Isolation: Day 143

The Two Minutes to Late Night covers EP is up until Midnight tonight and it is packed with goodness! Here's my favorite track. Download HERE. Remember, proceeds go to The Cancer Research Inst. and the artists who contributed!

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I just went back and looked at yesterday's post - the HTML embed codes I used didn't translate! This is because Blogger is changing its interface, and I have to say, the new one SUCKS. It's taking me forever to write these now, so after more years than I can remember off the top of my head, this site may end up closing up shop. We'll see.

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Last week Eibon Press released the fourth and final issue of their adaptation/expansion of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I ordered issue one a few weeks back, loved it, and went back and ordered the rest yesterday.

There are several editions of these, with various bells and whistles. I went for the basic ones - no signature or art prints - simply because I'm not really one for all the extras. Just give me the book.

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Playlist:
Mike Patton - Mondo Cane
Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
Contours - 20th Century Masters
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Soviet Soviet - Endless

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Card:


Wow. Okay already.

What is happening here, what I am trying my best to follow through on, is submitting query letters for the new book. I sent my first yesterday. I'll send another today. The Hierophant represents the established order - ie the traditional publishing industry - and although I've eschewed it for my two previous releases, and will sidestep it again if I don't drum up any agent or publisher interest by October - I'm attempting to use the new book to go down that route. We'll see. I'd rather just publish it through The Horror Vision Press, but why not try the other way, too?

Isolation: Day 142

Had an itch to crack out The Heartbreakers this morning. Classic. Somewhere I have the files for a perfectly curated edition of L.A.M.F., as provided by White Trash Soul Blog. This morning I just went with what I found on Apple Music, the L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes (Remastered). I haven't compared the two, but I know the one up on White Trash Soul takes mixes from all the different international releases and compiles what they deemed the best of each song. It's good. So is this. That's the beautiful thing about great music - in most cases, the soul comes across no matter the mix. 

In most cases.

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Tomorrow, August 7th, from Midnight to Midnight, Two Minutes to Late Night is making their Covers Only release available for purchase. Part of the proceeds go to The Cancer Research Institute, the rest to the musicians contributing. Great causes both. 

If you're unfamiliar with Two Minutes to Late Night, it's essentially a Late Night Talk Show format show created by comedians Jordan Olds and Drew Kaufman, and the show's theme is all METAL! They release episodes complete with guests and skits, the house band is Mutoid Man with occasional guests, and they also release cover videos that pull in all kinds of guests, all playing synched over the internet. Here's one of my favorites from their recent releases:

And yes, that's Max Fucking Weinberg on drums!

Two Minutes to Late Night's website is HERE. Their bandcamp is HERE. I'm not really sure where the covers album will be available, but I'm pretty sure it will be through one of these two sites, or when the following video premieres, they will tell us there. 

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Playlist:

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

Nirvana - Nevermind

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Ministry - Toronto 1986 (Live)

Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP

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Card:

Loud and clear. 

Isolation: Day 141

Mr. Brown sent me this last night, and after watching it, both K and I are immediate fans. I can't wait to dig into The Hu's catalogue, which you can peruse and purchase from HERE.
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A new trailer dropped for Season Two of The Boys.



The trailer is a bit overdone, but I'm still excited to see where this goes.

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NCBD:

Not a lot this week. I did notice this coming from Vault, and I'm curious. Back in the early/mid 90s, I wasn't a RPG'r, but I loved Vampires. I know the entire genre is cliched now, and maybe it was back then, too. I didn't know that. I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire when I was a senior in High School, and I LOVED it. This was shortly before the movie - which I'm not a huge fan of - and reading that first novel in Rice's Vampire Chronicles coinciding with my purchasing Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses (the digipak version, of course). I'd smoke out and lay around devouring the novel, while listening to Peter Steele's voice sing of Blood and Fire, and Suspended in Dusk, and Steele's voice became Louie's voice. I haven't gone back to those novels in since I read them; I'm not even sure I'd like them now. Back then though, Rice's fiction had me ravenous for more Blood Lore, and in this way I discovered White Wolf Publishing's Vampire: The Masquerade. My Chicago comic shop Amazing Fantasy carried a lot of books as well (thank you Garrett!), and I believe that is where I bought my first Masquerade novel. I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one it was, it left a bit of an impression on me. Enough that I'm curious to see a comic series reviving the line.

A few years back, when my friend Missi turned me on to Poppy Z. Brite's fiction from the 90s, it kind of scratched a long-standing itch for this kind of Goth-Pageantry fiction, and it's probably the hangover from reading her Lost Souls last year that has me tempted to pick this up.


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Playlist:

Young Widows - Settle Down City
Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right
Rezz - The Silence is Deafening EP
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Metallica - Master of Puppets

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Card:

Keep going despite fatigue. The wheel turns, so says Ka.

Isolation: Day 140 - Vólan!

Vólan is a band from Moscow I'd never heard of until this morning when this live session from Audio Tree popped up on my youtube feed. Pretty awesome! You can hit their Bandcamp HERE for more music and merch!

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I'm a pretty big fan of Robert S. Wilson's Nightscape Press, and as such I backed their recent Kickstarter HERE. I'd actually meant to post about this earlier, but there's still twelve days left, and even fully funded, this is absolutely worth contributing to. Nightscape is a fantastic and fully independent publisher, and my hope is they will be around for many years to come.


Previously, I've mentioned Nightscape's brilliant Ashes and Entropy anthology - easily one of the best books I read last year. I also recently picked up Dark and Distant Voices, Nightscape's short story collection by Tim Waggoner. I'm only one story in - ALL my pleasure reading is on hold as I work on final edits of two different versions of my forthcoming novel (I'll explain that at some other point). The point is, Mr. Wilson runs a top shelf company who deserve our support.

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Nirvana - Nevermind
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Urge Overkill - Saturation
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Big picture.

Isolation: Day 139

The beginning of this song is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard on piano. I fell down a bit of a Don Shirley rabbit hole yesterday, and in doing so, came across again some articles that posit 2018's Green Book was a racist film. THIS is the problem with the left; everything is a problem. Every man's a rapist. Every white person is racist. Four years of captain goatfucker in office and everyone loses their fucking minds. The way forward is not to one extreme or the other. It's COMMON SENSE. Until the day this prevails (not holding my breath), I'll use music like this to remind me how beautiful the world is by listening to music like this. Thank you, Don Shirley.

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The Final episode of HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark aired last night. Slightly anticlimactic, but of course that's the bane of most True Crime.

Next up, we're finishing the last half of the final season of Breaking Bad. halfway through, I realize there's a reason I've put off revisiting this show. The emotion destruction that accompanies Season 5 Part 2 is unlike anything else I've seen in serialized television. I love this show for the craft, the concise nature of the storytelling, but it really beats me up.

After that? I think we're going to do one both K and Mr. Brown have recommended to me - Halt and Catch Fire.



I've been looking forward to this for some time, so even though there's a boatload of shows to dig into, this one is next.

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Playlist:

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Led Zeppelin - Coda
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
Roly Porter - Kistvaen
The Jesus Lizard - Head
Jeffery Alan Jones - Most Beautiful Island OST
François-Eudes Chanfrault - Computer Assisted Sunset
Ghost - Opus Eponymous
Ghosts of Glaciers - The Greatest Burden
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
Don Shirley - Don Shirley's Best
Don Shirley - Total Expressions

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Time to pay closer attention to the rules for a bit, especially those I place upon myself. Things may have gotten a bit loosey Goosey of late, with Quarantine-Fatigue, or possibly from the contemplation of actually making it through the tunnel and out into the light again.

Sunday Bandcamp: Dead Swords

Holy shit, where has this been my whole life? I stumbled across New Jersey's Dead Swords while tripping off this awesome record that Heaven is an Incubator posted a few days ago. Talk about an algorithm!

This album goes deep, so strap on some ear goggles and disappear to another dimension.

Isolation: Day 138 The Royal Screw

I cannot get enough of this album! It is perfect, and this song is probably my favorite (I'm rotating through the track list day-by-day). The drum sound on this record is a total throw-back to old school Rhythm and Blues, while having the advantages of modern technology. The alto sax that peppers through the verses evokes Boots Randolph, while the chorus horns hit hard and serve as a good-natured reminder that former Dap-King Thomas Brenneck produced this collection of perfection. Finally, the vocals are perfect - striking a bit of an evocation of classic Van Morrison while still being completely Adam Weiner, snark and energy going full throttle.

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Last night K and I watched the indie film Cosmos. Loved it! In fact, I kept thinking "I never knew astronomy could be so riveting! This reminded me of Darren Aronofsky's π, not in style or tone at all, but simply because the filmmakers made something most people see very little in and make it thrilling (in π it's math).



Cosmos was directed by brothers Elliot and Zander Weaver and stars a total of four freakin' people, and it's one of the best examples of 'more with less' I've seen in a while. True, the score is definitely heavy, and really helps to dramatize situations that might have had slightly less impact, but overall, this one get a four-and-a-half star from me.

The Weavers' production company is Elliander Pictures, website is HERE.

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangan's Noose
Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
JK Flesh - Posthuman
Dead Swords - Enders
Low Cut Connie - What Has Happened to Me (pre-release single)
JK Flesh - Depersonalization
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won

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Card:

Turning once again to the Raven Deck, I get a nod to follow my instincts. I think this card is a vexing counterpoint to the 4 of Wands' continuous advice.