New Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Video - Jesus Alone

Good lord, based on this track alone prepare for Skeleton Tree to be both beautiful and devastating.

Black Sabbath - After Forever

Coming back home to my native environment in the Midwest during August is a toss up, however it's one that's worked pretty much to my favor two years in a row. But I ain't pushing it; back to October from here on out. I miss Autumn, a season we don't have where we live now. That said, I can't complain; for two years in a row I've gotten a minimum of the hot, muggy crap and instead had some really nice thunderstorms and a generally cooler atmosphere than I would have expected. In the midst of that kind of cooler temperature I've been able to hit the woods and explore some old haunts. I spent a lot of time in the forest preserves of the greater Chicagoland area during my formative years and one of the things that always accompanied them - other than a particular green and leafy vegetable consumed via smoke inhalation - is Black Sabbath. It is, in a word, in my blood.

I still listen to Sabbath on a somewhat regular basis, going through seemingly unprompted jags from time to time back home in my adopted Los Angeles, but it's not quite the same. And usually there's a whole host of new music that demands my making new Chicago memories with when I come home to visit. This year though, maybe because of the rain and the forest preserves, I'm stuck on an Endless Loop of Sabbath while I'm here. And "After Forever", a song I've always loved as part of the overall oeuvre of the band but never really focused too much on for its individual traits within that oeuvre, has become something of an obsession for me at the moment.

Master of Reality, the record upon which the track in question is found, has never been one of the go-to Sabbath records for me. Well, really the entire run of albums the band put out with John "Ozzy" Osbourne are go-to records, but within that run there are favorites I harbor. Mine have always been the Eponymous first record, Vol. 4 and the band's masterpiece, Sabotage. Surprisingly to many, even their often maligned second to last with John, Technical Ecstasy probably clocks more yearly spins that M.O.R. Which is interesting when you stop to consider that at least three of the tracks on M.O.R. are among my favorite Sabbath tracks. "Into the Void" was one of the first tracks I ever heard by the band and both that and "Lord of the World" have what might be my favorite riffs by Iommi. And the quiet "Solitude" has always captivated me with it's eerie, serene beauty. Despite all this, the record has always struck me as a bit abbreviated. "Embryo" and "Orchid", the two instrumentals that serve as introductions for longer, thicker tracks are both beautiful, but when you have a thirty second and a two minute instrumental that count as two of eight tracks that comprise a record, weeeellll... And yes, several of the other tracks are rather meaty, but I still always feel M.O.R. is over before it begins.

Anyway, because of this stigma I've created for my relationship with this record - still an amazing record - "After Forever" has spent the last fifteen years perpetually slipping below my radar. So I guess now, while the rain's flowing and the forest preserves of my hometown call to me, I'll give it its due.

Volume knob set firmly at 11.

Gravitysays_i - Quantum Unknown (Riveted Eye) Official Audio

I'm currently traveling in the Midwest and amidst the endless hours of trying to see all my friends, trying to eat all the food that I so dearly miss (but am glad I do not consume save for once a year) and the subsequent celebratory imbibing that accompanies both there have been few quiet moments for peace.

Not a complaint.

Still, at 40 there is no possible way I can keep up the pace I have in years past on these trips and I find myself in need of a few hours of downtime.

This morning was it. Rest and relaxation with a head full of hauntings, most good, some undetermined at this point. My book is done - in the hands of my first two 'beta readers' and I'm working on a new short story. While doing so I realized there's a whole host of things I haven't gotten to yet, not the least of which is the new record by Gravitysays_i, a record the group's publicist very graciously sent me and I haven't had a chance to ingest yet. So I spent some time this morning sipping hot, black coffee and giving Quantum Unknown a first go round. Not only was I not disappointed (I was completely unfamiliar with Gravitysays_i previously) but I found it was the perfect record to spend a couple of hours decompressing and taking an account of the 'inner landscape' after all this hullabaloo. Give the first officially released song a gander and then grab Quantum Unknown from Inner Ear Records on September 16th.

Ritual Howls - Spirit Murder

best band photo ever?

So this dropped yesterday. The new album by Ritual Howls, Into the Water, is a breathtakingly dark contemplation on - these ears - broken cityscapes, dangerous situations and the endless enigma of frustration that defines modern life.

Song title sooo makes me think of Barry Adamson's Soul Murder. Just saying.

Yeah, it's fucking fantastic. Buy it here.

Well, This is a Surprise: Metallica's Hard Wired

I never thought I'd be posting a Metallica song on this blog - certainly not one written after 1988. But I'll be damned if this isn't a great, very old school without sounding contrived (ahem, death magnetic) track that, while Some Kind of Monster may have forever killed my opinion of these guys as artists, well, I can jam to this. Or at least the vestiges of 16 year old Shawn that still blares Master of Puppets now and again can. Shit, just listen to that fucking solo - it sounds straight off Kill 'Em All.

Fucking terrible album cover though, so I didn't use that as the graphic.

New Pixies song Talent

The announcement for the next Pixies record Head Carrier entered the world via email sometime within the previous month. Being on their mailing list I saw it, however in the constant 75 mph I've been moving I still haven't really had a chance to listen to or read anything about it other than the fact that it drops on 9/30 and you can pre-order it in many different forms HERE.

The initial reunited-era Pixies record Indy Cindy seemed to catch a lot of flak online - not really sure what that was about because to me, as a long-time fan of the band, and one that honestly would have preferred Mr. Black continue his solo career to reuniting the past, I La La LOVED it. Indy Cindy sounded like the next logical step from 1991's Trompe Le Monde, so I am very much looking forward to Head Carrier.

But let's get another Grand Duchy or Black Francis record sometime soon (OR Frank Black and the Catholics for that matter- now we're talking!)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - One More Time With Feeling Official Trailer

Chills.

Ritual Howls - Going Upstate

Continuing my new found love affair with Felte Records and their exemplary roster of talent, early this past week I pre-ordered the forthcoming new album by Ritual Howls. Three tracks were made available to me immediately upon purchasing Into the Water and I've been beating them into my brain ever since in long writing sessions with the iPod on. Without really sounding like them, these guys remind me a little of what I love about early My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. This is some dark stuff, like music you might hear while descending into the basement of an enemy just as the acid kicks in.

Love the music, love the album cover and again, LOVE Felte Records.



You can check out Ritual Howls here and Felte Records in general here.

Turkish Leather on wax is my next purchase and I'm chomping at the bit to get it. Until then, make mine Felte!

Adam Wingard's The Woods is really...

Well, this is everywhere by now but I'm at work so this is the first chance I've had to post about the fact that one of my newest favorite horror directors, Adam Wingard's upcoming film The Woods has been revealed to be nothing other than a new installment in...

The Blair Witch Project.



Words cannot summate just how excited I am. I have always considered the original Blair Witch Project to be the second scariest movie I have ever seen (coming in behind The Exorcist of course). I also really dug the sequel for its tone and pragmatic "we already did that now let's do the exact opposite" approach. And now, well, from what we're hearing after the press viewing, 2016's Blair Witch may enter into the upper echelons of that 'scariest flicks of all time" list.

Also worth embedding is the teaser for The Woods, simply for juxtaposition and, well, I really dig the way they used this version of Every Breath You Take.

Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 2 Trailer

Now please.

Nite Fields - Depersonalisation

Beginning with my introduction to Odonis Odonis a few weeks ago, I have slowly succumbed to a wonderful, all-encompassing musical abyss named Felte Records. It's been years since I considered myself as having a 'favorite record label' but with Felte I feel I can once again make that claim. Their roster of talent is crazy good and seems styled after my own personal tastes (and probably yours too if you read this blog), their products and business approach are fantastic and, well, talk about friendly - when my vinyl version of Post Plague arrived in the mail the other day the fine folks at Felte had thrown in another record for free.

For Free!!!

I had not had the pleasure of hearing Nite Fields previously but once I saw that cover (pictured above) I immediately made the plastic incision and extracted the beautiful piece of black vinyl within, cued it up on my new record player and within moments the opening strains of lead track 'Depersonalised' pulled my consciousness into a beautiful, black spiral from which I have only reluctantly emerged to switch back to the throb and punch of Post Plague. The two make a great juxtaposition and I highly recommend both. Depersonalisation by Nite Fields can be ordered here and Post Plague by Odonis Odonis here.

Go forth and support an awesome independent label!!!

RIP Alan Vega

Wow 2016. Umm... stop?

Well, the man was 78, so it's not super unexpected. That said, Suicide is very much the mega-influential American band that 98% of people don't know about. I'm not saying that to be pompous, it's just a shame that they achieved a broader spectrum of exposure. Then again, it's a shame, but not a surprise, because there is next to nothing overtly approachable about Suicide's music.

For some of us however, that in and of itself is an attribute. Henry Rollins had a statement earlier, and I'm sure his radio show this evening was dedicated to Mr. Vega. Rollins wrote an amazing column that talked about Suicide sometime last year in his weekly LA weekly column. If I can eventually find it online I'll post a link here. Needless to say, he had the perfect summation of how Suicide's music generally goes from confrontational and alienating to impactful and mesmerizing.




Mr. Vega did a lot of other music as well. This song, a collaboration with A.R.E. Weapons, is one of my favorites.



Safe passage to the other side Mr. Vega. You earned it.

Food For Thought - Election Comic Kickstarter

Back in the early episodes of Drinking with Comics we had an episode that overlapped with one of the many local creator meetings that take place at Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug and brought one Cassidy James up to speak on behalf of a comic he was kickstarting, Gun Up Paintball. I hadn't seen Cassidy in a while and ran into him a month or so ago during an event at the shop. He told me about a new comic he had waiting in the wings called Food For Thought and it sounded like a lot of fun to me; I'm so disgusted by the entire election but can't seem to stop following it (for the record I don't consider myself a liberal or a conservative - I don't want any of 'em in office, btw) and a book that poked fun at any of the candidates sounded right like it might be just what a lot of us need to blow off some steam at the seemingly endless campaign trail shenanigans that we've been choking on for months now. If this sounds good to you too give the video above a watch and contribute to the Kickstarter HERE if you can. I'd really like to see this book get up off the ground. With Cassidy's words and Livan Ivan Cornejo's art I think this could be a truly entertaining and timely book.

Odonis Odonis - Needs

Almost every year without fail I stumble across a record that immediately announces itself as my favorite of the year. This certainty usually arises within the first song, which always makes the record feel that much more powerful. Yesterday I sought out Canada's Odonis Odonis and was immediately struck with the certainty that, while I have and will no doubt hear a lot of other amazing new music this year, Post Plague is going to be my #1 come year's end.

Mike Mendez's The Last Heist

In his weekly column for LA Weekly sometime early last year Henry Rollins discussed how much fun he had shooting a new movie called The Last Heist. Now, I am a Rollins fan, but even moreso the director of this film turned out to be Mike Mendez, who is responsible for one of my all time favorite flicks The Convent back in the very early aughts. Mr. Mendez has not done a whole heck of a lot since then (not a criticism), so this news made me very excited. I waited for sometime, confused He Never Died* with the forthcoming film, and then dropped my guard.

And of course, then it hits. Played here in LA last weekend. Damn!

Anyway, I'll be taking a page from Tommy at Heaven is an Incubator's Joup column Thank God For VOD! and watching this one very soon. Looks fantastic!



..............

* Which is also great!

Deafheaven - Gifts From the Earth

Fuck yeah! I really have to give Sunbather another chance, because ever since Mr. Brown sent me New Bermuda for my Birthday back in March, I have become increasingly infatuated with it.

Tennis System - Such a Drag

Seeing these guys and Adult Books open for Eagulls tomorrow night. Psyched.

Get Out of My House - Kate Bush

Aside from the obvious fact that Gaimen named Morpheus's realm after the title of the album, doesn't this record - especially this song - sound exactly like Sandman reads?

I LOVE that.

Eagulls - Velvet Official Music Video

The second Eagulls record caught me by a bit of a surprise; the band's 2014 eponymous debut is a frenetic celebration/re-appropriation of late 70s/early 80s Post-Punk sounds, most especially The Cure's Pornography. New record Ullages is considerably more down-tempo and depressing. In a GOOD way. Where the debut is still a bit more accessible Ullages is growing on me - not that I didn't like it to begin with, but it tends to usher in a bit of a Pall over my mood. Well, today was a completely rainy, overcast day in LA and as such this record fit perfect. Which reminded me they released a video recently that I hadn't gotten around to seeing.

Grimes - Kill V. Maim

Based on my historical music video preferences I should hate this.
I do not. I LOVE it.
I feel like Grimes just made a better version of Sucker Punch than ZS did.

Terra Tenebrosa - Ghost at the End of the Rope

I'm on the Debemur Morti mailing list and I found a link to this in my inbox today. The Blut Aus Nord circa The Work Which Transforms God influence is obvious but not overplayed. I need to hear more, but thus far I dig this.

You can pre-order the new album The Reverses here.

Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats

@macafro first told me about Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats a couple of years ago. And they promptly fell off my radar. Well, a couple of months ago they popped back on my radar and became a a steady rotation in my daily life. Especially 2015's The Night Creeper album, and this song in particular!

Grimes - Visions

...Is my choice for this week's edition of the Joup Friday Album. You can hear the album and read what I have to say about it on that link above, and you can watch the video for Oblivion below.

Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe

Simply put, I Love Fede Alvarez's 2013 continuation of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead SO MUCH that I would follow him to hell and back (Love Panic Attack! too). So when I heard about his new film Don't Breathe - although I'm bummed it's not another chapter in Mia's corner of the Evil Deadverse - I was stoked for another movie from him, especially one with such an awesome concept.

And Jane Levy to boot!

Pale Dīan - In A Day

I heard this on Part Time Punks radio show on KXLU this afternoon while I was stuck in traffic - it was sandwiched between old Cocteau Twins and Isolation Ward. This is the only song on the bandcamp so far, with the album proper to be released in early June on Manifesto Records.

I. Can't. Wait.

*Love*

Guordon Banks - Keep You in Mind

Wow. Love this song. Reminds me of old school Al B Sure!

The Kills - Heart of a Dog

New Kills. 'Nuff said. Not a huge fan of these types of videos, but here I really like how and where they utilized their backgrounds.

June 3rd is the new record (pre-order here), which I've rabidly been waiting for since seeing them live for the first time last year at Pomona's Glass House. They're not playing LA on their current tour - San Francisco is the closest they're coming and as much as I'd LOVE to road trip up, that is not in the cards at the moment.  But if they come near you go. Trust me.

Negativeland Co-Founder Passes

Okay, can we agree that 2016 is a little bit out of control with the musician deaths? The legendary musician deaths?

Richard Lyons - I didn't actively know his name until last night. I was stranded in W. LA due to nightmare-level traffic, sitting at a Coffee Bean writing about Prince's death when the following text came through:

Much like a lot of Prince's later work I hadn't kept up with Negativeland in a while. The last piece I saw/heard was the Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak and that was in 2002 while recording at the wonderful Apocalypse Cow recording studio in Montgomery, Illinois where proprietors the Brooks Brothers brought me up to speed on the then-latest NL project. But Negativeland's work takes time to appreciate and that's something I've had considerably less of over the fifteen years since. Even with a record store like the pretty much all-encompassing Amoeba relatively nearby I just haven't kept up. That however, does not change the fact that Negativeland - the group Mr. Lyons helped co-found, released a handful of albums that I did encounter in the past and that had enormous impact on my life, mind and art.

The first of these was Helter Stupid, which I seriously cannot recommend enough. That said, what Negativeland does isn't exactly music so you have to reasonably curate how and when you engage with it. Think of this more as media-splicing/sound collage with the intent of deprogramming some of the more residual and insidious modern day marketing shrapnel that gets lodged in our circuit boxes just by driving past billboards, catching a few moments of television while sitting in the dentist's waiting room or suffering through even a few small moments of terrestrial radio while in the office.

Helter Stupid, in true NL fashion, samples the group's "breakout" track - I'd imagine they'd laugh at that - Christianity is Stupid. This made a HUGE impact on me at the time, and it's confrontational yet hilarious delivery very much influenced a project Mr. Brown and I did in the early 00s - C-Building Kids.

Brown took to the group even more than I did, and scooped up the group's descertation on the 'cola wars' and advertising in general, Dispepsi pretty much the day it came out. This one was in heavy rotation in our rehearsal space; at the time we were in a band called Schlitz Family Robinson that actively tried to incorporate strange recording techniques/samples/sonic detritus into our sound and Dispepsi opened up all kinds of new doors for us in that regard.

Richard Lyons and Negativeland helped further introduce me to new and left-of-center ideas for what 'music' can be, or maybe more appropriately what a band can be. Hearing about his death - and holy cow two other members of the band having also passed on since 2015 - has left me feeling a little bit older than even the Prince exodus did.

Read all about Richard Lyons in a great article on Consequence of Sound here and enjoy Christianity is Stupid below.

Rest in Purple

I almost posted something when I heard the news of Prince's death this morning but I stopped myself. I was at work, entering long strings of data into a spreadsheet and trying to jar myself awake by listening to Iron Maiden on my headphones. During the resultant trance-like state two things happened simultaneously: first, just as one song ended and another was about to begin I overhead two of my co-workers talking in a vague way about what sounded like a celebrity death. Second, a text bubble popped up on my phone. It was from my friend Ray. Without stopping my typing I looked down and saw this:

The two disparate streams of  information collided in my mind and in total shock I said the following sentence very loudly, "What? Prince can't be dead!" I said this so loud that one of the girls who works in another department came over to see if I needed help. A few minutes later she left and another person from a department even farther away came over and gave me a hug. He was wearing purple, of all colors.

Now, I am not a the biggest Prince fan. But I am a Prince fan. Especially the Prince who helmed the Revolution for the iconic record/movie Purple Rain. As for his other music, there's lots I like and some I could never hear again and not care. As Tommy from Heaven Is An Incubator laments in his own post pertaining to this momentous loss for the music community, because of our age Prince's music was something of a backdrop to our generation's entire childhood. Growing up in the 80s Prince was EVERYWHERE, literally. And it wasn't just the songs he performed, it was also the material that he wrote for other performers: Sheila E., Sheena Easton, The Bangels, Morris Day, Stevie Nicks. As I got older the extremely unique sounds Prince made with his music followed me, often in sneaky or almost subconscious ways. The first song on Public Enemy's masterpiece Fear of A Black Planet, "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" is loaded with samples of Prince's guitar. Skinny Puppy's bleak and brilliant Last Rites has snippets of Prince's weird, over-flanged percussion laced throughout. Later still, one of my all-time favorite bands - Ween - covered Prince, lovingly lampooned him and downright homaged him on many, many occasions. But the older I became the more Prince's influence on my musical life remained peripheral; the cassette copy of Purple Rain that my cool, older cousin Jim gave me for Christmas the year it came out was worn out long ago and the only Prince I'd had in the collection through my thirties was a beat-up copy of Sign O' The Times on vinyl and a double-disc greatest hits my ex-wife had brought with her to our twelve year sharing of a music collection. When she moved out all that went away. Luckily though...

Every year from Memorial Day to Labor Day Hollywood Forever Cemetery hosts something called Cinespia - an organization that projects movies on the side of a mausoleum in the cemetery's enormous - and beautiful - grounds. Ray and I, along with several of our other friends, go to as many of these Saturday night screenings every year as possible. Two summers ago Cinespia showed Purple Rain. I hadn't seen it since the 80s and Ray's a fan so we went and it completely re-inspired me to love Prince. Again, not all his music, but for that album in particular. I've long said that when he's gone Prince would be remembered as probably the single greatest driving force in the Pop music of the 80s. After watching Purple Rain and then re-buying and binging on it hardcore for a few weeks I had an even deeper realization about this record:

As far as records go, Purple Rain is the Philosopher's Stone of the 80s.

Now, when I say Philosopher's Stone I need to quantify what I'm talking about. I've approached this concept previously but in less specific terms. Obviously in every decade or 'era' of music there are movements, fashions, trends and scenes. And somewhere within all those dark and incestuous nooks and crannies I believe there is one album that perfectly sums everything else up. For the 80s I would argue that album was Purple Rain. Prince's 1984 masterpiece is a microcosm of nearly everything musical that surrounds it; there's elements of Funk, Soul, New Wave, Metal (that serpentine guitar lick in Computer Blue? Those blast beats in the last third of Darling Nikki that I never noticed before I reengaged with it? Metal baby); Purple Rain has it all and what's more all of those seemingly disparate elements are perfectly synthesized into a coherent whole. That's the key. For perspective I've argued elsewhere that the 90's Philosopher Stone album was the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head, another synthesis of the musical world around it.

(Incidentally, I don't think we have enough distance from the 00s yet to determine what might be that era's Philosopher's Stone, but I'd also argue in a few years we might look back and say that because of the democratization and decentralization of music that particular era ushered in there actually might not be one).

With all of this said I need to end this diatribe before I become any more grandiose. Not possible you say? Believe me, it is. So to finish I will leave you with a video a friend showed me a couple years ago. This thing just blew me away. No matter how you feel about the musicians that are on stage to begin with, watch this all the way through because at approximately 3:28 this rendition of what might just be my favorite Beatles song becomes god-like. And Prince? Rest in Purple sir. Rest in Purple.

Remember That Time When...

Nice shorts, douche

....is a new rotating column Grez started on Joup back in January. I picked up the thread this morning amidst reports of G-n-R's Las Vegas show by remembering the time in 1992 when Axl Rose cheated me out of 15 free concert tickets to see his band. Read about it here.

Drinking w/ Comics Special Guest: David F. Walker

Luke Cage all the rage? Can't wait for Danny Rand? Well, watch Mike and I talk to the man writing 'em in Marvel's Power Man and Iron Fist. And check out Mr. Walker's website for a whole boatload of goodies!

New Perturbator May 6th!!!

While I've been secluded trying to finish the novel that does not want to be finished I've almost missed out on a bunch of great music. Luckily while writing this afternoon I threw on an old favorite and was inspired to check up on what Perturbator has been up to.

Good thing I did because the new record, The Uncanny Valley, drops in just about two weeks!

I cannot wait to get this, as it feels like I've been listening to Dangerous Days for years at this point (probably because, like Heavenisanincubator, I haven't been able to stop listening to it in voracious aural jags since Dangerous Days was released!). The Uncanny Valley is a sequel to DD, taking place 40 years down the road and set in Neo Tokyo. What a fantastic description for such visual music.

Check out She Moves Like a Knife and then high tail it over to the aforementioned best got-damned music blog in the megaverse for the official, 8-bit animated music video to yet another new track from The Uncanny Valley, this one titled Sentient. And go pre-order the album from Blood Music, the hardest working indie record label in the business!

Chelsea Wolfe - Hypnos

Jonathan Barkan dropped this in an article he recently wrote abut Ms. Wolfe over on Bloody Disgusting. He is not wrong about Chelsea Wolfe - she and her music are magnificent and deserve to be heard by fans of dark, mesmerizing music.

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #31

Special guests Kat Rocha and Josh Finney of 01Publishing! Featuring Saint Archer Brewery's unbelievable Tusk & Grain ale!

Release From the Shackles of the Greater Corporation

Heard this last week on KXLU's Demolisten program. Great stuff. Reminded me a bit of old school Flying Luttenbachers.

Matthew Rosenberg's New Comic

Writer of We Can Never Go Home Matthew Rosenberg's new book 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank looks fantastic!

And Then There Were None...

Two nights ago my cat Tom died. I've been wanting to post something here as a tribute but it is really hard to accomplish this without breaking down into complete woe. No other word for it but old school, quasi-biblical woe.

Tom was my guy. He was my best friend and he had my back in ways that absolutely amazed me and solidified the idea that he had a very human emotional intelligence, and that he felt about me exactly how I felt about him. No offense to Lily, who also died recently, or Baby who is happy living in Ohio now, but Tom was my favorite.

Tom died in my arms, on my living room floor. I had my cheek against his abdomen and actually felt his life leave his body. It was haunting and terrible and magnificent, to know that my best friend died in my arms, knowing that I loved him.

My girlfriend Kirsten is new to our life, but just as I have fallen so completely for her so too did Tom; he made it known from the moment they met that not only did he approve of her but that he loved her. And she loved him. She was there with Tom and I when he passed, and the connection I saw between them - especially at the end - was beautiful beyond most of what I have seen in this life.

I will miss Tom for the rest of my life. The following were the three things I played shortly after his passing to try and honor him. The first because it is the saddest song I know, the second because Tom is short for Thompson, as in Hunter S., and the third because, well, it should be obvious.

Whispers From The Abyss Volume #2

I've really only just begun reading the first volume of Whispers From the Abyss from 01 Publishing but I'll stay straight off it's fantastic. Two of the stories in it - Nation of Disease: The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Legend by Jonathan Sharp and Death Wore Greasepaint by Josh Finney are probably among my top five Lovecraft-inspired stories ever. And now 01 has the second volume out digitally and are kickstarting the print edition. If you're a Lovecraft fan, a fan of dark or Weird fiction, or just a fan of great writing this is a well-worthy cause. AND might I add that 01 has procured none other than Laird Barron for an entry into this second volume.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

A Tim Burton movie without Johnny Depp or HBC? Based on a book I LOVED? I'm in.

(pleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegood)

Homicidal Homemaker's Black Lodge Pie!

Mr. Brown sent this to me on Twin Peaks day and I'm late getting around to watching the entire thing (yeah, at a whopping 6 minutes and some change this would'a kept me up all night, right?). I am SO going to make this. And I absolutely love the idea of a horror-themed cooking show, so I just did what I'm going to suggest you do - if you dig this subscribe to the Homicidal Homemaker's youtube channel!

The Callas - Could You?

There is A LOT to love about the new album from The Callas, a band whose previous record Am I Vertical? made my best of list in 2013. Returning to produce is Bad Seeds/Grinderman member Jim Sclavunos on a record that totally threw me for a loop at first listen. Not that there's not some sonic threads that pull Half Kiss Half Pain and Am I Vertical? together, but this is definitely not a case of a band sticking with a producer and adhering to a 'sound' that they created together. Half Kiss Half Pain still has those gloriously jagged garage rock leanings, but they're tempered with a nuance and sophistication that gives the record an incredible sense of dynamism.

I get the impression from juxtaposing these two most recent records (I am completely unfamiliar with the four previous LPs the band has - going to remedy that real soon) that The Callas are very much about moving forward, in the way that a band like, say Liars is also. Which is going to be a very good thing for those of us that follow their career.

So if you dig this, you know, buy Half Kiss Half Pain and follow their career.

Live WEEN from last week's shows

Screen shot courtesy of Tara Cushing's youtube channel

Mr. Brown sent me a sampling of what some of the fine folks who attended these reunion shows have put up on youtube. This user, Tara Cushing, has an wonderfully extensive documentation of all three nights so check out her youtube page here. They make me smile. Again, I simply cannot describe how happy I am to see one of my all-time favorite bands back together again - I'm literally tearing up just writing this.

BOOGNISH!

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival 2016 San Pedro

SUPER happy to be able to promote this. I've gone two other times and both were fantastic - really looking forward to this year! If you're unfamiliar with the H.P. Lovecraft Film Fest and are a Lovecraft fan you can read my review of the first one I attended here to get an idea of the level that this fest takes it to. And as good as that initial experience was, my subsequent one was about ten times better, so that's really saying something. This fest improves exponentially with every passing year. And honestly, it's just a great round-up of Weird and Horror culture, as well as being a great time to boot, whether you're an HPL fan or not.

Among the vendors this year I happen to know that Josh Finney and Kat Rocha will be representing the wonderful 01 Publishing. Josh and Kat were our guests on the live stream of Drinking w/ Comics #31 last night and they were awesome! 01's line-up is kind of a dream come true for Lovecraft/Weird/Cyberpunk fans and if that sounds great or even the littlest bit titillating, I suggest you make an intro to their world with Josh and Patrick McEvoy's Casefile: Arkham "Nightmare on the Canvas", which made it into my top comics of 2015 and is an exhaustively researched mash-up of Lovecraft mythos and Noir.  Another great entry to the 01 world would be the Lovecraft-inspired prose anthologies Whispers From the Abyss, volume 2 of which is available in digital right now here or can be pre-ordered in print here. I only just got my hands on Vol. 1 and it looks fantastic and features stories by Josh, Kat, Silvia Moreno-Garcia as well as many others. And Vol. 2 features a story by one of my favorite writers ever, the inimitable Mr. Laird Barron.

Ghost interviewed at the grammys

The woman interviewing them clearly has no prior knowledge of them. I'm sure that was the case with most of the people at/watching the grammy's. That makes this all the better.

Thanks to my friend John the Viking - if he hadn't shared this clip with me I would have never seen it.

Papa kind of reminds me a bit of a less hostile Mike Patton circa Angel Dust era as he subtly makes fun of the interviewer's questions. Favorite quote: "You want to win to win prizes for what you do."

Awesome!

Daredevil Season 2 Trailer revels in The Punisher

YES! I'll admit, I have a fondness for Punisher: War Zone. But this... this is PERFECT. He should have always been intro'd as a supporting character, and the dynamic this will add to Matt Murdock, as he attempts to discern where the line is and if he can cross it... man I cannot wait! And I'll be damned if he doesn't look exactly like an amalgam of all my favorite iterations of Frank Castle in the picture above!

Ween's 1st Reunion Show was Last Night...

from: http://www.heyreverb.com/blog/2016/02/13/ween-returns-our-1stbank-center-review-and-photos/113602/

...and although I wasn't there and won't be at the next two nights, Jambase has the entire thing mapped out, photographed and even some video! Check it out!

Here's one of my favorites that I was happy to see that they played last night.

David Bowie's Reality is this week's Joup Friday Album

You can read my thoughts and subsequently listen to Reality here. This is actually, I think, considerably more than just me talking about my favorite Bowie record. This  piece is the product of four long weeks of contemplating what the icon meant to me and why I have previously always gravitated more toward his later works.

Pictures of Lily

Yesterday I woke up and found that my cat Lily had died during the night. I found her at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms. She was laying in front of the outside door like she and my other cat Tom like to do when it's hot - like it is this week - in order to catch a breeze from the gap between door and frame.

I loved Lily. She was the first cat to ever really accept me and she made me a cat person, 100%. Her acceptance of me seemed to make other cats okay with me, whereas before they kinda knew I'd grown up a dog person and held it against me (at least the two or three cats that had been in my life before that seemed to).

Also, she had incredible toe fur.

Later, in Lily's honor I jammed Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones. That influenced my pick for this week's Joup Friday Album, so instead of reiterating it here I thought I'd play the song that Pete Townsend wrote for Lily, many years before she was born, anticipating her legacy of drool, off-key yeowling and, well, an awful lot of intolerance. As she got older Lily's ability to interact diminished and she just kind of seemed as though she dislike EVERYONE most of the time. Except those quiet moments where she would come to me and want to be petted rigorously for a few moments before growing tired of my company and running off in a huff. I loved Lily's hate - it was adorable and I think helped keep her alive and well these last few years of her pretty incredible 16 year run.

Godspeed Lily; wherever you go from here I leave you with Hunter S. Thompson's words that seem to fit you so well, "Take no guff from these swine!"

Anticipation: The Witch

I'd thought I had already posted this, but apparently not. A friend shared the trailer with me several weeks ago on social media and I was immediately taken with it. The shrill, dissonant suspense the trailer cultivates makes me think that, regardless of the fact that The Witch is now getting some major hype - mostly because news outlets have latched onto the fact that the Satanic Temple are touting this as a big deal - it will still outreach my expectations.

What hype? Well, here's what Satanic Temple's has to say:

"The Witch is not only a powerful cinematic experience, but also an impressive presentation of Satanic insight that will inform contemporary discussion of religious experience. Yet, The Witch is more than a film; it is a transformative Satanic experience that, in its call to arms, becomes an act of spiritual sabotage and liberation from the oppressive traditions of our forefathers."

Wow. One can only hope. I'm not a, ahem, Satanist, though as far as religions go I'd choose that over most others - believe in and worship yourself? Better than a flying spaghetti monster - but I definitely think our world would benefit from anything that undermines the current global war between two extreme and downright dangerous religions (in their most frenzied forms that is): Christianity and Islam.  

Deftones Drop New Single Prayers/Triangles

I JUST found out that the new Deftones album, Gore, drops April 8th.

Fuck yes!!!

Also found out they released the first single today. Went to look for it and it had been taken down almost everywhere I looked. But here it is and it is, as usual, awesome!