A Few Days & A Bunch of Stuff

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So I haven’t posted here in a few days.  I guess the general assumption would be it was because of stuff going on for Thanksgiving, but instead it’s because I’ve been working on a bunch of things for Silber.

First off, the Kickstarter for our Christmas buttons has started.  It’s only up for a few days so that I can get the buttons out in time to be stocking stuffers.  Here are the images.
xmas-buttons-for-webI got up the new issue of QRD up with interviews with Mike VanPortfleet (Lycia), Ben Vendetta (Elephant Stone Records), Jason Young (Veggie Dog Saturn), Nick Marino (Super Haters), Jamie Barnes, Scotty Irving (Clang Quartet), Shaun Sandor (Promute), Ben Link Collins (Silent Media), Joe Kendrick (WNCW), Carl Kruger (Static Fanatic), & myself.  Also included is the return of candy reviews with tons of pictures & video.

But the big news is we just did a digital release of Rllrbll’s new album 4 Corners.  It’s a pretty great record that delves into trip hop & free jazz blending into the ever genre dodging Rllrbll.  For a limited time you can even check it out as a free stream before slinging out a couple hard earned dollars to let the band know you are into what they are doing.

A couple weeks ago we did some full band Remora shows featuring me on voice & guitar, Peter Adrich on bass, & Brian McKenzie on drums.  One practice (thanks to Kirk Adam for giving us a practice space) for a couple hours & then a couple of good shows.  I’m really happy with how things translated for the shows & I want to try to do more stuff with this line-up or a similar one at some point.  We’ll see what all happens.  Theoretically there are some recordings, so I’ll let you know if they are worth hearing sooner or later.

Recent Dreams:
My grandfather has outlived my grandmother & he has a female friend who’s been house sitting while he was away.  When he gets home he finds out she no longer has another home to go to so he decides to marry her & let her stay in the house.  It makes me wonder if he ever loved my grandmother at all.

I’m on tour taking a crap at a rest stop.  No matter how much I wipe my asshole I can’t get it clean & I finish the ten inch roll of toilet paper & there’s foot high mountain of toilet paper in the bowl when I give up.

I’m a bodyguard & I’m with a client at a Target.  They have a strict no weapons policy so I had to check my guns & knives at the service desk.  I’m picking them back up while my client’s checking out & while waiting I see this self-service machine next to the Icee machine that has rice with baked apples & cinnamon & raisins in it.  It smells incredible & I might let my client get killed just for a chance to taste it.

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Working Worked Upon

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

I feel like I’m getting some things done.  Put in five or six hours on practicing for the Remora shows this weekend  & did this little song idea thing:

I made the digital versions of the new comics & got them emailed out.  I still have to get things laid out for some new books I wrote that I need to draw.

I got a bunch more of my sun distortion images built up & posted on the Silber Tumblr.  I think I might try to do something eventually for collecting all the sun images into a bundle for screen savers instead of animated gifs.  We’ll see how long it will take for that to happen.

I got my Christmas button set designed.  Hoping to launch the Kickstarter to earn some money for the seven designers in a few days.

Last Night’s Dreams:
My car breaks down in Portland right in front of a comic shop called Understanding Comics & I go in looking for the issue of Creatures on the Loose with the first appearance of Werewolf by Night in their back issues, but all their back issues seem to be from the 1980s & 1990s.  I walk out of the shop & wish I’d remembered to look for Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein.

I’m in a desolate part of New York in the late 1970s wandering around & I start to be heckled by a bunch of men in old dirty suits who seem to be driving me deeper into the deserted parts of the city & my shoes are starting to wear through & I start to get a dread that they plan to cook & eat me.

I’m living in a house with a screened door & the cat comes rushing through.  At some point he’d cut a slit in the screen so he can come & go as he pleases.

I’m hanging out with my teenage best friend at a local park & a group of teenagers who look like the same kind of substance abusers as us pour out of two vans & go on to the baseball field & start playing.  They’re nothing like us at all.  I wander off & when I turn back I see my friend with his trousers dropped taking a crap in the middle of the park where everyone can see him.  I just keep walking away.

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There & back again

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

Back from the tour with Irata.  It was a blast.  There will probably be a bit of videos from it going up eventually as well.

A lot of work that had not been completed because of not being at home for basically two months & I’m trying to get it all done.  We’ll see how it all works out as far as getting things done soonish.  A few press releases to do (& releases to put out).  A few comics to draw.  A few comics to make digital versions of (Lost Kisses, Walrus, REH).  A new issue of QRD to assemble.  Six shows over the course of the next month (Remora for three of them, two that I’m not sure if they’re SLF or Remora, & one singing for Electric Bird Noise) which means practicing a bit.  More buttons to be made & a campaign to run for that.  Maybe an Unspeakable Forces EP to record.  The QRD ebook series.  So a full plate for the rest of the year.  I might not be updating the blog quite as much in favor of focusing energy to work on some of the more serious content I just mentioned.  We’ll see how it goes.

Here’s a little experimental video from Shaun Sandor/Promute:

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KISS, Irata, Days, Comics, Lou Reed, Dreams

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So it’s been a little while since I posted.  On the road with Irata & generally having a good time which has led to this:
I am willing to pay $2 to any band (up to the first 100) covering this song in any style:

A few days ago this article went up about what I’m doing right with comics & it has a ton of photos.  In related news, the same dude all so posted these reviews of my comics.  In other related news, I laid out, printed, assembled, & shipped (to subscribers) three new comics – still need to make the digital versions for digital subscribers & I hope to do that soonish.

As I assume a lot of you know, Lou Reed died a couple weeks ago.  So there has been a bit of a resurgence about him lately & Jon DeRosa (Aarktica) suggested Remora cover this song & maybe I will.

Also Azalia Snail wrote this song in tribute to him with her new project LoveyDove.

Since I’m posting a bunch of videos, here’s a newish one from Plumerai:

Recent Dreams:
I’ve been smart enough to act docile & domesticated enough that I’m in a work camp that is not only survivable, but not much worse than the feeling of oppression I had before the aliens came.  I steal a weapon & sneakily & on the sly kill the masters & collaborators one at a time over a series of days until one day I get up & I’m left all alone in the camp.  In one of the abandoned houses I find a digital camera that has photos on it of an old friend.  Did I kill him?  I can’t even be sure anymore.  What have I done?

I wake up & I’m trying to work my phone, but I can’t figure it out.  When I wipe my bleary eyes clear, it’s not my phone at all – it’s a Nintendo DS.

I’m at a dude’s house after a show & he says, “Do you want to see something cool?”  He pulls out a 16-inch vinyl record & tells me it’s a super rare failed oversize format from the 1940s.

I’m walking home drunk & the sun is rising.  I’m so tired & exhausted that I get on my hands & knees & start crawling.  As it turns into morning joggers start to go by me, jumping over me & forcing me off the sidewalk.  I look up & recognize one of the runners as my father.

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4 Responses to KISS, Irata, Days, Comics, Lou Reed, Dreams

  1. Peter says:
    November 13, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    “I look up & recognize one of the runners as my father.” I can see that happening.

  2. Lullabier says:
    November 13, 2013 at 3:31 pm

    Great song by LR!
    That’s a newer version of a Velvet Underground live classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLfBg23AfQM

  3. hi brian says:
    November 21, 2013 at 12:20 pm

    did i mention that the background in this Plumerai video is the footage from your Beams video?

Home Dreams

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

I successfully made it home.  Trying to get the orders received in my absence filled & laying out new comics to print before going out for a week & a half with Irata down to Florida & back.  When I get home I have a few shows lined up including a couple Remora shows with a line-up of me on guitar & vocals, Peter Aldrich on bass, & Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) on drums.  We’ll see how it all goes getting it all down in the little time I have.  Still have a couple releases I need to get ready & an issue of QRD.  I’d rather have too much to do than not enough.

Last Night’s Dream:
After reading some of my comics, a bandmate’s girlfriend says I can’t go on tour with them again because I’m a former murderer & all around asshole.

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Finally Checking It Out – The Squadron Supreme: Death of a Universe by Mark Gruenwald & Paul Ryan

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

squadron-supreme-coverI’m going to be speaking from my personal memories for this & not fact checking on wikipedia for the review.  The Squadron Supreme started off as knockoffs of DC’s Justice League to fight The Avengers in some kind of chess game or solitaire for money scenario setup by The Grandmaster.  They are the big superhero team from an earth in an alternate reality & they made some guest appearances in The Defenders & such after that.  Then they had a twelve issue mini-series deconstructing superheroes that people assume is a Watchmen knockoff that actually pre-dates Watchmen.  So anyway, I read all those stories as a kid, but I never picked up Death of a Universe because it was a graphic novel & cost $10.  I found it in a two dollar bin at Big B’s in Hamilton & figured it was worth a shot.

Well, this is pretty awful & makes me not want to re-read the old stuff.  It has the problem I have with a lot of team books where there are too many characters that are only differentiated by their costumes & powers & their personalities aren’t developed at all.  A few characters die in the book, but as each one died there was no emotional impact at all because I didn’t care about them.  The whole thing feels like one of the contrived summer crossover events that’s supposed to change everything, but sets everything back to normal at the last minute.  At least it’s done in one book instead of across 30.

squadron-supreme-head

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Returns & Dreams

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

The tour is wrapping up fast.  Then home for a few days trying to catch up on work, then back out with Irata.  We’ll see what happens.  Today I accidentally spent $60 on comics.  So much for making money on this tour.

Last Night’s Dreams:
I get my credit card bill in the mail & it says I spent $20,000 this month.  I don’t have anything to show for it, not even memories.

I’m making a living by breaking into houses & robbing them with a couple friends.  I’m really shitty at it because I only steal things I want or need – which basically means spare change & cans of beans.

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Finally Checking It Out – Captain America: Patriot by Karl Kesel & Mitch & Bettie Bretweiser

Posted on October 26, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

Captain_America_Patriot_Vol_1_1Growing up I always thought of Captain America as a goody two shoes.  I probably don’t remember the story quite right, but I remember him going into retirement because he was so racked with guilt after accidentally killing a low level agent of AIM or Hydra or something.  This was at a time when The Punisher was going around killing anything that moved in Marvel’s most popular book.  But ten years ago or so when I saw the opening of the Ultimate Avengers cartoon with Cap storming Normandy, I thought he was kind of a bad ass.  One year for my nephew’s birthday I got him a collection of the first 25 issues of The Avengers & reading those I was pretty into the para-suicidal martyr version of the character Stan Lee was doing.  Then I heard about the storyline where he got shot in the head by his hypnotized girlfriend & I kinda knew I should check out some more of his adventures.

So Captain America: Patriot is not about the Captain America Steve Rogers, but about a guy named Jeff Mace who took on the costume during the post-WWII era when Steve was frozen in a block of ice.  Mace is a reporter with 4F status so he can’t be drafted, so he decides to do his part by becoming the home front superhero The Patriot & eventually begrudgingly becomes Captain America.  I like this book a lot.  It’s more about the humanity side of being a hero than about action & fairly self-contained.  It is a good place to look for a grownup superhero comic that doesn’t rely on violence & being dark & gritty.  I hope to read more books like this.

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One Response to Finally Checking It Out – Captain America: Patriot by Karl Kesel & Mitch & Bettie Bretweiser

  1. GoddakkATTAKK says:
    October 26, 2013 at 2:13 pm

    Not sure if you saw it but the storyline to the first act of the Capt America movie that came out a couple years ago sounds like the story line to this.

Finally Checking It Out – Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, David Aja, & Matt Hollingsworth

Posted on October 26, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

hawkeyeSo I’ve been hearing about this book being the best superhero book coming out lately.  I was reticent to check it out because I haven’t ever been into the character too much even though I probably read over a hundred comics with Hawkeye in them as a kid.  But I found a couple issues in a dollar bin in Portland on tour & decided to give it a shot.

The allure of owning a Patek Philippe replica watches is underscored by its ability to authentically capture the visual appeal and elegance of the genuine watch, adding to its desirability.

Wow.  I see why people like it.  Self-contained fun stories building to something bigger with highly stylized & interesting artwork.  It’s not the semi-goofball Hawkeye I remember, but closer to the tortured soul of Daredevil.  Not only are these books worth the buck I paid, they’re probably worth the three dollar cover price.

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Down Time & Dreams

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Brian John Mitchell

So today was a day off & it was super productive.  I got the Yellow6 & Carl Kruger 5 in 5 EPs up (waiting to hear back from the both of them before starting the promo push) after having finished the press releases & volume adjustments on the audio & digital booklets.  Pretty stoked about that.  I also talked to Jamie Barnes & he’s hoping to start recording some stuff for his 5 in 5 EP soon.  A lot more things still to work on, but I’m pretty excited about having a good day.  Especially given that today is the second anniversary of my grandmother’s death & I’m fighting off collapsing on the floor.  Sometimes being in the presence of other people can keep you from having a nervous breakdown.

Last Night’s Dreams:
A girl I’m dating says to me, “You’re so secretive & mysterious lately.  I’m not even sure I know you at all.  I’m not even sure if you’re a good guy anymore.”

I’m taking a shower drunk & shaving.  I mess up my beard so much that I have to shave the whole thing off & afterwards nobody recognizes me.

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One Response to Down Time & Dreams

  1. Peter says:
    October 23, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    I found the beard and put it on.