It's been a few weeks since Shellac dropped The End of Radio, a really nice collection of live tracks culled from Peel Sessions in 1994 and 2004. Being that the band's 2007 album Excellent Italian Greyhound just might be my favorite of Shellac's records (or it's tied with 2000's 1000 Hurts), and I think Greyhound has one of the best opening tracks of all time, this is my favorite on this new album. The Martina Navratilova aside near the end of this performance makes me so happy I can often hardly stand it.
You can order The End of Radio on Vinyl - as it was meant to be heard - from Touch and Go Records HERE.
I really need to see Shellac live again. It's been a while.
**
I'll admit that I fully expected to hate Amazon's adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys, but after watching one and a half episodes last night, I can tell you that is most definitely not the case. In fact, so far, I LOVE it. Karl Urban remains a perfect actor, in my book.
**
Playlist from 7/26:
Primus - Frizzle Fry
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper
Grand Duchy - Let the People Speak
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Numenorean - Adore
**
Card of the day:
Being that I've ended up working Tarot into Ciazarn considerably more than I expected, I'm going to continue interpreting these draws that occur while I'm on a writing streak with it as direct influences on the story and/or characters. In this case, I have two 'set pieces,' but I believe I need two more in order to have a solid first act.
Continuing this somewhat - to me anyway - fascinating record of the music I wake up with in my head, because there's always music there when I open my eyes to a new day, today it was one of the more nuanced tracks from 2016's Total Depravity by The Veils:
I say nuanced and I do not mean it in a negative way; every track off Total Depravity is marvelous, and what's more, The Veils are very good at doing that that thing that I love: all the tracks add up to make an outstanding full album, one that resonates on multiple harmonic levels when listened to as a whole. We're talking sonically, thematically, and overall aesthetically, this record shines. In fact, I'd call it one of the best 'albums' I've heard in years.
Playlist yesterday was sparse. I finally found my CD copy of Shellac's most recent record Dude Incredible so that may be going into regular commute rotation for a while:
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Shellac - Dude Incredible
Deftones - Gore
The Doors - LA Woman (original vinyl pressing - used to be my Dad's and has THIS little nasty on the back of the bright yellow record sleeve).
I pre-ordered Dude Incredible on vinyl back when it was released and Mr. Albini and crew included as something of, I think, a philosophical statement on their preference for analog over digital, a totally unlabeled copy of the album on disc. Lately I've had the strongest hankerings for Shellac while in the car, so although it's been a while since I've pulled the vinyl out at night, during the day I'd several times been frustrated to discover I had no idea where the disc was. I even feared, due to its unmarked facade, its possible loss in the great divorce tally/purge of 2015. Then a couple days ago I pull out 1000 Hurts on disc and there's the unlabelled missing album on top. I very much count this as a win.
Last night K and I tried to watch both Good Time and It Comes at Night but failed at both. Part of this may have been due to a certain persnickety fatigue six long days of work surrounded by LA commutes had left me with by the time I'd prepared dinner and had a few Smithwicks, but I definitely feel it this lack of connection was not entirely on me. Both films are distributed byA24,whose films I normally fall right in line with, but with my shortage of time to appropriate for watching movies these days, I feel fairly certain I won't be giving either of these another chance. Instead, we're seeing The Philadelphia Story on the big screen this afternoon, thanks to Turner Movie Classics and Fathom Events, and steering tonight's Sunday Night Feature to Dark Song, a film several good friends have given near rave reviews of, and which I'd waited on since first reading about on the Horror Amino community, where there's a wealth of awesome horror information updated on pretty much an hourly basis.
Card of the day:
A lot in my Grimoire about this one, however most of it presupposes the card's value in a spread, in relation to other cards, especially Disks and its representation of Earthly matters. Specifically I see one relating to gambling. I'll keep this in mind, however the one point of primary interest here is the note that the Three of Swords can indicate, "... a current period of unhappiness, not necessarily one to come."
Two reasons for this note's perceived poignancy at the moment with regards to my existence:
I'm not in the best of moods today due to a certain lackadaisical approach to property management by the cunts that run the building that I will soon be moving out of, and two, the "... not necessarily..." part really helps when looking back at the last few days' cards and tracking their ongoing juxtaposition with my moving situation: knowing the Futility of the current situation with finding a new place forces a decision to be made; accepting the Change that will come with that decision, and now the suggestion that unhappiness will not necessarily follow on the tide of that Change, well, the pieces are in motion and I'm helping to keep them that way. My contributions pail in comparison to K's near constant attempts to stay in contact with the other parties involved.
...will be released on Touch and Go Records on September, 16th. You can pre-order the record, which is a paltry $21 for 180 gram vinyl that also includes a CD, on Touch and Go's site HERE.
I am extremely excited for this record. It's been seven years since Shellac's last record, Excellent Italian Greyhound was released. Dude Incredible was, as all Shellac records are, recorded in full analog glory. If you should know anything about guitarist/vocalist Steve Albini it's that he's an analog loyalist. If you go back to one of Mr. Albini's earlier bands, Big Black, specifically their 1987 seminal record Songs About Fucking you'll find that the back cover harbors the famous quote, "The Future Belongs to the Analog Loyalists, Fuck Digital". Mr. Albini is known to record on two inch tape (glory!) and of course he takes it one step further. While there are a handful of bands and artists that still use the analog recording medium, far fewer of those few actually take it a step further and master their records in the analog realm:
"Audio quality is paramount, as always, with Shellac. The LP was mastered entirely in the analog domain, using the DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) process. The LPs are being manufactured at RTI in Camarillo, CA using their HQ-180 system. The pressings are 180 gram audiophile quality."
