I have Alice in Chains on my mind. Mr. Brown often clues me in on the Pitchfork Sunday Review, where every Sunday a writer looks back on an iconic album. Yesterday was Dirt - one of the most important of my "forever albums," and it made me dive back in head-first.
I've never been much of a Pitchfork guy, but when they hit it, they really leave a mark on me. This was one of those times.
NCBD:
Back home (for now) in LA, so I'll be heading to the Bug to pick up this week's books, which are plentiful:
Some big events kicking off in TMNT and the X-Books, which have the second annual Hellfire Gala followed immediately by Judgment Night (which I'm still not sold on). Also, I'm not necessarily going to jump on this new Mandolorian series, but I definitely want to check out the #1.
Playlist:
Ghost - Impera
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Karma to Burn - V
Black Sabbath - Never Say Die
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Faith No More - Sol Invictus
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
This gives me a teensy bit of an idea of how things are going to be as I prep for leaving LaLaLand. So far, no, things have not necessarily been the way I expected, but nothing has been a straight-up rug, so that's good. The idea in life is always to go in with loose expectations (if any at all), lest you succumb to disappointment despite a triumph.
Very curious about Addison Heimann's Hypochondriac, which Bloody Disgusting's John Squires says, "gives us Donnie Darko vibes." No quicker way to get me interested. Here's the trailer:
Read:
I had previously noticed the solicitation for Pentagram of Horror, a new anthology Horror comic created by Marco Fontanili, but the shop didn't order any (or was sold out), and I kinda forgot about it from there. Fast forward to Tennessee a few weeks ago and I was able to snag issue 2 from Rick's Comic City. I just read it this morning, and I have to say, I loved it.
Pentagram of Horror reminds me A LOT of The Silver Coin, though not in an imitation way. Having only read this second issue, I can say that the story here was very well told, with Fontanili's writing and art working together in such a way that it really strengthened the tone. Very horrific, stand-alone, but with a wide enough scope that it feels cinematic.
Can't wait to track down #1.
Playlist:
Baroness - Gold and Grey
Orville Peck - Bronco
Sal Salmena - Bria
Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1
Greg Puciato - Mirror Cell
The Sword - Age of Winters
Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST
Various - Lost Highway OST
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Flew home from Chicago yesterday after a post-house buying week where I tried like hell to relax. I mostly succeeded, thanks to all my dear friends who were more than happy to drive to my folks' place in the woods of Palos Park and sit on the patio for hours on end.
I'm using Boards of Canada's Dayvan Cowboy today because Boards are on of my two most commonly used airplane soundtracks - the other is Burial - and in spite of the fact that I usually use either the In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP or Geogaddi as flight-long loops in my earbuds, yesterday I went with 2005's Campfire Headphase because I know it the least.
And I realized at once that I know it better than I realize. Dayvan is Probably my favorite track. The guitar on this album is incredible, and I always mistakenly think is performed by Bibio, whose style is extremely similar. Either way, this record is fantastic, as are all the BOC outputs, and it helped make my flight smooth and a partial extension of my relaxation (as much as one can relax on a plane).
Read:
Well, I blew through most of Donnie Goodman's The Razorblades In My Head on the trip, read a shit ton of comics I bought at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville (soon to be my new shop, I'm happy to say. Great store, SUPER awesome, friendly people), and took a trepidatious cue from Warren Ellis' most recent newsletter and picked up Will Carver's Hinton Hollow Death Tripon Kindle for $0.99.
I read it in three days.
I suspect this will be the best book I read in 2022. It is dark and disturbing, but not in the ways I initially feared. But it's also one of the most human books I've read in some time, and it ended up making me want to be a better person. Not that I don't always want to be a better person, because this is literally a goal I think about on daily basis. However, it's something I think about after I've made stupid comments like, "Fuck that guy for not using a turn signal, if I were going to be a serial killer, those are the people I'd kill," and the like. And really, while there's nothing wrong with venting, c'mon. Also, and this has been hovering on my consciousness for decades, ever since I first tried it in 2001, but I think I'm going to stop eating meat for a while. I'm not going to go completely 'full-hilt' on Vegetarianism, however, meat bothers me. It always has, or at least since my early twenties. Morrissey's right - meat most certainly is murder, and it's one of the most fucked up elements of our modern culture I can think of. But I am programmed, from the youngest of ages. This is not my parents' fault, it's just what happens with systemic issues that people are born into generations after being installed. Sure, earlier versions of humans might not have had a choice - or really, maybe they did. It's not like plants didn't grow while early humans were spearing bores on the planes - but once we had agricultural systems in place for producing substitutes, well, why didn't we switch?
It doesn't matter. There's no way I'm going to say, "I'm never going to have a hamburger again," because I fucking love hamburgers, and in fact, am thinking about eating one right now. But I won't. While we were in Tennessee, something entirely different prompted me to declare I'm giving up "plated meat" dishes, which I only occasionally eat anyway. But we're heading to the store today for a post-trip restock, and we're thinking about picking up some of the Impossible stuff, to try and use it in some recipes K makes where the dish isn't dependent on the meat's flavor or texture. I'm hoping it works, as it's not only the principle issues of eating meat that is prompting me but goddamn if I didn't eat more red meat in the last three weeks than I have in probably a year, and I'm feeling it.
Also, yes, Carver's book had a little something to do with it. The man identifies himself on his Twitter profile as "Drinker. Non-preachy Vegan" and I'd agree with that. But his ideals come through in Hinton Hollow Death Trip, and they affected me for sure. In a good way.
I'll keep you posted.
Watch:
Bloody Disgusting had a pretty big Upcoming Horror Movies for July trailer dump last week. Here's one that caught my eye:
I'm not 100% on this one, as there are a few things in the trailer that give me concern, chief among them being that, although as a lifelong Lovecraft fan, I'm a sucker for anything with his name attached. This also means I am literally a sucker because adding HPL is an easy way to market a bad movie. Still, the goat-head silhouette effect seen near the end of the trailer makes me hopeful (despite also being a sucker for goats in Horror).
Playlist:
No way to list it all. Here are some of the staples, along with some new stuff:
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
RHCP - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Sleep - Volume One
Karma to Burn - V
Billy Idol - The Roadside E.P.
CCR - Bayou Country
Sleep - The Sciences
Orville Peck - Bronco
Witchcraft - Legend
The Sword - Age of Winters
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Baroness - Gold & Grey
The Company Band - Eponymous
Ween - a couple recent live shows, all curated by Mr. Brown. It appears the boys are digging deep into their back catalogue that included "Cornbread Red" and a couple from Craters of the Sac.
Card:
The first thing I did upon returning home was pull out Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for a reading:
A call to relax and enjoy, but also a warning about intoxication and the indulgences it can bring. This feels prescient, simply because my plans for today are "Pack and Drink."
Heaven is an Incubator posted the new album by Spain's Calderum. I'd never heard of these guys (this guy?) before, or the idea that anyone was meshing Black Metal with Dungeon Synth. I mean, talk about a sound you didn't know you wanted but you've been anticipating for years!
You can pre-order the Vinyl like I did, or the cassette from Death Prayer Records in the UK, just head over to Calderum's Bandcamp HERE.
Write:
I just posted a story called The Bagman Cometh over on the Horror Amino app. I had a lot of fun doing this one, and a longer version will ultimately be included in my forthcoming FREE short story collection Its Soil Be Murder. To read the current version, go HERE.
The piece is a mashup of random pictures from my phone, all used to prompt the story. I really dig this one; it plays with the whole Creepy Pasta/Urban Legend thing, while also bringing back a character from a short story I wrote waaaaay back in the early 00s but still need to publish. Maybe I'll put that in the Free Collection as well.
Back:
Hasbro Pulse began a new Haslab campaign yesterday, and unfortunately, I caught wind of it early enough that I have about a week to struggle with whether or not to cough up $299 to back this:
Christ. One of my all-time favorite figures, the HISS Driver, working treads and the kicker? That fucking working beacon.
Playlist:
Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands
Krallice - Demonic Wealth
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses
Ruby Friedman Orchestra - Fugue in La Minor (single)
Pink Milk - Ultraviolet
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Various - The Void OST
Card:
Reminding me to make completely 'Scientific' decisions tomorrow at the home inspection; I must not succumb to emotion for or against the move. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we go back to LaLaLand and start a new plan.
Thanks to Mr. Brown for turning me into the fact that Hellfest 2022 is streaming all the bands' sets. Of course, I'm most interested in Godflesh, a band I still hold out the hope we'll be getting another new album from sooner rather than later. Justin K. Broadrick is a very prolific, very busy man, but how do you turn your back on your baby when your baby is Godflesh?
NCBD:
Still out of town, but I'll probably pick these up anyway and just let my shop know not to pull.
Is this the end of the first arc for What's The Furthest Place From Here? or the start of a new one?
Jesus, it's only been two weeks since the previous X-Men Red. Based on the events of that book, I'm REALLY looking forward to this one.
Love this book, and the fact that I have no compass for how long this series is ultimately shaping up to be. Feels very open-ended, and like there could be a much bigger story here for Sonny and Xavier than I first suspected. Rick Remender - I love you!
Watch:
I can remember seeing the opening to Lewis Teague's Alligator so long ago; the scene of the father flushing his little girl's pet baby alligator down the toilet has stayed with me for most of my life. Thanks to Shudder, I've finally seen the entire movie.
I LOVED this flick! First, I had no idea Robert Fucking Forster was the lead! Also, hell, what a great Alligator!
Playlist:
Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light
Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Card:
Confusing influences speak to the idea that we may have a lot of questions at our inspection tomorrow. There's a lot of 'Authority' at play, and juxtaposed with Will and the expediency I always associate with the Knight of Swords, the mental stamina that card tends to radiate, I think we may need to make some decisions that will be completely ours, i.e. not the kind of thing we can refer to our Realtor, the inspector, or the unbelievably valuable advice my parents have given to us in all this.
I took K and my folks to see Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's adaptation of Joe Hill's short story The Black Phone yesterday. This film 100% holds up to the magnificent impression it made on me at last year's Beyondfest; one of my favorite scenes (in a film with a lot of "Favorite Scenes") is the one that utilizes Pink Floyd's classic "On The Run," from their perfect 1973 MASTERPIECE Dark Side of the Moon.
Watch:
Here's a new Horror flick that drops on VOD this week from Dark Star Pictures and Bloody Disgusting films:
Wow! There are some pretty gross bits in here; loving that Body Horror has seeped into the overall Horror genre DNA.
Read:
Since switching from a Kindle to an iPad, I'm having trouble reading digital prose. I would love Kindles if they weren't total garbage machines made to be discarded when the new ones come out - you can accuse a lot of tech of that, however, I've had several Kindles over the last few years, and most of them don't last more than a year or two tops. The iPad was an investment I made primarily for artistic reasons, and I still have my one functioning Kindle, however, I'm already traveling with my Macbook, Nintendo Switch (for the plane, mainly; made the hours disappear), iPhone, and now iPad, so I didn't want to add yet another device to my already burdensome backpack. Anyway, I'm sorely missing reading, so while I was tooling around on Twitter last night and landed on author Donnie Goodman's book The Razorblades In My Head, I Eat Its Seeds, I ordered it.
What a great cover! And while you can't necessarily judge a book by its cover, I've been following Goodman's account for a little while and he's made an impression as a kindred soul, so of course, I'm going to read the man's book! I report back when I receive it and begin!
Playlist:
Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Card:
Had to get in an actual Spread, as opposed to the daily, one-card pulls I normally do.
"Never mind what you would normally do."
Things are going to change quickly, and navigating those changes will require an abundance of love and support to get through. Not sure if that's a good reading or a "things are going to get tough" one. Obviously, I'm reading this as reference to the fact that we bought a house 2000+ miles away from where we live now. I will be going 'Remote' with my job, and there's a chance that, after a last-minute management change in the upper echelons of our company, that might put me on a chopping block. My ace is NO ONE can do what I do as fast as I can. I'll be stepping down from Management - which should improve my stress levels, as well as my opinion of the human race - and focusing on the International Logistics end of my job, already more than a full-time position on any given day. So I think I'm safe. But it's going to be a mountain to climb just to pack and move. So an abundance of love and support is exactly what we'll need.
One of my most anticipated albums dropping this year is Greg Puciato's sophomore Mirrorcell. I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced a few months back, despite the fact that I wasn't sure where I would be living at the time of its release on the first of July (I used my parents' address, but there was speculation that they might move to TN as well). Regardless, our trip is more than halfway done now, we made an offer on a house that the seller accepted, so once the inspections and everything go through, I'll be able to lift that pre-order ban. Regardless, the album hasn't shipped yet, but Bloody Disgusting broke the news that Mirrorcell dropped early on Puciato's Bandcamp.
Watch:
On Saturday, K and I took my parents to the local AMC to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. I am NOT a Baz Luhrmann fan. Perhaps I shouldn't say that, because I've never actually been able to sit through one of his movies. I find his childish little "Look how anachronistic I am" proclivities to be infuriating, and the fact that he may be made the first good visual adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, only to eschew the Jazz music that is central to the book's themes for Hip Hop makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs directly into his face. I never bothered seeing that Gatsby (friends who did warned me to save myself, that the beauty of its visuals would only drive me crazy played under the soundtrack), but I'll say, this Elvis movie looked great. Plus, my Pops really wanted to see it. So we went.
On the way in, I almost made the statement, "If I hear one lick of Hip Hop or other modern music, I will get up and leave." Good thing I didn't, because of course, there are at least two instances in the first half of the movie with Hip Hop in the soundtrack.
It's so embarrassing. I mean, it's not that it's Hip Hop; if Luhrmann was adding Portishead, or Mastodon, or whatever other 'future music' to the film, I would have been equally pissed. He reminds me so much of Tim Burton - Lurhmann's idea of who he is as an icon or "brand" gets in the way of the decisions as to what's best for the movies he makes. The film also spruces up some of Elvis' music with a sometimes irritating modern twist, and some of the editing is a bit ridiculous in the amount of effect and flair. It works sometimes - more at the end of the film - and other times, not so much. Just looks like they were cutting it together in weird ways for the sake of making it a "Baz Luhrmann joint."
Still, the movie - despite all this - is fabulous. Austin Butler is FANtastic as The King, and Tom Hanks - Jesus. Really well done, and the script is great.
Playlist:
Powerman 5000 - The Notable Rot
The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher
Card:
Solid foundation - perhaps a literal nod to the fact that we made an offer, they accepted the offer, and now we have to go through the inspection process. One of those inspections? You guessed it: Foundation. A lot of work still to come.
