A little Bowie to start things off today, because I'm missing his presence in the world a great deal at the moment.
Watch:
Here's a great little interview with Nick Cave from last year. Really digging the new Nick Cave/Warren Ellis "solo" record, Carnage, which is great, because I didn't care for Ghosteen at all, as it felt too similar to Skeleton Tree.
Playlist:
Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Going to a Go-Go (single)
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Death Grips - Gmail and the Restraining Orders (single)
Death Grips - The Money Store
The Replacements - Tim
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the
Card:
A recent imbalance definitely caused a miscommunication between myself and one of my fellow podcasters. This has postponed the long-planned Drinking with Comics reunion. I'll probably do a deeper pull later this week to try and figure out how to approach solving this issue.
Punisher season 2 drops next Friday and, while I'm very excited for it, it all feels a bit pointless knowing that, like Daredevil season 3 - which I still need to watch - this show will probably be cancelled shortly after it premieres. The dissolution between Netflix and Disney is a bothersome thing because of all the Marvel adaptations, these represent the ones I am still the most engaged by, and the idea that the continuities begun on these Netflix shows may be discarded, or worse re-casting occur, well, that just stinks, and it undermines everything the company had been doing up until now to build a relationship between their 'tv' and cinematic worlds. Feels a bit DC-ish to me.
Playlist from 1/08:
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Beastmilk - Use Your Deluge EP
Beastmilk - Climax
Playlist from 1/09:
Steely Dan - Alive in America
Belong - October Language
Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
Card of the day:
Ah. Loud and Clear. I have the massive, set piece idea to end the book - the characters' actions have been in place for two years, I've just never found the right backdrop - but I haven't had the time to actually write it. I'm off work today but consumed with errands. Tomorrow I leave work at ten or eleven in the AM because I work Saturday, and my plan is to watch The Changling upon returning home. I'm juggling multiple viewing experiences for multiple reasons - because nothing can ever just be about watching and relaxing with me - but this card's a great reminder that after that flick, which I have to watch for an upcoming mini episode of The Horror Vision, I need to work. No lazy, sitting around shit.
The idea for that final set piece, incidentally, is a great example of how we find the right thing at the right time. As I write this, I'm now about 60% of the way through Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, and even though I didn't realize it at the idea's inception - two days ago at 4:30 AM while I was in the shower - it arose from the massive deluge that takes place during the book stewing around in my thoughts for a week, sinking into the creative broth I carry around in my head (many of us do), and flavoring it in just the right way at just the right time. As I was reading the book this morning, a parking receipt tumbled out for Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL, back in March of 2006. That then was the timeframe of my previous attempt at reading this novel. I believe I stopped about a third of the way in, partially because the decision to move to Los Angeles came up at the time and interfered with everything, and partially because I simply wasn't ready to read it at that time. Now I know why - the idea needed to be installed in my head NOW.
Belong's October Language is one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in some time. Close your eyes and drift into a nothing space of faintly glowing radiance and soft, fuzzy waves...
I've been sick for a few days now, spending a lot of time watching movies and reading Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, a book I started twelve years ago and never finished. I won't lie; I'm a huge Cave fan, but this is not easy reading. The book is written in a mostly first-person perspective, in the rather baroque hill-speak of protagonist Euchrid Eucrow, the son of an inbred father and a drunk-on-still-mash mother, so the language is biblical and flowery in a terse, over-reaching way. Which is exactly how it should be written, given the author's choice for narrators. I'm always up for a literary challenge, and I wonder if at some point my brain will just "click" to the style and have an easier time with it. That's what happened when I first began reading Irvine Welsh; the phonetic Scottish Brogue threw me at first, but after a while I acclimatized to it and began to read Welsh as easily as anything else. Incidentally, that also helped me when I met him and later, when I traveled to Scotland; I had no problem understanding most people I spoke with. So, I'm sticking with the Cave until it's finished.
This "read what's on the shelf" is a continuation of an initiative I began last year, to finally read a lot of the books I have on my shelf; working at Borders for five years in the 00s, I accumulated a lot I still haven't read. Now that I'm trying to start saving for a house, it makes sense to condition myself to actually read that stuff, to not just jump on Amazon at the mention of everything that sounds cool and order it. I'm not saying I have a moratorium on new books, because there's a ton I want to read, but a healthy, three-old-ones-to-every-new-one mix should help.
Speaking of Welsh, he's an author that, for years, I bought everything he published the day it came out. That changed when I began shifting my reading to a more genre-specific diet, worried that the more literary stuff my tastes were entrenched in was influencing the way I was writing. Not that that's bad; the first two novels I wrote, one of which I'm hoping to finish editing this year and publish, have a more literary bent than Shadow Play, which is straight genre. But to finish Shadow Play, I had to curate my reading more carefully. With Welsh, he influences me so much that I had to swear him off altogether, knowing one day I'd dive right back in. That was 2012, because the last book I read by him was Skagboys. Since then, I've watched as he's published no less than four novels, and I've had to force myself to abstain from each one. But, with Shadow Play finally winding down - I started it in earnest in 2012 - another one of my ideas for 2019 is to flip back out of genre a bit - hence the Cave - and pick up with Welsh where I left off. Can't wait; I really miss the man's writing.
Speaking of Welsh again, I mentioned I've been watching a lot of movies while I've been sick, and the one I just watched this morning definitely makes me yearn for Irvine Welsh's novels; Outcast - not to be confused with the Nick Cage movie of the same name or the Robert Kirkman series on Cinemax - is a 2010 film by Colm McCarthy, a director that has come up in the world since by directing 2016's much lauded The Girl with All the Gifts and Black Mirror season four episode six: Black Museum. In elevator pitch shorthand, imagine Welsh and Warren Ellis writing a story about ancient magick adrift in the shadows of modern Edinburgh. That's this Outcast, and I LOVED this film; it's take on Magick was both enigmatic and practical, a lot like Ellis's Gravel series from some years back.
Also, yesterday I watched:
This I hadn't seen since its initial VHS release in 1992 or '93. I've been fairly afraid to revisit it; Hellraiser: Hell on Earth was actually my introduction to the Hellraiser movies, and you can probably understand then when I tell you I didn't actually rent the first two until three or four years later. Re-watching it now, as a massive fan of those original movies and of the concepts and characters in general, I can say that there are quite a few things about Hell on Earth that I like, most specifically the body horror effects. That said, this is the perfect example of the how Hollywood used to just throw money and special effects at ideas and think that made them better. The culminating sequence in this film, of Pinhead chasing our protagonist through New York, is rife with explosions, car crashes, water mains bursting, glass shattering, and none of it has any point at all in what's happening or even fits the story. It's both sloppy and lazy.
You know, I don't normally go in for home invasion movies. People doing terrible things to people is not really the kind of horror I like. Still, the original Strangers was well made and creepy as all hell, at a time when most studio horror had forgotten how to be subtle with their scares. That trailer, with the knock on the door at two A.M., this is a concept that has occurred to and haunted me since I was a kid. I liked that first film and so knew I'd eventually see the sequel. After watching Prey at Night yesterday, I can say it was good, but really left me with a violence hangover. I don't know that I'd say I enjoyed it, but it wasn't overly disturbing and bookended the first film in a satisfying way, so nice to check it off my list.
Playlist from 01/04:
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
Paramore - All We Know is Falling
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire, "The Will (Fire) to Materialism (Disks)." This is what I was just talking about above, so nice to come to the end of this post and have this pop up. Literally, the Will to save Money.
New issue of Gideon Falls hit the stands yesterday. I have it with me in my bag, hopefully I'll get a chance to read it today.
Also, picked back up on Dark on Netflix. I had a lot of trouble with this show at first, mainly because the default was overdubs instead of the original German with subtitles. Now that I have that worked out (thanks Charles!) we're back in and it is captivating. I'm still having a bit of trouble keeping track of who is who, but overall the show is so fascinating and absolutely beautiful that I can't wait to have a few hours to just binge some of it.
Playlist from 4/11:
Ghost - Popestar E.P.
Man or Astro Man - Intravenous Television Continuum
Ghost - Infestissumam
Algiers - Underside of Power
Aerosmith - Eponymous
The Ocean - Pelagial
Card for the day:
Breakthrough! Always love seeing this card, especially close to the completion of a project that has been lingering.
A short clip (that was all I could cull from the massive cluster of the previous DwC, short clips. If you're curious why, follow us on facebook, scroll down a few posts from the present and see how much of the 3 hour feed from that night you can get through. Hint: Shit gets really bizarre about an hour and seven minutes in. Just saying.) wherein I talk about Reinhard Kleist's BRILLIANT Nick Cave Graphic Novel Biography, Mercy on Me:
New episode coming this Friday, March 9th at 9:00 PM PST. Topics I'm going to attempt to discuss:
The last thing I saw before going to bed last night:
First thing in my head when I woke up:
No idea. One thing I do know? - Tracey Pew = God.
Playlist from the 15th:
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
The Bronx - V
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
The Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
The Men - Tomorrow Hits (aborted listen - not in the mood)
Eagulls - Eponymous
Lustmord - Songs of Gods and Demons
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
Watched - Nick Cave: 20,000 Days on Earth
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday. Read it HERE.
Card of the day:
The futility may have been a pointed remark about looking for a decent image of this card online.
From the grimoire:
"Difficult decisions to make
when overwhelmed, down on ourselves or stressed/helpless you MUST act or things will get exponentially worse.
Make a decision and more importantly STICK TO IT!!!
Action, pure and w/resolve breaks the will of this card. Action is Futility's Nemesis."
Applies 100% directly to our moving situation, so I think there will be a decision this weekend.
Last night I went to Hollywood's historic Egyptian Theatre to attend the premiere screening of Andrew Dominick's new film One More Time With Feeling, the documentary that follows Nick Cave's creative process for the new album Skeleton Tree, out today. The film is dark and beautiful; a true document of a family's grief in a time of unrelenting tragedy.
Skeleton Tree was on sale a day early at the select theatres that participated in last night's screening. Of course I purchased a copy and listened to it on my drive home after the screening. Both the album and the film are massive, world-rending documents of Nick Cave at this point in time and space. There is so much pain, so much chaos in the wake of his loss, and brother it's stitched in wounds across both these two pieces of art.
You'll notice I keep coming back to the word 'document' while referring to the film and now the album. There's no other word for either, and while that's to be expected of the film - as it is a 'documentary' - my reference to the album in the same capacity deserves some explanation.
In 2014's film 20,000 Days On Earth Cave talks about his creative process. He talks about and shows us his office - an integral part of the creation of every album; a room within which Cave gestates his ideas; a room that eventually becomes both a shrine and a tombstone to the album of the moment. A room that he eventually finds easier to replace than to strike back to zero. At the time this window into his process felt like an enormous revelation for me, and yet in retrospect it was really no real surprise at all. Cave's output is almost more literary than musical and as such I'd always indirectly imagined him growing into the space around him while creating*. Seeing it in 20,000 Days on Earth (pictured above) that space felt very womb-like; apropos, as his ideas eventually do shatter their chrysalis and emerge into the world as albums, books, movies. All the output from Cave and his band we know and love, all of which have previously had one thing in common - the final product a much-slaved over work of intricate perfection.
Skeleton Tree is not this AT ALL.
Skeleton Tree is a document - a beautifully flawed "capture" of time and emotion; a raw, emotively heavy excretion of pain and suffering and a sudden uncertainty expressed by Nick Cave and his world by Nick Cave and his world. Everyone involved is in pain, everyone involved is overcome by emotion, and everyone involved does not quite see what the next chapter will bring. A hard-won certainty - at his life, his career, his process, his mind and his family - is gone and Cave stands on a precipice that seems both devastating and sickeningly exhilarating. Andrew Dominik is a friend of Cave's and as such was allowed unprecedented access to both his process and grief. Thus, One More Time with Feeling is a hard watch. It is also a must for fans of Mr. Cave's. This is a man's soul laid bare through his process and its resulting art, and it is beautiful in the way that cemeteries, death and sorrow so often are despite the fact that from our perspective we are unable to see them as such.
Godspeed Nick Cave. My heart - a mere whisper in the darkness surrounding your world - goes out to you and your family.
...
*An image I believe first struck me when I first attempted to read his novel When the Ass Saw the Angel - a book I did not finish and have been meaning to come back to now for about eleven years. Might be time.
Last night my wife and I attended the premiere of the new film 20,000 Days on Earth. It is a fictional documentary about Mr. Cave, and probably my favorite film of 2014 (definitely up until this point it is). Read about it on Joup here, where I've also posted Mr. Cave and his Bad Seed's masterpiece And No More Shall We Part as my entry into this week's The Joup Friday Album column.
I am waaay late on this. My friend and fellow QOTSA fanatic Josh FB'd me to ask my opinion on this like a week ago and I've consistently forgotten about it. Until now.
Hard to pick a favorite track on a record as mammoth as ... Like Clockwork but this is in the top tier. It's so Revolting Cocks it's not funny, and Mr. Homme's trademark snake-snark is at full hilt.
Oh, and in answer to your question Josh, I haven't smiled this much while watching a music video for the first time since Grinderman's Heathen Child back in 2010.
Recently my wife worked the Berlin film fest for the old Industry magazine she used to be employed by - no, she did not have the benefit of going to Berlin. A lot of the trades apparently stopped actually sending anyone but their critics to the actual fests about a year after she was lucky enough to go to Cannes. But she went in everyday at 5 AM to assemble the thing. Anyway, one of the still she sent me was from Nick Cave's forthcoming 20,000 Days on Earth. To say I am excited for this film is an understatement.
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.
Kudos to this fan for grabbing this distant yet still important footage. Have Cave and Minogue ever performed this live before? Apparently this will be used in the documentary Nick and the boys in the Seeds are focusing on currently, which you can read more about on mxdwn here.
And here's some floor footage I just found. Again, kudos to the person who posted this.
I'm so wrapped up in this ghost record right now that I'm revisiting a lot of the tracks and images released in the lead-up to it. I realized I never posted this one.
This and Nick Cave and the Bad Seed's Push the Sky Away are easily going to rank in my top ten of the year.
Henry Rollins played a song by this band earlier this evening on his radio show and I immediately loved it. Harry Howard is of course the younger brother of the late/great Roland S. Howard. Harry and the NDE's bandcamp is located here. Drop by, it's cool. And if you don't know Rowland here's a little intro to a band he was in with a certain Mr. Cave:
If you're not familiar with Barry Adamson, former bass player for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave and the Cave Men, Magazine and for a short time the Buzzcockss, and you dig any measure of the stuff I toss out on this page, go get 1996's Oedipus Schmoedipus. An anthological record that features Adamson's jazz/noir musicality and style plus a number of great guests (Carla Bozulich, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker to name a few). If you're a David Lynch fan you'll recognize track number two on the record, it had a pretty memorable moment in Lost Highway. Mr. Adamson's soundtrack to Carol Morley's 'Dreams of a Life" which will be aired in the UK tonight, Feb 7th. Said ST can be purchased here on iTunes.
All of the man's albums are fantastic, especially my favorite, 1998's As Above So Below. Atticus Ross assisted with some of the programming and produced it and Flood's on hand for a couple of tracks as well. It's fantastic; a dark, jazzy descent into a noisy, ionic hell where the kiss of an angel waits mockingly just out of reach. Overdoing it? I don't think so. You don't know Barry.
Adamson's earliest records (Moss Side Tory, Soul Murder) are fascinating because they are soundtracks - complete with dialogue snippets - to movies that never existed outside Mr. Adamson's mind. The genius displayed therein put him on Trent Reznor's map back in the early 90's. Reznor used a few of Adamson's tracks and the influence of his MO to put together the Natural Born Killer's ST and then a few years later of course the aforementioned Lost Highway. Two years ago Adamson - a "Cinematic Soul" by his own admission, wrote, directed and released his first film - a 'novella' entitled The Therapist. The film is a heavily-influenced first film but it is good, strong in tone, and it points to even better things to come from this man whose work I love so much. A friend and I saw him live last year in an intimate show at LA's Hotel Bar. Just Barry, minimal accompaniment. It was awesome.
