Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Rebirth

 

I've really been digging back into the Rebirth Brass Band's discography - thanks again, Mr. Brown for helping me segue from knowing them on HBO's Treme to listening to them apart from the show. Really great stuff. 
 


Watch:

I can't wait for The Book of Boba Fett, now barely a month away:


This is the second trailer for the show, and as usual, I'm posting it here for posterity's sake, but not watching it. 




NCBD:

Always the best day of the week, here's my pull list for tomorrow's NCBD:


The beginning of the end, issue #49 begins the final arc of Deadly Class! I LOVE seeing adult Marcus and Saya on the cover here. I have a  feeling this is going to be some daaaark stuff, and I can't wait for Rick Remender to break my heart again - he does it so well!


I missed the first Maniac of New York series, but I intend on picking up the trade, so this new #1 is a perfect place for me to jump on again. If you haven't heard about this one, my A Most Horrible Library co-host Chris Saunders sold it to me back on a previous episode of our podcast, which you can find HERE.


The cover art for The Me You Love in the Dark's final issue makes me think this won't be a happy ending. 


I'll never end up with this variant cover, but it's AWESOME! Either way, always a good week when we get a new TMNT.

When Two Moons came back last month, I was not prepared for the landscape of where we are in this world that was first introduced earlier this year in the first arc. Seriously digging the way this story is being told. 




Playlist:

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker - Diz N' Bird At Carnegie
Rebirth Brass Band - Rebirth of New Orleans
Kowloon Walled City - Piecework
Kowloon Walled City - Grievances
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
X - Los Angeles
Cindy Lauper - She's So Unusual 
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Rebirth Brass Band - Move Your Body
Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters
Various - Treme, Sn 1 OST
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
FFS - Eponymous
Lustmord - Dark Matter
Chicano Batman - Invisible People
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Beliefs - Habitat
Caveman - Smash




Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Blue Train

 

Continuing the more mellow side of things, here is what I would easily consider my favorite Coltrane song from my favorite Coltrane album.




NCBD:


A new Miskatonic one-shot I'm pretty excited about, complete with another great cover by Jeremy Haun.


The final issue of the "1981" storyline, and one of my favorite covers of the year.


It felt like this fifth issue of the new, ongoing X-Men title took forever to come out, so I guess that means I'm hooked. 

Short week, which is good, as I have to pick up issues 8-10 of Sword, which I started reading a little over a week ago and can't get enough of:


Magneto isn't exactly part of this team, but he's played a fairly big role in the series so far, acting as a sort of Krakoa liaison to the S.W.O.R.D. space station, where Abigail Brand - formerly of Alpha Flight - runs a sort of Galactic Embassy/Outpost/First Response/R&D team that has played an insanely interesting role in the furthering of the new Mutant agenda. The thing I think I'm liking best about this new X-endeavor is just how conniving the leaders of Krakoa and their most trusted personnel are. I've never been a Xavier or Magneto fan, but remove the altruism and set them side-by-side in their thinking - which never was that different to begin with once Charles' ridiculous altruism is removed - and they're extremely likable as puppeteers. And Abigail Brand fits in with them on that all too well, as there are some mighty sneaky maneuvers she's been pulling on behalf of the effort, and they make for extremely interesting reading. This "game of thrones" approach to the X-characters is a far more interesting way to utilize these characters and their decades of pre-existing continuity than the constant battle-friend-battle format that the books have been seized in for about twenty years too long. 




Playlist:

Zombi - Liquid Crystal
Opeth - Deliverance
Emilil Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1
Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Age of Mirrors
Giant Dog - Pile
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Black Prism - Eponymous
Sleep - Dopesmoker

Monday, November 22, 2021

Diz and Bird @Carnegie Hall

 

How about a change of pace? It's been a minute since I've listened to any Bird, but all the references and music in Netflix's Cowboy Bebop stoked my thirst for some, so let's go live.




Watch:


I am overjoyed to report that both "big" watches I had this week - each with their own initial apprehensions on my part - are just fantastic. First up, Ghostbusters: Afterlife blew me away. This past Saturday, K and I accompanied some friends to the local AMC and grabbed tickets to see this one in the Dolby Atmos theatre. Here's the trailer, which is old news now. I never posted it here before now because I had such strong reservations about the film, all of which were completely unfounded and proven wrong.


 

Next, yes! Yes! YES! Netflix's Cowboy Bebop adaptation is fantastic. Against all odds, this one is eventually going to occupy a spot on my shelf next to the various home video iterations I have of the original series. Because I've posted everything else I can think to post for this one, here's a clip ET dropped a few days ago: 

 

The care with which all the actors approach playing these iconic characters is bar none; so many nuances went into these performances and that makes them an utter joy to watch!




Playlist:

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Unto Others - Mana
The Ocean - Fluxion
Mastodon - The Hunter
Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker - Diz 'N Bird At Carnegie Hall (Live)
Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST




Card:


Two things to watch out for today, one good, one bad: bling impulses (may have to do with anger caused by stress and the things that can come out of my mouth at potentially inappropriate times), and creative inspiration, which is always welcome.

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Gazing Into the Black Prism

 

I don't even remember how I discovered Black Prism this past week, but I woke up ridiculously early this morning and while scrolling through Apple Music for something to listen to while finishing Joe Hill's novella "Loaded" - scary shit, that - I landed on this and realized I had not listened to it yet. Forty-Seven minutes later I was starting back at track one again. 

Released independently on Christmas days, 2016, Black Prism's eponymous debut full-length album is a tight little chunk of Sabbath-influenced, down-tempo Stoner/Doom that, while that influence is evident from the opening track, quickly finds its own unique footing in the annals of the Iommi-verse that has blossomed in the past ten years or so. 

You can buy the digital album on Black Prism's Bandcamp HERE, or, if you're really lucky, you can track down a moderately priced copy of their 2013 7" Satan's Country that was released on Easy Rider Records, before they changed their name to Riding Easy Records. Here's the video for that one, and it's a super cool throwback to those Lo-fi Satanic Panic images that line the shift of the 1960's Free Love movement into something much darker and more mysterious:



I can only dream of a future double-bill where Black Prism opens for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats; the two would be perfect touring together.




Watch:

Well, my grandiose plans to plow through the entire season of Netflix's new live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation were ambitious, to say the least. Got home from work later than anticipated and ended up taking a much-need nap before meeting some friends at Torrance, CA's Monkish brewery for a few beers, so by the time we returned home and fired up the tube, the 50-minute pilot was all I had in me before I fell asleep. But so far, I really like what I've seen.

Bebop is holy to me; I realized recently that it's probably my second favorite show of all time, right behind Twin Peaks. So I should be one of those people who get turned off by the liberties of adapting something like this into "real life." But no, I dug the pilot and can't wait to go back for me. 

Here's the ending credit theme of the original show:


Oh yeah: Monkish? That was our first time there and hot damn, all those folks who have sung their praises as the best brewery in Southern California were not lying. I had the Dark and Mild Dark British Ale, and it is one for the books. I'll be heading back sooner rather than later. Maybe tonight, after a bunch of us spill out of a 7:00 PM showing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which I've surprised myself by being extremely excited to see,




Playlist:

The Ocean - Fluxion
Underworld - 1992-2002
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart (single)
Deee-Lite - Call Me Remix (single)
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim




Card:


Finishing (for now) one project opens a path to a new journey. Or maybe just a renewed one.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Bnny

 

A friend of mine posted about Bnny's new album Everything a few days ago. I'd never heard of this artist, so I took a little stroll into her music and wow. Blown away. I spend a lot of my time pretty keyed up on various incarnations of Metal these days - it's just what gets me through the days. But it's always good to counterbalance the chaos with some downtempo stuff, especially when it's this good and desert-flavored.

You can order directly from her Bandcamp HERE

As a strange aside, I messaged my cousin Charles last night to see if he'd heard this album and it turns out this was his upstairs neighbor at one point. I love those kinds of synchronicities. 




Watch:


I don't know if this movie looks good or bad, hard to tell from this trailer. However, it's got one hell of an awesome-looking monster, so I'm in and will remain cautiously optimistic. Honestly, it's the guys in the movie that look like they might take it down a notch or two for me. Why is it that, in the 80s and even into the 90s, action actors could pull off military or tough-as-nails roles without coming off like douche bros, but now, that's almost always the case? What we need to be asking ourselves as a society is, how do we fix that?




Playlist:

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Jerry Cantrell - Brighten
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto - Devil Music, Vol. 1
Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel
Motörhead - Bastards
The Damage Manual - Limited Edition
Crystal Castles - (III)
Bnny - Everything
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST




Card:


A reminder that movement and change are the antidote for stagnation.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

New Beach House!!!

 

New Beach House to welcome us back to the land of the waking and working this Wednesday morning. I need it. The album Once Twice Melody drops... well, I don't know that I quite understand the release schedule for this one, so let me just post the pre-order link to the band's site HERE and copy and paste the itinerary directly from the video below: 


ONCE TWICE MELODY RELEASE SCHEDULE 
Chapter One: November 10, 2021 
Chapter Two: December 8, 2021 
Chapter Three: January 19, 2022 
Chapter Four: February 18, 2022 (LP, CD, and cassette available)




Watch:

Holy F&*k, and that's all I have to say about this. 


I really hope none of this is red herring (I fish I don't particularly care for.)




NCBD:

Another fantastic NCBD Wednesday. Short and sweet as far as the commentary this week, let me just mention how much I've grown to love Maw over the past two issues, and am very much looking forward to issue #3.
Oh yeah, and Primordial is just the bee's knees at this point. Andrea Sorrentino's art is next level. There are narrative mechanics at work even just in his layouts that represent enormous leaps forward for the medium - leaps I think it will be years before other people build upon. 




Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Helm of Sorrow
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch: Censor OST
Slayer - Show No Mercy
Code Orange - Underneath




Card:


Another nod to completion, which leaves me slightly perplexed. That's half the fun, though. I always think of this card as an indication of balance - or at least a suggestion to strive for it. And truth be told, my balance is way out of whack right now. So maybe that's what I need to focus on right now. If it wasn't for this damn day job...

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Emma Ruth Rundle - The Company

I'll be totally honest - I totally forgot this record came out. Loading it into Apple Music and going to hit it later tonight, but if the production on "The Company" is any indication, this one is stunning. ERR's voice already has an ethereal quality to it, but this really raw, up-close feeling makes listening to her sing almost voyeuristic. 




Watch:

Just last week I was talking here about everything releasing on November 19th, but it wasn't until about an hour ago that I realized, HOLY COW - that's in three days! That means Cowboy Bebop is in THREE DAYS!!! Here's musical genius Yoko Kanno going behind the scenes on the music for the show, which is the best music from any show ever.


Wow. I know what I'm doing Friday.




Playlist:

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
NIN - With Teeth
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
DEADLIFE - City of Eternal Rain
Bnny - Everything
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full 
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh




Card:


Well being. Completion. These things are normally very abstract concepts in my readings, as I tend to interpret everything as being about my writing. However, writing has suffered, what with this insane work schedule, the massive open loop of the move looming, and the often debilitating exhaustion that has come with both of these. I get down about this, and that adds to the weight of things, but then I draw a card like this and realize I'm in control of how much these things affect me. I don't have to stay ten hours at work. I don't have to obsess over the move. I can fight back and clear some time and headspace for myself. 

Monday, November 15, 2021

Zetra - From Within

 

Heaven is an Incubator recently posted about the upcoming From Without EP that drops in January (pre-order HERE). I'd never heard of the band, and when I clicked over and heard the 1-2 of Life Melts Away that opens From Within, well, I was totally sold. 




Watch:

So I made it through Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass. Not an easy task until the last three episodes, which ended up really coming through and making the rest of the show worthwhile. Not that it's terrible, but a lot of the 'aging' make-up used is pretty bad, and the lead character is just pointless and annoying. I mean, really. He ultimately serves no purpose that could not have been collapsed into another character. Ah well, in the end, I really dug the juxtaposition of religion and the supernatural, so it's a recommendation, although I can pretty safely say I'll never watch this one again.

Next? Castle Rock! I've been meaning to watch this for, well, years now, and I'm finally doing it. Three episodes into Season One and I'm digging it. Fantastic cast. Here's the trailer:



I've read a pretty fair amount of Stephen King, but not enough to deftly spot every reference in this one, so I'm gingerly taking mental notes and will look up all the references afterward. The obvious one here is Shawshank Prison, which I didn't realize played such a big part in this first season's story. Very cool. 




Playlist:

Anthrax - Among the Living
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Bnny - Everything
Hotel Decor - Could It Take Me Any Longer EP
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees
Zetra - From Within




Card:


A reminder that methodical approaches to projects and problems are the way to go. Timely, as I have one big, open-loop issue in my life right now - the eventual move - and on any given day, it feels over-fucking-whelming.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

RIP Dean Stockwell


I'm a couple days late with this but talk about shitty news. Here's to your fuck, Ben.




Watch:


I'd never seen William Malone's 1985 Creature, but I grew up seeing the VHS box cover art on the wall at the local video story and been curious as a kid. 


Somewhere in the intervening years I completely forgot about this one, until Vinegar Syndrome announced a new, restored version they're releasing at the end of this month. Pre-orders are closed - I didn't act fast enough while I tried to figure out if it was worth spending the money on when I'm still really limiting my frivolous expenses in preparation for moving across the country - but I believe will go live again for VS's Black Friday sale. 

 

So is Creature worth it? Well, as I stated in my quickie Letterbxd review, this film isn't great and it's not even really good, however, I feel like there are echoes within echoes that lead me back to this one. Probably the best of those 80s Sci-Fi Monster-in-Space Horror flicks that ballooned overnight as a response to the success of Ridley Scott's Alien, Creature reeks of the B-Movie, down-n-dirty pulp atmosphere that a low budget required filmmakers excel at in order to make up for the otherwise lack of expensive sets/props/production value. And from this era, that's not a bad thing in my book. Well, not in this case, anyway. Creature is a pinnacle of the zeitgeist landslide of cheap and fast Sci-Fi that created a zeitgeist in the 80s, one that washed up on the shores of comics, role-playing, and all kinds of other geek-centric mediums. Watching it for the first time at 45, Creature felt like a well-spent hour and forty-odd minutes that triggered all kinds of peripheral genre memories, or as I've come to think of them, PGMs. So yeah, I'll probably plunk down the $$$ for this one. Would make a fantastic double feature with Richard Stanley's Hardware




Playlist:

Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST
Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Soviet Soviet - Fate
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In
The Who - Live at Leeds
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
The Fixx - Reach the Beach




Card:


Keeping a keen eye out for portents and omens today.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Cellular Death!!!

 

This album is really one of my recent stalwarts. I've come to love every song, but it's an intense journey and often, I don't make it all the way to the final song. The last two days I've really had to knuckle down on the physical side of work, and using this record really helps me conquer exhaustion. When I hit "Apoptosis" this morning, it felt like a revelation, so I wanted to share it here.




NCBD:

Jeff Lemire's Mazebook has really become one of the main books I look forward to. Pretty cool, considering I almost skipped it altogether. 


I guess I jumped the gun on Venom #1 last week. Or it was delayed? I'm not sure. Either way, I'm still not going to be lucky enough to snag this variant, but with a gazillion covers to choose from, I'm sure I'll find something good.


I know nothing about What's The Furthest Place From Here except the pedigree of the creators. That's enough to have me pretty freakin' excited.




Watch:

It's looking like come November 19th there is going to be a serious lag on Netflix. First Cowboy Bebop premieres, now a new Horror tv show from Train to Busan creator Yeon Sang-ho:


This trailer runs the gamut from what looks like a home invasion thriller to a fight scene with creatures that look like they'd be right at home in a Marvel movie. Cowboy Bebop takes precedence, but I'm pretty curious about this one.

Now, all we have to do is catch up and watch Midnight Mass, Doom Patrol Seasons 2 and 3, Squid GamesCastle Rock 1 and 2 (finally!), plus have a  full Stranger Things rewatch, before.... oh fuck it. This one will end up on the list.




Playlist:

Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Blood Red Shoes - Get Tragic
QOTSA - Era Vulgaris
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Anthrax - Among the Living
Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image




Card:


I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this at the moment, so we'll just have to see. 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

This Pallid Mask is one of the Stranger Things I've Seen...

Some friends recently saw High on Fire at a small venue in Chicago and hearing them talk about how awesome it was really made me miss seeing this band live. Over the years, I've seen Matt Pike and crew several times, one of which was at the Viper Room in Hollywood - a venue that felt waaay to small to contain a sound as big as theirs. Thinking on this, I decided to dig back into their music, only this time, I started with their most recent records and began working my way backward. 2018's Electric Messiah is an album I have not spent nearly enough time with, and running through it the other day, I realized that while I definitely think it's the weakest of the band's six albums, it still contains some absolutely devasting tracks. This is one of them.




Watch:

Another Stranger Things teaser for Season four!

 

I really can't wait for this next season of Stranger Things. K and I need to start that rewatch of 1-3 soon.
 


Playlist:

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Infinite Granite
Zetra - From Without E.P.
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
David Bowie - Reality
The Clash - London Calling
Pink Milk - Ultraviolet

Saturday, November 6, 2021

Odonis Odonis - Shadow Play

 

It's been a minute since I've kept up with Odonis Odonis. Back in 2016, their album Post Plague was a constant in my ears and on my turntable, however, the band's subsequent releases, while good, didn't quite live up to the same high regard I'd assigned them after what I still feel not only sums up a small era of my life but is one of my favorite records of that decade. So I guess that disconnect explains why I totally missed the fact that they dropped a new record back in October, and what's more, it's FANTASTIC. Special thanks - as always - to Heaven Is An Incubator for posting a track from this and alerting me to it. If you dig, you can order one of the thirteen remaining copies (fourteen until I ordered mine) of Spectrums over on their Bandcamp or from the always marvelous Felte Records.

It goes without saying I'd developed an affinity for this particular song, as it shares a title with the series of novels I've been working on for several years now. 




Time Machine GO!!! 1991:

In this past Wednesday's NCBD section, I casually mentioned an idea that kind of occurred to me on the spot but didn't really sink in as to what a profound self-insight I'd inadvertently made, the idea that my reversion to a fairly rabid Marvel Zombie/comic collector had more to do with a return to the things that had made the tumultuous task of navigating adolescent as an unconscious way to deal with the equally rocky navigation of Middle Age. This started with an out-of-the-blue interest in following the last year of Nick Spencer's run on Amazing Spider-Man but has pushed me not only back into following some of the modern X-titles (really, just one and a few mini-series), but a nearly inexplicable longing to rebuy and reread a bunch of the post-Claremont X-men stories, first with 1994's The Phalanx Covenant and now, of all things, the original Onslaught opus.

I want to point out here that these are books that I do not in any way shape or form consider 'good.' Conceptually, perhaps, but writing-wise, not at all. And while Fabien Nicieza had some pretty good chops, when we get into Scott Lobdell territory, well, I just consider that era of X-Men pretty mediocre-to-downright-awful stuff. And yet, here I am, combing the back issue bins at the Comic Bug and reading some of this stuff. And that off-the-cuff comment about reaching back into my past to reconnect with touchstones of my adolescence as a coping mechanism for the Horrors of aging in an era of little compassion and perhaps less tolerance really strikes me now as another instance of how our minds will do what they need to do to cope and survive, even if our personalities are completely unaware of those tragedies. So with that in mind, let me resurrect a moniker from my old Chud days to you about what I'm reading from the past, what I think of it now, and how it holds up.


Okay, granted this 1991's Muir Island Saga is still protected as awesome in my book because it's penned by Chris Claremont, however, it's Claremont's final entry and thus, the gateway to the end of his continuity, or rather the way he approached continuity, so I've always kind of held a grudge against both this series and it's villain, the Shadow King, who for whatever reason, I just could not care less about. That's my 'historical' perspective of this small, four-issue 'saga' that really doesn't feel like a saga at all. A bit short and to the point to be a saga. That said, in this instance, the brevity is good, and unlike the full-blown crossovers and X-Events that began to clog the continuity after the near-perfect triumph of Inferno, Uncanny X-Men 279-280 and X-Factor 69-70 feel like a pretty good story that lines 'em up and knocks 'em down, reworking all the allegiances Claremont had, up to this point, used to divvy up the characters and keep things interesting, paving the way for the 'Blue' and 'Gold' teams that would surface in Jim Lee's X-Men #1 and Uncanny 281, which realigned all the original X-characters like Scott and Jean with the Xavier camp and made X-Factor the new equivalent of Freedom Force, under Valerie Cooper - a character I had completely forgotten about.




Playlist:

The Neverly Boys - The Dark Side of Everything
Lower Dens - Escape From Evil
TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain
The Bronx - The Bronx (IV)
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Motörhead - Overkill
Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I (pre-release singles)
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
High On Fire - Luminiferous
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror 
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim




Card:


A reminder to strike while the iron is hot.

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Light House

 

I'd completely forgotten about Future Islands until Julia Ducournea's Titane put them back in my head by using "Light House", from their 2014 4AD release Singles.
 


Play:

A couple years ago, I totally missed out on Mixtape Massacre. Now, the creators of that have a new game on Kickstarter, and by the looks of it, this one is a definite for me:



I'm really trying not to spend $$ on stuff like this, so there's a bit of a tug-o-war going on as I watch this. We'll see. Either way, I wanted to spread the word.



Playlist:

Allegaeon - Into Embers (pre-release single)
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Allegaeon -Proponent for Sentience
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Blood Moon I (pre-release singles)
The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex Museum
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - The Good Son
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues
Lower Dens - Escape From Evil
The Neverly Boys - The Dark Side of Everything
TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain




Card:



Two days in a row, I receive positive reinforcement for a series of investments. 


Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Hellraisin'


No More Tears turns 30? Shit man, I'm old. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the hell out of his new, super cool video for one of the best songs on a pretty solid Ozzy album (his best, IMO). The version on the album was co-written by Lemmy - as were several other tracks - but did not feature him on co-vocals, although if memory serves this version with both Ozzy and Lemmy singing surfaced somewhere years later. Either way, I've always really liked this song, and the video is super cool. Reminds me A LOT of Daniel Warren Johnson's Beta Ray Bill series from earlier this year (that I'm still super hung up on).




NCBD:

Another great week at the Comic Shop -  NCBD has really come to be something I look forward to with rabid anticipation again and being that I psychoanalyze myself constantly, I'm pretty sure this is a nostalgia blanket, something that I needed to reinstate in midst of 2020's uncertainty. Why else would I revert back to following Spider-Man so rabidly for 6 months, pick up a new Defenders series with a bunch of characters I know nothing about or are not particularly keen on, or fall back into an X-book? Being a Marvel Comics fan is what got me through the uncertainty of adolescence, and as such, I've apparently flipped that switch again in order to navigate middle age. Whatever the case, I start looking at what's hitting the stands as early as possible, assemble my list, and then wait with bated breath for Wednesday to come around.

Speaking of which, this week we begin with the return of a new friend I hardly had a chance to get to know before it up and disappeared back in the spring:


Definitely not something I normally go in for, I ended up really digging the first two issues of James Stokoe's Orphan of the Five Beasts, and I'd begun to fear it was never coming back. Speaking of returning titles...


I love The Silver Coin so much, and am extremely pleased it proved popular enough to continue on after what was originally supposed to only be five issues.


The Me You Love in the Dark - ghost fucking, huh? Based on the cover art, there might be trouble in paradise for our heroine.




Watch:

I've recently been getting into the films of Alex de la Iglesias. My end-of-night movie on Halloween ended up being his 2014 Heist-turned-cannibal-Witches flick Witching and Bitching. Here's the trailer:


This movie is completely fucking insane. I mean, the last twenty minutes is... well, spectacle filmmaking at its finest.




Playlist:

Opeth - Deliverance
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Allegaeon - Into Embers (pre-release single)




Card:


Keeping my mouth shut.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

A Dirge For Boba Fett's November

 

Here we are again. Remember what yer grandpappy telt ya, November brings the Opeth.




Watch:

Finally!!!

 

When they brought Fett into the second season of The Mandalorian, I was bummed. I mean, with the creation of Mando, it seemed a misstep to overturn Fett's death, because the brilliance of following another character in the beloved armor floored me as a simple and elegant solution to the problem of how to bring back one of the most popular characters in the franchise. By the end of that season, however, when I realized Fett would not end up a regular character on the show, I warmed to his presence. The masterstroke of setting up a new, Fett-centric show with the post-credits sequence on the final episode proved a masterstroke to me, and now, here we are! With Bossk people, Ree-Eyes, Sand People, Bib Fortuna and Gamorrean Guards a'plenty, I am super excited for this one. Bring it on!
 


Playlist:

Opeth - Blackwater Park
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Jerry Cantrell - Brighten
Type O Negative - Dead Again
HEALTH & Poppy - Dead Flowers
Boy Harsher - Careful
Boy Harsher - Country Girl Uncut
Slayer - Decade of Aggression




Card:


The shortest distance between two points isn't always the fastest. Swiftness can come by way of out-thinking a dilemma.