MUSICAL MONDAY: Oi AG! (Atarashii Gakko!)

Oi AG!, the latest release from the peerless Atarashii Gakko! It's also the opening track on the band's new album, From Tokyo With Love.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Drank Too Much (Flo & Joan)

Rachel's favourite Flo & Joan tune.

Vikings Versus The Undead In New Film Novelisation

"Smartly scripted and dripping with local folklore, Draug dishes up some unexpected moments of deliberate laugh-out-loud humour in early scenes that soon give way to screaming, insanity and dying as the adventuring party plunges deeper in to the legendary forest of Ödmården."

- my review of Draug

The unnerving, low-budget, Swedish swords-and-sorcery/horror film Draug has transformed into a novel, Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga, by the film's writer/director Klas Persson.

Published last week, the 351-page paperback (which is also available in hardback or as an e-book) is available from Amazon.

Set around a millennia ago, this is Klas Persson's debut novel, telling the story of a group of warriors searching the wilderness for a lost missionary, but instead discover they are being hunted by a supernatural terror.

There was a time when the pagan gods clashed against the new religion of Christ.

There was a time when the seid crones performed heathen sorcery inside their dusty hovels.

There was a time when the dark beings of ancient horrors still stalked the night.

In Viking age Sweden, a missionary bishop goes missing somewhere deep inside Eyeskogamörk, a vast forest that made a natural border between the South and the still pagan North.

To find him, or his murderers, they send Hakon Grettirson—famed warrior and lord of Sigtuna.

With him, he brings his troubled foster daughter, Nanna. Born in the dark North and plagued with visions and dreams of her pagan past.

This is the first time any of them will have entered these dark parts since the harsh Christinization attempts made years earlier during the reign of Anund Jakob the Coalburner.

Inside the darkness of Eyskógamörk they will both encounter the demons of their past. But also an ancient evil, lurking in the shadows.

The aptrganga

The walking dead

The DRAUGR

Meanwhile, the film's soundtrack is available to stream on a variety of sources, to give you the right atmospheric reading backdrop.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Storm (OTYKEN)

The music video was filmed in Siberia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, on the Chulym River. 30 km from the village of Pasechnoye (the capital of the Chulyms). This is the birthplace of the members of the OTYKEN group.

Chulyms are the smallest indigenous people of Siberia. According to one version, the Chulyms are the ancestors of the Japanese Ainu and the indigenous peoples of North America. According to another version, the Chulyms are an ancient Turkic tribe.

The song OTYKEN - STORM talks about the difficulties that people face when traveling to the East.

The music of the OTYKEN group is dedicated to giving kindness and warm light to all people on earth! The magical power of our music will heal your soul and your body as well, and it can even send you into a trance.

Another retro slice of bombastic music, from way back in 2022 (remember those halcyon times?)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Veteran of the Psychic Wars (Blue Öyster Cult)

Massive hat tip to Dungeons & Possums, who posted this the other month and wrote:

"This is the live performance of Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Öyster Cult, from the Extraterrestrial Live! tour ca 1981, recorded in Pembroke Pines, FL and released on the 1982 live album of the same name.

"It contains one of the all-time coolest extended instrumentals in rock and roll, a guitar solo journey with spot-on accompaniment that rises and rises and rises in intensity until it feels like a laser beam, a cathartic blast to break the weight of a heavy song that would have surely melted a few faces in that lucky audience."

MUSICAL MONDAY: Sky Kite Valley (Original Music from Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass)

Sky Kite Valley from Obojima, a new single by 1985 Games for the hit campaign setting Obojima: Tales From The Tall Grass.

Recorded and composed by Steve Gernes.

MUSICAL MONDAY: International Rescue (Fuzzbox)

Another part of my youth scraped up from the depths of my addled memory by a random sighting on YouTube!

I was a massive We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It aka Fuzzbox fan back in the day and pretty sure I owned both of their studio albums.

International Rescue - their Thunderbirds parody track - came from 1989's Big Bang.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Tada Utsukushii Noroi (Nakamura Hak)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Horn Of Destiny (Hawkwind w/Michael Moorcock)

via

Hawkwind - The Chronicle of The Black Sword (1985)

The chance to finally see a live performance of one of my favourite albums of recent years was too good an opportunity to pass up, even if the cost of the DVD on eBay was a bit on the pricey side.

Hawkwind: The Chronicle of The Black Sword is a 75-minute live show by the legendary rock band, performing select tracks from their 1985 album of the same name, a musical adaptation of the early adventures of Michael Moorcock's cursed, albino, swords-and-sorcery anti-hero, Elric of Melniboné.

Not only does Elric himself appear in the show, in the form of actor Tony Crerar, complete with Kabuki-style face paint and wielding a mighty Stormbringer prop, but Michael Moorcock pops up as well, providing lyrical 'spoken word' narration to some of the stories being presented.

He returns for the encore, adding guest vocals to the medley of Hawkwind tracks.

Hawkwind: The Chronicle of The Black Sword isn't a full-on rock opera though, more a series of psychedelic vignettes, often centred around primitive and dated lighting effects, clearly designed not so much to be "watched" as "experienced", quite possibly with the aid of non-prescription drugs. 

Filmed at London's Hammersmith Odeon in 1985, and released (presumably initially on VHS) the following year, both the sound and the image quality are not up to the levels we are used to these days, and I couldn't help feeling that this concert recording could benefit from a 21st Century Blu-Ray or 4K upgrade.

I think I only consciously discovered Hawkwind, and particularly this Elric-inspired album, in the last decade or so.

I have to confess that this live performance will never replace the majesty of the original album, but it was certainly captures a moment, and gives us a unique Moorcock-endorsed look at a hallucinogenic interpretation of the world of Elric.

For comparison, the album tracks, on the version I own, are:

• Song of the Swords
• Shade Gate
• The Sea King
• The Pulsing Cavern
• Elric the Enchanter
• Needle Gun
• Zarozinia
• The Demise
• Sleep of a Thousand Tears
• Chaos Army
• Horn of Destiny
• Arioch
• Night of The Hawks
• Green Finned Demon
• Dream Dancers
• Dragons and Fables

Whereas the songs performed in the live set are:

• Song of The Swords
• Sea King
• Master of The Universe
• Choose Your Masques
• Needlegun
• Zarozinia
• Lords of Chaos
• Brainstorm
• Moonglum
• Elric The Enchanter
• Magnu
• Horn of Destiny

Now, come on Hollywood, where's our Elric of Melniboné movie?

You already have the perfect lead in Tilda Swinton...

MUSICAL MONDAY: Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Li Jun Li)

Li Jun Li's cover version of Dream A Little Dream Of Me, from Spider-Noir, currently streaming on Prime Video.

The Importance of Michael Moorcock to RPG History

In preparation for the release of its Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons 5e), Goodman Games has published a nice overview of Michael Moorcock's importance in the world of sword and sorcery fiction, as well as his influence on the fantasy roleplaying game oeuvre.

You can read the article about Elric's creator here.

Goodman Games' The Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (yeah, I can't get my head round that name yet. I'm wondering if it's just a placeholder) will be the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit next year and you can sign up to be alerted when that launches here.

Moorcock is the youngest and only living author mentioned in Gary Gygax's famous Appendix N list of inspirational authors for Dungeons & Dragons players and gamesmasters, from the 1979 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.

Below you will find a 2019 interview with Michael Moorcock from the Appendix N Book Club podcast, in which the forthright author shares his views on gaming companies using his creations, racism in the works of Lovecraft and Agatha Christie, why he prefers the adventures of Conan to Lord Of The Rings, the birth and evolution of Elric (not an elf!), the benefits of comic book adaptations, writing Hawkmoon books in three days, The Multiverse and destroying universes, Dan Dare's optimistic future, activism, feminism, Brexit... and a plug for his most recent music album!

You can download the podcast episode here via iTunes or listen to it here:

The Price Will Be High If You Don't Pay The Piper

The 1957 musical, cautionary, fairy tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin comes to Talking Pictures TV in the UK on Sunday, June 14, at 9.30am.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Kaze no Anthem (Eve feat. Suis of Yorushika)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Bangaranga (DARA)

Here it is: the winner of the weekend's 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest.

In the "home jury", both Rachel and I gave this one our top scores and so were delighted - and rather surprised - that the bouncy Bangaranga actually won the contest.

Our scoresheets for the evening - Rachel even made notes!

Sadly, the UK's Look Mum No Computer (which we'd voted into second place) ended up at the bottom of the 25 acts participating in the grand final, with just a single point.

In comparison, DARA scored 516 points - the biggest margin over second place in the history of Eurovision.

See below for the final tally, which includes both the international juries' and the public votes.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Come Along With Me/Island Song (LAKE)

MUSICAL MONDAY: The Mandalorian and Grogu (Boys Noize Remix)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Turn The Tide ( NiNi Music x RYUJIN)

Turn the Tide is an Epic Asian folk metal collaboration between NiNi Music and RYUJIN (Ryoji Shinomoto).

Blending traditional Asian instruments with melodic metal, the song tells the story of the legendary Pirate Queen Zheng Yi Sao and the storms of war that turned the tide of battle across the seas.

Shot across Asia with shots from the beautiful Hokkaido.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: I Never Met David Bowie, But...

Nick and Andorian cosplayer at the premiere 'after-party'

I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with this David Bowie-themed Throwback Thursday by suggesting I had met the great man.

The closest I ever came (via the laws of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) was when Nick and I, 24 year ago, blagged ourselves tickets to the gala celebrity premiere of Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (probably my favourite of the original Star Trek movies). I can't remember if this was through work or through my old Trekkie friend John Carrigan.

The only celebrities there actually connected with the movie were director Nicholas Meyer and Iman  - model-turned-actress and wife of David Bowie - who played Martia the shapeshifter.

So I was in the same room as Bowie's wife, which is the next best thing to having been in the same room as him!

As is often the case when someone famous dies you discover all the fascinating facts about their life that you wish you'd known while they were alive.

For instance, thanks to the Times of Tunbridge Wells news website back in 2016, I learned of Bowie's connection to the town of my birth.

His mum came from Southborough (a 'suburb' of Tunbridge Wells that bridges the gap between that town and Tonbridge, where I now live) and she met her future husband (and David's father-to-be) at the old cinema in Tunbridge Wells.

Like the rest of the right-thinking world I've always been a fan of Bowie's music, but in recent years it took on an added poignancy, as his song Where Are We Now? was the only track I remember the radio playing as Rachel and I sat by my mum's bed in her final days.

After years of silence, he had surprised the world by announcing a new album seemingly out of the blue, and here I was hearing the first release from it (repeatedly), sitting in a night-shrouded room, swathed in grief, saying 'good bye' to my ailing mother.

When I think back to those days, and I often do, the image in my head is almost like a Nativity scene, with Rachel and I sitting in the halo of light from a bedside lamp, holding mum's hand, in an otherwise dark room, with Where Are We Now? providing the soundtrack for the vignette.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Deathstalker (Brendan McCreary, Chuck Cirino, Slash, and Bear McCreary)

The ’80s cult classic Deathstalker is back in an amped-up, reverential reboot, courtesy of writer-director Steven Kostanski (Frankie Freako, Psycho Goreman) and executive producer Slash (Guns N' Roses).

The film features a stellar, rousing, equally tributary title track from Emmy and BAFTA Award–winning composer Bear McCreary (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Walking Dead) and Slash.