Damone is a Super Cyborg!!!

 

Part One: Last night, my friend and Horror Vision cohost Ray reminded me about one of the institutions in LaLaLand that I adore: Henry Rollins. One thing LA has going for it is that, if you are music-minded, Rollins was, for a time, ever-present. The old LA Weekly free magazine sported a column by him (now long gone since the paper was purchased and 'streamlined' somewhere around 2017. Even better, Rollins has a two-hour radio show every weekend on local public radio KCRW, 89.9. I was a loyal listener for years, then, at some point, they moved his shows from Saturday night to Sunday and I just fell off. Ray's reminder came in the form of a two-part aha moment. First, KCRW has an app where you can stream their programming regardless of when/where you live, and two Rollins is back on Saturdays at 10:00 PM! Now, sure I could have been listening all along via the app, but the Rollins Saturday night was an event, similar to Joe Bob's Last Drive-In, and I really kinda want to listen to it when it airs. So that's what we did last night. Part Two: Damone is not a band Rollins played last night. I found this band and their debut album with is twenty years old this year in the resulting rabbit hole I fell through after Rollins' show. This is straight teenager powerpop, a genre I do not usually go for. But this... my mileage isn't super sound on this - the album wears a bit as it goes on, but only a bit. And this opening track kicks some serious ass. 

This reminds me of a kind of teenage Danko Jones in a way, and with a similar quasi-70s aesthetic, it reminds me how there was a moment in the very early 00s when it seemed like 70s Hard Rock started to resurface. 

I think about other bands I can name from the teenage power pop area of music and they all lean into calling themselves punk or pop punk - I think that's where they go wrong. They're all also fronted by men who go out of their way to sound like pubescent boys, so that doesn't work for me either. I don't know if it's the mainly female vocals, a girl rounding up to being a bit macho, instead of a boy rounding down to come off vulnerable, but Damone just works where most of those other groups fail miserably. Also, they're named after Damone! You know, Dream Police?

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Play:

The other rabbit hole I fell down yesterday:

 

Working on-site is exhausting for a myriad of reasons, so I haven't had a lot of time or energy in the short periods when I'm in my hotel. Haven't had the energy to watch much let alone read, so it's a good thing I brought my Switch, and even better that the algorithm saw fit to pop up a video on youtube titled, "Super Cyborg is basically Contra on Switch."

Yep. True. Well, the first level is almost exactly Contra, and a lot of the gameplay is the same, but it's going to some weird places with insect and sealife-based bad guys, with some pretty gross ideas they throw at you to shoot. And, of course, there's a 40 lives code, which really opens up the enjoyment.

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Playlist:

Windhand - Eponymous

Cough & Windhand - Reflection of the Negative EP

Henry Rollins - KCRW Broadcast 727

The C.I.A. - Surgery Channel

Damone - From the Attic

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Card:

A direct commentary on not forgetting how good I have it right now, and how much I miss K while I am away. Wealth, indeed.

November 3rd as Portal to the Future

Poignant words from an album I fell in love with in High School. This day will change things going forward. Unfortunately - and I hope to hell I'm wrong here - I'm preparing for either outcome at the polls today to bring domestic terrorism on a scale we've not seen before. Obviously, the preferred outcome is achieved and we step into a new chapter, but I believe the "Stand back, stand by" was meant to put orange's cronies on watch for this very day. Expect militarized action if he is tossed out on his ass, as he should be. Of course, if the opposite happens, well, I guess we'll really know what kind of cuntry (and other cunt like tendencies) we live in, and how many bigots, xenophobes, and downright misguided people surround us. In that case, well, it's going to be a very long four years.

 

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Watch:

This is more of a listen than a watch, but here's a great episode of Henry Rollin's KCRW radio show where Mike Patton is his guest. They get into some great stuff in this one: 

 

In the actual category of 'Watch' however, my first non-US region Blu Ray arrived yesterday. If you listen to The Horror Vision, you'll know my cohost and good friend King Butcher swears by his region-free player, and I finally decided to listen to him. I jumped the gun and ordered several things from Arrow's Shocktober sale - the Hellraiser Trilogy Blu Ray Boxset and Bride of Renanimator - and then doubled down and picked up a copy of the Swedish release of Fede Alvarez's 2013 Evil Dead on ebay. I'd been planning to hunker down and pick up a region-free modified player this week, but LUCKILY, I did some reading first and found out that, joy of joys, the two Sony Blu Ray players I've had for the last several years already are region-free!!! Evil Dead arrived last night, I pulled it from the mailbox this morning upon seeing the notification, and popped it in. Happy to report - it works! 

I LOVE Alvarez's Evil Dead - I count it as my second favorite among all the films - adamantly battle the idea that it's a remake (Tappert, Raimi and Campbell have all said all along it's not), and am psyched to finally own the extended cut.

I'm thinking I may leave work a little early to try and avoid any madness, come home and watch this one while encased in a 'womb of refer.'

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Playlist:

Opeth - Deliverance 

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse 

Meg Myers - Sorry 

Foster the People - Torches 

Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips 

Apple Music Blackgaze Pioneers Playlist 

Amesoeurs - Eponymous 

Yob - Cleraing the Path to Ascend 

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Card:

I really read around on the Pull this morning, because here's the first card I drew:

From (source) "In a more personal view the Emperor might stand for a time of stability and structure, linear thinking and discipline. Yet we can't live without it, too many of those attributes will only lead to rational despotism and mental poverty."

Wow. On the nose for current situation. However, nothing to indicate which way things might go. (NOTE: I did not set out to direct my morning Pull at the election, that just happened.)

Next, in a classic Past - Present - Future Draw, I pulled:

For Past: Baggage - the Lust of Earthly result leads to a great weight that makes it impossible to get out from under. Yeah, the last four years I've increasingly felt that weight. Finally, for Future:

Hmm. From the Grimoire: "The Airy aspect of Earth. Pragmatism. Can be a bit of a cunt for matters pertaining to money and stability."

The Prince of Disks can be stubborn and ignorant when ill-dignified, which is something I only take into account when I'm having trouble deciphering how the cards in a Pull relate to one another, never in a one-card Draw. The Airy aspect of Earth, so strength in practical matters. This also implies a certain degree of trust-worthiness and inventiveness. Often, a good listener.

Definitely not our current problem's cup of tea, being a good listener.

Is this Biden? It fits some of what I know about him, but the 'stubborn and ignorant' are almost our current problem's calling cards, especially the 'ignorant' aspect. The card was not ill-dignified, so I have to hope that's not the case and we have a change in Guard (I was really hoping to draw XVI The Tower as the future card, but no so luck). 

All this does is remind me that the cards are merely reflections of our inner psychology and how it rubs up against the collective unconscious and, perhaps, more 'cosmic' elements we don't really have a chance in hell of understanding in any literal sense, because they are not literal in nature. So what's the outcome? We'll have to see. Go Vote people. 

Queens of the Stone Age Live in the Studio @ KCRW

Even after recording/releasing the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live album do you still need proof that KCRW is America's greatest NPR station?

Above.

Nick Cave Record Store Day (that's today) Live Album Release

image courtesy of Spin

I'm not going to lie - there is NO WAY in hell I'm going out to pick this up today. Working a skeleton crew day at the lab and then coming home to work on my script, then later maybe watch a movie or two because I am quite behind on what people have lent me recently. However, I will be going out tomorrow to pick this up. Live Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Recorded through KCRW, best NPR station in the nation, and if giving Henry Rollins a place for his radio show and putting something like this out doesn't prove that, I don't know what will.

The Henry Rollins Radio Show

Consider this a trailer. Everything about this makes me smile. You can stream these on KCRW's website here.

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Proposition

Since KCRW moved Henry Rollins' show to Sunday it is no longer a weekly event for me. I'm hoping I can change that soon (or they could just put him back on Saturday where he fucking belongs... just saying). I was able to listen this week and man did he blow my mind - as usual. One of the things Mr. Rollins threw down on was the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis White Lunar, which I believe is a comp of some of their film score work. GORGEOUS.

the pAper chAse - Said the Spider to the Fly

And onto yet another neglected message, this one from my friend Jeffrey of Apocalypse Cow - the best freakin' recording/production studio in Illinois (well, aside from Mr. Albini's - no offense Teresa, Dan or Jeffrey) - sent me a link to this track by the pAper chAse a couple of weeks ago. Flashback about a year ago and Mr. Brown was out to stay with us for a while around xmas and one Saturday while listening to the Henry Rollins show on KCRW Henry played the pAper chAse and both Brown and I dug it. I believe I tracked the band to a website Rollins mentioned and jotted down a note to go back to them and stuck it under the 'mental pillow' (sounds like a terrifying game played at late 18th century insane asylums, eh?) where it became lost in an ever-shifting sea of puppy dogs and demonic bats. Anyway, Jeffrey facebook'd me this recently and although it doesn't sound like what I remember Rollins playing - I'll have to go back and check his show logs (yep!), which are frighteningly complete, and determine. And if that was something different and I'm just confusing the names, hey, that's two great finds Jeffrey served as catalyst for!

This song is fairly disturbing, especially the really jilted guitars that come in near the end to accentuate the discordance transpiring here.

Ok - something New: Pole Folder

Well, not new new, but something not from my own personal reminiscences this evening. Just heard Jason Bentley spin this on KCRW.

Great interview w/ Local Natives via KCRW

Heartbreakers - Pirate Love

I'm relatively new to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. They'd been on my radar ever since first reading Noel Monk's 12 Days on the Road circa 1996/7 - an awesome book about the Sex Pistols only US tour (the half of it they played that is) written by the band's tour manager (Monk). Anyway, everybody in the first wave of British punk seemed to look up to Thunders and his band - for better or worse - but somehow their music always seemed strangely out of reach to me. Fast forward to about three months ago on a Saturday. I was home listening to Henry Rollins' weekly radio broadcast on NPR affiliate KCRW. Mr. Rollins played a Heartbreakers song - I forget which one it was but it really grabbed my attention. Then our gracious radio host went on to talk about how the good folks at White Trash Soul Blogspot had gone through the many different editions of the band's record L.A.M.F. that are available (French, Italian, German, etc) and compiled what they believed to be the best composite edition, culling from all those different sources for each song's individual best possible mix.

Talk about a labor of love!!!

The site then made this ultimate edition of L.A.M.F. available for free download - you can link to it right from that site linked above. When you go there you'll also see that the white trash soul folks break down everything about the different records and how/why they chose what they chose. It's fascinating. And the end is result is fantastic listening.

Tonight Tonight Tonight! Henry Rollins Radio Show

Before I watch Instrument I'll be listening to Henry Rollins' weekly radio show on NPR station KCRW. You can follow the link below and stream it if you do not live in Los Angeles or any of the sister areas in Southern California that carry this station. Week after week it is the BEST radio show I've come across, not because I'm a huge Rollins' fan (which I've become BECAUSE of the show) but because he plays the most eclectic array of tracks and his absolute Love of music seeps through every moment of the two hours from eight to ten that he's on the air.

KCRW Broadcast 199 - Henry Rollins on KCRW