I haven't listened to Your Black Star in a pretty damn long time, and although I have absolutely no idea what put them back on my radar, yesterday, I'm glad it happened. I love this band's 2006 record Sound from the Ground; this came out the same year I moved from Chicago to L.A. My ex-wife was a music journalist, and back in those days, we'd have CDs arriving in the mail all the time. A lot of stuff from small, completely independent labels. Not all of it was good, but boy did I find some gems that way. Young Widows, These Arms Are Snakes, and Your Black Star were top of the list.
Listening again, I realized that while I'd always recognized The Cure's influence on these guys, it wasn't until diving back in that I realized how much this opening track is influenced by the title track to Pornography, arguably my favorite Cure record. Listen to those pounding drums, the way the bass comes in and the 'static' guitar. Gorgeous.
31 Days of Halloween:
I didn't get a chance to post the last two days, so here's the end tally for 2023's 31 Days of Halloween:
1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin
2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"
3) VHS
4) All You Need is Death
5) Slashers (2001)
6) The Beyond/Phenomena
7) The Convent
8) Evil Dead 2
9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe
10) Totally Killer
11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers
12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)
13) Never Hike Alone/Never Hike in the Snow/Never Hike Alone 2
14) Puppetman
15) Creepshow Season 4 Episode 1
16) Return of the Living Dead
17) Don't Look Now
18) When Evil Lurks
19) Barbarian
20) Demons 2/All Hallows Eve
21) May
22) Let's Scare Jessica To Death
23) The Birds/30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 1
24) 30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 2/The Church
25) Elvira Mistress of the Dark
26) To Kako (Evil)/To Kako: Stin epohi ton iroon
27) Tourist Trap (w/ Joe Bob)/Totally Killer
28) Amusement
29) The Rocky Horror Picture Show/There's Nothing Out There
30) Planet Terror/Arsenic and Old Lace/George A. Romero's Bruiser/976-Evil
31) Halloween 78 (w/ Joe Bob)/Flatliners 91/Night of the Living Dead
Watch:
How has it been twelve years since I watched Robert Rodriguez's Machete? This might be one of the best action movies ever.
This flick is such a rip-roaring good time, and watching it again last night made me realize I'ver never seen the sequel, Machete Kills. Time to remedy that.
Playlist:
The Misfits - Static Age
Wytch Finger - The Dance EP
Skinny Puppy - Remission
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow
The Misfits - Collection I
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Boy Harsher - Careful
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (98 Edition)
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Your Black Star - Sound from the Ground
Deftones - Gore
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather
Card:
Just one card from my Thoth deck for today.
Yeah, that's an understatement. The endeavor to move my folks from South Suburban Chicago to Clarksville was almost complete, and then... thwarted at the last minute by an inspection. That's not the change denoted here; this generalized pull is really just reminding me that although my preoccupation with the move has me blinded to it at the moment, there's a lot of change on the horizon. That's a pretty surface-level reading, especially when using the Thoth deck, but that's all I've got. I fried.
