2019 in Review

It’s that time of year again…

Another one ‘in the books,’ so to speak. And time for another quick review.

2019 kicked off in a high gear for me. In January I finally finished the final edits of my novella Tethered and started punting it around carefully selected publishers, and placed drabbles in 100-Word Horrors volumes 2 and 3, to follow-up my appearance in the first volume.

Saunders for the hattrick.

I also finished compiling X: Omnibus, a collection of all three of my short story collections to date, plus some other odds and ends. I’d already commissioned a cover from the sublime Greg Chapman, but even though most of the stories have been published before in various places, many of them still needed a bit of spit and polish. That process complete, I then had to format both the paperback and ebook versions and set about the task of marketing the sucker. I try to do a couple of guest posts at horror blogs and sites around every release. I find it beneficial, as well as fun. Most notably, this time around I popped up on Kendall Reviews discussing why I write horror.

In the first quarter of the year I had a couple of ‘quiet horror’ stories accepted into anthologies. Specifically, Down the Road appeared in a two-volume anthology on Smoking Pen Press entitled Vampires, Zombies & Ghosts, and Where a Town Once Stood was included in the Corona Book of Horror Stories. Obviously, I couldn’t stay ‘quiet’ for long and indulged my wild side in Trigger Warning: Body Horror from Madness Heart Press which included my surrealist skit Revenge of the Toothfish. Tiny Little Vampires was in a similar vein, and that was published by Tell Tale Press and elsewhere, The Bell showed up in Dark Moments.

With seven (count ’em!) new short stories being published, 2019 was probably my most successful ever calendar year in fiction. I also wrote seven or eight more shorts of various lengths and made a start on a new novel about a P.I. (Paranormal Investigator) and his cat I’ve been planning for a long time. For the most part, my fiction has taken a slightly surreal turn. There have been disembodied fingers poking through plugholes, giant cockroaches, and assassins with supernatural abilities. Still, most of the time, I’ve been living in China and writing non-fiction under a pseudonym. There are a lot of good reasons why I use a pseudonym when I write about my adventures and misadventures in the Middle Kingdom, which I won’t go into here. Let’s just say what happens in China is often best left in China, and written about by some other dude with a fake name. But it’s no big secret. If you want to know who this guy is, PM me and I’ll probably tell you, as long as you’re not the thought police.

*Nervous grin.*

I’m quite excited about this coming year. My RetView series of blog posts where I re-visit classic horror movies is picking up more readers and going from strength to strength, the latest installment of my X series of short fiction (imaginatively entitled X4. I like to keep things simple) is set to drop soon, and I’ve already had a couple of stories accepted into anthologies penciled in for 2020 releases. Hopefully, I’ll also have some new material which I’ve been working on for a while out in the second half of the year, so watch this space!

Thanks for reading.

2018 in Review.

RetView #29 – Turistas (2006)

Title: Turista (Paradise Lost)

Year of Release: 2006

Director: John Stockwell

Length: 95 minutes (uncut)

Starring: Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew, Max Brown

A lot of horror movies play on mankind’s basic fear of the unknown. Some do it with more flair and panache than others, and manage to tick another box by catering to the kind of inherent xenophobia seemingly prevalent in the vast majority of cinema goers. Foreigners bad! Anything can happen over there! Ain’t you done heard the stories? This is why such classics as Severance, Hostel, Train to Busan and any number of Japanese offeringsJapanese offerings end up being so revered by western audiences. Not only do they exploit our dove-tailing fears of foreigners and the unknown, but they also provide a welcome splash of the weird and exotic, the colourful and vibrant. If we’re lucky. In any case, we can console ourselves with the fact that you won’t find any of that stuff over ‘ere, mate. This effectively creates a welcome sense of distance and separation between you and your horror. It makes the whole thing not only more believable but more enjoyable, because it’s never going to happen to you. Is it?

Turistas (Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian for ‘Tourist,’ in case you couldn’t work it out) follows the adventures of a group of hip young American backpackers trekking through Brazil. As soon as the premise is established, you know bad shit is soon going to befall them. The only question is, what kind of bad shit are we talking about? It all becomes a bit more clear a few minutes in when their coach crashes and they hook up with a couple of wise-cracking English blokes (Askew and Brown) and an Australian girl (George). Together, the newly-expanded group of wayward thrill-seekers find a beach bar and proceed to get wasted. They mix with the locals and much cavorting and hilarity ensues, until they all wake up the next morning and find they’re drinks were spiked and they’ve all been robbed (bloody foreigners!). With no phones, no money, and very little hope, they start walking. They soon find themselves in a tiny village, but incur the wrath of the locals when they chase down a kid they see sporting one of their baseball hats. An ally called Kiko, who may or may not be on the level, takes pity on them and whisks them away to a safe house deep in the jungle. Whether he has their best interests at heart or not is rendered immaterial when he dives into a river and bangs his head, knocking himself unconscious. The turistas carry him to the ‘safe house,’ which is deserted, but not for long, as pretty soon some crackhead hoodlums arrive by helicopter. Chief among them is a power-mad physician who proceeds to drug the unfortunate travellers (again), strap them to beds or lock them in cages, and extract their organs one-by-one to sell on the black market. The trip of a lifetime to Brazil then turns into a horrifying battle for survival.

On its release, Turistas (re-named Paradise Lost in the UK, Ireland and France) was met with mixed reviews. Fangoria magazine claimed it was, “Better and scarier than Hostel,” while the New York Times dismissed it as, “Plain stupid.” Being filmed on location in Brazil means it is visually breathtaking, and there is some stunning underwater photography on show. Gore hounds will be happy with the surgery scenes in the unrated version, which leave little to the imagination and are definitely not for the squeamish. According to IMBD, these scenes were performed by an actual surgeon for authenticity. Most of the sequence was cut for the theatrical release, as was an earlier eye-gouging scene.

Interestingly, Turistas was largely boycotted in Brazil because of the negative image it portrays of the country, and star Josh Duhamel, who later found a home in the Transformer films, was coerced into offering the Brazilian government and people a grovelling apology during a subsequent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Perhaps owing to the mixed reviews and the associated controversy, Turistas was only a modest box office success, bringing in a reported $14.7 million from a budget of $10 million. But don’t let the figures sway you, this is a cut above average.

Trivia Corner:

Desmond Askew (who plays Finn) first shot to fame as a naughty schoolboy in the promo video for Wham’s 1983 hit single Bad Boys. Sticking with the same theme, he later starred in legendary British school drama Grange Hill.

London Calling at 40

Not many bands have made such a lasting impression on the musical landscape as The Clash. Even looking at their career retrospectively, it’s difficult to summarize their impact, influence and enduring legacy. Within the space of five albums spread over eight years (six if you include Cut the Crap, which most people don’t), they went from snarling punk underdogs to the ‘most important band in the world.’ Everyone has a favourite Clash album, but when pushed into a corner, most people settle on their third, London Calling, released forty years ago this week.

Following their incendiary self-titled debut and the slightly more melodic Give ‘Em Enough Rope, London Calling tried to be all things to all people. By then they were beginning to stray from their punk roots and experiment with reggae, ska, dub, soul, rockabilly and even early rap elements. There has probably never been a more diverse album. With this much going on, London Calling was in perpetual danger of becoming an indulgent, unfocused mix-tape of an album, but nothing could be further from the truth. Somehow, it comes across as a strong, cohesive, well-balanced set. Though the musical styles jump from genre to genre, the constant threads running through it all are the band’s distinctive musicianship, and insightful, socially aware lyrics tackling topics like rising unemployment, terrorism, racial conflict, the nuclear threat and political reform.

The mere act of releasing an industry-screwing double album at that point in their career was a bold move (even if, at 65 minutes, by today’s standards it would comfortably be considered a single album). Refusing to be sucked into the PR machine, even at the height of their fame the band were fiercely dedicated to giving fans VFM (Value For Money) by offering gig tickets and merchandise at reasonable prices. This philosophy extended to London Calling, and even the later triple album Sandinista! both of which retailed for the price of a single album. This meant that The Clash were in debt to CBS for most of their career. Not that they gave much of a shit. Even the cover is iconic, capturing Paul Simonon in the act of smashing up his bass at the New York palladium in frustration at the comparatively restrained crowd.

The album kicks off with the title track, which was also the lead single giving them their seventh UK Top 40 hit back when that meant something. I always thought London Calling sounded kind of ominous, that spiky guitar and low, rumbling bass reminiscent of the seminal Dead Kennedy’s Holiday in Cambodia. Always fond of throwing spanners in works, the politicised, semi-apocalyptic rant effortlessly gives way to ‘Brand New Cadillac,’ a light and jangly rockabilly cover originally written and recorded by Vince Taylor who, ironically enough, was really called Brian and came from Middlesex.  The only complaint I have about London Calling is the sequencing, which sees the rest of ‘Side One’ pass in much the same jazzy vein. It isn’t until we get to ‘Side Two’ (I’m talking vinyl here, kids) that shit gets real. Spanish Bombs, about ETA’s activities and the Spanish civil war of the 1930’s is, despite the weighty source material, one of the finest pop songs ever written. Clampdown, written in response to growing political tension in the late 70’s and Lost in the Supermarket, about, er, getting lost in a supermarket, aren’t far behind. The first record in the set closes out with the reggae-infused Guns of Brixton, written and sung by Paul Simonon, who grew up in Brixton and captures the mood perfectly.

Back to my sequencing complaint, and it has to be said Wrong ‘em Boyo (a cover of an old Rulers tune from the sixties) is completely a bizarre choice to start ‘Side Three.’ Switching that with Clampdown would have made much more sense, in almost every way. Happily, things get back on track pretty soon with a pair of underrated classics Death or Glory (later covered by Social Distortion) and the lyric-heavy Koka Kola, a cynical take on advertising and corporate shenanigans. The next few tracks are noticeably more restrained, featuring doo-wap and jazz influences and even some (apparent) improv, the pick of which being The Card Cheat. In later interviews, Strummer said he wrote the song after reading a lot of Sylvia Plath, which perhaps explains why the lyrics are so dark and mournful.

The Four Horsemen is a bit more direct and punk-sounding, and could easily have landed on the previous album. The same can be said of I’m not Down, a supposedly semi-autobiographical Mick Jones composition outlining his struggles with depression. If you have to tell yourself you’re not down, you probably are. The last track, Train in Vain, is another interesting one. It was a late addition to the album, having originally been intended as a free flexi-disc giveaway with the music bible NME, but when the deal fell through the band decided it was just too good to shelve. And they were right. It’s like the final piece of the jigsaw, coming right after Revolution Rock, ensuring the album ends on an uplifting note.

London Calling is very much a London album. Just like the city it is complex, wide-ranging and diverse, fiercely proud, defiant and filled with hope and optimism. It is rooted in the past, but has its eyes fixed firmly on the future comprising of a million different, sometimes competing elements, all of which come together to form something unique. It is worth noting that most of the tracks on London Calling were recorded in just one or two takes at Wessex Sound Studios by producer Guy Stevens, a notorious hell raiser who would be dead in less than two years at the age of 38. Ironically, the cause of death was an overdose of prescription drugs he was taking to combat alcohol dependency. He has consistently been credited as a key factor in London Calling’s quality and popularity, which as seen it become widely acknowledged as one of the best albums ever made.  Joe Strummer copped a lot of flak for being born middle class, but there was nothing contrived about his music, least of all London Calling. Listening to the album now, four decades later, it’s like going on a journey. Everything came together at the right time – the song writing, the energy, the creativity, the ambition and a relentless desire to make their mark. Something they certainly achieved.