Nazi Zombies!!! Run!

Thanks. -Jonathan

Recent Painting - Case 2.1

(Click image for larger version)

This last Sunday my good friend Scott Kinkade took proper photos of all the new pieces from my solo art show at Germ.

Here's my favorite one, Case 2.1. I will add this and the others to art.malsonus.com as soon as I have time.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Beatrice Cenci

Beatrice Cenci is Lucio Fulci's one and only serious period drama / tragedy and it's a great film (I could even tell from the crappy bootleg I saw).

I've heard it's coming out officially in the U.S. soon. I will post again if I can track down solid details.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Can't sleep

Zzzzzzzzzzombie. -Jonathan

To Be or Not To Be

Thanks Michael.

Happy Sunday. -Jonathan

AOD Desolation House comp "lyrics"

Since the "lyrics" for the ANGEL OF DECAY track on the Desolation House comp were not printed...

Just like all the tracks on the "Covered in Scars" CD, these words come directly from a nightmare I had (on 7/9/02). The comp track, "Told to Answer Mentally," was recorded during the "Covered..." sessions back in 2004. It is easily one of the best songs I recorded in that session.


"Told to Answer Mentally"

Semi-conscious feelings of being attacked by bugs

I woke up, stood and "saw" some of the bugs flying around

------

She was some kind of android or machine

Like a bald mannequin head but glowing glassy and covered in some kind of frost

(unintelligible)

-----

I am leaving a bar in Aurora, Colorado

I see a guy dressed like a cop start to follow me as I go to my car

I duck into some bushes and watch

He finds someone else getting into their car and shoots them in the head

-----

A film is being shown that is so offensive that people keep standing up to leave, then sitting down because what is so offensive to them stops in the goings-on

Then a man's head is being smashed in

People get up and leave in droves

-----

A Japanese girl takes a picture of me on a tiny camera

I am told to look in the camera viewer

It asks me questions

I'm told to answer mentally

This becomes confusing so I just partially eat the camera without realizing it

("-----" represents the long breaks between passages during the song)


Thanks. -Jonathan

Igor Wakhevitch

I am completely in love with the music of Igor Wakhevitch. It's just disappointing I never heard his work until now.

Thanks again to the truly great Mutant Sounds blog for this amazing post about his work (with free downloads)!

I can't recommend this music more highly. Check it out for yourself.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Antonin Artaud

Today I finished digesting what I could of the book "Antonin Artaud - Selected Writings."

Here's some background on Artaud from Wikipedia.

I am too thick headed to get literary here but I have to agree with Susan Sontag's take on Artaud's writing in her introduction:

"[Artaud can seem] ...extremely boring or morally monstrous or terribly painful to read... in some intrinsic way unreadable like Sade and Wilhelm Reich."

Mind you, Sontag loved Artaud's work enough to edit down volume upon volume of his writing to around 600 pages for this book. She definitely nailed it though. I found this book painful to get through BUT a few moments made it well worth the trouble.

If you have access to this book (I used my local library) I HIGHLY recommend reading the following sections:

"Eighteen Seconds" a screenplay (1925-26)
This is the highlight of the book. Too bad it was never made into a film (or was it?). This is a totally stunning surrealist screenplay.

From "Heliogabalus" (1934)
The entire book is available but I would suggest reading Sontag's excerpt first.

"To Have Done with the Judgment of God" (1947)
You can read it online here.

All in all I have to admire Artaud. He had a powerful mind and voice. There is a part of me that wishes I could get away with going insane so I could just create all the time in the care of a nice insane asylum. However, to clumsily paraphrase Celine in "Journey to the End of the Night," insanity seems like a good idea, but it isn't. Pity.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Case Study 2.10

(Click image to see larger scan)

Here's a new drawing. I hope to actually get on some new paintings soon.

Thanks. -Jonathan

The Mind new trailer

Here's a brand new trailer for "The Mind" with a bit of my original music in it. Check it out and please spread the word!

You can see the "non-grindhouse style version" here.

Hopefully there will be a screening here in Philly soon.

Thanks, -Jonathan

eBay Auctions

I am starting a slew of eBay auctions as of today. A good friend of mine is having me get rid of a lot of cool collectibles and music related stuff for him.

There are just two things up there at the moment but I will be adding a lot more over the coming weeks.

You can keep an eye on my auctions here. My user name is "malsonus_auctions" (I added the link to the list on the right as well).

Thanks. -Jonathan

Peter Frohmader

I am just now discovering the amazing 1970's music of Peter Frohmader. The above YouTube clip will give you a taste but to learn and hear much more go to the crushingly awesome music blog Mutant-Sounds.

I have not had a chance to listen to the Frohmader music downloads on Mutant-Sounds yet but I have a feeling they will rule. I saw some old H.R. Giger documentaries years ago and have wondered about the music ever since. I think the majority was Frohmader's music with a bit of BRAINTICKET as well.

Thanks. -Jonathan

DAMONE album cover

I did the album cover for the new album by DAMONE called "Roll The Dice." Yep, I did a pop hard rock album cover. Crazy eh?

The album is available now BUT be warned - this is POP HARD ROCK, not like anything else I talk about on this blog or listen to for that matter (no offense to DAMONE). For more info go to their my space page: http://www.myspace.com/damone

Thanks. -Jonathan

Italian Crime Thrillers

I had to sit through a mediocre Italian Crime Thriller not long ago so I figured I'd share my favorite ones with you.











All of these are available on NTSC DVD under one of several names as far as I know. Check out IMDB to be sure.

Grazie. -Jonathan

Hawk in my yard

I saw what I believe was a Hawk in my yard this morning just a few feet in front of me. It looked a lot like the one pictured above, which is a Red-tailed Hawk, although I don't know for sure.

It was very cold and snowing a little as I walked out the door. So I had a nice and grim Black Metal moment before rushing off to the bus and my soul crushing job.

Hails. -Jonathan

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan

Fuck. Sad, sad news.

Prisoner = Essential.

And let's not forget him as Dr. Paul Ruth in "Scanners."

Fuck. -Jonathan

Otto Dix

Otto Dix is my favorite German Expressionist artist. His work was among the first truly morbid yet moving art I came across in studying the history of art in college. I am finding myself at a loss for words... you really just need to check out his work for yourself.

Here are some online galleries:

http://www.mess.net/galleria/dix/

http://nga.gov.au/dix/

http://www.leninimports.com/otto_dix.html

Here's a guide to where you can see his work in person:

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/gallery/dix_otto.html

Thanks. -Jonathan

Favorite Covers 1: DESCUARTIZADOR

(Click the image to see it larger)

In the early to mid 90's I collected a small handful of Mexican Tabloids of the true crime variety. This one has my favorite cover, for obvious reasons.

I will add the other good covers over time.

I was pleased to find that only one or two images out of the magazines I own made it into the Feral House book "Muerte." Check it out if you're interested in this sort of thing.

Thanks. -Jonathan

BLOND ZOMBIES blog

Uh, holy shit this blog, BLOND ZOMBIES, is amazing. It's mostly images and videos with a little text in Spanish (there's always the good old google website translator if needed).

I've only had a few minutes to flick through the archives but this has to be one of the coolest, weirdest and funniest blogs I've seen yet. Definitely NOT work safe though.

Obviously the above image was appropriated from BLOND ZOMBIES (thanks), it was hard to choose just one.

MANY thanks to Will from HN_AM for the suggestion.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Case Study 2.5

Here's a new drawing that may not make it further than my sketchbook. Click the image to see a larger scan.

I will be updating my website soon with some of the new paintings that are in my current shows. Then it's time to crank out lots of new artwork. The tentative plan is to do a shitload of small paintings, some of which will be available for immediate sale on my site.

Thanks. -Jonathan

So you thought the 80's were cool eh?

Here's something incredibly NOT cool from my childhood but hey... much like everything here, I had to share.

Here's the (over) detailed story on the video game "Dragon's Lair" from 1983. It's sad that an old video game gets about 10,000 more words than anything else I find important on Wikipedia. Nerds.

Back in the 80's playing this game was about the most high tech thing an average kid could experience. My 50 or so cents got me about 10 seconds of humiliation. This shit was hard.

So, I was very happy to see the above video (part 1 of 3) that tours you through the entire game. Mind you, when you played it, it was like standing in front of a big screen TV that you interacted with. Now that's no big deal. Back then it was like forking over a couple of quarters to get into a time machine.

As nerdy as this is, the animation is fucking first rate (hence my obsession on it since the early 80's).

Thanks for nerding out with me, -Jonathan

Savage Pencil

I have loved the art of Savage Pencil for years so it was nice to run across this (somewhat dated) interview with him.

Check out his official website here.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Old Boxes

I really enjoyed the documentary "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes." I have a fraction of a fraction of the number of boxes as Mr. Kubrick but I dug into one of mine in the basement a few minutes ago.

I found this piece I did back in college (circa 1995). Still looks pretty good after all these years. It was a Photoshop collage printed on laser paper and used as a photo negative. The laser print was pressed on top of a piece of photo paper and exposed.

I'll try to dig up some more old artwork over time.

Thanks. -Jonathan

The Road

Over the holidays I read the book "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I was stunned how excellent it was considering it's a Oprah Book Club Selection (ugh). It's a very dark story set after some vague apocalypse and is intermittently poetic, grim, touching (even to me) and violent. I loved it.

Someone recommended his book "Blood Meridian" to me before the film of "No Country for Old Men" came out. Obviously I loved that movie but I didn't pick up one of his books until just recently. It's a real pity. Now I'm going to read everything I can get my hands on by McCarthy.

It turns out that "The Road" is coming out this year as a film directed by John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortensen. I enjoyed Hillcoat's "The Propisition" and have been a fan of Mortensen since seeing "The Reflecting Skin." If you haven't seen that one, you need to track it down (no DVD as of yet).

Thanks. -Jonathan

BRUNO RICHARD Blog

I recently learned that French artist BRUNO RICHARD has a blog called "elles sont de sortie." In spite of the language barrier (I use the google website translator) it is really a great place to re-visit regularly.

I have enjoyed Mr. Richard's work since buying THE SODALITY's "Beyond Unknown Pleasures" with his amazing cover art back in the early 90's. He is a regular staple of both TIMELESS and LE DERNIER CRI and I can't say enough good things about his work. I wish I was half as productive as he is.

Thanks. -Jonathan

SLAYER Vinyl

Metal Blade Records recently re-issued all their classic SLAYER albums on vinyl. I got most of them this week and they look great (minus a teeny bit of bad photoshopping here and there). You can get them from Metal Blade here but I got mine from Relapse.

When I was a kid I sold all my SLAYER vinyl to a local record store to buy SORE THROAT "Unhindered by Talent" on tape (ha ha). I love that SORE THROAT album but have regretted dumping all that great SLAYER wax for years.

So, thanks to Metal Blade (and eBay) I have almost reclaimed my lost SLAYER collection.

If anyone has the "Reign in Blood" LP or Picture Disc (original or official reissue) and is willing to part with it - let me know.

Thrash, -Jonathan

ELVIFRANCE

I was first exposed to the amazing site for ELVIFRANCE a while back and just stumbled across it in my bookmarks again a few minutes ago.

Here's a bit of background on Wikipedia.

I definitely need to spend a few hours looking through the entire site but my first impression... wow.

Thanks. -Jonathan

Happy New Year TREVOR BROWN Style

TREVOR BROWN's New Years greeting was so impressive I had to share it.

As always, I highly recommend Trevor's blog: http://www.pileup.com/babyart/_top.htm

Happy New Year from me as well. Maybe next year I'll have a fancy image to go along with it. -Jonathan