2018: November 29th

A few weeks ago Chasms released the single "Divine Illusion." To read about the track on their bandcamp, the revelation that the track was a closing chapter to their shoegaze/industrial sound. What could possibly come next? Well, listen. I don't necessarily know what you call this, other than beautiful. Can't wait for the album. Pre-order HERE on Chasms' bandcamp.

Playlist from 11/27:
Ghost - Meliora
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien

Playlist from 11/28:
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Deerhunter - Microcastle
The Doors - Strange Days
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Thought Gang - Eponymous

I pull A LOT of sevens. I don't know if this was always the case, or if now that, for about the past year I have been doing mostly daily pulls, it's just more obvious. Probably the second. Netzach is one of the Sephiroth I feel a natural inclination to, that one step beyond the perfection of Tipareth, which represented a certain time and place in my life that is now past. This is the Post-Self Number for me, in a way, as I count that bygone time/place as the first real iteration of this version of this ego-scaffolding I call 'me'. Now, what's that mean for today? Well, despite it's negative facade, I don't think this is a negative card at all. I think today's pull is just reminding me I'm Post that previous self, and this in turn will prevent me from doing what has been increasingly tempting to me of late, namely making music. I haven't picked up a guitar in close to two years maybe. Well, there's been maybe two dalliances with the acoustic that sits on a stand in my living room, but that's it. Nothing serious and no intentions. A lot of the music I'm listening to now has been inspiring my musical drive, but it's on Shut Down. I've made the deal with myself that when I finish the book, I'll maybe spend a little time on music.

Maybe.

2018: November 27th

New Le Butcherettes! Very 90s sounding, not in a bad way. New album comes out February 1st.

New episode of The Horror Vision went up on Sunday. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, and Google Play, as well as at TheHorrorVision.com. This episode is our reaction/interpretation of Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria remake. Other topics include The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Shudder's Dead Wax (which I LOVE), and the Indiegogo for The Barn II, which is fully funded as of 11/21 and now Indemand, which apparently means you can still contribute and secure cool rewards. I still haven't seen the first Barn yet - it's been on the list for at least a year if not two now, so what the hell am I waiting for, right?

NCBD this week isn't as light as last week, but it's light. Check out this gorgeous cover for TMNT 88:

Die! Die! Die! has been hit or miss with me so far, but the opening discussion between two high level US government officials in issue #4 may have permanently endeared this book to me. It's kind of a more violent, more philosophical approach to GIJOE and I find myself wondering if that was the goal. The real shocker here is that Stray Bullets Sunshine and Roses is on issue #40. Where the hell does the time go? It wasn't that long ago that David Lapham's brilliant B&W crime comic had been on hiatus for 9 years and we were jumping at joy with the announcement of its return via Image. Now we're 40 issues in on the second or third volume of this new series. And you know, it's still awesome.


Playlist from 11/27:

Monolord - Rust
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
The Knife - Silent Shout
Mudhoney - Digital Garbage
Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Punks Unite
Ghost - Infestissumam
Godflesh - Post Self

Card of the day:

Gonna be an emotional day? Doesn't feel that way. There's a passivity here when it's water on water, however the passivity acts as a perfect transformer for other energies, maybe some that lack emotion.

2018: November 24th

New Tennis System! This isn't up on their bandcamp yet, so I'm thinking we have a new release on the way!


Spent Thanksgiving morning watching Sophie Huber's Harry Dean Stanton documentary, Partly Fiction. Really cool. There's a great segment with David Lynch, one with Kris Kristopherson, and even Debby Harry. And it's fantastic watching Stanton break into song, especially Everybody's Talkin', by Harry Nilsson




From 11/23
The Fixx - Shuttered Room
Harry Nilsson -
Harry Nilsson -
Opeth - Deliverence
Opeth - Blackwater Park

Card for the 11/23:

And for today:

No time to really dig into an interpretation for this now as I'm off for work. But at a glance, Dominion to Defeat doesn't necessarily constitute a bad thing, just a need to re-direct energies.

2018: November 22nd

One of the best songs of the 90s, hands down. I unexpectedly realized I still had one more 33 1/3 that Brown lent me to finish before my trek home to Chicago in two weeks, so last night I started Gina Arnold's entry into the 33 1/3 series, a kind of contextualization of Liz Phair's seminal indie rock album, Exile in Guyville. More the story of the fictitious Guyville (not so fictitious) and the gender politics of the early 90s indie rock scene than the story of the album, and that's good. So far this is a fascinating read. Also, digging back into the era that surrounds this record made me reconnect with Never Said and Guyville in general, a song I've loved and an album I dig for a long time now, but one that hasn't received any recent rotation space in my audio life.

Joe Bob Briggs returns to Shudder tonight with Dinners of Death! I have to work early tomorrow, so I don't know how much I'll see tonight, but hopefully this will remain on Shudder in perpetuity, much like The Last Drive In has since back in the spring.



Last night I watched three-quarters of the Shudder original Dead Wax. LOVE this. Written and directed by Graham Reznick, whose name anyone familiar with Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix will recognize as most often helming audio departments on films. Great debut that's essentially a movie chopped into 10-18 minute episodes, Dead Wax is about a legendary record that does strange things to reality when played and the people who have sought it through the years. Think John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, but the world of rare record collecting instead of film collecting and you'll be in the ballpark.




Playlist from 11/21:

David Bowie - Low
Frankie Valli - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (single)
Deaf Heaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Bell Witch - Longing
Testament - Demonic
Boy Harsher - Face the Fire (pre-release single)
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man
Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified

Card of the day:

This is a direct response something outside of writing, so I'll take the advisement in silence.

2018: November 21st

Just realized I never posted the latest Drinking with Comics video last week when it dropped. The goal from here out is to shoot these and get them up on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and the DwC website as audio-only podcasts, then get the video up the following week. The video always takes a lot longer, and the show has more patrons as a pure podcast anyway, so I figured this was the optimum way to do it.

Hoping to do a 28 Days/28 Weeks Later double feature this weekend. I actually work both Friday and Saturday, so that limits what I can watch, and I'm still working through Sabrina (on Episode 5), which I need to get through for a forthcoming episode of The Horror Vision. Also, regarding THV, we're scheduled to do our Suspiria 2018 episode this Saturday, so hopefully I'll have it up later that day or Sunday. A little late to the game, but it's been hard to align schedules; as it is only three of the four of us have seen the film, so we're already down a man for this particular one. But there's A LOT to talk about with this film, on its own and juxtaposed with the original.

Playlist from 11/20:

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Tom Waits - Swordfish Trombone
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Boy Harsher - Face the Fire (single pre-release)
Boy Harsher - Country Girl
The Fixx - Shuttered Room
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

No card again today.

2018: November 20th

From Iggy's debut record The Idiot. Reading that Hugo Wilkcen 33 1/3 on Low really opened my eyes to a lot about this album as well (Station to Station also). Wilcken really goes in depth on these two records because they give a lot of context to what Bowie was into doing with music at the time. I'd never realized that the musicians involved in both Low and Station to Station often recorded not knowing which album the tracks would wind up on. Considered in that context, it really changes the way I hear both.

Having finished Low, I started reading the copy of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book that my Horror Vision/DwC co-host Chris gifted me a couple of months ago. So far, pure Gaiman and arriving just at the right time, when night falls early.

Playlist from 11/19:

Opeth - Ghost Reveries
David Bowie - Low
Gavin Bryars Ensemble - Bryars: The Sinking of the Titanic
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
David Bowie - Station to Station
The Fixx - Shuttered Room
Opeth - Deliverence

No card today.

2018: November 19th

Ended up falling into a Bowie spiral Saturday when I finished Cold Cuts and immediately picked up the copy of Hugo Wilcken's book on Low, published as part of the wonderful 33 1/3 series, that Brown lent me some time ago. Can't put it down, and in turn it's given me a new perspective on Iggy Pop's The Idiot, one of the few Iggy solo albums I'm extremely familiar with. The book also sent me in all sorts of new musical directions, cueing up albums by Neu!, Can (whose discography I worked through a few years back but didn't completely integrate into my musical vocabulary), Elton John, Gavin Bryars, and Sad Barrett's solo stuff, which despite having been an enormous Pink Floyd fan in high school, I've never really gotten around to.

Also, for an idea of Bowie's state of mind while in the Station to Station/Low period, go HERE and read this short except from Angela Bowie's autobiographical book Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with Bowie. Suggestion: skip the religious espousal at the top and go straight to the quotation marks. This is fascinating stuff.

K and I began The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix yesterday. While I can't say the high school stuff is overly interesting to me, I love the set design and ALL of the Satanic imagery! The Dark Lord is just awesome and the fact that we're living in a world where this is a 14+ series makes me happier than I can explain. Just thinking of all the repressively religious types twisting with rage that a show where characters commonly exclaim, "Praise Satan" as a colloquialism of happiness or relief is currently a major part of pop culture puts a damn large smile on my face!

Playlist from Saturday, 11/17:

Ghost - Meliora
Merciful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resources Vol. 1
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Burial - Kindred EP
Thought Gang - Eponymous
David Bowie - Station to Station
David Bowie - Low

Playlist from Sunday, 11/18:

David Bowie - Low
Elton John - Honky Chateau
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Neu! - Neu! 2
Ghost - Meliora
Metallica - ... And Justice For All
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Claudio Simonetti & Goblin - Phenomena OST
Vangelis - Heaven & Hell
Friendly Fires - Paris (Airplane Remix)
Opeth - Deliverance

Card of the day:

I believe this draw to be completely non-writing related and primarily based around one aspect of my social life at the moment. I'm not going to discuss that here, however I can also say that despite the hanging on of this drab illness, I managed to push myself out and to my writing place yesterday in preparation for returning to work today, and I had a killer writing session for about two and a half hours where I cinched up the transition into the third act. I'm relying heavily on the Aeon Timeline program at the moment, and it would be A LOT more cumbersome to integrate something so heavily plotted as this without the help of this program. Here's a screen cap: