2019: June 5th Stereophonics - Mr. Writer

Wow. It has been a minute since I dug into Stereophonics. So long, in fact, that I'd forgotten how great this band is. And this particular track comes from a great album, too, although one that can be difficult for me to engage with, since it mentally and emotionally ties my thoughts back into The Yellow House, a band I was in that I loved, but that ended abruptly. That's tough; bands breaking up are a lot like couples breaking up. There becomes an entire subset of people and music and corridors of thought that you end up having to put to the side to avoid those messy little nerve triggers. With Stereophonics - and more specifically the album Just Enough Education to Perform, which I'm listening to for the first time in at least ten years as I type this - those triggers kick in on the second track, Lying in the Sun. I remember hearing this song for the first time after The Yellow House was already really up and running, playing shows and getting our name out there. I remember hearing this track and thinking, "Hey, that's a lot like what we're doing. Cool." It meant a lot at the time, to have a band that was successful in a way that we wanted to be, that had a similar aesthetic. Stereophonics weren't really all that big in this country, but at the time almost nothing worth hearing was. They had a solid fan base probably everywhere else in the world, and they were cool. That's what was largely missing from the 00s. Not many people were cool anymore; that aesthetic - which granted can go sideways real fast and make you look like a douche - was replaced mainly in the 00s with people yelling and screaming about their prozac, how messed up they were, and the like. Bands like Stereophonics and BRMC were cool.

My introduction to Stereophonics also dovetailed with my first trip abroad: I remember walking into the first hostel in Dublin in January 2002, and this video was playing on the tele. The track has always had the particular ability to spin me back in time to that exact moment, the way the air tasted, the electricity of being somewhere new. Which is always something to be experienced sparingly, so as not to wear out the Magick.

Hearing these tracks this morning, I'm blown away; the songs and my responses to them are a reminder that I am a completely different person today than I was during The Yellow House. Which is precisely how it should be, but it's interesting to step back every now again and remember.

**

NCBD! Very excited for these, especially The Walking Dead. If you're reading it, you know why!

Found out recently this series ends with a double-sized issue #30 in July, so this is the penultimate chapter! Expect even more insanity than we've had, which is really going to be saying something when all is said and done:

Despite initial confusion, I ended up loving the Lapham's Lodger series for IDW's Black Crown. And now, I'm excited to be back with the old gang again in Stray Bullets:

The start of a new, and apparently longer, arc. This book is aces. Read it:

**

About the time I posted yesterday's blog I realized I was sick as fuck and not going to work, so I spent June 4th confined to bed, where I finished Gemma Files' Experimental Film. A powerhouse; such a great novel. Creepy, well-written, and almost clinical in its plotting. I wondered if the climax would go as large as the plot teased, and if so how that would work. There's that moment where, depending on how supernatural or numinous a novel's plot has teased, Speculative or Weird Fiction has to make a decision to either go full-bore, bringing the 'monster' on camera or not. Ms. Files goes all the way with it, and she does such a fantastic job with it. Nothing seems ridiculous. That's the trick. You have to give the reader something they've never seen before and make them believe in it. And Experimental Film does that very well indeed.

**

Watchlist yesterday was another episode and a half of Doom Patrol. SO fun watching Cliff Steele kick nazi ass while Dead Kennedy's blare on the soundtrack. I can't recommend this show enough.

**

Playlist from 6/04:

Cat Rapes Dog - Maximum Overdrive
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair

**

Card of the day:

Remain open to the influence of the Universe. Pretty sure unexpectedly digging into old Brit rock and staying home from work (and feeling guilty about it) for the second day in a row are the direct manifestation of this draw. I've been sick or not feeling well (read: exhausted) since the 19th of May, and the recurrences from what seems a tiny bug are due, I think, to a lack of rest. So yesterday I didn't leave bed, save for about an hour where I sat in the living room and listened to two records while reading. Also, I didn't allow myself to write at all. I put all the anxiety and expectations and frustrations of this final edit under the bed for a day and just did nothing but read Gemma Files. Today, while once again planning to stay in bed, perhaps I will work on reading the book.

2019: Numenorean - And Nothing Was the Same

My good friend Tori recently turned me onto Canadian band Atmospheric Black Metal band Numenorean. Now, those qualifiers I placed before the band's name - which I culled straight off the tags on their Bandcamp - approach a description of Numenorean, but they certainly do not define the band. The new album Adore, recorded over the span of three years and released recently on Seasons of Mist, is an exploration of the crossroads of so very many different musical styles within the ever-widening sky of 'Metal' and 'Shoegaze'. Numenorean have a very unique sound that encompasses elements of so many ideas. The first two tracks have definite moments that make me flashback to The Cure's Disintegration. I hear Deafheaven, Fenn, old school Iron Maiden, Second Wave Black Metal, etc, etc. The point is, the record is fantastic and if you agree, spread the word!

**

A little over a quarter of the way through Gemma Files' Experimental Film, the book has slipped its spell over me completely. There's nothing genre here; back in my bookstore days, I would imagine this shelved under Fiction/Lit instead of Horror. There's nothing wrong with genre. In fact I love it, read it, and write it. However, there is a different feel to more literary works that utilize Genre ideas. Experimental Film is one of those. Files brings you into her First Person Narrator's world, rife with the onset of Middle Age, an Autistic Son, and a career path that requires a lot of spec work and not much in the way of compensation. This of course complicates the other aspects of her life. The over-arching narrative drive, that there is an isolated house in Northern Canada where a millionaire's wife may have used early, highly volatile Silver Nitrate Film to accomplish Occult Phenomena in the  early Twentieth Century, is seeping in around the edges, and how any of the former relates to the latter, other than it's our Narrator's obsession and attempt at making a mark in the Academic world researching it, is unclear at this point. What is clear, is that the dark things I can feel on the horizon of this novel will occur in the same clearly written and beautifully rendered examination of occurrence as the daily ups and downs of the Narrator's life. Call it a slow burn if you want; Experimental Film reminds me more than a little bit of the work of Bret Easton Ellis, and I am enjoying it very, very much.

**

Watchlist from 5/25 was the remainder of Season One of Ozark, on into the first two episodes of Season Two. Jesus, this show is strong; it remains to be seen if Season Two will weave so many dramatic plot points together as Season One, but it's certainly off to a good start.

**

Playlist from 5/25:

Sunn O))) - Life Metal
The Veils - Total Depravity
The Yellow House - Refurbished
The Pogues - Red Roses For Me
The Police - Outlandos D'Amour
Isis - Celestial
Ghost - Prequelle

**

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "The Lunar Pull on seemingly unconnected processes." Well, we're currently in Waning Gibbous, the first phase after a full moon. So we're slowly moving beyond revelation. Also, this card has several 'face value' applications, the most obvious of which in terms of Magical Significance, is the Scarlet Lady riding the Seven-Headed Beast of Revelations. This is the destruction of what came before, and the approach to a new paradigm. There is also a transition from Severity (Geburah) to Mercy (Chesed). But really, all this is just me playing an endless guitar solo; showing off, because I don't have any idea how this card applies to me at the moment.

Or maybe I do...

2019: May 21st: The End Covered by The Raveonettes

I've been on a Ravenettes kick for the first time in a while as of yesterday, and I had completely forgotten that one of my favorite bands covers one of my favorite songs. And their take is great; where the original takes you deep into some sandy cave in the Arabian Desert, the Raveonettes keep the psychedelic aspect but transport it to a subterranean cave that might have been stumbled upon while walking on the beach in some deserted, exotic location. So good.

**

I've already blown through 2/3 of Nathan Ballingrud's short story collection Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell, and wanted to slow down on it for a minute. Coincidentally, my friend Maddy and I have been attempting to do a synchronized read of Gemma Files' Experimental Film for quite some time - we got the book a year or so ago - and just haven't had a chance to lock schedules. Well, that changed Saturday, and as of yesterday I'm 60 pages in and HOOKED. I'll talk about this more as I go through it, but as of now, I see what the hype was about.

**

Playlist from 5/20:

Jeff Whalen - Man of Devotion
Jeff Whalen - The Alien Lanes
The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat
Malcolm Middleton - Sleight of Heart


No card today.

2019: February 3rd

I saw ATW's name on a movie I watched recently but I can't quite place what it was. I thought for sure it was Dead Wax, but I can't seem to find any acknowledgement of that online. Either way, these guys are pretty great and it's good to see them breaking through to a larger audience.

It's been a wicked weekend of hard rain in Southern California. We needed it. Wish it would continue, but there's the sun, already poking out from behind the clouds, drying up all the moisture. The rain always inspires new creative bursts in me, and the second story for my inevitable follow-up to A Collection of Desires is in the bank. Can't wait to see what comes next.

Earlier last week, I picked up Ramsey Campbell's Alone with the Horrors again. This is a collection of Campbell's short fiction from 1961-1991. I've had this for years, inspired to purchase it after a customer from back in my border's days recommended I read the short story Again. That story made quite the impression on me, but during my initial attempt at reading the entire volume, I've only ever made it through a handful of the other tales. Early last year I began again, re-reading those first few stories, but once again moved on. Now that I've returned to Alone with the Horrors a third time however, I am finding it hard to put down. The stories are fantastic; bleak and grey like the skies in the author's native Britain, with an often cold and terse style that matches the somewhat frumpy aesthetic Britain seemed bathed in during the 70s/80s. In particular, the story The Brood, from 1976, impressed me. My intention is to read a few tales from this one in between novels, the next of which will be Gemma Files' Experimental Film.

Playlist from 2/02:

Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Ozzy Osbourne - Ultimate Sin
Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

Card of the day:

These pulls are all tied up in a personal drama with a friend. This will hopefully work itself out over the next week. Good to see the Six of Wands again, though.