I only just learned that Blut Aus Nord's Vindsval has an album under the moniker Forhist. This is straight Black Metal, but it's my kind of Black Metal. I love this and have been unable to stop listening to it for the last few days.
Watch:
Very Curious about this one. I'm getting weird Titane vibes, only not in any discernable way. I'm starting to pay attention to what I think will play at Beyondfest this year, this is a certain bet (especially since they tweeted about it after I originally penned the above observation):
Doesn't tell You much, but it tells you enough.
Read:
With all my flying all over the place the last few months, followed by the preparation for and actual move, I haven't been able to make any progress reading T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies, which I started a few months back. Mostly settled, I picked it back up last night and easily fell back into it.
As if I didn't have enough to read, I've also begun a re-read of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade The Changing Man, the classic Vertigo stalwart from 1990.
This book is nuts. The Kennedy Sphinx? Absolutely terrifying in the best possible way. I can't wait to dig back into the first three trades of this.
Playlist:
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits Vol. II
Blanck Mass - In Ferneau
Forhist - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Boris and Merzbow - 2R0I2P0
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Led Zeppelin - IV
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Lost of conflict, sacrifice and planning may end up wasted in the end. How appropo, as I woke up with what I'm certain is COVID, thanks to K's Mom being diagnosed with it two days ago and then hobbling around the house, coughing without a mask.
New Pixies! From the forthcoming new album Doggerel, out September 30th. You can pre-order HERE.
NCBD:
Well, we won't have our automobiles until the end of the month. This has become the final challenge with the move, as otherwise, I feel as though we're pretty settled in. Last weekend I rented a car, and I'll probably do so again Friday, so I guess this is what I'll be grabbing at Rick's Comic City on the 12th:
Issue 6 was the Legacy #900. It was cool, but a total departure from the "Street-Level" Spider-Man that has me loving this new book. I also have never given a toss about Norman Osbourne, as he was well and truly dead in the 80s when I read Spider-Man, and thus, not really a factor in any of those stories. But I'm digging this enough to keep coming back for me... for now.
I'm hesitant about following all of these. I've dug the X-Books that tie in and Judgment Day #1, but Eve of Judgment was not for me. I just can't get into The Eternals. So, if this one focuses on them, I'll be skipping it.
I'll be picking up the #1, but remain hesitant on adding this. Great timing, though, what with Prey winning over the hearts and minds of Predator fans everywhere.
I just realized A Town Called Terror is ongoing! I had been laboring under the idea this was limited series, and that it was developing too slowly for there to be any satisfying story arc here. This changes everything!
Playlist:
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Forhist - Eponymous
Blanck Mass - In Ferneaux
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I – Fathers of the Icy Age
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II - Saturnian Poetry
Explode Into Colors - Quilts E.P.
Card:
Back to my Thoth Deck, which I realize I've been neglecting a bit. Continuing with the 3-Card Spread, which I'm thinking will be the norm from here out, I'm seeing a lot of somewhat chaotic but 'soft' forces at play for the day. Nothing huge will happen today, but emotional waters run deep and the same inspirations that help build my personal world, could also potentially damage it, especially in light of what may be a fascinating revelation.
Hmm. This feels like complications are brewing in the house, and I can only look in one direction for that. K's Mom started out really good and positive, but this not having our car thing is making her squirrely. I mean, it's making all of us squirrely, but one thing I can definitely say is, as Perry once observed, "Elderly are like children." It causes her to act out. Which can be frustrating, to say the very least. I'm taking this spread as a suggestion to shore up my personal Dominion and follow my better nature, despite whatever happens.
Like me, you may have been recently introduced to U.S. Girls via Netflix's The Sandman, where episode five featured THIS song. That song is awesome and makes quite the impression, but in checking out the 2015 album it hails from, Half Free, I can tell you that every track is awesome. This one, in particular, made quite an impression on me. Am I hearing traces of Prince-like songwriting and arranging? And Portishead... definitely Portishead. Great vibe and ironic, because I was only just recently waxing philosophical about how I miss the Trip Hop vibes of artists like Portishead and Poe.
We're six episodes into The Sandman, and it is spectacular. I never thought I'd see a proper, nearly panel-for-panel adaptation of this book that had such a huge impact on me as a teenager, but here we are.
The way things are shaking out, it looks as though this first season will contain two of my all-time favorite/most personally influential issues - John Dee's 24 hours in the Diner and the Cereal Convention. Watched the Diner last night, and it delivered, so I'm psyched to get to the Convention.
Being that I like this so much, I can't help but be reminded of last year's Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix, and the fact that they unceremoniously canceled it shortly after the first season dropped.
Watch:
I believe this is the same trailer that ran post-credits at Ti West's X. I still can't believe how far beyond my expectations Ti West's return to cinema has been:
Now that I'm somewhat settled in TN, I'm anxiously awaiting this year's Beyondfest announcement so I can ready myself for the nightmare of trying to buy tickets for their tenth anniversary. I've been attending for all but the first year (didn't know about it then), and I'm certain Pearl will screen, most likely with West and Mia Goth in attendance for some form of Q&A. I'm banking on my boss flying me back to work in L.A. that week, so hopefully, this should all go kind of smoothly and not cost me much.
Listen:
One of my favorite moments of my cross-country drive last week was while my co-pilot was sleeping in his seat next to me, middle-of-the-night, with the Weird Studies podcast on my earbuds (I use the ambient sound pass-through so I can hear everything going on around me). This episode, in particular:
Hearing Phil Ford and J.F. Martel discuss anything is an intellectually stimulating pleasure, but hearing them talk Twin Peaks? Priceless. That said, the conversation begins with Twin Peaks: The Return's infamous episode 8, but uses that as a jumping-off point to expound on the physical and physic changes in our reality that the Trinity Detonation ushered in. Their idea - which I will only very briefly summarize here in an effort to get you to head over to your favorite Podcast Platform and listen to the episode, is that using Lynch's Garmonbozia - pain and suffering - as something of a quantifiable metric, a particular 'flavor' of fear, a discussion can be had about how the world has changed since 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945.
Playlist:
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
U.S. Girls - Half Free
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Now that I work from home - a scenario that has been slightly frustrating due to Amazon's delay on nearly everything I've ordered for my home office - the lack of a commute means I can make my daily Tarot pulls considerably more in-depth.
Starting in the Middle, with Past on the Left and Future on the Right, I'm reading this as my tendency to overthink and psychoanalyze everything has bound me. Somewhere inside that circuitous cavern of thought, however, is an epiphany, or at the very least a sublime moment of understanding. Applying a fresh perspective will open that up.
I think this is in relation to my home-from-home situation, which feels completely scattered at the moment. I need to build my space and from there, things will become better defined.
One of my favorite tracks on Ghost's Impera, an album where I love every track. Is it madness to say this is my second favorite of their records (behind Infestissumam)? I don't care. I love this record.
So, after packing all day last Saturday, and loading all day Sunday, my good friend Keller and made it from LaLaLand to Clarksville, TN in a day and a half! It was awesome. We left immediately after packing (he helped a bit near the end, but I wanted him crisp to drive first-shift, knowing I would be exhausted. My Horror Vision Brother King Butcher and our friends Maddie and Kenta really threw down with us on the move - no easy task when you realize that K's Mom pretty much had, once again, not packed much of anything before day-of). Keller drove from 11:00 PM Sunday, 7/31, until around 7:00 AM the following day. We stopped at a gas station in Flagstaff, AZ, and accidentally hit the skirt of the truck on the concrete bumper guarding the pumps.
Thank god for that bumper.
This is a 20-Foot uHaul truck, and as you might imagine, there's a learning curve. However, everything was ultimately fine because we paid $199 for uHaul's Safemove insurance. SO worth it, and honestly, we were already paying close to $7000 for the truck - it would have been half the price if we trekked over the border into Nevada, however, the monetary benefits would not have outweighed the sanity benefits of picking that truck up down the street from our house.
So my first driving shift began about 7:40 AM (we hit a McDeath's near the gas station for a breakfast sandwich and COFFEE). I'd come to peace with going back to eating meat the week before - that's something I'll hopefully correct again soon, and while I try to avoid McDeath, you really have little choices on the roads between states, so again, I accepted the circumstances for what they were. That shift lasted fourteen hours - I was on fire! Seriously, I did not want to relinquish the vehicle. It was as though I had tapped into something. I've read and thought a lot about the hypnogogic states long drives induce, but this was something even more powerful. I've always thought there is Magick in this country, in the sheer size and what that does to our consciousness as we traverse it, and I think that's what Keller and I tapped into while driving.
So shifts:
Keller: 11:00 PM-7:00 AM
Shawn: 7:40 AM-9:00 PM (time shift puts us at local time ~11:00 PM
Keller: 11:30 PM-3:00 PM
..
I-24 kind of divides Clarksville into two textures. Where we stayed last month with my parents was West of the 24, closer to Fort Campbell, and it has a bit more of a hodge-podge feel. Still nice, but it's a lot of strip malls with Vape stores and Payday loans shops. East of the Highway is decidedly crisper. It's mostly new developments, new stores, etc. When K and I rolled into town with my folks at the end of June, we entered the city through the West side and honestly, it knocked our expectations down a few pegs. After getting priced out of the Murfreesboro/Lavergne/Smyrna area by Angeleno homeowners, seeing this side of Clarksville felt a little like a defeat. When our Realtor eventually explained the divide and showed us around the East side, we felt a lot better, hence why we bought the house that we did. However, as the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so I carried an almost unconscious, background anxiety around with me through the sale, inspections, packing, etc. When Keller and I drove in, Siri had us go a totally different way, using the 31, which is essentially a long, scenic surface street. A bit stressful with a 20-Foot truck, but it totally did the trick. All my low-level disappointment evaporated. I fucking LOVE it here. K and I sat outside on our back porch last night and watched a lightning storm.
Watch:
We haven't had the internet, and we haven't had any time to watch anything, but if all goes well, tonight we'll be digging into some of what we missed. Here's where I'm planning on starting:
And, of course:
While I've been fairly skeptical about what feels like the nearly impossible feat of adapting Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, I am hearing nothing but good things from people I know. Of course, it remains to be seen how I feel about it - as Sandman is one of my all-time favorite and most influential comics, but my mind is open.
Read:
Finally going to start reading James Tynion's Something Is Killing the Children, thanks to Gerald at the Comic Bug, who sold me a set of the first five issues with David Mack covers for half-price as a going-away gift. Look at these:
So far, I'm in. Issue One is a FANTASTIC set-up.
I'm glad I waited to start this (although for investment purposes, I wish I had that first-printing #1). Tynion's 3-issue The Closet just wrapped this past week, and it cinched him as one of my favorite current writers in comics, so I have a nice big run of SIKTC ahead of me to look forward to.
Playlist:
Orville Peck - Bronco
Ghost - Impera
Goatsnake - Black Age Blues
Zombi - 2020
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic
Calexico - The Black Light
Fleet Foxes - Shore
Ella Fitzgerald - Best of, Vol. II
The Bangles - Different Light
Anthrax - Worship Music
Cults - Static
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Billy Idol - The Roadside EP
Deafheaven - Ten Years Gone
The Contours & Dennis Edwards - Motown Rarities 1965-1968
SOD - Speak English or Die
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
The first pull here was done on Wednesday, August 3rd 2022. The second night in the new house. K didn't arrive until the following night, so this was Keller and I hanging out after a second hard day of unloading. I had procured some Mushrooms from a friend back in LaLaLand and saved them for this trip, so when we knocked off for the evening, we opened fresh beers and ate about 2 grams each.
First, yes. I shuffled.
The fact that I laid down 13, 12 and 11 is crazy to me. I read this as the sacrifices I endured (saving $, dealing with all the difficulties of moving your life across country) to perform a massive life-changing ritual (the drive), rewards me. And I'm feeling that reward. Everyone loves this house: Keller couldn't get over it, Kirsten loves it, her Mom loves it, and Sweetie loves it. Oh, and I love it.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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