Showing posts with label KXLU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KXLU. Show all posts

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Vera Sola's Skulls

Thursday night, I returned to the Landmark Cinema in West L.A. for a second theatrical viewing of Julia Ducournau's Titane, now holding steady as my second favorite film of the year. I brought two friends, stopped into the closest thing LaLaLand has to a neighborhood joint next door afterward for a beer and some discussion. All in all a great night, and one that was made even better when, on my drive home, I tuned into KXLU and found Fistful of Vinyl doing an all Misfits-covers set. Holy smokes, some great stuff. You can check out the full playlist HERE. In the meantime, this cover of 'Skulls' by Vera Sola ranked right up there near the top of what I heard, and every song I heard was fantastic. Check out her Bandcamp HERE,




Watch:

My favorite show that K and I discovered in 2021 is Tony Basgallop's Servant. The experience we had watching this show was so fantastic - the casting alone won me over after about the first two episodes, especially Toby Kebbell, Lauren Ambrose and Rupert Grint, who probably proved to be my favorite character. It felt like we inhaled the first two seasons, and thankfully, before my free year of Apple TV+ runs out in March, they're dropping a new season in January! Here's the trailer, which no, I'm not watching:


If you haven't seen this, it's worth subscribing to Apple + for a month and binging it, maybe just wait until after all of this third season lands. And if you're put off by the fact that all the press says, "From M. Knight Shamalamadingdong, don't be. He is only the producer. This is Basgallop's baby, and the tone he holds for the 20 episodes that comprised seasons 1 and 2 is nothing short of breathtaking. 

Plus, there's a pizza place named Jesus Crust. Come on!




31 Days of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)
2) The Mutilator
3) Demons 
4) Vortex
5) Possession
6) The Black Phone
7) Slumber Party Massacre
8) Antlers
9) No One Gets Out Alive
10) A Nightmare on Elm Street '84
11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010
12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
13) Satan Hates You
14) Night of the Demons
15) Lamb
16) The Company of Wolves
17) There's Someone in the House
18) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
19) Titane
20) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (9, 10, Never watch again)
21) Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Same. Awful)
22) The Innkeepers
23)Muppets Haunted Mansion/Freaky
24) Halloween Kills
25) The House of the Devil/A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
26) Freddy Vs. Jason (Ugh)
27)  Ghoulies
28) Titane/Boys From County Hell
29) Arachnophobia 




Playlist:

Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto Vol. 1
Emilie Levienaise-Farrrouch - Censor OST
Pink Milk - Ultraviolet
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Deftones - Ohms
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Misfits - Collection I
Steve Moore - VFW OST




Card:


Having the feeling of deja vu as I struggle to come to terms with all the shit I have, how much I want to keep, how much I want to get rid of, and what I inevitably jettison that will come back to haunt me later.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Isolation: Day 3 - Seefeel Fracture



Caught this on Michael Stock's Part Time Punks on KXLU this past Thursday (there's a link via KXLU that archives the playlist for all Michael's shows HERE). Love it. Fracture is from the Fracture/Tied single on Warp Records. You can also find and support Seefeel through other releases available on their Bandcamp.

**

Seven episodes into HBO's The Outsider, and it has a hold of me good. Fantastic show that very much scratches the itch left over from True Detective Season One.



**

As more and more public events are cancelled, it was inevitable the upcoming Deafheaven tour got postponed. Mr. Brown pointed me HERE, where the band is selling what was supposed to be their tour merch, as well as taking pre-orders for the double live album that was supposed to be recorded over two nights in Chicago, but will now be recorded live in-studio. As the craziness increases, you're going to see a lot of messages from independent artists about helping to support them and/or others like them. Take this seriously. I've always considered myself a 'patron' of the arts, especially as we've moved into such a decentralized paradigm for creating and distributing said arts. Now with this, bands who would have made the bulk of their income touring - because even a band like Deafheaven isn't being supported by their label enough for its individual members to actually exist in the real world - are going to be effectively cut off at the knees. You can't support everyone, but please, support those you can.

Here's one of the older Deafheaven songs I'm hoping ends up on the double live, which titled 10 Years Gone, I'm assuming is a career-to-this-point retrospective:



**

Playlist:

Human Impact - Eponymous
Seefeel - Fracture/Tied (Single)
Various Artists - The Void OST
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah

**

Card:


That's a bit disturbing in light of recent events. Or, I can interpret it as the hot streak I'm using all the media induced 'pandemic' paranoia to fuel re-writing something I will be releasing in a few months.

Friday, April 26, 2019

2019: April 26th - Under the Silver Lake is Fantastic!



My good friend and increasingly frequent collaborator Jonathan Grimm flies in for a long weekend, so I took today off. With an open morning, I did what I've wanted to do all week - I rented Robert David Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake, altered my perception a bit, and fell into a film I'd ascribed an alarming amount of expectation to in the eight days or so since I first heard about it. With a run time of two hours and nineteen minutes, I knew I'd need a day off to give Mitchell's follow-up to It Follows a proper shake - lately anything with an above-average run time that I watch at night runs the risk of my nodding off. This isn't usually the film's fault; my early schedule and aversion to conservative bedtimes simply runs me ragged. All this aside, I'm happy to report I had a perfect morning, a perfect viewing experience, and I absolutely loved Under the Silver Lake. I don't want to say too much - I didn't even watch the trailer until after I'd seen the movie - so I'll leave you with three words: Approaching. Modern. Hitchcock.

That's big and hyperbolic, I know. Don't care. Visually, we still get some of that soft, pastel style of Mitchell introduced in The Myth of the American Sleepover and perfected in It Follows, though that has been combined with a real love of the medium, and the history of the Hollywood Thriller as a genre. The early scenes of Andrew Garfield's Sam following three girls in a convertible feel like they are pulled right out of Vertigo, as does the deference the story pays to the institutions and living spaces of Los Angeles, the likes of which were directed toward the cities and forests of Northern California in Hitchcock's masterpiece of obsession. Oh, and Disasterpeace knocks the score out of the park; gone are the synths, replaced instead with string-and-brass instrumentation one would also associate with Hitchcock, De Palma and their lineage, both forwards and backwards in time.

Oh yeah, and David Yow from the Jesus Lizard is in it. When is that not a sign of good things?

$5 rental on Amazon. Absolutely worth it, but wait until you have the time to sink slowly into a winding mystery. This films tastes best when allowed to breath.

**

Playlist from 4/25:

Soundgarden - Louder than Love
Totalselfhatred - Eponymous
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Queens of the Stone Age - ... Like Clockwork
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Windhand - Eternal Return

Rounded the tunes out last night, driving home from Hollywood with KXLU program The Witching Hours as a sonic companion. GREAT show, and its host, DJ Marina, keeps an excellent website with news, prompt archives of playlists, and a bunch of other great stuff. Check it out HERE.

**

Card of the day:


From the Grimoire: "By adding to an idea's original form, we dilute it. Not inherently bad, just different. Expect ups and downs while fleshing out and developing anything."

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

2019: January 15th



I discovered The Blueflowers yesterday on KXLU. Wow. Love this band. They have several albums available through their bandcamp HERE, and most if not all of those are on Apple Music. I'm digging into 2018's Circus on Fire this morning, and it's taking me places both familiar and strange.

I forgot to mention that last Friday I watched Pod, a film from 2015 directed by Mickey Keating. I'd seen the thumbnail for this one for years. I've also started to see discussion among a fairly rabid Keating fanbase I never realized existed, and after just this one flick I can see why some would rabidly endorse his movies. Pod is fantastic; Larry Fessenden's in it, and that's almost always a great sign; based on the simple, no-nonsense execution of a straight forward horror/sci fi concept, I'm guessing Mickey Keating's work will fit in nicely alongside Ti West and Joe Begos. In fact, Pod and Begos' The Mind's Eye would make an Excellent double feature.



Playlist from 1/14:

Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse (pre-release single)
Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada
David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & London Sinfonietta - Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

Card of the day:

Second day in a row for this one. And that's probably because my interpretation yesterday was correct; I came SO close to finishing the book. So this card reappears today, because Today is the day.


Wednesday, November 7, 2018

2018: November 7th



Exhalants are a band I recently discovered via KXLU. Their 2018 Eponymous album shot to my top ten of the year the first time through, the same way Protomartyr's Under Color of Official Right did four years ago. That's really where comparisons end between those two, although they both hail from a still-vibrant indie scene that hasn't been dashed by The Spectacle's appropriation of the label as a 'genre' that includes bands who dress like they traveled here from 1930s Poland. Exhalants remind me a bit of Shellac, the Jesus Lizard, and an entire smattering of bands from the mid-to-late 90s that comprised the Touch and Go/Drag City/Thrill Jockey scene and made honest, insanely creative music unrestricted by genre trappings or rockstar agendas. Go to their Bandcamp HERE and support this awesome independent band (Hurry - there's only 9 of the random colored 180 gram vinyl editions left of the album because I just bought one).


The Drinking with Comics crew had our pre-show meeting last night. This has become something I always look forward to, as we sit around, drink beer and have dinner and swap books so we can all have read the same stuff for the show. Yesterday Chris brought a new book called Blackbird I had heard of but not read, and I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with it. Look at this art:


I don't buy books just for the art either, which is probably why after looking at #1 upon release last month I passed on it. That said, after reading the first issue last night, I am anxiously awaiting 3PM so I can hit the Comic Bug and pick up my own copy of #1 and #2, which comes out today. Also for NCBD, a continuation of Cullen Bunn's 2014 mini-series The Empty Man. Loved this when it was monthly four years ago, and was always kinda hoping in the back of my mind that it would continue.


Playlist from 11/06:

Ghost Cop - EP
Exhalants - Eponymous
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Tom Waits - Bone Machine
Tom Waits - Swordfish Trombones
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST

No card today.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

2018: August 30th



Second Still is yet another awesome LA band KXLU turned me on to. SO good. You can hear more and buy their stuff on their Bandcamp HERE. I can't wait to see them live.

Playlist from 8/29:

The Flying Luttenbachers - Constructive Destruction
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
David Bowie - A Reality Tour [Live]
Cough - Athame
Windhand - Grey Garden
Lustmord - The Word As Power
John Carpenter - The Thing OST

Card of the day:


A lot of Court cards lately. Higher influence. This card is waaaay loaded for me, so I went to a few websites I like with tarot information and looked around. What I found morphed into this when reflected through my own lens: Self Discovery; Moving on and moving forward. Incorporating past pain into a healthy life view.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

2018: June 21st



There is a melancholic air to this song that absolutely floors me. I love it SO much. Corniglia is a band that I happened across on LA's music treasure, KXLU, one morning on the drive to work, and in the two or three weeks since I just cannot stop listening to them. The album, self-titled, is easily in my top of the year. One of the things I like so much about this is, in some strange way, it reminds me of the vibe I had in my head in the early 2000s - a kind of delicious airiness that translated to a gray hopelessness as I graduated College: the future loomed before me, I buried a friend, and I felt more alone than ever. The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE and while it would seem to glorify a somewhat frightening moment in my life, it actually very much illustrates the loneliness I felt at that time. 2001-2002 was dark, and although I had an awesome band (The Yellow House) and awesome friends (particularly at that time Brown, Tim, Sonny, Grez, Dennis and Dave), I was somewhat adrift on a mindset so bleak that it spurred me into frequent drug use and several bouts of totally vapid sex, both very much unlike me. And some how, I hear elements of that hear.

I'm digressing, or maybe I'm not.

My point is that music is the same as all art in that, to modify a famous saying, the beholder gets out of it what they put in. That is to say, there is often baggage you bring with you when hearing a new band, new song, new album, and that baggage - snippets of color or image associations, emotions, whatever form it takes - shapes how you hear that music and, ultimately, what it will mean to you. What's even more interesting is your interpretation could be light years away from what was happening in the artist's head at the time - it doesn't matter. Having also made music and talked to people who got something out of it that I had never anticipated or intended, I can tell you that just the idea that something you made could have such a multi-textural effect on another soul is rewarding beyond description. So, while Corniglia may not have intended the melancholy associations I ascribe to their sound, I'm sure they won't mind if there music drives me to stay awake long past when I should have my head down, trying to capture in words something they have made me feel with their song.

Playlist from Odin's Day, 6/20/18:

Danzig 6: Satan's Child
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
David Bowie - Reality
Nothing - Downward Years to Come
Various Artists - Reservoir Dogs OST
Corniglia - Eponymous

Card O' the day:


The Lovers again, and how it currently applies to my life is still escaping me. I need to make time to look further into this. Perhaps I will ask Missi.



Friday, June 1, 2018

2018: June 1st



This will turn your morning into a foggy mystery. Trust me. Some mornings are better that way.

I was tagged to do this week's edition of The Joup Friday Album - let me tell you about PIL's 1978 debut record Public Image: First Issue while the soothing vocal stylings of John Lydon coronate your weekend HERE.

Playlist from 5/31/18:

Corniglia - Eponymous
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
The Soft Moon - Criminal
The Soft Moon - Zeroes
Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

And I drove home from work yesterday afternoon listening to Michael Stock's Part time Punks radio show, where I was introduced to a couple awesome groups, notably:

Temple of Angels - Lex Talionis
Otzi - Sunbeam
FACS - Silencing
BC35 & Bob Bert & Martin Bisi & Skeleton Boy & Alyse Lamb & Stu-Art Gray - Nowhere Near the Rainbow (embedded above)

Card of the day:


Inner conflict. What me worry?

Thursday, May 31, 2018

2018: May 31st 7:18 AM



On the way to work this morning, I put on Loyola Marymount's KXLU and heard Corniglia for the first time. This was exactly what I needed today. A gray morning, woke up late, desperately in need of more sleep than I've been getting - this just hit the spot. You can buy stuff at Corniglia's bandcamp
and they are also on Apple Music!

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up this morning, read it HERE.

Playlist from 5/30:

Opeth - Orchid
Opeth - Morningrise
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Card of the day:


This tells me I should eschew the after-work nap and write instead. I'm exhausted, but I am on an incredible roll! I re-outlined the project on Monday - which took pretty much all day - and now it's just a matter of realigning what I've already written and then ticking off the boxes. Feels good.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Pale DÄ«an - In A Day


I heard this on Part Time Punks radio show on KXLU this afternoon while I was stuck in traffic - it was sandwiched between old Cocteau Twins and Isolation Ward. This is the only song on the bandcamp so far, with the album proper to be released in early June on Manifesto Records.

I. Can't. Wait.

*Love*





Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Release From the Shackles of the Greater Corporation



Heard this last week on KXLU's Demolisten program. Great stuff. Reminded me a bit of old school Flying Luttenbachers.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Drab Majesty - Unknown to the I



Listening to The Self-Titled Show on KXLU while driving home from work tonight I heard this song and it just sank straight through my center mass. Wow. Reminds me of the first time I heard The Vanishing Kids, back at Chicago's now defunct long-time club Neo (sad face). The entire record by Drab Majesty - who I am going to try like hell to go and see on March 5th at The Smell ( this Saturday's gig opening for Black Queen is, of course, sold out) - is just fantastic and is available on the band's bandcamp here. Digital copies are limited to 300 copies so if you dig this, grab it NOW!

Friday, September 13, 2013

Lebanon Hanover



I was just introduced to Lebanon Hanover yesterday via Part Time Punks radio show on Los Angeles' KXLU. Very good, very dark and atmospheric. Their bandcamp is loaded with music that is just perfect for the encroaching season of Autumn.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Silian Rail



Here's another band I've only just discovered and basically know nothing about. Silian Rail is named after the business card Patrick Bateman uses to impress his "friends" - only to then be outdone by ah... it's been awhile, I forget. Paul Allen?

Anyway, you can imagine me googling Silian Rail and not only finding the bandcamp I was hoping for after hearing a song by the group on KXLU 88.9's Morning Cup of Tommy but that it's also a reference to one of my favorite books.

Silian Rail has a definite "post-rock" vibe. I hear shades of Daemien Frost - one of my all time favorite bands - but also a touch of the Mogwai, and a whole lot of their own personal touch. Really digging this band and if you like what you hear follow the link above to the bandcamp and the digital is $7, vinyl a meager $12. The entire record is great, might I suggest skipping directly to Shapes which is just likely to haunt me all day.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Cat Party



Wow. This morning at about 5:30 I was driving the 405 in the waning mists of darkness slowly unraveled their grasp on Los Angeles and Kid Sister on KXLU played a song by Cat Party. As soon as I arrived at work I looked them up and have pretty much fallen in love with them. There is an old school indie element, but it's been slightly anthropomorphized by a fuzzy, haunting wash, like walking through a familiar alley under the influence of some unfamiliar hallucinogen. Beautiful. Beautiful and a little unnerving.

Just a little.

Follow the widget back to their bandcamp and the album (which is fantastic start to finish) is a paltry $8. Now that's good eatin'!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Cold Showers - BC



One of those awesome moments where I flipped on the radio in the car and went all the way to the left of the dial, to KXLU and the Part Time Punks show was on. This song specifically. I'd never heard this or anything about/by Cold Showers before. Immediately fell in love with this track. Some Sisters of Mercy/Cure undertones, a little Pixies maybe... old and new at the same time, or in other words I guess, timeless.