// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Book Review: Orphans

By Jeffery X Martin

Many people believe that horror fiction begins and ends with Stephen King. It’s easy to see why. King has sold 900 gabillion books, and they keep coming out. The man could publish a phone number scribbled on the back of a receipt and the New York Times would drool all over it.

That’s fine, but that means that a lot of readers aren’t taking full advantage of their resources. There are a plethora of small presses publishing quality horror. Self-published authors are also creating some fantastic work. It’s not all dinosaur erotica and woodworking books.

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Music Review: Saul Williams, MartyrLoserKing

By Sachin Hingoo

“I want the politicians, police, and all who stand in the face of democracy with overzealous self-interest to know that their candle is burning at both ends and that the collective WE will never be silenced, and the more they try, the more our voices will be heard. The technology of awareness is solar powered and cannot be turned off.”

Despite creating poetry and spoken-word performances since 1995 and steadily releasing music since his 2001 album Amethyst Rock Star, there’s a consistent rawness and openness in Saul Williams’ work that’s much more typical of someone in an earlier stage of their artistic career. That’s not a knock on Williams at all; in fact, quite the opposite. Successful artists of every sort have a way of closing up and playing things a lot safer as their careers wear on, often to avoid offending the powerful and influential friends they’ve made over the years, or just to maintain a steady stream of guaranteed income. Artists like Williams have an incendiary freeness, a kind of nothing-to-lose sensibility, that allows them to take their projects down lesser-used and unique avenues. This is something that Williams has always been able to tap into, most recently on his new album, MartyrLoserKing.

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VHS Visions: Rawhead Rex (1986)

By Tim Murr

“Get upstairs, fuck face! I can’t keep God waiting!”

Recently, Arrow Video released a gorgeous Hellraiser box set. In 2014, we finally got the director’s cut of Nightbreed.  But still, on the film’s 30^th anniversary, there is no news of a DVD/Blu-Ray release of Rawhead Rex!

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Is Shinsuke Nakamura The Greatest Wrestler In The World?

By Sachin Hingoo

Nakamura: The Child of God. The Black Saviour. The King of Strong Style.

If you don’t follow wrestling much, or if WWE is your only outlet for it, the name Shinsuke Nakamura is an unfamiliar one. It would probably, then, be surprising to know that this enigmatic Japanese star is, with little debate, the greatest active wrestler on the planet. And he’s coming to North America to the one of the only big stages left in the industry–the WWE.

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Music Review: Bloodiest, Bloodiest

By Tim Murr

“Doom-laden hardcore psych-metal” is how you’d describe the sophomore album from Chicago’s Bloodiest, a six-piece experimental band with members from Russian Circles, Corrections House, and Yakuza. If you are a big fan of Black Sabbath, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, Unsane, or the Melvins then Bloodiest should fit your taste quite well. Mixing 1990s hardcore, drone, and noise, Bloodiest creates a heady brew.

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Music Review: JD Souther, John David Souther

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s strange to hear a reissue of an album from 1972 that sounds as current as Omnivore’s reissue of JD Souther’s John David Souther. It’s not a difficult argument to make that Souther’s cult-classic albums were precursors to present day Americana. It’s all here: thoughtful lyrics and a high lonesome voice (on occasion); momentary fiddles and bottleneck guitar. JD Souther is a songwriter’s songwriter, known for writing for the Eagles (all of their good songs? Souther had a hand in those, like “New Kid In Town” and “Heartache Tonight”), and his songs have been covered by artists from Glen Campbell to India Irie to Linda Ronstadt.

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Movie Review: Cherry Tree

By Tim Murr

The weight of the world is on the shoulders of 15-year-old Faith. She’s forced to go to school and act like everything’s normal while her father is dying of leukemia. Faith rages at the unfairness and hopelessness of it all until her new field hockey coach, Sissy, approaches her with an offer to cure her father, using intimate knowledge of ancient witchcraft. In exchange, Faith only has to have a baby for Sissy.

These sort of things always work out, right?

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Today in Pop Culture: David Bowie’s Blackstar Birthday

By Jeffery X Martin

Today is David Bowie’s birthday and I don’t understand why anyone is at work or school. Why aren’t government offices closed? Why is this not a Federal holiday? We should all be in public parks, wearing body paint and having Aladdin Sane lookalike contests. We should put on our red shoes and dance the blues. We should be burning space capsules in effigy in the name of Major Tom.

David Bowie is 69 years old and is still cooler than everyone reading this article, combined.

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DVD Review: Deathgasm

By Tim Murr

Many movies have attempted to capture the coming of age journey, of misfits finding their path and rising to their true potential or becoming the hero they were always meant to be. Deathgasm proves that most of these movies are utter bullshit.

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TV Review: W/ Bob & David, Season 1

By Tyler Hodg

Netflix is expanding their catalogue with not only new shows, but old revivals as well. Sleeper hit Mr. Show with Bob and David originally aired on HBO from 1995-1998, but has since received a spiritual successor by the previously mentioned studio in the form of W/ Bob & David.

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