Month: September 2016

Audio

The Beast Inside

TRACK #133:

The Beast Inside by Dennis Michael Tenney

So it’s 1987 and you’re Kevin Tenney and you just made a crazy Halloween movie about kids getting possessed in an old abandoned funeral home.

It’s all edited; its fun, it’s funny, the gore looks great, Linnea looks great, Amelia looks great, the pacing is down, everything us shaping up to be a fine horror romp.

But something’s missing. Where’s the music?

What you need is an end credit tune that says everything you want to say in a decidedly late 80’s hard rock fashion. What are you to do?

You hire your fucking brother Dennis Michael Tenney, that’s what you do. Then you tell him “knock it outta the park bro,” because “everything’s riding on you.”

And then he gives you The Beast Inside...

…and it clears the fucking bases.

Composer of the main theme and the rest of the music from Night of the Demons that isn’t Bauhaus’ Stigmata Martyr, Dennis Michael Tenney knows his way around a hard rocking 80’s power ballad, and The Beast Inside is no exception.

It’s got the slow melodic verse followed by the chugging chorus. It’s got a weird demon voice saying “The Beast!” just before the solo tears in from nowhere. And it’s got the strangely vague yet vaguely epic lyrics.

What the hell is Dennis talking about here?

It plays more toward the figurative side of it’s double entendre that’s for sure, making a metaphor out of it’s title for the beast inside of all mankind. Then it throws in a bunch of vague cold-war anxiety just to let you know it’s being written in the mid-80’s. But if we don’t analyze it too much (which honestly, we shouldn’t even be doing) it makes for a pretty rocking coda to a movie about demon possession.

And it’s all lead in by a Halloween prick getting his comeuppance via a slice of ironic justice served up by his dear, doting wife. That’ll teach ya to shove razor blades in apples, ya old blowhole.

At #133 here’s Shindig All-Star Dennis Michael Tenney with….The Beast Inside!

 

Audio

Trick or Treat

TRACK #132:

Trick or Treat by Elvira

If you’re an Elvira fan like me, than you’re no doubt at least tangentially aware of her Halloween albums.

There are a number of them, the bulk of which feature the mistress herself singing on her own original tracks. They’re pretty great.

What you may notice however, is that while these Halloween albums feature lots of allusions to the holiday, Elvira herself only participates in songs tangentially related to Halloween itself. What gives?

If you’re like me and you administer a Halloween themed music blog, you may have even dug deep enough to find the many references to an actual Halloween song she sings called Trick or Treat. There’s even a couple of clips on YouTube of her performing the track. So where’s the damn song?

Who knows exactly, as it seems it was never officially released on any of her albums. However, The Shindig dug deeper still and purchased an episode of The Dr. Demento Show from October of 1983 that featured Cassandra Peterson as co-host.

As you’ll hear in the clip, The Doc mentions Elvira’s forthcoming album will be including original tunes, one of which they preview on the show, our white buffalo Trick or Treat. Why this never came to fruition is a Halloween legend of limited and myopic interest.

So, here it is Weeners! Enjoy.

 

Audio

Punky Punkin

TRACK: #131

Punky Punkin by Fran Allison and Ollie Fame

This strange dusty Halloween relic was written by Cy Coben and originally recorded by Rosemary Clooney (yeah, George’s Ma Dukes) back in 1950.

No disrespect to Mama Clooney but the Shindig prefers this version from 1952 recorded by Fran Allison and Ollie Fame. It’s a little sillier, a bit more up-tempo and generally more fun to listen to, in our opinion.

I always say “our.” Why do I do this? Who exactly is the “we” in this equation? I’m the only one here, so who the hell am I referring to, exactly? I think this is perhaps burgeoning psychosis, but I digress.

Looking online it seems a lot of people have memories of learning and singing this tune in grade school around Halloween.

I have no such memory.

In fact, I have no memories attached to this song whatsoever. I don’t even know when I first heard it, where I heard it or why it was even being played. It’s just been on my computer (and the playlist) for some years now, defying my temporal lobe.

I enjoy this song a great deal, though. It makes me happy when I hear it. It’s a nice little Halloween ditty that’s fun to play.

I think I may be the only one who feels this way however, for it’s a weird number that’s always sure to turn a head or two in the party crowd:

Angry Listener : “What the fuck is this? Some kinda Christmas song or some shit?”

Me: “No, but it does kinda sound like one, huh? It’s just an old Halloween song about pumpkins. It’s for kids, I think.”

Angry Listener: “Well why the fuck are we listening to it then?”

Me: “Cause it’s Halloween and we’re at a Halloween party and she’s singing about a pumpkin that’s all stoked it gets to be a Jack-O-Lantern instead of a pie. Why else?”

Angry Listener: “Oh Yeah? Well this song punkin’ sucks. In fact, it can suck my punkins. How bout that?”

Me: “Go suck your own punkins, pal. Fran Allison is a sweetheart, you hedonistic dildo!”

This exact conversation (or an entirely less confrontational version of it) has happened every year with someone listening to this playlist since Punky Punkin’s inclusion.

Maybe this will happen at your party.

Or maybe it won’t because you wouldn’t be caught dead playing this kind of bullshit at your Halloween party.

That’s fine. In fact, that’s exactly what The Shindig is here for. To be a convenient one-stop hovel of Halloween hits where we talk about and provide Halloween song suggestions you can peruse or listen to or download and add (or not add) to your own party playlist.

You can’t honesty be expected to want to add all of them. Nor could you be expected to even listen to all of them much less like all of them. We wouldn’t begin to presume such things. But they are all here, ripe for the picking this harvest season.

But seriously though, if you don’t like this song you’re probably an asshole.