Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

at the foot of my bed EP



So this little EP/demo is finally out!  I'm really happy with it overall.

My favorite song on this is At the Foot of My Bed.  It's a really old song.  The singer wrote it back in the nineties but at the time I wasn't interested in playing anything that wasn't pretty fast and/or aggressive, and we played it a handful of times but it never caught on.  The drummer recalled it fondly, however, and with the passage of time, it "clicked" for me this time around.  It's still quite different from what we typically do - almost Beatles-y?  Not quite a ballad but somewhat softer than our typical fare.

I mentioned this in my last post, but I think people who are familiar with this blog might enjoy the song called Viaticum. Our singer wrote the lyrics after reading a short story of the same title here.  I wrote that after making a city state from the generator at Grand Commodore.  I love the way inspiration can spin out like that.

The other songs are just little ditties - a faster (170 bpm), almost punk rock thing (MI13) and a pair of songs about ashtrays (Ashduck and Ashduck Too which are about as far apart in musical character as you can get).

If anyone wants MP3s of these, just drop me a line.  They will also be available streaming (Spotify etc)  in the next couple of weeks.

Next up, we are going to start playing out as much as we can.  There's a fairly small theater here called the Cabaret Metro (it might just be the Metro nowadays) that we all really want to play.  To the four of us in the band, it is a kind of holy place.  It's the kind of club where it's not out of the question for a local band to play, but which has also hosted lots of amazing bands over the years, especially in the more underground / alternative circles.  Nirvana played there, as did the Smashing Pumpkins, Mudhoney, Ministry, Naked Raygun (not well known outside of Chicago, but extremely well known in the city - I really miss Naked Raygun shows!), Mr. Bungle, Prince did an after-party show there, shit Metallica played there in 1983, the list just goes on and on.  But I've also have friends who had smaller DIY local bands play there.  So that's the next goal - we want to play the Metro!




This release is digital only, but I still wound up putting together a few graphics that emulate a CD or record sleeve.  Here they are:


Front Cover - Instant Kafka at the foot of my bed EP


Rear Cover - Instant Kafka at the foot of my bed EP



Liner Notes Page 1 - Instant Kafka at the foot of my bed EP



Liner Notes Page 2 - Instant Kafka at the foot of my bed EP


I hope you listen to this and that you enjoy it.  I hate asking for likes because I detest social media in general (I miss antisocial media) but I'd be much obliged if you would stop by the SoundCloud and maybe hit like on a couple of things - from what I understand, the way the world currently works, that stuff apparently helps bands get gigs, so as much as I feel like a spotted whore for asking, I'm asking.  Once again, here's our SoundCloud link.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Sick Synopses or My Inner Kilgore Trout - Ideas for Short Fiction

The Torture Artist
An artist looks back at his career and is tormented by the idea that he hasn’t really been able to share his authentic self with those who interact with his art. He proceeds to commit a home invasion in a rural area, where he ties a couple up, rapes them repeatedly, and chews their fucking faces off while they still live.


The Sexual Experience
Various extremely graphic though dry and clinical descriptions of fractured bones.


A Drug Free Environment
A couple enjoys a night at the symphony and then goes home to kill their pet bird with a mallet.


The Night America Burned Down
An elderly woman does some gardening.


Wrapped In Plastic
Written advertisements for paramilitary and riot gear designed for the police: tactical shields, repeating shotguns, breaching vehicles, etc.


True
A sadomasochistic couple finds a stray dog and tortures it, finally cutting its head off. The head then begins speaking to them and ultimately bids them to cast runes from a mingled flow of bodily fluids so that it can deliver prophecy.


Hamburger Helper
A man with a botfly infestation becomes a prostitute in an attempt to obtain the money for treatment.


Women are from Venus
The President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Cydonia gives a televised State of the Union address during which he is wearing a stitched together “girl suit” of preserved human flesh ala Ed Gein or Buffalo Bill. The suit has three rows of jiggling tits and he wears it with his trademark red necktie draped between them. The state of the union, he says, is strong. He intersperses this address with anecdotes about the women whose skin make up the girl suit, such as the number of children they had or how they clenched their fists when he slit their throat. In a cutaway, a married couple discuss the speech and comment on the necktie, allowing that though the red is traditional Martian attire, the President really should have worn blue as it would make him look more dignified.


30 Minutes of Sicko
A brief history of Family Feud is followed with an example show’s polling answers being analyzed in minute detail. Among the categories polled in the example show: Something You Do After Masturbating and Things You See In an Automobile Accident.


Reality Assassin
Starting in her home, a woman walks through a series of doors and gates as she slowly comes to the realization that she absolutely fucking hates her husband and children. At the end she finds herself in a meadow surrounded by wildflowers.


The Magic of Ice
Purple butterflies follow a beautiful and gentle man everywhere he goes. A jealous husband tracks the butterflies to his home, where he catches his wife in bed with the man and proceeds to vent his rage in unusual ways.


The Rise of the Night
A would-be dictator is kidnapped by radicals and forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery in an effort to change his viewpoints. S/he maintains her fascist worldview even so. The real breakthrough comes after a fecal microbiota transplant.


Edgewater, Mon Amour
A man conducts a mass shooting at his office. Upon apprehension, he repeats the phrase “I don’t speak German,” over and over and seems unable to say anything else. A reporter who happened to be near the site of the incident has the scoop, but his editor turns him down on the basis that mass shootings have become passe and gauche and bore the public to tears at this point. So they concoct a story that involves a government coverup of a DARPA-funded experiment with hallucinogens and cutting edge time travel “Zeitsprung” technology.


The Goldfish
A middle aged couple’s life has become stale and routine. The wife takes up tennis and begins to become infatuated with the young tennis coach she is working with. She tries to flirt with him but he pretends not to notice, though she is uncertain if this is out of professionalism or if he genuinely isn't interested. One afternoon she returns home after a lesson and has an intense sexual fantasy about him. Her husband comes home from work a little early and sees her in the throes of passion, but she is so caught up in the ecstasy of the moment that she does not notice him. He quietly backs away and sits down in the living room, where they keep a goldfish, which he feeds and then watches for a time.


Furnishing
A woman must choose new drapes for the living room. She becomes paralyzed with indecision because there are so many choices and possibilities. This paralysis begins to bleed into other parts of her life and soon she cannot function at all.


Pure
An investigator begins looking into the rancid underworld where snuff films and child pornography intersect. He develops a cover identity in order to allow him to probe further. He soon loses himself and becomes complicit in the production of this material.


Babylon
A historian is cast from mainstream academia for holocaust denial and minimizing the atrocities of Nazi Germany. This is the last straw for his poor wife, who leaves him as a result of this loss of face and reputation. After she leaves, he mourns, and becomes intoxicated.  He proceeds to dress up in an authentic SS uniform, part of his personal collection. He does his best to achieve an erection by looking at a mixture of death camp footage and AI-generated pornography of famous Nazis, but it’s no use. As he passes out, sexually frustrated and covered in his own vomit, he vows to join the police.


Whitehouse
An extensive catalog of the various sexual proclivities of U.S. Presidents from Washington to present day. Gets really interesting after Roswell.


The Organ Grinder
A man tours the city with his pet mandril, who occasionally and for no discernable reason mauls some nearby person very, very badly.


Movement
A man looks out over his rice field and sees something white moving and wriggling, but he can’t tell what it is. He tells his neighbor, who also sees it, and becomes curious about it. The neighbor goes to take a closer look as the man heads inside to clean up for the day. He forgets all about the incident until the next day, when he catches a glimpse of his neighbor in the rice field. He goes to see his neighbor and the man has gone almost catatonic except for occasionally muttering about movement. Over the next few days several other people in the town are found in the same condition. The following week the man catches sight of the white thing again and goes himself to investigate it.


The Flesh of Heaven
A middle-aged detective who is sexually obsessed with his teenage niece works a school shooting and ruminates on the devastating effects of high powered rifle fire on the human body.


Sonic Consciousness
A struggling musician has a series of surgeries that slowly transform his body into a musical instrument.  His mind follows.


Babel
A man begins constructing a tower in a wing of his house.  The tower rises to nine stories and he keeps building it.  His obsession with it and total dedication to it cuts him off from his family.  Eventually the tower collapses and his obsession with it ends; he then reconnects with his wife and children.


They Float on the Surface
A woman has a calming mental routine of naming all the various capital cities of the countries in the world in a kind of mantra as she relaxes in the bath.  One day she cannot remember the capital of Macedonia, and this throws everything in her world off kilter.


Seller's Market
A catalog for a company specializing in paid intimacy, generally of a non-sexual nature.  You can have someone stroke your hair or put a cold washcloth on your forehead, or kiss your neck and shoulders.  You can talk to someone who will listen sympathetically and offer suggestions or condolences, a friendly hug, or will let you just cry and cry while they hold you and reassure you.


Thanatos Avenue
After an unnamed calamity causes global environmental and societal collapse, five drivers race across a desert where the walking dead roam.


Naptime for Scrunchie
A family cat wanders around a mansion, noting the incredibly dysfunctional behavior of its inhabitants; the dad is tuned out of everything except work, the mom continually makes not-so-subtle passes at her son, who is home from college, and the daughter dreams of one day leaving everything behind, perhaps to join the military.


Lord of This World
A day in the life of a group of nihilistic suburban teens.


The Anonymity Exhibition
A hotel worker finds a woman's corpse in a room that was supposed to be unoccupied.


The Coprophage
A man who lives alone wakes up, takes a shower, goes to his office job, has a routine day, goes to the gym, and comes home to make himself dinner before watching a little TV and going to bed.

Sunday, May 12, 2024

The Basquiat Tarot v1.3

A few weeks ago, the Satrap of Saturn mentioned seeing a couple of stickers of Basquiat paintings and thinking for a moment that they were Tarot cards.  I started looking through some of his paintings online, and soon found that many of his images actually matched up pretty nicely to the Major Arcana.  I put together a deck and shared it with a bunch of friends and acquaintances, and they seemed to get a kick out of it.  I've always liked Basquiat's work, though it's been a while since I looked at it.  It struck me that there were stylistic similarities to the work of one of my favorite OSR artists, Scrap Princess.

Anyway, I've been messing with it and trying to improve it a bit for the last few weeks and I thought I would put it up here.  If anyone can figure out how to edit Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump so it fits a card without excising major parts of it, it would make a near-perfect Fool, so let me know! In any case, feel free to use the cards as an Artpunk Deck of Many Things if you have a campaign you need to end in a hurry.

























Here is a PDF of all the images if you prefer that.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Death Guard - All Hail the NEW LIFE!

The Day of Resurrection is upon us!  The smallest and meekest among us, the humble single cell organisms, the bacteria and the virus, they are the INHERITORS!  Let them rise and multiply!  WOE unto he who interferes with them!  WOE!

I have been working on a 40k Death Guard army.  Given the wide range of models and opportunities for kit bashing, I wanted to try to do an army where each model was unique.  I haven't quite managed it in terms of sculpts - some of the Poxwalkers and chaos cultists are duplicate sculpts - but where there have been dupe sculpts I've done my best to ensure the paintjob distinguishes them from each other.

I am not a great painter and I am absolute SHIT at sculpting.  But much of mini painting is more about learning technique rather than being a talented artist.  I am always amazed when I see truly good work, and it makes me wish I was that good - but I will also say that knowing a few simple techniques like washing, drybrushing, and highlighting can go a long way towards making models look passable, and the more you do something, the better you get at it, even if you don't have a ton of natural talent (which, clearly, I don't).  I think it's enough to just enjoy the process.  Mini painting is one of those things that induces flow state in me - the world just drops away, I forget how anxious everything makes me when I think about things at the macro level, and all I am focused on is this one little model, right here and right now.  That alone makes the practice worthwhile for me.

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE

First up, the Poxwalkers.  Dark Imperium came with two sprues of 15 that are duped, so I had to distinguish them with paint.  I also grabbed a box of the old Warhammer fantasy battle Zombies and did my best to convert some of those for a total of 40 walkers.










YE SHALL KNOW THEM BY THE BUZZING OF THEIR WINGS ... 

Two Foetid Bloat-drones.  I'll probably do one more of these and a Greater Blight Drone before I am done.



A Mephitic Blighthauler - I want three of these guys.  There is only a single sculpt, so I am going to do some conversion work, replacing the circles and tri-arrow design with a different Nurgle symbol from the Blightkings kit on one of them, and using a faceplate from the Bloat-drones for another.



SEETHING WITH LIFE, TEEMING WITH DEATH

A Daemon Prince.  It's hard to get this guy to look anything except goofy.  I think he turned out OK.


HULK SMASH

A Helbrute, the first of at least a pair.



HEAVY METAL

A Plagueburst Crawler, hopefully I'll do one more of these and then a Land Raider or a Spartan.



ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS...

Two Noxious Blightbringers, another conversion using the Blightkings and some Chaos Space Marine bits if I remember right.


LORDS OF THE UNDEAD

Leaders - a Lord of Contagion and below him, Typhus, Captain of the Terminus Est



DEATH COMES IN MANY FORMS

Various support units.  From top to bottom: Malignant Plaguecaster, Plague Surgeon, Tallyman, Foul Blightspawn, Biologis Putrifier






THE CRAWLING HORDE

Many, many Plague Marines.  Each one of these guys is a unique sculpt.  I did a lot of conversion using the Putrid Blightkings set - the Death Guard armor is so unique that you can get away with more medieval looking plate mail as power armor.





The dude below with the fly head and flanked by the two icon bearers is definitely Chosen of Nurgle.  Maybe at some point he will be elevated by Grandfather Ruin to Daemon Princehood and challenge the current master of the warband for supremacy.




I am in love with the cheeky Nurgling wearing a helmet below.



WARDENS OF THE GRAVE

Deathshroud Terminators



Blightlord Terminators



THE UNMADE

Works in progress - some additional Blightlord Terminators and a converted Lord of Virulence (the dude with the fly head).  A second Mephitic Blighthauler - I have a couple of Nurgle symbols from various kits and I am planning on scraping off the one that is on him and replacing it with a shield from the Putrid Blightkings set to make it unique.  Last, a humble Rhino that is in the painting stage.





The chaos cultists are not pictured - I also have a Mortarion to build (or possibly cannibalize for a converted Daemon Prince using Vashtorr - an idea I rather like) and a few other models that don't quite qualify for even WIP photos, but the rest of the army is captured in photos below.

That's it for now - I'll post more of these guys once I finish the second wave, whenever that is!