Audio

Halloween (Wasted)

TRACK #250

Halloween by Wasted

To kick off October proper, we’re gonna pull the lead-off batter from last year’s Heavy Metal Halloween episode of Shindig Radio, which segues nicely, being that it makes good use of a crude reworking of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween theme.

The oldest Heavy Metal Halloween track thus far on The Shindig, this one comes from Danish rocker’s Wasted, who formed in 1981. After releasing this demo in 1984, they toured extensively across Europe and began putting together a follow-up record.

Unfortunately, their record company at the time didn’t much care for this new material at all. They added insult to injury by suggesting the band would be more successful if they altered their style to sound more like Twisted Sister or Bon Jovi.

Wasted didn’t handle this seemingly constructive, yet mostly damn questionable, criticism all that well and slowly began imploding.

However, they reunited recently and just last year released a new album of brand new material that thankfully sounds nothing like either Bon Jovi or Twisted Sister.

So, despite the record company’s shortsightedness and the toll that not playing that type of ball offered Wasted, I’d like to personally thank them guys for sticking to their guns and providing this solid stand-up double, that wholly secures their place on Halloween Shindig.

Happy October Weeners!

 

Audio

A Heavy Metal Halloween: The Playlist

In honor of Halloween and our newest episode of Shindig Radio, I’ve compiled a mini-playlist for all you Halloween headbangers.

I even added a couple extra songs not featured on the show, just to spice up the bash.

Trick or treat…muthafuckas!

 

Audio

Halloween

TRACK #240:

Halloween by 220 Volt

It’s Halloween again, gang!

Now, that should earn everyone hangin’ around here a new Halloween song. But the last time I checked, I noticed we completely flaked on our end on the Halloween last year.

We did deliver Acid Witch’s October 31st, so we didn’t completely abandon ya’ll. But, we didn’t make good with a new Halloween song, at least not one called Halloween, anyway.

So we’re making doubly sure we got you covered this year.

For our 2019 Halloween induction of a Halloween song, we figured we’d dig right into our Heavy Metal Halloween line-up and pull out an exclusive.

And what better exclusive than the secret song I stumbled upon the night before we recorded that episode – 220 Volt’s 1985 rockin’ Metaller, Halloween!

Ya know, that Swedish metal band that formed after an unfortunate mini-golf accident? I don’t know about you guys, but to me, nothing spells evil metal like minor hand injuries at the Dragon Castle on hole 7.

And since we had such a great time listening to all of Busta Rhymes’ nonsense from Halloween: Resurrection, and I have a habit of trickin’ out these tracks with Halloween franchise samples, we Busta Busted all over this one for yinz.

Happy Halloween everybody! Thanks for coming along for the ride. We’ll see ya’ll again on Oct. 1st, 2020 sharp!

Until then, stayed tuned for more episodes of Shindig Radio and definitely stay spooky!

Oh, and here’s that weird picture we referenced during the show. I think Matt was right, this singer definitely looks like a labradoodle.

 

Audio

Episode 11: A Heavy Metal Halloween

It’s Halloween again and Shindig Radio is celebrating its reason for your season: Halloween Songs.

But not just any Halloween Songs. These are songs exclusively called Halloween and performed exclusively by weird 80’s metal bands.

It’s a Heavy Metal Halloween!

Matt Mastrella returns to join Graham C. Schofield and Mikey Rotella on a Halloween journey through Heavy Metal history with 10 of the hardest, most head bangin’ Halloween hits the world has ever heard!

 

 

Audio

Realive Radio Ep. 2: It’s Totally Not At All A Halloween Show

Back before podcasts were filled with commercials for MeUndies and boxes filled with mysterious bullshit, your Shindig Radio pals Graham C. Schofield, Mikey Rotella and myself had a different kind of radio show,…filled with a different kind of dumb commercials.

That show was called Realive Radio, and this evening marks the 10 year anniversary of their not so Halloween Special.

To honor this occasion, we’ve created a playlist here featuring a special edition of that episode, re-cut to include all the original sound clips as originally recorded and spliced into Duke’s live phone recording for the maximum audio quality allowed by our shitty equipment.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed making it, and have enjoyed remembering it these last 10 years. If you’d care to know more about Realive Radio, the overly verbose story of how it came to be can be found below this playlist.

Thanks for listening, and Happy Halloween. Punch yeah!

Is it Re-Alive or Real Live?

The Brief True Story of a Real Fake Show

Back in 2008, Mikey Rotella and myself were writing for a fledgling horror website called Horrornews.net. We penned a few horror reviews, a couple articles and I had a daily column highlighting videos from around the web.

Soon, we were asked by the owners of the site if we would like to cohost a new kind of internet radio show they wanted to start called a “podcast.” Naturally, we agreed.

Whomever was supposed to “produce” this program dropped out in the 11th hour and I jumped in to man the ship, so to speak. With that, I came became familiar with a platform called Blog Talk Radio.

Essentially, hosts and guests would call an assigned number at a scheduled time and the service would connect the calls together a record the session. It would then process and post the result on its servers, and like that, you had a podcast ready for streaming.

The backend of this platform, where the admin could manage all the incoming calls, also had a rudimentary sound board, where you could upload your own sound clips to play during the show. I assume this would be used for bumper music and prerecorded interviews and such.

Naturally, as any of you Shindig Radio listeners may have guessed, I had other ideas.

I quickly tapped my buddy Graham C. Schofield to record sound clips of an announcer type character introducing us and making fun of Mikey. I uploaded these sounds on the sly and played them during the program and we all had a good laugh.

Our tenure as the cohost of Horrornews.net’s Podcast From Hell, however, was relatively short lived. I believe we only recorded 4 episodes over a span of a few months. It had something to do with us being goofballs and not caring about recent and upcoming horror movies. Also, Mikey told a physic lady named Mama Lisa her name sounded like a pizzeria and that upset our other cohost. Didn’t upset Mama Lisa mind you, just our cohost. But the damage was done.

However, I was strangely intrigued by this soundboard style call-in Radio platform. So much untapped potential. One could call in and interact with big chunks of prerecorded material and put on an entire stage-play-style radio program and the site would take care of the rest. And like that Realive Radio was born.

Mikey, Graham and myself set about recording different characters and bits that would be mixed with fake commercials and movie trailers and radio buffoonery. I would call-in and play these sound clips and it would give the appearance that you were listening to a real radio show, or as much as you could give that impression through a recorded phone call.

As you might imagine, it was fairly labor intensive, and we only produced 4 episodes of the program over the course of 2 years. But it was a fun and creative time we all really enjoyed.

10 years ago today, on October 25th, 2009, we released a “Halloween” episode of Realive Radio. The running gag was, that since it was recorded well before October and had nothing to do with Halloween, our announcer named G-Spot was desperately attempting to inject some Halloween cheer into the proceedings, with minimal success.

For its 10 anniversary, I thought since it’s kind of a Halloween special, I’d make this episode available to fans of Halloween Shindig and Shindig Radio, so they might hear 10 year younger versions of their podcast pals hamming it up.

As stated above, we hope that you enjoy this old relic of podcast infancy and that, much like G-Spot intended, it fills your Halloween with spooky delight.

Halloween Shindig Presents: Realive Radio Ep. 2: It’s Totally Not At All A Halloween Show.

 

Audio

Halloween Night

TRACK #189:

Halloween Night by Halloween

Several years ago when Halloween made their Shindig debut on Halloween with their song Halloween, we immediately bestowed upon them All-Star status. This was very premature, because at that point, it was their only contribution.

I knew then that they would have multiple appearances. I have an auxiliary playlist called The Shindig Bullpen for all the planned additions that have yet to make their way onto the blog. They’re all there, but the move was still premature.

Tonight’s track, however, finally makes Halloween The Shindig All-Stars they were born to be.

Since they already had a song called Halloween, I’m sure they were pretty disappointed. Now, they probably could have gone the Danzig route and just made a song called Halloween II, but Halloween opted to tag the word “Night” on there, and call it a day. It’s a solid move.

And since we were just dealing with Dr. Crowley and his Anti-Halloween Machine, we thought we’d check in with Angela Harris, who’s own Anti-Halloween machine, a religious group called HARVEST, is responsible for all the mayhem in 2014’s nostalgia stuffed The WNUF Halloween Special.

Her alarmist petitions seem particularly in contrast to Halloween’s somewhat reassuring song, where they tell you everything’s all right, Halloween’s just a fun night out at the Heavy Metal Horror Show. Nothing to worry about here.

Mrs. Harris, well, she doesn’t exactly concur.

Here’s Halloween, once again singing about Halloween and taking their rightful place on the Shindig All-Star team, with Halloween Night.

 

Audio

Halloween

TRACK #180:

Halloween by Ostrogoth

No Halloween on Halloween Shindig would be complete without a Halloween Song called Halloween. This year it’s from Belgian metalers Ostrogoth.

If you’ve never heard of them, don’t feel down, I’m pretty sure unless you were a serious hesher in 1985, you probably haven’t. And if they didn’t have a song called Halloween, I probably wouldn’t either.

Wading in the dregs of 80’s euro-metal stands a band named after a sect of the East Germanic Goths, partially responsible for the fall of the Western Roman Empire! Do these guys know how to party, or what!?

Partiers or not, they know how to Halloween. And they’re Halloweening hard here with a song so spooky it even features a creepy Devil voice.

Loaded with clips from Halloween 4, cause we haven’t tapped that keg yet, and because Don LaFontaine absolutely kills on this trailer.

I’ve seen Halloween 4. I don’t much care for Halloween 4, but every time I hear Don’s voiceover, I forget how much I don’t actually care for Halloween 4 and almost throw it on.

When they wanted to provide some damage control from the consumer fallout of Halloween III…they weren’t fuckin’ around.

“Ever since that night, no one…has forgotten his name…and Halloween…has never been the same.”

Happy Halloween, Weeners!

 

Audio

Trick or Treat

TRACK #165:

Trick or Treat by Halloween

A band named Halloween wouldn’t be worth their weight in candy corn if they weren’t coming correct with a song called Trick or Treat.

Thankfully, Detroit’s Heavy Metal Horror Show doesn’t disappoint. From Halloween’s 1985 debut album Don’t Metal with Evil comes Trick or Treat, just like it says on the tin.

Bookended by random clips from both Hack-O-Lantern and Halloween 2.

So, in case you’re feeling like you’ve been trick or treated to death these last few nights, Dr. Loomis is gonna let you know…

You don’t know what death is!

 

Audio

Halloween

TRACK #160:

Halloween by Siouxsie and The Banshees

The British don’t really give a shit about Halloween. At least not according to me and this blog on the occasions when we’ve previously stated as such.

We’ve based this idea almost exclusively on To The Devil a Daughter and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Additionally, my wife has corroborated this somewhat, having spent some time in England and found their Halloween enthusiasm lacking.

Strange then that innovative British Post-Punkers and Goth pioneers Siouxsie and the Banshees have a song titled Halloween. Or maybe not, given their whole gothy aesthetic. To be fair though, their song isn’t a parade of Milky Ways, Don Post masks and burning orange gourds.

No, Siouxsie Sioux’s track is a more atmospheric affair that seems to deal with a loss of childhood innocence.

Doubling fitting then that we bookend it with samples from the aforementioned Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, where American creepster Martin Sheen sleazes all over British child Jodi Foster on the Eve of All Saints in a decidedly less-than-innocent fashion.

He also provides us with a pretty solid and concise description of what Halloween represents stateside:

“Oh, it’s a big day here when all the kids get dressed up in scary costumes and masks and go around to all the houses. When you answer the door the shout ‘trick or treat’ and you’re suppose to act scared, and if you don’t give them a treat, they’ll pull some dirty trick on you.”

Yep, that’s pretty much what we got going on over here.

 

Audio

Halloween

TRACK #130:

Halloween by Helloween

Let’s just cap off this 80’s metal block with perhaps the greatest 80’s metal Halloween track ever recorded.

If a band named Helloween didn’t have a song called Halloween, I might have to sit down with them and have real frank discussion. Fortunately, that’s not necessary thanks to this metal overture to the Eve of All Hallo’s.

Originally something like 13 minutes, I use the edited single version on the Shindig for the sake of movement. No one at your party has time for an 13 minute cautionary epic that finds time to include Charlie Brown, Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Nothing’s lost however as the song still remains a balls-to-the-wall heavy metal Halloween harangue and is essential party playlist material

Check out this single they released. Is there anything more Halloweeny-awesome then cutting your vinyl into the shape of a pumpkin and fuck all to everyone’s turntables?

This is the back image, with its sexy, high heeled and stockinged Halloween harlot leap-frogging over Jack-O-Lantern. Yep, everything checks out back here.

It housed the edited version, while the Jack-O-Lantern face held it down on the front with the 13min original. I love this thing. It’s one of the coolest vinyls I’ve ever seen.

Curiously and for no apparent reason, the edited version begins with a few notes from the old standard London Bridge, via the pan flute or some such instrument. Completely random selection? Perhaps not.

Fans of Halloween 3 (and that should be all of you) may wonder if the intro is a nod to The Silver Shamrock song, itself just London Bridge with different lyrics. And it’s possible, as the 1987 album Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 1 post dates Season of the Witch by 5 years, plenty of time for the German heshers to throw down referentially.

And apparently they did, according to Metal-Archives.com anyway.

User “hells_unicorn” says

 “Helloween formed and began with a concept inspired by the 1982 Halloween sequel “The Season of the Witch”, one which enjoys a rather comfortable place in my library of old VHS tapes. To this day fans chant the famous Silver Shamrock jingle when the band takes the stage, as the melody can be found in full or fragmented form on most of their studio albums.”

Well, there you have it.

Appropriately the Shindig has the Silver Shamrock song lead this fucker in.

So, do as Helloween instructs, perhaps ominously considering the reference:

“Grab your mask and don’t be late.”

But beware, cause

“in the streets on Halloween the spirits will arise. Make your choice is hell or paradise.”

So, what’s it gonna be, Weeners?

For Halloween, we treat you with Halloween from Helloween.

Happy Halloween, Weeners!