ohtani's jacket

More albums from '83... Steve Hiett's Down on the Road by the Beach... mellow surf rock/ambient pop. Nice album to listen to on a Sunday morning or whenever you're chilling. Djeli Moussa Diawara's Yasimika... This was outstanding. I listened to a remastered version which removed the reverb. Some people claim the original version is better, but I can only judge based on what I've heard, and this was an incredible record. I don't know the details well, but it's essentially acoustic West African music with exquisite singing. Tears for Fears' The Hurting... I try to be open minded about music, but even I've got to admit I was looking at this thing and thinking "Aw, man, Tears for Fears?" But this was good... Really good. Mad World, and its remix, is a great single, but there are plenty of good album tracks too. Much more experimental than I was expecting. It must have sounded like it was from the future compared to 70s records. Cocteau Twins' Head Over Heels... I've always struggled to get into the Cocteau Twins. Their music is pretty, but I can't understand a word they say. It's like they're singing underwater. Ashbury's Endless Skies... If you want to hear a hard rock album that could have been released at the peak of the genre and considered a groundbreaking record, but was actually released in 1983, then this is the record for you. Very good. No Trend's Too Many Humans...... This was the nosiest, and probably the hardest, record I've listened to from 1983. If you hate people as much as these guys do, you'll be in fine company here. Misanthropic to the core. Peter and The Test Tube Babies' The Mating Sounds of South American Frogs... interesting title for a record. Kind of disgusting album cover. This was some solid Oi! punk rock, if you like that sort of thing. Fernando Pellon's Cadáver pega fogo durante o velório... the language barrier lost me here as this was samba that was supposed to be fairly dark, pessimistic and sarcastic. And here I thought it was pleasant sounding music. OMD's Dazzle Ships... this didn't work for me. I think there's plenty of better New Wave and Art Pop records out there and I wasn't very impressed with any of the sampling. I have a high tolerance for experimental music, but nothing caught my ear on this record.

Not surprised that the Warriors' shitty season ended early. Kerr put it best when he said the team was maxed out. It's too bad that Wiggins was hurt for the final game. They absolutely needed him to have another great game to slow down LeBron and force a Game 7. Playing every other day hurt the Warriors as much as it did the Lakers. it'll be interesting to see whether the Lakers can get past Denver.

I finished Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. It wasn't really a series I loved as I was reading it issue by issue, but it all came together in the end, and I thought the ending was cool. I can understand why it was well-received as the storytelling is completely different from a typical Marvel book, and Aja's art is stylish and chic. I really liked the character of Kate Bishop. I'm not sure if other writers can write her the way Fraction does, but she was the most memorable thing about the series, to me, and had the best lines.

I don't know about anybody else, but every wrestling match I watch right now is like a salut to Dean.

I've been deep diving albums from 1983 recently. Random thoughts. Charly García's Clics modernos... Argentina's great musician, or so they tell me. Can't understand what he's singing about, but the music is nice. Don't mind listening to music in a different language, but I know people who do. Liked this enough to listen to three more of his studio albums and an MTV Unplugged record. Mix of pop and singer-song writer tunes with a touch of New Wave. Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks... sure is atmospheric. Dunno when I'd listen to this since I don't plan on heading into orbit any time soon. Maybe late at night some time? Really late at night? Oingo Boingo's Good for Your Soul... extremely 80s. I am 100% certain you could have only made this record in the 80s. It's a nice record that incorporates plenty of different sounds, including some world music influences, which helps make the tracks distinct from each other. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble's Texas Flood... Blues rock is my least favorite of all the blues genres, but this is pretty good for what it's intended to be and Vaughan's solos are good if you like that sort of thing. I did really like one of the tunes that was some really lowdown blues. The best thing about it was that it felt genuine and wasn't commercial sounding. Daniel Johnston's Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album... Daniel Johnston was a young, mentally unwell man who recorded albums in his bedroom and later turned into a cult figure, and in some folks' opinions, a musical genius. He never finished this album because he suffered a breakdown while recording it. It gives you a pretty scary insight into the struggles he was having at the time. He has this really weird singing style where he sounds like a teenager, but you get used it after a while and some of the tunes are really good. Lady Pank's Lady Pank... Polish New Wave, Pop Rock album. Couldn't under a word but bopped along to it anyway. I liked this a lot, though apparently the lyrical content is hugely important so I missed a big chunk of the album's importance right there. Bad Brains' Rock for Light... part punk, part reggae. I get why Bad Brains did that, but are you hardcore or are you reggae 'cos it makes my head spin switching between the two. Lewis' L'Amour... low key, ambient pop. Quiet record. I had a hard time hearing what he was singing. Listened to it twice but no impact. Oz' Fire in the Brain... Pretty standard early 80s NWOBHV influenced record. Some nice riffs. They get bonus points for being from Finland. Nothing on here is as cool as Turn The Cross Upside Down. Aztec Camera' High Land, Hard Rain... sounds like a mix of The Smiths and Crowded House. Pleasant enough but didn't jangle enough for my liking. Womack & Womack's Love Wars... smooth soul. I like my soul a little rawer, but it was well produced. Rudimentary Peni's Death Church... not as hard as I remembered or expected. I was expecting this to be balls to the walls, which it wasn't. Unless I wasn't listening properly, which happens. Minor Threat's Out of Step... this was also softer than I was expecting. I think I've been spoiled by other hardcore acts somewhere down the line. The Fabulous Thunderbirds' What's the Word... this was a lot of fun. Texas Blues with a strong Boogie element. Enjoyed this one from start to end. Stevie Ray's brother's band, for those of you who don't know. John Fahey's Railroad I... Fahey is an absolute legend as far as I'm concerned. I never got as far as his 80s albums when I binge-listened his records, but this was good stuff. Kinda crazy to hear when you think about 1983 and the type of music that was in vogue, but great to hear the legend continue to do his thing. Albert Collins & The Icebreakers' Don't Lose Your Cool... man, Albert Collins sure got goofy on this record. Fun, but goofy. I thought I was listening to Johnny "Guitar" Watson, or somebody else, the way he was jiving. Hell, it could have been a Screamin' Jay Hawkins record half of the time. However, it wasn't bad, and Collins' playing was rock solid.

I've been coming to this site since 1999, so for almost 25 years. There have been a lot of folks who've come and gone since then, but Dean's love for pro-wrestling never waivered. He was still posting about it while his health was declining. Aside from the future he could have spent with his friends and family, the thing that bums me out the most is that he won't get to see the wrestling that's still to come because I'm sure he would have loved it. 20-25 years ago, everyone wanted to be like Dean with the jokes, the amazing one-liners and the personal anecdotes. But no-one could imitate him. Each new DVDVR was event. You'd run off trying to scrounge a copy of whatever tape they'd reviewed, and as others have said, Dean was generous in sharing the footage, especially when it became easier to share media. There were a lot of flame wars back in those days, but everyone respected Dean. And then he became a vet and gave just as much, if not more, to the younger generations that followed. And he was an old-school message board dude until the end. I played with my kid in the park today and I thought about Dean. I watched some wrestling in the evening and thought about him again. Wrestling won't be the same without him, but it wouldn't have been the same without him either, if you catch my drift.

I'm in disbelief, but RIP Dean.

The last issue was released in 2019. Shanower announced that it was the last floppy and that future issues would be released through Comixology. It was the first color issue and since then he's released color versions of the collected editions. In fact, he just released a new collection last week. What that means for the future of the book, I'm not sure, but he's still publishing it.

I made it to issue #34 of Age of Bronze. I don't know if Shanower will finish the series, but even if he doesn't, it stands as a monumental work. One of the best series I've read since I returned to comics. It's a cliche, but every panel is a work of art. I wish there was more of an audience for these types of comics, however putting them out so irregularly doesn't help with sales. Still, what an incredible labour of love. Hats off to you, Eric Shanower.

I finished Sex Criminals. In the end, it went in a direction that I didn't particularly care for, and I could have absolutely done without the coda which did nothing for me. It was a fun ride, even if it did feel like they were changing things as they went along, but fell short of being one of the best series of the Eisners era. Some nice character moments, but I gotta have that tightly woven plot.

It's stupid that they don't count the stats. These ain't no pre-season games. They should just add them to the playoff stats.

Slaughter Lord may be the noisiest Aussie band ever.

I've been on a huge Running Wild kick this past week.

I finished up Julie Doucet's Dirty Plotte. Wonderful stuff. Honest, surreal, funny. I wish she'd stayed in comics longer, but what a brilliant legacy to leave behind. Of all the great early 90s alternative comics, Dirty Plotte was the most fun to read.

The Black Caps win another thriller this time scoring the final run on the last ball of the Test. .

The reason the 2001 test was so amazing was that Australia had won a record 16 tests in a row, and then Laxman and Dravid put on their incredible stand that broke all sorts of records, and then the Indian spinners went nuts when a draw seemed the most inevitable outcome.

Amazing victory for the Black Caps, but nothing will ever compare to that 2001 test.

H-Bomb are my new favorite French band.

I quite like Mortal Sin too.

Hobbs Angel of Death are my favorite so far.

There's no way I'd call the '95 Rockets the worst team to win a championship. Even if you discount their incredible playoff run, they went back to back and had the best player in the NBA in Dream. You could maybe argue that they were the worst regular season team to win a title, but I don't think that really means much. The Nets were on a tear before KD got hurt and were climbing up the standings after their awful start. Now look at them. The Warriors finally gave up on Wiseman. What a bust. At least we got Payton back. Never should have let him go.

The Lakers got Mychal Thompson from the Spurs in February of '87 and won the next two titles, but I guess he wasn't a star. The Sixers traded for Mutombo in '01 and made the finals.

I didn't realize that Australia had a strong heavy metal scene. Though it makes sense I suppose.

RIP Tom Verlaine. It's been a while since I listened to Television, but I spun a couple of his solo records today and boogied away.

I finished Chester Brown's Yummy Fur series. Personally, I preferred the Ed the Happy Clown era to his autobiographical stories, but Brown was making up the Ed story as he went along and for some reason he grew frustrated with it. You get the sense that Chester was always a bit restless as a cartoonist, as he began experimenting heavily with panel layout as the series progressed (to the chagrin of some readers who didn't appreciate the small number of panels per page.) I enjoyed some of the autobiographical stories from his childhood. I'm sure a lot of fans our age can identify with trying to get their hands on a copy of Playboy each month and then figuring out where in the hell they're gonna hide it. I also liked his adolescent tales of dealing with coming of age and interacting with girls. The Drawn and Quarterly publisher, Chris Oliveros, convinced Chester to end Yummy Fur, which led to the ill-received Underwater series. Yummy Fur was one of the first alternative comics I was drawn to as a teenager, discovering it through the back issue boxes at my local comic shop. I was especially drawn to the Gospel adaptations where a grumpy and cantankerous Jesus spits fire at everyone. Looking back on it now, it was quite a bold choice for an alternative cartoonist to adapt the New Testament, but a natural thing to do for Brown to pursue as he was interested in alternative Gospel sources. From a comics standpoint, the Gospel adaptations represent his best cartooning work from the period, IMO, especially his Matthew.