2019: May 20th - Joe Bob Briggs on the Demons "Series"

As we entire the final week of Joe Bob Briggs' inaugural season of The Last Drive-In on Shudder, I thought I'd post one of my favorite clips from the man.

I didn't have cable growing up, so I never got to experience JBB in his previous iterations. I seriously don't think I'd ever even heard of him before Shudder brought him on last summer for that first, 25 hour marathon - the origin of this clip. I've fallen in love fast, though. After last week's episode (The Stuff and Street Trash), I actually threw on his Thanksgiving Dinners of Death to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre with his asides (I missed the beginning of it during the original, Holiday airing). That's something I never thought I'd do - watch a film I respect as much as TCM more for interruptions than the film itself. But JBB is a fount of information, and despite the weakening of a viewings immersions with his interruptions, I've seen TCM many times, but never with the Joe Bob's annotations, which I'd imagine will add quite a bit of context to subsequent viewings, much the same as Brad Shellady's 1988 documentary Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait, which I love as much as the original film.

I'll miss Joe Bob in the off season; there's been something amazing about watching this live every week I'm able, and I'm sure I'll be revisiting these episodes throughout the interim between this and what I hope will be another season somewhere not too far down the line.

**

I was able to catch up on a lot of reading this weekend, and one of the comics I blew through several issues of was Gunning for Hits. This book - published by Image Comics - is fantastic, especially if you're a music lover. Writer Jeff Rougvie brings all the insight from a career producing some of the biggest and most influential bands in history - David Bowie and Elvis Costello to name a few - into the story of Martin Mills, former Government Black Ops Agent turned A&R man, signing bands in 1987 New York. What we have is a brilliantly entertaining and educational book that really shows how the industry used to work, woven in with dramatic situations that range from the on-the-road hi jinx of a newly signed band in the pre-Grunge era (think Noel Monk's 12 Days on the Road) combined with a whirlwind tutorial of the back-room goings on of the men who made the hits. And the back matter alone is worth the price of admission, where Rougvie further hashes out for the laymen just how that giant dinosaur system used to work.

Also, as you can see, there are a lot of allusions in the book for music nerds to get excited over.

**

Playlist from 5/19:

Melvins - (A) Senile Animal
Melvins - Stoner Witch
Hall and Oats - Essentials

Card of the day:

Careful consideration; be aware of anxious motivation, and those who might be anxiously motivated.