Missed it again! I wanted to post this yesterday and just be a day late, but I ended up not really having a chance to post at all. Better late than never.
Three years. Wow.
NCBD - another thing I'm late on. Here was the haul this week:
New book by Jeff Rougvie. Who's that you ask? Well, there's a ton of awesome backwater in this one that explains how Jeff worked for Rykodisc in the 90s and was instrumental in putting together their Bowie reissues and boxset Sound and Color. He even worked closely with Bowie himself on these releases, and lo and behold, this is Mr. Rougvie's first comic and it came out with Bowie on the cover on the anniversary of his death! Wow. Bowie doesn't feature into the story of Gunning for Hits, which looks as though it will revolve around Martin Mills, a hitman-turned-Record company A&R man in 1987. This one is chock full o' great inside the music industry that was stuff, and looks as though it's setting up a fun tale to boot!
Another outstanding number one, but with Brubaker and Phillips, is there ever any doubt? Nope.
Another newer book I'm reading. The concepts go deep and I can't wait to get into the heart of the world that author Dan Wicklineis building here. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Mr. Wickline for quite a while last month when he did a signing at The Comic Bug, and Freeze sounds like it is going to be fantastic!
Speaking of Ed Brubaker, in his most recent newsletter - which you can sign up for HERE - he describes Warren Ellis and Jason Howard's Cemetery Beach as a multiple-issue-long chase scene. He's not wrong, and it's awesome!
Playlist from 1/11:
Steely Dan - Alive in America
The Black Angels - Death Song
Grinderman - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Baroness - Purple
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
The Knife - Silent Shout
Moderat - II
Apparat - The Devil's Walk
Card of the day:
This is, I believe, a direct acknowledgment of a character in the book, so I'll take it as an, 'on the right path, mate!' kinda thing.
Punisher season 2 drops next Friday and, while I'm very excited for it, it all feels a bit pointless knowing that, like Daredevil season 3 - which I still need to watch - this show will probably be cancelled shortly after it premieres. The dissolution between Netflix and Disney is a bothersome thing because of all the Marvel adaptations, these represent the ones I am still the most engaged by, and the idea that the continuities begun on these Netflix shows may be discarded, or worse re-casting occur, well, that just stinks, and it undermines everything the company had been doing up until now to build a relationship between their 'tv' and cinematic worlds. Feels a bit DC-ish to me.
Playlist from 1/08:
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Beastmilk - Use Your Deluge EP
Beastmilk - Climax
Playlist from 1/09:
Steely Dan - Alive in America
Belong - October Language
Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
Card of the day:
Ah. Loud and Clear. I have the massive, set piece idea to end the book - the characters' actions have been in place for two years, I've just never found the right backdrop - but I haven't had the time to actually write it. I'm off work today but consumed with errands. Tomorrow I leave work at ten or eleven in the AM because I work Saturday, and my plan is to watch The Changling upon returning home. I'm juggling multiple viewing experiences for multiple reasons - because nothing can ever just be about watching and relaxing with me - but this card's a great reminder that after that flick, which I have to watch for an upcoming mini episode of The Horror Vision, I need to work. No lazy, sitting around shit.
The idea for that final set piece, incidentally, is a great example of how we find the right thing at the right time. As I write this, I'm now about 60% of the way through Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, and even though I didn't realize it at the idea's inception - two days ago at 4:30 AM while I was in the shower - it arose from the massive deluge that takes place during the book stewing around in my thoughts for a week, sinking into the creative broth I carry around in my head (many of us do), and flavoring it in just the right way at just the right time. As I was reading the book this morning, a parking receipt tumbled out for Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL, back in March of 2006. That then was the timeframe of my previous attempt at reading this novel. I believe I stopped about a third of the way in, partially because the decision to move to Los Angeles came up at the time and interfered with everything, and partially because I simply wasn't ready to read it at that time. Now I know why - the idea needed to be installed in my head NOW.
From her forthcoming album Remind Me Tomorrow, which Jagjaguwar drops on the 18th, same day as the new Thirsty Crows record. Pre-order HERE.
I've fallen back on Gang of Four's Return the Gift pretty hard. I know most folks do not agree with me on this, but I will take the 2012, re-recorded versions of all these classic Gang of Four songs over their originals any day. Part of this is probably because I discovered Gang of Four waaaaay after the fact - early 00s - and only ever knew the album That's Entertainment as one of their albums, i.e. a collection of songs fit together as an overall work, and never knew it that well to begin with. I don't want to belabor the point, but here's an A and B of my favorite song on an album that is pretty much full of "favorite songs."
1982:
And the 2012 version:
I didn't live and love with this original version - from the album Songs of the Free - so I don't have a horse in that race. I just think the up-tempo, almost Pop approach and the slamming recording of the '12 version is a much better representation of what the band seemed to be going for with the song.
The Arrow Video release of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator contains a feature-length, making-of documentary titled Re-Animator Resurrectus. I can't recommend this supplemental feature enough! I've always loved Re-Animator as one of the stalwart classics of the Horror genre, and more specifically the 80s era of the Horror genre, but this doc has really given me an even deeper appreciation for the film. Somehow I never realized that Re-Animator was Gordon's Hollywood film. The doc talks to everyone: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbot, David Gale... everyone! And of course there's plenty of screen time with Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and a lot of frank discussion about how to adequately adapt H.P. Lovecraft to film and make it work.
There's a bunch of other great interview extras on the disc (I have the one-disc version), and all of it really opened the film up for me. Can't wait to watch it again.
Playlist from 1/07:
Ben Frost - By the Throat
Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
Arctic Monkeys - No. 1 Party Anthem
Gang of Four - I Love a Man in Uniform (2012)
Foster the People - Life on the Nickel
Self - What a Fool Believes
Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus
U2 - War
Ben Frost - Aurora
Card of the day:
This, I believe, is a direct reference to the final pages of my book, which despite a somewhat frustrating session yesterday brought on by sheer exhaustion from a very physical day at work, is still coming along swimmingly.
K and I started rewatching Dark on Netflix this weekend. This show! It's so amazing I can hardly put it into words, however it's also the hardest chronology I've ever tried to keep track of. I don't consider this a flaw; other than a few wee casting issues I have - like how many old guys with white hair and beards do we need? - I think Dark is a stunningly complex piece of work, and I'm happy to watch and re-watch it, discuss and contemplate it. I think the show is worth it, and it feels good to watch it with K - who is really into it - and entertain each other with our theories.
Also, Ben Frost popped on my musical radar via Wire magazine back in 2009 with his album By The Throat, and although I hadn't kept up with him much after that, I was thrilled to see him doing the music for Dark. I was also thrilled to learn, just now, that the main title theme isn't Frost but Apparat, an artist I'm criminally unfamiliar with considering how much I love his collaboration with Modeselektor, Moderat.
As I suspected, my brain completely clicked with Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, and I read almost half the book yesterday while rounding out my last day home in bed, letting the fading tendrils of whatever bug I inherited late last week leave my body and prepare me for returning to a full day of work today.
Playlist from 1/06:
Belong - October Language (on repeat, for three hours)
Card of the day:
Actually two cards today, because while I was shuffling the deck the Eight of Cups popped out at me. So, an eight and a nine, so a sequence that moves from laziness to strength. Well, that actually just describes my return to work, where despite being a bit gun-shy about rough, physical exertion after 3 days in bed and some insane pain in my lower half, I actually just worked harder in the last hour and a half than I have in a while. So yes, moving from doing nothing, to being strong enough to just get what needs to be done, done.
Also, switched into HIGH gear on the writing yesterday and worked for almost three hours. Made MAJOR headway. The end is in sight; next round will be to run each chapter through Grammarly, then read it out loud to K.
First available track from The Thirsty Crows' new album Hangman's Noose. My buddy Chris Saunders from The Horror Vision and Drinking with Comics is the Upright Bass player, and set me up with an advance copy of the album. It's fantastic. Read my review HERE on Joup, and pre-order what sounds to me like the first great album of 2019 from Batcave Records HERE.
Playlist from 1/05:
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Tamaryn - The Waves
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
Steely Dan - Aja
Billy Joel - The Stranger
James Brown Presents - Funky People Part 2
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
Card of the day:
Honing emotion with earthly concerns. To me, the cards still seem to be talking about saving money. Of course, if you've been reading these pages long enough, you'll notice I use my interpretations to support whatever is the issue of the moment, i.e. the way every pull for most of last year pertained to finishing the book. The book's now almost done (will today be the day? There'll still be editing, but to type the words "The End"...), and money is on my mind now, because in order to actually save it I will have to be 'full hilt,' so to speak. Frivolous spending is an emotional thing for me; the things I buy are movies, comics, books, records. Not buying them is not easy, but I apply my Earthly ideals and remember that while short term spending feels great, long term will be a longer lasting kind of joy.
Belong's October Language is one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in some time. Close your eyes and drift into a nothing space of faintly glowing radiance and soft, fuzzy waves...
I've been sick for a few days now, spending a lot of time watching movies and reading Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, a book I started twelve years ago and never finished. I won't lie; I'm a huge Cave fan, but this is not easy reading. The book is written in a mostly first-person perspective, in the rather baroque hill-speak of protagonist Euchrid Eucrow, the son of an inbred father and a drunk-on-still-mash mother, so the language is biblical and flowery in a terse, over-reaching way. Which is exactly how it should be written, given the author's choice for narrators. I'm always up for a literary challenge, and I wonder if at some point my brain will just "click" to the style and have an easier time with it. That's what happened when I first began reading Irvine Welsh; the phonetic Scottish Brogue threw me at first, but after a while I acclimatized to it and began to read Welsh as easily as anything else. Incidentally, that also helped me when I met him and later, when I traveled to Scotland; I had no problem understanding most people I spoke with. So, I'm sticking with the Cave until it's finished.
This "read what's on the shelf" is a continuation of an initiative I began last year, to finally read a lot of the books I have on my shelf; working at Borders for five years in the 00s, I accumulated a lot I still haven't read. Now that I'm trying to start saving for a house, it makes sense to condition myself to actually read that stuff, to not just jump on Amazon at the mention of everything that sounds cool and order it. I'm not saying I have a moratorium on new books, because there's a ton I want to read, but a healthy, three-old-ones-to-every-new-one mix should help.
Speaking of Welsh, he's an author that, for years, I bought everything he published the day it came out. That changed when I began shifting my reading to a more genre-specific diet, worried that the more literary stuff my tastes were entrenched in was influencing the way I was writing. Not that that's bad; the first two novels I wrote, one of which I'm hoping to finish editing this year and publish, have a more literary bent than Shadow Play, which is straight genre. But to finish Shadow Play, I had to curate my reading more carefully. With Welsh, he influences me so much that I had to swear him off altogether, knowing one day I'd dive right back in. That was 2012, because the last book I read by him was Skagboys. Since then, I've watched as he's published no less than four novels, and I've had to force myself to abstain from each one. But, with Shadow Play finally winding down - I started it in earnest in 2012 - another one of my ideas for 2019 is to flip back out of genre a bit - hence the Cave - and pick up with Welsh where I left off. Can't wait; I really miss the man's writing.
Speaking of Welsh again, I mentioned I've been watching a lot of movies while I've been sick, and the one I just watched this morning definitely makes me yearn for Irvine Welsh's novels; Outcast - not to be confused with the Nick Cage movie of the same name or the Robert Kirkman series on Cinemax - is a 2010 film by Colm McCarthy, a director that has come up in the world since by directing 2016's much lauded The Girl with All the Gifts and Black Mirror season four episode six: Black Museum. In elevator pitch shorthand, imagine Welsh and Warren Ellis writing a story about ancient magick adrift in the shadows of modern Edinburgh. That's this Outcast, and I LOVED this film; it's take on Magick was both enigmatic and practical, a lot like Ellis's Gravel series from some years back.
Also, yesterday I watched:
This I hadn't seen since its initial VHS release in 1992 or '93. I've been fairly afraid to revisit it; Hellraiser: Hell on Earth was actually my introduction to the Hellraiser movies, and you can probably understand then when I tell you I didn't actually rent the first two until three or four years later. Re-watching it now, as a massive fan of those original movies and of the concepts and characters in general, I can say that there are quite a few things about Hell on Earth that I like, most specifically the body horror effects. That said, this is the perfect example of the how Hollywood used to just throw money and special effects at ideas and think that made them better. The culminating sequence in this film, of Pinhead chasing our protagonist through New York, is rife with explosions, car crashes, water mains bursting, glass shattering, and none of it has any point at all in what's happening or even fits the story. It's both sloppy and lazy.
You know, I don't normally go in for home invasion movies. People doing terrible things to people is not really the kind of horror I like. Still, the original Strangers was well made and creepy as all hell, at a time when most studio horror had forgotten how to be subtle with their scares. That trailer, with the knock on the door at two A.M., this is a concept that has occurred to and haunted me since I was a kid. I liked that first film and so knew I'd eventually see the sequel. After watching Prey at Night yesterday, I can say it was good, but really left me with a violence hangover. I don't know that I'd say I enjoyed it, but it wasn't overly disturbing and bookended the first film in a satisfying way, so nice to check it off my list.
Playlist from 01/04:
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
Paramore - All We Know is Falling
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire, "The Will (Fire) to Materialism (Disks)." This is what I was just talking about above, so nice to come to the end of this post and have this pop up. Literally, the Will to save Money.
I'm not much of a Steppenwolf guy; they had a time and place that wasn't really relevant to me, so I'm not distancing myself from them out of spite, just saying they never made an impact except as the band that wrote a song which A) I believe coined the term "heavy metal," though not necessarily for what it became synonymous with, and B) said song was picked up and beaten to death by the cheesy, "cool" marketing of the 80s, and subsequently kind of makes me hate the band.
All that aside, my friend John approached me at work yesterday, telling me he'd found a mixtape from when he was a kid - he's older than me, mid-to-late 50s - and heard Monster for the first time since he was a pre-teen, found it frighteningly prescient of the country today.
The music here is what I think of as 'proto-hard rock;' you'll hear it when the crunchy guitar kicks in, how just a few years later (Monster was released in '69) the fuzz would have been thicker and considerably higher in the mix. Here though, it's almost delicate. Anyway, the music isn't the reason I'm posting this; listen to the lyrics. Crazy. Did everything always seem broken and dire, or as I am more apt to suspect, is the evolution of the post WWII, military industrial complex merely bringing world events to a head? And perhaps more importantly, will that climax come in our lifetime?
I read today that Bret Easton Ellis has a new book coming out in 2019. The author's first book since Imperial Bedrooms in 2010, White - originally titled Privileged White Male - is, in the author's own words, a non-fiction 'rant' about the reputation economy that frenzies our culture. Lila Shapiro from Vulture has a marvelous interview with Ellis here. I'm a huge fan of his fiction and his podcast, though I'm considerably behind on the episodes these last few months. White lands April 16th.
Playlist from 1/02:
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini
U2 - War
The Police - Regatta de Blanc
Airiel - Winks & Kisses: Melted EP
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Barry Adamson - As Above, So Below
Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus
Belong - Common Era
Playlist from 1/03:
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Belong - October Language
Fantômas - Eponymous
Steppenwolf - Monster
Iggy Pop - Blah Blah Blah
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But Can't Any Longer
