Grouper’s DRAGGING A DEAD DEER UP THE HILL was a high point for 2008 for me, an album deeply stoned on its own doomed beauty. I’d like to be seeing Grouper (which is actually just Liz Harris) live this week, but I don’t have the time, and it’s pissing me off immensely. The only improvement on my mood has been discovering, just now, that a new EP is due this winter. And here’s a piece from it:

Grouper – Hold the Way from Weston Currie on Vimeo.

TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I’ve said on Twitter and elsewhere, often in a state of extreme alcoholic refreshment or severe sleep deprivation, and put them on a t-shirt. Ariana set up a Cafe Press store (because this is a joke and engaging with a serious maker of t-shirts would be less funny to us), and… well, once a week, here we are.

Through this website and this Cafe Press store, we’re going to release one t-shirt a week. It’ll go live on Monday… and it’ll die Sunday night — midnight UK time, more often than not. Each one lives for a week, and then it’s replaced by the next week’s shirt. Until I either run out of dumb ideas or Ariana’s brain explodes.

So, every Monday, I’ll post the new shirt here, and you can peer at it more at http://www.cafepress.com/electrophonic.

Anyway. I present to you T-Shirt Of The Week #002: HUMAN BACON:

We also offer a couple of perennial items. Mostly because I wanted one of these for myself:

(And also a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE "splatter-shield", because Ariana’s crazy)

Thank you for your kind attention.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING.

I swear, these stories always break when I’m least ready for them. From Variety this morning:

Newly minted banner Vigilante Entertainment is launching operations by developing Warren Ellis’ comicbook series "Black Summer" with Ryne Pearson ("Knowing") tapped to adapt.

"Summer," published by Avatar Press in 2007, centers on superhero team the Seven Guns, a group of scientist-adventurers who modified their own bodies for street-fighting in order to take back their West Coast city from a corrupt police force, criminal local government and rapacious private security forces.

BLACK SUMMER remains available as a single graphic novel collection from better comics stores and, of course, Amazon.

1. Hween2, 2. Trick or Treat 1, 3. Halloween 2009, 4. Dr Who, 5. Happy Halloween, 6. Happy Halloween!