Song Of The Week: How Great Thou Art? Sensational Saints

Alabama soul group that adapted the main theme of Bill Withers "No Sunshine"  into something that mixes gospel, psych rock, doo wop, and Jamaican dub

How Great Thou Art By The Sensational Saints

Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Conrad Veidt.

Tune In Tuesday: Funeral Home

Young and easily frightened Heather (Lesleh Donaldson, Happy Birthday To Me) is called to stay with her grandmother in the hopes of helping her turn an old funeral home into a bed-and-breakfast. But strange happenings and unexplained murders around the home quickly make this vacation spot a “dead-and-breakfast.”

This one I had previously only seen on really murky VHS transfers, so while not jaw dropping, this blu ray is essential for the clean print alone. This was made before slasher tropes were set in stone, so it is better watched as a slow burn mystery with a pretty clever twist. The Audio Commentary with Film Historians Jason Pichonsky and Paul Corupe provide a wealth of background on this Canadian shot flick. Not a classic, but worth seeing especially in this cleaned up version.

Hardcore Rewind: TREE - A Lot to Fear by Zirp

Hardcore Rewind: 

TREE - A Lot to Fear

Boston may not be the hub of the universe, but it was the hub of one of the first wheels of hardcore punk. Over the decades that followed, it has consistently been a breeding ground for many, many great and highly influential punk rock and hardcore bands. If this is your type of music, you’re undoubtedly a fan of at least a few of them. You may think you know all of them, and maybe you do. Then again, there may be some you’ve been sleeping on all these years. Let’s take it back to 1993:

I was 8 years old, and still a good few years away from discovering punk/hardcore. While I was either getting on my 3rd grade teacher’s nerves at the Curtis Guild Elementary School or watching Beavis and Butt-head (I was definitely doing one or the other), some dude named Menino was doing whatever it was that he did, and a band called TREE were taking the hardcore scene of my very own city by storm. That was the year they dropped their debut album, A Lot to Fear. 

Despite the title of this piece, this is truthfully less of an album review or a retrospective, and more of a demand to listen to this album, and to then proceed to listen to the rest of their discography. Though certainly a hardcore band, they really were always so much more than just another hardcore band. Those RIFFS. That GROOVE. That EVERYTHING. 

If you’re from Boston/New England and you’re reading this, I have a strong feeling that I may be preaching to the choir. However, bafflingly, I have met a lot of locals over the years, my age and older, who love punk and hardcore, but have somehow never heard of TREE. I mean, what?! 

While they’ve been a beloved New England musical institution all these years, far too many people just don’t know. For how truly phenomenal of a band they are, they rightfully should be every bit as well known globally as any “famous” hardcore band is. Under the right circumstances, this is a band that could have easily broke through and become full-blown rock stars, without changing a goddamn thing about their music. 

You know what, though? These are some real Boston area boys, and some real artists, still doing their thing in 2024. Perhaps they were meant to be one of this region’s finest bands to ever to do it, and a hidden gem for the rest of the world to dig up in due time. In the meantime, listen to all the albums they’ve released, get ready for the next one, and by all means, catch a show...BOSTON HARDCORE RULES! 

Lit Flix

Four adaptations of English Major Works, all on youtube, Midsummer is the 1968 royal Shakespeare company version, perfect  Pyscho-Satyr flicks of Volumous Literary KIcks.

Nashua Necromancy By Blake Sidewalker

The city of Nashua, in Southern New Hampshire, gets its name from the river, and in antiquated times the people were also called Nashua.  “Nashua” comes from the Abenaki dialect, and roughly translated is a commentary on the way the sun hits the rocks beneath the river.

Also in Abenaki is the word “Skadegamutc” which directly translates to “witch ghost”. An Abenaki sorcerer cheats death by becoming a Skadegamutc roaming the forest, and feeding upon unfortunate passers by.

A few miles Northwest of exit 5 off of 293 is the Gilson Cemetery. During the late seventeenth century this was the site of a massacre. This was also where a Nashua sorcerer practiced his dark arts. People would ask him to make them more powerful. He would do so by filling his clients with dark spirits. That’s why we became friends. 

It's not a secret in Nashua that the Gilson Cemetery is haunted. I noticed signs of necromancy upon my first visit; pillar candles that would have illuminated a weathered old grave if lit. It is not hard to contact a spirit here, but I ensured my success with a tea that I had brewed with a handful of blue lotus and one of yarrow.

The psychoactive properties of the tea enhance any skills with contacting the dead. This can also be aided with cannabis at the sorcerer’s discretion. It’s also important to factor in that most cemeteries close after dark.  Also be cautious about accumulating too many spiritual parasites. This measure consists merely of tossing three silver coins over the left shoulder while exiting the cemetery, and don’t look back; your gaze attracts spirits as much as the sparkle of silver.

It's important to ask the spirits for permission to enter a cemetery. This is done by stamping your left foot three times at the entrance of the site, asking verbally or telepathically to the spirits of the graveyard for permission to enter. You should probably know if the response is negative; there may be an anxious pressure of “wrongness”.

Any time I addressed the sorcerer at Gilson Cemetery, a chill rushed through my body, and my hair stood on end with goosebumps. He knew I was there. The cemetery seemed to offer me a large, dry root from the ground that served me as a staff. I used it in a ritual during a solar eclipse.

I kept coming back to Gilson Cemetery, forming a relationship with the Skadegamutc. After a few years, he entered my body, and I went through a strange ordeal. It was painful but I did gain some kind of power. I had access to situations that I couldn’t even imagine. 

At some point the Skadegamutc influenced my recording of his album. It sounds like something that they use to torture prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, but it’s available on Bandcamp if you look up Skadegamutc under the band Altars of Shaw. If you’ve ever wondered what a forest haunted by centuries of tragedy feels like then you might find it enlightening. 

Great Old Ones: Al Azif album review by Blake Sidewalker

I was never that huge about black metal that was being shoved down my throat in highschool, but as a Man approaching middle age,I encountered a record that made me a fan of black metal. happened upon it in my YouTube feed The record I am covering is titled Al Azif, and it's by the band the great old ones. For those who don't already know, Al Azif is the original title of the necronomicon, as penned by The mad poet Abdul Alhazred at about 730AD. 

This is according to the mythos created by HP Lovecraft, but many lunatics, such as myself would argue that Lovecraft was a prophet, perhaps The reincarnation of Alhzared himself.

 I believe this album to be a method of communication with some of the beings Lovecraft spoke of. I gained more of A connection to Alhazred via the twisted soundscapes than any attempt to recreate the necronomicon that I have ever read. It's not your typical black metal album The projection is crisp enough to express the sound textures and atmosphere, some of which sound like they are being played through the hollow bones of some long extinct Leviathan, by some mysterious descendant of a civilization buried deep in the sands of history and long forgotten. 

 The Listener might know that the great old ones draw heavily from Prog Rock Staples such as strange time signatures and their complex alterations. I myself pick up more on the atmosphere. I "got" black metal after hearing this record. It gave me an ear for it.

 This album is also a great compliment to any existential dread you might be suffering. I practice the dark arts, and when my universe decides to take me to a place of such horrors, I throw this on, and become one with the darkness. The tower augments to something else, something beautiful. If the album is too long for your taste at about 45 to 55 minutes, at least soak up the title track, "Al Azif"at the beginning of the album it's not hard to imagine Alhazred, wandering in his painfully just figured exile.