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Gabino Iglesias, “Don’t Go Into the Woods Alone” (published 2023) [Ghost Box IV] (2025)

October 27, 2025 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: October 27, 2025] “Don’t Go Into the Woods Alone”

It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….

After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.

As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.

This story opens with the title “Don’t Go Into the Woods Alone” which is something that the Marta’s grandmother used to say.  She had a lot of pithy sayings like that.  It was part of her Caribbean upbringing.  She was born in the mountains of Puerto Rico and had no birth certificate–she was anywhere from 85 to 120 depending on who you talked to.

She also said things like Don’t put your purse on the floor, Pray whenever you go past a cemetery and Stop and smell the flowers.  But it’s the woods that are on Marta’s mind as she walks through the woods by herself.

She can’t quite understand why her grandmother was so insistent upon this.  it’s daylight and the woods are great–she is even stopping to smell flowers.  But then she looks up and sees a cabin.  A cabin that she didn’t know was there.  And then there’s a woman waving to her from the cabin.

Marta is drawn to the cabin and the old woman invites her in and gives her tea.  After talking for sometime (and neither one of them offering up her name), the old woman says “the reason Sonia never left her house is because that was the only place she felt safe.”

Marta realizes she never said her grandmother’s name.  And this woman knows about something that Sonia did a long time ago.  And what Sonia did to make amends.  And the woman is ready for her reward.

This was a spooky story with a really creepy ending.

 

Posted in Gabino Iglesias, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Patton Oswalt, Supernatural, The Ghost Box | Leave a Comment »

Cage the Elephant / Hey, Nothing (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 25, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

October 27, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 25, 2025] Cage the Elephant / Hey, Nothing

We saw Cage the Elephant open for Beck six years ago–I can’t believe it was that long ago.   They blew me away and I knew I wanted to see them again.

This show got lost amid a million things going on at the end of October, including Cirque du Soleil, and three other shows later that week.  Sometimes you have to give up shows that you want to see….

Hey, Nothing is a folkie duo who my daughter and I missed at All Things Go.  They seem cool and I’m sure I would have enjoyed them.

 

Posted in Cage the Elephant, Hey, Nothing, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia | Leave a Comment »

William Fields (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 2025) [AUTECHRE]

October 26, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2025] William Fields

I have one Autechre album and I don’t really listen to it.  But when they announced this American tour (their first time playing here in ten years), I asked my friend Lar, who had seen them if I should go.  He told me an amusing story about how he liked the show but he took his significant other to the show and she almost broke up with him because of it.

But when I dove a little more deeply into the show it sounded like a unique experience that I’d like to try.

There was an opening act listed, but we had two opening acts.  William Fields is a Philadelphia based DJ whose bio says

William Fields is an artist and musician from the Phildelphia area whose work explores the intersection of generative processes, improvisation, and audio-visual correspondence.

What does that mean?  Beats me.  But here’s some reviews

“Some of the most mind-blowing algorithmically generated music I’d ever heard”  — Richard Devine

“William Fields is at the absolute front of algorithmic music and this tremendous 24 hour collection is some of the wildest stuff out there… TOP NOTCH” — Telefon Tel Aviv

That still doesn’t quite explain it but this kind of does Continue Reading »

Posted in Autechre, Mark Broom, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer, William Fields | Leave a Comment »

Michael Shea–“Brief Scenes of a Noxious Nativity” (published 2024) [Ghost Box IV] (2025)

October 26, 2025 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: October 26, 2025] “Brief Scenes of a Noxious Nativity”

It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….

After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.

As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.

It’s unusual that I simply do not get a story.  And I absolutely did not get this one.  Or maybe I don’t get why it was written.  It’s very short (3 pages in this tiny format) and it shows two scenes.

In the first scene, a rock hits a hill.  Something cracks open and a little molecular net–an elaborate hydrocarbon making its first appearance in nature–floated out.  She floated through the rock to the water and was swallowed by a fish.

In the second scene a backhoe hits a bluff–maybe the same hill?–and another microsomething escapes.

On a second reading I get that I think this microscopic invader is potentially going to destroy the world.  But it was so oddly written that I ‘m not really sure.  Ah, I see that this is excerpted from a larger work.  So that makes sense because this felt like the set up to something.  Although I won’t be seeking out the novel.

Interestingly, Shea wrote a story in Ghost Box II that I loved.  Every story is different.

Posted in Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Huh?, Michael Shea, Patton Oswalt, Supernatural, The Ghost Box | Leave a Comment »

Osees / DMBQ (Underground Arts (13th Anniversary Celebration), Philadelphia, PA, October 26, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

October 26, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 26, 2025] Osees / DMBQ

Four years ago I saw Osees and really enjoyed the chaotic energy of the show.  Since then they have returned every year in mid October.  I get a ticket every year and then something comes up–usually involving a birthday party.

This year it happened during a lengthy run of shows that I was seeing and something had to give,

Even though this looked like an especially fun show (if Union Transfer was crazy I can’t imagine how insane they would be at Underground Arts).  A couple of days before the show my brother-in-law out in Denver said he saw the set and that it was awesome and he really liked DMBQ as well.

It made me even more bummed that I missed it.

DMBQ is from Tokyo.  The name stands for Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet.  I love a good rocking Japanese band and this was even more incentive to get to this show.  But I just couldn’t do it.

Watching a video of their live set and they are not quite as unhinged as some Japanese bands, but they are sure wild.  They’re  athree piece and they seem to defy conventional song structure.  Lots of solos, and a wild fuzzy insanity around the whole thing.  I can’t tell if the singer is singing in English, Japanese or just some made up sounds.  It’s amazing.  And the guitar player (the singer) is all over the guitar–clearly very proficient at the instrument.

I hope the come back next year.

 

Posted in DMBQ, Osees, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »

Lord Dunsany–“The Three Infernal Jokes” (published 1916) [Ghost Box IV] (2025)

October 25, 2025 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: October 25, 2025] “The Three Infernal Jokes”

It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….

After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.

As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.

This is one of the few stories in this collection that isn’t relatively contemporary.  It also needs a bit of an explanation as to the author.  His name is Lord Dunsany, but his proper name is Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, which is outstanding.

This story is told second hand.  The main character of the story told his tale to the narrator who is passing it along to us.  The man said to the narrator that he had a joke that could make the listener die of laughter.  But before he  told t he joke, he wanted to explain how he got it.

He belonged to a club for men. And one evening they were boasting of their specific virtues.  One man said he detested the taste of wine and boasted of his temperance.  So the main character told the room of his virtue–he found every woman equally ugly.

When a fellow in the room said that that virtue was amazing, the man demurred.  But the new fellow was persistent–would he sell this virtue?  The man was puzzled by this but agree noncommittally.  But the fellow immediately dragged him outside and placed a direct call to Hell.

Hell would buy this virtue for three jokes.  Three jokes that will make all who hear them die of laughter.  He took the deal and looked at the jokes–they didn’t seem very funny.

After a time, the man found himself at another gathering.  People were telling jokes and so he pulled out one of the scraps of paper with a joke on it.  He told the joke and didn’t find it funny.  But the crowd slowly began to laugh.  Everyone in the room was tittering, tittering far too much for the quality of the joke.  He was convinced that they were humoring him, or possibly even mocking him.  After a few moments of this, he left, full of embarrassment.

The next morning, in the paper her read that 22 men had died at a club.  He was quickly rounded up and brought before a judge.  Things were looking bad for him.  Then someone asked him to tell the joke.  He looked at the paper–it was now blank–but he told it from memory.  No one laughed.  He was certain he was going to be hanged for murder so he told the room that he had a different joke….

This type of story isn’t really scary, but it does make you wonder what you would do if you were given this “gift.”

 

Posted in Death, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Mathilda Zeller, Patton Oswalt, Supernatural, The Devil, The Ghost Box | Leave a Comment »

The Vampire Circus (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, October 25, 2025)

October 25, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 25, 2025] The Vampire Circus

I love a good circus.  This circus–vampire themed–seemed like a really fun thing to do around Halloween.  It was also near my daughter’s birthday so I thought it would be a fun birthday present.  Amusingly, she made other plans that night so we went with my son and one of his friends instead.

The short version is that this show was much like any other cirque–aerial work, strong men and balancing.  But the overall story was vampriric.  It wasn’t “adult” or scary, but it did play up the tropes of vampire lore (somewhat).  For instance, before one of the acts, the woman was wheeled out in a coffin, but otherwise it was an aerial act with ribbons.

This is not to downplay any of the spectacle, just to give it proper setting.

Although according to the website

Set in Bohemia during the 19 century, Count Dracula contemplates a plan for world domination, when he decides to open a traveling circus with his gypsy bodyguards. The Vampire Circus is a perfect cover-up to travel unnoticed and begin his world reign of terror and turn all humans into an army of vampires for global dominance.

I didn’t get any of that but I did get

Cirque acrobatics, comical audience interactions, contortionists, jugglers, acrobats, and raving cheers for a “Mad Graveyard Clown.”

For indeed, the host, the Mad Graveyard Clown was awesome.  His audience work was fantastic.  Our favorite bit was when someone came in late while he was on stage.  He immediately found the man and had the man hold up his (the clown’s) coat.  The man stood of to the side in the audience and every time he lowered his hand a bit, the clown spotted him and made him raise his hand.  He also had a really fun sequence where he brought two kids from the audience and had them use water pistols to put out a candle.  For the climax of that bit, he moved the candle right in front of the people in the front row and gave him a huge super soaker. Continue Reading »

Posted in Acrobats, New Brunswick, NJ, Set in New Jersey!, State Theatre, The Vampire Circus, Vampires | Leave a Comment »

L.D.Lewis–“Flicker” (published 2023) [Ghost Box IV] (2025)

October 24, 2025 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: October 24, 2025] “Flicker”

It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….

After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.

As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.

This story starts out fairly calmly.  A woman, Kam, goes to see her brother who is an optometrist.  She admits that she made this appointment just to see him since she hasn’t for a while.  She tells him about a problem she’s been having but doesn’t think he’ll be able to do anything about it.  She says that her vision fades out for like half a second.  Things just go dark like a power surge.  He says he’ll look into it and tells her to say hi to he friends Wolf and Ami whom she’s having lumch with.

Lunch with them is always disappointing because they are seasonally vegetarian.  But she’s excited to see them and runs across the park to where they are sitting.

And then the lights went out.  All of them including the sun.  It was as if the power went out in the entire universe.  There was no breeze, no natural noise.  Just the sounds of people freaking out.  Twenty-one seconds later, everything turned back on and everyone could see the airplane sail out of the sky and crash into her brother’s office, totally destroying it and everyone in it.

For three months it was all anyone could talk about (understandably).  But Kam can’t get past it.  Her brother was killed and she wants to find some kind of answer.  She moves in with Wolf and Ami and sits in front of their TV all day.

One day Wolf came running in saying they had to get out of here right now.  It’s like the Purge out there–people are firing guns and setting things on fire.

And soon enough another darkness descends on the world.  Then they hear someone break into their apartment.

There’s a lot of supernatural in this story but the basics of it–people looting and breaking into houses is one of the scarier moments in any of these stories so far.

In the second half of the story, they flee to a cabin in  the woods only to learn that nowhere is safe.

The ending confused me though as I’m not exactly sure what happened.

 

Posted in Hingston & Olsen, Horror, L.D. Lewis, Patton Oswalt, Supernatural, The Ghost Box | Leave a Comment »

Laufey / Suki Waterhouse (XFinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia PA, October 24, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

October 24, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 24, 2025] Laufey / Suki Waterhouse

I first heard Laufey on WXPN and liked the weird, unexpected song she had released, Silver Lining.  It was a fun breath of unusual jazzy standard style music.  I assumed it was kind of a fluke song like when Bjork released It’s Oh So Quiet (Laufey is also Icelandic).  But then I found out that that is the kind of music Laufey releases–jazz pop standards.  Nothing wrong with it, indeed, I like it in small doses, but I wouldn’t want to see a full concert of it.  And that’s how I know I’m completely out of step with the world because she played XFinity Mobile Arena, the largest venue in Philly.

I blew off seeing Suki Waterhouse earlier this year and regret it.  I would like to see her, but this would be a terrible way to see her, I suspect.

And on a purely personal level, we came to this venue the night before for Billie Eilish–I can’t imagine going to this huge place two nights in a row.

Posted in Laufey, Philadelphia, PA, Suki Waterhouse, XFinity Mobile Arena | Leave a Comment »

Acid Mothers Temple: “Dark Within of Astropia Tour” (Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, October 22, 2025)

October 23, 2025 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: October 22, 2025] Acid Mothers Temple

This was my fourth time seeing Acid Mothers Temple.  Every show is basically the same but also very different.

This show was particularly different because I found out (after the show) that the band was being joined by Cotton Casino (for only this show and the NYC show!), the original singer of the band from 1995 (she lives in the States now).  Of course I didn’t know this and I didn’t know who the woman was when she jumped on stage with them.

Amusingly, I thought she was like a young teenager or 20something.  She looked so youthful and was wearing a hockey shirt that said SUCK IT and bounced around with so much energy.

The band lost their bassist Wolf a while back and have replaced him with Sawano Shozo, but the other four are familiar:  Kawabata Makoto guitars, speed guru, Higashi Hiroshi synths, Satoshima Nani drums and Jyonson Tsu vocals and guitar.

They opened, as they do, with a wall of noise–Kawabata furiously playing the guitar, Nani smashing up the drums and the rest adding their own noise to the mix.  And after a minute or so, they settled into the glorious Dark Star Blues.  Slow and loud and psychedelic, with Cotton adding tambourines to the rhythm.  It’s so much fun watching Kawabata go nuts on his guitar while Jyonson is chill on the other side strumming out the rhythmic chords.  Jyonson and Cottom sang complementary/competing melodies.

Things exploded and then settled down for the quiet Santa Maria which opens and sounds like a British folksong before launching into the stratosphere.

On record La Novia is an hour long, so I’m guessing they played some part of the song before entering the slow burning noise of Blue Velvet Blues.  The songs melded into Flying Teapot and OM Riff before landing on Interstellar Overdrive from Pink Floyd.  When they started the slow In A Session Not C, Cotton lit up a cigarette (which you’ll see below caused all kinds of concern)

I don’t know if AMT have ever not played Pink Lady Lemonade (actually, they didn’t play last time I saw them, huh), but it seems that they play variations on it as the years go by.  This one started with the PLL prelude and then shifted into Sparking PLL (in the past I have seen Disco PLL.  This one was unique for me though because while Kawabata was using his metal wand (whatever that is) on the strings, Cotton was singing a high melody.  I enjoyed that for some of the song, Higashi Hiroshi sat aside (even though he sits for the show) and let the rest of the band do their thing.

And then, like each of the three previous shows I’ve seen, they ended the set with Cometary Orbital Drive.  Cotton picked up a tambourine and it looked to me like Higashi was having a little fun mimicking her when he shook his tambourine (but he’s totally deadpan, so who knows).

And then, like the end of every show, Kawabata went insane for the final 3 minutes or so.  His fingers flew, he raised the guitar over his head, he bent notes (all the while the rest of the band is keeping up going faster and faster), he took off his guitar and held it head down while still making noises.  Then he brought the guitar to the edge of the stage and let everyone within reach (including me) tap the strings as he waved it around.  Satisfied, he took the guitar back and looked around…spotting something or another and then he lifted the guitar over his head and suspended it from something near the ceiling.  And there it hung feedbacking as the band finished up.

It was without question the best AMT show I’ve been to.  I even hung around and took a (sadly, very blurry) selfie with Kawbata.

Next time they come to town I might have to hang out in front of Jyonson.  I feel like I don’t get to really appreciate what he does.  But Kawabata is such a magnet it’s hard not to want to watch everything he does.

Kawabata writes a daily(ish) blog about all of his show and here’s the recap for ours

From Kawabata’s blog:

For just two shows, tonight in Philadelphia and the day after tomorrow in Baltimore, AMT’s original founder , Cotton Casino , will be joining us for a special 90-minute set. The crowd was thrilled when Cotton first appeared, her incredible vocals and trance-like performance stirring up the band and the audience. Meanwhile, the enigmatic rhythms she occasionally played on the tambourine completely captivated both NANI and I, and this only served to further enhance the hyper-psychedelic sound, transforming us into a super-fast version of the eerie star Goras, racing through the galaxy with a furious cosmic rampage, and finally bringing the set to a grand finale.

Incidentally, in the middle of her set, Cotton lit a cigarette, much like she did in her old performances, causing a plume of purple smoke, and after the show she was given a stern warning by the venue. Smoking in public indoor spaces is now considered a barbaric act, and with the Fire Service Act now also coming into play, even the charismatic Cotton would not be tolerated in this day and age, so please do your best.

2025 Milkboy 2023 Johnny Brenda’s 2019 The Saint 2018 Underground Arts
Dark Star Blues ‰ [3] Jam (while soundcheck was finishing up) La Nòvia £ Dark Star Blues ‰
Santa Maria Õ Blue Velvet Blues ⊗ [2] Sycamore Trees (Jimmy Scott cover) Blue Velvet Blues ⊗
La Nòvia £ [2] Dark Star Blues ‰ [2] From Planet Orb With Love > ≅ Disco Pink Lady Lemonade > ⇑
Blue Velvet Blues ⊗ [3] Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd cover) Good-Bye Mrs. Uranus § La Le Lo > ♥
In A session Not C > Flying Teapot (Gong cover) Hello Good Child > ‰ In C ©
Flying Teapot (Gong cover) > From Planet Orb With Love § > [2] Disco Pink Lady Lemonade > ⇑ [2] Untitled > 
OM Riff From The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‰ > Good-Bye Mrs. Uranus § [2] In E > ∞ Nanique Another Dimension >  ⊄
Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd cover) Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [3] Pink Lady Lemonade coda∀ [2] Pink Lady Lemonade coda ∀ > 
Pink Lady Lemonade prelude > Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [2] Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔
Sparkling Pink Lady Lemonade ◊
Cometary Orbital Drive ⇔ [4]

It’s unclear to me what records these songs first appeared on (as they have 1,000 records out), although Setlist does a pretty good job, I think.


Õ Holy Black Mountain Side (2024)
£ La Nòvia (2023)
⊄ Never Ending Psychedelic Deathmatch (2022)
◊ Domino Dimension Drumatique Vol.1 (2022)
⇑ Levitation Sessions (2021)
∀ Diend of Fiend or Unstoppable Moonsault (2020)
≅ Electric Dream Ecstasy (2018)
§ Sacred and Inviolable Phase Shift (2018)
∞ In 0 to ∞ (2010)
⇔ Cometary Orbital Drive (2008) or Paralyzed Genius Brain (2023)
‰ IAO Chant From the Melting Paraiso Underground Freak Out (2005)
‰ Does the Cosmic Shepherd Dream of Electric Tapirs? (2004)
♥ Mantra of Love (2004)
© In C (2001)
⊗ Pataphisical Freak Out MU!! (1999)

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Milkboy, Philadelphia, PA, The Macks | Leave a Comment »

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