New Boy Harsher

@BoyHarsher I don’t know if you planned it this way, but driving to work at 5 this morning in thick-ass L.A. fog was the PERFECT scenario to hear #givemeareason from #therunnerost. Well played!

— Shawn C. Baker (@OpiniontdBastrd) December 1, 2021

 It was a perfect morning here in LaLaLand, thanks to Boy Harsher. Can't wait for the full OST, and really can't wait for the film The Runner!

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NCBD (Addendum)

Jesus. I can't seem to walk into The Comic Bug these days without dropping double or triple what I was planning on spending. Yesterday, Gerald, Jeff and Eddie clued me in on a couple things I had forgotten about, had not heard of, and needed to have the moment I saw. Here's what's what:

If you had told me I would be buying a Wonder Woman-related book this week - or ever - I would have told you that you'd had too much to drink. But here we are. Why? I love Kelley Sue DeConnick, but not even Grant Morrison in his heyday could get me to read WW. Why now? Well, look at this fucking art, and that's your answer.

Next, and because I compared Phil Jimenez and Hi-Fi's art in WW Historia: The Amazons to JH Williams III's art in Alan Moore's Promethea, I had totally forgotten about JHWIII's new book Echolands. Again, look at what this man puts on the page:

Finally, readers of these pages may remember how I fell head over heels in love with Daniel Warren Johnson's writing and art on the five-issue Beta Ray Bill mini from Marvel that came out earlier this year. Because of this, DWJ's Murder Falcon was recommended to me, and today, the Bug happened to have it back in stock..

Other than just being awesome because this is DWJ, Murder Falcon is the most METAL book EVER! They even based the big bad off the cover art of Sepultura's Arise - a painting by Michael Whelan. 

I may be stretching this here, but really - you can't tell me this isn't related! And I have always loved the Arise cover. It's... the image that flashes in my head when I first read HP Lovecraft talk about "Madness" and "Non-Euclidean Geometry."

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Playlist:

CCR - Eponymous

Boy Harsher - The Runner (pre-release singles)

Boy Harsher - Careful

Boy Harsher - Country Girl

The Soft Moon - Burn (single)

Caveman - Smash

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

FFS - Eponymous

Sparks - Kimono My House

Nirvana - Bleach

Windhand - Eternal Return

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Things won't go exactly as I planned? Well, at least that's some consistency.

Rebirth

 

I've really been digging back into the Rebirth Brass Band's discography - thanks again, Mr. Brown for helping me segue from knowing them on HBO's Treme to listening to them apart from the show. Really great stuff. 

 

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Watch:

I can't wait for The Book of Boba Fett, now barely a month away:

This is the second trailer for the show, and as usual, I'm posting it here for posterity's sake, but not watching it. 

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NCBD:

Always the best day of the week, here's my pull list for tomorrow's NCBD:

The beginning of the end, issue #49 begins the final arc of Deadly Class! I LOVE seeing adult Marcus and Saya on the cover here. I have a  feeling this is going to be some daaaark stuff, and I can't wait for Rick Remender to break my heart again - he does it so well!

I missed the first Maniac of New York series, but I intend on picking up the trade, so this new #1 is a perfect place for me to jump on again. If you haven't heard about this one, my A Most Horrible Library co-host Chris Saunders sold it to me back on a previous episode of our podcast, which you can find HERE.

The cover art for The Me You Love in the Dark's final issue makes me think this won't be a happy ending. 

I'll never end up with this variant cover, but it's AWESOME! Either way, always a good week when we get a new TMNT.

When Two Moons came back last month, I was not prepared for the landscape of where we are in this world that was first introduced earlier this year in the first arc. Seriously digging the way this story is being told. 

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Playlist:

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker - Diz N' Bird At Carnegie

Rebirth Brass Band - Rebirth of New Orleans

Kowloon Walled City - Piecework

Kowloon Walled City - Grievances

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue

The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

X - Los Angeles

Cindy Lauper - She's So Unusual 

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Rebirth Brass Band - Move Your Body

Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters

Various - Treme, Sn 1 OST

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

FFS - Eponymous

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Chicano Batman - Invisible People

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Beliefs - Habitat

Caveman - Smash

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Blue Train

 

Continuing the more mellow side of things, here is what I would easily consider my favorite Coltrane song from my favorite Coltrane album.

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NCBD:

A new Miskatonic one-shot I'm pretty excited about, complete with another great cover by Jeremy Haun.

The final issue of the "1981" storyline, and one of my favorite covers of the year.

It felt like this fifth issue of the new, ongoing X-Men title took forever to come out, so I guess that means I'm hooked. 

Short week, which is good, as I have to pick up issues 8-10 of Sword, which I started reading a little over a week ago and can't get enough of:

Magneto isn't exactly part of this team, but he's played a fairly big role in the series so far, acting as a sort of Krakoa liaison to the S.W.O.R.D. space station, where Abigail Brand - formerly of Alpha Flight - runs a sort of Galactic Embassy/Outpost/First Response/R&D team that has played an insanely interesting role in the furthering of the new Mutant agenda. The thing I think I'm liking best about this new X-endeavor is just how conniving the leaders of Krakoa and their most trusted personnel are. I've never been a Xavier or Magneto fan, but remove the altruism and set them side-by-side in their thinking - which never was that different to begin with once Charles' ridiculous altruism is removed - and they're extremely likable as puppeteers. And Abigail Brand fits in with them on that all too well, as there are some mighty sneaky maneuvers she's been pulling on behalf of the effort, and they make for extremely interesting reading. This "game of thrones" approach to the X-characters is a far more interesting way to utilize these characters and their decades of pre-existing continuity than the constant battle-friend-battle format that the books have been seized in for about twenty years too long. 

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Playlist:

Zombi - Liquid Crystal

Opeth - Deliverance

Emilil Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1

Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Age of Mirrors

Giant Dog - Pile

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Black Prism - Eponymous

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Diz and Bird @Carnegie Hall

 

How about a change of pace? It's been a minute since I've listened to any Bird, but all the references and music in Netflix's Cowboy Bebop stoked my thirst for some, so let's go live.

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Watch:

I am overjoyed to report that both "big" watches I had this week - each with their own initial apprehensions on my part - are just fantastic. First up, Ghostbusters: Afterlife blew me away. This past Saturday, K and I accompanied some friends to the local AMC and grabbed tickets to see this one in the Dolby Atmos theatre. Here's the trailer, which is old news now. I never posted it here before now because I had such strong reservations about the film, all of which were completely unfounded and proven wrong.

 

Next, yes! Yes! YES! Netflix's Cowboy Bebop adaptation is fantastic. Against all odds, this one is eventually going to occupy a spot on my shelf next to the various home video iterations I have of the original series. Because I've posted everything else I can think to post for this one, here's a clip ET dropped a few days ago: 

 

The care with which all the actors approach playing these iconic characters is bar none; so many nuances went into these performances and that makes them an utter joy to watch!

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Playlist:

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Unto Others - Mana

The Ocean - Fluxion

Mastodon - The Hunter

Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker - Diz 'N Bird At Carnegie Hall (Live)

Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST

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Card:

Two things to watch out for today, one good, one bad: bling impulses (may have to do with anger caused by stress and the things that can come out of my mouth at potentially inappropriate times), and creative inspiration, which is always welcome.

Gazing Into the Black Prism

 

I don't even remember how I discovered Black Prism this past week, but I woke up ridiculously early this morning and while scrolling through Apple Music for something to listen to while finishing Joe Hill's novella "Loaded" - scary shit, that - I landed on this and realized I had not listened to it yet. Forty-Seven minutes later I was starting back at track one again. 

Released independently on Christmas days, 2016, Black Prism's eponymous debut full-length album is a tight little chunk of Sabbath-influenced, down-tempo Stoner/Doom that, while that influence is evident from the opening track, quickly finds its own unique footing in the annals of the Iommi-verse that has blossomed in the past ten years or so. 

You can buy the digital album on Black Prism's Bandcamp HERE, or, if you're really lucky, you can track down a moderately priced copy of their 2013 7" Satan's Country that was released on Easy Rider Records, before they changed their name to Riding Easy Records. Here's the video for that one, and it's a super cool throwback to those Lo-fi Satanic Panic images that line the shift of the 1960's Free Love movement into something much darker and more mysterious:

I can only dream of a future double-bill where Black Prism opens for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats; the two would be perfect touring together.

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Watch:

Well, my grandiose plans to plow through the entire season of Netflix's new live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation were ambitious, to say the least. Got home from work later than anticipated and ended up taking a much-need nap before meeting some friends at Torrance, CA's Monkish brewery for a few beers, so by the time we returned home and fired up the tube, the 50-minute pilot was all I had in me before I fell asleep. But so far, I really like what I've seen.

Bebop is holy to me; I realized recently that it's probably my second favorite show of all time, right behind Twin Peaks. So I should be one of those people who get turned off by the liberties of adapting something like this into "real life." But no, I dug the pilot and can't wait to go back for me. 

Here's the ending credit theme of the original show:

Oh yeah: Monkish? That was our first time there and hot damn, all those folks who have sung their praises as the best brewery in Southern California were not lying. I had the Dark and Mild Dark British Ale, and it is one for the books. I'll be heading back sooner rather than later. Maybe tonight, after a bunch of us spill out of a 7:00 PM showing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which I've surprised myself by being extremely excited to see,

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Playlist:

The Ocean - Fluxion

Underworld - 1992-2002

Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden

Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart (single)

Deee-Lite - Call Me Remix (single)

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

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Card:

Finishing (for now) one project opens a path to a new journey. Or maybe just a renewed one.

Bnny

 

A friend of mine posted about Bnny's new album Everything a few days ago. I'd never heard of this artist, so I took a little stroll into her music and wow. Blown away. I spend a lot of my time pretty keyed up on various incarnations of Metal these days - it's just what gets me through the days. But it's always good to counterbalance the chaos with some downtempo stuff, especially when it's this good and desert-flavored.

You can order directly from her Bandcamp HERE. 

As a strange aside, I messaged my cousin Charles last night to see if he'd heard this album and it turns out this was his upstairs neighbor at one point. I love those kinds of synchronicities. 

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Watch:

I don't know if this movie looks good or bad, hard to tell from this trailer. However, it's got one hell of an awesome-looking monster, so I'm in and will remain cautiously optimistic. Honestly, it's the guys in the movie that look like they might take it down a notch or two for me. Why is it that, in the 80s and even into the 90s, action actors could pull off military or tough-as-nails roles without coming off like douche bros, but now, that's almost always the case? What we need to be asking ourselves as a society is, how do we fix that?

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Playlist:

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Jerry Cantrell - Brighten

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto - Devil Music, Vol. 1

Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel

Motörhead - Bastards

The Damage Manual - Limited Edition

Crystal Castles - (III)

Bnny - Everything

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

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Card:

A reminder that movement and change are the antidote for stagnation.

New Beach House!!!

 

New Beach House to welcome us back to the land of the waking and working this Wednesday morning. I need it. The album Once Twice Melody drops... well, I don't know that I quite understand the release schedule for this one, so let me just post the pre-order link to the band's site HERE and copy and paste the itinerary directly from the video below: 

ONCE TWICE MELODY RELEASE SCHEDULE 

Chapter One: November 10, 2021 

Chapter Two: December 8, 2021 

Chapter Three: January 19, 2022 

Chapter Four: February 18, 2022 (LP, CD, and cassette available)

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Watch:

Holy F&*k, and that's all I have to say about this. 

I really hope none of this is red herring (I fish I don't particularly care for.)

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NCBD:

Another fantastic NCBD Wednesday. Short and sweet as far as the commentary this week, let me just mention how much I've grown to love Maw over the past two issues, and am very much looking forward to issue #3.

Oh yeah, and Primordial is just the bee's knees at this point. Andrea Sorrentino's art is next level. There are narrative mechanics at work even just in his layouts that represent enormous leaps forward for the medium - leaps I think it will be years before other people build upon. 

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Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch: Censor OST

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Code Orange - Underneath

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Card:

Another nod to completion, which leaves me slightly perplexed. That's half the fun, though. I always think of this card as an indication of balance - or at least a suggestion to strive for it. And truth be told, my balance is way out of whack right now. So maybe that's what I need to focus on right now. If it wasn't for this damn day job...