2019: January 17th

Another KXLU discovery. Goddamn that radio station is just killing' it! I don't know much about the band, I'm starting here, with the album Furnishing the Void. It's great, and I'm planning on digging deeper soon enough.

Hey LA, teachers are striking. Support them. THEY make the difference we need made.

Two nights ago, K and I finished True Detective Season 1. I've thought a lot about those Jeremy Saulnier-directed first two episodes of Season 3; I have ideas, and I still may do a recap show. Maybe. It's hard to know if the things I observed are going to pan out or just go nowhere; Season 2 definitely shook my faith in the show, and I'm not really convinced some of what I see is go-nowhere red herring fodder. But maybe Crooked Spiral refers to:

It makes sense that, same as the show has gone back to a lot of the story mechanics that made Season One so iconic, they would attempt to tie in that season's continuity. Or, this might all end up a big, "Fuck You," from the show's creator for those of us expecting more of a 'Weird Fiction' angle. We'll see.

After rewatching the Season One finale, I still don't like it very much. But, I've said that before and completely acknowledge that no matter how much I don't like that final episode, Season One is one of my all-time favorite pieces of small-screen cinema.

K and I also watched the pilot for SyFy's Deadly Class, based on the Rick Remender/Wes Craig comic that I have loved since it launched in 2014. I am so ecstatically happy for these guys; this book deserves the world and is now poised to receive it. I'll never forget the month, several years ago, when Remender's "Transmissions from a Basement" back matter announced his departure from Marvel, where he'd just finished helming a massive cross-over, and his somewhat joyously nervous announcement that the coming year would be a, 'year of creator owned comics.' That was a big step for the man, and as I knew he would, he has succeeded ten-fold, the successes only growing. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Oh yeah, the show is fantastic! And Henry Rollins is the Poison 101 teacher! How awesome is that!



Speaking of Deadly Class, a new storyline began in issue 36, which was most definitely part of my haul yesterday at the Comic Bug for NCBD. LOVE this cover.

What else? I'll tell you what else:

An absolutely haunting ending to this epic series, Days of Hate.

Gideon Falls remains my favorite book each month, and this issue has a couple of pages that might just rank as my favorite comic panels EVER.

And last but most certainly not least:

I probably should have just subscribed to Fangoria's relaunch. I missed the first issue, but with Joe Bob on the cover, number two was a must. I'll be honest - when I worked for Borders during the 00s, I learned to turn my back on Fangoria. I straight up thought they kowtowed to a lot of garbage, giving high marks to big studio horror flicks I personally thought sucked. Meanwhile, I'll always be a Rue Morgue/Horror Hound guy. But now that Fango is back, well, I wanted to give  them a chance. After all, there would be no Rue Morgue/Horror Hound if not for this icon. A couple of articles in thus far, and I'm digging it, especially Preston Fassel's Corrupt Signals column, which explores rare 80s horror like this one that I couldn't find a trailer for, but the whole thing is on youtube:



I haven't watched The Black Room, but Mr. Fassel's column has definitely put it on my immediate radar.

Playlist from 1/15:

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
The Blueflowers - Circus on Fire
The Handsome Family - Singing Bones
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse
Secret Boyfriend - Furnishing the Void

Playlist from 1/16:
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
Belong - October Language
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Fuck Buttons - Olympians EP
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
Tool - Aenima
The Blue Flowers - Circus on Fire

Card of the day:

2 cards popped out as I shuffled:

Earthly concerns, eh? And perhaps big, emotional ones. If I'm reading this correctly, it's referring to a peripheral investment situation. Money coming in would be nice...

2019: January 15th

I discovered The Blueflowers yesterday on KXLU. Wow. Love this band. They have several albums available through their bandcamp HERE, and most if not all of those are on Apple Music. I'm digging into 2018's Circus on Fire this morning, and it's taking me places both familiar and strange.

I forgot to mention that last Friday I watched Pod, a film from 2015 directed by Mickey Keating. I'd seen the thumbnail for this one for years. I've also started to see discussion among a fairly rabid Keating fanbase I never realized existed, and after just this one flick I can see why some would rabidly endorse his movies. Pod is fantastic; Larry Fessenden's in it, and that's almost always a great sign; based on the simple, no-nonsense execution of a straight forward horror/sci fi concept, I'm guessing Mickey Keating's work will fit in nicely alongside Ti West and Joe Begos. In fact, Pod and Begos' The Mind's Eye would make an Excellent double feature.



Playlist from 1/14:

Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse (pre-release single)
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada
David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & London Sinfonietta - Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

Card of the day:

Second day in a row for this one. And that's probably because my interpretation yesterday was correct; I came SO close to finishing the book. So this card reappears today, because Today is the day.

2019: January 14th

There's a new Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch album set to drop on February 8th via Sacred Bones Records, and so far it has my favorite album title in quite some time. You can pre-order An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil HERE.

Rounding the final lap on Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, which I absolutely love. And interestingly enough, Cave's take on a gorgeous baroque, inbred Southern Gothic aesthetic hit a nice harmonic node with my impromptu re-watch of True Detective Season 1, as well as last night's True Detective Season 3, which takes place in Arkansas in 1980, 1990, and 2015 and has a similar tone.

Thus far, Season 3 follows Detectives Wayne Hays as played by Mahershala Ali, as he tries to solve an unsolvable case over the course of three decades. Two episodes in and I'm digging it; I find it a little bit of a lack of confidence that the show went back to the 'deposition and interview' mechanism that worked so well in Season 1, but hey, to climb out of the swamp of Season 2, do what works. With Jeremy Saulnier's episodes now under the belt and his leave approaching, next week's episode is helmed by Daniel Sackheim and then I guess HBO will announce directors as the episodes come up? I'm struggling not to take that as a bad sign, but for right now, doubts or not, the cinematography, acting, and atmosphere are so fucking tight and thick, I'm sticking.

I had actually planned at the last minute to do a new weekly wrap up show, a la my Evolution of the Arm series I did for Twin Peaks: The Return, however there really isn't a lot of 'mystery' to discuss yet. The one thing I'm wondering is, if this season drifts at all into Weird Fiction territory like the first season did, maybe the book we see in missing boy Will Purcell's bedroom while Hays is searching it for clues might come into play. The book is The Forests of Long, and anyone who knows Lovecraft mythos knows Leng as location of the infamous Plateau of Leng. I did a perfunctory search for the book online and couldn't find anything, making me think it was a prop deliberately constructed for the show, which means it is potentially important in some way. I doubt this is where the show is going, but you never know. If David Milch convinced Nick Pizzalato to stick with what made Season One iconic, we may brush up against some Weird after all.

Playlist from yesterday was non-existent.

Card of the day:

Sturdy. Is today that day? Maybe...

2019: January 13th

Previously, I'd not been much of a fan of Baroness. Yesterday though, Mr. Brown mentioned The Purple Album to me, and after spending a couple go-rounds with it on my iPod, I have to say, I really dig this album. This song, in particular.

New episode of The Horror Vision just went up:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Play
The Horror Vision.com

True Detective Season Three starts tonight. I'm going to watch it, but I am going to keep my expectations waaaaaay low. Based on the fact that, although Jeremy Saulnier was originally attached to direct the entire season - much like Cary Fukunaga did season one - but ended up only doing the first two, I'm hesitant to expect much beyond those first two episodes. Season Two is a catastrophe, and begins with Justin Lin directing the first two episodes - which were pretty good - and then has a different director for almost every remaining episode of the season, and the story crumbles. Season Three's IMDB shows Saulnier for the first two, and Daniel Sackheim for episode three, and then there is no director listed for the remainder of the season. That 'play-the-cards-close-to-your-chest' technique makes me think this will also end up being an unwatchable mess, but hopefully not.



Playlist from 1/12:

Baroness - Purple
The Black Angels - Death Song
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis
John Carpenter & Alan Howarth - Big Trouble in Little China OST
Windhand - Eternal Return
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST

Card of the day:

Breakthrough!

2019: January 12th

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 Wickline is 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.

2019: January 10th

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.

2019: January 8th - New Sharon Van Etten!

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.