Metallica - 72 Seasons

 

Four for fucking four. Wow. To quote Mr. Brown, "I can't believe I'm looking forward to a new Metallica album." You and me both, brother. You and me both.

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Watch:

Until last night, I'd never watched Anthony DiBlasi's 2014 film Last Shift, but I've suspected for a while that the reasons I avoided this film would turn out to be an unfair dismissal on my part. You can't always judge a flick by its Netflix thumbnail, but that's exactly what I did with Last Shift (and The Taking of Deborah Logan, which I still haven't seen) for the entirety of its stint on the mega streamer. Which I feel like was years. When Last Shift dropped off and started making the rounds on other streamers, people I know started telling me how good it was. I didn't listen. This wasn't a staunch, "Fuck that movie" stance, I just never got around to it, and the few times I almost did,  the image of that stupid thumbnail resurfaced and I went on to something else.

        

Last month, when I read about the imminent release of DiBlasi's update on the film, I became intrigued. How many filmmakers get the chance and perhaps more interestingly use the chance to remake one of their early movies that is as well received by the fans as Last Shift? Also, to have marketing Push behind both iterations? Not many. With this in mind, I finally sat down and watched Last Shift. Halfway through, I paused it and bought a ticket to go see Malum next Monday.

Last Shift is great for what DiBlasi and crew had to work with, which admittedly is a lot more than some independent filmmakers have, but still not a helluva lot. Other than the building - which is no small asset - you can see how DiBlasi's ingenuity kicks in and sustains this one. Well, his ingenuity and a stellar performance by lead Juliana Harkavy. The film begins to feel a skosh tired as the scare tactics continue without manifesting actual physical threats, but when those do come, they're pretty damn good. All in all, a solid three stars and a heart on my Letterbxd, and what's more, watching Last Shift unlocked a thrill at imagining what we might be in store for at Malum. 

Also of note: I had previously thought Ari Aster's Hereditary was the first film to stray from the traditional "devil" nomenclature and move into the Goetia for inspiration concerning its demonic puppet master, specifically Paimon, who my old band Darkness Brings the Cold had at least one song evoking. Obviously not the case after watching Last Shift, and I'll be digging around today looking for any interview with DiBlasi concerning where he drew his inspiration from. I rather like the idea of introducing the entities from Goetia into fiction; not sure anyone will ever do it as well as Alan Moore and JHWIII did in Promethea, but moving outside the tired scope of the Christianity-defined 'devil' can only lead to interesting results.

Then again, maybe not. I remember walking out of 2008's Quarantine, the remake of REC (which I'd not seen at the time) where the filmmakers changed the story from demonic possession as an outbreak to, ah, a terrorist-created super-strain of rabies and telling everyone in earshot, "Damn, I wish Hollywood would just bring Possession movies back." Two or three years later, in the wake of all the Last Exorcism movies, I felt like I'd been Monkey Pawed, as in, be careful what you wish for, you might get it and it might suck.

 

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Playlist:

Danko Jones - We Sweat Blood

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

Bettye Lavette - The Scene of the Crime

T. Rex - The Slider

High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

Lamp of Murmur - Saturnian Bloodstorm

Kx5, deadmau5 & Kaskade - Kx5 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 12/10/22

Bettye LaVette - Let Me Down Easy: Bettye LaVette in Memphis

        

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A similar Pull to the previous one I did with The Bound Deck; I think the idea that's coming across here is it takes Will and Dedicaton to achieve physical goals, and although I've gotten a bit better after the post-oral surgery manic episode that gripped me for about a week, I've still not re-anchored myself.

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25 Years of Darren Aronofsky's PI

Wow. Three for three on this new Metallica album. 

Going back to Hardwired, I've become a HUGE fan of this record, and I'm just kind of speechless that this is happening. You know, the idea that Metallica seems to no longer suck. They flirted with this back in '08 with the caricature Rick Rubin produced, but I have my own theories about that one, and it's better left alone. This new era that Hardwired kicked off, however, seems genuine (even if their album covers still blow). 

I think the thing that actually convinced me is, on the deluxe Hardwired, there's a live show from Rasputin's in San Francisco (great record store, glad to hear it still exists). During the show, the band play almost exclusively tracks from Kill 'Em All and a few from Ride the Lightning, and there's just this... ease at play. I mean, we all know these guys are tight as hell, that's never been in question. But the way they turned their back on what they helped create in SF in the 80s, and the frankly bizarre attempts at, I don't even know what to call their albums after the self-titled. Were they trying to market themselves? Were they confused by the music industry and how it was changing? Clearly, because Metallica didn't stop at incurring great swathes of ill-will from their former fans with bad music. Then there was that entire Napster thing. Ugh - talk about a bad look.

But let's forget all that embarrassing stuff. To me, the band I loved as a kid disappeared into an alternate dimension after Justice, but maybe that LHC did bring them back to our 616 and it just took another eight years for them to shake off the PTSD that would surely come from interdimensional displacement.

Now if they could just find Pushead and get the album covers straightened out (Don Brautigam passed away in 2008).

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Watch:

Two nights ago, we watched Moorhead and Benson's Someting in the Dirt. My second time seeing the film since it's West Coast Premiere at last year's Beyondfest, my first thought upon it ending was, "what an awesome double feature this would make with Darren Aronofsky's PI. I made a mental note to find my DVD, and then promptly forgot. Then, this morning I see this:

I will be in LaLaLand for the screening at TCL Chinese theatre, so I'm pretty sure this was 'meant to be.' Although I haven't watched PI in years, this is always going to be my favorite film by Aronofsky. The B&W is so saturated, it reminds me of James Whale's Frankenstein. PI's release also dovetailed with my then-burgeoning interest in the Occult, so this film imprinted on me hard. Now, I get to see it on the best Imax screen in the world.

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Playlist:

The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

Various - Wolfpack Fight Together Spotify Playlist (Thanks Missi!!!)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Sidestepping preconceived notions lead to new opportunities that might bring about the culmination of older ideas/projects. Not sure what this is referencing, but that's not unusual of late, because I've been out of tune with the cards. I go through these periods where my id really pushes against anything spiritual, and I'm seeing that right now as excitement and anxiety build up around my two-week trip to LaLaLand. Pack it with as much goodness and friendship as I can, it still feels weird being away from K for that long, especially because this time, I'm in a hotel and without a car the entire time. I'll survive, and I'll thrive, but the expectations are completely frying my mental stability and that's affecting these daily reading, my yoga, my meditation - all of it. 

Metallica - Screaming Suicide

 

I'll say this: while I'm not favoring this track nearly as much as I did "Lux Aeterna," I can't help being fascinated by my out-of-the-blue turnaround interest in Metallica of late. Nothing will ever make me care about anything they released after the Eponymous and up to Hard Wired, but I have to say, these guys seem to have found themselves again. Maybe we're both going through some nostalgia trip together and reconnecting at the right time. I don't know. For now, I'm along for the ride again.

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Watch:

I think Twin Peaks has me in the mood for late 80s/early 90s thrillers because last night K and I watched Nicholas Kazon's 1994 Dream Lover. Here's the trailer:

 

Another obvious Peaks connection here is Mädchen Amick as the female lead. This is the kind of specific-to-the-era, early 90s thriller that Spader excelled at, and his chemistry with Amick really propels the movie to its clever and almost hysterically dark final moments. All in all, a solid three-star if you allow for the inflation of aesthetics. 

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin 

Bonny Doon - Longwave

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

LCD Soundsystem - New Body Rhumba (single)

Special Interest - Endure

Fleshwater - Baldplate Driver (single)

Botch - One Twenty Two (single)

Mascara - HLA-11Tf (single)

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

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Metallica - Lux Æterna

 

Maybe I'm just in a holiday mood, but I think I actually dig this new Metallica song. This would then be the first new song by the band I've liked since the Black Album, when I was a teenager, riding high on their previous records, and didn't know any better (fan inertia - it's a thing). Believe me, I am dangerously self-aware (most of the time), and I'm so I realize that whenever I discuss this band, I have a sarcastic, cynical tone, and yet, I still talk about them. It's a defense mechanism. Part of me will never be okay with liking anything this band does because of what they have become. And conversely, I suppose, part of me will always want to like - well, no. Pretty sure that's not the case. I think Some Kind of Monster pretty much ruined any good will I had toward them.

But I saw this new track from the forthcoming 72 Seasons album dropped and, unlike anything they've released in years that I've been aware of, I couldn't help but click on it. Maybe it's because I root for Robert Trujillo, and regardless of what I think of the band, want him to succeed. Talk about a rags-to-riches story with a happy ending (when I moved to San Pedro and joined the YMCA there, I saw the enormous check he donated, as it used to be framed on the wall). 

The first thing here that grabbed me - the production is AWESOME. Listen to those drums. Wow. Sure, the main musical ideas are all kind of recycled from previous iterations (did you hear the little bit of Whiplash, in the guitar solo especially). But overall, music alone - heightened as it is by the production - I dig. I'll never be a fan of how Hetfield sings now - probably because of those embarrassing songs that were plastered all over the sonic landscape of the late 90s. Give me fuel? Ugh. Or, that Bee-otch song? Jesus - that did more to sink his vocals than anything. And that, combined with my self-conscious defensive approach will no doubt keep me from ultimately engaging with this on any real level, but overall, this feels like a 'win' for these guys. 

It might also be said, in a more positive vein, that I've been impressed by a couple things about these guys. First, they play so much, they're tight AF. This isn't a band that physically rests on their laurels, and I'll give 'em that. Sets I've seen listed over the last few years include older albums from their "good" period (Kill to Justice) in their entirety. And what was the thing with them playing in Antarctica? Can you imagine hearing The Call of Ktulu in Antarctica? I mean, not that anyone was there for that show, but still. Pretty cool idea. 

So, I'll probably check this album out when it drops, and I'm sure I'll report back here. Until then, if you're so inclined, you can check out the pre-order page for 72 Seasons HERE. 

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Watch:

With some trepidation, K and I binged the remainder of Showtime's American Gigolo series last night. After only three episodes, I'd become irritated with certain elements of the show and was pretty close to jumping off. However, in the end, I'll say that, while there is some pretty dumb writing that ends up being major plot mechanics (there is NO way Julian saw that hand tattoo from that far away), overall I enjoyed this.

 

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say I'd recommend it. Well, maybe. Jon Bernthal is absolutely fantastic, and I have to say that, while initially, I could not stand Rosie O'Donnell's character Detective Sunday, she ended up really winning me over. 

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Read:

I finally have jumped into James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera's Something is Killing the Children and I'll tell ya, the book is worth the hype:

I'd read and reread the first five issues twice earlier in the year, when my buddy Gerald at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach gave me a "going away" present and knocked half off a pack of the David Mack covers of those first five issues. Something about it, though, didn't really register. In the interim, I learned about the body bag covers that the prequel series, House of Slaughter, have gotten, and began picking those up at Rick's Comic City purely on a whim. This, plus my Horror Vision cohost Butcher's regular admonishments that I needed to, "get on this, man" finally won out, and I followed his advice (knowing I would not regret it). I ordered trades 2 and 3 on Amazon the other day and read them in a day.

This series is fantastic. I won't go into spoilers plot-wise, however, I'll just say that the fact that the first three trades all take place over the course of basically a day or two, with most of that hinging on one insane night in Archer's Peak, well, it did a lot to bring me into the story. Now, I have to pick up the fourth and fifth trades, because I've already begun buying it monthly as of issue 26.

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Playlist:

The Men that Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing - Now That's What I Call Steampunnk, Vol. 1

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast The Shards (about the first eight hours)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

The emotional aspects of Will and the Willful aspects of emotion - a tad jumbled until you add in the idea that this confusion is probably what has been hampering a decision intimidated by the Ace of Pentacles. Not sure I've dialed this in exactly, but that's probably also part of the confusion, the fact that I have more than one decision that's overdue based on conjoined elements of what I want for the real world and what I want emotionally.

4-Lom Says to Zuckuss: "Sad But True, Mate"

 

I'm not a fan of the Black album. In fact, everything that came after that album makes me not want to be a fan of this band at all. However, I could never turn my back on those first four records by Metallica, especially Master of Puppets. However... The almighty algorithm saw fit to send 'Sad But True' my way Monday when an Alice in Chains record I was listening to on Apple Music ended and I didn't choose another one quick enough. I heard those opening chords and lingered. Then, before I knew it, I was into my second go-round with the song, actually physically restarting it after its conclusion. 

Dare I say it, but this is a good song. Nothing about 'Sad But True' is what I like about the music from this band that I like, but divorcing the song from its creators for a moment, I found there is almost a Doom vibe to this one. Also, there are some haunting elements in the choruses - not sure if those are keyboards or a guitar effect. Either way, I doubt I'll be jamming the whole record any time soon, but I've already added it to a playlist.

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Watch:

I finally got around to watching Ivan Kavanagh's Son on Monday night. Jesus, this one is a rough watch. A very good film, freaky as all hell, but also there's some pretty disturbing stuff just below the surface.

 

This won't be for everyone. There's an undercurrent of abuse - it's not front and center or showcased, but it's discussed as the motive for certain events in the film, and that lingers. That said, I'm pretty squeamish with anything like that, and although this stayed with me, I can't say it did so in an overtly, or in any kind of discomforting way. What the film did do right was be well made and quickly paced, as well as take those unpleasant ideas and weave them into a pretty compelling and effective Horror film.

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NCBD:

I feel like this cover says it all: This series is BIG.

Maybe it was binging the recent MOTU sequel series that primed for this, but I LOVE this cover. Total Skeletor.

This is the 1:15 variant for Ed Piskor's Red Room #3. I'll most likely not be able to get my hands on this particular variant, but it's awesome as all hell.

The end to an amazing series. Can't wait to reread the entire run, start to finish in a nice, tight burst. Talk about great characters!

Casey Jones! These "Best of" TMNT books have been among my favorite comics in years, and I kind of expect this one to go right up alongside the Raphael one from a few months back as the best of the bunch.

I'm not actually certain I will buy this one, but I just love the fact that these two bizarre ass characters have their own book. Five-year-old me would be ecstatic!

The throwaway panel of the High Evolutionary and the promise his presence brings is what has me coming back for issue 2, although I will say, rereading Grant Morrison's New X-Men has me feeling some major love for the corner of the Marvel Universe I wrote off due to 'strip mining' the characters a few years ago. Let's see where this book goes.

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Playlist:

Jerry Cantrell - Atone (pre-release single)

Alice in Chains - Eponymous

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog

Not a lot of full album rotation today as I leaned into a new playlist for the upcoming second episode of the new Metal Podcast I'm doing with Anthony and Tori from The Horror Vision. We're recording the new episode this coming Saturday morning, so it should be up this coming Tuesday. The topic? Well, if the playlist doesn't make it obvious, it's Thrash Metal. 

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Card:

Reminding me to leave the old paradigms (and projects) behind in the face of reconciliation with previous collaborators. 

Isolation: Day 129

Kind of a slow news day, so to speak, so I landed on this via Brooklyn Vegan. Apparently, Metallica has been doing "Metallica Mondays" which sounds like some weird food theme at a Chili's restaurant, but is actually a kind of cool quarantine coping mechanism the band has been doing for their fans. As my interest in this band stops after about 1988, this video is of particular interest to me. 1983 at Chicago's Metro? As a young metalhead in the 90s who would go on to frequent shows at the Metro, this is the kind of show I often dreamed of having been able to go back in time and see. Now, thanks to Metallica, I can. You have to get through a rather annoying minute or so of Lars talking about... not really sure, but I have to admit it. As hard as I am on these guys, they often come off pretty cool to their fans.

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NCBD tomorrow is another short lister this week. Action Lab's Sweet Heart #2 finally hits the stand - this was another one I'd mentioned a few weeks ago, only to realize I had my dates completely out of order.

Other than that, the first issue of a new Image book called Bliss caught my eye recently:

The cover art is obviously gorgeous, but what really has me curious is this book's solicitation description from Image that ends with, "Breaking Bad meets Neil Gaiman's Sandman."

Huh?

The first issue of a two-arc maxi-series, I might just pick this one up. (Yes, I'm still attempting to limit taking on new books. No, it's not always easy.)


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Playlist:

Cypress Hill - III: Temples of Boom
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Sleep - The Sciences

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Card:

The urge to do bad is often extremely strong. It's part of the flow of life to balance that out with positive stuff.

2018: November 4th

Has it really been two weeks since I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? That show and the Bad Seed's performance of Shoot Me Down inspired me to pull out the B-Sides and Rarities, three volume box set released back in 2005. It'd been a while since I really dug into this one, so I put the three discs in the ride and have been flirting with it on a somewhat regular basis. I forgot how much I love some of the songs on these discs! Come Into My Sleep is one of my favorites; originally released as a B-Side to (Are You) The One I've Been Waiting For?, from 1997's The Boatman's Call. This is classic Bad Seeds suave - the vibes carry the song, nice slinky bass line from Martyn Casey and Cave's trademark literary lyrics. So good.

On the exact other side of the musical spectrum, Mr. Brown sent me a link to a fantastic article on the 30th anniversary (eek!) of ...And Justice For All. Read it HERE. I might detest the band now, but I didn't then; Justice is where I draw the line, although I seem to waiver between thinking it's genius, and rolling my eyes at four white guys playing like they have sticks up their bums. Either way, it's musical history at this point, and the article's well worth a read. Also, the remaster really brings out the vocal effect Hetfield used on his voice in the verses for Eye of the Beholder, which changes the feel of the song a bit from what you probably know.

Just finished the second issue of Sam Keith's Batman/The Maxx crossover. Man, I think this is shaping up to be a proper sequel - or at least continuation - of the original Maxx/Julie storyline that disappeared after issue #20 of the original Maxx comic. If you read that book and can remember back to the mid-90s, issue #21 jumped ten years into the future, jettisoned Julie and Maxx (for the most part), and focused on an older Sarah, a man named Norbert, and Iago, the giant Banana slug. This new series seems to be following Maxx and Julie several years down the road from that twentieth issue, with Maxx reiterating several times that he had long ago lost contact with Julie. Admittedly, it's probably been six years since my last re-read of the original series, so I might be mixing some of this up. I think I'll start another re-read now, to accompany this new series. If you're curious about the timeline, as always Comic Vine is a great resource. HERE's their page for The Maxx.

And look at this cover gallery for #2.

Playlist from yesterday:

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - B-Sides & Rarities, Disc 3
Matthew Dear - Playlist (culled mostly from Black City)
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)
Metallica - ...And Justice For All
Weeknight - Post-Everything
Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch
Health - Death Magic

Card of the day:

If The Fool is the beginning of the journey, The Magus is the moment the novice becomes acclimated to the idea that the journey is no longer a transitory one, but transformative. This is life, and life is what the cards attempt to guide us through, revealing secrets that are, generally, right in front of our face the entire time. Magick isn't special; for most of us most of the time, it appears magical, like fireworks in the sky, but if you can tap in and pay attention, all the answers are with you, you've just been conditioned to ignore or chosen not to see them. Maybe you've never learned that the answers are even there. The Magus can help.

As usual, I apply my interpretation toward my writing and take this as a signifier that my work on the book goes well; the answers to ALL the continuity problems have always been close at hand, it's just not until I slow down and actually methodically think about the situations and characters that the answers come clear. And for the most part now, they have. With minor re-writing (further proven they were nearby the entire time) I've managed to scrape off the 'passable' patina and find the golden road through the heart of my little story about shadows and reflections wanting to switch places with us.

2018: September 10th

Had this pretty little ditty in my head when I woke up, probably because it's used in a fantastic film John and I watched last night.



My friend John Grimm is still in town and we drove out to Hollywood last night. I brought him to the HWA meeting so he could make a few connections, and then we hit Scum and Villainy and The Beetle House, both pop-up bars that have hopefully become permanent. Scum and Villainy is designed after the Cantina from the original Star Wars. It's cool but small. The real joy was Beetle House, which is a bar/restaurant themed around Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. Really, really cool place.

Playlist from 9/09:

John Carpenter - The Thing OST
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Earth - Primitive and Deadly
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun

Card of the day:

Twos represent balance and harmony. They are also of the Crown of Creation and not of the physical world. I'm taking this two ways right now. First, my interest in the idea of a Prime Mover has become more influential, so that it's working it's way into my daily thoughts. Not sure how that will play out with my writing, but I have several older projects that deal with this, so maybe I should think about dusting one off. Second, I've been doing yoga and it's helping me immensely, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Dominion can be seen as rule over self. Control.

A Pretty Cool Interview with Jason Newsted

Stumbled onto this earlier tonight and ended up getting fairly absorbed in it. Gonna have to break Justice out sometime soon. Been a minute.

Another new, Good Metallica song

If CERN's P.A. is on the fritz, a new, GOOD record by these guys might herald the end of all things

What the hell has gone wrong with the time/space continuum? Someone please go check CERN's particle accelerator and make sure we haven't phased our Universe into another, better one. I mean, TWO new, GOOD songs by they who shant not be named? Wow. I'm still not holding my breath, and whether or not the new Metallica album is good or not probably won't affect my life in any way shape or form. But maybe it will.

Maybe...

Well, This is a Surprise: Metallica's Hard Wired

I never thought I'd be posting a Metallica song on this blog - certainly not one written after 1988. But I'll be damned if this isn't a great, very old school without sounding contrived (ahem, death magnetic) track that, while Some Kind of Monster may have forever killed my opinion of these guys as artists, well, I can jam to this. Or at least the vestiges of 16 year old Shawn that still blares Master of Puppets now and again can. Shit, just listen to that fucking solo - it sounds straight off Kill 'Em All.

Fucking terrible album cover though, so I didn't use that as the graphic.

Hilarious! Reggae Version of megadeaf's symphony of destruction

This is amazing!!! Mr. Brown just sent this to me, immdiately upon hearing it I knew I had to repost it for everyone's comedy enjoyment. I HATE megadeth. I HATE dave mustaine (not mortal hate, but you know, he's just such a fuckin' wanker). I especially HATE everything from this stupid album, the album where he looked at metallica's then newfound commercial success and said, "ME TOO! ME TOO!". At least w/ larsy-poo and crew you can see how, after making a technical masterpiece like ... And Justice for All, who wouldn't want to step back a bit and simplify the operation. You know, call in a big producer like Bob Rock and have a go at it. But Mustaine, ugh. countdown to irrelevancy is such a forced attempt. And he drew up the characature he would enforce as his brand logo and even went so far as to go back and re-record the vocals for the four good (and two magnificent) albums he'd created up to that point. metallica might have sold out, but mustaine became a fucking whore and now twenty years down the line the responsibility of that has eaten away his brain and caused him to become a complete right-wing fruitloop. And as such, when I see people lob intelligent criticism or witty insults his way, I laugh and give a thumbs up. That's what we have here. Nice work Andy Rehfeldt, nice work.

Lineup for Metallica's Orion Fest is a lot of Great bands...

... and Metallica, rise against and RHCP to balance out the good with some blah. But hey, it's their fest, right? Congrats to FIDLAR - really cool that they're on it.