So, here we are, on Halloween Shindig…with all these Halloween songs and mini-playlists and I just realized there’s no goddamn Halloween Song Mini-Playlist. Seriously? I’m not even sure what to say about this glaring oversight.
Well, since it’s November 1st, and no one wants to hear Halloween Music anymore, we’re gonna go right ahead gonna fix that little omission and drop a Halloween Song Mini-Playlist on ya.
Speaking of omissions, I have omitted Butch Patrick and Vanilla Ice from this playlist. I’m sorry if that upsets you. I doubt it will. I have done this because, well, I think it’s fairly self explanatory, but I’d hate to make you skip a song I know you’ll probably just skip anyway. If there’s enough outcry, I’ll add ’em in.
I have also omitted the incidental Halloween songs that are maybe about Halloween, but don’t explicitly use it in their titles. This includes all the Trick or Treats, which will get their own playlist in time, particularly once I can make a Shindig Radio Halloween Episode that doesn’t revolve around goddamn Halloween Kills.
Oh yeah…aaaand, I’ve also left off The Heavy Metal Halloweens, simply because they have their own playlist, and if you want that kinda Halloween, you’re gonna get that kinda Halloween. Over here we’ll just keep it pretty mellow. Well, mostly mellow anyway.
The real question is how much can you take of M.C. A.D.E.More specifically, his grating vocoder rapping.
Well, Adrian Does Everything (or Anus Do Exterminate, whichever you prefer) is challenging us to find out, with his tune that inexplicably uses John Carpenter’s classic Halloween Theme.
And to good effect, as thisbeat is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, that fat shit A.D.E. comes in with his monotonous vocoder sound and we quite literally begin asking ourselves “How man can we take?”
I get it. I know. But hear me out.
We gave A.D.E. a pretty hard time on the Freddy Raps episode, and we didn’t really redeem ourselves on Halloween H40 either, and I feel bad.
Dude essentially invented Miami Bass, used the Halloween theme, produced gnarly, trunk thundering bass and he made a Freddy Rap. C’mon, that’s worth some respect, no? And I know his Freddy Rap is pretty irritating, and we definitely took a firm stance on no Nightmare on ADE Street on the playlist, but we gotta throw him a bone, right? Just for being so shitty to a pioneer?
And this song is better! Isn’t it? I mean, I know it’s not much better, but it’s better, right? Plus, he uses the Halloween Theme to craft a great beat for crying out loud. And hell, I’d put money on him being one of the first guys, if not the first guy sample this theme.
But I’m really just guessin’ here. I don’t have that kinda info on hand. In fact, I wanna double check this claim. Gimme a sec.
Ok. So Jaybok the City Ace seems to be the first guy to do this, on 1987’s Hip Hop Phenomenal, followed closely thereafter by Slick Master Rick on his tune Brothers and Sisters House on 13th Street in 1988.
But then, 1989 rolls around with Esham, TheBeat Pirates and M.C. A.D.E. all sampling this theme.
Slick Master Rick and The Beat Pirates both made clubby electronic dance tunes with no rapping, and The Beat Pirates are sampling what sounds to me like the Part 2 theme, not that that matters really.
Esham is definitely using the tune, but it doesn’t sound sampled to me. And the part he uses is kind of a pushed-to-the-back-of-the-mix flourish that decorates a beat that isn’t really built on Michael’s theme. I will say his song is much better all around than A.D.E.’s though. So there’s that.
But then there’s Jaybok. Unfortunately, The City Ace has A.D.E. dead to rights. Hip Hop Phenomenal was released 2 years earlier, and it slaps. The beat is on point and his rapping isn’t all annoying like A.D.E.’s. And not for nothing, but Jaybok’s flow is smooth. Smooth like “is this really from 1987?” smooth.
However, I can’t say for sure, but I might argue that Jaybok isn’t sampling the song either. It sound different, like it’s just played in another synth. It could be a pitched sample, for sure, but it doesn’t sound like a straight sample the way A.D.E’s does.
So, he’s probably at least the 2nd, but at the most generous, I’d stand by my statement and sayA.D.E.was the first cat to really use the sample in this manner, for a rap song that relies heavily on Carpenter’s theme as the beat. You could argue against that effectively though.
Either way, that’s not bad, particularly considering how much it’s been used since, and whom by.
Ice T, Afrika Bambaataa, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Biggie, Soulja Boy, Juciy J and even (unsurprisingly) The Insane Clown Posse, have all had producers that dipped their MPCs into this classic piece of horror scoring.
But here we are, with our friend A.D.E., the man who makes me reconsider my love of the Vocoder. It’s like Adrian, I know it’s a dope tool, but you can’t rap the whole song through it like that bud, you just can’t. And what Vocoder are you using, cause it doesn’t sound that great. Is it even a real vocoder, or an FX pedal? Whodini had it right. You gotta get that VP330 Whodini had if you go hard like that. I know that fucker was pricey (still is!) and Whodini was Whodini, but there had to be someone around the studio with something close.
But I digress.
I’m sort of in a conundrum over this song. I’d like to include it, but frankly, it doesn’t really nest into any of The Shindig’s categories. It’s not Referential (unfortunately) and it doesn’t appear in any film (that I’m aware of anyway) and it’s certainly not about monsters or Halloween. But it is using the Halloween Theme, right?
But if I went around just adding every song that used this theme (Blood for Blood’sSpit My Last Breath comes to mind) we’d be here till Thanksgiving.
So, technically, it shouldn’t even be here. But we played it on Shindig Radio Ep. 20 and I’d like to commemorate that moment on the playlist and reproduce some of that Halloween Kills vibe here, and maybe assuage some of this guilt I’m feeling over giving A.D.E. so much grief.
So, if you’ll all indulge me for a moment, I’ll just chalk this one up as a Horror Theme and give M.C. A.D.E. his day on The Shindig, lord knows he’s earned it.
Our final Title Track from Episode 19 is provided by the incredibly prolific and long-standing garage-rock outfit known as The Fleshtones.
While a bit more generically about it’s subject matter than either Phantom tracks, I Was a Teenage Zombie scoots and boots in a way those other two just don’t. It’s a perfect playlist addition.
And the movie it hails from is definitely worth a watch too. It may be a low-budget affair, but it has plenty of spirit and some some really fun gore gags. The plot’s a bit convoluted for a movie of this nature, involving chemically tainted weed which isn’t (as you might suspect) the cause of the zombifcation but does inadvertently lead to it by way of a drug deal gone bad, an old huckleberry and a contaminated river.
Though not nearly as funny or brisk as the semi-similarly themed My Boyfriends Back, I Was a Teenage Zombie is a fairly fun time for those that don’t need their horror-comedy to be real polished. And it’s got those FX, something the comedic leaning My Boyfriend’s Back doesn’t really provide. It almost feels like a Troma movie, if Troma were a bit less grimy and a little more light.
It sports a great soundtrack too, featuring some young up-and-comers of the time like Los Lobos, The Del Fuegos, The Smithereens and even the Violent Femmes.
And hey, even if the movie’s not your bag, there’s no denying this is one hell of a Title Track. One that certainly understand this game and doesn’t try to get all cute. I Was a Teenage Zombie just makes with the goods.
It’s Halloween, but the little girl who lives down the lane is celebrating her birthday, so we might forgive her for being a bit distracted. She’s also from England, which as we know is not as keen on the Eve of All Hallows’ as we are across the pound.
However, a young Martin Sheen is going to try an teach her (an even younger Jodie Foster) just what Halloween is all about. Namely treats…and tricks.
While not quite a horror movie, nor quite a Halloween movie, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane feels almost like a stage play and has the distinction of being perhaps the best film featured on this year’s countdown.
It’s a strangely engaging little parlor mystery featuring a eerie and impressive performance from the 13 year old Foster that belies her age. It also features equally intriguing supporting performances from Emilio’s dad and Bad Ronald. How’s that for ya?
It’s an off-beat character study of sorts which pits nature vs. nurture. It’s not The Bad Seedby any stretch of the imagination, but it’s an interesting companion piece that takes a gander from the seed’s point of view.
The less said about this one the better, and the less you know about its plot going in is likewise true. I watched this one as cold as they come. All I knew was that it featured Halloween and I was pleasantly surprised.
I will say that the Halloween is brief, though not entirely unfestive, and takes place at the very start of the film. From there it’s mostly up to the autumnal trappings of rural Maine to provide the seasonal atmosphere. But perhaps like me, you’ll find yourself hooked by the time All Saints Day rolls around.
This one gets a green skeleton and a Frankenstein’s Monster up!
The scenes were GIF’d from a bootleg, though whether it was the awful one, I could not say. It is, fortunately, the only version I’ve had the chance to see. The quality is not exceptional, but it was fine for viewing and ok for the GIFs.
It was purchase by my friend Mikey, he says, from a guy named Chris with Darkside DVD at Monsterpalooza some years back. I’ve seen his booth before, they have a lot of crazy, hard to find stuff.
I looked him up to see if he had a website, but all I could find was a zencart that was under construction at www.darksidedvd.com. I believe he’s on Facebook though, and my buddy’s trying to get his email for ya. I’ll post that once I get it.
I have also seen it while digging through Veehd.com, which if you’ve never been, is an awesome site to stream and download movies. Their collection of hard to find horror stuff is impressive, and I’ve been able to find all kinds of shit that’s either out-of-print or never made it to DVD.
Which version (and the quality of) The Devils that’s there, I’m not sure. There’s one that clocks in at an hour and nine minutes, which sounds like an edited version. There’s a couple others at almost 2, which seems long, so they may have documentaries attached to them. That might be worth checking out, particularly If you’ve never been to that site. I suggest heading there with your wish list and goin’ nuts. It really is an awesome site.
It’s Christmas morning! Were you good this year? Well, it doesn’t matter, because Santa is here.
As disturbing as that may sound, here’s some consolation, in the form of another Morgan Ames Christmas tune from Silent Night, Deadly Night,The Warm Side of the Door.
This is the only other song which appears in the movie in its entirety. If anyone has this soundtrack, or knows where I might be able to procure it (if indeed it even exists) drop me a line, cause I need some of the other gems from this flick.
There’s always people who love you, to kiss you and hug you, on the warm side of the door.
Now, while I have no idea what this actually means, it’s a nice Christmas sentiment (I think) and the montage that accompanies it is one of the nicer moments in Silent Night, Deadly Night.
In a film where Christmas horrors of all kinds abound, this montage offers us a glimpse into Billy’s life away from the nightmare that is Christmas; where he merrily stacks boxes, lifts small children to reach toys, declines booze in favor of milk, and straightens ends caps directly after punching out, to the well deserved nods of his boss.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, this montage wraps up just in time for Christmas, when Billy’s pleasant disposition will soon transform into murderous punishment.
So, before that can happen, take a moment, maybe with a brother, to enjoy the warm side of the door,…before its kicked in by the shiny boot of Santa and an ax is lodged in your chest.
Merry Christmas Tumblr, or the warm side of the door, as I’m now calling it.
