7 Days of Ozzy - Day 7: Therapy

 

And for day 7 of our 7 Days of Ozzy, I had to go with something a little bit different. Love the first Infectious Grooves album, and especially this track, which benefits enormously from Ozzy's vocals. I'd say this is similar to Sting's contribution to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" - you just can't imagine the chorus being sung by anyone else.

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Watch:

Saturday night Beyondfest & the American Cinematheque held a free advance screening of Chloe Okuno's new film Watcher at the Aero Theatre. Holy smokes - a fantastic psychological thriller with a gut-punch ending. LOVED it! 

The cinematography and direction in this one are fantastic, as are all the performances. The film really gives you a feel for the slow-motion paranoia that upturns Maika Monroe's Julia's life after she moves with her husband to Bucharest - a city she's never been to where most people speak Romanian - a language she doesn't speak. This isolation feeds directly into her paranoia, so you really don't have a sense of what's real and what's imagined in Julia's escalating panic, stoked by the fact that a serial killer stalks the city in the background of their lives.

Afterward, Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman did a Q&A moderated by Heidi Honeycutt. The two stars discussed filming in Romania during the Pandemic, the endless beauty of Bucharest, and how they prepared for the isolation and paranoia of the film. I can't recommend this one enough. 

Distributed by IFC Midnight, Watcher opens wide June 3rd on 500 screens - the company's largest theatrical opening to date.

Then, in keeping with the themes Watcher introduced, K and I took in a matinee of Alex Garland's new film Men.

Bold Horror Statement*: If The Witch and Midsommar kicked off the current zeitgeist resurgance of Folk Horror, Men is it's apex. Not to say it's better than them, but it seems to coelsce so many of the themes and images into an entirely new thing.

 

I'll be seeing this one on the big screen again.

..........

* Props to Shock Waves and Colours of the Dark!

 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Joseph Bishara - Malignant OST

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Sparks - Lil' Beethoven

Mannequin Pussy - Patience

Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death

Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell

Pale Dian - Narrow birth

Ghost - Impera

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium (Undreamble Abysses)

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Card:

Confirmation on an inkling for investment.

Slope

 

This is a 'Thank the Universe for my friends" post, because both of the two things I'm posting here, I NEVER would have found and/or given the time of day to without my friends. First up, Jacob, who sent me Slope's new album on Apple Music yesterday and totally picked up the later part of my day. This album rules! It starts almost like NIN's Broken, with a slowly building noise, then leaps into something that initially sounded a lot like nu-metal to me. I was just about to click off when the first change in the song hit, and I was roped back in - and from there, I could no stop. This record is fantastic - reminds me SO MUCH of Infectious Grooves' debut album, which I desperately wish I still had, 'cuz it's streaming on nothing. In the interim, Slope will help (or push me to buy the CD on ebay for $20 - I had the cassette).

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Watch:

MODOK - First: Patton Oswalt can do no wrong.

MODOK has long been a joke between myself and my good friend Joe.Baxter, the other half of on-again-off-again musical project Christian Fisting. In fact, if you could go to the Christian Fisting website (which is down) , you would see that MODOK even figured into our fake 'origin story' that we wrote for ourselves back in, oh, 2011 or so. Anyway, apparently Joe and I weren't the only people who found MODOK comical, and I glad of that after seeing this INSANE Marvel/HULU collaboration. Part Robot Chicken, part... I don't even know, I'm laughing my ass off as I watch this. And that's not very easy to do. 

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Playlist:

Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs 

Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color

Blur - Parklife

Windhand - Eternal Return

Slope - Street Heat

K's 70s Playlist 

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Card:

 

Clearly, I'm on repeat, going around and around, because I keep getting The Devil card from this deck. Until today. Unless this is just another way the deck is telling me what I'm apparently not hearing.

Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move

Where there is noooooo way in hell I'd ever go see Suicidal Tendencies anymore (been that way pretty much since the last time I saw them, circa 1994 or '95) news of Infectious Grooves reuniting makes me wonder... it doesn't require 'Cyco Mike' to try and pull off that Suicidal aggression that has just seemed phoned in since... again, '94 or '95. I mean, no offense to the guy, he helped make some AWESOME music in Tendencies. Everything up to The Art of Rebellion is classic, with Lights Camera Revolution being the pinnacle and where - in my opinion - they should have stopped.

I saw Infectious Grooves at Chicago's Riviera Theatre back for this first record (opening for ST) - it's been years since I've heard this as I never owned it on disc, only cassette and that disappeared some time ago. But hearing it again now, contemplating seeing them... it's just a start-to-finish great record. Live? Wait, FNM's Jim Martin added on guitar? Hmmmm...