New Black Lips!

It's been a minute since I checked in with The Black Lips. "Rumbler" is definitely not where I'm at mentally, but it is awesome nonetheless, and something I'd imagine I'll have in regular rotation before too long. New album, The Black Lips Sing in a World That's Falling Apart is out now on Fire Records, and you can order a copy HERE.

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Finally had the occasion to watch David Lynch's What Did Jack Do? on Netflix. Wow, easily one of the weirder, more self-indulgent pieces from my favorite director, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I've been accused of being a "Lynch Apologist" before and I guess that's not wrong. But the man is filled with happiness and optimism, while still being capable of creating some of the most dark and baffling art, that it makes me infinitely happy just to see his face. What Did Jack Do? was no exception.



Here's a nice addendum to the movie. The song Jack performs, "The Flame of Love," is being released on vinyl by Sacred Bones. You can pre-order it HERE. I'm sitting this one out on vinyl - I'm not really a completist for everything Lynch has done (though pretty close), but this will probably end up a bizarre piece of memorabilia.

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Playlist :

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Various Artists - The Void OST
Chris Issac - Heart Shaped World
The Black Lips - Sing in a World That's Falling Apart

No Card Today.

Cynic - Textures: RIP Sean Reinert

Man, this was a blow. I don't know Sean Reinert's catalogue like some of my friends do, but from the moment I first heard this track on Cynic's 1993's debut Focus, I was floored. This was one of the first 'death metal' bands whose vocals didn't put me off, and also, whereas I normally didn't 'listen' to the drums on records like this, with Reinhert, at times that was all I could listen to.

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Holy smokes! Over at Brooklyn Vegan, Andrew Sacher made my day by posting the news that 90s MetalCore group Deadguy appear to be reuniting. This is one show I will not miss live if they come through LaLa Land! Waaaay back in 1995, when Deadguy's first and only album Fixation On a Coworker came out on Victory Records, I happened to be a writer for southside Chicago music mag Subculture, and this album was sent to me for review. I loved it, and have loved it ever since, and now can't wait to see what more Deadly might have in store for us.

Read Sacher's full article HERE, and below is my favorite song off the album:




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Playlist:

M83 - Knight + Heart OST
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Me and That Man - Songs of
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

**

Card:

Motion, movement. Flow. Getting back into a stable, regular writing routine has worked wonders. Sometimes things stop your momentum cold, that's life. You just have to start back up again. It's all a Wheel.

Me and That Man - Mestwo

There's something to be said for artists who, whether they plan to or not, end up defining a part of our time, whether it's a year, or half-year, or period of weeks and/or months. Me and That Man is having that affect on me now, here at the start of the 20s. Part of it is because I didn't hear about them until the back half of 2019, and part of it is the pace at which they have been releasing singles off their upcoming 2020 album, Same Shit Volume One, due out March 27th on Napalm Records (Pre-order HERE). The steady, every-couple-of-weeks has helped keep them on my mind, in my ears, and a continual OST to these cold and dreary days of the first quarter (LaLa Land's 'cold and dreary' might not be as severe as a lot of other places, but everything is relative). This new track is simple, catchy, and has a certain stoic dirge quality that, once again, shows me Nergal is a huge Nick Cave fan. Not a band thing by any means.

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The similarities between the procedural CDC elements of Chuck Wendig's novel Wanderers and the current 'outbreak' of the Coronavirus are frightening to say the least. Benji Ray's complex relationship with the job of disease identification/control/treatment already inspired me to pull Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys off the shelf in anticipation of a re-watch, reality and the daily news - which I largely shy away from these days other than BBC - have made me think twice about adding to the 'paranoia fire' that seems to lay at the heart of the modern world at the moment.


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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration
Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Night Shop - In the Break
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land
Mol - Jord

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Card:

A direct reference to the power and stability my recent writing sessions have given my made-up world of Shadow Play. As if to further underline that interpretation, a second card leapt from the pile as I pulled the first off the top of the deck:

Second time this week for XXI The Universe, and why not? I'm currently dealing with massive philosophical concepts, finding fun and interesting ways to instill a version of my own cosmology in this work that is coming to define my life (at least until it's over and I move on).

Godflesh

One of the creepiest songs Godflesh did, and that's saying something.

I've fallen in love with Love and Hate in Dub all over again. This one is never far from my speakers, but many times, my listens are not album-length, as they're confined to the car, or at work where a longer album can be interrupted fairly easy. Lately however, I've been sequestered in the back-half of this one, and the final song, this "remix" of 'Gift from Heaven', off 1996's equally brilliant album Songs of Love and Hate. There's always been something so dark and mysterious about Godflesh, and although I love pretty much everything JKB has done in his career - especially under the Godflesh moniker - possibly the stuff that stays with me the most is the creepy, atmospheric, 'a boiler room in hell' stuff.

**

One episode into the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix and goddamn, I don't care how camp or teenage this show goes at time, the sets, costumes, and overall tone is fantastic, and again, the blasphemy is joy-inducing.



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Playlist:

Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Mol - Jord
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Zonal - Wrecked
David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music
Kevin Morby - Oh My God

**

Card:

A new journey? That's always the initial interpretation that springs to mind with this one, however I'm inclined at the moment, while reflecting on a fairly successful week of writing sessions, to err on the side of a completely different outlook. One of "new," i.e. a new direction that's becoming apparent within the major arc of the second and third books. It's not radically different than what I originally had planned, but it's more nuanced for sure. In fact, the entire epic is really coming to life in a far more robust way than I'd anticipated. Well, that's not entirely true; I've always known this would be huge, but I guess you can't see it until you're in it, so to speak. And brother, I am IN it now.

Live Dungen Album!

Another album I'm looking forward to that drops on Friday, March 13th! Live Dungen - they've been off my radar for a while, but I've loved these guys since I saw them live in Minneapolis back in the early 00s, and if this track is any indication, this will be a fantastic representation of the band live.

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Yesterday I returned to work, whatever viral plague that had laid me low the last few days having retreated to a mostly manageable position on the outskirts of my physicality. It took it's tool though, and when I returned home, I flopped down unceremoniously in bed and planned to through on a flick, knowing I'd probably doze. However, I threw on was Jeremy Rush's Wheelman.



Awesome flick, and Frank Grillo absolutely kills it in the lead. Also, always great to see Garret Dillahunt. Needless to say, I did not nap. Totally worth it, though.

**

Playlist:

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
Zonal - Wrecked
Godflesh - Hymns
Godflesh - Love and Hate in Dub
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
93MillionMilesFromTheSun - Towards the Light
Zombi - Shape Shift
The Fixx - Reach the Beach

Card:

Healing. Yup.

New Music From Bohren and Der Club of Gore

It's been five years since we had new music from Bohren and Der Club of Gore. Five long years. And while I'm still largely hung up on Sunset Mission, I can't wait for this one. My life needs to feel more like a David Lynch movie, and, well, I can't think of any better way to accomplish that. Other than introducing myself to my neighbor whose husband is missing an ear, but I'm pretty sure this is the better route.

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It's been a minute since I logged any X-Files episodes, but over the last few days I've been sick and had some time to slip back into that world. First, I have to say, although I was never a huge fan of this show during its original airing - I briefly became interested in the 'Mythology' episodes and made a few half-assed attempts to keep up with those - I am very much enjoying diving into The X-Files now. A large part of that isn't just the quality of the show, which, while still very much "TV," feels very nostalgic for me. This is indirectly the case with Twin Peaks as well; any TV from this early 90s era that I can connect with - which is rare - brings with it a sense memory of that time in my life. The feel of the house I grew up in, the elastic quality of nighttime spent in our living room, the large picture windows pulling the night inside, the many large trees that surrounded our small home always on guard just outside. The suburb I grew up in is essentially a township carved out of a forest preserve, and my memories of growing up there definitely play into watching this show the same way it does the original Peaks; the screen tends to blend with the environment, or in my current, mostly treeless home in LaLa Land, it blends with the memory of those trees and how they were a daily part of my life.

But I digress. It's time once again for...

Season Two, Episode Twenty, "Humbug" - Freakshow! While these days, the whole freak show setting feels overdone to me - I've continued to avoid the titular AHS season due to that feeling - this is another episode with Twin Peaks alumni, and a definite ploy to the at-the-time interest in all things "alternative." Not a bad thing; it works here, and even though Jim Rose and crew feel a little shoe-horned in (remember they opened Lollapalooza for a while in this era), the always marvelous Vincent Schiavelli evens everything out. This guy is such a great character actor, and his distinct visage and more than worthy chops are something I grew up with seeing in a lot of disparate places, from Night Court to Buckaroo Bonzai, so that he owns a little piece of my heart, for all time.

Season Three, Episode Four, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" - A great little episode co-starring Peter Boyle as a reluctant, socially confused psychic; an old man who has lived with a bizarre gift he doesn't want, and what happens when that brings him into a murder investigation. In his notes on this episode, Brown pitched it as, "Creepy," and he was not wrong. I really dug this one.

Season Three, Episode Twenty, "Jose Chung's From Outerspace" - An episode I had seen at least once before, and one that made a mark on me back in the day due to its strangely comedic tone. Really out there at times, to the point it seems to threaten the integrity of the mythology the show is building. But then it doesn't, and everything ends up working perfectly within the confines of what the show has already set up.

Also, Charles Nelson Reilly. 'Nuff said.

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Playlist:

Zombi - Shape Shift
Lovecraft and Sabrina Spellman - Straight to Hell
INXS - Kick

Card:

Of particular interest to me here, today, is the image of the Crab, which here symbolizes the aggressive and/or healing attributes of Water, or Emotion. This plays directly into something I wrote into the outline for Book Three yesterday, and I think I'll read this as suggesting an attempt to work in a bit of symbolism in an otherwise literal scene.

Hilary Woods - Tongues of Wild Boar

I know nothing about Hilary Woods, but this song and its accompanying video are gorgeous in the creepiest possible way. The album drops March 13th on Sacred Bones - and it brings me a little spark of joy knowing that's a Friday to boot. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

Nothing new this week that's on my radar, but I still have to grab Trees: Three Fates #5. from two weeks ago (not sure how I keep missing this one or why I never put it on my Pull):

Trees: Three Fates has been a nice mostly dose of Warren Ellis' comics writing, and its helped me postpone getting involved in Batman's Grave on a monthly basis. As I editorialized on the most recent episode of Drinking with Comics, I'll read an independent monthly, but I'm done reading Big Two books in a format constantly interrupted by shitty ads. Plus, admittedly, Ellis always reads better in trade.

I know Trees won't be coming back for a while, but I'm really looking forward to the return of Injection, which I believe I read will be starting up again this year. Injection stands as my favorite Ellis book since Doktor Sleepless, and I miss it dearly.

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I finished David Cronenberg's Consumed. Outstanding. Five stars - six if it was possible. I really can't wait to see this rendered by the author into a visual, episodic format. There's some serious body horror here, and it runs the game from subtle-but-terrifying to remarkably vulgar. Thus, it should make for a fantastic Cronenberg project.

In the wake of Consumed, I've become a book my friend Jesus gifted me for Christmas, Chuck Wendig's Wanderers:

One-hundred and six pages in and I can't put this book down! I know nothing about the story going in - I hadn't even heard of it before Jesus put it in my hand - and that's definitely making for a great read. Also, its always nice to see a tense or horrific story start with a twist on something so basic - what if your loved one started sleepwalking and would not stop for anything?

**

Playlist:

Steve Moore - Bliss OST
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Zombi - Shape Shift
Umberto - Helpless Spectator
Tangerine Dream - Exit
Godflesh - Post Self
Godflesh - Hymns

Card:

Yesterday's card was XXI: The Universe, and it compelled me to work for an extended period of time on the "Bigger Ideas" of the final book in the Shadow Play series. I've made a pact with myself to not begin writing the second book - which is painstakingly outlined - until I have the entirety of the third volume outlined as well. This has proved challenging, to say the least. My writing sessions, have been long and consisted of reading research material, outlining, story boarding (of a sort), and all kinds of other fun tasks, but nothing that scratches the itch to write. Still, a solid three hours yesterday and I made what feels like serious progress.

Serious. Professional. Driven. All qualities I could stand to aspire to of late; as much fun as this phase of the Shadow Play project is, it's susceptible to distraction. I downloaded a new focus app, called Tomato Timer, and it's helped me get a handle on this a bit. And on that note, off to work!