Good Bye LaLaLand

 

What a way to end my sixteen years in LaLaland! 

My good friend Keller and I hit the Palladium for Anthrax's 40th-anniversary tour. It was a fantastic night with a fantastic friend - the man who is driving with me in a 20-Foot Uhaul starting Sunday night at 7:00 PM, LA to Clarksville. The Modello tall cans were flowing. The Palladium was hot as Hades, and with my lungs, after a mile-and-a-half walk from Keller's to the venue, it didn't take me longer than five minutes to realize that, despite my best intentions, wearing a mask in that fucking place would be impossible. 

Black Label Society opened - great at what they do, but not really my thing. The five-plus minute behind-the-back guitar battle Zakk Wylde and his guitarist Dario Lorina tore the stage up with during the penultimate number of their set was pretty mindblowing, but really, I was just antsy for Anthrax. They did not disappoint, despite the fact that they only played twelve songs. But oh, what a great twelve songs. Here's the setlist:

1) Among the Living

2) Caught in a Mosh

3) Madhouse

4) The Devil You Know

5) Keep it in the Family

6) Metal Thrashing Mad

7) Anti Social

8) I Am the Law

9) In the End

10) Only

11) Bring the Noise - with Chuck D!!!

12) Indians

When they brought out Chuck D, I seriously teared up. I stepped away from Anthrax for most of my twenties and early thirties, but I always held the reverence for Persistence and Among. Persistence was the first record I bought by them - from a fucking Phar-Mor no less, and it made them my band back in the day. Sure, I loved Metalica, Slayer and Megadeth, but Anthrax always spoke to me the most, and it was great to see them again, this time the first for me with Joey, as the only previous show of theirs I attended was during High School, when Mr. Brown and I caught the John Bush-era 'Thrax at Chicago's Aragon Brawlroom - complete with Quicksand and White Zombie opening. That was another amazing night with another amazing friend, and I still remember the ride home in Brown's car, when he popped in Sugar's Copper Blue, we rolled with windows down and hit Lake Shore Drive on a crisp night that was twenty-nine years ago to today. Talk about crazy synchronicities here, on the even of my urban exodus. 

Video from Matt Bower's youtube channel, which is pretty cool, so head on over and give him some love HERE.

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Read:

Inspired by an episode of the Weird Studies podcast and a slowly rekindled desire to dip my toes back into the Occult, I pulled Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice off the shelf the other day and began reacquainting myself with it. 

I bought this 17 or 18 years ago from The Atlantis Bookshop in London, and while I've read parts of it, Crowley's writing has always been so opaque to me, that frustration has always ultimately thwarted any serious attempts to read this in its entirety. Eventual failure or not, I'm feeling like it might be time to give it another go.

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Playlist:

I've been so busy finishing out my last week in-person at the week at work, I've not had a chance to post in some time, so of course, if I actually recorded everything I've listened to it would be quite the egregious scroll for you, dear reader. Instead, here are some highlights up to and including today, July 30th, 2022:

Trail of the Dead - XI: Bleed Here Now...

Anderson .Paak - Malibu

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings

High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Milk Cult - Love God

Various - Daptone Gold

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

Anthrax - pretty much all their albums, all day. Fuel for the endless day of packing 

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1

John Cale - Fear

Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move

Ozzy - Ultimate Sin 

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Card:

My intention was to do a big, involved spread for my departure, but I have neither the time or the strength for that. Here then, is a three:

Collaboration, honed through conflict/change, leads to a new status quo. Or something like that. Again, exhausted. This is a pretty pivotal moment in my life, so I should try to revisit this when I'm not falling asleep while I type.

You can pick up Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot deck HERE.

A Line of Shots... Much Needed

 

Moving is hard. I mean, like, REALLY hard. But it's one of those things in life you just have to do, so I put my head down, charge through night after night packing (endless, endless) and drink. But maybe beer isn't enough...

New Afghan Whigs! How Do You Burn is out September 9th (My Mom's birthday!). Pre-order your copy HERE.

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Watch:

Over the last few years, I've actually become quite a fan of the John Wick flicks. Sure, Part III wasn't quite up to snuff with the first two, but you can tell every shot of this series is executed in a way that lovingly expresses a weird, violent beauty. Now, part IV:

 

On my birthday, no less. Will it live up to the others? Well, with Keanu, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick returning, it will at the very least scratch the itch the other entries in the series instigated.

 

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Read:

When I did my NCBD post this week, I forgot about the new Daniel Warren Johnson book I didn't even realize was out.

I have no idea what this book is about, and I don't give a toss about wrestling, but it's DWJ and in picking up the first issue on Butcher's recommendation, of course, it's f*&king GORGEOUS. I don't know what it is exactly about Johnson's art that connects with me so much, but I feel like he definitely grew up with similar influences, and those influences come through in everything he does, whether it's Beta Ray Bill or this.

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Degradation Rules (pre-release single)

Black Sabbath Featuring Toni Iommi - Seventh Star

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Journey - Greatest Hits

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Brenton Wood - Brenton Wood's 18 Best

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Soundgarden - Superunknown

On Vinyl:

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Orville Peck - Bronco

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness & Light

Jerry Cantrell - Brighten

Anthrax - Among the Living

Ghost - Impera

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Card:

Acceleration. No shit. Tearing the house apart, going through every single thing we own. Convincing a family member to get rid of things that sat in a storage space for 40 years. And I'm driving out of LaLaLand NEXT SUNDAY!!! So yeah, things are moving really fast.

Dead Cross

 

Wow. Dead Cross returns with a song and video that immediately make me like this album better than the last. Can't wait. Dead Cross II drop October 28 on Ipecac, Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Over the last year, I finally did what everyone told me to do and watched Cobra Kai. Holy shit - this show is awesome. For someone who saw the first two Karate Kid flicks as a kid and never since I was floored by how much I dig this show. But hey, it is really well done.

Season Five and an entire valley of Terry Silver's domestic karate terrorist program? Wow. Looks fantastic.

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Playlist:

The Soft Moon - Exister (pre-release singles)

The Soft Moon - Criminal

Bexley - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy

Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed

Iwan Rebroff - singt Weison von Wodka und Wein

Halloween Chemicals Kill Warfare

How about some Slayer to start the day, eh? One of my all-time favorite tracks from them. 

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NCBD:

Short week (thankfully):

After that big Silver Coin reread over the weekend, I can't wait for this new issue. 

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Watch:

I for one LOVED Halloween Kills. Now, granted, I really dug DGG's Halloween 2018, too, until I rewatched it at home. Not that I hated it or anything, but that second, smaller viewing revealed a bit of a lackluster sheen that was no doubt covered up by the big, opening night, theatrical viewing my friends and I had first with that one (listen to our just-after-leaving-the-theatre review HERE). And I've only seen Kills the one time, again in the theatre, although not on opening day. Still, I dug pretty much everything but the ending, which proved to be a HUGE question mark. It catapults this new requel approach into possibly super-supernatural territory, so I really have to see Halloween Ends before I can make an overall judgment, Either way, this is going to be fun as hell in the theatre come October!

Visceral, to say the least. And call me old-fashioned, but the old hand-in-the-garbage-disposal is always a gag that makes me flinch. 

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Playlist:

Bria - Cunty Covers Vol. 1

ZZ Top - Eliminator

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain

Black Pumas - Eponymous

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak version)

Ghost - Impera

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Fast-paced change? CHECK! I love how all my pulls are reflecting the heightened frenzy and complication party of my preparing to move across the country. Batten down the hatches, not long now!!!

Sleeping in the Midday Sun

 

Listening to Orville Peck's Bronco a lot these last few months since it dropped, and I've done that thing where pretty much every song rotates in as my favorite for a bit. A few weeks ago, it was the album closer "All I Can Say." Great duet that prompted me to look into Peck's guest Bria's work.

Cunty Covers Volume 1 dropped last year, and I'm pretty sure had I heard it then, the EP would have made it onto my year's best list. Wow. My favorite track on an album of favorite tracks, here's Bria's rendition of John Calle's "Buffalo Ballet." You can order the album from Bria's Bandcamp HERE.

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READ:

I spent Saturday morning re-reading Michael Walsh and friends' The Silver Coin, then my co-host Butcher and I did a two-hour FULL SPOILER retrospective on the entire series for The Horror Vision, available now on all Podcast Platforms.

Then Sunday, I spent the morning re-reading Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss's What's the Furthest Place From Here. Man, you can't get much better than these two series. While you can hear plenty of my thoughts on The Silver Coin in the episode mentioned above, I'll just use this space right here to tell you that WTFPFH is probably going to end up being my favorite book of the year. 

There is just NOTHING else out there like this book. Sure, I could make comparisons to Teenagers From Mars and Black Hole, among others, but WTFPFH cuts the modern realism with a heaping dose of what the actual fuck? and it makes for a fun, quirky read that I really can't wait to see further unravel, because there is NO way to anticipate where the hell this one is going. Love it!

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Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

John Cale - Black Acetate

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1

... And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead - XI: Bleed Here Now

Withered - Veloren

The Sword - Age of Winters

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Earthless - Black Heaven

Helms Alee - Keep This Be the Way

Sleep - Volume One

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

'

Another reminder that change is a'coming? Really? As if I don't know (he says while he's out of breath from packing).

XL/RZ

 

Anthrax's fan-chosen live album XL dropped yesterday, and while you can tell Joey is struggling a bit on some of the songs, overall this is a blast. Love these guys, can't wait to see them at the Paladium at the end of the month, my outro show from LaLaLand. What a great way to exit, eh?

 

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Watch:

I have to tell you, all the way until I hit play on the new trailer for Rob Zombie's The Munsters remake, I assumed I would hate what I saw. You know what though? This looks visually fantastic and fun as hell:

 

I also appreciate the fact that it's a love story? I mean, part of why I assumed I would not give a lick about this film is I had a really hard time imagining what RZ would do with this property - he hits the same note with his stuff so often that I just couldn't imagine a departure. That's not a complaint - despite regular complaints and disappointments, I generally like most of what he's done cinematically.

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Playlist:

Metallica - Master of Puppets

Perturbator, Johannes Persson and Final Light - Final Light

Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance

Baroness - Gold and Grey

John Cale - Black Acetate

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

Anthrax - XL

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Bexley - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Struggle? Oh yeah. Getting some people to start packing is like trying to get a liar to tell the truth. Still, the card reminds me not to give up, and that even when I feel totally immobilized, there will be a new card tomorrow (unless this one resurfaces. That would make me cry).

I Want to Reach Out and Touch the Sky

Just because it fucking rules!!!

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Watch:

Andrei Tarkovsky has only ever barely been on my peripheral, but thanks to Criterion Channel, I just had the opportunity to watch his 1979 film Stalker.

I still need time to unpack this one before I can talk about it, however, let it be said that I absolutely LOVED this film. Talk about 'location porn.' The visual aesthetic of this film perfectly aligns with my innermost aesthetic - something that goes back to when I hunted around my yard for half-full culverts and dirt mounds, shattered bricks, twisted metal, anything to have a location for my action figures. 

I've been obsessing over Stalker in my head for the last two days, and this inspired me to look for a podcast discussion of it. Well, boy did I find it.

 

The Weird Studies podcast is fantastic! Hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel not only deep-dive the film, but their discussion of philosophy, art and life feels absolutely refreshing in the stifled academic pretense of our time. I've already subscribed, and intend on Weird Studies keeping me company for many a commute to come (while I still have a commute, that is).

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Watch.2:

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I cannot wait for this movie!

 

Against all odds, this really moved the needle for me. I "broke up" with Kevin Smith about the time I sat through Tusk, which could have been fantastic, but had James Laxton's gorgeous cinematography and a stellar Michael Parks performance destroyed by adolescent whimsy. I used to be a big fan of his films, but now, well, I still hold Chasing Amy in extremely high regard - the acting! - but other than that... not so much. Clerks II had its moments but was overall depressing. I'm not saying Smith makes bad movies (sometimes, sure), but overall I feel like I just outgrew him. This, though, looks like it will be a nice way to revisit that original film and these characters. My mileage varies with most of them, but it's been a minute and I didn't go within ten feet of that Reboot movie, so I think I may enjoy the Quick Stop one last time.

 

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Playlist:

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 1

Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance

Earthless - Black Heaven

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland

Windhand - Split EP

Metallica - Master of Puppets