Monday, July 15, 2019

July 15th - Frank Black/Teenage Fanclub



Day 6 of Frank Black Appreciation Week, and I'm trying to dig deep. Like I said previously, I could easily just post 7 days of The Catholics, or Pixies, but this man's catalogue winds deep, and I really wanted to try and represent that, so here's a track off Frank's 1994 John Peel Session, where Glasgow band Teenage Fanclub acted as his band.

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I finished my re-read of Grant Morrison and Richard Case's six-volume Doom Patrol series from late 80s/early 90s DC Vertigo. SO good, and reading the source material just confirms my belief that the DCU television adaptation of Doom Patrol is the best comic adaptation I have ever seen.

The final volume, Planet Love, has such a harrowing example of an Apocalypse scenario, I dare say I read it in a quick, edge-of-my-seat burst. The Candlemaker is an example of a comic book foe who gestates quickly and thrives on being somewhat two-dimensional.


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I was so very wrong about Drab Majesty's Modern Mirror the other day when I said it would drop July 26th. I came home later the same day to find the vinyl I'd ordered months ago on my doorstep, and I spent Friday night and several hours over the subsequent weekend listening to it. Really good, if a bit short. The vinyl is a little bit annoying, in that it's a double LP, so there are literally two songs on each side. That's a lot of superfluous flipping, and a very start/stop listening experience, if you ask me.

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Friday's episode of The Horror Vision, wherein we discuss Possum, as well as Luca Guadagnino's 2018 Suspiria, which we've talked about before, but here go into at length and a host of other films, will be up in a few days. In the interim, my co-host Anthony Guerra caught the Aja/Raimi flick Crawl the other night and did a quick reaction piece. Check it out:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play


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Playlist from the last couple of days:

Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero
Boy Harsher - Careful
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Motörhead - 1916
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Up Your Alley
The Monkees - Eponymous
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor

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Card of the day:


Gonna need it. Two potentially stressful weeks coming up at work, and I'm still slogging through this final read of Shadow Play - which, by the way, is turning out very good. It's just difficult to re-read this for a third time in a row now. It's affecting all my other reading as well.

Saturday, July 13, 2019

2019: July 13th - The Pixies: Tame



I may have made you wait longer than other folks would have to get to a track by The Pixies, here during my Frank Black Appreciation Week, but you knew I'd get there, right?

I won't lie, I thought about not posting any. I could fill a couple months posting beloved Black Francis songs and completely eschew his first major band, but then, well, I'd be lying to myself. It's weird; for some reason I have a bit of a grudge against the Pixies. I'm not sure when that happened, or why exactly. I think it's a combination of a few factors. Bear with me while I dig around in my mind and see if I can explain this, really more to myself than to you, but thanks for being here for me to bounce this stuff off, sometimes that just works better, talking out loud to someone else.

I'll never forget when Mr. Brown turned me onto The Pixies back in the mid-90s - he lent me Bossonova and it completely bowled me over. The first few tracks are epic, packed with that wonderful madness that Joey Santiago and Frank Black bring out in one another when things really get going. Then you get to Digging for Fire and Down to the Well, and they're so sweet and sugary, I was in love instantly.

I should specify that my introduction came well after the Pixies were over, and so at the same time Brown lent me Bossonova, he also lent me Frank Black's third solo album, The Cult of Ray. I loved that too, but it paled in comparison to how Bossonova made me feel. As I began to consume the other Pixies records, they became my band. Not just my band, but one of our bands - the music I shared with Brown and Sonny, my two best friends. Mr. Black and company were part of what seemed to us, a secret handshake. I didn't know anyone else who was into The Pixies, or Soul Coughing, to name two, and those bands became ours. This was while we were building our first band, Wink Lombardi and the Constellations, and it was an amazing time in my life. I'd just gotten out of a three-year, high school relationship, and I had amazing friends I saw every day. We'd play music, go to obscure diners for coffee and pie, stay up to all hours getting stoned and recording bizarre acoustic tracks, or noise sessions on my Tascam 4 Track. It was amazing. And The Pixies were one of the major soundtracks to that, so I'm protective of it, now, many years later.

I suppose that's another thing about The Pixies that I'm protective of - it can be hard for me to go back and really immerse myself in listening to these albums that I absolutely love because they trigger massive nostalgia pulses in me. And I guess I want that kept in its place. Couple with that the fact that directly after Cult of Ray, Frank Black formed The Catholics and began releasing albums that I actually got to see him play live, and that helped shape the next chapter of my life. Those Catholics records are HUGE to me.

So, I guess it's actually kind of obvious why I prefer Frank Black to the Pixies, and why, as much as I LOVE Indy Cindy, the first Pixies reunion album, I would rather Black keep moving forward than trying to go home again.

Anyway, every song on every Pixies album rules, but this is one today rules a little bit more than most.

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Had The Horror Vision folks over last night and recorded a new episode that will hopefully be up later today or tomorrow. Our movie reaction for the episode? Possum. Here's the trailer:



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Playlist from 7/12:

M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Motörhead - March or Die
Motörhead - Eponymous
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Boy Harsher - Careful
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero

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No card today.

Friday, July 12, 2019

2019: June 12th New Drab Majesty!



The Youtube description for this track calls it the fourth single released so far from Drab Majesty's forthcoming Modern Mirror album. Really? I hadn't realized we were up to four already, I guess primarily because other than the first single, I'm not listening to anything until my actual physical copy of the record arrives. Modern Mirror drops in two Fridays - can't wait.

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Frank Black Appreciation Week continues in these pages with my favorite cut from 2007's Bluefinger, which marked a return to Frank's Black Francis persona. Well, not really a persona in the way, say, Bowie had personas, but Bluefinger definitely marked a change from the post-Catholics Americana vibe Black had been doing. Compared to Fast Man Raider Man, Bluefinger goes back to what I consider a more Pixies-ish approach to songwriting. Several of the tracks on Bluefinger - including this one - veer into similar territory as some of The Pixies' more unstable songs; Threshold Apprehension is nuts in the way Broken Face or Rock Music are nuts.



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So, Slayer is on their "Final Tour." I've lived through this with so many bands, so many times - I was in High School and fairly new to concerts when I attended Ozzy's No More Tours tour, thinking, "Oh my god, I'm going to see Ozzy Osbourne's final tour!"

Hahah.

And so it goes. Fool me once, yada yada. The point being, I doubt this is Slayer's final tour. And in my opinion, the band should have been over when Jeff Hanneman died. But here they are, dry humping a dead and bloated cash cow. I'm not going to say that Slayer doesn't still rule, because despite the fact that I haven't cared about almost any record they've released since Seasons in the Abyss - though Christ Illusion was a pretty nice return to form - I'd wager they still tear shit up live. And so it was that fact and the idea of the possibility the Forum show in Los Angeles - billed as their final show ever - might actually be Slayer's final show - that I tentatively went to the band's website to sign up for their newsletter and get the pre-sale passcode. You know, just to see what tickets are going to cost. And you know what I found? Slayer is charging $20 to join and get the passcode. $30 if you want some stupid poster with the code.


How completely un-fucking-metal.

Retire now guys, before you end up fucking up your legacy. PLEASE.

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Last night I happened to turn on one of Shudder's tv stations just as Ana Asensio's Most Beautiful Island began, so I dug in and followed it with absolutely no expectations. I do not believe I had ever even heard of this film before.

First good sign was Glass Eye Pics put this out. Always a good thing. So I let the story take me for its ride, and I absolutely loved it. Highly recommended. Here's the trailer, which I've vetted to make sure it doesn't show too much. Not that there's a twist, but the film didn't go anywhere I expected it to go, and I loved it for that.



Also, Larry Fessenden has a small part, so that always wins me over.

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Playlist from 7/11:

Mazy Star - So Tonight That I Might See
Balthazar - Fever
Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Slipknot - Iowa
Zonal - Eponymous (Pre-release Single)
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

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Card of the day:


Normally, I don't have a particular question in mind when I do these daily pulls. Instead, I just kind of clear my thoughts for a second and let the card that comes up serve as a portent for the day itself. Today, I wanted to go specific, so as I pulled I thought about a current struggle I've had, namely doing this last read-through with the physical, paperback copy of Shadow Play.

My impetus for doing one last read-through, after just doing another, was the hunch (which proved correct) that reading a novel in physical book form rather than digital would be a drastically different experience, and thus, I would see or catch things I had not in that last digital pass over. And of course, I was correct. Nothing major, but I've already fixed a few minor grammatical errors, as well as at least two spelling errors, on this read. That said, I'm sick to fucking death of reading this book; between this and the short story I began in Spokane, love, but cannot seem to finish, I feel very much held hostage at the moment. Which is zapping my creativity. Ideas are floating to the forefront of my brain daily, and some of them seem so appealing. Plus, it's always invigorating to start something new. So, what do I do? Well, one interpretation of this card is a warning against succumbing to daydreaming, getting lost in flights of fancy, which I definitely take to mean - as my gut tells me - stay on course and do NOT get distracted.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

2019: July 11th Nicolas Winding Refn Interview



Frank Black Appreciation Week continues here with probably my second favorite all-time Frank Black-related track, from the first Grand Duchy album, Petite Fours. With its men in black, government UFO cover-up vibe, this track always reminds me of a sequel to Space (I Believe In), from The Pixies Trompe Le Monde. Listen to Black's voice on those refrains - soul searing. I love everything about this and the album it's on.

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After Stranger Things 3, K and I slipped back into episode two of Nicolas Winding Refn's bleak-as-all-holy-fuck Neo LA Noir, Too Old To Die Young. This show! It seems to me the second episode will be the firewall - anyone not in NWR will give up halfway through. Others will revel in the slow, contemplative nature of this hour-and-thirty-seven-minutes of a film maker drinking his setting and characters for tone and nuance. It's a fantastic piece of filmmaking and actually built up enough momentum that I had to force myself not to drift straight into the next episode, primarily because it was already past my bedtime.

Here's an interview with Refn; I'm leaving this here but not watching it until after we finish the series, just in case there are spoilers.



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Ghost added a lyric video for Faith, my favorite track from last year's Prequelle record. I'm not usually into lyric videos, but this is pretty cool. Also, if the band's previous protocols are still in place, by my calculation we should be getting an EP from these guys any time now.



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Playlist from 7/10:

Low - Trust
Tennis System - Shelf Life (Pre-release Single)
Tennis System - Pain EP
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Up Your Alley
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
David Bowie - Heroes
Drab Majesty - Careless
Judas Priest - Firepower
Johhny Marr - Call the Comet
Balthazar - Fever
Zonal - Eponymous (Pre-release Single)
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Godfodder
Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor

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Card of the day:


Paradigm shift. Not 100% on how this fits into my life at the moment; as usual, my inherent reaction is to read it as regarding my writing. Currently unable to mop up two things because of a hanging third. Does this say leave that third behind? Switch gears? Maybe, but an open loop is an open loop, especially when it comes to 'solving' something you've invested a lot of time and creative energy into.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

2019: July 10th Frank Black Appreciation Week!



Man, you know how after someone whose music we love dies we start posting a bunch of stuff? I mean, of course we do, right? I certainly do. Well, hopefully we are NOWHERE NEAR a planet without Frank Black/Black Francis, but in falling back into a rotation with his music, I thought I'd spend a week posting some of my favorite Frank Black songs.

At least a week.

I mean, there's a lot to choose from. There's Frank Black and the Catholics - my personal favorite of his projects or 'eras'; The Pixies, Grandy Duchy, not to mention albums published under both Frank Black and Black Francis. I'm sure I'm missing something, but the point is that I love this man and I felt it was high time I represent that love on this blog.

We kick this off with a cut from my all-time favorite Frank Black-related album, the 1998, full-band direct-to-two-track-analog-tape Eponymous Frank Black and the Catholics album. I love this entire record SO much, and although I'd probably place I Need Peace and I Gotta Move as my favorite tracks, here's one that has felt especially fresh to me in this current FB jag I'm in.

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NCBD:

Nothing for me, so I guess this is what my end-game goal of lessening my monthly floppy subscriptions is going to feel like: weird and a little unsettling.

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K and I finally watched the Joan Jett documentary Bad Reputation last night. It's streaming on Hulu at the moment. Fantastic film. Jett's music is among the first that I can remember (I Hate Myself for Loving You and I Love Rock and Roll are early examples of Rock especially), and this really broadens my understanding of her place in Rock history. Really great doc, highly recommended.



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Playlist from 7/09:

Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero
Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey
Helmet - Aftertaste
M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
Spotlights - Love and Decay

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Card of the day:


Holy cow - I haven't see this card in ages. Turning points. Decisions. Needing a better view. All this describes the rut I've found myself in for last week or so. Can't seem to overcome the inertia pushing at me, corroding my work. I've taken the first steps and forced myself to walk to the coffeeshop the last two days, so hopefully I'm building enough momentum to switch back to the good inertia. But my perspective is clouded by indecision on projects, and I need to commit and be done with it.

Thanks Hanged Man!

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

2019: July 9th New Tennis System!



Holy cow! New Tennis System out August 2nd. You can pre-order the LP from Graveface Records and Curiosities HERE!

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Another short one today. Where the fuck is the time going?

Playlist from 7/08:

Alice Donut - The Untidy Suicides of Your Degenerate Children
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Zombi - Shape Shift
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Benny Goodman - Hits

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No card today.