The Monsters Go Disco

BONUS TRACK!

The Monsters Go Disco by The Monster Cereals

I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk about this nugget of nostalgic goodness, and smack dab in the middle of a Monster Disco Block seemed like the perfect place. Because, ya know, there’s no better way to segue out of fully audible quasi-consensual Vampire fucking than to start taking about children’s breakfast mascots.

Additionally, it appears dragging my feet for years has actually timed this post up to the 50th anniversay of the Monster Cereals, commemorated here with their own all-star box of super-group cereal called Monster Mash! Albertsons, Ralphs and Target all failed me on this box. When every single goddamn physical retail store finally succumbs to the will of Amazon, let The Monster Mash Cereal be their epitaphs!

As an added bonus, the crew teamed up to produce a new version of Boris Pickett’s classic graveyard smash, The Monster Mash. The song’s kind of trash, as Monster Mash covers go, but you can scan this QR code and listen to it on Spotify. They even made a mildly amusing Behind the Music-style video as accompaniment, and that’s worth a watch.

But I digress.

Anyone who’s probably actually reading these posts are well aware of the Monster Cereals. They’re iconic, even if you’ve never indulged in a bowlful of their colorful and crunchy crap.

Before these cartoon creatures came to be, cereal giant General Mills used to use Disney-owned properties to slang their morning crack. But in 1971, they decided it would be a hell of a lot more profitable if they just invented their own characters and kept all the proceeds. Enter Franken Berry and Count Alfred Chocula. Yep, Chocula has a name and that name is apparently Alfred.

So, smashed between Saturday morning cartoons, General Mills unleashed their animated monsters and grabbed the minds and stomachs of an entire generation.

Interesting side note: apparently in 1972, they began using a pigment in Franken Berry which actually turned kids shit pink. They even had a term for it known as “Franken Berry Stool.” Not sure whether this pigment was actually harmful or not, but they discontinued using it shortly thereafter none the less.

But because turning kid turds funny colors while pushing an addictive powder directly into their bloodstreams only makes you so much money, an entire marketing web was established. Stickers, rings, vinyl toys, magnets, and other such pieces of plastic were either shoved into the boxes, or featured as mail-away prizes on the back.

Well in 1979, General Mills began a campaign of of thin, flexible 45rpm records known as Flexi-Discs. These prizes were attached directly the backs of specially marked boxes of the each of the Monster Cereals.

3 of these 4 minute records were produced featuring the gang performing skits, including Monster Adventures in Outer Space and Count Chocula Goes to Hollywood. But it is the 3rd record which concerns us today, The Monsters Go Disco. It was 1979, after all.

This tale involves the monsters finding themselves frightfully lonely on a Saturday Night and deciding to give the local discotheque a go.

There they encounter a Wolfman Jack like disc jockey and have themselves a good ole fashioned dance off for the affections of “Donna Disco.”

This particular record has an even deeper history, as it was animated and remixed years later by 2 General Mills employees. You can read the backstory and strange journey of this record here, in a fantastically myopic and interesting Pop-Icon article.

But for now, let’s us indulge in a little lull amidst our Monster Disco Block and get a little Franken Berry Stool of our own with The Monsters Go Disco.

Disco Blood

TRACK #292:

Disco Blood by The Vamps

No, it’s not that Disco Blood, featured in 1981’s slasher classic, The Prowler, as performed by Nowherefast. Unfortunately, that one still appears to be unobtainium at the moment. Nope, this disco hit comes courtesy of Brazilian dance outfit, The Vamps.

It’s the title track the from their only LP, Disco Blood, released back in 1977.

And boy, what a weird ass tune this is.

It’s essentially a disco tale of a nubile woman who runs afoul “the vampire.” And not just a vampire, mind you, but the vampire. We could assume this means Dracula, as it typically does, but perhaps not. We’re just not sure.

Anyway, after some less than coy flirtations, and then overt unsolicited advances, this thing turns to (from the sounds of it anyway) straight up Vampire rape. After which, this poor young woman seems to acquiesce to the dire situation and the song then devolves into these 2 audibly fucking for almost 2 minutes over a disco beat. Well then.

The story itself, in all its myriad complexity, is actually illustrated for us on the album’s sleeve. Well, that’s a curious bonus. Chalk one up for The Vamps.

These are some great pictures to have on the back of an album, and it was an unexpected treat when I received this record in the mail.

As for the song, there’s some serious bongo work on display with this tune and man if it don’t get yer foot tapping.

Sure, you could take issue with the less than favorable subject matter, either as a moralistic objection to sex in general, the performance and distribution of simulated sex on record, or the unholy union of a human and creature of the night in sexual congress. Any one of those would make perfect sense and could impair someone’s desire to dance. I get that.

However, having no objection to the above, one could still find it difficult to dance to a song featuring a woman being thrust upon by a man (or monster) against her will. True enough. This woman literally yells “Get out of me!” Not sure if that’s just a language barrier or something more specific, but whatever’s happening here is not (at least initially anyway) consensual in the slightest.

But then again, I think that’s the nature of the vampire. For what is a vampire attack, if not a wildly non-consensual act.

But, if you can square yourself with that unfavorable situation, then you got one hell of a smokin’ disco number on you’re hands.

Unfortunately, like most of the artists this year it seems, I couldn’t dig up too much information on The Vamps.

So, I guess all we have are these drawings and 7 and a half minutes of a little 33rpm auditory pornography/maybe rape/probably horror/definitely disco. Eh, why not?

I apologize in advance.

Jack O’Lantern

TRACK #281:

Jack O’Lantern by Babe Ruth

Welcome back…anybody…to another swinging season on The Shindig. Hope you’re all ready for another macabre month of cuts to carve your pumpkin to, ’cause here it comes.

And speaking of orange gourds with grins, we’re gonna kick off 2021 with a song called Jack O’Lantern from 70’s British rockers, Babe Ruth.

While it does speak of Halloween, the song itself isn’t about actual Jack-O-Lanterns, but rather a fella named Jack who happens to have a very seasonal nickname, and a very felonious game.

You see, one Halloween, Jack dressed up in his dad’s clothes and went peeping through the windows of all the young girls around town. The squealers saw him and called the cozzers. But, alas! Jack’s father was the one who ended up in cuffs for the dirty deed. Clever girl.

Babe Ruth make this rhythmic entreaty for Jack to change his ways and spare his Mother some shame. Yeah, ya pervert! It’s not bad enough you goin’ around peepin’, but you gotta frame your own father while you’re doin it? That’s pretty low bruh.

Now granted, we don’t know much about Jack’s father. Maybe he was a real pervert too, and the whole thing wasn’t terribly out of character for him, thus leading to his swift arrest. Maybe Jack, as the old anti-marijuana ad of my youth once proclaimed, learn it from watching dear old dad.

We also don’t have much in the way of information here regarding their relationship. Maybe Jack’s dad was a just a dick, and a little pay back from Jack was just what the doctor ordered. We may never know.

What we do know is that Babe Ruth never became a big hit over here in the States. They saw a modicum of success in the beginning, ultimately finding their niche in certain prog rock circles. However, not experiencing much airplay, they never quite gained the kind of longevity some of their contemporaries have enjoyed.

Based on this tune alone, I’m a little surprised, cause this is a rocker, for sure. But listening through their catalog, it isn’t totally shocking. Despite some solid compositions, exceptional musicianship, and the undeniable vocal sex-swagger of lead singer Janita Haan, Babe Ruth lacks a certainly something we’ve come to associate with the more popular acts of the era. I’m not sure whether to say their music isn’t rockin’ enough, or that it’s just not catchy enough, but there’s definitely an X factor missing here which has almost certainly led to their relative obscurity.

Either way, your band throws down with a jammer called Jack O’Lantern and say “Halloween” a bunch, then your wider acclaim is a non-starter for us here in The Hole. Onto the Shindig you shall go!

Happy October 1st everybody. Let’s commence to rockin’ your pumpkins off with Jack O’Lantern!

Here’s to 2021!

Indian Woman

TRACK #269:

Indian Woman by Billy Vera

Haunted is one of those weird, toothless horror flicks that didn’t seem to get the memo about what the hell was going down with the rest of the genre in the late 70’s.

Mostly, it just feels like an overlong episode of some 70’s TV show you never liked that somehow managed to escaped to the big screen, doubled-billed with something people might have actually wanted to see.

Consensus seems to be that it’s a Horror film. I guess you could call it that, as there is the ghost of an Indian woman talking out of some weird payphone we see installed at the edge of a cemetery for no particular reason. Oh, and a guy attempts murder at one point.

Though only a refreshing 80 minutes in length, it takes about 50 for anything even close to horrific to take place. And then, it takes another 25 for something else resembling horror to come to pass. And even then, you’ll likely be pretty unimpressed.

It isn’t a complete loss however, depending on how much you enjoy strange overdubbed dialogue, nudity for nudity’s sake, weird cigar-store Indians that look like regular-ass dudes and Aldo Ray drunkenly shouting all his lines in that awesome raspy voice of his. Those things go some distance for guy like me. It’s enough to make it mildly watchable in the moment, but not much beyond that. I doubt I’ll be firing up Haunted anytime soon to get a fix of anything. Well, except maybe Aldo Ray. He is pretty great here.

What does set Haunted apart however, as you might have already guessed, is a pretty fantastic opening credit song called Indian Woman.

Sung by Billy Vera, who’s hit single, At This Moment, initially fell on deaf ears when it was released in 1981. But then, it found its way onto an episode of Family Ties in 1985, where a little bit of that Michael J. magic rubbed off and sent the track to #1.

Michael and fellow Family Ties actress, Tracy Pollan, shared their first kiss to that tune while shooting the scene. Shortly after sharing the screen again in Bright Lights, Big City, the two got married. Michael J. later said the couple couldn’t get on a dance floor anywhere in the world for almost 10 years without hearing At This Moment come flying out of the speakers.

If you’re not one of those big Family Ties enthusiasts, or particularly up on your 80’s ballads, you may still be familiar withVera , albeit through another avenue.

As a struggling musician, Billy started taking acting gigs to make ends meet. He then landed himself a role as Pinky Carruthers in a little Peter Weller movie called The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. That’s weird.

Check him out here with his green fedora and John Parker. Yep. This guy, from this other weird-ass movie, sings this weird-ass song from this weirder-ass movie.

Hey, maybe you’re a 90210 fan! Maybe you even remember him as Brandon Walsh’s bookie, Duke Weatherhill?

Maybe not. I know I don’t. I just read that 5 minutes ago while researching Billy Vera. But, hey, maybe you do.

Either way, it seems Billy isn’t too proud of his work here on Haunted, as neither his Wikipedia entry nor his own website (containing his entire discography) makes any mention of Indian Woman. Can’t imagine why.

Perhaps it’s not the same Billy Vera? I dunno. Were there 2 different Billy Veras that were famous singers around this time? I guess it’s possible. I was wrong about Paul Williams. And there is that whole Cat’s Eye/Ray Stephens spelled Ray Stevens business. So conflating 2 different Billy Vera’s here is a distinct possibility.

All I know for sure is that if I was the guy responsible for this bizarro 70’s horror crooning, you better believe I’d be pullin’ up a table at the HorrorHound straight bumpin’ this shit, signin’ 8×10 glossies of Pinky Carruthers and Haunted one-sheets. Given, of course, I was in fact that same guy who did both.

Since I can’t actually do most of that, I’ll just do the one thing I can and bump this shit.

Here’s the sleeper hit of 2020. The probably retroactively offensive, and thus perhaps under-celebrated winner, Indian Woman.

Why do you keep playing that song!?

Struck By Boogie Lightning

TRACK #268:

Struck By Boogie Lightning by L’Etrique

Hey, do you like Don’t Go In the House?

I probably agree with whatever you just said to yourself, whatever it was. I’m pretty flexible on this one.

I will say that I mostly enjoy it, though. I like the tone and it’s late 70’s disco vibe. It’s what I want out of a slasher, aesthetically speaking. Donny’s pretty great too, and watching him be a socially inept weirdo is its own kind of charming.

And it certainly kicks off delivering the goods. Problem is, it pulls back on the reigns a little too much in the middle. Ultimately, it ramps back up again to a somewhat satisfactory level before the end, but you can feel a crazier movie just wanting to bust out here. Should have just keep the hammer down, you ask me.

That being said, it’s still a fun enough slasher with a some pretty memorable moments none the less.

More importantly for us though, it features one thumpin-ass disco banger of a Sweet Song in Struck By Boogie Lightning.

Though pretty discoed out itself, I’m still not sure if Don’t Go In The House should wrap it all up with something like Stuck by Boogie Lightning. You could accuse it of being tonally inconsistent. I don’t. But you could.

Personally, given the rest of the disco tunes scattered throughout the film, it doesn’t sound out of place at all. But, it does seem a little upbeat for whatever the hell we just watched. Sometimes that’s just what you need with a movie like this though.

So I’m glad it ends with this song though, cause it’s awesome and I wouldn’t know about it otherwise. So, hats off gang.

Though called simply “Boogie Lightning” in the film’s credits and attributed to producer/writer Bill Heller, the song was released under the moniker L’Etrique as Struck by Boogie Lightning in 1979. While essentially the same exact song, the film’s version plays for about 2 minutes and only features the words “Struck by Boogie Lightning.”

The official L’Etrique version, however, is a nearly 8 minute disco opus which will surely bring you to your boogie knees.

Somewhere between my almost autistic pursuit of purity and a sense of goddamn common decency, lies this truncated (though still expanded) Halloween Shindig version. It’s longer and more complete than what the movie provides, yet slices out a lot of the repetition and the open ended disco breakdown of the official release.

This is one of those Shindig tunes where, if you’re not familiar with the film, it just seems like a bizarre addition. But if you are familiar with the film, it’s one of those tracks that just needs to be included. This song grooves man, and it’s one my absolute favorite additions of 2020.

So, build a weird murder room and grab your flamethrower or hell, maybe just smash a candle into some innocent girl’s poor face and burn the whole goddamn disco down.

Do it for Ma. She’s just sleeping.

Bargain with the Devil

TRACK #267:

Bargain with the Devil by Franco Micalizzi

In 1973, William Friedkin tapped straight into some ancient Catholic corner of the world’s collective unconsciousness with his masterpiece The Exorcist. People went berserk.

As in the wake of anything that hugely successful, the imitators quickly emerged.

From India’s Seytan, to Canada’s The Manitou, to Spain’s Excorsimo, to Germany’s Magdalena, to our own home grown Abby… there’s definitely no shortage of Exorcist knock-offs.

But nobody pumped em out like the Italians, Pope John Paul II be damned.

There’s The Antichrist, ya know, that one where a paraplegic Rosemary-look-alike totally licks a goat’s asshole. And I mean totally. That one’s pretty awesome.

Or there’s L’Ossessa, also known as Enter the Devil, The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, The Sexorcist, The Devil Obsession, The Obsessed, The Tormented, or The Movie with the Most Alternate Titles Trying to Capitalize Whatever Film Was Most Popular at a Given Time.

That one finds a wooden crucifix Jesus coming to life Morty-style and having his way with our young protagonist. He’s actually the Devil, and later he climbs off a different cross during a weird ritual and totally crucifies this poor girl to it instead. Yikes.

Or how bout poor Bava’s previously titled Lisa and The Devil? It wasn’t faring too well, so the producers re-cut that fucker to improve marketability. They infused it with new scenes deliberately ripping off The Exorcist and released it as The House of Exorcism. Some of those scenes were even shot by Bava’s son (and Demons director) Lamberto Bava, but Mario claims that version is no longer his film at all really.

While all these have their place and finer points, none of them are quite as head scratching or entertaining as Italy’s original Exorcist knock-off, Chi Sei?, which was released to American audiences as Beyond the Door.

More importantly, none of them feature a funked-up ode to the Devil himself like Bargain with The Devil.

From the weird voice dubbing, to the strange children, to Dimitri being a general skeezer, it’s all pretty bizarre. For me though, it’s weirdness culminates when an aggressive pack of street musicians accosts Robert, one of whom appears to be playing a recorder through his nose. That’s creepy.

Here’s the soulful tune about soullessness, Bargain with the Devil. You know, it sounds like a jerk-off session in the bathroom.

(It’s A) Monsters’ Holiday

TRACK #245:

(It’s A) Monsters’ Holiday by Buck Owens and The Buckaroos

On Oct. 30th 1973, Hee-Haw co-host and future Country Hall of Fame inductee Buck Owens entered his Bakersfield California studio with his Buckaroos to record this shit-kickin’ country creep-out.

Released the following summer, just ahead of Halloween 1974, (It’s A) Monsters’ Holiday reached #6 on the Billboard Country Charts. Not bad for a silly monster song.

And boy howdy, is this one silly.

Rattling off all kinds of monsters – Frankenstein, The Wolfman, Dracula, The Hunchback, Gremlins, Goblins, Mummies and Zombies – Buck Owens gives shout outs all around in this goofy and upbeat tune.

Now, why all of these Monsters inexplicably appearing in Buck’s bedroom constitutes a “holiday” I couldn’t well say. To me, it just sounds like more work.

Cause for Monsters, scaring people is their job, right? At least, you could say it’s not below their pay-grade. So, if they’re just doing their job, than it sounds like they’re at work. Not much of a holiday, just doing what you do for a living.

Now, if they were hanging out by the pool, hittin’ the slopes, or yuckin it up down at the local Monster VFW, I could see considering this a nice little reprieve from their everyday responsibilities; a true holiday.

As it stands, this doesn’t sound like much of a vacation to me. But it does sound like one down home, country-fried Shindiggin’ Halloween hoedown if I’ve ever heard one.

Atta boy, Buck!

Nosferatu

TRACK #243:

Nosferatu by Blue Öyster Cult

It’s been roughly 7 years, 6 months and 16 days since Blue Öyster Cult has made an appearance on The Shindig. Roughly.

Back then, it was their contribution to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, which afforded them an early nod on The Playlist.

Well now they’re back, all these years later, with the less inclusive, though infinitely more referential, Nosferatu.

This one was the final track on their 1977 release Spectres, an album which opens with the much more celebrated (though no less referential) Godzilla. As it happens, Nosferatu was actually the B-Side to Godzilla, making for one very referential 45.

Being horror fans, Nosferatu is a word I’m quite sure you are all fairly familiar with. But what hell is Nosferatu?

Well, it’s a word that for sure appears in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, though Ole Bram claimed he got it from Emily Gerard’s Transylvania Travelogue The Land Beyond the Forest. However, Emily seems to merely claim it’s a Romainian word which means “Vampire,” although no such word really seems to exist in Romanian.

Some claim the word came from the Greek “nosphoros” which meant “disease-carrying.” Others say it takes root in the old Romanian term “necurat,” meaning “unclean.” It was the kinda thing you’d say so you didn’t have to say “vampire,” lest speaking it’s name called the creature to you.

Lotta ideas. No concrete answers.

At any rate, occultist producer Albin Grau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen liked the word so much, they used it to evade securing any rights for their unauthorized 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

They were unsuccessful however, as Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence, sued the shit out of them, bankrupted their fledgling occultist studio Prana-Film, and almost had every copy of the FW Murnau’s film Nosferatu burned into oblivion.

So, for almost 100 years now, “Nosferatu” has directly related to not just vampires, but specifically, Dracula.

And Blue Öyster Cult, like Grau, Galeen and Murnau, are clearly referencing Bram Stoker’s classic novel. So much so that some of the lyrics directly reference passages from the book.

But, since the 1922 Nosferatu is a silent picture, I’ve added some samples from Werner Herzog’s awesomely unsettling 1979 remake, just for a little ambiance.

So get unclean with Klaus Kinski and the disease carrying cultists of the Blue Öyster with…

Nos-fer-a-tu!

Witch Magic

TRACK #221:

Witch Magic by Peter Rochon

Let’s keep the weird late 70’s Halloween Special train rolling here with this strange number from perhaps the strangest Halloween cartoon of them all, Witch’s Night Out.

First aired on October 27th in 1978, this festive Canadian offering follows the Halloween adventures of 2 children named Small and Tender. Fully disillusioned after their Werewolf and Ghost costumes fail to scare a single soul in their small town, they unwittingly call an equally disillusioned Witch to their aid.

She promptly turns them (and their weird babysitter Bazooey) into literal versions of their get-ups. They then proceed to scare the hell out of an entire Halloween party and then the whole town. Despite being hunted down like dogs by a town full of joyless assholes, the children (and then everyone else) manage to rekindle their love of All Hallows’.

Highly stylized and very 70’s, the characters are all monochromatic and the voices (provided by Gilda Radner and Catherine O’hara to name a couple) are weird. Hell, this whole thing is just plain weird, but if you grew up watching it on the Disney channel during the ’80’s and ’90’s, chances are it’s nostalgic as all get out.

YouTube can definitely provide you with several trips down memory lane of varying qualities, if you feel so inclined.

As for The Shindig, we’re gonna slot in its bizarro, vocoder heavy theme song, Witch Magic and send you down an audio nostalgia trip to a time when Halloween Specials were great, and filled analog airwaves with festive joy.It’s a bag of garbage!

A Merry, Shh, Creepy Hallowe’en

TRACK #220:

A Merry, Shh, Creepy Hallowe’en by David Levy & George Tibbles

The Addams Family is a staple of classic American pop culture that has evolved over time to adapt to any medium thrown its way.

The Addams took their first breaths in 1938 as a single panel comic strip from cartoonist Charles Addams. Featured in the New Yorker magazine, they would be run periodically for 50 years until Addams’ death in 1988.

During that span (and then beyond), The Addams set about conquering every corner of entertainment the tried their hand at. First as the 1964 sitcom we all know and love, which ran for 2 seasons.

In 1972, the first animated incarnation of the Addams met Scooby-Doo. After that, a variety show was planned featuring (strangley) Butch (Eddie Munster) Partrick as Pugsly. A pilot was filmed but the show was ultimately not picked up by the networks.

Then, in 1973 The Addams Family became another beloved show, this time a cartoon which also ran for 2 seasons and featured a young Jodi Foster as the voice of Pugsly. Weird!

After that, the original cast reunited for the Television film Hallowe’en with the New Addams Family. In it, the legend of old Cousin Shy is told; a Chirstmas-like tale about a family ghost that mysteriously carves pumpkins and brings presents on Halloween.

Then, in 1991, The Addams took to the big screen in the Paramount Pictures adaptation which spawned a sequel in 1993 and then a direct to video reboot starring Tim Curry as Gomez.

After that, another animated series based on the new film followed before a second live action television show took form in 1998 as The New Addams Family.

In 2010, The Addams Family took on Broadway in a musical starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Nuewirth. Was there anywhere The Addams could not make their own peculiar home?

Today, as I’m sure you’re all aware, America’s First Family of the Macabre takes another trip to the big screen and gets another animated makeover, this time of the digital variety. Now, while sadly this not the much anticipated (and later canceled) stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams’ original designs that Tim Burton had planned, it is good to see The Addams back on their feet and ready to capture a whole new generation of fans.In honor of the return of The Addams Family, Halloween Shindig presents the very Halloweeny but Christmas-like carol A Merry, Shh, Creepy Hallowe’een from their 1977 Halloween Television reunion special.

Because how long could we ignore a Halloween song sung by The Addams?

Enjoy!

Halloween Shindig

The Horror Fans Halloween Playlist

The 70’s