Coven is one of the more obscure bands of the 1960s; a Chicago based outfit of quasi-Satanic occultists best known for a stage show incorporating wild antics, crucifixion, Black Masses and, one supposes, music. Their debut album, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, is the most regarded, but I prefer the subsequent releases that move away from the vague Satanic proto-metal into an early ’70s dark schmaltz. This puts me in a minority. I recommend Blood on the Snow.

Though I’ve loved Coven for years, I am nothing compared against my aspiring hetero life partner, Andrew god-damn-the-man Harrison. In his monomaniacal quest for Knowledge, he hosts about 13,000 prog rock/psych radio shows and recently scored an interview with Coven’s vocalist, the self-proclaimed Queen of Goth, Jinx Dawson. You can listen here– the interview is at the 1/3rd mark, give or take. Take or give. Your choice.

Jinx reveals many shocking things and Andrew vaguely scandalizes her, but the high point comes towards the end when she shouts me out by name. I am one of her Magick Friends. Obviously a favor pulled by Harrison. I’ve got the best god damned friends in the world.

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Update: Harrison has his own blog dedicated to whatever obscure music is taking his whimsical fancy, both as a man and as a DJ. Douse yourself in his perfumed fineries at arcanaobscura.blogspot.com.

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Update #2:  The lovely Jinx Dawson kindly commented on this post & pointed out my error. Hi, Jinx!

Bad times in Los Angeles town. My bootleg wireless bit the dust, sending me into the Mercury Retrograde hell of Internet Access Disaster. A story too boring to summarize with sarcasm. Like an old friend of the blog once sang, “I wanna make a movie, so let’s star in it together. Don’t make a move til I say action. Here comes the hardcore life.”

So? What’s been the haps, paps?

The usual: writing, reading Wuthering Heights for the third time, talking boy poets down from ledges. The Freak Kingdom, its discontents and la casa de Kobek. What we do and how we do it.

I had a birthday. I’m thirty! My old pal and romantic interest, elly jonez, Escaped the Mission– which I believe was the title of a film starring Kurt Russell’s hipster second cousin– and visited the Freak Kingdom. Between anxiety attacks brought on by ferocious Concerns and Worries, she managed this photograph of my head exploding in a burst of incandescent radiance:

The Author at Thirty. Griffith Observatory. Surveying the Kingdom from on High.