting in June, this should set us up for some interesting developments in Robert Kirkman's Energon Universe!

Still really digging this return to Vertigo with John Constantine: Dead in America. The book has been a road trip across the States for JC, and I'm not sure if that was done since Brian Azzarello's run back in the early 00s. There are so many ghosts for a wayward Con-Man/Magician to tap into in the depths of this country, and so far, we've seen some doozies in classic Vertigo commentary-but-not-commentary style.

The final issue of Fall of the House of X. That just leaves Rise #5 next week and X-Men 35 the week after. Then I. Am. Out. Whewwww. I will say that I've decided to sell off a lot of last year's six months' worth of X-Tiles, but I'm not going to part with Fall. I haven't loved this series, but it's worth keeping for no other reason than the cover of Issue 2. Plus, I'd say Gerry Duggan has done a great job dealing with the steaming plate of >>>> Gillen and the Editorial Department handed him. 

What can I say other than I miss this book so much when it's away, that I'm always super happy to see it when it comes back.

The cover says it all: Springer!

Ash continues his trek through the future to find his way back to the past. Not gonna lie - turning one of the three Necronomicons into a demon baby reeks of Grogu, and while I consider myself a fan of both the Mandolorian and Grogu, I've begun to roll my eyes at the proliferation of the 'child' character in genre as a result of Grogu's popularity. 

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Watch:

Upon returning home last night, I found a couple packages waiting for me. One was a recent Vinegar Syndrome order wherein I purchased BluRay copies of Ted Geoghegan's Brooklyn 45 and Lorcan Finnegan's 2016 feature film debut Without Name. I can't wait to tear into both of these, but it'd been a couple years since my first and only other viewing of Without Name, and I'd spent a large part of my reading time during the trip to MS reading about Folk Horror, so that proved to be my priority. 

The film is brilliant; a quiet contemplation of the haunted nature of the Irish Countryside, but what I really want to talk about here is the transfer, because this one is fantastic! I wish I could find a still or two from this one - a lot of times, BluRay.com will have side-by-side screenshot comparisons from different releases, but Vinegar Syndrome's release is still young, so that's not yet the case. Please believe me when I tell you that VS did an absolutely stellar job with this film. 

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Playlist:

Tangerine Dream - Strange Behavior OST

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation

Rodney Crowell - Tarpaper Sky

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous

Barry Adamson - Cut to Black

Cocksure - K.K.E.P.

Robot God - Portal Within

Melvins - Tarantula Heart

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

The Cure - Disintegration

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk)

Pastor T.L. Barret and the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

The Bangles - Different Light

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