Howard and Ray

The American writer of weird fiction, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, would have been 124 years old on Aug 20, if here were still alive. And who knows, maybe he is? The mythology he created has become so deeply ingrained in the fantasy and horror cannon, it might as well be scripture -- or, y'know, the truth.

Look at this great cover for one of his more terrifying novellas The Dunwich Horror:

The water color inks and psychedelic slant of the artwork reflects the story quite well, with beings that defy Earthly biology and cosmic magic that's only hinted at in the dark bottom portion of the cover. Read some Lovecraft, will ya?

A nice complement to this news is that Aug 22 is Ray Bradbury's birthday. Unlike Lovecraft's bleak, sometimes depressing horror, Bradbury had an inhuman gift for balancing moments of terror with genuine sweetness.

His work stands acts like a boilerplate for many screenwriters and filmmakers who have attempted (and a few succeeded, though never quite like Bradbury) at tapping into the mind of gentle, introspective protagonists thrust into unbelievable situations.

Check out this vintage cover art for Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's loaded with intrigue and hints of unforseen danger:

If neither of these makes you want to read even one short story from either of these authors, well buddy, you're on the wrong end of the internets.

Let's close this catch-up post with a bit of music appropriate to the topic. Windand formed in 2009, a five-piece playing stoner/doom metal with a real gift for atmosphere and bluster. The quintet wields dynamics for more than just sonic impact, with a gift for shading and mood that falls from the grasp of many bands working in those genres.

Their latest album Soma, was released nearly a year ago. And now there's a video for the song "Orchard." The visuals work well with the song, and demonstrate a great re-purposing of (what we assume is) public domain footage with newly photographed sequences. Let's get eerie:

WINDHAND - "Orchard" (Official Video) from Relapse Records on Vimeo.


[Editor's note: We're trying to track down the names of the artists who painted those book covers. If we can find them, we'll give credit.]

Moar Boar

Aldershot, UK sludge trio XII Boar put out another four-song E.P. in 2012 that we didn't mention. So go give Split Tongue, Cloven Hoof a spin and if you want it with you all the time, cough up some cash and download it asap.

(For posterity: "Triclops" thunders across the stereo, a mythic, massive beast of a song that makes us want to ride a dinosaur down the interstate, crushing all puny automobiles in our way.)

If anything, since we last mentioned XII Boar, the trio has gotten faster and noisier. And a self-aware sense of comedy has surfaced.

Witness the silly video they made for new single "Truck Stop Baby." In it, XII Boar sing the praises of a particular woman who offers services at a roadside stop for long-haul drivers who need to, er, relax. It's comes off like David Allan Coe reinterpreting Golden Earring.

What's far more interesting to The Typing Monkey is the b-side to the new single: A slower, (almost) softer reworking of "Train Wreck" from their debut E.P. XII.

XII Boar's groove-oriented riffery -- always a little peppier than your average stoner metal, let alone doom -- got pushed aside in the original take of "Train Wreck." As if to embody its title, the original recording barreled ahead at hardcore speed, a hairy, unstoppable song that should absolutely soundtrack a bar fight in a 1970s bike movie.

The newer version, parenthetically identified as a "(Slight Return)" gets somehow more biker-like, the kind of tune that gets posted on YouTube as a forgotten gem of the proto-metal variety. It's crank-blues that make lesser humans feel dirty. We're still chewing and digesting, and for now, prefer the pummeling original. 

That said, it's always compelling when a band re-interprets its own material. Lend an ear:

"Train Wreck"

"Train Wreck (Slight Return)"

Free Music: Aleph Null

Heavy metal has more subgenres than any reasonable person can keep up with. Tastes at The Typing Monkey offices skew toward the blues-based stuff from the '70s, the NWOBHM, and the nearly self-explanatory genres: doom, stoner and sludge.

It's within those last three that Düsseldorf, Germany trio Aleph Null operate. The trio can blast out riffs heavier than a bison's balls during mating season -- the classic Black Sabbath devil's chord blooze that's been the cornerstone of metal since the 1970s. And they can pull it all back to fuzzy, lingering drones that build the kind of tension that is a hallmark of doom metal. Throw in the shredded, grunge-style vocals and kids, you've got a winner.

We call your attention to Aleph Null not only because they're a good band with a strong sense of dynamics and mood, but because so far, every recording they've made is offered up for free download via their Bandcamp site. And their new LP Nocturnal is a bruiser.

If you're doom/stoner/sludge-curious, you can't beat free, and Aleph Null isn't a bad place to start. Play "Black Winged Cherub" for a taste:


We admit that Nocturnal didn't bowl us over as immediately as their previous EP Belladonna (2013). The four tracks on that collection sound looser and a little more cosmic to our ears. Check out "Solar Sail" to hear the contrast:


If you like what you hear, Aleph Null says download it, people, for this music is like Jesus' love. It is ours to accept. And if this sort of brain-melting sound pleases you, enjoy your wanderings around the Web to seek out more of the same. Many doom/stoner/sludge metal bands offer "pay what you can" downloads, so do that. And buy a t-shirt.

Stonerobixx and Doommantia, are two great websites dedicated to these subgenres. And we'd be remiss not to mention the late, great Cosmic Hearse blog, our gateway into most of this stuff.

Parkland Spawned a Monster

Aw yiss!




Shameless? Yes. Proud? Damn straight. Even some upstart music blog is pretending like they knew about this.

Dip Your Bowl Into the Cosmic Cauldron

We don't know a whole lot about the blog The Ghost of the Weed Garden, and we like it that way.

The person or people behind it go by an owlish tag that looks like this: {{{{o\/o}}}}

As you might imagine, that anonymity delights us.

On the site are music mixes  you can stream or download, scanned artwork from the covers of horror, fantasy and science fiction paperbacks, as well as covers from cryptic, sometimes self-published looking books on magick, philosophy and other occult oddities.

Honestly, it's the sort of stuff that would have made a much younger Typing Monkey freak out and think about church.

The most recent music mix posted on Weed Garden is titled "Cosmic Cauldron." And as the site itself says, it's packed top to bottom with "Psychedelic, Acid Folk, Kosmische, Electronic, Occult, [and] Haunted VHS."

We spun it today and it fit the sunny autumn afternoon just right. As the evening brought chilling fog, "Cosmic Cauldron" swirled with creepy acid folk, devilish weirdness and a few good dabs of resin-smeared psych.

Have fun.

O is for October

O is also for "oh."

As in: "Mom, do you think the United States will crumble under the weight of its own stupidity?"
"Oh, probably."

Things are getting scary. Also, Halloween will soon be upon us and as our regular reader knows, that means the arrival of this, our 6th annual Typing Monkey Halloween Frenzy.

We'll do our best during the next four weeks to show you cool pictures, videos, links to good reads and other fun stuff. ("Uh, how is different from what you normally do?") Because it will all be Halloween themed stuff, that's how. Geez!

Get yourself a cup of something, grab a donut, and enjoy this mash-up from Go Home Productions, still the best mash-up DJ around. He made a video for this one, and it's gone from his YouTube channel, but some enterprising young person called kliz9 posted it again.


Hurry! You'll miss your bus!

Strange Romantic Airs

Back in 2003, the Detroit-based baroque-pop band Pas/Cal released an EP called The Handbag Memoirs.

Contained within that six-song goldmine is a tune that still feels like the first bike ride of summer break, when the shackles of education have been loosed and you feel truly free to spend the few precious weeks ahead of you having as much fun as possible before September creeps back and adulthood lurches ever closer.

If you've not heard "The Bronzed Beach Boys of Summer (C'mon Let's Go)" you can remedy that now. And if you enjoy it, Pas/Cal offers it free to download:



Pas/Cal is no more, but their excellent music lives on via Bandcamp. If you like what you hear, listen, purchase and enjoy.

Let's Get Weird

Black Heel Marks' debut long player Feel Free will be available for purchase on June 25. In the meantime, stream the whole thing here.

"Somebody would come looking for the Death master tapes"

This looks like a fun ride, in the classic story arc of "band more influential than famous gets rediscovered by a world finally ready for their music."



A Band Called Death is available now via various on-demand and download services, but it's also coming to various big screens.

We'd have made plans to see this movie anyway, but thanks to the crate-digging work of Rich at The Day After the Sabbath, we knew a bit about this band and can't wait to learn more.

The Mothership Is Getting Crowded

Cordell "Boogie" Mosson died on April 18, 2013. News of the P-Funk bassist's death didn't circulate as fast as it might have, given that he died during a week where the news was concerned with bigger stories.

That does not diminish his passing. Mosson played bass for the legendary funk collective, taking over the low end when Bootsy Collins left to pursue a solo career. But Mosson was, by all accounts, equally adept at drums and rhythm guitar.

One sad day, the Mothership will be operating with a full crew again, in some other galaxy, and our loss will be that other world's gain.

Greta's Stacks of Wax

Writer/director/producer Allison Anders went to an auction where the items sold were once the personal belongings of legendary actor Greta Garbo. She bid on, and won, Garbo's record collection.

Anders did the smart thing: She started a blog about it. She plays a record and talks about the record. It's elegant and fun.

Go there now and read it.

Came the Dawn

January 1 is an arbitrary marker. If you're using it to signal a planned change in your life, a point at which to start or stop something, The Typing Monkey hopes you succeed.

Please turn your attention now to this video of Iron Maiden (Paul Di'Anno era) performing "Running Free" on the BBC program, Top of the Pops. Please note that they are playing live, a rarity on a show, where most musicians pantomimed to their studio-recorded hit.


[courtesy of dopewackshit -- yes, really]

Have a good year.

Norton!

Perhaps you missed the news about a "Frankenstorm" called Sandy that slammed into the Eastern Seaboard just before Halloween, leaving unavoidable destruction of the natural disaster sort.

As residents of New Jersey, New York, et al. clean up and assess damage, the staff at Norton Records found that their Brooklyn warehouse took quite a bit of water damage.

There are few things that make us sadder than books and records (CDs, LPs, 45s and such) being destroyed. And Norton does good work, providing new and re-issued music that concentrates on the r&b, soul, early rock, surf, garage, jump blues and general outsider tunes from the first half of the 20th century. They've also been re-issuing obscure pulp paperbacks too, which you can imagine got us all in a dither.

Norton's staff is still cleaning up the mess, but when they're done, help 'em out by buying something. The wheels of Capitalism are greased with your hard-earned dough, so you might as well grease the wheels you like, no?

Blastissimo

We could talk about the English band Angel Witch and how they were part of the NWOBHM but were often unfairly derided as a Sabbath knock-off, when to our ears they have much more in common with Sweet, Queen and early Def Leppard.

Or we could discuss them reassembling to tour and even put out a record of new material this year, As Above, So Below, that defies typical "we're gettin' the band back together" disappointment by being really quite good.

But instead we'll just show you this picture of [roadies?] unloading a speaker that's part of their stage set-up:

Giddyup.

Happy Halloween, punkins

Ooh baby. This song gets a lot of play at TMI headquarters, but it's never more appropriate than on Halloween. The vintage radio-drama organ stabs and shocks, eerie sirens call in the distance as the drums clap thunder to keep you awake long after dark. And Mr. Cave spins a deep baritone tale of Southern Gothic dread, dropping Robert E. Howard horror into the modern age. Ice. Cold.

I Love You Anyhow

This live performance of "I Put a Spell On You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins jettisons the baritone sax that filths up the 1956 studio recording replacing it with a carnival-esque organ and Duane Eddy guitar.

That change takes away the nudie-mag bomp of the original but cranks up the song's late show histrionics.

Hawkins' woody baritone sounds great and his stage performance -- how we wish we'd been around to see the man at full power.

Now get yer creep on:

[courtesy of nedalivzjatmojnik]

Why didn't he ever host The Muppet Show?

"... every sort of filth."

Dig this fan-made video for "Wizard in Black" by doom-metal legends Electric Wizard. It's eight minutes of punishing, bleak guitar fuzz and brontosaurus beats with Lovecraftian lyrics rasped for maximum effect. And that's just the music.

To accompany this crucial cut from the band's Come My Fanatics... LP is a series of horror film clips of corpses rising from their graves, ostensibly coming to tell you to turn down the goddamned noise and put the bong down because you have work tomorrow. Or maybe they just want braaaiins.



And if you want to know which films were used by the video creator, "thofilo13," here's a list straight from the source:

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974); City of the Living Dead (1980); The Plague of the Zombies (1966); Tales from the Crypt (1972); Zombi (1979) The Beyond (1981) Return of the Living Dead Part 2 (1988).

Gruesome!

A Fellow of the Fuzzy Sort

Summer break is over, mostly because we ran out of rum and some jerk from accounting couldn't hold his liquor. His negligence resulted in a band of raccoons getting all the hollowed-out pineapples we'd been drinking from.

To ease back into the grind, and let this hangover fade, enjoy the fun video from an album we reviewed.


Françoiz Breut - "Nébuleux Bonhomme" from charlie mars on Vimeo.

"can't hold one stick ..."

Buddy Rich played drums. That's an understatement, but also true. Like us, some of our readers may have learned who he was by his appearance on The Muppet Show.

Surely Rich had many great stories to tell about his glorious career redefining how musicians could play the trap kit. But it's just as likely many who met and worked with him have their own stories to tell about Mr. Rich.

One of those is the equally legendary music promoter Bill Graham, who, in his autobiography, My Life Inside Rock and Out, shares a real doozy about convincing Rich to bring his jazz band to San Francisco to play for a bunch of kids raised on rock & roll.

It's a wondefully foul-mouthed tale of bridging the generation gap via grudge-drumming. Read it here.

Rim shot to Cover Me for the link.

Q: What do you want to do with your life?

A: I wanna rawk! (And then tidy up the place and steam-clean the carpets after I'm finished.)