Unsolicited Recommendations Part 1
As you could tell from my previous post wherein I opened saying I have no right to tell anyone how to write and spent the whole blogpost telling you how to write, I'm very fond of giving unsolicited recommendations (and hypocrisy in general.) Usually this totals in Metal music recommendations, but in this new segment, we're going to talk about everything but metal. Two to three unsolicited recommendations a week of what scholars and learned men in far off shores call "cool stuff."
The art of Franz Ritter von Stuck
Starting off with something dark but not audible (unless you're listening to Tribulation's The Formulas of Death's included poster somehow) is the art of Bavarian painter Franz von Stuck.
The first thing that always gets me about his paintings is that, if the eyes are the gateways to the soul, then his subjects are some fucked up motherfuckers. Which, granted, is to be expected from his mythological work, but even his more innocuous paintings have a sense of melancholic grandeur to them.
Personal favorites - Pluto, Salome and The Murderer.
2. Rocky Erickson's Don't Slander Me
Alright so anybody who knows their pinky from their ring finger would immediately ask "why not The Evil One? " So here's the deal- The Evil One is the better album, plain and simple, but it's in fact so good that many never talk about Don't Slander Me and that's an act of slander against Rocky. The one thing he expressly said not to do, you heartless bastards.
Whereas The Evil One beautifully captures a sense of paranoid dread and delusion, Don't Slander Me is a more straightforward rock n' roll affair but Rocky's personality shines through in subtler ways. The title track in particular will get stuck in your head for the rest of forever and the snarly, raspy vocals describing everything from Bermuda Triangle legends to particularly foxy apples of his eye lend a sense of attitude to what is a classic record.
TL/DR? No it's not The Evil One but very few (only one actually) records are and it's fantastic in its own right
