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Cult Of Luna’s epic 2008 album ‘Eternal Kingdom’ is one of the most compelling and fascinating concept albums of recent times (with the grand exception of Fall Of Efrafa’s peerless Watership Down trilogy). When the band were scouting for rehearsal space in the run up to recording, they chanced upon the site of a demolished mental hospital. Sifting through the relics leftover from the days of the active institution they discovered the journal of a man named Holger Nilsson, who, far removed from his ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ namesake, was a far more troubled soul. Nilsson was committed to the asylum after murdering his wife by drowning her under the command of a malevolent Owl Demon known as the Näcken.

The album is allegedly drafted entirely from Nilsson’s journals and regardless of the amount of truth behind the story, it makes for a great enticement to familiarize newcomers with the bands epic soundscapes and dense rhythmical patterns.

The lyrics are oblique but enthralling, with tracks such as Ghost Trail drawing the listener into a false sense of security before brutally pummeling them whilst screaming;

‘The king, with beak and talons. The king, in the form of man’ in one of the most beautiful breakdowns this side of Neurosis.

It is with great joy that I recently heard that Cult Of Luna have released a hardback book based on the aforementioned journal, with stunning illustrations by highly talented artist Joris Vanpoucke. The book, entitled ‘Eviga Riket’ is a bi-lingual publication (Swedish/English) and is accompanied by a spoken word CD featuring new material by the band and readings by Anna Guthrie. The first printing sold out almost immediately, but the good news is that a second is currently in production. This promises to be a coffee table must have for any discerning fan.

Keep an eye on Cult Of Luna’s official website for more information HERE

For more of Joris Vanpoucke’s work, click HERE.

It would seem like China Mièville’s foray into crime fiction has paid off. It was a risky departure, abandoning the much loved Bas Lag universe (after the astonishing trilogy of Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council) and inhabiting an apparently (initially anyway) more grounded one.

The result of this endeavor is ‘The City and the City’ which has just won Mièville his third Arthur C Clarke award. This award was established by Clarke himself to help promote Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature in Britain. It is fantastic that the system is acknowledging Mièville’s immense talent. There is something special about China Mièville, he is fiercely eloquent without being verbose or showy, he can weave together tales of startling intricacy, yet always leaves a few stones unturned. There is a depth and level of subtle detail to his work that not only satisfies, it rewards.

Being renowned for creating an entire universe to set your novels in and then abandoning it (possibly temporarily) to detour into alternative territory is a ballsy move, especially in the hyper obsessive, bed wetting, hair splitting world of Fantasy and Sci Fi. Some factions of which have decried this departure as sacrilege.

Mièville is jauntily dismissive of such pigeonholing, saying that “I think these debates are silly – genre is a moveable feast, but some people do ask these questions. What I don’t want to do is disavow the fantastic tradition I come from. This is a book from within the fantasy tradition, which hopefully can also be a perfectly faithful crime book – and a good book.”

With his upcoming novel ‘The Kracken’ being accompanied by several Forbidden Planet signings, this might be just the chance to familiarize yourself with one of the most exciting, innovate and fascinating authors in British Fiction.

Congratulations Mr Mièville, here’s to many more deserved awards.

For Details on the China Mièville signings click HERE

Bear with me for a moment. It’s the 1960′s and Jack Kerouac is in a bad way, several decades of alcohol have taken their toll and he is distraught with the state of the world he lives in. He decides to leave his Big Sur hideaway and seek out Neal Cassady (his real life inspiration for ‘On The Road’) whose hallucinatory sojourns have caused the unintentional release of Cthulhu. Jack holds a grudge against our tentacle friend as he believes it is he who is responsible for the slow destruction of society and the apathetic mindset of the multitudes.

They team up along the way with William Burroughs appearing as a gung ho, trigger happy exterminator (hardly a massive stretch then) and Allen Ginsberg as a prophet, who lives in a sewer (like Splinter) to destroy the evil and an associated band of cultish sorts. In short, this is one of the most insane premises for a book that I have read in a very long time. It’s a bit like Ewan McGregor’s pitch to his work colleagues in ‘A Life Less Ordinary’. Imagine that first paragraph being read by an enthusiastic Scotsman, blissfully unaware of the eventual success and celluloid banality that awaits him.

The book is called ‘Move Under Ground’ and is written by Nick Mamatas. I didn’t imagine all of this in my head. I promise.

I have ordered my copy, but in the meantime I am ploughing through the available PDF which the author has very kindly made available.

Mamatas clearly has a great working knowledge of his subject matter and is clearly having tremendous fun along the way. It is not unusual for literary characters to be worked into contemporary storylines, but the mixture and treatment of the characters here really works. Cthulhu is very much flavor of the month in terms of internet hipster referential bonus points, so it’s worth mentioning that this novel was written in 2004, predating the unprecedented gush of Lovecraft fans who started babbling endlessly about him after Steampunk started to become popular. Funny that, they were probably all erroneously quoting Poe a few years back when it was all about the Goths.

Goths are like an endangered species now. Occasionally I’ll see one and get all excited. They’ve also had to adapt into survival mode, they’re all really hardcore now. You never really see any half arsed Goths anymore. Maybe we could get onto the WWF and National Geographic and do a special on their numbers and whereabouts. Initiate some form of breeding programme to make sure that they don’t die out when we think there are still loads of them, like manatees.

Manatees that frequent Whitby.

Oh yeah, the book…

Basically……

It’s a fantastic pulp novel, one which I will happily display alongside the works of the men in question.

You can read ‘Move Under Ground‘ HERE

Or Buy it HERE

Gregory Corso & Allen Ginsberg interview WIlliam S Burroughs (1961). This interview was conducted for the Journal for the Protection of All Beings, which was a periodical edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It was published by San Francisco’s infamous City Lights Bookstore. This is apparently the first published interview with Burroughs. Enjoy.

Gregory Corso: What is your department?

William Burroughs: Kunst und Wissenschaft.

Gregory Corso: What do you say about political conflicts?

William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth.

Gregory Corso: Who manipulates the cloth?

William Burroughs: Death

Allen Ginsberg: What is death?

William Burroughs: A gimmick. It’s the time-birth-death gimmick. Can’t go on much longer, too many people are wising up.

Gregory Corso: Do you feel there has been a definite change in man’s makeup? A new consciousness?

William Burroughs: Yes, I can give you a precise answer to that. I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host.

Allen Ginsberg: And if they are removed, what step?

William Burroughs: The forward step must be made in silence. We detach ourselves from word forms — this can be accomplished by substituting for words, letters, concepts, verbal concepts, other modes of expressions: for example, color. We can translate word and letter into color — Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote “words” can be read in silent color. In other words, man must get away from verbal forms to attain the consciousness, that which is there to be perceived at hand.

Gregory Corso: How does one take that “forward step,” can you say?

William Burroughs: Well, this is my subject and is what I am concerned with. Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are built into you — in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word-armor you carry; for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to. Now try breaking up part of the page like this:

Are there      or just we can translate many solutions       for example color word color in the soft typewriter                               into political conflicts             to attain consciousness monopoly and control

Gregory Corso: Reading that it seems you end up where you began, with politics and it’s nomenclature: conflict, attain, solution, monopoly, control — so what kind of help is that?

William Burroughs: Precisely what I was saying — if you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it’s strictly from the soft typewriter.

Gregory Corso: What kind of advice you got for politicians?

William Burroughs: Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.

Gregory Corso: What if people don’t want to change, don’t want no new consciousness?

William Burroughs: For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling to do so — I might, for example, have suggested to the dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship, and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities — it would not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant dinosaur. I can make my feeling very clear, Gregory, I fell like I’m on a sinking ship and I want off.

Gregory Corso: Do you think Hemingway got off?

William Burroughs: Probably not.

(Next day)

Allen Ginsberg: What about control?

William Burroughs: Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better. All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of affect — emotion. Any machine tends to absorb, eliminate, Affect. Yet the only person who can make a machine move is someone who has a motive, who has Affect. If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever. Any unchecked impulse does, within the human body and psyche, lead to the destruction of the organism.

Allen Ginsberg: What kind of organization could technological society have without control?

William Burroughs: The whole point is, I feel the machine should be eliminated. Now that it has served its purpose of alerting us to the dangers of machine control. Elimination of all natural sciences — If anybody ought to go to the extermination chambers, definitely scientists. Yes, I’m definitely antiscientist because I feel that science represents a conspiracy to impose as the real and only universe, the universe of scientists themselves — they’re reality-addicts, they’ve got to have things so real so they can get their hands on it. We have a great elaborate machine which I feel has to be completely dismantled — in order to do that we need people who understand how the machine works — the mass media — unparalleled opportunity.

Allen Ginsberg: Who do you think is responsible for the dope situation in America?

William Burroughs: Old Army game, “I act under orders.” As Captain Ahab said, “You are not other men but my arms and legs –” Mr. Anslinger has a lot of arms and legs, or whoever is controlling him. Same thing as the Eichman case: he’s the front man who has got to take the rap. Poor bastard, I got sympathy for him.

Gregory Corso: Could you or do you think it wise to say who it will be or just what force it will be that will destroy the world?

William Burroughs: You want to create a panic? That’s top secret — want to swamp the lifeboats?

Gregory Corso: O.K. How did them there lifeboats get there in the first place?

William Burroughs: Take for instance some Indians in South America I’ve seen. There comes along this sloppy cop with his shirt buttons all in the wrong hole. Well then, Parkinson’s law goes into operation — there’s need not for one cop but seven or eight, need for sanitation inspectors, rent collectors, etc.; so after a period of years problems arise, crime, dope taking and traffic, juvenile delinquency. So the question is asked, “What should we do about these problems?” The answer as Gertrude Stein on her deathbed said, comes before the question — in short before the bastards got there in the first place! That’s all —

Allen Ginsberg: What do you think Cuba and the FLN think about poets? And what do you think their marijuana policy is?

William Burroughs: All political movements are basically anti-creative — since a political movement is a form of war. “There’s no place for impractical dreamers around here,” that’s what they always say. “Your writing activities will be directed, kindly stop horsing around.” “As for the smoking of marijuana, it is the exploitation for the workers.” Both favor alcohol and are against pot.

Gregory Corso: I feel capitol punishment is dooming U.S.A.

William Burroughs: I’m against Capitol Punishment in all forms, and I have written many pamphlets on this subject in the manner of Swift’s “Modest Proposal” pamphlet incorporated into “Naked Lunch”; these pamphlets have marked “Naked Lunch” as an obscene book. Most all methods of capitol punishment are designed to inflict the maximum of humiliation — not attempts to prevent suicide.

Allen Ginsberg: What advice do you have for American youth who are drawn to political action out of sympathy for the American revolution?

William Burroughs: “I wouldn’t be in your position” — old saw. If there is any political move that I would advocate it would be an alliance between America and Red China, if they’d have us.

Gregory Corso: What about the Arab peoples — how are they faring?

William Burroughs: They’re stuck back thousands of years and they think they’re going to get out with a TV set.

Gregory Corso: What about the Negros, will they make it — not only the ones in the South, but everywhere?

William Burroughs: Biologically speaking the Afro-Asiatic block is in the ascendancy — always remember that both Negro and White are minority groups — the largest race is the Mongoloid group. In the event of atomic war there is a tremendous biological advantage in the so-called undeveloped areas that have a high birth rate and high death rate because, man, they can plow under those mutations. The country with a low birth rate and low death rate will be hardest hit — and so the poor may indeed inherit the earth, because they’re healthier.

Allen Ginsberg: What do you think of White Supremacy?

William Burroughs: The essence of White Supremacy is this: they are people who want to keep things as they are. That their children’s children’s children might be a different color is something very alarming to them — in short they are committed to the maintenance of the static image. The attempt to maintain a static image, even if it’s a good image, just won’t work.

Gregory Corso: Do you think Americans want and could fight the next war with the same fire and fervency as they did in World War II?

William Burroughs: Undoubtedly, yes — because they remember what a soft time they had in the last one — they sat on their ass.

Above is the cover of Scroobius Pip’s new collection of illustrated poems, entitled ‘Poetry In (e)motion’. It is released in a week or so by Titan books and you should most definitely all buy yourselves a copy.

It features work by yours truly.

Yes, I can finally announce that I was selected alongside several other artists to have my work represent the words of Mr Pip.

This is a massive honour and I am greatly excited about it all (I haven’t seen the finished product yet!). Many, many thanks to Scroob for deeming my doodles appropriate and worthy enough to include in this collection.

You can pre order the book HERE.

I can’t wait to read the  introduction by Nick Frost as well. ^_^

I always prefer documentaries that are made while the subjects are still alive (when at all possible to attain). The feigned reverence and rose tinted view that posthumous offerings tend to display often leave a sour taste in my mouth (Such as ‘Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride‘ a hastily put together film, featuring some truly embarrassing moments, notably from Gary Busey). It is for this reason that, despite being a great admirer of Dr Thompson’s works, I have still not yet watched ‘Gonzo‘.

‘Fear And Loathing In Gonzovision‘ is an hour long BBC documentary from 1978 which follows not only Thompson, but allows equal screentime to English Illustrator Ralph Steadman (a compelling and enticing individual with magnetism that is on par with the Doctor himself). This is a rare glimpse into the chemistry that allowed their professional relationship to span several decades.Emphasising what a collaborative effort their endeavors often where.

Covering the period before Hunter’s escapades made it onscreen in ‘Where the Buffalo Roam‘, a watchable but far from classic interpretation starring Bill Murray, this is a superb little piece that offers some unique and insightful material.

‘October 19th, 1975: The most powerful influence on the arts in the West is – the cinema. Novels, plays and films are filled with references to, quotations from, parodies of – old movies. They dominate the cultural subconcious becasue we absorb them in our formative years (as we don’t absorb books for instance); and we see them again on TV when we grow up.

The first two generations predominantly nourished on movies are now of an age where they rule the media; and it’s already frightening to see how deeply – in their behaviour as well as their work – the cinema has imprinted itself on them. Nobody took into account the tremendous impact that would be made by the fact that films are permanent and easily accessible from childhood onward.

As the sheer number of films piles up, their influence will increase, until we have a civilization entirely molded by cinematic values and behaviour patterns.’

Kenneth Tynan, Writer / Drama Critic.

Taken from ‘The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan‘ (2001)

As I have mentioned here on several occasions, I am a ridiculously early riser. I am also not fond of going to bed early, but at least I have gotten part of the nursery rhyme correct. Usually between the hours of 6.30 and 8am, I allow myself to wallow in the coffee/internet wilderness stage of the day. Your standard fare really, several news websites, loathsome social networking websites which are more addictive than sugary crack, you know the score. Sometimes though, that section of the day can extend, yesterday was one of these instances.

It was after lunchtime before I managed to slap myself around the face several times and gather the momentum required to actually do something. The trouble was, I didn’t appear to have a useful thought in my brain. I tried writing, but the erroneous and facile drivel that I managed to produce only served to irritate and frustrate me even more. I went to walk into town, to purchase some coloured inks for a monster comic that I have been working on. As I put on my coat, the skies turned black and the heavens opened. Now rain may not be the most common deterrent to leaving the house, but need I remind you that I live in Galway. In Galway, you get freak rain, heavy bullet like downpours which not only leave you soaked, but also manage to give you a good hiding at the same time.

Films were unappealing, it was too early, and I scanned the bookcase to see what was on the ‘unread’ shelf. I picked up a copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Snuff’ and began to read. Four and a half hours later, I had finished ‘Snuff’ and felt all the more accomplished for doing so. It is a unique book in that I didn’t particularly enjoy reading it at the time. I love Palahniuk, he is one of my favourite authors, but there was something so formulated about this, that in its structural transparency I was left feeling a little cheated. Today, however, when I reflect on the book, I am left with a far more satisfied and contented feeling in relation to it. Could it be that Chuck has discovered some form of literary attack device that infiltrates the mind and seeps out gradually over time in waves of revelation?

The premise of ‘Snuff’ is a simple one, middle aged porn legend Cassie Wright is planning to go out with a bang, a gang bang. Preparations have long been in place for the filming of her new opus ‘World Whore Three’ in which Cassie will ‘take on’ 600 men for the camera. The story is told from the perspective of three men, waiting for their turn to ‘perform’ in the crowded stinking basement. The men are comprised of an aging porn veteran, a washed up TV star, recently spurned from television due to a publicised sex scandal and a young man who believes he is Cassie Wright’s son. They all have reasons for being there that stem beyond plain sex.

There is a hilarious account of the young man becoming obsessed with Ms Wright, hunting down all her movies online and even purchasing her mail order sex toys. When his adopted mother catches him in flagrante with a blow up version of Cassie Wright she yells at him in absolute horror and disgust: ‘That’s your birth mother! That’s your birth mother!’

It’s clear that we are in familiar Palahniuk territory. The tension and questioning escalate as the men’s turn gets closer. It is a short enough book and so there would be no joy in dissecting the plot for you here, it would only ruin the surprise. Let’s just remind ourselves of the basic information that I have given you, the books title and use your imagination.

There are some great recurring themes in the novel, the first being a succession of anecdotes relating to Hollywood stars of days gone by. (E.g. about how Marilyn Monroe’s lifetime of bronchitis and pneumonia could have been attributed to her propensity for sitting in a bathtub full of ice before she would appear in public, so that her backside and breasts would remain pert and firm throughout any shoot she may have to do.), there is a truly graphic and knowledgeable insight into the world of hardcore pornography and just how successfully it has integrated itself into mainstream America.

Palahniuk talks of how pornography shaped the internet, of how it was the initial surge of online porn purchases and the developments therein that paved the way for the likes of eBay and Amazon. There are also some of the most wonderful titles for Porn movies in this book, such as: ‘The Gropes of Wrath’ ‘A Tale of Two Titties’ ‘To Drill A Mockingbird’ ‘The Wizard of Ass’ ‘Black Cock Down’ ‘Butt Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Smokey and the Ass Bandit’ to name but a few (Believe me, there are dozens more to be found between the covers)

The ‘climax’ of the novel is as ridiculous as the minds of all the characters within. There is not one redeemable or even remotely likeable character in the whole thing. This is almost signatory of Palahniuk’s world though. The social commentary is nicely executed, if slightly blatant, but that’s not a major complaint.

With Palahniuk’s new book ‘Pygmy’ out this week, this may be a good time to reacquaint yourself with the man who, despite all the criticism, remains one of the most entertaining, intelligent and genuinely progressive authors in literary today. I have included a recent interview where Chuck discusses some of the upcoming movie projects associated with his work.

I have also included a link to Chuck’s most recent interview with Time Magazine, which can be read HERE