Isolation: Day 165

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine have a new record out this fall on Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label, and if We Created Putin is any indication, Tea Party Revenge Porn will be the musical reaction of the trump years I have been waiting for.

---

---

---

NCBD: It is a very good thing I went in and picked up the three weeks worth of books in my Pull last week, because this week's NCBD has the biggest haul in a while. Let's start with the return of one of my all-time favorite books:

It's been a minute since Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #41, but I do not begrudge David Lapham the time off. On the contrary, this is one of the hardest working men in comics, so I'm one hundred percent behind the occasional hiatuses he takes. That said, it's good to have Beth, Orson, and the crew back! 

New Locke and Key, you say? Yes, I only just read the entire original series at the end of last year/beginning of this one, but I'm definitely in on this two-issue series, especially because it leads to a Locke and Key/Sandman crossover later this year. Can't wait for that!

I'm still a bit on the fence with That Texas Blood, however, I plan on going back and re-reading issue one before plowing into two and now three. 

Bliss number one made a pretty big splash with me, and I'm anxious as hell to see how the story continues.

The Plot returns with issue six this week. I love this return to the Ancestral Horror genre, so much so that I penned the first installment of my new "A Most Horrible Library" column on TheHorrorVision.com. Read it HERE, and watch for future installments to go back to a video format similar to my 2017 Evolution of the Arm series. I don't really have the time to write a regular column at the moment, but with a Video Column, I get to work with K again - she shoots and helps design the look of the show - so that'll alleviate me putting another project solely on myself.

 The best thing about picking up all your books after they've been out for a few weeks is that, such as is the case with TMNT, I literally just read last month's issue a few days ago, so the story is still fresh in my mind. This series has been a consistent succession of awesome evolutionary moments for a lot of the characters in the TMNT universe that might have gone stagnant in a lesser series. Case in point, last month we got this:

I don't know if that makes anyone else out there as happy it does me, but I'm excited as hell to see more of "Leatherkrang!"

See what I mean? That's A LOT of books for one Wednesday! Feels good.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Thou - Heathen

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

Santogold - Eponymous

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

---

---

---

Card:

This one keeps coming up of late, and as I surmised on 8/20 when the Princess of Disks came up last, a signpost on the logic/emotion tug of war it's been reentering the Shadow Play world. Big breakthrough two days ago, not much since. But I've been a bit lost in my head, and reluctant to dig into the dirt and really start laying the foundation in prose. Time to pony up.

The Sonic Mastery of Zen Guerrilla

I don't remember most of the specific details for the show where I saw Zen Guerrilla the first time. They were probably playing with Cash Money (later Cash Audio) and maybe the Quadrajets as well. Probably at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Somewhere around the hazy aethers of 1998. Whatever night it was Zen Guerrilla made an immediate impression on my friends and I. It was common at that time for us to stop by the merch booth on the way out and plunk down money for a disc or 7" (still do when I go to shows, but unfortunately it's not as common these days). One of us must have done so (my money's on Mr. Brown) because soon after Positronic Raygun was in very heavy rotation amidst our little group. It is a fantastic record and while it didn't completely capture the sonic explosion of the group's live performance, engineers Scott Herzog and Matt Kelley helped the band come pretty close. It's blues-flavored RocknRoll Hendrix style - dipped in the sheer cosmic slop of cranked-up reverb and distant radio signals. Even the outro, an almost three-minute loop of a single bar of music dubbed "Frequency Out" has such a strange, otherworldly sound that I have been known to put it on repeat and listen to it for hours on end, often because I don't want the tone the band sets to end.

I was able to see the group one other time, sometime in 2000 I think at the Bottle opening for Nebula. Once again they were magnificent. Hadn't lost a step. And at both gigs their show-stopping set closer, a balls-out cover of Iron Maiden's The Trooper, was really just a smash in the teeth (almost literally for one of us, as the second time the singer Marcus dove off the stage at directly at my friend Hawk who had but a single instant to move before being crushed by the much-larger man. I felt bad that Marcus had ended up landing pretty much face-first on the beer-soaked floor, but I was glad I didn't have to drive my friend to the Hospital).