This is a really cool track. I hadn't noticed it until just recently. Its a remix of Christoher Walken reading the Raven by Edgar Allen Poe and remixed over some haunting music. It took me a second to Christopher Walken and I was instantly amazed. Its really good, he's such a great actor and really knows how to use his voice to express emotion and cadence.
This is a screen capture from a game called Left 4 Dead. You play against and as Zombies. It is amazingly well done and I was absolutely hooked on playing it a few years back. I spent most of winter '08-09 playing it all the time. Its filled with cool moments and the levels are all really fun to play. Its also incredibly rage inducing during the wrong moments but its a great game come Halloween.
Zombies by King Khan and BBQ is completely not for kids. Slitting wrists, gratuitous swearing. I love it, but just an FYI you might not want to play it while answering the door on Halloween. King Khan and BBQ are great to see live. BBQ plays drums and occasionally guitar at the same time. King Khan plays guitar and sometimes crossdresses and they have some incredible garage rock songs.
King Khan and BBQ - Zombies
Saturday, October 29, 2011
A few days ago I was watching the incredibly bad Sleepaway Camp trilogy. It's not just bad, it is the worst series of horror movies I've ever seen. At least it competes with Leprechaun. I'm not sure which one is truly the worst and I hope nobody ever goes in depth enough to find out.
Amazingly though, as bad as the movies are, the second one has some decent music in it. One of the songs is Stranger in the Night by the Orange County punk band Agent Orange. It's a good tune and the movie also features a few songs by Canadian metal group Anvil who had a documentary out just last year.
Anyways, enjoy Agent Orange and whatever spooky things you got going on tonight. There's still a few more posts coming and I will try to catch it up tomorrow.
I realize I totally spaced on posting last night so I'm going to try and make it up today. I think I may be 2 posts behind for the month. It's a busy time and I've had extra work to do. I don't even currently have a costume set up for the weekend yet. I feel terrible, I wanted to put all my time into this one idea but I never got around to doing it/ordering the parts I needed. I realize now I need to start planning my costumes months in advance, at least if I want them to be as crazy as I'd like them to be.
This is a great old school track from Whodini. The album art isn't from the album this song appeared on but it just looked to cool not to post. I need to get myself a cream colored suit, even if there's no way I could pull it off like that.
This is one of the better remixes I've ever heard of the Ghostbusters theme. It's not as recgnizable, yet it still keeps intact most of the song. A lot of Ray Parker Jr.'s vocals are taken out but still your head is still in a Ghostbusting mood listening to it.
The original was at one time my favorite song ever. Its catchy as hell, Huey Lewis be damned, is just too fun and amazingly still holds up as a great song. Some 80s stuff sounds really dated but compared to a lot of more recent sounding music this could appear on an album today without sounding out of place.
Awkward 80s pop layered with vocals from Freddy Krueger at weird and inopportune moments? Yes. Checkmark. That is exactly what I want. Sure this song may not have sold a million copies...or any, but its so over the top cheesy. From the sub Peter Gabriel synth rhythm to the absolutely ridiculous guitar solo that appears out of nowhere and disappears into a bottomless abyss this song is perfectly weird.
It's funny to think about a character becoming so popular that in someone's mind this was a good idea. No doubt that person was someone else's boss, which just makes me sad. I wonder if there's someone out there who has the Freddy Krueger album on his resume?
This is a poster from the Alamo Drafthouse's Fantastic Fest. It's an annual festival filled with all kinds of offbeat weird movies. A combination of all types of midnight features, kung-fu and foreign type flicks.
This song is fantastic, when I first heard it, it caught me by surprised. It reminded me a lot of some of George Harrison's latter seventies stuff. It's got a weird mix of synth and doo wop. Enjoy it.
Pete and the Bloodsuckers - My Baby Likes Scary Movies
This is a live cover of one of my favorite songs ever, Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London. I can't listen to it without singing along, I even do the howling. Its just got a perfect simple piano part and is crazy fun.
This version makes the piano a little bouncier and opens up with Zevon addressing the crowd before the song really kicks off. The audience starts clapping along before the song gets going and then he lets out a long high pitched howl before things jump into action.
Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London Live at the Main Point
Originally I was gonna go with some cuter Cookie Monster art but I found this image and its just the right amount of completely twisted and awesome. The artist is Rhys Cooper. He does a lot of very cool work on prints and other things.
The song is Monster by Killer Mike. The beat is has these really dark and cool guitar parts behind a pounding beat and Killer Mike's voice which roars over the top and can make anything sound scary. He's one of my favorite artists and although he sounds loud and fierce in his songs, I've met him in real life and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
He just put out a new album called Pl3dge or Pledge Allegiance to the Grind III. I highly advocate you pick it up if you are into hip hop in the least. Its fun and smart.
Screaming synths and haunting vocals. That's all I need. Although its not quite my favorite genre, I do have a soft spot for any synthpop from the 80s. This song gets more manic and twisted the longer it goes on.
Its easy to imagine Paul Haig as being more post-punk then his synth-like solo work if this was the first song you heard. Definitely excited about this song. I may have to add it to my playlist for the next couple weeks when I will be lucky enough to DJ some of my favorite selections live.
The above poster is from Mondotees. They put out a few posters for some Halloween classics this year. You can check them out here.
One of my favorite memories growing up was on all of the completely random holidays that the Sci-Fi channel would run Twlight Zone marathons. Sometimes they would go on for entire weekends and others just a single day. Despite this being a good memory, incredibly rarely would I watch an entire episode. I think its because most of the time I remember the Twilight Zone marathon being on it was either the 4th of July so I was trying to get outside or it was New Years and I was probably playing videogames I got around X-mas.
Today's song is by the Dutch band Golden Earring. They are a band I am not too familiar with but they blend hard rock and synth. Kind of like of you Told the members of the Police and Thin Lizzy to fuse together. This song is exceptionally long, must have been the classic rock in them when recording.
Thanks for coming to the Ghost Town! Please Have a look around, I've got some great Halloween themed music and if theres anything you're looking for in the archives feel free to comment! To Download tracks click share and then download.
If you go looking, you'll find there's probably hundreds of remixes of Thriller. Most of them are awful. Today I have two, one from Bird Peterson and another from Louis La Roche. Neither can top the original but both provide a slightly different sound and make the song sound a little more recent as in the case of the Louis La Roche version or completely twist it and just make it thud as in the Bird Peterson version. Not quite as brilliant as in 1982 but still a interesting twist.
The Comateens are probably one of those bands that should have graced this blog by now. Like a new wave version of the Cramps this song is particularly spooky. All kinds of effects come in and out around the spooky flickering guitar riff.
Like any good slightly spooky band they've also done a cover of the Munsters theme. So far I'm making good on the one song a day, although I'm still one behind. This is pretty good compared to the last few years where I've had to put up a couple posts a day when I started slacking off.
Anyone got any good tips for carving pumpkins, I'd like to try my hand at making a really good one once.
He formed the Monster Raving Looney Party, played with Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Keith Moon and released an album the BBC called the worst ever. He was Screaming Lord Sutch and he was a character. A once in a lifetime type. He made some great songs and some not so great songs.
This one is a favorite of mine though and perfect for this time of year. It's raw and ragged but I have no doubt he cared and it works anyways. This sounds like the theme to a bad late 60's cartoon. Who knows maybe someone will make it someday. I love it.
Screaming Lord Sutch - She's Falling in Love with a Monsterman
Pre dawn corpses come alive! Today I have a followup to yesterday's track from Balzac, since they were influenced by the Misfits, I thought I might as well add a Misfits track. It's been awhile since the last one I posted which was Skulls if I remember right.
I was watching Shaun of the Dead today and remembered what a great film it really is. Its so simple but the relationships are all fun, and they ratchet up tension without somehow getting overly serious and it that makes it feel more real as they still joke while mad. That's the biggest criticism I have with dramatic movies is when people never joke or laugh despite terrible/scary things happening to them.
Yesterday was my birthday and I showed the Burbs on my Garage using a projector and my ps2 with the sound coming out of a guitar amp. It was a nice boogleg setup complimented with a bonfire and a couch found in someone elses yard. I just wish it wasn't get cold so soon. I'd like to do it all again.
This is one of those songs that takes you a moment to realize how awesome it is. The guitars are fast, the drums are a series of pulsating hammers and the vocals are viking growls and howls. But it works, the melodies are awesome, plus they're yelling about space vampires so you can't go wrong with that.
Balzac is a Misfit influenced japanese band that's released a ton of albums. They seem to have evolved away from the hardcore shredding of their early stuff but its still pretty raw and loud. I would love to see them play. I've never been to a lot of hardcore or punk shows but this gets my blood going. Just gotta make sure I keep away from those space vampires.
I was originally going to go with a picture from the recent Nic Cage flick Season of the Witch. Then however, I realized it is one of the worst modern movies I have ever seen. I watch a lot of bad movies and usually its not painful especially if you know it didn't cost anything to make like a lot of cheap 80s movies. However not only did it make 90 million dollars but they spent nearly 40 million on making it. Just sad to know all around.
Anyways this blog is supposed to be about the evil not the depressing. With all the Frankensteining, Werewolfing and Draculizing going on, I can't neglect the classic Demon. Not only that this song is done by a band called the Witches so it's thoroughly haunted and there's not a single Nic Cage to be found! Good news. By the way, do yourself a favor and watch Wicker Man, that is a terrible movie that is so bad it puts you in a Zen State of mind as you can't even be angry, you're just confused and your mind goes blank after watching it.
I used a picture of the Fright Night poster. The original not the remake. Even though I was not all that into Fright Night, it was a vampire film, and that is a fantastic poster. I've always liked horror films that take place in the middle of the suburbs. The Burbs and many of the Halloween sequels are perfect examples. I'm kind've missing having cable and watching the Horror marathons they run around Halloween. I might have to get hooked up just in time for the latter half of the month.
Anyways, this is a song by The Mountain Goats. Some people are huge fans of John Darnielle's voice but he can write good songs. This one starts off simple but starts to get bloody by the end.
Crawl til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these bite marks
Deep in my arteries
Crawl til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me
Less of a party tune then some of the stuff I post but they can't all make you dance.
I haven't posted much music more than 5 decades old in doing this blog. There's two reasons, one, its much harder to find and two, I'm not into much before the 1950s. However I love early blues music. The only bad thing is that there isn't much of it out there. A lot of it just never got recorded. The stuff that did though is usually excellent.
This song by George Carter is perfect early blues. He's got a great voice and his rhythms are great. When he howls towards the end of the song, even through deminished recording you can still feel it. It's really haunting more so when you put yourself into the time, imagine hearing this in a Juke Joint before stumbling out into a gravely road in the middle of the country with only darkness as a blanket over the top of you. Back before all the roads were illuminated. I would have been singlehandedly humming and also trying to forget this song at the same time.
I wanted to make sure I got some hip hop up, its not always as easy as finding something that's horror song when its not rockabilly or garage or surf. Not that its hard to find dark hip hop songs but usually they just don't really fit the Halloween theme. It's the same reason not a lot of Black Metal if any really ends up here. Sure they're singing about the end of the world and shit but, they actually kind of mean it.
Not to say I don't love hip hop. Hell its my favorite genre, so I'm definitely excited when I have stuff to put up but I don't want to force it in.
This track is a remix of Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem over the Exorcist theme. It's a pretty good remix and Cookin' Soul has put out more than a few killer remix albums. They're from Spain and most of their production has been for European artists but I guess recently they put out a few songs with Mac Miller.
Notorious B.I.G and Eminem - Exorcist (Produced by Cookin' Soul)
It's hard to find a lot of funky or soulful yet spooky songs. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe its because funk and soul usually sounds so upbeat, even if many of the songs are about depressing subjects. This is a great song from the Spinners from way back in 1970.
I'm hoping I'll be able to dig up a little more hiphop and soul for the blog. I have a lot of stuff and sometimes its hard figuring out what's worthy, what's good and what I can actually manage to get up. So far I'm still one song behind, but I'll try to use this week to catch up before my birthday this Friday, yet another reason this is the best month of the year.
I am really excited to post this song. Tijuana Panthers are a cool garage/surf type sounding band out of the L.A. area. They along with the Growlers and a few other bands have a cool garage/lofi type thing going down in that area.
Like most garage/surf groups they took the time to write a horror influenced song. It's one of their catchiest songs and reminds me a lot of the movies that would regularly appear on MST3K.
They just put out an album called Max Baker, if you dig Creature, you'll dig the whole album.
Featuring Lilith Daughter of Dracula. I have never heard of this before, may need to dig around and see what I can come up with. Always interested in Marvel's old horror titles. Also I realize I am 2 posts behind so that's what the weekend is for right? I'll get caught up. Thanks for visiting and let me know if there's anything in the archives you're looking for. Take a look around at some of the older posts, there's a lot of cool stuff and since I'm trying not to repost songs, I might not put it up again.
Anyways today's song is Vampire Girl by the Groovie Ghoulies. A very Ramone sounding ode to a vampire girl. This is from their album Fun In the Dark.
This is a track fro a very weird fuzzy german band called the Vampires of Dartmoore. I'm not really sure what's happening, its just a rock record but it sounds like a soundtrack to a bad early 70s horror film that should have starred Christopher Lee.
This track is titled Hallo, Mister Hitchcock. I still remember watching Alfred Hitchcock presents on Nick at Night when I was a kid. It was kind of dark, and kind of scary, but I never really knew what was going on entirely since I was only around 7-8.
This is a live version of Werewolf Barmitzvah by the Roots. It was done live on Jimmy Fallon which I have to say is surprisingly underrated for a late night show. The man isn't a very good actor but he actually makes the late night gig work. It helps that he has one of the best bands in the world performing every night.
This song was originally on 30 Rock and here the Roots covered it in a short version. Questlove, the Roots' drummer put out a free download full of tracks they had covered on Jimmy Fallon and this was one of em.
I always loved this song because its just as ridiculous as many of the 50's and 60's novelty occult songs, although admittedly not quite as good. But the lyrics are so dumb they're good.
Decided to dig back and go for a 50's song. I'm almost sure I haven't posted this before haha. Too many too count now that I'm goin on my sixth year. I'm also really excited that it sounds like I'm finally gonna get to bring the Ghost Town live in Minneapolis this Halloween. It's a monday so it probably won't be to crazy but I'm excited nonetheless.
"Gary Warren's Werewolf was recorded August 18, 1958 on the Nasco label. Re-recorded in 1998 by Southern Culture On The Skids (who also have a great version of She's My Witch) for Rob Zombie's Halloween Hootenanny CD, Werewolf has to be one of my favorite Halloween songs of all time."
I don't know if I mentioned it before but Ghostbusters is probably my favorite movie. That combined with the awesomeness that is costumes, monsters and Halloween in general and the fact that my birthday is also in October is probably one of the reasons why I love doing this blog.
Today's song is by Shannon and the Clams. They're a scuzzy garage rock group from the West Coast. San Francisco I believe. This is a howling, pretty fuzzed out song, they're a rather new group and they're even going on tour and playing a Halloween show...that's on the 13th.
It's Alive. The blog is still coming back, it won't stay dead. Today's track is one from Jamaican Dub Master Scientist, it's called Night of the Living dead off of his Rids the World of Evil album.
I realize I'm a day late. I will make sure to catch up on the evil badness this week. Also was thinking of transfering my stuff to wordpress, anyone done that before? Sounds like a good project. Hope you're excited for Halloween, I am.
Also, I'm using hulk share. You can stream by clicking play and you can download by going to hulkshare through the link next to the player.
