I can hardly see to type through filthy glasses (a summertime affliction), but I'd have to say this week's Noise Bliss-Out #6 (linked through the capture above) was an unqualified success. Why? Because not only did I fold a mere 14 selections into a three-hour program, but in addition, Unsustainable Social Condition's "Barricade Coercion" earned us the unimaginative, tried-often-but-not-true "this is not music" comment. Oh, if only I had a hundred bucks for every time a listener's limited expectations led them to say that!
Listeners really seem to enjoy the Noise Bliss-Outs, and well of course, I do as well; it's quality immersion, great for the head, and from my DJ's chair, it's "working smart, not hard." Below are links to every other NB-O My Castle of Quiet program thus far, for your crunchy enjoyment:
Atop our playlist, the talented, gorgeous (and so often cast in deliciously grotesque roles) Béatrice Dalle. A bit more on the film depicted, Trouble Every Day, and the actor's outrageous personal legend, here.
Back next week with more mayhem. Thanks for listening, enjoying, and for your robust dialogue on our playlist comments....
Someone recently referred to My Castle of Quiet as a "legendary" program; I mention this because going back, reviewing and assessing my accomplishments, and the history thereof, is something I don't really do. I do enjoy a comment like that, of course, but quietly. It's not as if praise or support or sincere appreciation of what I do, both on and off the radio (as with the Prison Tatt Records label) is something I don't soak up like a Brawny towel, I do indeed, though I am most often stymied for a personal response of any kind. Praise makes me look at the floor and go silent and not know what to say. Which brings me to the Rise William Rise digital collection on Opposite Records.
Some of you may know that I suffered a stroke late last year, and/or that a host of other health issues were unleashed by that incident. The whole house of cards of my health came crashing down in one day. Since then, I've had short-term kidney failure, upper & lower back pain and numbness, trouble holding my head upright, chronic hiccups, and worst of all, ongoing gastrointestinal issues that led to surgery just over one month ago. I'm very much on the mend from most of this now, but there were multiple hospital stays, a crazy amount of tests, and so much blood extracted from me that I could have stocked a Harassor tour.
Shortly after my first hospital stay, Don Sigal, longtime friend and supporter of my My Castle... and Prison Tatt Records, organized and compiled a benefit compilation to help with my medical expenses, and the contributors' list honored and moved me in a way that's so personal, I won't even attempt to describe how I felt. Contributions from good friends, many of whom have been live performers on the show, and/or artists whose music has been featured, even celebrated on the program, add up to a very satisfying compendium of sound art/rock-noise/what have you—a great compilation that I'd like and promote even if its purpose was not to benefit me personally in a time of poor health and unanticipated financial stress.
You can view the contributors and track list, and stream the collection in its entirely here, and I'll embed the bc player below, just to make it easy for all. I'm somewhat restricted, by WFMU's not-for-profit norms, from drawing special attention to the release, a perhaps unfortunate catch-22, though both playing the occasional selection, and promoting/encouraging listeners to buy via the Web are within my prerogative, and most importantly, I'll say again that it's a compilation I'd enjoy and purchase regardless of whether or not it was created in my name. Special accolades to Don, who not only seized upon the most-appropriate title, but also grabbed an image from Beyond The Living, aka Nurse Sherri for the cover (the film that supplies most of the audio for MCoQ's much-beloved weekly show-opening.) I'm humbled, and send tremendous gratitude and love to all involved.
Now, the best movie I watched this past week, perhaps in months, is The Wailing, an anything-goes South-Korean horror epic from the director of the great The Chaser (an absolute classic among Korean thrillers); dark magic, horrid disease & death, demonic possession, occult & demonic forces at war, and one terrifying reanimated corpse (pictured up top) all feature in the crazy quilt of The Wailing's greatness. Click there, on our weekly screen capture, to stream this week's horrorcast in full.
Next week (maybe, still juggling ideas): Noise Bliss-Out #6
M. del Rio is a champion collector / archivist of black metal, and his visits as guest-DJ to My Castle of Quiet are always invigorating. This was visit number four, perhaps one of the most stimulating shows of Seed-Stockery; with artists that will send myself and listeners (one presumes) into weeks of research, hunting and Discogs purchasing.
Each of his mixtapes (and yes, these were actual mixtapes) was devoted to a different nation: Svensk, Norge, and Hellas, and though we ran out of time on the Greece tape, materials were left in my care, such that we'll be hearing selections from that one in the weeks to come on MCoQ.
Every song was essentially a "hit"—wild, creative and complex, a must for enthusiasts of the genre, though standouts included: Svartsyn, Arckanum, Wulkanaz, LIK, Azhubham Haani, Armagedda, Unpure (!), Sorhin, Helheim, Troll, Kvist, Virus, Legion of Doom... see that's nearly the entire playlist. And just look at the encapsulating rundown of black-metal tape and record sleeves! A heaven for the eyes, naturally for the hell-minded.
Can't thank M. and Ning Nong enough for stopping by; the on-air selections were prime, and the off-mic discussions also a treat for me, just to be in the company of those who have an "investment" in black metal, such that discussion-in-depth flows naturally.
Films that resonated strongly with me over the past week were L'autre Monde (English title Black Heaven), a film directed by the writer of two great French mind-fuck classics, Harry, He's Here To Help and Lemming; and Among The Living (Aux Yeux des vivants), a bloody, fast-paced horror thriller that nearly defies adequate description. Trailers below.
Thanks for listening and for your comments, back next week.
Anyone out there remember how I've said in the past, "once you care, you're fucked"? Well yeah, that ship has sailed—many times obviously—but this time, things are a bit different.
What I'm caring about this time is free speech, which has taken so many hard hits recently, you'd think it was married to Ike Turner. See, I think we can all agree that spousal abuse is not in the least bit funny, but my point here, in this context, and context is crucial, is that I have the right to make that joke, and you in turn have the right to chuckle at it, or not.
62% of American University campuses would really rather that you NOT have that choice, and that's where I'm headed here.
Harvard admissions are being rescinded over students' use of "offensive" memes; careers of ordinary people, and celebrities alike, are being forestalled or ruined outright—over words, written or spoken, simply because someone would prefer not to read or hear them. You have the choice, always, in a free society, to simply LOOK AWAY, or to use your free speech to publicly disagree. This is serious shit, and I could never have predicted, even 10 years ago, that these hits to our freedoms would come from the Left, that is to say, the collective social-media hive mind of the Liberal and Left-leaning, the so-called politically correct.
The rules against free expression of unpopular ideas, on the majority of college campuses, right now, are even more restrictive than outside of academia. This is the opposite of what I grew up believing, as a child of the 70s, because college was the place where critical thinking and free-spirited debate was not only supposed to happen, but widely encouraged. Higher education was where you tweaked your identity and began your path to adulthood, a "safe space" for all—feminists, Black Panthers, Communists, yes, but also the Young Conservatives, Randians, literally everyone...and no book open on your lap on the quad would be ever questioned, or even open to criticism, whether it was Mein Kampf or The Female Eunuch.
As someone who's been in broadcasting since 1984, I pay special attention to censorship, FCC rulings and the like, and I have always been hard-line anti-censorship, because I want to assume that the public is free, intelligent, and discerning enough to disseminate any and all information, be it written, spoken, or in the form of visual or performance art. Seek out the ideas you find relatable and palatable, and leave the rest, or even better—find people you disagree with, those who are saying what you don't want to hear, and engage them, in open, respectful debate.
People like to say nowadays that "1984 is happening right now," the problem with this notion usually for me is that it's automatically assumed that this control of what we say and ultimately think will come from the corridors of power, from government, from the idiot in charge, the Right wing essentially; but what we see happening now is individuals in our free society being bullied into apologizing and kowtowing to popular opinion—neither via regulation nor legislation—and many of us (myself included) are simply self-editing, so as to not lose friends, or have our livelihoods or creative pursuits questioned, boycotted or denied.
Make no mistake, this war on free speech is a tragic and urgent matter, and it's coming from places you might least expect, like Twitter and BuzzFeed. As Simpsons bartender Moe Szyslak once sang, "Sorry Marge, the mob has spoken." Indeed, the mob has spoken, and it does not want hear words, or see pictures, or experience your irreverence, lexicon and conditions notwithstanding. I for one am scared. Free speech, protected by law, is not being curtailed or limited by the authorities, but by every Dick and Jane with a social media account.
Rant over, but I implore you reading this to consider my words, and to not simply follow a narrative, but to truly and always be a free thinker, rather than a media parrot. Seek out those with opposing beliefs and opinions and humanize them.
I also did a radio show this week! Popular tracks came from Mortuary Drape | The Frogs | The Stranglers | The Dead Boys | Krieg | Devil Master | J. Soliday | Blank Spell | Nurse | Oven | Black Urn | Tony Conrad ... and special high marks to new work by Hatchers, my personal high point of the horrorcast™. You can stream the whole thing by clicking on our weekly still, this time from the elevated zombie trash of 1981's Burial Ground, known both for its simply awful, low-effort special effects, and for one very-memorable character, an underdeveloped manchild that just looks a whole lot like Mark E. Smith.
I return next week with a total blackout—our fourth guest-DJ visit from M. del Rio of Seed Stock Records, Raspberry Bulbs, et al. Should be a great time, as black as we ever get at My Castle of Quiet. For more information, to comment or join, please visit our Facebook event listing.
"We're calling to arms, and it's shields and swords people." —me
And if you don't have iron, make a torch, grab a pitchfork. Arguably, those who are driving the spaceship set the tone for the behavior of the crew at large, and all I see when I make the mistake of leaving the house is bad behavior. Tampons (used) on the ground in the parking lot; if that doesn't say (scream) "I don't give a fuck," what does? We have a Chief Executive who tweets utter nonsense at 3 a.m., unchecked by any staff or family, offending the global community daily, and that now-perpetual instability is empowering every idiot with a bad idea, a selective memory, and nothing positive to contribute. That's my real objection to Trump, the celebration of stupid and proud.
I try most often to make My Castle of Quiet a glory-filled, horror-movie fantasy escape, free of social politics or otherwise, but it just seems to get more difficult over time. The herd feeds on propaganda like McDonald's, their senses are dulled to the extreme but I'm sure they feel sharp; "fucking dumb" is to be celebrated, "ghosting" is the new etiquette, and even the good people are pulling inward, playing the "look at me and my problems" game at the expense of anyone else's real, non-social-media-shared feelings—it's the me, me, me generation, and even stepping outside, I check the bushes for personal slights.
Half a tear for Manchester, and right back to hobnobbing the complexity of midgets talking backward in the new Twin Peaks. Jim Morrison's "You're all a bunch of slaves!" from the ill-famed Miami concert comes quickly to mind. You're familiar with how the NRA aggressively campaigns in regions that have just experienced a mass shooting? That's how I see the cries of "Islamaphobia!" in the immediate wake of a terror attack. I'm only asking that if you truly consider yourselves to be Leftists, Socialists, collectivists, that you traverse in actual facts rather than follow the narrative. Not everything on the Left is right, not everything on the Right is wrong.
Also, I did a radio show this week...the horrorcast™ careens into summer, and listeners seem to be enjoying the less-predictable eclecticism of more-recent Castle playlists.
This week, we started off with electronic cinema scores from Goblin and Chris Burke, heard more from Angel Marcloid's Fire-Toolz, danced in YET MORE Butthole Surfers fetish territory, lapsing into mind-melt from new releases by Haare and Incapacitants. Later on, Anasazi, Drezden, The Stranglers ... holy aggression from Special Breed (M. del Rio, our guest DJ in two weeks, visit no. 4), Dauðyflin, Toxicology, Ancestors, and Psychic Limb, among many others. Our final noise-punch was made up of tracks from Stroker, Blood Rhythms, and an excerpt from the nothing-less-than-astounding new Peter Brötzmann-Heather Leigh.
Thanks for listening & partaking. Fighting the good fight against widespread stupid, I shall return next week.
