A little MadLove to start the week. My Favorite track from an album that's pretty much all favorite tracks.
Watch:
This show blew me away. I haven't taken to anything like this in a while.
First: Brand New Cherry Flavor is, I think, pretty much Season 5 of Channel Zero, Nick Antosca's former anthology series on SyFy. If you haven't seen that, all four seasons are currently on Shudder and are 100% worth your time. They are fantastic. Basically, SyFy canceled it, and Netflix gave him to do something similar. Channel Zero's seasons are all stand-alone and all adapted from Creepy Pastas. BNCF is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Todd Grimson. The book is way out of print, but don't worry - someone is bound to remedy that with a new edition any minute now.
Second: Mr. Antosca is unapologetically a huge David Lynch fan, and there's a ton of that 'flavor' that he brings to his work. It's especially here. It's in exactly the most respectful, awesome way, too. Not imitation, but influence. I expand on this idea a bit in the new episode of The Horror Vision that drops tomorrow. At the time, I'd only seen the first episode of BNCF. K and I watched that Friday night. Yesterday, we did the remaining seven episodes because we just couldn't stop.
Playlist:
MadLove - White With Foam
David Bowie - Young Americans
Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus
The Veils - Total Depravity
Grinderman - Eponymous
The Replacements - Tim
Bjork - Post
The Hillbilly Moon Explosion - My Love for Evermore
These words fit with the image of Greg Duli at the time, and it fits with where I was mentally. Not that I was angry and ready to hurt somebody, but I was ready to blow up my old life and start a new one. And that's exactly what I did.
I used to listen to The Twilight Singers' Powder Burns every day, compulsively. I probably had a low-grade addiction to cocaine by the time I left Chicago in 2006. It wasn't an everyday thing, but it was around me every day I worked at the bar where I tended, so things were moving in that direction. When I moved to the West Coast, I effectively shut that down. (Who moves to LaLaLand to stop doing blow?). A lot of the artists who affected me the most after this all had public personas that included similar pastime pursuits. Duli was one, plus, there was this additional melancholy attached to falling in love with his music, as my friend Brian had always heralded Duli's first band, The Afghan Whigs, as a major influence, and I just hadn't been there at the time to share that with him. I never bothered to take Brian's suggestion seriously because I had not yet encountered anything in my life that prepared me to fall in love with Greg Duli's music yet. Shortly after Brian died, I moved. By the time I did, I was hooked on the Whigs' Gentleman, and soon after 1965, and then, in 2006, Powder Burns.
This album is epic. I honestly believe that about every facet of it, from the songwriting, arranging and playing, to what Duli was going through in his life at the time, to the fact that the band recorded the album in a studio in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. If you read interviews with him from the time, you'll hear him discuss how the feeling of being in the wreckage of a major culture center crept into the feel of the record. It's there, oh yeah. Everything feels like it's lying in a pool of rubble, the ceiling's split open and falling, the wind is howling just outside, and you're trapped with your demons by the light of a single, solitary candle.
When I fell back into Powder Burns recently, I realized it's been a long time since I really listened to it. I still dabble with old pastimes when I return to the city I fled, although it's been a few years. I don't know if this re-engagement with the album is my inner demon fixing to make a phone call for the five days I'll be in town at the end of September, or if I'm just reclaiming the entire dejected persona for something I'm writing. That's the thing with this craft, you never really know who you are when you're working on something that puts you in the driver's seat by utilizing your life experiences. I guess only time will tell...
Not sure if this collaboration is stand-alone or will be part of an album, but either way, it's cool as all hell to hear these two icons make music together.
Watch:
I finally had a chance to watch Andrew Thomas Hunt's Spare Parts last night. Really solid, old-school exploitation flick with a big ol' heart of Girl Power gold.
Gory, Guttural and glib, this one made a perfect second feature after my first viewing of George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, which I'd not seen since its theatrical run.
There is no love lost between me and the original Mad Max franchise. I'm actually planning to give it another try, or at least skip forward to The Road Warrior and try to judge that separate from the first film, which I watched for the first time since childhood ten years ago and found to be a complete disappointment and waste of time. Fury Road takes the admiral path of foregoing trotting out that racist cunt who played the titular hero in the original films and instead subs in the always fantastic Tom Hary, then basically makes him take a backseat to Charlize Theron's Furiosa. Overall, I can't say this fourth entry in the series has anything but the most basic plot, but it really doesn't matter. This one is so frenetic from start to finish there are times when I think I'm watching it at 2x the speed.
Playlist:
The Veils - Total Depravity
Orange Goblin - Frequencies from Planet Ten
Grinderman - Eponymous
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Nothing - The Great Dismal
The Neverly Brothers - The Dark Side of Everything
Realize - Machine Violence
MadLove - White with Foam
Card:
I'm hoping this is an indication that the work I'm doing on this short story will pay off. Right now, finishing it - no, not just finishing it, but nailing it - seems a continent away. I've worked on it every day but one this past week, so I'm putting the effort in and I can definitely see it shaping up. That said, there are still some wonky elements. It's not smooth yet.
It's been a while since I've fallen headlong into The Veils. With Twin Perfect putting all this glorious Twin Peaks stuff into my head, this feels like the perfect time.
NCBD:
The slimmest NCBD in quite some time. I'll try not to complain, and instead allow my wallet to catch its breath.
There's nothing amazing about this book prequel to the new MOTU series on Netflix - which I enjoyed quite a bit - but it's fun. Also, with a four-issue runtime, I don't feel like it's a very big commitment. Also, that's a Bill Sienkiewicz variant cover right there. Pure Magick.
So glad The Silver Coin got picked up for more than the initially solicited four issues. This is easily in my top five comics of the year.
Listen:
Super excited to finally post this new episode of The Horror Vision, as we had Seattle University Professor of Film Studies John Trafton on to deep-dive Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck's criminally underseen 1973 Messiah of Evil. I learned a lot on this one, and from this film in general, and John is a veritable wellspring of film knowledge. Can't wait to have him back! Listen to the episode, and check out his website, which is chock full of fantastic information!
Discovering Black Mare last week has sent me into a spiral with Sera Timms music. Following my own advice and clicking on that Bandcamp link for 2020's Death Magick Mother, I sat completely transfixed by the record yesterday in the wee hours of the morning. This record has an extremely ethereal quality. I can hear Pornography-era Cure, Cocteau Twins, and contemporaries, L.A.-based Chasm, but the space created within the walls of this aural shrine are all Timms's own. Turning this one on feels like stepping into an hour-long fog bank. Through the obfuscation, you see outlines of landmarks you think you recognize, except they're all wrong, and give you an immediate impulse to be at the ready.
Watch:
A few weeks back, my cousin, Charles told me about the Youtube channel Twin Perfect's video, "Twin Peaks Actually Explained (No, Really)." I'd seen this floating around in my feed and ignored it. Despite the fact that I often create or take part in videos similar to this - well, NO video is similar to this one - I rarely watch them, and I certainly go out of my way to avoid any video that claims to explain any movies or shows I dig, most especially Peaks. However, Charles told me enough to get me interested, and if you'll recall, there was one other Twin Peaks Explanation video I took to heart a year or so ago - Wow Lynch Wow's "Was Mr. C Victorious?" This new video, then, wasn't exactly unprecedented. What was unprecedented was the fact that, after watching about the first twenty minutes of this 4 hour+ video, I truly believed in my heart of hearts that holy F'ing shite - this guy COMPLETELY EXPLAINS TWIN PEAKS. It's not what you think it's going to be, it's far better. I cannot recommend this one enough unless you do not want to have the show explained.
Seriously, without spoiling anything, when you get to the part about what the light shining on Laura Palmer's face at the end of FWWM means, you'll know if you're on board or not.
Playlist:
Black Mare - Death Magick Mother
Metallica - Seek and Destroy (single)
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Faith No More - The Real Thing
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Windhand - Eternal Return
Conan - Monnos
Guns N' Roses - ABSURD (wow, this is awful)
Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs - Original Series Soundtrack
Card:
Okay, so what am I battling here? I feel like most everything is in line.
A recent discovery about which I know very little other than the fact that I really dig this album. Black Mare's Bandcamp is HERE, and there still appear to be vinyl copies of her 2020 record Death Magick Mother.
Watch:
I saw two huge movies this weekend and the results are not what I expected at all. First up, David Lowery's The Green Knight
From my Letterbxd review:"Gorgeous. A must on a big screen. Andrew Droz Palermo deserves so many awards. There are some technical issues I had with the way it’s written and directed, as well as a few scenes that felt like missteps - to quote Peter Griffin, “the movie insists upon itself” - but overall this is a beautiful attempt at Pure Cinema, which can NEVER be a bad thing."
Next, James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, which I would have been perfectly content to - just like the first one - never watch until a confluence of events made me curious enough to try.
The result? Possibly my favorite comic book movie ever. Wow. Just wow.
Playlist:
Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST
The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Bloodslide - How Glad I Am (single)
Yob- Clearing the Path to Ascend
Sacred Reich - Independent
College - Teenage Color EP
Polica - Give You the Ghost
David Lee Roth - Apple Music Essentials
Windhand - Soma
Droids Attack - Sci-Fi or Die
Black Mare - Field of the Host
Dead Milkmen - Welcome to the End of the World
The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
Card:
The Alchemical marriage - recognizing disparate and/or complementary elements and bringing them together to marry their strengths in a way that supports the great work. That's kind of a hoighty toighty, old school Aleister Crowley interpretation - High Magick and all that rigamarole, but it applies. I'm seeking to write an extremely short story for submission to an anthology. Brevity is definitely not where my overall strength in writing lies. However, I'm excellent at slicing and dicing in the edit. So... edit in the head, before the fingers hit the keys.
I'm not a fan of the Black album. In fact, everything that came after that album makes me not want to be a fan of this band at all. However, I could never turn my back on those first four records by Metallica, especially Master of Puppets.
However...
The almighty algorithm saw fit to send 'Sad But True' my way Monday when an Alice in Chains record I was listening to on Apple Music ended and I didn't choose another one quick enough. I heard those opening chords and lingered. Then, before I knew it, I was into my second go-round with the song, actually physically restarting it after its conclusion.
Dare I say it, but this is a good song.
Nothing about 'Sad But True' is what I like about the music from this band that I like, but divorcing the song from its creators for a moment, I found there is almost a Doom vibe to this one. Also, there are some haunting elements in the choruses - not sure if those are keyboards or a guitar effect. Either way, I doubt I'll be jamming the whole record any time soon, but I've already added it to a playlist.
Watch:
I finally got around to watching Ivan Kavanagh's Son on Monday night. Jesus, this one is a rough watch. A very good film, freaky as all hell, but also there's some pretty disturbing stuff just below the surface.
This won't be for everyone. There's an undercurrent of abuse - it's not front and center or showcased, but it's discussed as the motive for certain events in the film, and that lingers. That said, I'm pretty squeamish with anything like that, and although this stayed with me, I can't say it did so in an overtly, or in any kind of discomforting way. What the film did do right was be well made and quickly paced, as well as take those unpleasant ideas and weave them into a pretty compelling and effective Horror film.
NCBD:
I feel like this cover says it all: This series is BIG.
Maybe it was binging the recent MOTU sequel series that primed for this, but I LOVE this cover. Total Skeletor.
This is the 1:15 variant for Ed Piskor's Red Room #3. I'll most likely not be able to get my hands on this particular variant, but it's awesome as all hell.
The end to an amazing series. Can't wait to reread the entire run, start to finish in a nice, tight burst. Talk about great characters!
Casey Jones! These "Best of" TMNT books have been among my favorite comics in years, and I kind of expect this one to go right up alongside the Raphael one from a few months back as the best of the bunch.
I'm not actually certain I will buy this one, but I just love the fact that these two bizarre ass characters have their own book. Five-year-old me would be ecstatic!
The throwaway panel of the High Evolutionary and the promise his presence brings is what has me coming back for issue 2, although I will say, rereading Grant Morrison's New X-Men has me feeling some major love for the corner of the Marvel Universe I wrote off due to 'strip mining' the characters a few years ago. Let's see where this book goes.
Playlist:
Jerry Cantrell - Atone (pre-release single)
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Not a lot of full album rotation today as I leaned into a new playlist for the upcoming second episode of the new Metal Podcast I'm doing with Anthony and Tori from The Horror Vision. We're recording the new episode this coming Saturday morning, so it should be up this coming Tuesday. The topic? Well, if the playlist doesn't make it obvious, it's Thrash Metal.
Card:
Reminding me to leave the old paradigms (and projects) behind in the face of reconciliation with previous collaborators.
