Rodney Crowell - Ever the Dark

My favorite track from a fantastic summer album Mr. Brown recently recommended to me, Rodney Crowell's The Chicago Sessions, produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. 

Crowell has been kicking around for decades; his debut record, Ain't Living Long Like This came out in 1978, but I don't remember ever being exposed to his music until Brown sent me a copy of his 2018 Christmas Record Christmas Everywhere last year. Working backward, there's a wealth of fantastic material (especially on that first record and 2001's The Houston Kid). Crowell spent some time in the mid-to-late 70s in Emmylou Harris's backing band, and they did an album together in 2013 that's also on my list to check out.

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Watch:

I've never really been a Godzilla fan, but I have to admit, I think I'd probably be a fool not to see Godzilla Minus One when it opens this December:

 

I'm assuming it was lack of exposure to Godzilla flicks as a kid that is the reason they don't really resonate with me. I remember when the trailer for that first Legendary film with Brian Cranston popped up before something in the cinema - that trailer made me think the new approach would be a lot more in the Cloverfield vein, and that sounded really cool at the time. Then several of my friends saw it and reported back that if I was looking for something new, this wasn't it. I let that film come and go, then tried to watch the second one on HOBOMAX a few years ago and actually fell asleep for lack of Godzilla. Will this return to Toho ignite a love for these films? Well, it's not likely to move the needle backward, but you have to admit, this looks pretty badass, so I'll check it out. What I'm really hoping is all my Godzilla-loving friends come away super happy with this one; the buzz of the franchise's return to its original home Toho seems like a good omen for sure. 

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Read:

I finished Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange, and as I suspected, I'm having a difficult time choosing a book to move to next, simply because The Strange was so damn good. Officially, as of right now, this is the best novel I've read in 2023 (new or old):

Described by the Author in the afterword as "The Martian Chronicles meets True Grit," I think that says it all. This is a coming-of-age story shaped by loss and the quiet, frustrating echoes of it that resound forward through our lives and shape who we become, especially for those loss touches at a young age. Annabelle Crisp is a protagonist for the ages, and I loved the brief 'wraparound' that Ballingrud employs so we could 'hear' a grown Belle relate the events of her 14th year on Mars, 1931. 

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Playlist:

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Soul Coughing - El Oso

Underworld - Beaucoup Fish

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Lustmord - Berlin

Metallica - The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited

Various - Apple Yacht Rock Essentials

Bria - Cuntry Covers Vol. 2

The Ravenonettes - In and Out of Control

T. Rex - The Slider

Rodney Crowell - The Chicago Sessions

Bluekarma - The Frictin, The Pain

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Southern Fried True Crime Podcast - Episodes 180, 182 and 190

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Oracle:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE. And as of 5:00 PM Central Time today, September 5, 2023, you can head over to Kickstarter and back Grimm's new deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot. Check it out HERE.

• Eight of Cups

• Six of Pentacles

• IV: The Emperor

Right off the bat (and probably because I'm tired and have a lot of work-work in front of me), I'm reading this with a squint, which is to say, I'm not even looking past the fact that there's only one Major here, and it's telling me to sit quietly and hammer out my work before even thinking about the creative and emotional threads that will emerge as the day lengthens. 

Rote Hexe - Black Wood Becomes White Wood

It'd been a while since I last jammed Rote Hexe's debut 12" Red Witch, a surprise find back at the old Amoeba Records somewhere in 2015, and which included a 7" flexi that had the above song on it. 

This one slams! I love the mixture of Doom and experimental Black Metal this two-piece traffics in. I wish I could find more music by them, however, from what I'm seeing online, this is it. That's cool - releasing an EP this great and dropping the mic just means they're legendary.

You can listen and purchase Red Witch on Rote Hexe's Bandcamp HERE, and check out their label Cricket Cemetery's site HERE.

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Watch:

Man, I feel like it's been a short eternity since Butcher from The Horror Vision saw Writer/Director Bomani J. Story's debut feature, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. Ostensibly a new take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I've heard nothing but good things about this one. Here's the trailer (that I haven't watched, which probably explains why it's taken me this long to post it here):

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster hits Shudder on 9/22, however, it's currently a $5.99 rental on Prime, and I think I'd like to give my money to this one. Pretty excited.

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Rote Hexe - Red Witch w/ 7" Flexi

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Zombi - Shape Shift

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Fuck Buttons - Streeting Horrrsing

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Ghost - Impera

Anthrax - Among the Living

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

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Oracle:

Ugh - pardon the flash-accentuated picture:

• Queen of Cups - Water of Water, Emotional aspect of Emotion

• Seven of Disks - Failure: a Victory in its own right

• XIII - The Devil - Information - Good or Bad - from a suspect source

Jesus. This is my upcoming weekend in a nutshell. Things will get overly complicated emotionally if I fail to recognize a crucial piece of information as either valid but from a suspect source (I already have them in mind), or invalid from a trusted source (the worse of the two scenarios). 

New Music from Wolves in the Throne Room!!!

A gorgeous new video from Wolves in the Throne Room's upcoming EP Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge, out September 29th on Relapse Records. You can pre-order a copy HERE.

Also, and as an aside, pretty sure that's Zartan making an appearance in the video at 2:11.

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Watch:

It's been a slow week for watching stuff; after hearing John Trafton talk about how he's not streaming new content until the WGA strike is over, I decided to follow suit. So no new shows for the last few weeks, which isn't nearly as bad as some might think - yeah, I'm behind or half-complete with several shows - Justified, Secret Invasion - but honestly, I don't really care at all. 

I couldn't make the same pledge for films simply because of everything we cover on The Horror Vision (although if things get too rough for the writers, I may vote to stop covering new studio films altogether and redirect the focus of the show to reassessing older titles). This break in the ouroboros of media consumption has led K and I back outside, where the cooler weather this week has weakened the presence of the marauding mosquitos and allowed us to enjoy our backyard again. Last night, however, the bugs were bad, and we folded back into our couch and watched a flick the other members of The Horror Vision were talking about: Adam Schindler's 2015 home invasion film Intruders.

If you're like me, you've seen this thumbnail pretty much every day since 2015. I don't normally gravitate toward Home Invasion as a subgenre, so I know why I passed this one up. That said, finally seeing it, I can say that I really enjoyed it, and it's not what you think it's going to be. I opted to post an image instead of a trailer because I'd be willing to bet the trailer gives too much away; we went in 100% blind and were pleasantly surprised.

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Playlist:

The Cure - Pornography

Anthrax - State of Euphoria

Testament - Low

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Mastodon - Leviathon

Bluekarma - The Communication

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Oracle:

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

• XIV: Temperance (Art in Thoth)

• Ten of Wands

• V: The Hierophant

Easy associations this morning; a reminder to employ patience and consider the ideas of others (my folks) as I barge into the situation this weekend and attempt to fix a problem we have with the person representing the sale of their house. The Hierophant is the dogma of my own ideas, whipping my preconceived notions into a frenzy that, if left untempered, could lead to a Willful disaster. 

Just for perspective, I thought I'd pull Thoth today, as well:

• XVI: The Tower

• Seven of Wands

• XVIII: The Moon

A very similar reading as above (or, I suppose it's just my inclination for interpretation, after all, that's what Tarot is - it's not occult information from an outer source, but a way to bypass the conscious mind with symbols and associations and peak at what's already in your mind that you might be refusing or unaware of).

The Tower here represents the Idea I have in my head (the one that the first Pull warned me against giving too much credence to). The Seven of Wands is a Victory (sevens always are some kind of Victory or turning point because their Sephirotic association is Netzach) over that untempered Dogma (Hierophant). The Moon is almost always a nod to unconsidered or occluded information. I'm taking that to mean that while the person I have an issue with is definitely operating at their own agenda, there's more to the story than just their being a cunt.

A Darkness At the Heart of My Love

Over a year later and I still just can't play this record enough. So much about this one might have hit me wrong if it hadn't come out exactly when it did. Because of that timing, every listen transports me to someplace very special. I'm not sure if it's because Impera dropped right around the time K and I started venturing out in the aftermath of the pandemic or if it's just down to how incredible this record is. Probably a little from column A and a little from column B. 

I remember those first tentative nights when we discovered that Frejole's of El Segundo - our favorite Mexican Restaurant in proximity to our place in Redondo Beach - had put in a small bar, so that when we went in to pick up our Friday night carry-out, we would stop and have a pint of Santa Monica Brewing's 310, or Lagunitas IPA, then drive home with this or Orville Peck's Bronco blaring, a newfound freedom energizing our long-cocooned weekends. 

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NCBD:

My picks for this week's NCBD:

Two issues left of Nightmare Country: The Glass House and I'm not sure how to feel about this second chapter. Of course, I'm hoping there will be more; I've said before that reading this book monthly reminds me SO MUCH of reading Sandman monthly, without being redundant at all. Of all the "Sandman Presents" titles that have come and gone in the last however many years since Gaiman and DC announced his curation of the line, Nightmare Country is the only one that has kept up a consistent feeling of actually being a worthy continuation (that's not to knock the original The Dreaming, which I loved). Anyway, the previous chapter of this story came in the form of that Thessaly one-shot, and now that she's involved, things feel even more on edge. Perfect.

Yeah, this is how they get ya, right? I don't really have any interest in reading a Wolvie book - although the shit I hear that's going on with Beast basically becoming Dark Beast sounds fantastic - but the mini-event "Weapons of Vengeance" is switching to Wolverine this month and I'm reading it. Great series so far, and we finally got the revelation of Weapon Plus: Hellfire Program, so I'm psyched to see where this goes.

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Watch:

So when I posted the Black Mold trailer last week, that was kind of a last minute override of another trailer that dropped around the same time. Ladies and Gentlemen, Beaten to Death:  

That title made me think there was no way I was going to step in front of this bus, but the film actually looks excellent, and while you know it's going to be violent AF, watching this leads me to believe it won't be the kind of violence the title first suggested to me.

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Playlist:

King Diamond - Them

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Secret Chiefs 3 - Le mani destre recise degli ultimi uomini

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

Ghost - Impera

Anthrax - State of Euphoria

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747

I was totally blown away yesterday to come home from a pretty damn good writing session and find that my good friend Jacob had sent me a record. Jacob has sent me several awesome records before, but this... this was something of a dream come true - a brand new copy of his band Bluekarma's 2000 record, The Communication, newly remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, pressed on vinyl for the first time. 

This is HUGE - Bluekarma is the band that first brought my old band, The Yellow House, to Dayton, Ohio, for our first show outside of Illinois. I got to be friends with these guys, but none more so than Jacob, who, at one point, we realized I had somehow unknowingly and before I met him, acquired a guitar he had previously owned and modified. It was a total WTF moment where I think we both realized there was something bigger than us at work. Since then, we've remained in touch even at a distance, and when I played as part of a band he was in back circa 2014, it was kind of another dream come true.

Here's a link to the vinyl announcement, and HERE is a link to order one of these babies for yourself.

747 was the song that Jacob used to do this insane guitar solo to. When they played Dayton's Nite Owl as they did the first time we played with them, the bar would give Jacob a bottle of Jagermeister, and he would walk out along the top of the bar and literally pour that beautiful black liquid into people's mouths. It wasn't so different from what we used to do with Hickory Hills Whiskey when Brown and I were in Schlitz Family Robinson. except, of course, Jager is delicious, and HHW is rotgut. Anyway, think of that scene while you jam this tune. It's one of a kind, as are the memories.

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Watch:

High on Fire studio update:

 

I cannot WAIT for this album!!!

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Playlist:

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Mercyful Fate - Melissa

Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 8-24-23 w. JOSH HOMME | Bill Burr

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Deftones - Ohms

Baroness - Stone (pre-release singles)

Bluekarma - The Communication

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Oracle:

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

• I: The Magician

• Ten of Cups

• Queen of Wands

 

Initial, revelatory creative spark squashed by the inability to adequately interpret necessary emotional context.

No idea on this one. As has become my custom, I'm tempted to read this as a Pull for the main character of the book, but even in that context, I'm a bit lost.

Aside from Creative energies, The Magician can point to the presence of Magick. Ten of Cups is a full-on emotional deluge, and can indicate an unwillingness to step from beneath our emotional attachments. Queen of Wands is the Emotional aspect of Emotion, Water of Water, and the reason my initial interpretation of the Ten is a deluge. 

New Music from Ministry!!!

Ministry released a new track last week, and as usual, I love it. From the forthcoming album HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, out March 1, 2024, I feel like this is a bit early, but still, I can't really complain about new Ministry. No pre-order link that I could find yet, but that's sure to come. In the meantime, enjoy Goddamn White Trash.

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Watch:

K and I took her Mom to see the Barbie movie over the weekend. This was about as interesting to me as the battleship movie until Mr. Brown posited that he'd read the entire thing was going to be one big piss-take. 

That got me interested. 

I waited for the hype (and crowds) to die down before even entertaining the idea of getting a ticket. We were at the theatre multiple times since this thing opened, and the crowds of pink-adorned moviegoers gave me pause. The malaise for big-budget IPs I always experience when actually faced with seeing them kicked in, and I figured I could go on just fine without ever actually seeing this thing, thank you very much. 

Then K's Mom expressed interest, so we decided to take her. Verdict? Greta Gerwig did exactly what I hoped she would with this one: It's irreverent toward everything that deserves irreverence - including itself and the Barbie brand - yet still manages to be fun and touching as all hell. And as far as the cries of man-hating, anyone offended by this is a douche, and exactly what the film is commenting on. 

Ms. Gerwig had come a long way from being the friend in Ti West’s House of the Devil, and I applaud Mattel for allowing this to be what it is. Also, fucking Rhea Pearlman, am I right? 

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Read:

I finished Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls over the weekend. OUTSTANDING novel! I read the last 60 or so pages in a mad gallop, unable to put the damn thing down. This means I'm going to reassess some of his newer books, all of which I'll probably read at some point.

Moving on, I finally started Nathan Ballingrud's novel The Strange. 

Holy smokes! Only 80-odd pages in, and I can pretty much guarantee right now, this will be the best novel I read this year. No disrespect to the others - Laird Barron's The Wind Began to Howl, and Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper are both going to come in close, but Mr. Ballingrud's prose is just mouthwatering.

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamably Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Agnes Obel - Aventine

Ghost - Impera

The Rods - Wild Dogs

The Rods - Live

Van Halen - 1984

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Etta James - Second Time Around

Standish/Carlyon - Deleted Scenes

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Ubre Blanca - Polygon Mountain EP

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Mercyful Fate - Melissa

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Oracle:

Just want to do a simple, one-card Pull today, and Missi's Raven Deck is the one I use for that:

Beware bad information and/or don't overlook information from dubious sources. 

New Puppet Combo Game Coming to Switch!!!

Spent a couple hours playing Myrkur's back catalogue yesterday, and it reminded me how much I dig their music. 

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Play:

Holy smokes - another new Puppet Combo game coming to Switch! Check out this trailer and the amazing announcement that accompanied it:

    

"Night at the Gates of Hell combines the 1980s Italian zombie aesthetic of Lucio Fulci, with nail biting survival horror gameplay. Players must navigate desolate Mediterranean cities in search of clues, weapons and items to make an escape. Encounters range from crazed cultists to flesh hungry zombies to massive abominations - all must be taken down with extreme precision, because only headshots kill these maggot-filled monsters." 

 I'll admit - I haven't gotten very far in Stay Out of the House, however, I'm finding that my interest in these games isn't so much about solving them, as it is just experiencing the amazing environments they put players in. This looks to be no different, so I pre-ordered mine the moment I saw this in my youtube feed!

Night at the Gates of Hell is a full-on Lucio Fulci love letter that drops September 9th!

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Watch:

A new trailer for John Pata's second feature-length film, Black Mold, dropped yesterday. 

I've been waiting for this one for a while, although I no longer remember whatever put it on my radar to begin with. This looks as though it will be quite a ride, and I'm hoping maybe this is one I'll get to see at this year's Beyondfest, if all the cards fall in my favor.

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Playlist:

Pale Dian - Narrow Birth

Pale Dian - Feral Birth

Myrkur - M

Myrkur - Eponymous

Myrkur - Mareidt

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamble Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Nahab

Godflesh - Purge

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Oracle:

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

• Seven of Wands

• Ten of Swords

• Three of Swords

 

A stabilizing victory over calamity sows new, stronger ties. This, I believe, is a direct answer to a question I have a character in the book stuck in. Only through betrayal and arrival at the precipice of disaster do they find the relationship that will ultimately unlock triumph. 

Or something like that.