Gwar - Stalin's Organs

 

One week ago on the 23rd of March was the tenth anniversary of Dave Brockie's death. A decade. That's nearly a third of how old 1995's Ragnarok is. I wanted to do something to commemorate Oderus Urungus's exile from our slovenly realm, but I was in the middle of Man Man week, and posting this past week has been tenuous at best. Anyway, we miss you, Oderus. Earth hasn't been salaminized since you went away, and I'm sure a lot of the folks who read this page would agree that we could really use it right about now.

 

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Watch:

I was on the fence about this one, but seeing a post by Beyondfest earlier today, I bought tickets for tomorrow afternoon:

 

I think I have a phobia of Catholic Horror - weird because I wasn't raised Catholic, although I did attend the odd service as a kid. But there's just something icky about all the pageantry and regalia. This is getting a lot of word of mouth, and a lot of that is making Sydney Sweeney look like a philanthropist for getting a film that has apparently been languishing unmade for over twenty years. I have no idea who she is, but I'm definitely intrigued. Perfect weekend, too. 

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DwC:

Mike Shinabargar and I started a new show! Drinking with Comics Presents: DRUNK on ENERGON!

Once again, I had a lot of fun with this one. I'm absolutely in love with Kirkman's take on these properties, and it gives me great joy to sit around and discuss them with my oldest friend from the Realm of  Comic Shops!

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Playlist:

Grand Ducy - Petite Fours

Brand New - Daisy

Zombi - Direct Inject

Rollins Band - End of Silence

Money Mark - Mark's Keyboard Repair

Ministry - Houses of the Molé

Suicide - Eponymous

Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls

NIN - The Fragile

Fantomas - Suspended Animation

Gwar - Ragnarok

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self Destruct

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Allegaeon - Iridescent (single)

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Various - Satan's Proto Discoteque (mix CD circa 2000)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

• Page of Swords

• Kind of Swords

• Two of Swords

This makes PERFECT sense. I have felt like fighting EVERYONE for the last few days, and I'm not entirely sure why. 

New Music From Arab Strap!

 As usual, huge thanks to Mr. Brown for sending me this, as I've had me 'ead in me arse for the last couple days, and did not see this drop. We're getting awfully close to that new album I'm totally fine with it 👍don't give a f*** anymore 👍 dropping May 10th on Rock Action Records. Pre-order link right HERE. 

Glad to have these guys back for another record; I mean, Aidan and Malcolm went into hiatus while W. was in office, so I kind of thought they might leave the fuckin' planet with what's currently happening. 

This has to be just about my favorite music video since some of the old Liars stuff. 

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Watch:

I had an Ivan Kavanagh double-feature last night. I started with his 2021 film Son:

And then moved on to 2014's The Canal:

I'd seen both of these films previously, but I was happy to go back and revisit them. Both are fantastic; unflinching would definitely be a word I'd use to describe Kavanagh's style. There's a visceral slap to Kavanagh's vision - it sounds a lot like the sound of wet flesh against brick. It's almost mean, but that interpretation is undercut by the lengths to which this filmmaker goes to show the fragile humanity of his protagonists. We see this with Rupert Evans' David in The Canal, and we see it perfected with Andi Matichak's Laura/Anna in Son. There are moments in Son that nearly bring me to tears and the visceral gore that follows later in the film kind of bounces off those soft, quieter moments. Mr. Kavanagh doesn't come across as wanting the terrible acts we witness on screen to befall his characters; instead, it feels as though he's trying to guide them out of the fire to safety.

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Playlist:

Rollins Band - The End of Silence

Run-DMC - Raising Hell

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Beck - The Information

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

• Ace of Swords

• XX: Judgement

• Knight of Swords

A breakthrough of Intellect - something I feel like I can totally use but is definitely eluding me while I wallow in some unwelcome self-doubt - leads to a rebirth of energy synthesized from the balance of Will and Creativity.

Man Man Week

 

Bringing Man Man week to a close with a live quarantine rendition of the second track off 2020's Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. So cool to see this done live in this way; reminds me a lot of the Low Cut Connie quarantine sessions. 

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NCBD:

Once again, another Wednesday, another New Comic Book Day! Short stack this week, but three books I'm excited for. 

Loving this series, and after Cobra Commander #3 last week, I am really wondering where Zartan is going to show up. My money is on this book - I have a definite idea who he may be impersonating. Chances are good, though, that we may not know until considerably further down the line. Either way, I'm super psyched to read this one.

Newburn Series Finale! Can't wait to go back and re-read it in a tight burst. I've really enjoyed Zdarksy and Phillips' street-level story, and while I'm sorry to see it go, there's always something satisfying about a finite series. 

The cover promises a lot, but somehow, I'm just afraid of more gobbledegook. We'll see.

We oscillate back to the villain of the story. I'm really digging The Six Fingers and The One Hand. I wish Image had advertised this better because I know a lot of folks who would have dug these two interconnected miniseries but had no idea they existed. 

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Watch:

After a failed attempt on Monday, K and I made it out to the theatre for Rose Glass's new film Love Lies Bleeding.

 

What an absolutely original film. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is No Country For Old Men, but even that falls shy. Watching this film, I kept thinking, "How does one come up with a story like this?" All the disparate elements - Love, bodybuilding, murder, gun running, cops on the take... it's just fucking glorious.

Also, second movie I've seen in the last six or so months that uses Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady". VERY effective!

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Playlist:

Zombi - Direct Inject

Underworld - Lovely Broken Thing

Underworld - I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess and this is My Horse

Various - Mix CD circa 2007

Fela Kuti - Opposite People

Fela Kuti - Sorrow, Tears and Blood

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars Motion Picture Soundtrack

Man Man - Six Demon Bag

Various - Satan's Discoteque Sweet and Salty (Mix CD circa 2008)

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Man Man Week: The Fog or China

From their 2004 debut, The Man in the Blue Turban With a Face, we have yet another example of how versatile this group is. I love the elements they draw from Tin Pan Alley and 50s Doo Wop, fusing them with something all their own.

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Watch:

Paul Duane's All You Need is Death proved to be one of the highlights of this past year's Beyondfest lineup, and now it's finally being released worldwide. I can vouch for this trailer - it does not give away the movie. 

 

Having seen the film, I can tell you to try your best to see it on the big screen. Duane's approach to Horror thrives on an almost subconscious, microcosmic level while also employing some really big, frightening images. This combination works so well on the big screen, with a professional theatre audio system, especially in regard to Ian Lynch's score, which I can only hope someone releases on vinyl.

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Read:

I've been pretty scattered lately and have not been very successful in reading. I'm chipping along at Malcolm Devlin's Then I Woke Up, which is excellent, but my attention's compass is wonky, pulled from due North by all manner of interfering metals. That said, I recently picked up the missing issues of two early 00s comic series I've been dying to dive into.

First, Mike Baron and Mike Norton's The Night Club, which I'd been missing the final issue of since I picked up the series back in 2005:

Next, from right around the same time, Keith Griffen's Tag.

I'm using the image of the Deluxe Edition Boom! eventually published, however, I was interested in the original issues, as I had two of the three. There was a subsequent series, Tag: Cursed, that I haven't read, but the first two issues of this first one always stayed with me. Ostensibly a zombie story, Tag is a pretty interesting take on what was even a bloated subgenre back in 2005, only two years after The Walking Dead comic started, the same year George Romero returned for a fourth time to his original continuity with Land of the Dead. Tag presupposes an infection you can pass by tagging another person. The pull quote on the top of issue two says it all:

Very much looking forward to reading both of these once I get my head on straight again. 

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Playlist:

All Hell - The Howl (single)

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu

Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes

Man Man - The Man in the Blue Turban

Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

One card today, because I haven't touched the deck in a while and wanted a generalized, "this is the 48 year of your life" kind of reading.

I went with the lighting I'm working in at the moment, too. It felt appropriate. Knowledge above salvation. Sounds great.

 

The closing track from 2014's On Oni Pond. This song goes to some strange places—nothing new for Man Man—and maybe it just has a slightly heftier impact at the end of the album. Either way, it's another iconic track.

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Watch:

The whole Clarksville edition of my family went out to the movies yesterday to see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Overall, the film is not nearly as good as its predecessor Afterlife, but it was fun. 

First, what I liked: I dig the new cast, especially when we still get this much of the old cast. Frozen Empire has a nice mix of both. A few too many kids thrown in, but it works. I loved seeing Patton Oswalt - always do - and I really loved seeing Kumail Ali Nanijani have a much bigger part than I anticipated. I really like that guy. Overall, the story was pretty good, but here's where my biggest problem is: the movie is under two hours long, but I swear to you, I felt like I was watching it for four hours. The script is just wonky in places. Also, this one relies SO much on nostalgia that it becomes a touch obnoxious (the same library ghost? Really?).

Overall, I'll see more of these if they make them. I love seeing Winston as the philanthropist funding the Ghostbusters, and I love the ideas they toy with regarding expansion. This is the path I always thought the original sequel should have taken. 

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Playlist:

Man Man - Life Fantastic

Tamaryn - The Waves

Dum Dum Girls - Too True

Ritual Howls - My Friends Bury Their Souls for the Devil to Find

LCD Soundsystem - Eponymous

Yaz - Don't Go (single)

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Los Saicos - Demolición/Lonely Star (single)

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me OST

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Man Man Week Day Four: Life Fantastic

 

Life is truly fantastic, even as fucked up and dark as it can get out here in 2024. But I turn 48 today and I'm happy to still be here. It's... fantastic!

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Man Man Week - Harpoon Fever (Queequeg's Playhouse)

 

From 2008's Rabbit Habits. THIS is the song that sold me to just how odd this band is. I mean, the boneyard percussion and vaudvillian creep-outs are one thing, but juxtaposed with the bizarre digital freak-out near the end of this song, well, it's old, it's new. It's unlike anything else (accept maybe a shared DNA with Mr. Bungle's "Desert Search for Techno Allah").

 

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Watch:

I caught the trailer for In A Violent Nature about a month ago at the theatre when I went to see Stopmotion, and it completely threw me at first. I seriously thought for a minute that the long-standing F13 legal battles had silently resolved and someone made a new film for the franchise in secret. Not the case, but that's probably a good thing. 

Writer/Director Chris Nash's feature film debut looks Brutal!  Total Video Nasty DNA. Hitting theatres May 31st, I will definitely be putting my arse in a seat at my local to watch this. 

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Playlist:

Zombi - Direct Inject

Zombi - 2020

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Anthrax - Among the Living

United Future Organization - 3rd Perspective

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

• Six of Pentacles 

• XX: Judgement

• Wheel of Fortune 

Earthly plateau - things are right where I want them in some respects, but XX shows it will be a balancing act to keep them there. The Wheel confirms this, but suggests it won't be quite as difficult as I think it will be.