From SQÜRL's forthcoming album Silver Haze, out May 5th on Sacred Bones Records, you can pre-order the album HERE.
Interesting to note that Randall Dunn produced this record. Man's got quite a track record, working with bands like Sunn O))), Earth, and Zola Jesus. Can't wait to hear this entire record; my recent re-watch of Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive for The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror (episode link HERE and HERE for Apple and Spotify respectively) really pushed me back into Jarmusuch's music for a while, both SQÜRL and his work with Jozef Van Wissem. Hearing this first single, I think Dunn was very much a strategic and fantastic choice for this one. Definite Doom vibes, in the best way possible.
Watch:
I'm not watching this trailer! I'm not watching this trailer! I'm not watching this trailer!
I'll have to keep repeating this to myself until March 24th.
Playlist:
The Sonics - Here Are the Sonics
Caladan Brood - Echoes of Battle
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Pigs x7 - Viscerals
The Mysterines - Reeling
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
David Bowie - PinUps
The National - High Violet
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
THUS LOVE - Memorial
Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye
T. Rex - The Slider
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Ghostland Observatory - Sad Sad City (Single)
Grimes - Shinigami Eyes (Single)
Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
The Bronx - II
The Stooges - Funhouse
Card:
Taken at face value, this definitely sums up the last few days at work. Some changes really need to take place, not sure where to start. But Tens are also a the end of a journey, and sometimes an indication of burdensome elements at work. A reminder then, how glad I am that I'm not in-house and managing anymore.
Wayne Shorter passed away last week. To paraphrase something Mr. Brown commented to me in a text recently, the loss of the original Blue Note generation is almost complete now. When I stop to reflect on that, it makes me feel even further into the future than I'd realized. That might be a bit of an obtuse way to describe it, but it's early my first morning in LaLaLand and I'm listening to The All Seeing Eye and reflecting how this music that once provided a vibrant and, frankly mysterious, underlining to popular culture is all but extinct. And Mr. Shorter... well, there's a kind of Voodoo in his music, whether it's the work he did with Miles Davis or an album like this, it always sounds to me like he's summoning something.
Watch:
Another thing I meant to post about last week - the Dead Ringers remake is on the horizon. Not sure how I feel about this, but I'll definitely give it a try.
Playlist:
Palehorse/Palerider & Lord Buffalo - Legends of the Desert, Vol. 1
Townes Van Zandt - High, Low and in Between
Meg Myers - Motel (single)
Burial - Untrue
The Veils - ... And Out of the Void Came Love
The National - High Violet
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
Roxy Music - Eponymous
T. Rex - The Slider
White Hex - Heat EP
Card:
I'll be on my mini, "travel" Thoth deck for a while, and as soon as I picked up the cards, I realized how good it felt to return. I really need to mix in Thoth and Missi's Raven tarot again, as I've become a bit too reliant on The Bound Tarot.
Apparently, I may need some strategy in order to accomplish something I've set out to do. I mean, that a bit of a no-brainer; everything requires some degree of strategy. However, I think this is a reference to one of the reasons I'm in LaLaLand and the things I have to do for work.
My girlfriend's obsession with Nico Vega is really rubbing off on me. I don't know much about them other than they have since broken up, but both the albums K has introduced me to are outstanding! This track is from their self-titled 2009 album, the entirety of which is fantastic.
Watch:
This looks difficult to watch in the best possible way:
I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with Lachlan Watson's acting since being introduced to them via The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and this looks like an even more committed performance than we've seen previously. Also, Director Jeffery A. Brown impressed the hell out of me in 2019 with The Beach House, so I'm definitely game to follow him on a new journey.
Read:
I finished Iron Angel yesterday, the second book in Alan Campbell's Deepgate Codex. Since I'm going to be in LaLaLand for two weeks and don't feel the need to carry a hardcover book with me, I'm going to hold off on Book Three: God of Clocks until I return, opting instead to deep-dive a bunch of books on Elizabethian England for Shadow Play Book Two research. Waiting to read this one is going to be tough, as is waiting to crack into Jeremy Haun's Haunthology, which I received via my Kickstarter pledge a few days ago and did an unboxing video for over the weekend:
Seriously, this book is gorgeous; can't wait to read!
Playlist:
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
The Veils - ... And Out of the Void Came Love
The Jeff Healey Band - Full Circle: The Live Anthology
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Metallica - Hardwired
Nico Vega - Eponymous
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Dr. John - Ske Dat De Dat
Leviathan the Feeling Serpent - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead
Jammes Luckett - May OST
Dexys Midnight Runners - It Was Like This
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Traveling today. Clarity and Will lead to the completion of an "Earthly" matter, i.e. something to do with our house, I'm pretty sure. A tornado nearly missed us this past Friday, and I've discovered some things that need fixing - not sure if these issues existed before the winds felt like they were going to pull my office from off the top of the garage, but they have to be taken care of. This is not my strong suit, but I'm trying to become someone who can handle issues without hiring out simple 'handyman' work. The skill is definitely in my blood - my Father can fix anything. I just have to double-down when I return from LaLaLand and focus.
New music from Iress! I just broke out 2019's Prey a week or so ago, so they've been on my mind and were actually one of the bands I checked to see if they had a show while I'll be in LaLaLand for the next two weeks. No dice, but at least we have this song. These guys continue to level up. You can purchase Ricochet on Iress's Bandcamp HERE.
Watch:
I watched Andrew Davis's The Final Terror earlier tonight (I'm writing this at 12:53 Saturday, 3/04/23).
A Full Five Fucking Stars! The movie ended two hours ago and I still just cannot stop thinking about it. The absolute pinnacle of the Backwoods Slasher subgenre, in my opinion (and I never thought anything would dethrone Just Before Dawn).
Pre-Order Music:
New Godflesh this June!
PURGE! No new tracks posted yet, but I saw the announcement and pre-ordered the Silver vinyl from Plastic Head Megastore, evidently the only place you can grab this at the current moment. Here's the LINK, and a random, awesome photo of JKB I found searching for that album cover above, courtesy of Brave Worlds:
I Love this damn band and I have none of their stuff - no JKB stuff at all on vinyl. Some bands are just CD bands for me. Some of my favorites, too. But this, well, even with the UK shipping charge - which was much more reasonable than I've ever encountered before - I just couldn't pass this up.
Playlist:
The Jeff Healy Band - Full Circle: The Live Anthology (Live Montreal Jazz Fest 1989)
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Viscerals
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
Church of the Cosmic Skull - There Is No Time
Metallica - Hardwired
Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Iress - Ricochet (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
New ideas will lead to the completion of a process, but only if they are weighed carefully for merit and applied in the correct fashion. 100% this references a breakthrough I've had over the last two days' writing sessions on Shadow Play Book 2. Major changes but not in a way that requires a major overhaul. Lots of historical research, though, which is what the cards are confirming as the appropriate avenue. Time consuming but worth it.
It's an early Frank Black kinda morning, so I fired up Teenager of the Year. Love this record!
Watch:
Last night I watched Roadhouse for the first time.
This movie is Ridiculous! I would have turned up my nose and made fun of this even ten years ago, but really, I've come to see a lot of these 80s studio action movies as major studios doing exploitation flicks, and that's essentially what this tries to be. Now, I believe there's a DVD out there with Kevin Smith doing the commentary back like 20 years ago. I'd be pretty interested in checking that out.
Playlist:
22-20s - Eponymous
Various - Up Above the Stars Spotify Playlist (culled from Barry Adamson's Biography)
T. Rex - The Slider
David Lynch & John Neff - BLUEBOB
Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)
Lamp of Murmur - Saturnian Bloodstorm (pre-release singles)
Lustmord - The Others
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Willed transformation will result in an energizing new endeavor/perspective. I know exactly what this is referencing. Time to dig out something I've had on the backburner and give it another once over in between working on Shadow Play Book 2.
Going back to Hardwired, I've become a HUGE fan of this record, and I'm just kind of speechless that this is happening. You know, the idea that Metallica seems to no longer suck. They flirted with this back in '08 with the caricature Rick Rubin produced, but I have my own theories about that one, and it's better left alone. This new era that Hardwired kicked off, however, seems genuine (even if their album covers still blow).
I think the thing that actually convinced me is, on the deluxe Hardwired, there's a live show from Rasputin's in San Francisco (great record store, glad to hear it still exists). During the show, the band play almost exclusively tracks from Kill 'Em All and a few from Ride the Lightning, and there's just this... ease at play. I mean, we all know these guys are tight as hell, that's never been in question. But the way they turned their back on what they helped create in SF in the 80s, and the frankly bizarre attempts at, I don't even know what to call their albums after the self-titled. Were they trying to market themselves? Were they confused by the music industry and how it was changing? Clearly, because Metallica didn't stop at incurring great swathes of ill-will from their former fans with bad music. Then there was that entire Napster thing. Ugh - talk about a bad look.
But let's forget all that embarrassing stuff. To me, the band I loved as a kid disappeared into an alternate dimension after Justice, but maybe that LHC did bring them back to our 616 and it just took another eight years for them to shake off the PTSD that would surely come from interdimensional displacement.
Now if they could just find Pushead and get the album covers straightened out (Don Brautigam passed away in 2008).
Watch:
Two nights ago, we watched Moorhead and Benson's Someting in the Dirt. My second time seeing the film since it's West Coast Premiere at last year's Beyondfest, my first thought upon it ending was, "what an awesome double feature this would make with Darren Aronofsky's PI. I made a mental note to find my DVD, and then promptly forgot. Then, this morning I see this:
I will be in LaLaLand for the screening at TCL Chinese theatre, so I'm pretty sure this was 'meant to be.' Although I haven't watched PI in years, this is always going to be my favorite film by Aronofsky. The B&W is so saturated, it reminds me of James Whale's Frankenstein. PI's release also dovetailed with my then-burgeoning interest in the Occult, so this film imprinted on me hard. Now, I get to see it on the best Imax screen in the world.
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Sidestepping preconceived notions lead to new opportunities that might bring about the culmination of older ideas/projects. Not sure what this is referencing, but that's not unusual of late, because I've been out of tune with the cards. I go through these periods where my id really pushes against anything spiritual, and I'm seeing that right now as excitement and anxiety build up around my two-week trip to LaLaLand. Pack it with as much goodness and friendship as I can, it still feels weird being away from K for that long, especially because this time, I'm in a hotel and without a car the entire time. I'll survive, and I'll thrive, but the expectations are completely frying my mental stability and that's affecting these daily reading, my yoga, my meditation - all of it.
Why not? The oddest and to some, a throwaway track from Alice in Chains' 1992 acoustic EP Sap. I love this one, and have long marveled at just how weird AIC could be when hardly trying.
NCBD:
A damn quiet NCBD, if I say so myself:
I didn't know about this new Jeff Lemire series until I happened to look in my email and see a missive from his newsletter. Sounds pretty badass; from the solicitation on League of Geeks:
"Dom is a long-haul truck driver attempting to stay ahead of his tragic past. When he stops one night to assist Birdie, who has been in a massive car crash, they pull an artifact from the wreckage that throws their lives into fifth gear. Suddenly, a typical midnight run has become a frantic journey through a surreal world where Dom and Birdie find themselves the quarry of strange and impossible monsters.
It's grindhouse horror meeting high-concept supernatural fantasy..."
So yeah, short week, which is fine. I'll be in L.A. for the next two NCBDs and plan to make it out to The Comic Bug at some point, so I'll pick up some of the books I read that I don't have on my pull at Rick's here in Clarksville.
Playlist:
22-20s - Eponymous
Various - Fight!!! Spotify Playlist
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
Helmet - Size
Alice in Chains - Sap
The Mysterines - Reeling
David Bowie - Reality
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
To affect change, an equal force of Will and Renumeration may be required.
