THE PEN IS MORE PORTABLE THAN THE SWORD
Other People's Stuff
Let's throw some radio into the world. An hour or so ago, Lauren Laverne had Robert Plant on her show. You can find a link to that here if you happen to be in the country - if you missed it, it's up online for a month or so - but later tonight, at 19.00 (that's seven o'clock if you didn't sign up for the armed forces) you can catch more from Mr Plant on 6 Music and there's details on that, right here.
This is not me. This is Robert Plant. You can tell the difference really easily because this is Robert Plant and I am not. Though, in a thick Victorian fog at night, I suppose you could be forgiven.
Which is all an excellent prelude to the world trying to tell you he has a new album out next Friday 13th called Carry Fire that looks like this:
He's on tour too... officialness can be received in the House of all that is Holy here. Go see.
If you can't wait that long and need some new music in your life, Marilyn Manson has a new album out called Heaven Upside Down and so do Black Country Communion (IV), Black Stone Cherry (Black To Blues) and the always amazing Dan Reed with Confessions.
In the earbuds this week, I've been exploring Southern Gothic country artists. I believe it goes under the rough banner of Cemetery and Western. It's good stuff but I need to spend more time with it... it's seeping into Deadbirds and I kinda like it. It feels very comfortable but more on that some other time.
Not a whole lot of action under the covers with a torch to report on in the book front this week, mainly because I haven't read one single thing. I've still got Whiteout kicking about in the wings for Romania next week (I'll be here if you happen to be close by) and in the holes, I've been dipping in and out of this... which is everything it should be and more:
Meanwhile, out on the movie front, this looks fantastic. There is no other way to describe it. I haven't been as game for a cinema trip (even if it's by myself) for a long time. Release date is mid-January and it looks like one of those movies that won't be hitting the multiplex at convenient times at all. So be it. I hope I don't forget - January is months away!
You can watch the trailer for The Hero here.
Just to balance out the highbrow-ness is this entry, I am also really fucking looking forward to this with Bruce Willis doing what Bruce Willis does:
Yep... there's a lot of white space on this poster. I guess I could have made it a lot smaller really.
So basically, everything cool I have to tell you about this week is in the future.
Sorry about that but it's something to look forward to, right?
The World All At Once (1)
I figured that I had better get my act together and start writing some long pieces for my blog here and spent some time last night racking the grey matter as to how to do it properly. The World All At Once will, more or less, crush my week of pop-culture consumption into a slick view on the week that just went by. I'll aim for Saturday or Sunday for posting it, but let's see how it settles in... Yesterday, I got the word that Black Dye, White Noise and The Language of Thieves and Vagabonds had both been release on itunes/ibooks and at Barnes & Noble for the nook. Thus began an afternoon of downloading and checking - and as a bi-product of this cocking about, came across a couple of really good books for ibooks (and probably the kindle too but I couldn't be bothered looking). They're both by the same person, both self-published and both really freaking good. Honest. Take it from somebody who throws books out of the car window if they suck before the end of the second chapter.
The author in question is Saffina Desforges - the books are called Snow White and Sugar & Spice - and if I'm not very much mistaken, she lives somewhere not so far away from me either. I thought I might get in touch, but then I read her blog and was put off by the fact that she seems angry and self-righteous about everything. All the time. Been there, done that and it will come and bite you on the ass no matter how good your book is. Then again, like one of my old bosses said to me: 'you're not here to be liked - you're here to get the job done.' Maybe I'll just read her books and leave it at that - though it's worth pointing you also to a page on her site where she details nefarious tactics by agents who really should know better.
Nice cover for Snow White - I really like both that and the forthcoming Rapunzel.
There's some other interesting books on there too that look like they might be worth the time of day - one thing at a time though. I already have a stack of books that I'm not getting through very quickly at all. That means Skin Deep is being shipped to print in the middle of the week so there's not going to be much going on except burying my head in that - on which subject, I interviewed Jovanka Vuckovic last night. What a fantastic lady - one I am now pleased to call a friend. We have much in common. More on that some other time. I might publish the full interview here later in the month as we spoke of many, many things - not all of it relevant to the mag.
Not strictly something from this week, but rather from last month. I picked up a copy of Vanity Fair magazine a few weeks back. I always thought it was a 'mag for women' but as it turns out - if you can see past the top-end advertising and the lure of celebrity for its own sake - it's a great read. The writing is top-notch and the variety of material in there is quite inspiring. Their ipad app is beautiful as well - better than the print copy I think. It didn't take long to win me over on it either, so we'll drop that name in the 'win' column for the foreseeable future. Nice work.
The new Marilyn Manson album is kind of strange. I wanted to love it like I loved Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. Love it for all of its wanton destruction and no small amount of effort put into the minutiae of the project. What I got however was an album of songs that sound like Marilyn Manson might sound when everything had got a little grey around the edges. An album he might make when he knows he's on the rocks. Maybe one in which the headlines are slipping away but he needs to put a product out all the same so that it doesn't appear to be too long between albums when you look in the history books.
He can do better than this. You know what he should have done? He should have sat on a beach for a couple of weeks (or perhaps a dank cave - either will do) and fleshed himself out a plan like Amanda Palmer did. A plan that would redefine Manson to the world forever. If anybody could have pulled this off, he could. I don't know anymore. Maybe it's just too much work once you don't have to worry if there will be breakfast on the table tomorrow. There's a lot to be said for staying hungry.
Thus, disappointed with the thing that should have been a supernova this week, I reverted to type and dug into itunes to find something of value, only the truth is that I couldn't be bothered looking that hard, so I let it ramble on shuffle like I do most days - then I remembered that earlier in the week, I'd found a nugget of vinyl on ebay that I'd bought but not paid for - which would explain why it hadn't arrived yet. I must have been through at least half a dozen copies of In The Dynamite Jet Saloon (Dogs D'Amour) over the years - this should be the last time I ever buy it again. It's getting hard to find great vinyl on ebay - everybody thinks their shit is worth a lot more than it is - or at least to somebody who wants to listen to it rather than collect the damn stuff. There's a record fair on next Saturday so we'll see what gives out there. The last one I went to, I picked up about seven albums for under £20, which is really how it should be...