biweekly newsletter listing all the music, movies, books, and, TV I, mike, have experienced for the first time over the past two weeks and also the things I have thought about them. again, I am mike
2021 releases
full of hell, garden of burning apparitions spooky szn and nasty szn falling on the same month this year I see. only other FOH release I’ve heard is the one with merzbow, did they include ‘derelict satellite’ on this album to show they don’t need him? feel like I could describe this band as ‘goopy’ and you’d know what I meant. like the vocals sound the way this guy looks
low, HEY WHAT album’s called ‘HEY WHAT’ because every time a new song comes on with its new weird sounds you’re like ‘HEY WHAT.’ first low album for me and now I feel like I need to listen to all 12 that came before it to find out how tf they got here, to whatever you call this, from conventional slowcore. album feels like a really good modern art exhibit in that the art itself is cool but I feel very annoying for being here
militarie gun, all roads lead to the gun II this country’s got a real gun problem (militarie, westside, machine kelly). haven’t heard the first ARL2tG, hope there are no spoilers here. generally prefer regional justice center, tho I don’t see that band’s account leaving funny comments on youtube videos. sick and tired of people being afraid to admit that this is just the hives, and that that is ok
tech level 2, depths EP (1999-2003) scene: you see me wearing all black with my hood up in a dark room illuminated only by a computer screen pounding out code so fast you’re certain I’m moments away from forcing my way into the mainframe. camera quickly pans to a stationary position over my shoulder and slowly zooms to show I’m 15 pages deep in a g doc typing out the line ‘all work and no play makes H4CK3RM1K3 a dull boy.’ jesu guy doing jungle/darkstep. honestly feel like this could be my favorite album of 2021, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, and 1999. why is no one’s favorite album of the year ever something cool like this
yon, order of violence entering the world of heavy german rock music that is not black metal…..I can only assume this is what rammstein sounds like? post-rock, I guess, with the reckless vox of screamo and bass that’s prominently doing that thing where it’s like ‘dunn-dun-dun-dun-dunnn.’ I am so intimidated by the fact that I get an email nearly every day from zegema beach containing a new release of this caliber
older releases
moodie black, lucas acid (2018) s/t EP was perfect, nausea was perfect, took a step back from this group for a sec because I found out about dalek but am pleased to report that (a) MB does not rip those guys off and (b) MB, imo, do dalek stuff better than dalek. continuation of their cool end of the world ass industrial noise beats and spaghetti-western guitar and absolutely demented raps with the added lyrical element of k’s coming out as trans (also there’s some screamo vox lmao). album cover makes it look like they’re about to tour with FIDLAR but otherwise perfect release
nine of swords, nine of swords (2013) hardcore punk album about all the extreme weather conditions mailmen have to deal with. you may call this screamo but please don’t call it riot grrrl. album cover makes it look like they’re about to tour with thou, which would be ideal. damn very scream-y two weeks huh
movies
animal factory dir. steve buscemi (2000) tired: m^rk k°zal*k cameoing in that dumb kirk cameron movie about rock bands or whatever; wired: ANOHNI performing for dan trejo and skinhead bill dafoe in a weird steve buscemi prison film from the same year. really just one of those movies where a bunch of guys in prison go around talking to each other, only this one features ed furlong squinting a bunch, mick rourke in drag, the concerned dad from home alone as Concerned Dad, and an extremely john lurie score. felt like there was a point to this movie in the very beginning—sending a middle class white kid to prison for drug possession as a public display during an election year—but that immediately got lost in the shuffle of uh worrying this was a movie about grooming. honestly can’t believe buscemi had the guts to cast himself and his brother who looks shockingly like him without thinking the audience would wonder why there are two completely separate guys that look like steve buscemi
control dir. anton corbijn (2007) movie about a guy who liked to do jaunty little marches when he sang. this type of biopic is so weird…..like just because the guy in your movie happens to be the guy from joy division doesn’t make that stupid love triangle plot about a guy seeing two women and ruining both of their lives interesting. kept asking myself who this movie was supposed to be for (it doesn’t paint a particularly sympathetic portrait of ian) until I remembered it was meticulously curated for tumblr screencaps (is anyone writing about the period of movies from like 2004 to 2013 about mopey teens which feature establishing shots of bookcases and poster-covered walls and record collections, and which purposefully sync their most existential dialogue with particularly artful shots?). you know what chekov said about a screening of woyzeck in the final act. ‘she’s lost control’ was my excuse for watching this. like my wife lost the remote control
the iron giant dir. brad bird (1999) movie about a kid in the ’50s learning that communism is entirely harmless on his own because it’s the ’50s and his school and his parents and his community are hysterically anti-commie and not, as I’d suspected, a movie about what I become when I take my daily multivitamin. doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the only person the kid can talk to about the giant is the town beatnik, or that if you act absolutely moronically at the giant it will literally nuke you (‘iron giant’ also sounds like a slangier ‘iron curtain,’ no?). add all this to the scenes of blood and pooping and the frasier dad yelling about blowing stuff out of his butt….disney would never. I relate to nothing more than the scene where chris mcdonald’s character shrieks ‘screw our country, I wanna live,’ hops in a jeep, drives straight into a wall, and dies (??)
the net dir. irwin winkler (1995) cautionary tale about going on the internet literally ever. within the span of a year I talked to someone over the phone for an extended period of time who scrubbed my computer of a virus which, in retrospect, I believe they put on there in the first place; had a fairly personal email correspondence with a property owner for about a month who I realized was running an unbelievably complex scam before renting from them; got tangled up with someone in my neighborhood who somehow managed to cross my phone line with a nearby apartment buzzer system after sending me vaguely threatening voicemails because I was parking a car I was trying to sell—one which mysteriously had a slashed tire, which AAA confirmed was the result of a literal machete—on his street, all despite having, like $8 in my account during this period. yes this movie feels extremely susceptible to being rifftracked from the opening scene, but it still got under my skin bro. still wish sandy’d ended up with the malicious hacker instead of falling for the republican
snatch dir. guy ritchie (2000) all I knew about this movie going in was that one time the worst roommate I’ve ever had discovered, watched, and live-reacted to it on his laptop in our living room with his shirt off while we were trying to watch something else. hyperlink cinema somehow devoid of a single female character in the ensemble cast. jason statham does an un-stathomly minimal amount of violence, there’s a guy who looks a lot like jamie from xiu xiu, brad pitt wears the stupidest hat I have ever seen in my entire life, there are some other guys, idk. exact movie my mom was trying to protect me from when she wouldn’t let me watch fight club in high school due to its ‘senseless violence’ (she was wrong of course: that was ‘sensible but extremely stupid, regardless, violence’). only takeaway from this movie is that sometimes brits call balls ‘jacobs’? nothing worse than a movie that thinks it has a sense of humor. nothing except brad pitt’s stupid fucking hat I mean
TV
the sopranos season 2 (2000) s2 selling points: the introduction of a character from the everybody loves ray universe and, additionally, the revelation of the name ‘barone’ as a family the soprano crew does business with; an episode-length sideplot that is a very tidy summation of the show barry; an answer to the important question of ‘who serves as therapist to the therapist?’ (pete bogdanovich, for some reason??). less about generational differences than the first season, more about unavoidable pop cultural touchstones of the era like memoirs of a geisha, chicken soup for the soul, and pokemon cards. keep thinking of the episode of arthur where one of the characters accidentally writes a short story with absolutely zero conflict as I’m futilely waiting until tony learns to stop being so rude. how alarming would it be to the people in my life if I became a guy who’s just constantly smashing enormous stogies