On the way to work this morning, I put on Loyola Marymount's KXLU and heard Corniglia for the first time. This was exactly what I needed today. A gray morning, woke up late, desperately in need of more sleep than I've been getting - this just hit the spot. You can buy stuff at Corniglia's bandcamp
and they are also on Apple Music!
New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up this morning, read it HERE.
Playlist from 5/30:
Opeth - Orchid
Opeth - Morningrise
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Card of the day:
This tells me I should eschew the after-work nap and write instead. I'm exhausted, but I am on an incredible roll! I re-outlined the project on Monday - which took pretty much all day - and now it's just a matter of realigning what I've already written and then ticking off the boxes. Feels good.
I do eat meat, but I usually feel 50% guilty about that. Still love this track, though.
Re-watched The Void last night. This is about my fourth viewing. I love this movie. In fact, I think it's probably the best horror movie - or at least my personal favorite - of the last twenty years.
Playlist from yesterday:
The Veils - Total Depravity
Budapest Festival Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird Suite
Eagulls - Ullages
Godflesh - Post Self
Grinderman - Eponymous
High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine
Bloodbath - Breeding Death
Bells into Machines - Your Crime Scene E.P.
Zombi - Spirit Animal
Sunn O))) - The Grimm Robe Demos
Underworld/Iggy Pop - Bells & Circles single
Underworld - Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future
Card of the day:
I'm choosing a straight interpretation of this one. Let's see what happens.
"I put down my tray table, and snorted a gram of cocaine, until I got up my courage to say, 'Can I have your phone number?' And she gave me the phone number, that was the good news! But the bad news was, I got too stoned and I lost the number! The stewardess would have been better than the cocaine - I made an error in judgement!"
Iggy seems to be channeling Hunter S. Thompson here. And that is fucking awesome!
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A# ∞
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.
Sir Georg Solti - Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold)
Bloodbath - Breeding Death
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Burzum - Filosfem
Been leaning heavily on Cocksure lately. Such a great band. I've also been the most scatter brained I've ever been as I continue to try and drastically up my output on the T12 project. Yesterday was a total fail, today will NOT be.
I watched The Interior last night on Shudder. I absolutely LOVED this movie and will tell you nothing about it, not even post a trailer, while at the same time adamantly suggesting you check it out. Not for everyone, but those who dig it will really dig it.
Playlist from yesterday:
Burzum - Filosfem
Ben Frost - By the Throat
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Deftones - Gore
Card for the day:
My favorite in the Sword suit. From the Grimoire: "Indicates greater objectivity/clarity. Healthy balance of emotions and intellect. Good time to make decisions."
Interesting then that I'm drafting an ad campaign for my book and having to make decisions, was actually just questioning my decision making seconds before pulling this card.
I'm very late to Alkaline Trio. My friend Chris introduced me to their music a few weeks back and I'm surprised at how much I like it. At the time Crimson was released, I would not have been able to overcome my prejudices against anything that carried an air of slickly produced 'punk rock'. Now, I recognize this for what it is - good, fast rock with no agenda, politics or accoutrements. I'm loving this record - it's been a great sonic tool for writing.
Playlist from 5/25:
Danzig - Circle of Snakes*
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Chromatics - Cherry
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
David Bowie - Low
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I)
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
I wrote just over 3K words yesterday, after a full day's work. Not too shabby. Today shooting for 4K.
I subscribed to Shudder recently, and have been digging the app's selection. Checking off a lot of longstanding,"I need to see that" boxes. Last night it was Adam Green's Digging Up the Marrow and Until the Light Takes Us. The night before was a new movie, Sequence Break. This is Grahamn Skipper's directorial debut; it premiered in LA last fall at BeyondFest and I had really wanted to go, but that didn't work out. Reminiscent of Beyond the Gates and eXistenZ, Sequence Break was a great watch, even if it was a little bit awkward at times (mainly just one character, the enigmatic man, was a bit off, a kind of contrived Deus Ex Machina that revealed the lines of the writing almost every time he appeared to catalyze events - there was a better way to do what he did). Still, I enjoyed Skipper's first film and look forward to his next. Definitely a fun watch with great visuals and some awesome Body-Horror elements, a la Cronenberg's mid-period stuff.
Card of the day:
The perfect Mother. Hmmm... perfectly fits what I'm writing, I'll leave it at that. Also, it ties directly into Mr. Danzig, doesn't it? Weird, since the bit below this with the asterisk is something I wrote yesterday in the morning, after listening to Circle of Snakes on the way to work.
* Other than albums 1-3 and 7, my relationship of Danzig's records runs the gamut from begrudging to tentative. I'd not listened to this one in some time, and as much as I still enjoy 1000 Devils Rain and Skull Forrest, the production on this one is so fucking bad it actually makes me angry. I'm pretty sure in the case of opening track Wotan's Procession, the subpar guitar sound is a nod to the Black Metal of Norway, which I remember from seeing Danzig live for this album, was heavily reflected by his "Blackest of the Black' Tour lineup. But the rest of the record? No excuse, can't even hear parts of the chorus vocals on several songs, including the aforementioned Skull Forrest. Yo Glenn, hire a fucking producer, eh? Also, is Forrest purposely misspelled?
I shut the door pretty hard on Twin Peaks last year when it ended. Nothing against it, but when I stop to consider how much time and energy it consumed from me, it makes perfect sense that I would have needed to distance myself (I remember saying I was going to rewatch it like a month later - ha!). I've really only began to even think about it again recently. One insight these new considerations have revealed is the idea that I'm slightly unsure and maybe even a little bit nervous as to how the new series may have affected my relationship with the original - when I deep dive, I'm not really finding that first run occupying the same place in my head. Maybe this is just an integration period - the new series fractured the old and how I relate to it, now I have to rebuild? Probably thinking about this too much (probably = definitely). I spent the last two days getting increasingly jazzed on the music from the new series again, and that's very much making me want to rewatch it. I've got a three-day weekend ahead of me, however I also have a backlog of flicks to watch and roughly 53K words to write in the next 35 days, so I'm thinking that probably won't happen. I will, however, continue to enjoy the music, like the link above. I know it's not the actual Lynch remix that appears on the Score for season three, but honestly I like this one better. It's a part of the Twin Peaks playlist I made early on during Season 3, adding to as I went along and peppering in some BlueBob and a few tracks from the Twin Peaks musical archive that was released through David Lynch.com a few years back.
Playlist from yesterday:
Dosh - Pure Trash
Twin Peaks Playlist
Twin Peaks Season 3 OST
Chromatics - Night Drive
Burzum - Filosfem
Blut Aus Nord - 777 Trilogy
Card of the day:
Emotionally charged but creative juices flowing? Luckily, I'm actually well-rested and think I can handle this today. I want to try and write at least 15K words over the next three days, so we'll see.
Chris from DwC and I will be attempting to do our The Genesis of Preacher show again this year. Last year we got hit with a 'Cease and Desist' thing for using footage from the show, and that kind of took the wind out of our sails for a bit. Also, I was doing the Twin Peaks: Evolution of the Arm, and DwC, and working and writing a book, so that show just died. Not this year. Now I'm just hoping the show actually incorporates SOMETHING from the fucking comics this year; as much as I have enjoyed what they've done, I got a bit fatigued last season. If this trailer is any indication, I should get my wish.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying just went up. Read it HERE.
Playlist from 5/23:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Alice Glass - Alice Glass EP
Chromatics - Black Walls EP
Twin Peaks Playlist
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Card of the day:
Going to interpret this visually today and say I need to have another ~3K word day writing, as what I'm reaching for is well within reach (that about 45K words in ~38 days).
Props once again to Heavenisanincubator for reminding of a band that had fallen off my radar.
Playlist from Monday, 5/21:
Helmet - Betty
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
Melvins - Pinkus Abortion Technician
Chromatics - Looking For Love
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Drab Majesty - Careless
Card of the day:
Funny. A couple days ago my friend Missi asked me what my least favorite card in the deck is (hers is the Emperor, and he's never been one of my favorite either, but I don't think I harbor the ill-will for him she does. Mine is more of an ambivalence, which also perfectly encapsulates my view on authority). I'd never really thought about it in those terms before, my least favorite card, and yet I knew immediatley what my answer was:
The Queen of Wands.
And yet, I see her in a good amount in my pulls. This seems to suggest I should engage with ideas that are contrary or combative to my nature - which is itself an idea that has been winnowed away from the collective consciousness of our society, the practice of confronting and working with ideas that don't exactly match up to your own, in order to grow and, help us, change our minds.
New issue went up today after a lot of hard editing work. It's worth it, even though I totally blanked on adding a theme song for the new, apparently monthly segment titled, "What Stupid Thing Did Chris Buy This Time?"
Also, check out who gives us a bumper at the start of the episode! None other than Garth Fucking Ennis!
Next time.
And just because I dig Mr. Lucarelli and his work so much, here's the previous episode we had him on, back when his awesome new book from Alterna Comics, Tinsel Town, had just begun formulating for him:
I still haven't checked out anything beyond their 2011 debut, but Torches has never failed me. Every song is fantastic. I put this on the headphones yesterday when I rang out to grab some groceries, and it completely lightened my mood (spent the entire day finishing the edit on the previous DwC, only to have the Media Encoder fail to render it properly. That's about two hours down the drain and the knowledge that I have to fuck around with it more today).
Playlist from yesterday:
Helmet - Betty
Foster the People - Torches
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire: "Roll up your sleeves. Take care of what you have been procrastinating. Clear out what has stood in your way." Message received.Writing will be painful but exhilarating today.
Another new song surfaces. I started listening and then decided to wait until the album drops, wanted to post it here though for anyone else interested.
Interesting juxtaposition, if you look at this card, one of the major visual components beside the Princess herself, is the churning, stormy sky, this can indicate anger, restlessness and negative trauma. I don't directly feel any of that, however I spent a few hours earlier today engrossed in reading Lords of Chaos; while doing so I listened to the audio from a thunderstorm on loop. The book and the storm burrowed their way into my brain; I fell asleep and woke up from a nightmare somewhat shaken. The dream involved a doctor who had an evil man locked up in some kind of photo-prison cell in her home. At some point she realized he had picked the lock and was free. The dream ended with the evil one on the hood of the doctor's car, with her driving into a fence on a kind of pier that ran to the ends of her property, the fence collapsed and the aggressor was thrown into whatever large body of water lay below, but there was the definite panicked intimation that he was not dead and she should hurry out of there.
I've a lot to say about Lords of Chaos, and more specifically Varg from Burzum. He talks in interviews of using Burzum's music to influence others, especially younger fans, to get them to take up his cause, which is a militaristic brand of nationalist medieval satanism. This is insanely removed from what we think of as satanism in the modern day - the goals this entire motley cast of characters continually extol are spreading 'fear and evil,' and they really mean it. It's deceptive; on one hand you can see skinny, somewhat awkward young people carving out an identity for themselves - one that they perceive will make others fear them. This is a counter balance to being 'misfits' and many of us do it, especially those who come up in metal. But here you can see extreme examples of the possible divergent paths, where most of the inner circle of the original Black Metal scene backdown from actually committing the follow-through on the atrocities they preach, and others go through it all the way, refusing to back down, transgressing into murder, arson and mayhem (pun intended). The book is an interesting journey into a pathos we children of the Heavy Metal 80s often dismiss, the idea that people can be influenced to do evil via music.
Chester Whelks absolutely kills it with a brief call-to-arms for reassessing one of the greatest albums by a hip hop artist in the last twenty years (in my opinion). READ IT HERE.
K surprised me a bit by asking to go see Deadpool 2 for her birthday yesterday. We saw the original on video about eight months ago and both liked it, K more than I. I may still be suffering fatigue from blockbusters and thus, eschewing all of them, I'd never begrudge my girl anything. Plus, there's something about the strange, Meta-soup that Reynolds has spearheaded here; my interest and enjoyment of Deadpool 2 - which I liked infinitely more than Deadpool 1 - lies in its comedy. Ask most of my friends and they will half-jokingly tell you, "Shawn hates comedies." This isn't completely untrue; the comedies I love - The Burbs, Airplane, Real Men, Ghostbusters, The Convent, The Big Lebowski (not a comedy but still shows up on this list! How's that?), are so well-made they make me hate most modern comedies. While I quite liked both Neighbors movies, Pineapple Express (maybe more for the shock of Gary Kohl as a villain than anything else, but still) and the Twenty-One Jumpstreets revivals, I find no reason for laughing at most of what comes out in the genre. Deadpool 2 was f*&kin' hysterical, and largely because it is so aware of itself. The tragic backstory that catalyzes most of the events in the movie are even delivered so hard-nosed I couldn't help but crack a smile. And sorry, Josh Brolin was born to play Cable. Just saying.
Yesterday's playlist:
Apex Twin - I Care Because You Do
Lantlos - .neon
Geto Boys - Eponymous
Merciful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
Eagulls - Ullages
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Card of the day:
Emotion tempered with Intellect. Rain falls on the calm waters - emotions rousing the mind, stirring decisions beyond those made by sheer intellect. The reins in the Prince's hand, wresting control from the tumultuous forces threatening the calm - this should not necessarily be looked at as 'bad' - the creative process is a marriage of Emotion and Intellect; a tumultuous explosion that we must shape and control in order to actually record or define.
In my head upon waking; pretty sure I've posted this before, but it's good enough to post again:
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday. You can read it HERE.
Back when Riverdale first came out I loved their posters - the tone of the piece, kind of a Neon Noir look, really caught me, and the fact that I read/heard someone somewhere refer to it as "Dawson's Peaks" intrigued me; I couldn't care less about the Dawson part, but the Peaks part, well, that should be obvious. When season one hit Netflix I gave it a shot, liked it okay, but it just didn't make the cut; I have to be pretty severe in what I choose to watch these days, as my time for tv is minimal to say the least. Now though, I see this and I know I have to go back and catch up, because my mind is blown that season two of an updated Archie story (I should really stop thinking of it in those terms) has a Giallo element. I mean, who saw that coming?
Playlist from 5/17:
Eagulls - Ullages
The Geto Boys - Geto Boys
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Kitty Lester - Love Letters
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞
Lantlos - .neon
Two cards today:
It annoys me that I couldn't find the actual card, instead of this weird, dark-bordered version. Either way, I'm looking at this as I'm going to encounter my dark side today - or perhaps someone else's - and I will need to bring balance to the situation. This sounds about right, know the day I had yesterday and what's on deck at the office today.
Yesterday I dug out Eagulls' second album, Ullages, for the first time in quite a while. I really liked the album when it came out, but it was somewhat the wrong time for me to fully invest in it - I was still riding too high on the frenetic burst of their debut, and the dour vibe, while glorious, was perhaps too much of a downer at the time. Enjoying sadness can be tricky, and definitely requires a particular mindset; without that mindset there is no enjoyment, only Zoul. I mean, there isn't a proper enjoyment, more of a sulking. For me at least.
I stuck to it though, and it helped me process the tracks in a different context when I saw the band live about a month after Ullages came out; the band absolutely killed it, and all the new songs sounded fantastic, intermixed with tracks from the first record to inject a bit of pep and throb amidst the otherwise seriously downtempo tone. Going back to the record now, after some time away and inherent expectations have faded, I'm falling into the sullen British craft of the record and it feels exquisite.
Playlist from yesterday:
Jamiroquai - Return of the Space Cowboy
Eagulls - Eponymous
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Eagulls - Ullages
Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire, "Overcoming opposites - attraction. Recognizing what belongs together - union."
Check. A confirmation that K and I need to carve out a little more time together, as of late it's been difficult, with her Mom fully moved in and my writing constantly. Her birthday is tomorrow, and I intend to make this a very special weekend.
First, because I've been All-Black Metal, All-the Time, let's do something as a pattern interrupt:
After I finished David Peak's Corpsepaint two nights ago I immediately ordered this:
Back when I worked at Borders, this always caught my eye. I'm so taken with exploring this fascinating subculture right now that I just can't look away, and I wanted some non-fiction to bolster and sustain the high that I still have from Peak's book.
Playlist from yesterday:
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter
The Ocean - Aeolian
Venue - Desireena
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
Card of the day today was:
An eight. Of course. The number of building. Because I've worked on T12 everyday for two weeks, and Keller and I are really building something, not the story per se, but also a system by which we intend to tell many stories, the next two after this one already slated.
Falling down a black metal hole thanks to Corpsepaint, which I finished and weighs in as my fourth favorite novel of all-time.
Playlist from 5/12:
Darkness Brings the Cold - The Psychoangelic Crypt
Cocksure - TV
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1
The Best of Ella Fitzgerald, Vol. 2
Playlist from 5/13:
Burzum: Filosfem
Card of the day:
Could be good news coming when I combine this pull with something my boss told me late last week.
Here's a song I originally found back in the mid-00s and then lost track of. Recently, I spent a good amount of time looking for Salem's Dirt on youtube but A) although the video left a lasting impression in my head, I could not for the life of me remember the name of the track, and B) there are a lot of bands named Salem. Anyway, I get to Keller's the other day and he has a Grimes-inspired playlist on and I see Salem Redlights. This makes me think about my fruitless search and I go on a tear again, preempting our meeting just to try and find this song. And I finally find it, I think by googling some combination of the words, "Salem + Music Video + Garage". Creepy AF.
I don't know if Salem is still kicking. Back in 2006-2007, I spent a lot of time nosing around online for music. I was also reading Wire magazine rabidly, and between the two I found quite a bit of really left of center music. I'm not talking about System of a Down left of center - they're not - or even Mike Patton left of center. This was small stuff. It was also around the time I first heard the terms "Witchhouse" and "Hypnogogic Pop", which may have essentially been the same thing. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff that just kind of got swallowed with time, Salem being one of them. I stopped reading Wire after I left Borders (I'd have to drive to Amoeba to get it - need to look into reading it online), and started spending my time writing instead of snooping for music. The one site I found during the final years of that whole musical archeology thing that I stick to religiously is Heaven is an Incubator, because honestly, Tommy finds only great stuff and he finds a lot of it. Good to re-claim this now as something I can go to when I need a freaky vibe to catalyze a scene or idea.
I signed up for Tubi and finally gave Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem another chance and, holy cow, I really liked it. The last time I think my two major problems were we were still kind of coming off his lackluster Halloween stint, and I fell asleep during my viewing. This time I was wide awake in spite of starting the movie with some yawns, but it pretty much kept me glued. And I thought Sherri Moon Zombie did a really great, somewhat nuanced job in the starring role. So that kind of puts RZ's films back in the black with me, with only his Michael Myers-as-Jason Voorhees singular one of his I hate, and the first Halloween feeling pointless and mean.
Playlist from yesterday:
Darkness Brings the Cold - House of Sin 1
Cocksure - K.K.E.P.
Cocksure - Corporate_Sting
Nachtmystium - Doomsday Derelicts
Nachtmystium - Reign of the Malicious
Darkness Brings the Cold - IX
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle, Pt. 2
Burzum - Aske
The album is out now, and you can click HERE to go to Brooklyn Vegan and hear the entire album.
Playlist from yesterday:
Darkness Brings the Cold - Human Me
Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See
Dead Cross - E.P.
Windhand/ Satan's Satyrs - Split E.P.
Darkness Brings the Cold - House of Sin, albums one and two
Teenage Wrist - Dazed E.P.
Card of the day:
The duality of the One. Two sides of the same coin. A marriage of alchemical elements. I'll choose to interpret this as I need to spend some time with my Baby, who I feel like I haven't seen ages due to work, my writing schedule and her having been sick for a week. Will remedy that this weekend. Happily.
I only knew about the surprise Dead Cross E.P. because Tommy still runs the got-damned best music blog around over at Heaven Is An Incubator, otherwise, I would have missed out entirely. Here's an awesome new Dead Cross video!
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up. Read it HERE.
Playlist from yesterday:
Chris Connelly - Phenobarb Bambalam
Chris Connelly - The Tide Stripped Bare
Nachtmystium - Man Made
Nachtmystium - Doomsday Derelict
Nachtmystium - Reign of the Malicious
Peter Gabriel - Us
Brand New - Daisy
Eagulls - Eponymous
Holy cow! Chris Connelly has a new record that came out earlier this year. And of course, it's fantastic.
Highly recommended literature:
I started this yesterday. Fantastic book. The character of Stigoi is so hilariously based on a certain Chicago Black Metal Musician who, while I love his music, is known for doing the kind of bastard shit Strigoi does. This just makes me like the book even more than I already do, with its urban-decay-as-lifestyle that often proliferates internally inside self-obsessed musicians in cities like Chicago (I know, I'm from and was a musician there for ten years).
Speaking of which, let's combine several topics from today's post:
Playlist from yesterday:
Darkness Brings the Cold - Human Me
David Lynch & John Neff - Bluebob
USSA - Eponymous
Alice in Chains - B-sides
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Ghost Bath - Moon Lover
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II - Dialogue With the Stars
Card for the day is coming from my back-up deck, the mini Hanson-Roberts:
I don't like this deck nearly as much - nothing wrong with it, it's just not my cuppa. I like my Thoth, but I hurried out of the house this morning and forgot to pull - this deck is pocket-sized and was something I found, so it lives in my bag for moments like this. As for the pull itself, XIX coming in hot on the heels of XVII The Star (yesterday's pull) suggests that while yesterday's writing session was a bit convoluted (occulted, to force a slightly square peg into a circular hole for the sake of the metaphor), today's will be better, with revelations aplenty.
One of my favorite tracks from one of my favorite albums. Had a massive writing day yesterday, and this was there to move me in over the finish line.
If you bought my book, read my book and like my book, please leave me a review. If you didn't like my book, you should leave a review as well. I'm all about the ying and the yang.
Playlist from 5/07:
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed
Cocksure - K.K.E.P.
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Boy Harsher - Yr Body is Nothing
Jesus Lizard - Shot
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
David Lynch & John Neff - Bluebob
Card of the day:
Always a pleasure to see this, one of my favorite cards.
Now that my friend Chris's band The Thirsty Crows are on Bat Cave Records, he's been turning me on to all kinds of awesome music. Chief among this new influx of bands in my life is Neon Kross, the 80s-flavored second band of the singer for Rezurex. Darkness Falls is the first album I've sunk my teeth into from Neon Kross, and its fantastic start to finish. Wreckage particularly caught my ear with its homage to Flock of Seagulls' in the guitar parts.
Playlist from 5/06:
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
2 new Ghost Songs via Metal Sucks (Faith and Dance Macbre)
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Card of the day:
The Emotional aspect of Will, read: temper your ambitions with emotional maturity and care.
"7 Tales of Modern Horror: A movie that kills and the app that lures its victims. The Angel of Terror bound to a suburban apartment building. Online dating! Snake worshipping murder fetishists and a kill-happy couple out to take revenge on their landlord! A Collection of Desires traffics in the horrors of the modern world; horrors that walk beside us by day, and creep inside our dreams every night."
Hide is a band from my home town of Chicago that I discovered last night via Dais Records mailing list. I'm just beginning to delve into their work, but I find they scratch the itch left by bands like Throbbing Gristle, Excepter and, perhaps to a lesser extent but still in the ballpark, Skinny Puppy.
After people recommending it for years and me being a pig-headed hold-out, I've finally finished reading Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's The Long Halloween. Gave it 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads; sometimes I dumb.
(The reason I've long held out on reading The Long Halloween is everything I've ever read by Loeb - and granted all of it was well after this and Hush were written - was terrible. Not mincing words, and if you think I am, you try and make it through Ultimates, vol. 3. Go ahead, I dare you).
Oh! Finished Netflix's Dark last night. Holy mother of god, what an ending!!! Now, I need to construct my Dark murderboard so we can re-watch it and I can actually tell the characters apart.
Playlist from yesterday:
Converge - The Dusk in Us
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Alkaline Trio - Crimson
Bella Morte - Where Shadow Lie
Hide - Castration Anxiety
Card for the day:
The Earthy aspect of Water. From the Grimoire: "Dreams can become reality. Pay attention to your dreams. Focus thought through them, she can help you follow your intuition."
Well, here's some fookin' Pogues because I met Garth Ennis today and he did a bumper for Drinking w/ Comics. Footage to appear sometime in the near future.
I'm not really one for autographs. In fact, one thing life has taught me, through my experience and those of others, is to avoid meeting anyone you are a fan of at all costs. Not entirely true, but a good rule of thumb. That said, there are a handful of writers/creators I just cannot pass up the chance to shake hands with and, in some cases, ask for an autograph. David Lynch was one, and my friend Lita Weisman helped make that dream come true at the release of his book Catching the Big Fish. Fast forward a number of years and I was able to meet Stray Bullets creator David Lapham. It's hard to overestimate the influence Stray Bullets has had on me, and I had Mr. Lapham sign a copy of the original issue #1, along with Young Liars #07, possibly my favorite comic book cover art EVER:
And today came Garth Ennis. Awesome Comic Shop 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga had an unbelievable deal for Free Comic Book Day, where for the paltry cost of $30, you could jump all the FCBD lines, get three items signed by Mr. Ennis, and you received a copy of either the first trade of Preacher - got it and the original issues to boot - or Punisher: Platoon, which I'd never read. Signing wise, I had a pretty hard time deciding what three items from the collection I would ask Mr. Ennis to put his Nom de Plume on, but I ended up going with three mid-90s heavies and the first three things I read by the man:
Playlist from yesterday:
Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Chelsea Wolfe - Spun
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Monolord - Vaenir
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Also, although I haven't been in the habit of listening to podcasts for a while now, I'm drifting back into it a bit. I spent a good deal of time over the previous two days listening to Blumhouse's Shockwaves Podcast, which I can't recommend enough for horror fans. I jumped right in with 2017's Halloween episode, where Waxwork Records' founder, co-owner Kevin Bergeron and composer Douglas Pipes were guests. Really great podcast.
How weird that the first time I dig out 2013's The Devil Put Dinosaurs here in a couple years and then write about it, is the same day that Alice in Chains drop a teaser of their newest song, presumably off an album not yet announced. And it's pretty good, too, this new track. Looking forward to seeing an album later in the year.
The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday, you can read it HERE.
Playlist from yesterday:
Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liber III E.P.
Brand New - Daisy
Brand New - Science Fiction
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Thou - The House Primordial
Deafheaven - Honeycomb
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Card for the day:
Ah! My favorite card. Probably because I made serious progress in re-formating my writing ritual yesterday and thus, was able to accomplish quite a bit.
It is my opinion that Alice in Chains never had a bad album until The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Now, I like pretty much all the songs on this record, however, I find it difficult to listen to as an album, top to bottom. Maybe their time has run out, however the absolute Shock of finding that I really dug When Black Gives Way To Blue earned them a lot of respect in my eyes. In high school, pre-grunge, Anthrax was my band. After the influx of new material with the post-Nirvana wave, Alice was. Dirt made an ENORMOUS impression on me; I mean, there is no way to overestimate the effect that record had on me. And pretty much still does, although time and life experience has obviously diluted that experience. When Layne Staley died I felt what people felt when Cobain did. I followed Jerry Cantrell's two solo records and liked them to varying degrees, but something was, obviously, missing. A lot of time passed and then James Duval came in to the picture and I felt divided; I figured Cantrell was at least 50% of the band to begin with (at least), and his name did not have the 'branding' that AlC did, so why begrudge the guy? The test came down to the music, and I have to say, I dug Blue a lot. It's never been in regular rotation, but then again most Alice binges are sporadic events at this point and they usually center around the original albums. Recently I dug Dinosaurs back out and listened to it and found I really like it. The title track is especially haunting musically, and here's a video I'd never knew existed! The one thing that diminishes the track for me just a skosh is the slightly awkward rhyming couplet in the chorus, with "Jesus don't like a queer" working but only just - 'like' seems like a weak verb there. But that's nitpicking, which is okay when something is this good.
Playlist from 5/02:
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
The Raveonettes - Ghost single
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Alice in Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
Card of the day:
What is it with this card? Actually, now I know what all the recurrences of this one were warning me about - I'm not putting it down here, but suffice it to say it's something I have to solve and when I do, I will have a tiny influx of $$$.
So, obviously the consistency on these posts has begun to suffer a bit. My output here is still great, in my own obnoxious opinion, but it has wavered. This doesn't mean I'm losing gumption, or the new idea that held me in its thrall has gotten old, it just means shit has been hectic. So first, something a little less hectic:
Sign O' The Times is probably my favorite album by Prince, and one that holds me perpetually in its thrall; just hearing the opening notes of The Ballad of Dorothy Parker, with its odd, wobbly sustained keyboard note in the background and overly gated beat means I'll be immediately strapping this one in on the iPod at work in a few. From opening title track to the sexual juxtaposition of the two closers (Hot Thing is a one-night-stand sex romp, followed immediately by Forever in my Life which is something of an ode to settling down), Sign O' The Times IS 1987 to me, start to finish, in tone, themes and presentation, even if I probably only heard the title track at the time. Goes to show how every on the radio after its release was probably taking from it.
Anyway, I don't know if things have been more hectic or I'm just more scattered - well, #2 is definitely true - but I haven't been able to get a lot of work done on the T12 project. It's been a parade of responsibilities at work, even though I often don't feel like I'm doing much and the days are dragging, something that usually never happens to me. Friends say I'm just suffering from starting over in a new place, all my old protocols and procedures suddenly out the window. That must be it.
Playlist from yesterday:
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL - PLECTRUMELECTRUM
Boy Harsher - Country Girl E.P.
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Black Queen - Fever Daydream
Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Card for the day:
And there you go. I just interpreted this card as the ruins of an old paradigm for my good friend Missi yesterday - she also does a daily pull - and just like that, I'm taking a few paragraphs ago about the growing pains of an all-new situation and I pull the Ten of Swords to further emphasize that, yeah, rebuild dude.
