I Hate Halloween

TRACK #401:

I Hate Halloween by Acid Witch

Seems we haven’t heard from Shindig All-Stars Acid Witch in like 3 years. What? Is that even real? How can that be? That doesn’t sound right.

But it’s true, and what’s more, last time we didn hear from ’em it was when we hit 300 tracks, of all occasions. Weird.

Well, we’ve now hit 400 tracks and though we didn’t give the boys the hundred spot, 401 with that lead in ain’t too shabby.

After 400 songs though, with my own energy waning for this endeavor, Acid Witch’s I Hate Halloween seemed like an appropriate flag to place at this important milestone. After 13 years, all this Halloween has gotten to me. I’m sick of all this spooky bullshit! So much orange! Too many skeletons! More fuckin’ songs about Dracula?! Enough of this shit! I wanna start a blog about 4th of July music, or write too many sentences about four-leaf clovers, or line my walls with vintage Valentines Day cards.

I jest. I mean, I am starting to get a little tired of all this, but I obviously do not hate Halloween. I mean, at least not as much as the Christian Fundamentalist dick bag featured in tonight’s song.

Or the Christian grifter and professional dipshit I used to open the song. That’s Glenn Hobbs in Jeremiah Film’s Pagan Invasion Vol. 1 Halloween: Trick or Treat? from 1991. A Halloween classic!

See, Glenn is a liar. He’s certainly not the only one in the Pagan Invasion Series, and gems definitely not the only one in that volume, but he may be the biggest. But that’s how the Satanic Panic rolled, innit? Make wild baseless claims about some wild ass life you lived prior to being saved by Jesus and just trot that shit out like you’re talking about how you used steal candy bars from Cumberland Farms. You did what? You drank blood and got ritually abused!? Cool! Now you’ve got a testimony so unimaginably insane and scary ain’t no Grandma in the congregation second guessing that shit.

Thankfully, critical thinking exists for the rest of us heathens who aren’t taking that claptrap at face value. Heathens like Kerr Cuhulain or Cassidy McGullicuddy that absolutely second guessed that shit, and bless their hearts.

Like take Glenn here, who fully admits to murdering a little girl. Like, murdering her, with an M. He says this shit, on video, that he murdered another human being. Of course he was just a child and someone kinda made him do it and that was after some ritual sexual abuse they both received as members of the Satanic cult into which they were born. Oh yeah, I totally believe you Glenn, you seem like a real straight shooter.

What do you mean you murdered her? What about once you found Christ? Did you tell anyone else about this shit, I mean other this interviewer? Was there was no investigation? No police? No parents behind bars for these heinous acts?

Oh, that’s just some shit that happened before, but you’ve since moved on from all of that cause you got saved and that little girl was bred in secret so no one knew she even existed, so no one even she knew she was missing? Oh, ok. I got it now. Makes sense. What’s the statute of limitations on murder? Oh, never? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

But the petrified pearl clutchers that would be watching this thing in earnest were just eating it up. I’d love to say this was only possible because the internet didn’t exist yet and calling people out for their bullshit was a bit trickier. But nowadays all sorts of people, elected fucking officials even, just blast all kinds of lies right on the goddamn timeline and nothing comes of that shit. It’s 2025. Nothing really matters past a 10 day news cycle. Telling dumb shit fundamentalists you used to be a werewolf or sacrificed a small girl on Halloween at the height of the Satanic Panic was like giving candy to a Trick or Treater.

Glenn was too late though. That same Satanic Panic was winding down by the time he jumped the gravy train. He had to pack it up and go be an actual preacher, which he did in the 2000’s at the Lake Elisinore Christian Center in California. And wouldn’t you know it!? He’s had sermons talking about his family and not once does him seem to mention being a Generational Satanist. Damn Glenn, that seems like that would be a pretty formative piece of your childhood to just leave out of the sermons now, wouldn’t you say? Doesn’t murdering a small girl for Satanists seem relevant to your congregation? Oh well, I guess. That was a long time ago.

Or let’s see, you got Mike Warnke’s totally not at all fake book The Satan Seller, Michelle Smith’s even more not fake book Michelle Remembers , or hell Lauren Stratford Satan’s Underground, an account so extra legit Lauren Stratford isn’t even her real fuckin’ name! Or who could forget Beatrice Sparks, who doubled down on her preternaturally genuine Go Ask Alice, with 1979’s Jay’s Journal, also extremely not hogwash. Then you’ve got everyone involved in the McMartin Preschool and Little Rascals Daycare scandals, and god knows how many other examples one could scrounge up. It’s a lot of bullshitters doing a whole lot of bullshitting, all in the name of…I dunno. Money? Notoriety? God? Their own sense of purpose? Who knows?

So, is Halloween all evil and shit? I dunno, probably. I mean, look at it. It’s way more likely that it is than it isn’t. But I don’t rightly know. What I do know is that all these didos who ran around in the 80’s crying bloody Satanic murder about it were all completely and verifiably full of shit. Charlatans, the lot of ’em, that in some cases actually did harm to people. So, fuck ‘em.

Let’s listen to some Acid Witch.

The Halloween That Wasn’t

TRACK #300:

The Halloween That Wasn’t by Acid Witch

Well The Shindig has hit 300 tracks, and we’re gonna ring in the occasion with Shindig All-Stars and Halloween heroes, Acid Witch.

Cause in pure Acid Witch fashion, they surprise-dropped another Halloween banger right as I was wrapping up last years countdown. C’mon fellas, give a guy a heads up!

What’s more? They even used the same damn sample from The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t that we used on our Happy Halloweird episode of Shindig Radio. Do these guys know how to party or what!? What can I say, pure Halloween minds think alike, I guess.

What’s more? They totally spoof Halloween’s Don’t Metal With Evil for the cover of the single. We’ve always thought of Acid Witch as the rightful heirs to the throne of Motor City’s Halloween ambassadors, and they now seem to be fully taking up that mantle.

So, while it’s not an explicitly “Halloween” titled song, as is the tradition (the great ones of those are starting to dry up at this point) it’s certainly Halloween enough for the big 300 slot, by a long shot.

And though I would have loved to have closed out Halloween 2020 with this virus-infused pandemic face melter, I think a year out is no big stretch, particularly seeing as how we’re still knee deep in all manner corona-nonsense.

So here’s to 300 songs and to 2021 being perhaps The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t.

And to Acid Witch, a band I wholeheartedly love, that keeps pumpin’ out new Halloween Metal for all the Pumpkinhead-bangers of the world. You’re doin the dark lords work, gentlemen.

Don’t stop the fight!

Hardrock Halloween

TRACK #280:

Hardrock Halloween by Acid Witch

We began our season with Acid Witch, so it’s seems only appropriate that all this high octane motor-metal now culminates in a Halloween Song from none other than Motorcity’s own Lords of Halloween.

It’s a full-throttled driving tune detailing one ill-fated night for several youths in Detroit. A Halloween night, as it happens, back in 1988. There, the paths of a few mischief causing trick-or-treaters collided with the Black Trans-Am of some hard rocking teens leaving Harpo’s, all laced up on LSD and looking for kicks.

It doesn’t end well for anyone on this hallowed eve. For on this night, they will find, the chill of death walks behind…

…in a twisted tale of All Hallo’s havoc Acid Witch calls…

Hardrock Halloween.

Thank you all for joining us this year. 2020 has been a strange one we hope that having the playlist to bump in October has made it feel a bit more like old Halloween times.

Watch out for more mini-playlists and videos throughout the year, keep the Creep Phone on speed dial and stay tuned for new episodes of Shindig Radio!

From all of us at Halloween Shindig, we hope you all have a very Happy, and a very weird, Halloween.

It’s Halloween Night (The Witches’ Jack-O-Lantern)

TRACK #241:

It’s Halloween Night (The Witches’ Jack-O-Lantern) by Acid Witch

Welcome back Weeners! Thanks for joining us. Here’s to a new season on Halloween Shindig. We hope you all enjoy all the new tunes we have lined up for you this year.

Last year, recording and editing Shindig Radio kept me on my heels once the season for songs rolled around. So this year, I decided to get a little head start.

But then, California decided making fake rubber bullshit for crummy new movies that you’ll never see popping up on this website, wasn’t an “essential” service during a global pandemic. Go fig.

Needless to say, I had a bit of extra time on my hands. So this year, we’re starting things just a little bit early (and on the first day of Fall even!) as we’ve got 40 new Title Tracks, Monster Raps, and Halloween Scats to fill your Autumnal airwaves.

Leading us off this year, as promised, is a group of Shindig All-Stars that dropped a brand new Halloween Song just as I was finishing up last year’s countdown. C’mon, it was a wrap! But along came Acid Witch making me wish I had lagged just a little bit longer.

No matter! They’re here now to start the season off right, with another sludgy ode to the Eve of All Saints. This time around, they’re detailing the necessary steps for a Witch to turn a dude’s head into a Jack-O-Lantern…on Halloween Night, no less.

All right, fella. Sold.

This song is tough as shit and an instant inclusion. We hope you like it too, cause there’s more Acid Witch on the way, as we’ve yet to tap into their 2017 release Evil Sound Screamers, which is practically a Halloween Album unto itself. But until then…

Black Cats and Witches

Bonfires burn bright

Ghosts and Ghouls they gather

It’s Halloween Night!

October 31st

TRACK #209:

October 31st by Acid Witch

For 2018’s 3rd belated official-induction of a Shindig All-Star, direct from Motor-City, it’s Halloween Metallers Acid Witch. They’re coming correct with the calendar date on which this whole holiday has always taken place.

Posting this song on any other day seemed, well, it seemed pretty stupid. So, we’re kicking off a heavy metal Halloween double-header with this tune, sure to make your Halloween a little more rockin’.

We’ve led it in with a sample from Halloween 2, where Loomis explains the meaning of that strange word they just found graffitied on the school chalk board to Haddonfield’s finest.

Of course, Donald Pleasence pronounces “Samhain” phonetically, but we can forgive him that transgression because, as always, he just sells the fuck out of this dialogue.

Happy….October 31st.

Trick or Treat

TRACK #166:

Trick or Treat by Acid Witch

Acid Witch rules.

Just look at that album cover!

That shit is awesome. That’s one of the coolest album covers I’ve seen in a long time. I know they say you shouldn’t judge stuff by it’s cover and what have you, but c’mon! Look at that fucking thing. There’s no way the band hiding behind that cover doesn’t rule.

And they do.

Sludgy, doomy and packed front to back with Halloween imagery, Acid Witch delivers the goods. Hailing from Detroit, it seems they’ve taken up the mantle from Motorcity’s own Halloween and dubbed their music “Halloween Metal.” Goddamn right.As such, they’ve got plenty of Halloween fodder for the Shindig, and like their local brethren, are first ballot Shindig All-Stars.

They even cut an EP last year called “Midnight Movie” featuring covers of songs already included on the playlist, with samples and everything. It’s like they covered the Shindig! It’s insane. I love these dudes.

First up from Acid Witch: Trick or Treat. Chuggier than shit and more unsettling than that, it’s written from the perspective of a true predator on Halloween, lurking in the guise of a mild mannered neighbor.

With his thicked-rimmed glasses, trimmed mustache and white cargo van, he relishes in the opportunity Halloween provides to snatch up children to feed his cannibalistic desires. His is the house you stay away from on Halloween, and every neighborhood has someone like him.

Creepy.

Sampled up with clips from the Tales From the Darkside pilot Trick or Treats, featuring a different kind of Halloween predator, Mr. Hackle.

Banker and land baron to a small farming community, he has the whole of the town indebted to him through IOUs. Every Halloween he allows the children a chance to enter his haunted abode and search for the IOUs to clear their parent’s debt.

There, they find he has a few tricks up his sleeve for them. But this year, the spirits of Halloween have a few tricks in store for him.

Featured within is one of the scariest witches to ever grace the screen, who’s cackle and entreaties for treats are the stuff of nightmares. What better combo for Acid Witch and their All Hallo’s horror?

Trick or treeeeaaaat.