My Friend Sonny's Audition for Check Please

He just kills it in this. I haven't seen Check Please in forever being that I've lived 300 miles away for years but seriously, Chicago or not if you landed here and you like funny, watch this and then Like it, Tweet it, whatever. THIS HAS TO HAPPEN!!!

Batman Inc #8 (Spoilers)

image courtesy of www.rpad.tv

Sucks. I'm sad. Damien was easily my favorite character in the DC universe.

"But in the new issue #6 when he meets Alfred the cat, I realized that I was probably drawing him with a smile for the first and last time. That was rough. I spent forever trying to get that smile just right." - Artist Chris Burnham from a newsarama conducted interview.

I do a full write-up of my reaction here

Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke, Flea) - Ingenue Video

I don't know too much about Atoms for Peace yet. I've avoided a lot of stuff slowly trickling out onto the web because even though I LOVE Radiohead from OK computer on to about Hail to the Thief, I have to be in a distincly Radiohead mood in order to listen to them and really get the full benefit from it. Radiohead is a very particular mood or tone for me and to indulge it out of turn does both the band and my own self a disservice. That's not to say that I think Atoms for Peace will necessarily sound anything like Radiohead, but you know, it's relative. And I'm posting this from work, so I've not even heard it as I post it, but I'm pretty sure I'm ready for it.

James Wan's The Conjuring

I loved Insidious. Haven't seen Sinister yet, but have heard nothing but good things. This trailer was - and I can't believe I'm able to say this as most movies don't qualify - but this trailer was FREAKIN' SCARY AS ALL HELL. And that's what I love.

Stitches Trailer

Brilliant! Evil clowns are, often, hard to turn down. Here's another I've posted before and am still waiting to be actually made and released:

Summer People - I Do What I Want

Found this on Brooklyn Vegan. Pretty bad ass. You can go to the band's bandcamp and hear more of their music. From what I've seen thus far I'm really digging Summer People.

Mr Bungle Live 1/10/91 - LA's Club Lingerie

The Bronx - New Video: Youth Wasted

I love The Bronx. Sometime in 2003 or 2004 I saw them open for the Dillinger Escape Plan at the Fireside Lounge in Chicago (oh how I miss the Fireside) and they just tore through an amazing set that had me buy their CD on the spot. Fast forward to 2006 and The Bronx II had just come out - and it was even better than the first record! Singer Matt Caughthran is one of the few frontmen who can maintain an intimidating intensity without sacrificing his wit of humor and I like that. This video irked me in the opening moments, as it appeared to be yet another 'band pretending to play' theme, but then all the bizarre male stripper shit kicked in and I had quite the laugh. I haven't had a chance to buy the band's new album, surprisingly titled The Bronx (with a frequently added "IV" to help it stand apart from their other three albums) but it's available in shops and on itunes and it's only a matter of time.

And now since I'm in a Bronx mood, here's some footage of them playing what may possibly be a basement in Barcelona. The sound quality isn't that great, but it's still pretty cool to see them perform in a space this small:

David Bowie The Stars (are out tonight)

The Wait - Killing Joke 1980/metallica 1987

And the cover. The older I get the more Garage Days Re-Revisited is the only album by this particular band that I can 100% get behind. Well, that's not entirely true, but some days it definitely is.

Writer's Inspiration

Tool Re-Issuing Opiate via Their Website

This is good news. I've been slowly gaining escape velocity into a full-out Tool binge with all of the conjecture floating around the interwebs pertaining to the possible release of a new Tool album this year. There's some interesting things going on with this re-issue of the band's first EP, which you can read more about here.

Iggy Pop Talks about new Iggy&The Stooges record

Props on Mr. Pop's ripping of the smashing pumpkins. Awesome!!!

I'll not lie and say I'm a fan of 2007's The Weirdness. In fact, I threw it out the window of my car I hated it so much (I know - I don't normally litter. I was making a point though and while that doesn't make it okay, it's something that happened in the spur of the moment). I'll not be buying Iggy and the Stooges' Ready to Die on April 30th unheard, however if this is any indication it might be worth picking up. And I'm super happy that the record is being released on Fat Possum Records and Mike Watt is still in the band, as is bad ass James Williamson (Raw Power baby!!!).

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Returning

Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood - Pentecostal (Black Pudding album)

David Foster Wallace on Voting

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.”

- David Foster Wallace, "Up Simba!" Rolling Stone 2000

Thanks to  Logan Lockner at Paste Magazine for publishing a great list of DFW quotes here last week on what would have been the late Mr. Wallace's 51st birthday (2/21/13)

image courtesy of theatlanticwire

Lineup for Metallica's Orion Fest is a lot of Great bands...

... and Metallica, rise against and RHCP to balance out the good with some blah. But hey, it's their fest, right? Congrats to FIDLAR - really cool that they're on it.

Joy Division Live

My god, what year do you think this footage is from? Youtube truly has EVERYTHING on it Watching/hearing this sends chills down my spine. Words simply cannot express just how important I feel that Joy Division was to music and, subsequently, on comics (80's*/early 90's Vertigo stuff has Joy Division just dripping from it, as if the authors/artists were listening to their music at the time and acted as transducers, turning the sound of Joy Division into their words pictures. I've always thought the same could be said of much of The Smiths' music).

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

* I should clarify that what I am perhaps clumsily referring to here is the fact that although Vertigo did not come into being until 1993 there were precursors at DC that would later be "re-branded" as Vertigo books, ie Alan Moore's Swamp Thing or even V for Vendetta which although published under the Vertigo banner for some time now, originally began as a serial in the pages of Warrior circa the early 80's.

Joss Whedon Accepting An Award at the James Dublin Int. Film Festival

This was just before A screening of Whedon's latest film, an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much To Do About Nothing". According to aintitcoolnews, during the Q&A part of these proceedings someone in the crowd asked Mr. Whedon about Avengers 2, to which part of his response was, "Death, death and more death". Now - it would be easy to interpret this as the killing of characters, but also as ainitcool points out this is also possibly a reference to Death, as in the female embodiment of it that Thanos tries soooo hard to impress in The Infinity Gauntlet. How hard does he try to impress Death? By killing a very large percent of the galactic population. Might this be what the after-credits appearance of Thanos in the Avengers, the forthcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, and perhaps even the sequel to Thor, thus far titled Thor: The Dark World all be leading towards?

One can hope. After watching Whedon's Avengers film I dug out my old Infinity Gauntlet comics and started reading them for the first time in over twenty years. The concept is great but the execution... not so much. Hence the rabid anticipation fans have in seeing this adapted into the Marvel Movie Verse - it can be updated, streamlined and improved upon to no end (let's start with no Adam Warlock, shall we? A large part of Infinity Gauntlet's problem is it reeks of being a kickstarter series to launch what ended up being a pretty short-lived Adam Warlock series).

Frightened Rabbit - Backyard Skulls

Again, breaking my prejudice against videos featuring the band "playing" the music - at least in this case they were slick and did the school dance setting. That helped a lot. I don't know a lot of this band's material but what I know I like. Also working in the band's favor, A) their from Scotland so that's always a plus in my book and B) they remind me at times of that Pulp-era Brit indie rock.

PJ Harvey - Big Exit Live! 2001

Ah, the bombastic opening track from my favorite PJ Harvey record (that I know - I still don't have them all). There is such a tone that runs over this record; it's a little bit Nick Cave (that's probably more due to Mick Harvey's presence on this record and less to do with the fact that Polly Jean and Mr. Cave were at one time an item) and a little Radio Head (which is accented by not entirely because of Thom Yorke's presence on three tracks). It's also claustrophobic and quiet and a little bit hopeless and violent, as if just months before 9/11 Ms. Harvey was channeling the new Zeitgeist of fear and aggression that would be coming down the pipes and never quite leaving us here in the States. Listening to this record is a very specific mindset. It's fun and creatively-inspiring in the right moments but perhaps a bit bleak and haunting at others.

The Dark Knight Does Indeed Return

Just finished re-reading Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns in preparation for back-to-backing both of these animated adaptions tonight. Can't wait - even without the internal monologue I think these will be freakin' awesome!

Now someone animate Grant Morrison's Gothic storyline from issues 6-10 of the Legends of the Dark Knight book circa 1989.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 2001 Concert

Well, the video for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live at LA's Henry Fonda Theatre may have been taken off-line, but here's an older show to get us through those withdrawals.

Fen's New Album Dustwalker

Somehow a new album by the band Fen came out on January 25 and I missed it entirely!!! Here's the first song I could find on the ol' tubeyou. If you're into good black metal (yes, there is such a thing, quite a lot of it actually!) then this is the band. I reviewed their last record here. To sum it up, the thing sounds as though you are listening to it through a rain storm. It goes great with reading John Crowley's Little, Big as it has a forest tone, all dry branches and soiled, dead leaves, mud trails and flickers at the edge of your vision.

Slayer - Raining Blood Live

Few things get the blood pumpin' like Reign in Blood-era Slayer.

Nick Cave Live @ LA's Fonda Theatre 2/21 Streaming for a few more Hours

The Mindscape of Alan Moore

Wanna Know About our Specials?

We haven't got any.

image courtesy of untajuleil.blogspot.com

Wanna Know what Jason Newsted's been up to?

I had to post this before I'd even listened to it just because Newsted is the only person to make it out of metallica alive who doesn't seem to be full of shit. Much props to Robert Turjillo who totally deserves the success of being in a band as huge as the aforementioned band that should not be but Newsted obviously just became fed up with the bullshit of the other three and left. Glad to see him making music.

Wanna Know What the World Looks Like Through Google Glasses?

Thanks to Joe Hill for Tweeting this.

Brian Eno Doc - Imaginary Landscapes

Thank you to Warren Ellis who tweeted this today.

Tomahawk - Oddfellows Video

Perhaps my favorite song off the new record, although White Hats/Black Hats and Southpaw are up there as well.

Upstream Color - The Score

Shane Carruth put the score to his upcoming film Upstream Color - the follow-up to his BRILLIANT Primer - on his soundcloud page today. Go to see it here.

I posted the trailer for Upstream color about a month or so ago but here it is again because I just CANNOT wait to see this movie!!!

Black Sabbath in the Studio

I have no illusions that "13" - 3/4ths of the original Black Sabbath's first record since the late 70's - will be good, but hopefully I'm wrong. Sabbath's original "Ozzy" years are among the most cherished albums I've encountered in my lifetime, but you know - you can't go home again. The band released a song sometime in the late 90's, I believe it was called psycho man and it was so terrible I'd prefer not to even look it up to confirm that. I'd prefer you abstain from doing the same.

The reunion is not complete as Bill Ward isn't involved, but I can't say the idea of Iommi, Butler and Ozzy recording a new record doesn't intrigue me at least a little bit, thus the video above. You never know. (yes you do!).

Courtesy of blabbermouth

Ghost Becomes Ghost BC, New Album 4/09

Seriously, what is with all the April release dates this year? I mean, it's usually a music heavy month, or at least has been for the last couple of years, but this is getting ridiculous.

Exclaim.ca tipped me off to the fact that due to "leagal reasons' Ghost have changed their name to Ghost B.C. The newly christened band will release their new record - Infestissumam - on April 9th via Loma Vista Recordings.

Sepultura with Mike Patton

In spite of the fact that the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record is out today, it appears to thus far be a Patton day. The bass drop at 0:29 hits me in the chest every time.

Actually let me go ahead and do all the Patton/Sepultura I know of:

FAITH NO MORE - Poker Face/ Chinese Arithmetic

Naked Raygun - Last Drink

NEW DILLENGER ESCAPE PLAN IN MAY!!!

I had no idea - once again Brooklyn Vegan comes through! "One of Us is the Killer" comes out in May on Sumerian Records by way of the band's own Party Smasher Inc. In the meantime, I'd never seen this before and it was every kind of awesome I thought it'd be and more: Now, if you're unfamiliar with DEP here's one of their songs for a little juxtaposition (watch the singer in the hood at about 0:08):
I first saw these guys open for Mr. Bungle on the original stint of the California tour. I had no idea who they were, all I knew was one minute my friends and I were near the front of the stage waiting for the show to start, the next the lights went out and furious strobes sent the whole room into seizure-mode. Five violently spastic and extremely intense individuals appeared and began to make music the likes of which I'd never heard before. These figures on the stage didn't look like people, they looked like... demons. Demons made entirely of static. I was literally afraid. Years later I was backstage at a show at Chicago's Metro with my friend Dave when we saw the guitar player smash his guitar and send it sailing out into the crowd where it connected with someone's face. 

Face.

Heartbreakers - Pirate Love

I'm relatively new to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. They'd been on my radar ever since first reading Noel Monk's 12 Days on the Road circa 1996/7 - an awesome book about the Sex Pistols only US tour (the half of it they played that is) written by the band's tour manager (Monk). Anyway, everybody in the first wave of British punk seemed to look up to Thunders and his band - for better or worse - but somehow their music always seemed strangely out of reach to me. Fast forward to about three months ago on a Saturday. I was home listening to Henry Rollins' weekly radio broadcast on NPR affiliate KCRW. Mr. Rollins played a Heartbreakers song - I forget which one it was but it really grabbed my attention. Then our gracious radio host went on to talk about how the good folks at White Trash Soul Blogspot had gone through the many different editions of the band's record L.A.M.F. that are available (French, Italian, German, etc) and compiled what they believed to be the best composite edition, culling from all those different sources for each song's individual best possible mix.

Talk about a labor of love!!!

The site then made this ultimate edition of L.A.M.F. available for free download - you can link to it right from that site linked above. When you go there you'll also see that the white trash soul folks break down everything about the different records and how/why they chose what they chose. It's fascinating. And the end is result is fantastic listening.

NPR Streaming Thurston Moore's Chelsea Light Moving

courtesy of bowlegsmusic.com

Go here and hear the self-titled debut album from Thurston Moore's post-Sonic Youth band Chelsea Light Moving. The album is out March 5th on Matador. I'm posting this from work, so I won't be able to even hear this until about six hours from now, but I had to pass it on, courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan.

Four Tet + rocketnumbernine

Found this via pitchfork a little while ago. Begs for a certain state of mind. Reminds me of the outro to a traffic song or something. That probably sounds ridiculous, but there's a 70's vibe run through an EDM paradigm.

Or something.

Alice Donut - The Son of a Disgruntled X-Postal Worker Reflects On His Life While Getting Stoned In The Parking Lot Of A Winn Dixie Listening To Metallica

Oh! Great title, great song to match. All hail Alice Donut!!!

I stood outside by the window - Mom lay bleeding on the sofa - Dad dry heaved in the kitchen

I didn't wanna deal

he passed out on the formica - she held an ice cube to her lip - she stared vacant at the screen 

she didn't wanna deal

I drove behind the Winn Dixie - smoked a bone and listened to Metallica - as loud as I could stand it

I didn't wanna deal

I started thinking - he's just biding his time - X-postal worker
eaten up inside - unemployed and disgruntled - eaten up inside


waiting for nothing
waiting for a sign
waiting for nothing
waiting for his time

one day he'll snap and kill her - then he'll shoot me while I'm sleeping
then he'll drive to the office - and kill'em all before he shoots himself

he was still passed out as I entered - she was locked up in her room
locked up and waiting - another day

I ain't gonna deal

Artaud

image courtesy of 50watts.com

Listening to the new Fat Man on Batman podcast where Kevin Smith interviews Grant Morrison convinced me to re-read Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth for the first time in ages. Reading the afterward got me thinking about how ever since hearing the Bauhaus song below I've wanted to look into Artaud.

Batman, Incorporated #8 (Spoilers)

Oh my! I am very curious about this upcoming issue of Batman, Incorporated which - despite there being apparently a lot of hate for the book - I REALLY like.

Morrison's Batman run, which started somewhere around 2005, was overall fantastic. However I thought what really knocked it out of the park was the short-lived run on the post-Final Crisis Batman and Robin title that featured Dick Greyson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin. Batman, Inc. was the book that seemed to carry on that thread and tone for me, a sister book if you will. But Grant has made it clear that he's leaving Batman altogether soon and as we wind up, no one is really sure what is going to happen or how the ongoing conflict with Leviathan is going to end.

Now, the above cover is awesome, but there's another one that's been leaked and potentially has a MAJOR spoiler on it, though we all know what appears on a comic's cover is often hyperbolic and not necessarily a direct translation of how the same concept appears inside. If you want to see that cover go ahead and go here and scroll down a bit. You'll see it.


DC's solicitation for Batman, Incorporated can be found on their website here. There's also a lot of speculative articles on newsarama. Issue #7 killed one of my favorite peripheral Bat characters - Knight of Knight and Squire, a duo both Grant Morrison and Paul Cornell did a spectacular job with. As Morrison's run on Batman, Inc. is winding down we may be in for some shocks. Especially as the Bat-stuff he's writing is, I think, the only DC book that takes place in the old DC continuity and not the New52

Godflesh Cover: Like Rats by Mark Kozelek

Many thanks to Tommy at the WONDERFUL heaveisanincubator for posting this. Mark Kozelek has always hovered at the far corners of my awareness but I'm completely unfamiliar. Then I see this - A GODFLESH cover!!! And it's awesome.

For comparison sake (and cuz I love to post anything Godflesh):



and finally, a live version from Justin and crew:

The High Confessions - Chlorine and Crystal

It's been nearly three years since the debut album by Chris Connelly, Sanford Parker, Steve Shelley and Jeremy Lemos, collectively known as The High Confessions. I want more.

This song, the album closer, reminds me a lot of the tone of The Cure's Pornography. Let's juxtapose this with a track so maybe you can see what I mean. A good creative day for me is sitting down and writing to first Turning Lead into Gold with the High Confessions, then Pornography. It doesn't get much moodier than that.

Azar Swan - Lusty

Wow. I found this via Brooklyn Vegan. The group's website is here, there's a few more tracks on it. I know nothing about Azar Swan (apparently formerly known as Religious to Damn) but that needs to change.

The Return of Bendis & Maleev's Scarlet

image courtesy of multiversitycomics.com

If you're not reading this you should be. Trust me. I just wrote a piece on it for Joup in my weekly comic book column. Link to that here.

Sooooo good it's got me wanting to pull out my Daredevil and Alias runs by these guys and give them a looooong overdue re-read.

Playmobile Joy Division Perform Transmission (and...)

This is fantastic - if you watch, they even have the Playmobile Ian Curtis dance a bit like In Curtis did.

I've been having a very Anglophile year thus far, what with all the Pulp, Smiths, Eddie Campbell, Alan Moore, Gary Spencer Millidge, etc. A couple weeks ago it was a brief but rabid Joy Division jag that has come back around today. I've been dying to go out and buy a copy of Control, the brilliant 2007 biopic written by Matt Greenhalgh, directed by Anton Corbijn and based on Ian Curtis' widow Deborah Curtis's Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division. That film is available on Vimeo in segments, the first I posted below, however how do you watch this kind of beautiful B&W in segments? Control is brilliant and beautiful but very sad. There's a fabulous scene where they had the actor who played Curtis walk the actual walk rom home to work that Curtis did every day - detail such as this makes for greatness, and even though by the end of the film the tone is as dower as it gets, for Joy Division fans, Anglophiles and rock history buffs Control is a must-see. And the above, which I found accidentally on youtube, should help take the edge off the dark stuff.
Joy Division story (Control)-part 01 from jomenz on Vimeo.

Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins Made a Movie

What I've done is posted the prelude, "Acts of Faith" first, then the main event, Jimmy's End. I haven't watched these yet - they were published online at the end of last November and apparently I've had my head up my ass in regards to Mr. Moore since the most recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book (which was awesome and which, there is a new book set to hit comic and book stores next month - Nemo: Heart of Ice. Between these films, Nemo and my foray into Gary Spencer Millidge's Strangehaven prompting me to pull out his Alan Moore tribute book Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentlemen, I'm having a very Moore 2013 all of a sudden!!!)

I'll shut up now. Enjoy.

John Noble Friend Teaser

"Friend" Teaser from Ari Margolis on Vimeo.

Ok, I'm behind on Fringe. My wife and I fell into it pretty hard last year, blurred through seasons 1-3, bought ssn 4 when it came out but just haven't had time to watch it yet. The show itself starts with a SUPER strong pilot, then gets a little too X-Files/Creature of the week and kinda bugged me for a bit, then by season two is just sublime science fiction. It synthesizes a lot of the stuff I wanted to do in my first, totally failed manuscript for a novel, and it does it in a graceful, elegant way. It's kind of Lost meets The Invisibles meets X-Files. And casting wise, everyone is great, but John Noble - Walter - oh my! He is wonderful.

Well, above is the teaser for something he's starring in coming out later this year. I don't know anything else about it, but just based on Mr. Noble, I'm in!

Information came via Collider.

Iron Patriot

Can't wait.

Trance Movie Redband Trailer

Johnny Marr of the Smiths talks about 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'

I love The Smiths.

New Marnie Stern Track

Joe Hill's NOS4A2

I received a nice advance copy of Joe Hill's NOS4A2 today. I am VERY much looking forward to reading it, as Hill's Heart-Shaped Box is one of my favorite books of recent years (and Horns is pretty damn awesome too! Can't wait for that movie starring Daniel Radcliffe). I'll be posting opinions on the book soon enough, however I also have my brand new copy of Peter V. Brett's The Daylight War - purchased in stunning hardcover the day of release (today) from my favorite local bookstore The Book Frog. Mr. Brett's stuff became DOR or 'Day of Release' level for me after the other two books in the series (which I speak about here) blew me the F--k away!!! But of course now I have an especially tricky conundrum - which to read first?

Choices, choices choices...

Queens of the Stone Age...

It's getting closer, can you feel it? 

According to NME's website (I know Scroobius Pip  says not to read NME, but in this case I couldn't help it damnit!) the following letter was sent by QOTSA to Kerrang magazine. I don't know what I thought was stranger - the fact that Kerrang still existed or the actual message.

To give credit you can read the full article here:


DEAR KERRANG,

...SOME THINGS YOU CAN'T FIX SO...

ON THIS RECORD WE CAME TO A REALIZATION: THE BESTTRICK OF ALL, IS NO TRICK AT ALL

THE SONGS ARE A REAL TIME DOCUMENT OF THE MANIC UPS AND DOWNS OF THE LAST YEAR. IT CAN'T ALWAYS RUN LIKE CLOCKWORK. SO RATHER THAN CONTROL THE DIRECTION OF THE RECORDINGS, WE DECIDED TO RIDE SHOTGUN ON OUR EMOTIONAL BANDWAGON. WE EMBRACED OUR EVIL, HELD THE HORRIBLE, LICKED THE LUNACY AND BLEW THE BEAUTIFUL. AS A RESULT, WE'RE ON CLOUD 9.

I CAN'T WRITE ANYMORE CAUSE MY PHONE'S DYING,

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE"

Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/queens-of-the-stone-age/68671#6pezmwqwqHAce8QH.99 

HOW MUCH LONGER MUST WE WAIT?!? 

Oh, and that Scroobius Pip? If you don't know it, you're in for a treat indeed:

Spider Bags

I don't know much about Titus Adronicus. I know Mr. Brown gave me their album The Monitor a couple years ago and I dug it, but it's kind of remained in the "every once in a while" book in my car. While browsing Brooklyn Vegan a little while ago I noticed the singer of Adronicus wearing a pretty wicked looking shirt for Spider Bags and went ahead and googled that band (it was either a band or a strange, strange product - I figured I'd win either way). This is what I found. I dig it. You can find the Chapel Hill's Spider Bags bandcamp here and download this song for free!!!

Spider Bags "Shake My Head is available here from Odessa Records.

!!! - Slyd from Thr!!!er

New !!! is always a good thing.

Queens of the Stone Age Rarity

In anticipation of the forthcoming new QOTSA record (I'm now seeing the possibility of March bandied around the interweb but with no real specific source so...)I've had Rated R in heavy rotation. Coincidentally today as I was removing my headphones at the end of Better Living Through Chemistry a co-worker had a Queens song running on youtube that I had never heard before. I'd been pretty thorough back in the napster days in amassing what I thought were all the bands b-sides and rarities up to that point, but Spiders and Vinegaroons is one that slipped by me.

Until today.

Fake Zombie Emergency in Montana Interrupts Talk Show

Someone hacked this television station in Montana and added their own zombie emergency message. Once again fiction, no longer content with being marginalized to our imaginations, has attempted to supplant our consensual reality. When will it succeed?

Thanks be to Richard Kadrey for the tweet wherein I found this.

NextLevel Squad "Zilla March" Flexing Gas Mask | YAK FILMS + B'ZWAX

I discovered this track and this video about two years ago via the always marvelous technoccult.net . You can buy it on B'ZWAX's bandcamp here. My Chicago peeps will recognize the setting. If you've ever read the L in Chicago, can you just imagine these guys getting on it.

Beneath an Abandoned Hospital: Thoughts from Places

Ransom Riggs' 1st novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is awesome. It is a narrative constructed around a handful of VERY odd old tyme pictures. I wrote about it after I read it here. Riggs is also a travel writer and has a WONDERFUL youtube channel that is slightly akin to one of my favorite websites, Forbidden Places, which is kind of a photographic foray into lost and forgotten urban places all over the world. This video, posted on the VlogBrothers youtube channel is an adventure with Riggs in a forgotten hospital. Fantastic.

Toy Fair 2013: Mattel Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull ...

This was on ainitcoolnews earlier today. Bad ass version of something I loved as a kid.

Man... or Astro Man?

In honor of the upcoming tour dates, which can be seen here.

Caught them two years ago for the first time since... late 90's? Still awesome.

Woodkid - I Love You

I missed this when it was released last week. I would not have thought Woodkid possible in topping their last video (Iron). I was wrong.

Some of the most beautiful textures committed to B&W. And the Whales just make it.

Here's Iron too, because I don't think I ever posted it on here:

The Devil's Carnival 2 Teaser

Wire - The Peel Sessions '78

We could talk about the awards show everyone else is talking about. Or we can listen to good music. I think I'll take the latter.

Wipers - Doom Town

Tuneyards on Austin City Limits 2/09/13 - Gangsta

Watch tUnE-yArDs "Gangsta" on PBS. See more from Austin City Limits.

Patrick Wensink - Sex Dungeon For Sale

As I blogged about here last week, I recently finished Patrick Wensink's novel Broken Piano For President. If you dig reading, if you dig Chuck Palahniuk, if you dig The Butthole Surfers ('cuz they figure into the book in a huge thematic way) then you should definitely read this book. Fantastic.

A couple of years ago I read Wensink's first anthology, Sex Dungeon For Sale. It wasn't until just last week though that I'd ever seen the above. Nice.

Troggs - Night of the Long Grass

The Twilight Singer - Fat City (Slight Return)

"Why you take from a giver?
Why you gotta get high?
Why you watch a carwreck,
Muthafucker?
Cuz it looks fun to die."

Mr. Duli you have quite the disturbing yet endlessly endearing way with words.

The Bronx's New Record: Bronx IV

Damn! This just came out and I missed it.

Watch Primus & Stewart Copeland Jam

via Copeland's youtube channel. Awesome.

New Laird Barron Collection in April

image courtesy of http://darkwolfsfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/

About two years while I was still at the bookstore, one of my regulars recommended Laird Barron's "Weird Fiction" to me. That's a flag phrase with me. You may have noticed I'm a bit of a Lovecraft fanatic and Weird Fiction is, along with authors such as Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, a moniker most colloquially associated with ol' Howard Phillips . Also, there was something about the manner in which my customer described Barron's work - an immediacy and a sureness that imparted to me the idea that I would become a fanatic for this man's work as well.

I did.

image courtesy of goodreads.com

I began with The Imago Sequence and Other Stories. I read that so fast my freakin' head spun. It was a bit of work locating a copy, but in the interim of leaving the store and starting my new job some friends opened their own book store here in the Southbay, the-ever touted Bookfrog, and they were kind enough to order it for me (because they order everything and anything at request).

Next was Occultation, which came out shortly after finished Imago. Another anthology, Occultation was an even better, more consistant read. The infinitesimal tendrils of dread Barron had begun sowing through my heart in The Image Sequence were growing stronger in Occultation, and I was starting to get glimpses of the bigger picture behind the cracks and corners of his work.

image courtesy of grimreviews.blogspot.com

That picture came full on clear, complete with hideous gray eyes and wickedly aspiring teeth when The Croning was released some months later. Barron's debut novel The Croning is a deeply inspiring work that deftly examines the mundane yet terrifying aging process within the context of immortality, dark ritualistic aeons and things that go bump in the night. It is a fantastic first novel as both a stand alone entity and - what's more important to the fanatic in me - to the cosmic scope of the mythos Barron is creating.

image courtesy of imdiebound.org

Like Lovecraft, Barron's tales are in a shared world or Universe and overlap in sometimes obvious (i.e. character swapping) sometimes nearly invisibile ways. Like the fabled Butterfly Effect one character may do something in one story and it will reach fruition in another. This is Lovecraft-esque without falling into the admittedly overdone trap of writing within Lovecraft's world. This is a very talented author using that as the template and saying, "Now how can I do this, but make it my own?"

For two or two hundred more stories, I'm in.

The Black Angels - Don't Play With Guns

Melvins Do Black Betty from Forthcoming Covers Record

The first song we've heard off of April 30th Melvins (and friends) cover album Everybody Loves Sausages. Thanks be to Mr. Brown for the heads up.

What is not addressed in the article is why JSBX - or what is commonly an abbreviation for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is on the graphic. Are they somehow involved in with the track? There was no mention anywhere that I looked.

I Feel an Ethyl Meatplow Binge Coming On...

My Conundrum with the New MBV

image courtesy of walrusmusicblog.com

So I just ordered the vinyl package for the new My Bloody Valentine album. Said package came with the 180 gram vinyl, CD and the digital DL. So the tracks are in my possession, and I'm dying to listen to them, HOWEVER, here's my conundrum.

From the MBV website:

"This vinyl album has been recorded as an analogue album. It was recorded on 2 inch 24 track analogue tape and mixed onto half inch analogue tape and mastered with no digital processing involved. The vinyl is a true analogue cut, i.e. it hasn't been put through a digital process during the cutting process unlike over 90% of all vinyl available today."

Okay, so do I go ahead and listen to the tracks as digital entities, or do I wait (the vinyl/CD's aren't being shipped until the 22nd due to manufacturing) and let such a beautiful and meticulous record find my ears the first time the way it was meant to? It's been fairly easy avoiding the tracks thus far on youtube and pitchfork and whatnot (which is why I've nto posted any here), but now that they're on my computer?

I'm going to attempt to wait, but brothers and sisters, as they say in hell, it ain't gonna be easy!

Mr. Bungle Full Show 1992

For the other side of the coin from that 2000 show I posted earlier. Of special note would be their cover of Billy Squire's The Stroke at about 41:00 minutes and the truly disturbing set-closer, a ten minute+ version of Everyone I Went to High School with is Dead. On that one, the sometimes-shoddy video work and intermittent all-black screen help combine with the improv/noise element of the song to produce one of the closest things to a nightmare captured on film I've ever seen. This wasn't the exact show I was looking for, the one where Patton gets pulled into the crowd by a fan then hits the guy in the head with the microphone, finally toweling off the blood as he sings... I don't remember. I'll have to find that...

Mr. Bungle Full Live Show ~2000

Wow. A professionally shot Mr. Bungle concert from the 2000 California tour. I saw them three times for this album and I'd forgotten just how much of a workout each one was for the band. Props for BrainPhreak to posting this.

Barry Adamson - If You Love Her

If you're not familiar with Barry Adamson, former bass player for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave and the Cave Men, Magazine and for a short time the Buzzcockss, and you dig any measure of the stuff I toss out on this page, go get 1996's Oedipus Schmoedipus. An anthological record that features Adamson's jazz/noir musicality and style plus a number of great guests (Carla Bozulich, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker to name a few). If you're a David Lynch fan you'll recognize track number two on the record, it had a pretty memorable moment in Lost Highway. Mr. Adamson's soundtrack to Carol Morley's 'Dreams of a Life" which will be aired in the UK tonight, Feb 7th. Said ST can be purchased here on iTunes.



All of the man's albums are fantastic, especially my favorite, 1998's As Above So Below. Atticus Ross assisted with some of the programming and produced it and Flood's on hand for a couple of tracks as well. It's fantastic; a dark, jazzy descent into a noisy, ionic hell where the kiss of an angel waits mockingly just out of reach. Overdoing it? I don't think so. You don't know Barry.



Adamson's earliest records (Moss Side Tory, Soul Murder) are fascinating because they are soundtracks - complete with dialogue snippets - to movies that never existed outside Mr. Adamson's mind. The genius displayed therein put him on Trent Reznor's map back in the early 90's. Reznor used a few of Adamson's tracks and the influence of his MO to put together the Natural Born Killer's ST and then a few years later of course the aforementioned Lost Highway. Two years ago Adamson - a "Cinematic Soul" by his own admission, wrote, directed and released his first film - a 'novella' entitled The Therapist. The film is a heavily-influenced first film but it is good, strong in tone, and it points to even better things to come from this man whose work I love so much. A friend and I saw him live last year in an intimate show at LA's Hotel Bar. Just Barry, minimal accompaniment. It was awesome.

Queens of the Stone Age - Secrets of the Sound

Wwwhhhheeeeeennnnnn?????????

Soundgarden - Into The Void (Sealth)

I was lucky as hell to get this as a teenager sometime around the time it came out. One year for my birthday my Aunt Dotty gave me a bunch of Coconuts gift coins and I used them to purchase four albums on CD (the only time I'd ever bought more than two at once at that point): Slayer - Decade of Aggression, Skinny Puppy - Last Rites, Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and SoundGarden - Badmotorfinger. With Badmotorfinger I was able to find a copy of the two-disc version where the album proper is complimented by a second disc, SOMMS, or Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas. The second disc starts with a cover of Black Sabbath's Into the Void, a song that I believe has one of the greatest riff-structures of any heavy music anywhere. Soundgarden handle the material VERY adeptly and definitely manage to add something to it. The day I first heard it I was at long-gone Red Tower Records in Orland Park, IL. I asked the clerk what it was (I'd actually never heard either Soundgarden or that particular Sabbath song at that time, I guess this was sometime in '92) but of course didn't have enough money to afford both it and whatever I'd come in for originally. Luckily I was able to find that later copy - the last I ever saw (I always looked).

New Man Man in 2013!!!

Yes!!! Apparently the band is trying for a summer release after recording the record in three weeks and beginning mixes now. There's a great interview with Honus in Paste here. They've been trying songs out live so I set to scouring the old tubeU but haven't found anything yet. However, despite The Life Fantastic not leaving my CD player or iPod from about the time it was released in April 2011 to Autumn of the same year I somehow had never seen this video for Piranhas Club before now. Careful - this made me smile up and down for quite some time after first watching it (like the song doesn't do that enough. Great video). It's not going to play here, just follow the link - Anti seems overly protective of this but hey, that's cool.

Liars - "WIXIW"

New Liars video!! Rejoice!

HBO Films: Phil Spector Trailer

I'm no longer really a fan of Al Pacino's work in cinema. Everything up to and including Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way and I'm in, Carlito's Way especially, as I feel it is a modern crime masterpiece, a tear-jerking love story and it features outstanding performances by not only Mr. Pacino but Sean Penn as well. It is a shame though, that the Carlito Brigante character has slightly been ruined for me by the fact that it became Pacino's ONLY persona after that. Some have corrected me and said that Al put a slight mod on Carlito for Scent of a Woman and that is in fact the character he's been in EVERY movie since. Either way, it's wore out its welcome. The one exception to this is HBO's 2010 movie You Don't Know Jack where Pacino turned in a fantastic role performance as Jack Kevorkian. Honestly up to that point I didn't think I'd ever see another great Pacino performance again.

Now HBO is giving us the above - a film where Pacino portrays enigmatic looney tune Phil Spector, possibly the greatest record producer in human history (which he reminds up of in the trailer) and convicted murderer. I gotta say, I'm excited again. From what we see in this trailer I'm thinking we're not going to get another fine-tuned, wonderfully-nuanced performance out of Mr. Pacino, but honestly in this case I don't care. Spector fascinates the hell out of me, and to have someone who can get all HOO-HA bugfuck crazy at the drop of a hate playing him makes me even more excited (as long as we don't actually have to hear him yell Hoo-Ha that is). There's a documentary about Spector on my Netflix cue - it's been there for a few years and last I checked it still hadn't been released, so this will have to do for now. Besides, I've a feeling the whole story is probably so disturbing that it'll be good to break the ice with some larger-than-life fiction before getting into the real nooks and crannies of the story.

Wherever you fall in the Spector polarization, let's not forgot what he did give us, before he started taking things away from people.



Hot damn that's a fine song and one of my favorite recordings. Ever.

The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

BIG pull back to The Smiths lately. Rounding out my (hopefully) last night of feverish delusion (oh who am I kidding? The fevers been gone since yesterday and I'll always be delusional) with a huge Smiths bender complimented perfectly by beginning to re-read Neil Gaiman's Sandman in anticipation of next fall's new Sandman series.

(and in the still for this video, doesn't Morrissey look kinda like David Patrick Kelly, best known as Jerry Horne in Twin Peaks? LOVE IT)

The C-Building Kids - PTA Gangbang

Okay, in the high school that Mr. Brown and I went to there were, at the time, three buildings. It was all one big structure, but they'd been adding onto it over the years I guess, connecting each new building via long hallways that looking back on it now were more than a little reminiscent of airports. If you've ever been to the Phoenix, AZ airport you will no doubt know what I'm talking about. A building was purely academic, B building was a continuation of that with something else thrown in, I don't remember exactly, and C Building was for the stoners and special ed students (one and the same in some cases - and I'm saying this as a graduate of that school's stoner program).

Anyway...

About two years out of high school Mr. Brown and I were in a band called Wink Lombardi and the Constellations. We weren't twenty-one and at that time I was really more of a pothead, so we spent most of our spare time in our practice space, recording with every available instrument, microphone and concept our drug-addled brains could come up with. This past time was not limited to just the five of us in the band* but most of our friends. One of those friends was the now-departed Jake. The dude was awesome, but he was a fucking hurricane of insanity waiting to blow free at any given moment. Jake had no musical ability per se - although he sure could sing - but that made his contributions that much more heartfelt and unique.

And insane.

Brown and I decided to start a band with the three of us and whoever else - something where we'd just set up stuff and play and see what happened. Usually for these sessions I played bass, Mr. Brown did some form of vox or keys and Jake did everything we could think of that he didn't know how to play but that might benefit from his fresh approach. He'd play guitars run through five different types of distortion pedals. He'd play drums (again - for being untrained, not bad). He sing. He'd read bizarre passages from his or Mr. Brown's high school notebooks, he'd play a keymonica. Whatever. Our main method of recording at the time was a Tascam 464 - hey this was 1996, there wasn't any home digital equipment yet. No youtube, nothing. So anyway, we decided to call this band - what else - The C-Building Kids. Now you can appreciate the reference.

Most of those tracks sat on moldering casette tapes for a few years until circa 2002 when I was in the band The Yellow House and the singer and I bought a Pro Tools rig. Not the super professional one, but a Digi001. We were recording our debut album and that was how we'd chosen to do it. In the downtime from recording that band - and because for years I clearly did NOTHING exception become inebriated and make music (not a bad thing) - Mr. Brown and I spent many a long night going through those old C Blding tapes, transferring the material track by track. Jake had passed away a few years between the original project and this re-mastering so it was important to us.

Still is.

We managed to make one album out of the most usable of that material. Pro Tools is a non-destructive, digital recording environment and it enables you to have a hell of a lot more tracks than a Tascam 464 does. After transferring all those old songs we added tons of stuff to link all the tracks and basically make the whole thing flow like one giant, diseased clusterfuck of a record. We named it The C-Building Kids: Shitting in the Urinal and never released it because... well, again, there was no youtube still at this time and just who were we gonna send this to?

The above track actually doesn't even have Jake on it. Most of it is one single track - I remember the night perfectly, Sonny and I walking up into the old practice space during the Wink days, seeing Brown sitting there with a small Casio keyboard in his hand, plugged into the Tascam. He played us what he had just created - again on ONE TRACK - and we were just like whoah. I never knew how to add anything to it, when we transferred it I strapped on my guitar and running it through my handy-dandy effects pedal and did some crazy, off-the-cuff hoo-doo that really actually worked. Then we added our roommate Two Foot making some weird humping noises inspired by the title (which Mr. Brown had recorded the initial track based on) and the rest... well, while it might not be history, it's certainly our story.




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*Mr. Brown, myself, Sonny D., JFK and fifth member that rotated between several different people, none of which were Abe Vigoda but one of which carried the unusual surname of Crackrockski. Polish?

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Cocks 'n' Asses

Great B-side I re-discovered while going through my listening preparations for Push the Sky Away. Reminds me a little bit of "Three" on Seventeen Seconds by The Cure. Has what I always think of as the "Vertigo Comics Vibe". I need to post a list of other stuff with that vibe and an explanation - I think it's an interesting theory.

Alice In Chains - Sea of Sorrow

The summer of '91 I attended my second concert ever: Operation Rock and Roll!!! Now I ask you, with a moniker like that, how could it be anything but awesome? It was, if I can do this from memory - Metal Church, Dangerous Toys, Motorhead, Judas Priest (Painkilllllllleeeeerrrrr tour no less) and Alice Fucking Cooper. Holy Old Crow, right? My buddy Zak lived a stone's throw from the (then) World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, IL. He had the obligatory cool uncle who chaperoned us because he himself was a fan of Mr. Cooper. So we had a good old time.

Anyway... On the way out that night they were handing out a casette. Just a simple thing in a cardboard slip-sleeve with a canon on the cover and one song by all the band's that had played the show and a bunch that hadn't. Alice In Chain's Sea of Sorrow was, I think, the third song on the first side. It was the first time I'd ever heard Alice In Chains. You may have noticed, I've been a fan ever since.

I've always liked this song because the use of the piano makes it stand slightly apart from the rest of their catalogue, but without really deviating from their "sound". That sound largely being made up of Cantrell's dark and lush songwriting and the unique harmonies that resulted from his voice with Layne Staley's. Even though Layne died I do believe Cantrell has cracked the code a second time and in a respectful way with what he has going now as Alice In Chains. I don't really care too much for the group's newer video, which I posted and talked a bit about here, but I love the song and can't wait for the record (which, as far as I've been able to ascertain, still does not have a definitive release date).

I also don't care for a lot of the elements of the above video for Sea of Sorrow. I've said before, videos where the band 'plays' irritate me. I get it, why it's done, but THEY'RE NOT PLAYING so it just seems dumb. Be that as it may, in the 90's you couldn't throw a frog without hitting a video with the band playing, unless maybe that frog was aimed at TOOL. Regardless, I love the song, love some of the B&W imagery, and LOVE seeing a young, healthy, LIVING Layne Staley.

DAYWALT HORROR: Jack

Kudos to my friend Tori for turning me on to this. Lots of cool stuff here from The Daywalt Fear Factory

Pulp - Seductive Barry

Probably the next most seductive song (of course, check the title mate). Both on the same album!

Pulp - This Is Hardcore

Apologies for the ad - the others I found were shit dubs. Is this not one of the most seductive songs ever?

Son Of Rogues Gallery - "Shenandoah"

Waits And Richards? Jesus...

Thanks again Mr. Brown.

Psychocandy - The Jesus and Mary Chain

A friend inspired a JAMC binge today. I'm fortunate enough to have a copy of Darklands on Vinyl (my wife's I believe) and The Peel Sessions on disc, but I had to go to youtube for this one.

There's something smoky and disturbing about JAMC. When I first heard the band's name, somewhere around the time of the first ever Lollapalooza concert,* I felt as though I had heard the name of a secret society. It seemed hush hush. Very occult. The band ended up not sounding anything like I thought they would (though I couldn't tell you what that was) but that was good, very good. Years later I'd have a slight interest in and then a small aversion to The Raveonettes based on a perceived imitation of JAMC's sound. And yeah - there are A LOT of similarities, but The Raveonettes have become one of my favorite bands EVER and have retroactively helped me realize even more of the pure sonic beauty of JAMC.


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*No - unfortunately I was not old enough or savvy enough to have attended the first Lollapalooza. Being in my early teens at the time this kind of thing was only slightly on my radar. The second one I think I probably didn't have the money for, so it wasn't until the third one that I attended a 'palooza, and then probably only after Mr. Brown prompted me to. It was the only one I ever did and ever will. It was great to see the bands I saw there but I am NOT a festival person. Unless it's in England. I'd go to ATP or Minehead in a freakin' second.

You had me at COBRA

New Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Video - Jubilee Street

Starring Ray Winstone no less. Push the Sky Away is getting closer (Feb 18th)

Patrick Wensink's Broken Piano For President

Just finished reading this novel by Patrick Wensink last night while I sweated and shivered through what was hopefully the final night of this awful sickness. Pat's book made it better. Or it fit the tone of the evening perfectly, as Wensink's roiling, often hallucinatory style fit with my feverish delirium. Think Chuck Palahniuk, Thomas Pynchon and the music of The Butthole Surfers (who figure into the protagonist, Deshler Dean's life in a MAJOR way) thrown in to a meat grinder and you might end up with a burger that could change your life. Because that's what the book is about - the fast food burger business. And cliff drinking. And blackouts. And starving Russian cosmonauts. And punk rock. And art. And head wounds.

Everything I'm into in one neat little package. It's like he wrote it just for me!!!

Pascal Marco - Identity: Lost

How cool is this? I just received a phone call from thriller writer Pascal Marco. The author of the acclaimed Identity: Lost called me on my cell phone to give me words of encouragement and ideas pertaining to getting my manuscripts published. He gave me some great advice and generally just inspired the hell out of me.

Now, you may ask how it is he came to A) know of my existence, and B) had my phone number. Well, a friend of my Father - who is a big fan of Mr. Marco's - is a friend of the author's. He passed on my info on and asked if he'd be up for a cold call to an inspiring writer. I'm thinking a lot of folks would have blown such a favor off. After all, it's not easy to just call someone you have never met before, especially when you are in a position they aspire to. Things could be... weird. But Mr. Marco did indeed call and talked to me for about fifteen minutes. I may be weird, but I'm not the kind of weird that impositions folks who lend a hand. I asked questions and took his advice and as I said earlier, was inspired by hearing another author talk about "his path".

I've always had faith that my manuscripts will be published, this just serves as a reminder.

Godflesh - Mighty Trust Krusher (Live @ Roadburn, April 14th, 2011)

They never lose it.

How To Destroy Angels - How Long?

I'm liking this new record more and more. The surging, glitchy rhythm section we've come to recognize as Reznor's recent muse but with a - dare I say it - almost Justin Timberlake-esque pop approach to vox. Interesting

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

Back in '05 or so my wife bought me the Criterion Edition of this marvelously produced documentary about Witchcraft. William S. Burroughs does narration.

My Bloody Valentine New Album

Within just the last moments this album apparently began streaming/went up for sale on the band's website, however the mad rush of fans seems to have caused the site to crash. I'll post something else when I can. Brooklyn Vegan has a nice screen shot of the art, track listing and online shop/format options here.

I Love Brooklyn Vegan.