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Golden records halloween4/9/2023 ![]() Halloween Nuggets: Monster Sixties A Go-Go (2014).expanded as MP3 album to whopping 46 tracks. mix of vintage garage rock and scary sound effects Halloween's Gravest Hits (Capitol, 2009).Doo Wop Halloween Is A Scream (Wanda, 2007).Blues, Blues, Hoodoo, Halloween: Scary Blues & Jazz 1925 to 1961 (2014).The following year Jones also recorded a parody of Edd Byrnes & Connie Stevens' novelty hit "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb" called "Spooky, Spooky, Lend Me Your Tomb." It closed his Liberty album 60 Years Of Music America Hates Best, which Taragon reissued in 2002 in tandem with another 1960 Liberty LP, Omnibust. By the way, it was alternately issued as Spike Jones In Hi-Fi - presumably the mono edition of the same album. Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound (Warner Brothers, 1959) was reissued on CD by Collector's Choice (2004) and then as an MP3 download by Rhino (2009). Honorable Mention: Spike Jones, the man who made a career out of mirthful musical mayhem and murder, recorded a whole album of horror-themed musical comedy fairly late in his career. I also recommend Greatest Hits From Outer Space (Ace, 2013), and for an even broader, more obscure survey, check out Rockin' In Outer Space, Volume 1 and Volume 2 (Red Devil, 2012) Honorable Mention: Do space aliens count in the horror genre? If you think so, seek out They Came from Outer Space: The Alien Songbook (Varese, 1998), a near encyclopedic look at rock hits featuring Martians and flying saucers. Mostly Ghostly: More Horror For Halloween (Ace, 2010).These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits For Halloween (Ace, 2005).This page lists a handful of worthy horror rock albums (among an ocean of exploitative budget discs unleashed every October) and a crypt full of songs sure to thrill boys and ghouls of all ages. In the years that followed, grotesque groups like The Cramps, The Misfits, and White Zombie flourished while Gothic rock (beginning with Bauhaus and The Cure) turned the genre into a lifestyle. The Horror Rock platters included such classics as Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" (1958), Jumpin' Gene Simmons' "Haunted House" (1964), and Pickett's prototypical "Monster Mash." And, they contained songs such as the Challengers' "Out Of Limits" (1964) and the Fiends' rendition of "The Addams Family Theme" (1964) - guitar-fueled romps beloved by the surf punks who haunted the original Rhino Records retail outlet in Santa Monica, California.īut, Horror Rock Classics also included "Cemetery Girls" (1979) by Barnes & Barnes, a post-Zappa, pre-Devo duo best remembered for their bizarre paean to "Fish Heads." By including a recent record among such classics, Rhino seemed to be saying that horror rock was back to stay, and indeed it was. In 1983, a very young Rhino Records issued two 4-song, 10-inch EP's simply called Horror Rock Classics (1983) – one pressed on orange vinyl and shaped like a jack-o-lantern, the other made from regular black vinyl but shaped like a bat (see pictures, right). My first horror rock records neatly bridged this divide. Again as happened with Christmas music, it took the punk rockers of the late 1970's - who overtly rejected the pretensions of their forebears - to revive horror rock (albeit weighted with nihilistic ennui). ![]() As rock developed pretensions during the 1960's, such novelties fell out of vogue. Like Christmas rock, horror rock peaked commercially during the innocent age before the Beatles. ![]() "Monster's Holiday" was included, by the way, as a bonus track on the 1991 CD reissue of Pickett's Original Monster Mash LP (now deleted but easily available on MP3). Over the years I developed another obsession - hip Christmas music - and inevitably discovered that Bobby Pickett had waxed a follow-up record called "Monster's Holiday." Oh, the unspeakable joy I felt that day. Listen to "The Monster Mash" and more in The Haunted Jukebox ![]() I also loved rock 'n' roll, so when Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 horror rock classic "Monster Mash" experienced a revival in 1973, I thought I'd reached nirvana - and yet the best was still to come. Before Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs captured my adolescent fancy, I dreamed of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Like many men of my post-boomer generation, I developed an early and abiding fascination with monster movies. Monsters, Vampires, Voodoos & Spooks (2017) Halloween Nuggets: Monster Sixties A Go-Go (2014) ![]()
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