Announcing a new partnership with Ripple Music, helmed by two of the most righteous brothers in the music world to bring you “Unearthed Metal by Ray Van Horn, Jr.” The first installment being a side interview I did with Lita Ford in 2012 following my 2009 chat with her for Dee Snider’s House of Hair Online. Here, Lita dished me a generous portion of her memories as a Runaway.
In my time covering music, I interviewed hundreds of musicians. Yet I have an archive of lost footage for projects that fell through the cracks or other writers beat me to the punch on my ideas. I owe it to those people who generously gave me their time to let their voices be heard.
Todd and John are two of my longest friends in the industry, and what they’ve done with their label, website and one-time podcast has been the go-to example of how you do it indie-style. Todd approached me with this idea and I’m delighted to bring you some rad interviews I know you’ll dig.
Hope you all had a wonderful three-day weekend if that applied. TJ and I had one of best extended weekends in ages, especially getting out on two new trails for us.
Our hike yesterday at gorgeous Cromwell Valley Park turned up some spectacular sights like blossomed mushrooms, unearthed quartz and vibrant moss. Fairy realms, if you’re esoteric.
Also if you’re esoteric, you’ll trip on what TJ spotted at the base of a tree on one of the furthest plotted trails. A keyhole in the moss. This being a suggestive portal toward rooted magick.
The boyo simply won’t have it with pictures these days unless it’s a serious occasion, so this will have to suffice in place of the annual back to school photos. 11th grade! How in the world is that even possible? Junior year of high school for me in 1987 was one of the finest and happiest of my entire life.
The friends, the girlfriend, Weightlifting class, which was a hugely transformative moment in my life as you may have read in my book, “Revolution Calling.” The cool teachers, the music that filled our ears, yeah, even working at Super Thrift. This is the year my writing teachers (Paul Day and Steve Hollands, I’m looking at you) saw something in me and brought out the best in me, making me read everything I wrote in front of the class. I owe those guys so much.
At the mall, at the movies, concerts, hiking trails, cruising around 140 shopping center all night until the cops chased everyone away then the whole silly swing reformed 15 minutes later. METAL! Lots and lots of heavy metal. Making out, making mischief, swapping my Van Halen cassette tape for the Spanish tutorial in Senora Kirchensteiner’s class. Three or four man mosh pits. Bridging with the punk rockers and becoming a united force. All the ladies who sought my counsel since I carried an empathetic ear. All the horror freaks like me who flooded the cinema together. God, the 80s ruled.
My kid often wishes he could visit the 80s as much as he’s content to do his own quiet thing, now working part-time himself and no doubt happy to have people his own age to talk to instead of bickering with us old farts all summer long. I look at today’s generation and try to avoid that fossil view we all tend to have looking at those who come after us, hoping they will carve out their lives and their own bittersweet memories, shaking our heads at their ongoing apathy. It’s the vicious cycle.
Bro, may you have an incredible 11th grade as you pre-enlist for your future in the Army. You’re an absolute punk, but you’re so loved. Senior year is only the corner!
From my open mike days a lifetime ago, here’s a ditty I spoke numerous times. Initially catching my audience off-guard, it became one of my more requested pieces down the road.
I can’t find the actual picture from Canyon de Chelly in Arizona that inspired this poem where a formation in the crags looks hauntedly like a demon’s scowl. The Chelly is reported to be haunted, so hopefully that serves enough as a primer for you.
Demon in the Chelly
Ray Van Horn, Jr.
maybe it was Pezazu
that puke-inducing hellraiser from The Exorcist
maybe it was Lilith
compulsory guardian of this craggy wasteland
or maybe it was that tetchy pile of rubble
Rockbiter from The Never-Ending Story
but I assure you
as much as I know Kansas is flatter than hours-poured beer
there’s a demon in that otherwise impenetrable canyon
the wraith’s been shacked up there for centuries
I can tell by its stories-high,
wind-worn and perpetually pissed-off countenance
snarling an ecological caveat
to anyone spotting it amidst the majesty of the baking gorge it calls home
it likely devoured cowboys and Mennonites
before the Navajo chased the former into California, the latter into Pennsylvania
these days it likely inhales parasailers and climbers
and snacks on thunderbird-enamored tourists
invading outer rim reservations with soul-stealing digital clicks
freshening up at pueblo-styled chain hotels Custer would’ve found novel
and strapping on newly-purchased Canyon de Chelly souvenir shirts
suburbanerds straining their sedans into the steep gangways of sandstone chapels
genuflecting amongst the coyotes, antelope and scrub jays
and peeling off wonderstruck utterances such as
“Behold, the amazing work of God!”
while the demon, imprisoned within its coulee cell
takes iniquitous exception
and whistles odium down the barren chasms below
like the dubiously merged soundtrack
to a spaghetti western-meets-slasher film
it flosses its entrenched boulder teeth with rattlers
and it coughs up tarantulas
always parched amidst the choking aridness of its containment
with far-flung cactus juice ridiculing it from the ravine floor
woe be the unsuspecting American traveler
drifting by in steel wagons robed in travel-cracked bumper stickers
It’s coming in a few months. Behind the Shadows. 10 throwback styled tales of terror culling my love of Stephen King, horror comics, Bram Stoker, The Twilight Zone, Saturday night horror flick hosts, punk and Heavy Metal fantasy mag.
The advance reviews to be used in the book have exceeded my hopes. Blown me the hell away, to be honest. The accolades, much less the names giving the glowing testimonials. I am deeply humbled, and I’m not just blowing smoke.
Matt Slay’s cover art is final and what he cooked up for me had me shrieking ” Squeeeeeee!!!” Y’all are going to love this thing.
Behind the Shadows, coming soon from Raw Earth Ink. This time, I REALLY mean business.
Have you seen the new Alien: Romulus? If not, you oughtta! We just got back from seeing the seventh film in the franchise (not including the two meh Alien vs. Predator films) and I can’t rave enough about the new movie bringing back the tension and horror elements of the 1979 original, homaging it and the 1986 sequel, Aliens. Director Fede Álvarez puts his own stamp on a franchise that lost its steam with noble intentions in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, ignoring the awkward Alien: Resurrection and the snooze fest that was Alien 3.
Romulus is balls-to-the wall with a two-year connection to Ridley Scott’s game changing 1979 original, as a new crew of misfits stumble into the wreckage of the U.S.S. Nostramo from Alien and gets far more than they bargain for. It pleased me to see Scott acting as producer to this one and keeping it old school, I’m spinning the CD soundtrack of the late Jerry Goldmith’s magnificent score to the first Alien with James Horner’s clatter-filled backing to Aliens on deck. Benjamin Wallfisch (whose collab with legendary composer Hans Zimmer in Blade Runner 2049 is one of my therapy scores) took the musical duties for Romulus, and you can hear nods to Goldsmith in Romulus with screeching guitars heightening the climactic points. I shelled out extra for Cinemark’s XD theater, banking on the experience I was promised by reputable friends, and what a fragging show, in sight and sound.
Heralding the original Alien, I found this old newspaper ad using an outmoded phrase for movies up through the 1990s for movies outrunning their intended release course: “Held Over.”
As it implies, “Held Over” means the theaters across the nation booked extra running times with Hollywood studios for movies continuing to bring viewers in by word-of-mouth. Keeping in mind mainstream cinema back in the day had half the releases of today’s market. Anything with sales power today making it three weeks being considered a profit.
By 1970s and 80s standards, three weeks out there spelled a blockbuster to be “held over” an extra week or two to capitalize on the public interest, despite VCRs and cable t.v. beginning a future trend of at-home movie viewing. Don’t get me started on streaming; I have six subscriptions because that’s just the way of it. This despite my wife and kid being more than willing participants to actual movies. You just can’t beat it. The fact an indie horror film like Longlegs with a super-creepy performance by Nicolas Cage hung around theaters for five weeks (I caught it on the final day before it vanished) speaks loudly of its appeal in this streaming culture we’ve found ourselves in as a movie audience.
A terrifying visual spectacle like Alien was a monster kick in the nards of space epics, considering the first Star Wars in 1977 was one of the longest held over movies of all-time, returning for a second engagement a year later. 1979’s Alien is still a terrifying movie all these years later and thank the gods Fede Álvarez chose to drop his new entry into the tailspin of Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece. Romulus is thus validated by attrition. The fact it wastes no time trying to curry your favor to a Ripley-stripped cast and drop them into a familiar if fascinating new terror zone speaks of why Romulus may be held over an extra week or two in its own right.
In space, no one can hear you scream. Unless you’re Isabela Merced as Kay in Alien: Romulus. Even the rings of Saturn were shredded by her piercing shrill.
Wow, this thing’s a decade old already! When I first got into music journalism, I started by covering electronic music, then known as techno. Also, by its varied subcategories rave, ambient, darkwave, trip-hop, trance and chill, the latter still being a thing with a pop modification of what it used to be. Now the whole enchilada falls under the all-encompassing, more mainstream term EDM, as in electronic dance music.
That being said, I was a techno junkie back in the Nineties and did my fair share of raving and grinding in my old life. Somehow, Canadian electro hipster Deadmau5 eluded my radar for a long time. I became aware of him at the same time as Marshmello, two vogue electronic artists wearing zany headwear behind the turntables. I warmed up to Deadmau5, since he began to evolve and explore.
I’ll stop there, since you can probably scroll way back and find my spiel on Deadmau5 from an old Video Jukebox post. This mindlessly addictive hip shaker, “Petting Zoo,” was a bonus track from the While(1<2) album from 2014. Assuming you bought the Best Buy special edition when they still bothered sponsoring, much less stocking CDs.
All the years my son has held us hostage watching his video games, it was Goat Simulator when I actually pulled my slackened legs up horizontally toward my butt and dialed in once the boyo scooched his natty, leaping, butting, flopping and crashing goat avatar up an elevator to a rooftop house party. DJ’d by none other than a CGI animated Deadmau5, making his appearance, pumping a fist and leading a zombie-like set of dancing clones pumping along to “Petting Zoo.” My kid would get slightly miffed when I’d ask him to go get a drink or a snack so I could stupidly groove to this cut. He caught on quickly, but being a good son (and smart, since he figured on how to keep me there watching), he would always make time to drop into the Deadmau5 zone and give me my fix.
It’s just a goofy, thumping neo-disco spool I couldn’t get enough of, even on a purposefully numbing repetitive loop. When I saw the “Petting Zoo” added version of While(1<2) available at Ebay for a decent price that’s been marked up triple since I got it, I didn’t hesitate. I was already enough of a fan of Joel Thomas Zimmerman to sink the funds and complete his catalog. Ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-ba-baaaaaa…
Roads Lesser Traveled 