Feel the Knife

I've never heard Feel the Knife until just now, but after trying to make it through The Last Drive-In's six-film Nightmareathon last night (and failing miserably), this just felt right, and I'm really digging it. But then, when I find the following description on a band's Bandcamp as a sort of mission statement, I know I'm in familiar territory. Sounds like a warm blanket to me...

"Thrash Metal band created in 2018 with lyrics about 80's horror, 

science fiction, vengeance and dark rituals."

You can head over and listen to and support these guys on their Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

I'm not much on Anime (LOVE Cowboy Bebop, but that is the work that transcends the genre), and I'm also not much on anything named Terminator after the first movie (the second movie still needs to be reassessed, as I haven't seen it since it was in the theatre), but THIS article on Bloody Disgusting made me think I might give this a chance:

It's long occurred to me that the feel of James Cameron's original film separates itself from all that comes after by essentially being a big-budget exploitation film of the Slasher variety, so the idea that someone might take it back to those roots makes me think this show and I will get along. Also, part of the issue with any of the Terminator sequels is the star power that always seems to come first. None of that shit here, boy. One way that, even as someone who does not count themselves an Anime fan can admit the genre/style's superiority in a case such as this. 

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Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity

Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

Low Flying Hawks - Out For Blood (pre-release single)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Grey Rubble - Green Shoots (pre-release single)

The Damned - Phantasmagoria

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium

Death - Human

The Cops - Free Electricity

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Card:

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

• Six of Cups

• VIII: Strength

• Five of Pentacles

Emotional balance creates a strength that may lead to biting off more than can be chewed. The first two cards suggest positive reinforcement of current ideologies, but the last card reminds me to be weary of overexertion. Also, this little nugget from the Grimoire seems worth remembering:

"Needed: Break the Cycle. Pattern Interrupt a definite counter to this card's presence. Physically write down the object/cause of anxiety." 

No anxiety yet. Well, that's not exactly true...

Jet of the Moon Spider

 

I heard this while drinking with friends this past Saturday night in Nashville. It was a guys' trip for my good friend Grez's 50th birthday, and we spent Friday night/all day Saturday hanging out on Music Row and in East Nashville (fuck the strip). Our last stop Saturday night was Duke's, which Grez and I felt was a proper substitution for Chicago's Estelle's, the late-night Rock n' Roll bar we grew up hanging out at until the wee hours. Duke's was awesome, and the DJ there fired one great tune after another, quite a few of which I had never heard before. When Jet came on, it was loud AF and sounded oh so sweet. I'm not much of a Beatles fan - they are obviously important and have their place in history, as well as their moments I enjoy - but they're the most overrated band ever, in my opinion. I've made the statement "I prefer Wings" for years as a kind of inciting statement when questioned about my stance on John, Paul, Ringo and George, and hearing this Saturday, I can confirm it is, in fact, the truth.

 

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Watch:

Shudder released a teaser for V/H/S/Beyond, which drops on October 11th, and while this series doesn't have the best track record with me, based on the Directors lined up, I'm cautiously optimistic:

This one features Kate Siegel's directorial debut on a short written by her frequent collaborator Mike Flanagan, so that should be cool. And Justin Long is directing one? Interesting. 

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Read:

It completely slipped my mind that Nathan Ballingrud's Crypt of the Moon Spider came out this past week:

This is part one of Ballingrud's Lunar Gothic Trilogy, and seeing the words "Lunar" and "Gothic" together to describe a novel makes me more excited than I can possibly relate.

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Playlist:

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

The Damned - Evil Spirits

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs - Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits

Garland Jeffreys - Ghost Writer

Bohren and der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Calexico - Black Light

The Veils - Total Depravity

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

X - Under the Big Black Sun

X - Los Angeles

Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

James - Wah Wah

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Tuff Enuff (single)

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Card:

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

• Eight of Pentacles

• XVIII: The Moon

• Five of Cups

Concentration on what previously seemed mastered reveals unknown damage. This is 100% an editing reminder, as I'm at the point where Black Gloves & Broken Hearts is finished; it just has to be edited again. 

Jay Reatard - The Night of Broken Glass

 

Been thinking about this man of late. Damn, 14 years this past January.

 

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NCBD:

Pretty cool Pull this week:

I feel like it's been forever since the previous issue of SIKTC! Can't wait to dig back in. 

After re-reading The Nice House By the Lake and going directly into The Nice House By The Sea issue #1, I am psyched for this book! The first series proved to be even more psychologically profound than I'd remembered, and things are certainly ramping up to a new level in this second phase. Can't wait to see where this goes. 

I have many of the original Marvel Transformers issues, starting at, I think, issue # 4. I do not have nor have I ever read number 1, so this facsimile edition is kind of a nostalgic must. 

Quintessons! Quintessons! Quintessons!!!

I have been waiting for this one for a while now. A Frankenstein series that tells the story of each major body part and where it came from is just too good to pass up, even if this one didn't have the added luster of Michael Walsh being the creator. 

Whenever I see Saga show up on my pull, it always feels like an afterthought these days. Then I read the issue and I remember why the book is so great. Not gonna lie - I really think that four-year hiatus hurt this book's momentum. I've loved it from the beginning, and I'm certainly not going anywhere, but it just doesn't feel the same. Maybe a re-read would help? Yeah, well, take a number...

I've been seeing a lot of Etrigan of late, what with re-reading Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, continuing on from that into Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and contemplating a Hit Man re-read somewhere in the not-so-distant future. And then, here he is again. 

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Watch:

See and read nothing:

Solid thriller, and knowing absolutely nothing made this a fantastic viewing experience. Props to Zoe Kravitz.

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Playlist:

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

The Veils - Total Depravity

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Ian Lynch - All You Need is Death OST

Herweer - Paracelsus Fiebertraum 

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Joe Jackson - Night and Day

David Bowie - Heroes

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.

• Ace of Wands

• I: The Magician

• Knight of Wands

A breakthrough of Will leads to a successful business transaction and a renewed energy of creative force.

Pretty sure I know exactly what this is referring to.

The Damned - Beauty of the Beast (Live in London)

From The Damned's double live disc Night of A Thousand Vampires, which Mr. Brown gifted me a few months back, and has in the last week or two, become an indispensable part of my morning ritual and one of my favorite live albums of all time.

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Watch:

Last night, I took K to see the new Crow movie. You can read my thoughts over on Letterbxd, but in a nutshell, skip it unless you like having dirt rubbed directly into your eyes.

This is the only Crow I will likely ever recognize. 

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Read:

I cannot remember the last time I was so excited to read a book:

Written by Giorgio De Maria in 1975 but not translated into English until this year, Warren Ellis posted about The Twenty Days of Turin on his LTD earlier in the week, and the second I read the synopsis, my mind locked with anticipation for reading this. As Ellis writes by way of summary:

"A decade previously, Turin suffered twenty days of mass insomnia marked by nightly massacres committed by persons unseen or indescribable. The many hundreds of witnesses cannot explain what happened."

Literally, all I needed to become obsessed. I've been hemming and hawing with what my next book to read will be, just found it. 

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Playlist:

The Damned - Night of A Thousand Vampires

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Dave Edmunds - Chronicles 1968-1984

Sweet Lizzy Project - High (single)

Arab Strap - I'm Totally Fine With It Don't Give a F**k Anymore

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

The Veils - Total Depravity

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Amigo the Devil - I'm Going to Heaven

A little Amigo the Devil to start the week.

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Watch:

Go. In. Blind.

Fantastic film with extremely strong performances by both Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. JT Mollner created what will possibly rank as the best thriller of the year with this one.

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Playlist:

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Uniform - American Standard

Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07

T. Rex - Eponymous

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night

Pepper Adams - Encounter!

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Deftones - White Pony

Wings - Band on the Run

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Card:

Using my mini Thoth deck for today's Pull. 

• Prince of Disks

• II: The Empress

• Two of Swords: Peace

Thoughtful invention manifests during downtime. Pay close attention to fleeting ideas, as they could become the backbone of strong new ideas/projects. Really good advice for any creative person and something I used to be a lot better at. I think it's time to drill back down on keeping daily notes. K gifted me a couple of moleskins for Christmas last year, one for the book and one for daily notes. I've been using that all year but have kind of slacked off in the last month or so. Great ideas sometimes come from random jottings.

New Zeal & Ardor album GREIF out today!!!

THIS RECORD IS BLOWING MY F**KING MIND!!!!!!

From the new Zeal & Ardor album GREIF, out today. Order direct from the band HERE.
 

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Watch:

Ed Brubaker is one of the Executive Producers of Amazon's new Caped Crusader cartoon. I was skeptical about this; Batman is OVERDONE, to say the least, and 

I've watched two of these so far, and I really like it. I'm not going to go on my "Fuck commercials on a service I already pay for" rant anymore - the next stage is acceptance, so I'll just pay $2.99 and go commercial-free. The ads are seriously creating way more mental destabilization than you might anticipate. I've boiled that down to them being continuous reminders of the completely corporate world we live in now, but that's a discussion for another time. In the interim, I'm digging this Caped Crusader show a lot, primarily because it's set in the 1940s. That was a stroke of brilliance. 

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Play:

Whoah. Might be time for me to pick up an Xbox or PS:

 

I'm not sure if that would be a total waste of time, as the amount of time I allocate to gaming now is minuscule, and I don't really want to raise it by much. But this... breathtaking.

 

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Playlist:

Uniform - American Standard (pre-release singles)

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Moon Wizard - Sirens

Thee Oh Sees - SORCS 80

Amigo the Devil - Born Against

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Godflesh - Hymns

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

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The Cops - It's Epidemic

From The Cops' 2007 album Free Electricity. This was a mainstay in my car stereo for much of the late '00s, and then, somehow, it slipped off my radar. Rifling through a CD binder last week, I came across it and the instant I hit play, I fell in love again. This is one of those every-fucking-song albums, meaning every song is fantastic. Check out The Cops Bandcamp HERE. 

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Watch:

All I had to do was watch the first minute of this to know just how goddamn in I am. 

I'm overjoyed that Steven Kostanski is bringing back something of the Ghoulies formula and marrying it to a slightly 976-EVIL idea. It says, "In Theatres October 4th," and I can only hope this will land here in Clarksville.

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NCBD:

Short list this week. 

I LOVE this cover! Also, I have to say, I'm pretty freakin' invested in this book. Really digging seeing Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows play around with Marvel history with two of its most badass characters.

My monthly grilled cheese with tomato soup on the side. I'm not even entirely sure I remember what happened last issue, but it doesn't matter. Restarting GIJOE: ARAH was just a curiosity at first, but I'm enjoying this, so I'll be sticking around for a while.

Chameleon vs. Detro. 'Nuff said. Granted, Chameleon is a character I only know through the IDW Cobra series, and this is obviously a decidedly different version, but still. 

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Playlist:

Swans - The Glowing Man

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Blue Karma - The Communication

Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want

Idles - Joy as an Act of Rebellion

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Card:

Sticking with the Thoth for a bit. Feels right:

• 5 of Cups: Disappointment

• V: The Hierophant

• 3 of Cups: Abundance

Operating systems, ideas, all networks of the mind and routine have to be balanced right to run smoothly. Adding one too many facets can tip the entire thing out of proportion. I think I'm there with something, I'm just not quite sure what.