The Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal Record by N.N. Sukhanov by Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov, Joel Carmichael It’s incredible to believe that it’s been 100 years since the Russian Revolution: the Ten Days that Shook the World as Jack Reid called them. It begun one of the greatest social experiments in humanity and now, 100 years later, having “failed,” it’s still subject to in depth analysis, what it accomplished, where it fell short, and what we can learn from it. Probably...
Dance of Reality Blu-ray (Abkco) I’m not sure what made Jodorowsky abandon movie making for 23 years, but it’s certain that the world lost one of its most unique filmmakers in the process. It might have been the monumental task of trying to get a Topo sequel financed, and maybe Jodorowsky was finally disillusioned with filmmaking, but the man certainly stayed productive during those years, writing books and comics galore. However, it’s no surprise that such a passionate filmmaker would...
Toasting the XX Factor – The Aging Punk Looks At How More Women Are Taking Up The Axe To Save Rock N’ Roll. I recently went to a show featuring one of my favorite local bands. There were three bands on the bill in total; I walked into the bar in the middle of the first band’s set. I was disappointed to see that it consisted of all guys. Not that I have anything against male musicians, but right now...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Sleeping Through The War LP by All Them Witches. They might not actually be from the desert (in fact they’re from Nashville, TN), but that doesn’t mean All Them Witches haven’t channelled the heat, aridity and all the weirdness normally associated such a landscape and front-loaded it onto their fourth full-length album, Sleeping Through The War. This time though, no introductions get made (none are really necessary – the band had...
The Gun Club Fire of Love (Porterhouse Reissue) If you’re serious about your music you know that listening to it can be one of two things: pleasure or homework. There are those times when you listen to music purely for pleasure: a new band you’ve heard of, or an old record you want to revisit. Other times, listening to music takes the form of homework: there are these gaps in your knowledge that need filling, or a reference you need...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Good Night Tomorrow LP by NEEDLES//PINS. Such occurrences are rare, but sometimes all the tumblers align and a band doesn’t just produce the best damned music of its career, that music happens to get released in just the right place at the right time that the music catches a large amount of attention. There are too many variables at work to try and plan something like that; it pretty much has...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Unclean 7” by Tough Age. After they’ve gone through all three songs which comprise Tough Age’s new Unclean 7”, listeners may find that they need to take a moment and collect themselves – I certainly did. I needed to step back and collect myself because I had no particular desire to just spill ink and compliments all over a page; true, all three songs are great and effortlessly called out the...
The Lawnmower Man How do you think a nerdy high school teen in the 90s would have processed a movie like the Lawnmower man when he first saw it? Let alone one that was literally living on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Even American TV was a novelty for us as we had just gotten cable. The internet wasn’t even a thing and most of us didn’t own a computer. But then a movie like...
The Paul Naschy Collection Shout! Factory Every now and then, a movie falls on your lap that charms the pants off you. This time it was five movies. Not having known a single thing about Paul Naschy, I really didn’t know what I was getting into when checking out this collection. But boy, am I glad I did. What you’re getting with Paul Naschy movies are visceral, low budget, and very interesting horror flicks. It’s not for nothing that he’s...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of the Labyrinth soundtrack by David Bowie and Trevor Jones. While his career was characterized by no small number of unusual events, arguably the greatest concentration of weirdness about David Bowie’s career can be found in the 1980s. Within those ten fateful years, Bowie released albums which have come to be regarded as some of his finest (Let’s Dance was the album which broke the singer into the Top...