Very cool video. That image at 1:15 is creepy as hell. I'd forgotten about this record, so thank you Sargent House for dropping this and reminding me!
**
Not a big day for NCBD today, but that's good. Fits with my existential crisis regarding stuff from earlier in the week. I am, however, really looking forward to the new issue of Gunning for Hits:
The back-matter in this book alone is worth the cost of the individual issues, as loaded into the music business both past and present as it is. Absolutely worth your time if you're a music fan.
**
Playlist from 6/11:
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Jamiroquai - Return of the Space Cowboy
Orville Peck - Pony
St. Elsewhere - The Odd Couple
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
**
Card of the day:
I will be on the look out, as something I have planned is going to fall flat on its face. Being that I woke up at 2:00 AM this morning, I'd say that's my plans to work on the final edit later this afternoon. Not a total loss, as I used that extra time between waking so early and leaving for work to fix a particularly perplexing chapter.
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.
Missed it again! I wanted to post this yesterday and just be a day late, but I ended up not really having a chance to post at all. Better late than never.
Three years. Wow.
NCBD - another thing I'm late on. Here was the haul this week:
New book by Jeff Rougvie. Who's that you ask? Well, there's a ton of awesome backwater in this one that explains how Jeff worked for Rykodisc in the 90s and was instrumental in putting together their Bowie reissues and boxset Sound and Color. He even worked closely with Bowie himself on these releases, and lo and behold, this is Mr. Rougvie's first comic and it came out with Bowie on the cover on the anniversary of his death! Wow. Bowie doesn't feature into the story of Gunning for Hits, which looks as though it will revolve around Martin Mills, a hitman-turned-Record company A&R man in 1987. This one is chock full o' great inside the music industry that was stuff, and looks as though it's setting up a fun tale to boot!
Another outstanding number one, but with Brubaker and Phillips, is there ever any doubt? Nope.
Another newer book I'm reading. The concepts go deep and I can't wait to get into the heart of the world that author Dan Wicklineis building here. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Mr. Wickline for quite a while last month when he did a signing at The Comic Bug, and Freeze sounds like it is going to be fantastic!
Speaking of Ed Brubaker, in his most recent newsletter - which you can sign up for HERE - he describes Warren Ellis and Jason Howard's Cemetery Beach as a multiple-issue-long chase scene. He's not wrong, and it's awesome!
Playlist from 1/11:
Steely Dan - Alive in America
The Black Angels - Death Song
Grinderman - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Baroness - Purple
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
The Knife - Silent Shout
Moderat - II
Apparat - The Devil's Walk
Card of the day:
This is, I believe, a direct acknowledgment of a character in the book, so I'll take it as an, 'on the right path, mate!' kinda thing.
