6x6 - March 2025

Continuing my 6x6 series, publishing on the 6th of the month for the first time, here are six things I want to recommend for March 2025. Just as with the first installment in Feb 2025, these are things I think might be overlooked or under-appreciated or just things that I really enjoy that I want to share with others as I work to share more positive things.

This month, they're presented arbitrarily in alphabetical order...

1. Bad Sisters (TV)

I discovered Sharon Horgan through the incredibly hilarious Catastrophe with Rob Delaney and Bad Sisters is every bit as good. A black comedy thriller about the death of a hated family patriarch, the show is immaculately plotted managing to maintain both the mystery and the comedy. The kind of show where the less you know going in, the better, I didn’t know anything other than Sharon Horgan had developed it and I was hooked by the end of the first episode. We haven’t finished watching the second season, but so far it is as excellent as the first. Available on Apple TV

2. The Work of Chris Connelly (Music)

The bulk of my physical Connelly collection...

I discovered Chris through the industrial super-group Pigface when I was in high school and though I’ve largely fallen away from listening to Pigface, I’ve stayed a Connelly superfan, seeking out everything he’s involved with whenever I can. His solo work is more along the lines of Scott Walker than industrial rock, singer-songwriter meets avant-garde and he is undoubtedly one of my favorite lyricists. Though many industrial fans might be familiar with his vocal work for Ministry, I don’t think he’s as well known as he deserves to be.

Since Blonde Exodus, I’ve gotten every one of his solo releases within a few weeks of its release. I think his first three solo albums, Whiplash Boychild, Phenobarb Bambalam and Shipwreck, along with his collaboration with Bill Rieflin, Largo, are absolute masterpieces. From his later works, The Episodes, Forgiveness & Exile, the Birthday Poems and Eulogy to Christa hit that high mark as well. But there are very few albums or projects that he’s involved with that I don’t love whole-hardheartedly… I have him as one of my twenty favorite artists on my Tasting Menu mixes, and both his solo works and collaborations pepper my mixes, but I put together another mix of his work for 6x6 as well.

#	Artist	Track
1	Chris Connelly	The Man Loves Zero
2	Cocksure	Hi Talez
3	KMFDM	Rules
4	The Joy Thieves	This Will Kill That
5	Murder Inc	Mania
6	The Damage Manual	The Peepshow Ghosts
7	The High Confessions	Dead Tenements
8	Bells Into Machines	Wretched Little Deity
9	Pigface	Miss Sway Action
10	Jarboe	Subtraction (feat. Chris Connelly)
11	Bill Rieflin and Chris Connelly	Salt of Joy
12	Everyoned	Knife Audition
13	Chris Connelly	The Hawk, the Butcher, The Killer of Beauties

3. Knowledge Fight (Podcast)

Dan and Jordan manage to convey the absurd and ridiculousness of Alex Jones without losing sight of the real danger and damage he and his right-wing conspiracy fellow travelers inflict on the rest of us. Even just listening to an episode or two lets you see how inconsistent and dishonest AJ is and how his worldview twists in on itself to keep coming back to serving right-wing extremism even if it means he has to pretend to not believe what he pretended to fervently believe years or even just weeks ago… If you’re only going to listen to one, I’m going to recommend #921 which covered April 22, 2024.

4. Sorcerer (Film)

I’ve only watched Sorcerer three times, once at a screening at Alamo Drafthouse and twice on Blu-ray, but it is a film that burned itself into my mind. A masterpiece of tension, a true thriller with an incredible soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. A nerve-wracking experience in the very best way.

5. Spots (Board Game)

A simple, whimsical dice game where you roll class piped six-sided dice and place them on the ‘spots’ of dogs, Spots is a great game that is easy to learn and teach, relatively quick to play and because the mechanic of placing the dice uses ‘tricks’, it has lots of re-playability.

With the cute art, punny dog names and elegant mechanics, it’s become a regular in our game night rotation. You can even play it online for free through Board Game Arena…

6. We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy (Book)

Twenty-one exquisite stories of horror, fantasy and hope. While they work well individually as quick reads, when I first got the collection, I devoured them all in a single sitting. The closing story, “The Thirty-Seven Marble Steps” is particularly haunting, but my favorite is fantastical future war story, “The Northern Host,” which recounts a mythical event in the 2nd American Civil War. 

You can hear “The Northern Host” and many of the other stories from the book read by Margaret as part of the Coolzone Media Book Club, but the book is a worthy addition to any library.