Faith No More on the Tonight Show

Okay, I was trying very hard not to listen to any songs off of next Tuesdays' FNM record Sol Invictus but I'll admit I've slipped. Now, as of a few days ago the album is streaming in its entirety on NPR - I've managed to resist that because I've really been looking forward to making this a "Day it's released" record store trip to Fingerprints in Long Beach. Day of acquisitions aren't the easiest events to plan and pull off these days, what with the internet being our dread overlord and master, however I've always been one to cherish the experience of first hearing a new album by a band I love as a whole entity and not fragmented songs, so I sometimes have to fight pretty hard against the net and myself in this age of media frenzy. Spoilers, early releases and bootlegs wait around every corner of our increasingly virtual world. And because of this that fight for a perfect first listen has increasingly required me to do things that are sometimes baffling to others, i.e. driving around with QOTSA's ... Like Clockwork for almost a day without ever listening to it in the spring of 2013, or running from a room at work when the lead single off of NIN's Hesitation Marks dropped that same year. That said, when the first song off Faith's first album in 18 years dropped last November I couldn't help myself - I jumped on it right away. I mean, 18 years.

18 YEARS. Shessh.

Since Motherfucker though, I've tried to avoid all the subsequent tracks as they've surfaced, officially (Superhero) or unofficially (any of the live performances captured by concertgoers that have been appearing in varying degrees of quality for about the last year). Then a few weeks ago my co-host on Drinking with Comics Mike Wellman and I saw Faith at LA's Wiltern Theatre and afterward, pumped from the show and hammered from an endless quaff of ale, Mike played me a leak of the entire album. I protested and he ignored - as I said we'd been drinking so I was crashing at his pad and thus, I really didn't have a choice. I mean, I guess I could have left the room but we still had a few bottles of Sierra Nevada we'd picked up as a night cap and the fridge was in listening distance of his stereo so you know, what could I do?

In the end I remember next to nothing of this first, premature experience with Sol Invictus except that I liked what I heard and likened it to the next logical step after 1997's Album of the Year; like Bauhaus in 2006 or The Pixies in 2014 FNM seems to have perfectly picked back up where they left off. And although I've had moments of weakness, due to a pretty memorable night - or not memorable I guess - I've kind of been granted a second chance for that uninterrupted, environment-controlled first listen I'll get to have next Tuesday when the first album in 18 years from one of my all-time favorite bands - a band I really didn't think we'd ever get another album from - drops.

Life is good. And to prove it, here's Faith on the Tonight Show a couple days ago. The Tonight Show? Did they ever score that gig back in the day?

Age of Ultron and Joss Whedon's Influences

... are the topics of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column over yonder on Joup!

Secret Chiefs 3 - Agenda 21

From their imaginary Giallo film soundtrack. Love this record.

I was very hot on SC3 back when I first heard them, circa 1998 when they and then fellow Web Of Mimicry band Estradasphere turned Chicago's Double Door into a fire-swinging, book-reading, chair-surfing sideshow of insanity. Since then I've only followed either band periodically, primarily in the case of SC3 because before this record - which is a masterpiece of a different sort - the more SC3 records I bought the more I missed the Patton part of an equation in what seemed like the natural continuation of Mr. Bungle. I don't think that's entirely fair, but it was my interpretation of events at the time.

Daredevil Nightcourt Intro

Being that I am both a huge fan of the new Marvel/Netflix series Daredevil AND the classic 80s sitcom Night Court (it holds up unlike any other sitcom from the era, except maybe Cheers) this made my day.

So Tonight that I Might See

Tommy from Heaven is an Incubator does a marvelous column over on Joup called Endless Loop. It's great - the idea being one that I can most certainly relate to: songs that you can listen to over and over and over again without getting tired of. This week's entry is Fade Into You by Mazzy Star. I love this song and the entire album it's on. Back in the day... well, I won't even bothering trying to describe what it means to me because if you follow this link right here and read Tommy's words I think you'll find that once again he nails it. I'm off work sick today and the first thing I saw when I woke up was this post. It inspired me to put on the song and then the album. I am now in the middle of my fourth go-through with the entire thing. It's perfect for how I feel today, so I have to thank Tommy for blindly hitting the right chord for me. Like I said, I love the entire record, however the title track is my own perfect Endless Loop from this one. There's something about its quasi-Doors desert psychedelia of it that just grabs me and never lets go, like it's always been playing in the static just below my conscious mind since the first time I ever heard it, waaaay back in that magical land called the 90s.

The Lovecraft Alphabet

There's a plethora of Lovecraft-inspired Facebook pages I follow and somewhere on one of them last night in the throes of fever I found this. Woke up and saw it in a saved blogger draft, laughed my snot-ridden arse off.

HELP identify this song - It's not Pallbearer

This is driving me crazy. So I have been meaning to check out the band Pallbearer for some time but they consistently fall off my radar. Earlier today a good friend told me I needed to check them out, that he had fallen in love with them when he saw them live recently. I go to youtube, find this link and fall in love with it immediately, then realize that A) there's only about 2:18 of the hour long track that has sound on it and B) that it's not Pallbearer. I've tried figuring this out with Sound Hound and Shazam - no luck. The style sounds so familiar but I can't place the band or song definitely enough to dig that last stretch to an answer so any one out there that can give me any info on this it would be very greatly appreciated!