Thursday, March 5, 2015

Drinking w/ Comics issue #19



For issue 19 we filmed at Torrance, California's newest and best independent book store, The Book Frog! And, here's the kicker - the green wall we sat in front of was so perfect Joe.Baxter suggested we use it as a green screen. I think you may agree that it turned out wonderfully!

New Kaiser Chiefs



Mr. Brown sent this to me recently but in the deluge of email I've acquired in the last few days I didn't get to it until just now. Very nice. It's so interesting to me how something that I know for a fact would have sounded extremely dated to me ten years ago now sounds smooth and, if not fresh, apparent, as in this is exactly where we should be right now musically, as older decades cycle back through out consciousness from a different cultural perspective.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Adam Green's Digging up the Marrow & Joe Begos's Almost Human



Not only does Thomas Williams run the best damn music blog around, but he contributes A LOT to Joup, the online magazine my good friend Grez started a few years ago and I help run. One of Tommy's columns is Thank God for VOD, where he begins every entry with the acknowledgement that he isn't able to go to the theatre as much as he would like (same here) but VOD helps him see most of what he wants to. Of course, coupled with the difficulty heading out to the movies these days is the fact that a lot of the movies guys like Tommy and I want to see don't even open in more than one theatre in any given major population center, for a weekend at best, so VOD is a godsend. But I'm behind in my movies and I finally made it around to one Tommy wrote about last june, Joe Begos's directorial debut, Almost Human. I liked it a lot, it was a great nod to 80s sci fi horror, specifically as Tommy points out early Carpenter, and Begos crafted a very specific late night UPN tone - also as Tommy points out. I love the nostalgic approach when it's done right. And Almost Human is - there's definitely room for him to grow, but I got the same vibe from Almost Human as I did from Ti West's The Roost when it first came out, and if that's any indication, there's sure to be some great stuff following this debut.

Afterward watching the film, while researching Begos and the cast on IMDB, I stumbled across the trailer for Adam Green's new film Digging up the Marrow, and after watching it I am VERY interested. First, you had me at Ray Wise. Second, Green will forever get the benefit of the doubt from me because of Frozen. No, not the disney movie. I'm talking about the film where three college kids get stranded on a ski lift over a long weekend. Can you say traumatic?

Anyway, looking forward to seeing this quite a bit. And if you haven't given Almost Human a chance yet, you should. It's streaming on Netflix so that makes it even more accessible to most. Also, directly after I posted this I flipped over to Bloody Disgusting and found an article and pictures of Looper star Noah Segan on the set of Begos's follow-up to Almost Human, The Mind's Eye. Excited!

Beneath the Panels #4: Nameless and the Place of Fear



The new and final Beneath the Panels pertaining to Nameless #1 is up over on Joup. Issue #2 comes out this coming Wednesday, so this is a last minute wrap-up until we receive the next transmission from Morrison, Burnham and Fairbairn, courtesy of Image Comics.

The Chameleons - Swamp Thing



In late January my wife went to Austin, Texas for two weeks. During her absence I found myself somewhat in a state of disorder. My routines, namely work, commute, write, watch/read could all remain the same but my down time was eerily lonesome. I had our three cats, but they tend to exist in one of two modes - eating or sleeping - so although they were always present, there was a lack of conversation. During that time I listened to a lot of music, loading the old iPod with a number of records I had been meaning to get around to for some time and spent my days at work getting to know some new music. One of those records was The Chameleons' Strange Times. This was the first Chameleons I'd had the opportunity to delve into and it made a very strong impression very quickly.



One of the things I always find so interesting about the "Post Punk" era is the fact that many of the bands attributed to the genre sound a great deal to my ears the way the British New Wave of Comic creators in the 80's read/looked to my eyes/brain. Killing Joke sounds like 80s/90s Vertigo comics, so does Joy Division, The Smiths*... the list goes on. Upon first listen I found this was also the case with Strange Times, especially the track Swamp Thing, which whether my interpretation was a suggested planted by the title or merely some shared DNA with the book, reminds me so much of the tone of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run that I've pulled the trades I read a scant two years ago back out and am preparing to re-read. It's an eerie, sometimes defeated tone; an often emotionally overwhelming ode to the in between places we often fret to explore, and The Chameleons craft it very well, with a unique approach to arranging the standard rock instrumentation (guitars, bass, kit and keyboards) and a knack for open, verbose lyrics that somehow perfectly balance a line between ambiguity and precision.

NEW Faith No More - Superhero



May 19th cannot come fast enough!

I'm posting this track here for others, but full disclosure I am not listening to it. That won't be an easy pledge to keep, however I'm really looking forward to hearing all the new songs on the album in the context of the album. While I broke down and listened to Motherfucker - my wife bought me the 7" for Christmas - that's as far as I'm willing to go for now.

via Bloody Disgusting.

Faith No More!

Spider Gwen and the Inclusive Age

Art by Rodriguez & Renzi, Mod by @erinoutrageous


Let's talk Zeitgeist, shall we?