We’ve talked about the expansive and wonderfully creative force that was The Real Ghostbusters in the past.
In the distance past, as it happens, when we posted Touching Old Magic back in 2018.
That piece of highly specific musical gold came from the prime-time Halloween special, The Halloween Door, from 1989. Prior to that however, The Real Ghostbusters had already indulged in 2 Halloween specials. 1986’s When Halloween Was Forever and 1987’s Halloween II 1/2.
Both specials feature the villain Samhain, which is true Sam Loomis fashion, they pronounce as Sam Hain. No matter, cause he’s the Pumpkin-headed spirit of Halloween and he’s incredible. His plan to turn Halloween on forever is commendable and the episode is a great example of what The Real Ghostbusters was great at – a crazy occult plot with wild ass creature taking center stage.
Now, peppered throughout the show’s original season, you can hear a bunch of fun synth pop tunes just kinda hanging out in the background. In particular, there’s one in When Halloween Was Forever that plays briefly during a montage that distinctly says “Frankenstein is groovin!” and if that, playing during a Halloween special of The Real Ghostbusters doesn’t equal “Shindig” I don’t know what the hell does.
Normally when confronted with fleeting inclusive songs of this nature, we just kinda have to accept that probably no one really cared about the song and it’s was never released. Well, not with this number.
Not in the slightest.
Cause they released all these songs as an audio cassette in 1986 called The Real Ghobusters Soundtrackand thank the goddamn maker they did, because fuck yeah. You can listen to that whole album over in the mini-playlist section. Just click the link above.
So thankfully for once, instead of telling you how shitty it is that we can only present you with some 45 second clip of this potentially awesome, we can proudly say here it is, in all it’s Dracula Rapping glory. Oh yeah, Dracula shows up and raps and goddamn great.
So, let’s add yet another Mysterioso Pizzicato offender to this year’s pile, here’s Tahiti with Midnight Action!
I’m sure I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it again, but it’s wild to me that after 14 years and 430 songs, we can still dig up straight monster heat like tonight’s track.
I’ve got a ton of songs in the bullpen of a monstrous, or inclusive or holiday variety that simply haven’t made their way to the rubber yet. I know about ’em, but they just haven’t gotten their day. But sometimes I’m totally sideswiped by a song that somehow seems to have evaded all my years of scouring and digging.
But maybe y’all been bumping this one secretly. Maybe you’ve all been hoarding it and just not tellin’ ya boy. Well, one guy who is definitely tellin’ ya boy is Shindig Radio personality Graham C. Schofield, who hipped me to this hidden banger over the summer, and it became an instant add.
Seriously, where has this song been hiding? And how come we’re not talking about it til song 435? It’s criminal really. And if you’ve got a Halloween playlist that doesn’t feature this tune, I can now say with full indignant judgment, you’re fuckin’ up.
But like we tend to say around here, all these hidden treasures will soon be brought to the light, and today, that gem comes from The Flirts.
Now it seems these Flirts were the musical brainchild of Mr. Bobby Orlando aka Bobby O. He basically wrote, produced and performed all the music and employed a rotating stable of models to act as the faces (and sometimes voices) of the group.
Now, we’ve talked about Bobby before, as he was a pioneering force behind what became known as High-NRG, which was sort of the Stateside answer to Italo-Disco. Additionally, Bobby is a Shindigger himself at #66 with Whisper to a Scream from Freddy’s Revenge.
Given these two facts, perhaps it should come as no surprise that The Flirts pumped out a synth heavy monster dancer entitled Teenage Werewolf (I Was A).
And make no mistake, this is a straight up monster mash banger. Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Igor and even a “Mummy” are all getting shouted out here, in their way, anyway.
And the song itself is a curious blend of 50’s sensiblities, teenage werewolves, with 80’s socio-economic concerns, teen pregnancy.
See, this Teenage Werewolf is the Bride of Frankenstein. But she cheated on Frankenstein with Dracula. Once Ole Frank catches wind though, he gives her the boot, cause I guess Frankenstein was living with a teenager. Weird, but OK. These are not only fictional characters, but also creatures of the night and maybe we shouldn’t be expecting that they don’t engage in problematic behavior beyond, ya know, all the murder. But the point still stands. It’s a little weird.
Well, it gets weirder, because that teenage werewolf becomes pregnant with Dracula’s love child. OK, Frankenstein living with a teenager is one thing. Cheating on Frank with Dracula is another, maybe it was just an emotional affair, ya know just holding hands. But Dracula impregnating her definitely removes any plausible deniability that this was simply a platonic relationship. Then, given that Dracula is at the very least 120 years old at this point (and potentially almost 500 by most accounts) puts this well beyond statutory rape. Even if she’s 18 or 19, I’m pretty sure the absolutely egregious age gap there should not allow a year or 2 to get chalk up to “well technically she’s an adult.”
But again, this is fuckin’ Dracula we’re talking about. What are we expecting here? Him to have some kind of moral compass? The guy literally feeds off the blood of humans to sustain his unnatural existence. He’s the goddamn definition of non-consensual. This ain’t right Drac buddy, but I guess I’m saying maybe we should expect that at this point, and not hold him to some sort of natural decency.
Anyway, she gets kicked out again for being pregnant and has to go back to live with Daddy and Mummy, which is weird cause I thought she was already living there. Did she move back in with Frankenstein? Did she move in with Dracula? I sure don’t know.
What I do know is there’s a dude saying “hip hop” almost as much as Bobby O is firing off that 808 cowbell, and it’s goddamn glorious.
Here to get your feet moving, it’s a pure slice of 80’s Monster Dance Pop withThe Flirts and the curiously parenthetical Teenage Were (I Was A).
House That Rocked wasn’t the only new Monster Rap DJ Ryan flipped our way. Coming on its heels is one from 1989 that was also flying under my radar called Tales of the Twins.
Twins? What Twins? Well, Twin Hype, they’re the twins in question. They were pair of actual twins, Glennis and Lennis Brown, who came up from the South Carolina to New Jersey in the late 80’s.
The duo released a pair of albums, 1991’s Double Barrel, and their eponymous 1989 debut which features tonight’s monstrous addition.
The tune finds the brothers hanging out one night looking for a party when their buddy Shawn pulls up. He tells them he’s heading to a party at the house at the end of the block, and that’s all the brothers needed to hear. The pair proceed to tell Shawn what a bad idea that is, and promptly detail a supernatural experience they once had at that very house.
But Shawn ain’t buying it, so in an attempt to dissuade him, the duo recall increasingly incredulous tales of the wild and monstrous situations they’ve gotten into at the house on the end of the block.
Aside from being pretty funny, these are some of the more referential bars Monster Raps have seen til this point. Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, The Wolfman, Count Dracula, The Munster’s, Jason Voorhees, The Ghostbusters, The Wicked Witch with a 40 of beer. Fuckin’ Gargamel for Christ’s sake. Even Freddy Krueger makes an appearance rolling up a blunt in the dungeon. This shit is nuts. And if that wasn’t enough, Shaggy and Scooby pop up, with Scoob whipping out a bag of that loud for the whole gang. Just bonkers.
We never really find out if Shawn ever decided to go to that party or not. The song just kinda leaves us hanging, like a good scary movie. I like to think he still went, cause hell, I think I would.
This song is great. It’s a straight up jam that’s fun as shit, monstery as hell and makes for an insanely festive addition to any Halloween playlist.
I wanna thank Ryan Kellner once again, cause I love this song. It’s one of my favorite new tracks of this season and without him I don’t know if I ever would have found it.
Wait, wait wait. What? You got second song about a fuckin’ hop? And it’s a whole other song actually called TheMonster Hop?
Yep.
Well, I mean, if you wanna be annoying about it, this isn’t technically another Monster Hop. Bert Convy’s 1958 tune is The Monsters Hop, and Jack and Jim’s 1959 diddy is Midnight Monsters Hop. But yeah, there is yet another hop with monsters in attendance and that’s a little weird.
A hop, by the way (in case you were at all curious, or are under the age of 70, which is statistically most probable) was an informal dance mostly held at schools. It’s actually a shortening of Sock Hop, which they were called because all the kids were made to take off their shoes as not to scuff up the gymnasium floors.
You may be familiar with the song At the Hop, by Danny and The Juniors, which hit number 1 on the billboard charts in early 1958. So, Bert Convy and Jack and Jim seem to be right at the cutting edge of adding monsters to this particular event. Shock Theatre + Popular Teen Activity apparently = 3 goddamn songs basically called the same thing in 4 years, because this particular Shoeless Monster Dance is from 1962, the same year as Boris Pickett’sThe Monster Mash.
So how does the 3rd installment in our Monster Hop Trilogy differ from its predecessors?
Well, for one, there aren’t many monsters on the roll call here. We get a vampire woman and a Frankenstein eating people’s blood. There’s some Grave Robber named Harry (question mark, am I hearing that right?) and he’s there with a Sasquatch lady. That’s it? Ok then, I guess. Cool party, bro.
Both Jack and Jim and Bert’s hops are much better attended than Jimmy’s here. Jimmy’s hop, in fact, sounds like kind of a drag, the way he describes it anyway. I will say, there does appear to be a monster band though, much like in Midnight Monsters Hop, and that’s definitely a plus. There’s a werewolf on drums, some guy in a hood I guess, and maybe a zombie playing a saxophone? I dunno. It’s hard to tell, cause Jimmy’s song’s a bit lacking in the “making me give a shit about this party at all” department. I’m practically falling asleep over here. What gives? This is a monster party, buddy. Why am I so bored?
Anyway, like Bert, Jimmy says he’s scared of this party, but I don’t buy it. Nothing about this song is scary, nor is Jimbo’s reaction to any of it all that appalled. Bert Convy is horrified by what he sees, and I believe him. This guy? I feel like he ain’t even at this party the way he’s so nonplussed about it all. Oh, fuckin Draculas or whatever? Yeah they’re dancing, I guess. What?! That’s crazy, Jimmy. Why you acting like it ain’t fuckin bonkers to see a Frankenstein eating blood. Even if you’re ok with seeing a Frankenstein, why the fuck is he eating people’s blood? That’s not what he does, Jimmy! There’s no reason to be this nonchalant about this shit.
Jack and Jim on the other hand, now they’re some cool customers. They’re cold chillin at their party. I don’t think they’re perturb at all by what they’re seeing. In fact, they seem kinda into it and what they’re describing sounds like a great time.
Now, I can appreciate that we just came off of a pretty whack monster party. I apologize for serving up two in a row. But, Jimmy Dee’s party, lame though it may be, is a far sight cooler than Earl’s. He’s got a monster band, a larger roster, more monster happenings; it’s just better. But maybe that says more about Earl’s Hop than it does about Jimmy’s.
Either way, they’re both prime examples from the golden age of Monster Songs that should definitely appear on The Shindig, however uneventful they might be.
We’re gonna say goodbye to the witches for now and lay down a little Monster Song block for you here to wrap up the 420s.
And our first moldy oldie comes from the year 1959. Yep, it’s another example of a monster party that pre-dates The Monster Mash by 3 whole years. It’s from Texas songman Earl Patterson, who only appears to have released one single. On the b-side is a track called Ready for Love, but we don’t care about that, do we? No, we’re only interested in the a-side, a rockabilly monster tune called Nightmare Hop.
We know from monster parties around here, don’t we gang? Sure we do. One might even say we’re all amateur scholars on the matter. So, how does this one stack up against the others? Is it worth attending, let alone writing an entire song about? What’s happening over at Earl’s shindig?
Well, not a whole helluva lot, I can tell you that.
In Earl’s tune, a Teenage Werewolf (released 2 years prior in 1957) takes Dracula’s Daughter (released over 20 years prior in 1936) to the hop. Her name is Betty Vampire, which I have to admit is a weird choice on Dracula’s part. Betty’s fine I suppose, given it’s 1959. But Vampire? Why would Dracula name his daughter Vampire? It’s like you naming your son Jimmy Human. You just wouldn’t do it.
But I digress.
At this hop, they dance (which is to be expected) but they also eat goulash sandwiches and drink tequila from a pot. Now, contrary to, well my belief anyway, those are very real sandwiches. Goulash is real, sure, but it’s basically a stew with big chunks of beef and vegetables like onions and carrots. Now, that seems a strange thing to put between two slices of bread, but apparently they do. It’s a much thicker version of the soup that’s tossed into a crusty bread and sometimes topped with a slaw. It sounds pretty good, honestly. I’d eat that shit right now.
This makes sense in the context of the song too, as goulash is a traditional Hungarian dish. What’s crazy is that we have a version of it in the United States which they call American Goulash.
Now, apparently American Goulash is called American Chop Suey specifically in New England, and I had no idea the 2 dishes were connected. Growing up, American Chop Suey was basically the only thing my father knew how to cook. So every Saturday, like clockwork, he’d get to chopping and boiling and whipping up some American Chop Suey. I wasn’t the biggest fan. Didn’t care for all those onions as it made it hard to just shovel in by the spoonful. Had to pick around ‘em. But I probably ate that stuff every week for what feels like 18 years straight. Always hated those onions though, but he’d never take them out.
Wait, what the hell were we talking about? Oh yeah, this boring party. Did they have anything more frightening than sloppy beef sandwiches?
No. Not really. Frankenstein and The Mummy show up, and maybe that could be scary, but here it’s definitely not. The Teenage Werewolf sees them on his way to the door, which he heads for after eating his goulash sandwich cause I guess the chunky beef, or maybe all that pot tequila, had him needing some fresh air. Guest are actively heading for the exits?Jesus, this party is a bust. I’d head for the door too.
Anyway, he sees the monsters strolling across the floor, which you might just interpret as another boring ass thing happening here at this snoozefest of a party, but The Stroll was a popular dance at the time. But don’t worry, cause it’s one of the most boring dances conceived and fits this party like a glove.
Basically, because 1950, a line of girls and a line of boys would face each other on the dance floor. The first boy and girl would step into the middle, take each other by the hand and walk-dance down to the end and then rejoin their respective lines. Wash repeat.
Jump back! White people are getting wild on the dance floor everybody! They’re slowing walking while holding hands. Holy shit.
Apparently, Link Wray’sRumble was a number that used to get a lot of action during The Stroll, so there’s that. It’s a sleepy kinda tune though, so it makes sense I guess, but fuck. Could they pick a more Thorazined dance for this Monster Party, the fuck is happening over there?
So anyway, Earl mentions from the outset that this Teenage Werewolf was interested in doing The Stroll, so seeing these 2 abominations performing the dance reminded him of why he was there I guess, so he goes back to Betty instead of going outside. The end.
That’s it? That’s all you got Earl?
I guess.
So, that’s what’s goin on at this party. I will say, despite all that, I still like the tune, which I think is the important part. Monsters are mentioned, albeit not many and none doing anything terribly monstrous, but they’re there. Also, we got those American Chop Suey sandwiches, which reminds me of being a kid, so that’s a plus.
All and all? I think it’s a Shindigger for sure, cause we like to rock ‘n roll, and we didn’t want to stop!
Remember when I said that’s there’s a song every year that’s been waiting around forever to finally get on the playlist? Well, I said that about Don’t Let Go this year because, well because that’s true, but mostly because our next song was originally scheduled for next year. Now, I did include the caveat that there’s usually more than one a year, especially at this stage in the game. And I’ll admit, Don’t Let Go has been waiting for much longer than tonight’s jam, but no song has been burning a hole in the bullpen for me quite like this one.
When I first ran across this tune (whenever that was originally) I dismissed it as a Screaming Lord Sutch cover, tossed it onto the YouTube Bullpen playlist and promptly forgot about it altogether.
Then, while randomly listening to that playlist in my car (who knows how many months later) this song fired up and it immediately grabbed my attention. What the hell was this? And when the hell had I added it?
I drop a lot of boring and forgettable songs on that playlist, just to see what they got going on. Some of it never gets a 2nd listening before being summarily dumped. But this song, this was a stake straight through the heart of a listless Dracula block filled with just those kind of boring and forgettable tunes.
An awesome Dracula voice, a spooky organ, a seriously fuzzed out guitar lick and an aggressive female vocal all demanded I take notice. This was no Screaming Lord Sutch cover. No, it was much more.
What follows, amid epic 70’s strings, some assaultive brass stabs, that classic werewolf sound effect and is that a fuckin clarinet (?) is one seriously rocking Monster Song. It’s like ABBA blasted a few rails and covered Spirit in the Sky at a Halloween party but forgot how it went so they just sang whatever the fuck about Dracula, and I’m about it.
And look at this 45 sleeve! That’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. In fact, despite the song being readily available on the internet, I shelled out to get one shipped from England just so I could get a high rez scan and throw it on a T-Shirt. It’s available here, in the Shindig Shop (or here, if you prefer Redbubble). Don’t make me the only weirdo rockin’ this thing, alright? Everyone buy one cause that’s the coolest thing ever.
Back to this song, or rather to Thunderthighs, which is awesome name for a female rock group, let’s be real. I had never heard of this band and I wondered what their story was all about.
Turns out they were a backing vocal trio from the UK consisting of Karen Friedman, Dari Lalou and Casey Synge. The were most known from providing Lou Reed with the do-do-doos for Walk On the Wild Side. They are not, in fact, “colored girls”, despite chiming in right at the moment Lou suggests they might be. Over the years, some folks have taken umbrage with this fact, and I can see why. If you’re satirizing the music industry’s proclivity for taking advantage of minority singers without providing the proper credit, proper compensation, proper royalty structures or the opportunity to step out from behind the shadow of their white counterparts, doing so with trio white women may just be undercutting that point. Perhaps it’s not though. Perhaps that’s the only responsible way to make such a critique. Or maybe it’s not that deep at all and it’s simply Digital Blackface in the analog era. I’m not sure. All I know is that regardless of what Lou sings, the girl’s were Thunderthighs.
As an act on their own, Thunderthighsnever really seemed to catch on. They released a handful of singles to critical acclaim and some chart performance, but nothing viewed as an undeniable hit. They recorded a debut LP, but the label cut their losses and shelved the effort. Years and years later the material was released as an untitled album and is currently available to listen to on the various streaming services.
Despite struggling to find solo success, these woman were still very sought after for their incredible vocal gifts. The trio can be heard on various albums from Mott the Hoople, Arthur Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis and David Verity.
But for our week of Hallo-Women, we don’t want them in the background. We want the ladies of Thunderthighs front and center singing about possibly the most monstrous woman of them all, Dracula’s Daughter.
Dracula’s Tango (Sucker For Your Love)by Toto Coelo
Since we’re talking about women talking about monsters, how about 5 women talking about monsters. Or at least one monster anyway. Yeah, you guessed it – Dracula. Of course it’s Dracula. It’s always Dracula. So much Dracula. Too much Dracula.
I know I said I was only gonna give you 1 Dracula song this year, and that’s because this block wasn’t initially scheduled for this season. But as I was finishing up the Disco block I wasn’t quite settled about how it was segueing into the next part of the playlist. So, I decided to move these songs up a bit, shuffled out a few tunes, and viola! Now you got more Dracula. It’s honesty just that easy to suddenly have Dracula around here, such is the extent of Draculas littering the bullpen. There’s a whole other crop coming at you in 2026. Just Draculas. So much Draculas. Too much Draculas.
But this one’s a great monster dance song that’s pretty well known and exactly the type of song that should have made the list years ago. It’s been hanging around the bullpen forever just waiting to find the right spot to call home, and I think we’ve now found it.
It’s a poppy number that comes from a group of British ladies originally named Toto. The United States made them change their name though to avoid confusion with the real Toto, cause that’s the kinda bullshit the United States does. I suppose I get it, but this seems more geared toward preventing a customer from buying an album they maybe didn’t want, than it is seems geared toward maybe helping an artist sell some records on a little borrowed name recognition. The music industry suddenly developed a consciousness toward its customers, or something? Get the fuck outta here.
I will say that I wouldn’t have complained at all about an alternate cut of Lynch’s Dune scored by the likes of Toto Coelo.
Speaking of which, that’s what they changed their name to, Toto Coelo. In Latin it means “by all of Heaven” or “the whole of the Heavens.” It seems like a fancy way of saying completely, or absolutely. So there’s that.
According to Wikipedia, By The Full Breadth of The Heavens formed in ’81 and their first recording was a Buggles tune produced by Trevor Horn. How do you like that? Sometimes the small weird ways things end up unintentionally connected around here is kinda wild. Apparently this was an unreleased track though, but that little thread is still interesting.
Their actual breakout hit came the following year in the form I Eat Cannibals. Not exactly a number one hit, either in England or here (peaked at 8 in the UK and 66 here in the states) but it was enough to warrant a follow up single right on its heels.
Now, why someone thought a weird song about wanting to fuck Dracula was the ticket, I couldn’t say. Never seems to me like the thing to bet the farm on, and I’m a guy who literally wants your next hit to be a song about you wanting to fuck Dracula. Like I’m here for it, literally. I’m literally here at this domain for the express purpose of talking about your weird 1982 hit song about how you’re getting all horny for Dracula. But yeah, I’ve seen the numbers. It’s not a large constituency.
So, as you might imagine Toto Coelo’s flash was of an “in the pan” variety. They went for the hat trick and released Milk From The Coconut, the 3rd single off their 1983 album Man O’War, but that one didn’t really move the needle either. Anyone who was really feeling I Eat Cannibals had moved on.
Now, I’m usually a pretty generous listener with things like that, and there is a vocoder, and that’s awesome obviously, but I struggle with Milk from the Coconut a bit. It’s ok, but I’m not surprised this one failed to chart.
Now Dracula’s Tango, on the other hand, provides no such obstacle. It is the clear winner of the 3 singles, my biases not withstanding. Anyone claiming I Eat Cannibals is the better single is not to be trusted. So, while I think I Eat Cannibals could make for a perfectly reasonable addition to The Shindig, we have obviously and predictably staked our flag on Dracula’s Tango.
An interesting bit of trivia about the ladies of Toto Coelo; they fully appear performing in the 1983 sequel, Grizzly II: The Predator. That sucker was shot in Budapest, and the production ran out of money so the Hungarian government confiscated all their equipment. As a result, the movie was never released or finished. Canon bought the rights with the intention to release it in the late 80’s but that didn’t happen before Canon fell apart.
In 2020, an independent company shot some extra footage and finally got the film released as Grizzly II: The Revenge. It’s not good, and has tons of weird new footage spliced-in that feels all out of place. And since it featured a bunch of young actors that had since became famous, they bill them all like the real stars of the film.
It’s got John Rhys-Davies and Louise Fletcher and Charles Cyphers. But those are the real actors. In small ass cameos you had the likes of George Clooney, Laura Dern and even Charlie Sheen! According to IMDb Charlie Sheen actually turned down the role of Daniel in The Karate Kid so he could go to Hungary and be in this trash. Holy shit. Poor guy. No wonder he kept bangin’ 7 grams rocks. I would too if I had given up a shot at bring the Karate Kid for fuckin Grizzly II, only to see it get full-on shelved for 40 years.
Though, to be fair, being Topper Harley and Rick Vaughn kinda makes up for not getting to be Daniel Larusso. In the grand scheme of things, maybe that’s even better. Maybe he really was winning. In the end though, he’s still Charlie Sheen, and that don’t sound like any kind of winning to me. Rest in peace Corey Haim.
Holy shit, that was a detour. What the hell were we talking about again? Oh, another song about women obsessed with a fucking literal creature of the night, that will completely drain their body of life in order to sustain their own, with absolutely no thought or concerned paid to the very object of that sustenance, rendering them into what one Dracula referred to as a “beautiful wine press” ?Yeah, that sounds about par for the Dracula course.
Here’s Toto Coelo with a toto dance-floor ‘digger sure to get your blood flowing. It’s Dracula’s Tango (Sucker For Your Love)
Do you remember back in 2023 when we were talking about The Monsters from the UK and I said they weren’t these Monsters over here to the left, but that we’d get to them in just a bit?
Oh course you don’t. Why would you? What am I, fuckin ridiculous? I barely remember it and I wrote all this dumb shit. Nobody even read that post, much less remembers it 2 years later, let’s get real here.
At any rate, I said that and you can cross reference that if you want, but I don’t know why you would. Either way, that “just a bit” I was talking about was apparently 2 years, cause we’re about to talk about those Monsters and their “disco jammer” right now.
The Monsters (pictured above looking appropriately fiendish in this graveyard, you ask me) started life as actual monsters, dressed up and everything, but calling themselves Children of the Night. Check them out over here on this other album looking just as Monstery.
Now, they dropped that album and an accompanying single in 1976, but began life their musical life 3 years prior in New York.
For some reason, after this LP and some monster swapping, they became The Monsters proper in 1977 and released this album. Even looking through some of this great promotional material and reading the interview with The Wolfman found there as well, it seems a bit unclear why they changed the name. I would venture to say it was less of a mouthful than Children of the Night. Catchier and easier to remember as well. But who knows. They’re dressed up as monsters and their holding guitars, they can call themselves whatever the fuck they want really. We’re on board, either way, I mean, c’mon.
That album features a cover of the Monster Mash, a solid jam about The Mummy and this banger that gives the disco treatment (yet again) to that Monster Party ethos. And as we like to say, if that kinda thing can’t be here, then it can’t be anywhere. This is the place where things like this land. This is where it belongs.
I will say the narrative on this one kind feels a little bit like The Monster Club, where this square fella gets seduced by a Vampire bar and then taken to a club where a bunch of different monsters are dancing and having a great time. It’s a fun story and when the guy goes back even, the club is gone!
It makes a for a fun Disco monster tune, that’s for sure. But no one old enough to know what The Hustle is actually reading this blog. In fact, I’d say no one is, period, but you get the point. No one that would have been doing The Hustle is here right now reading this.
But if there were, they might tell you that The Hustle was a popular line-dance that became associated with Disco and then sort of turned into a catch-all for several similar dances across the scene. It originated with Puerto Rican teenagers in the South Bronx in 1973 before becoming a mainstay at clubs all throughout the mid-70’s, then becoming the subject of a song by Van McCoy in 1975, culminating in John Travolta Hustling it up in Saturday Night Fever, simultaneously exposing the entire world to the dance and shooting it in the back of the head.
Eventually, like most dance crazes, it landed in Transylvania, were monsters of prestigious report, like Dracula and The Wolfman – to lesser ghouls, like The Cyclops and The Thing, all partook in its stepping shuffle of this
Apparently, at some point in the 80’s, the band were trying to get a TV show made. What? Gimmie a break, and no one gave the green light to that thing? If that had gone through you know I’d be posting those episode to TeleWeen right now, but here we are in reality without any Children of the Night TV show.
But we do have some Children of the Night music. Or at least some musics from The Monsters, at any rate. So let’s give in and do the Transylvania Disco Hustle.
For every Shindig All-Star with multiple songs on the playlist, or even huge stars with one-off additions like Michael Jacksonor Chuck Berry, there’s probably 10 tracks from guys that never cut another record in their entire careers. Hell, some of them never even released another song.
The Zane Brothers, whomever they may be, are just such fellas.
Now, thank the maker though, because with their one musical life they choose to make a song about Dracula. It’s quite probably the very reason they only got to shoot one shot, but it’s definitely what I’m looking for, and (by extension) what you’re looking for, as a person reading these words.
It’s a humdinger of Drac Track too, one that ought to get your feet moving. At least if you’re already in a dance-friendly environment that is, like maybe a Halloween party, expecting to hear dance worthy songs about Dracula. If you’re just driving in your ‘83 Ford Fiesta on your way to a double shift at the diner, perhaps a song about Dracula just gets shut the fuck off, who knows?
Me? I’m keepin it on, rolling down the window and leaning on the volume knob just pumped that any station is broadcasting a song about Dracula through actual radio waves. And that’s not simply because I’m the kinda guy who would compile songs like that onto an unnecessarily and obnoxiously long Halloween playlist for the past 13 years. I mean, that certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s not the only reason.
Naw, it’s cause this song is cool. Trust me! I’ve waded through a several pints of Dracula songs that aren’t even worth mentioning, much less listening to, and this is definitely not one of them. Not at all. This one grooves and it’s even, dare I say, kinda funny.
And I still have a capes worth of Dracula songs sitting in the bullpen, but I’ll leave it at just the one this year. Maybe next year I’ll drop another full on Dracula block, cause man, they are seriously piling up.
For now, let’s let The Zane Brothers spin their unique yarn about that age old Halloween song staple, Dracula.
When my 4 year old daughter first heard this song while driving around in my car this summer – which opens as it does with background singers proclaiming “Frankenstein is a great big friend of Dracula” – she very innocently asked me “Is that true, Daddy?”
So obviously I told her, “Of course they are! They hang out all the time.”
She accepted that answer, but I quickly realized that wasn’t gonna be quite enough for the internal nerd that was now silently screaming inside my head “Oh yeah, smart ass? Are they? Are they fuckin’ boys?”
So now, of course, I had to investigate.
So, Dracula and Frankenstein, the novels at any rate, both received the silent film treatment as far back as 1910 for Frankenstein (by Thomas Edison, no less) and 1922 for Drac, though German and totally unauthorized, as Nosferatu. They remained separate entities (as well they should have, they are completely unrelated characters) for the next 20 years of so.
The first time I think they even exist in each other’s realities is in Universal’s first full monster rally attempt in 1944, House of Frankenstein. But that movie sucks and they don’t actually share the screen together.
The following year, Universal tried again (and fucked up again) with House of Dracula, which also kinda sucks and again features no real interaction by these two characters, friendly or otherwise.
Now in 1948, Universal finally got the Monster Rally formula right with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. This entry, in addition to finally being good, also featured actual Bela Lugosi Dracula reviving an actual Frankenstein’s monster in the form of Glenn Strange. Now those particulars are somewhat beside the point, but it is cooler than if it wasn’t them. Also, it establishes a long standing tradition of Dracula endeavoring to control Frankenstein as a means to his own ends, much like in Monster Squad or Van Helsing – two other instances where they’re together but I wouldn’t really consider the relationship friendly.
Things got pretty quiet for the dynamic duo through the 50’s and 60’s though, what with Hammer taking up the monster mantle but producing no crossover rally efforts of their own.
Then however, the early 70’s offered up 3 distinct versions of the two, but decidedly at odds with each other. At least, conceptually anyway.
First up, from 1979, was Germany’s Assignment Terror, where aliens hatch a Plan 9–esque scheme to take over the world using monsters. It’s not really Dracula and it’s not really Frankenstein, but it doesn’t really matter cause they’re not really friends. They’re just kinda there. This one got retitled Dracula Versus Frankenstein for US distribution, but they don’t really fight either, so, while it’s cool and totally worth watching, it’s kind of a bust for our purposes.
The following year, trash auteur Al Adamson unleashed his own Dracula vs Frankenstein on the world and everybody rejoiced.
Well, not really, but maybe they should have cause that shit is wild and absolutely worth watching. What’s more, Dracula finally squares off against Frankenstein and it’s pretty damn great. Seriously, if you’ve never seen Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) I highly recommend a viewing. Well, I recommend it for a certain kind of viewer, cause it’s bad. Like bad, bad.But it’s also awesome cause Dracula has a laser ring and he basically dismembers Frankenstein, and that credit sequence! Oh boy. It’s a winner for sure.
But then, not to be outdone (or at least not to be left out maybe) good ole Jess Franco joined the party and offered up Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein in 1972. Now this one kinda flips the script and sees Dr. Frankenstein using Dracula to further his plan for world domination. It’s got something to do with creating an Army of Shadows using Dracula blood or some shit. It doesn’t really make any sense, but it is kinda fun to watch. Frankenstein rolls around in a weird ass Van-Hearse, there’s a tiny bat with a giant stake through its heart, and then The Wolfman shows up for some reason and just fucks shit up. Its pretty cool. Unfortunately it isn’t helping us pin down this idea of platonic love between these 2 monsters.
But hold on, what if we step away from the movies for a moment and talk about some television? It may have been quiet at the movies in the 1960’s, but the television featured lots of the monsters interacting in a friendly capacity.
First up is probably no surprise, but 1964 gave us The Munsters, turning the family sitcom formula of the late 50’s on its head by inserting Monsters into the mix as an average suburban unit. Now, it’s not exactly what we’re talking about, but it’s certainly on the right track.
A closer approximation is not a TV show, (though certainly worthy of note at this point in the timeline) but Rankin and Bass’ 1967 feature Mad Monster Party. The stop motion animation from the team that gave us Rudolph and The Year Without Santa Claus delivered a full on Monster Party of friendly fiends.
After that, we got the Groovie Goolies from 1970, which was purposely fashioned as an animated Laugh-In for monster kids growing up with Aurora kits and Famous Monsters of Filmland. Dracula, a Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolfman all hang out in Horrible Hall, making jokes and performing monster songs. It’s pretty goddamn great and I’m sure you’d assume we’re fans over here at The Shindig – and we are.
Similarly, in 1976 we got the live action Monster Squad TV show, featuring wax versions of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man coming to life to fight crime. If that sounds awesome to you, that’s because it is and you should watch it.
Then the early 80’s followed suit, bringing such things like Scooby Doo’s A Halloween Hassle at Dracula’s Castle and Hanna-Barbera’s Drak Pack, which almost plays like an animated version of The Monster Squad show, with the trio fighting crime in an attempt to redeem themselves for their former evil deeds. Weird.
Now, that’s a lot of examples of them being friends, but where did television suddenly get this idea?
While it certainly seems like we can point a finger squarely at The Munsters, I think the lion’s share of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of…and maybe you’ve already guessed it… but Monster Songs! Do we even get a prime time sitcom like The Munster’s if not for the popularity of The Monster Mash? I doubt it. But The Monster Mashdoesn’t just spring up outta nowhere, and as avid visitors here can attest, it’s not even close to being the first Monster Party Anthem that suggests monsters might hang out.
So, somewhere between Universal’s Monster Rally pictures of the late 40’s and the 70’s homage-oddities from around the globe, we have a very interesting phenomenon, and it’s the Shock! Theater revival of the late 50’s.
In October of 1957, Universal bundled much of its back catalog into a syndicated packaged known as Shock! Theater. Suddenly, TV stations all across the country were playing classic horror movies while meteorologists dressed up like Draculas and Monster Mania took a nation by storm.
And wouldn’t you know it, 1958 seems to be the precise moment that we start seeing bona fide Monster Songs. And not just run of the mill monster songs about a Dracula or a Wolfman, but full-on, Monster Rally-style gatherings of monstrous proportions.
There’s A Screaming Ball (At Dracula Hall) from The DuPonts, Bert Convy’sThe Monsters Hop, Big Bee Kornegay gives us At the House Frankenstein, and well, well, well…look at what we have here, also from 1958. It’s tonight song, Frankensteinby Bart Lewis, the song which posits that these 2 dudes might be friends.
So where did everyone get this idea, we ask? Well, hell…it might have just come from this very song itself. How about that?
Ah Meco. You know know Meco, right? He’s the guy you can thank (or blame) for The Star Wars Christmas Album Christmas in the Stars. I’ll be thanking him, thank you very much, but your mileage may vary.
Years before that Imperial entanglement though, he was known as the guy who made John Williams watch as a disco version of his Star Wars Theme hit #1 on the Billboard charts while his own version peaked at #10. He also almost stole John’s Grammy Award to boot, and for the same composition! The balls on this guy.
Well, he did it again, in the same fuckin year, with the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. John got his revenge that time though, with his original theme besting Meco’s disco version in the charts, and winning another Grammy, while Meco didn’t even see a nomination.
But, that didn’t stop Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania’s Domenico Monardo, though. No way. The following year he tried to rebottle boogie lightning yet again with a version of another Williams score. This time it was Superman, but it didn’t fare quite as well as the others, unfortunately.
Additionally, he took a disco stab at TheWizard of Oz, Shogun, Anything Goes, Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek, and even more John Williams with Raiders of the Lost Arkand The Empire Strikes Back. What can I say? The guy had an M.O.
In between all that disco apery though, Meco somehow found time to release a genuine original album in 1979’s Moondancer. The album’s cover was designed by Meco himself and the back has an introduction written by him as well, and it’s perhaps the best part:
“One night I dreamt that I was at a disco. What was so unusual about the dream was that the disco was on the Moon, and among the regular clientele were many Creatures of the Night.
I asked the intergalactic Council to teleport me there to see if such a place existed.
Sure enough, there it was; just as I imagined it would be! I couldn’t believe it.
Down in a huge gorge, stretching for miles was the disco:
MOONDANCER.
Dancing the endless night away were all the creatures I had dreamed of.
I asked Casablanca Records to allow me to record my impressions of that night.
My orchestra and I invite you to listen and enjoy:
MOONDANCER.”
Outstanding.
Because it’s Meco though, 2 of its 6 tracks are covers. However, because it’s also Meco, the man who never met a fad he didn’t wanna capitalize on, there’s a Disco Dracula number on there too. Fuck yeah there is.
And it’s a good one too. It wasn’t written by Monardo (as most of the album is not, unsurprisingly) but it’s a standup double of a Disco Dracula and (I think) the bright spot on an a fairly bland and generic disco album.
For me, it’s somewhat reminiscent of Rock Me Dracula by Mokka. Is this just another count on Meco’s lengthy larcenous indictment, or did Mokka try to out-Meco Meco?
Or hell, maybe great Disco Dracula minds think alike the whole world over. But, since they both dropped in ‘79, without any concrete dates, we may never know for sure.
What I can say though, is that this is where our Disco Dracula block will come to an end. For now, we will bid The Count farewell, but like all immortal creatures of the night, he will rise again soon enough, to strike fear into our ears once more.
So here’s a weird Disco Dracula with a confusing release history.
I originally came across this song as simply Dracula, sung by Linda Susan Bauer. I loved it and shoved it in the bullpen, as is custom.
Later, while digging around for other monster disco madness, I ran across the suggestion of the song Ooh Dracula, as performed by Hysteric. I listened to that, but it wasn’t really much of anything except a remix, yet it sounded a little different from Linda’s song.
What was it a remix of then?
Well, apparently the song Ooh Dracula by the German Disco groupEmpire.
So, I double checked around on Linda Susan Bauer and found out she was one of the singers for Empire, and that her version was itself a reworking of that version. Ok then.
Problem is, the band Empire isn’t really a band at all. They’re basically just this other band called Methusalem. Wait, what?
Ok, so bear with me with on this, cause the information is a little spotty. From what I can garner, Methusalem was a project of a producer named Jack White. Not that guy with the white pants, but this guy.
See, he was German. He also used to be a professional soccer player. But more importantly, he produced David Hasselhoff’s albums, including his Berlin Wall-leveling hit, Looking for Freedom.
More famously (I would assume), he was the man responsible for producing Laura Branigan, including her very actual hits Self Control, How Am I Suppose to Live Without You? and her insanely popular version of Umberto Tozzi’s Gloria. In fact, he also produced her hit The Lucky One, which appears in 1986’s Killer Party, is sitting in the bullpen and waiting it’s debut on The Shindig.
I think even more importantly though, Jack White is the man that produced the soundtrack to the 1984 Sci-Fi Musical Pia Zadora vehicle Voyage of the Rock Aliens. Choice.
However, before all of that success, Jack had been releasing disco singles to limited acclaim in the late 70’s. Methusalem’s lone album, Journey Into the Unknown, was released in 1980, also to limited acclaim.
So, Jack just continued producing disco singles, including one with Linda Susan Bauer entitled Shot Down under the moniker Empire.
When that single performed well, Jack figured he’d try and give Methusalm a new set of legs. So in 1981, he took Journey Into the Unknown, added Shot Down and another a new song he’d also produced with Linda entitled Ooh Dracula and released it as Empire’s lone LP, The First Album. Incidentally, that was also their last album as neither Empire nor Methusalem released anything after.
Some later, bootleggy repressings of Journey Into the Unknown feature the additional 2 songs, but from what I can tell, those are mostly erroneous. Even some places online will attribute this song to Methusalem, which is just as well I suppose. But as far as I can tell, nothing official by the Methusalem moniker was ever released containing Ooh Dracula. This appears to be “Empire”song, whatever that really means.
Linda herself released the song as just Dracula in 1982, and that’s the one I was familiar with. It’s not terribly different, from what I can tell. Maybe a little less synthy. Hard to say, really. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was the same track.
So what is Empire then? Well, basically Shot Down and Ooh Dracula, that’s what Empire is, featuring vocals by Linda Susan Bauer.
Methusalem is the rest of that album, with vocals from English singer Vicky Brown.
Now that that’s cleared up, what with this song?
Well, it’s your typical sort of Dracula tale. A woman is obsessed with that god forsaken creature of the night, and despite what everyone (including common goddamn sense) tells her, she’s determined to become a slave to that thing.
Oh well.
Better her than me, I suppose. Seems like it’s hard to resist that guy. Thankfully, we’ve never crossed paths. However, I do feel confident that my years of listening to Dracula songs has given me the tools necessary to fully protect myself from his evil ways.
Disco was pretty big in Japan. While American Rock ‘N Roll grabbed Japanese pop culture for the late 60’s and early 70’s, by 1974, that island was dancing to a new beat.
As such, lots of Disco artists enjoyed great success overseas. Some even went so far as to release records exclusively in Japan. Ice (aka Captain Dax) is a good example of a band directing their attention almost entirely to the Japanese market. And it seems such was the case with our next Disco Dracula enablers, the curiously French named, Café Au Lait.
Café Au Lait is a coffee drink. I know this now because if you try and search for this band, the results are pretty much exclusively this drink. It’s kinda like a latte I guess, only it’s made with regular coffee instead of espresso. Great. I feel more sophisticated already.
Now, what the fuck a French coffee beverage has to do with Disco, Dracula or Japan is anyone’s guess. But let’s talk less about coffee and more about those other 3 things for a moment.
Hot Blood’s 1975 gateway drug Soul Dracula, was a pretty big hit in Japan. I mean, it was a pretty big hit here too, and practically spawned what’s shaping up to be an entire sub-genre of music, but in Japan, they were clamoring for it a bit more insatiably.
So much so it seems that, according to wild and unconfirmed sources on the crazy ass internet, Japan (the entire country, I guess) asked Mr. Alain Goraguer to produce his Soul Dracula sound-alike Sexy Dracula. Ok, that seems plausible, weird commenter on discogs, sure. We’ll just go with that.
Was it a hit. I dunno. Maybe?
Not to be outdone, Café Au Lait sought to court a case of Japanese disco fever 3 years later with Sweet Sexy Dracula.
Now, it can be tricky digging up info on these old, sometimes one-off, bands from over 40 years ago. And that difficultly gets compounded if you name your group after a fuckin’ coffee drink.
They don’t sound French to me. Could be Canadian, I suppose. Hell, could be French, but I’m not hearing it. Least not from the lead singer.
So, who were Café Au Lait? Where were they from? Surely they’re not Japanese, but this record was released there. They actually produced a whole LP titled Midnight Bazaar. That’s more than you can say for a lot of these Disco Dracula folk. Sweet Sexy Dracula is the lead-off batter on that album too and you’re goddamn right it is.
I search and type, and dig through YouTube comments and discog notes. Search again with different keywords but mostly I just find people selling the record or featuring it on write-ups or mixes of Disco Dracula songs with no more information than “Hey, here’s another one.” Maybe I’m just bad at looking. Maybe I can’t read Japanese. Maybe the information just isn’t out there.
That was the night of the infamous anti-disco promotional shitshow cooked up by Shock Jock Steve Dahl in Chicago. They held it at Comisky Park after a White Sox double-header in July of 1979. The plan was that everyone who came to the stadium that night would bring a disco record with them and then Steve would blow up the whole lot after the games. And he did! Then shit got a little out of hand over at the ballpark. It always comes back to baseball around here, it seems.
But this article appears to be the only thing of its kind really. And perhaps rightfully so. But it doesn’t touch upon any of the little guys; the Hotlines, the Bob Babylones or sadly, the Café Au Laits.
Am I crazy? Am I the only one who cares? Am I the lone person hearing these tunes thinking – man, I’d like to know just a little bit more about the people that made this weird song, so I can write more than “Hey Dracula and cocaine were a crazy duo in the 70’s, huh?”
Feeling at my wits end I actually consulted the harbinger of human civilization’s ruin du jour, ChatGPT.
After wrestling for hours with that goofball, who can’t even seem to return the results of a basic Google search, I did get a bit of information.
Who knows how solid that it is though, as I have yet to get that dipshit to provide me a link that actually takes me where it says it’s suppose to.
Seriously, anyone who’s afraid ChatGPT might be the end of humanity, go have a fuckin’ conversation with that nimrod about a 40 year old Dracula Disco song. Your fears will be instantly quelled, particularly when it repeats back the information you just feed it as though it dug it up on its own. Oh Café Au Lait seem to be fairly obscure Disco band that only released 1 record called Midnight Bazaar, huh? No shit, buddy, I just fuckin’ told you that.
So alas, that’s what I’m left with. That and some speculation. Maybe no one actually cares. Maybe no one wants to read about me caring that no one seems to care. Maybe nobody wants to read at all, particularly dumb things written by dumb me on this dumb blog devoted to dumb shit. Who knows?
Maybe all they want (if they even want this at all) is to just hear the damn song and move on. And maybe that all ya’ll want too, so here it comes.
Now, I know when I started this Dracula block, I forgot to mention that it was basically gonna be another Disco Dracula Block. Sorry about that.
If you’re all like “Seriously? There’s more of these fuckin’ Disco Dracula songs? How is that even possible?” I feel it’s only courteous to inform you that this batch doesn’t even cover them all.
So, you’ll definitely be hearing more, eventually. But this will probably be the only other “block” of them, as after this batch, there aren’t as many I really like.
First and foremost, there’s Sweet Exorcist’sDisco Vampire. There’s a few different versions, but even the best of them can’t stop that tune from being just a little bit irritating.
Sweet Exorcist was one of many aliases used by our old friends The Lafayette Afro Band, whom you may remember as Captain Dax of Dr. Beezar Soul Frankenstein fame. They used a lot of names over the years like Krispie and Company, Bionic Unlimited and Ice.
As Ice they actually released a grip of Playlist prospects like Disco Frankenstein, Igor’s Reggae and Creature from the Freak Lagoon. Unfortunately, I don’t particularly like those much more than Disco Vampire.
Then there’s Possession’sBlack Dracula. That one kinda grooves. You might catch this one of the playlist eventually.
Of course there’s also the other 2 tracks I mentioned from Dracula Blows His Cool. I may still include one of those yet, I dunno.
Pan Demonium cut a tune in 1979 called Dracula’s Dream, which definitely looked to jump on Disco Dracula train. That song’s fine and all, but it wasn’t really exciting enough for this block. Later on in the playlist? Possibly.
Maya’sMister Dracula is definitely worth a spin and likely to join this playlist within the next few years I’m sure, while Bobby Babylone’sViva Dracula definitely will be and narrowly escaped not being featured this year.
There’s also Disco Vampirella, Vampire State Blvd., Super Blood Sucker, there’s even The Rah Band, with their cut Vampire Vamp. Now, I like that one a lot, but it’s only an instrumental and doesn’t directly reference Dracula or have much ambience.
Tonight’s Disco Dracula tune, however, has that in spades. It too is mostly an instrumental, like Soul Dracula or Disco Blood. But also like those songs, it’s got Dracula vibe to spare.
From Monsieur Goraguer, comes Sexy Dracula, a sort of Disco Blood with a French tickler twist complete with the requisite moaning and sucking sounds you’ve come to expect from this kind of thing.
Monsieur Goraguerwas a barely-alias used by pianist Alain Goraguer, who was an incredibly prolific composer and arranger in France. Though having scored music for dozens of features and TV shows, he’s perhaps most famous for his work with the French legend, Serge Gainsbourg.
Now, why this classically trained and renowned Jazz musician would cut something like Sexy Dracula is anyone’s guess. The pull of Disco Dracula was just too great, I reckon.
We’re all glad he did though, cause he uncorked a doozy here, as maybe only someone of his skill could.
If you would have told me 10 years ago that some of my favorite songs on this playlIst would turn out to be disco jams, I’m not sure I would have believed you.
There’s something about the combination of this era’s empty, danceable sound and monster bullshit that at once seem so completely at odds yet uniquely suited for each other.
Like Monster Raps, it’s bizarre that these song even exists, but man, am I sure glad that they do. They make for great playlist inclusions.
If you don’t happen to agree, I apologize, as the rest of our Dracula block is unquestionably disco, because there’s just an inordinate amount of these fuckin’ things, and I can’t seem to stop finding them.
Leading the charge is a song I absolutely love. Legit. I love this song. It’s been in the bullpen for years now and over those years I randomly toss it on cause I haven’t heard it in a while and I miss it.
I’m not sure if I can even fully articulate why either. Is it the key? Is it the melody? Is it that short Rhodes solo? Those mean-ass Minimoog hits? I couldn’t rightly say. I guess I just like the way it sounds. I suppose that’s the reason anyone likes any song, really.
Unlike the last couple tunes though, which lean a bit more funk and soul, this one’s a true-blue Disco Dracula tune, at least in name anyway. There isn’t any explicit mention of him, but you do get the double-shot Disco Dracula hallmark of a vaguely Dracula-sounding voice mumbling bullshit while a woman basically orgasms into a microphone. Nice.
From the short lived band, Solcyst comes 1980’s Haha!…I Need Your Blood (Disco Dracula.)
Now strangely, this track was released in Germany. But the band only has one other single, featuring 2 songs, and that one was released in France. So is Solcyst German? Are they French? Italian? None of the above?
They’re singing in English, but it’s a bit strained. This was just around when Italo-Disco was starting to emerge, which was rife with tracks coming out of Germany sung in English by people from neither place, so who knows. This definitely isn’t Italo, though it’s Disco features a nice amount of electronic instrumentation, which is always appreciated.
We may never know with some of these artists, as real information doesn’t seem to exist. So, let’s just be thankful then that the song exists and be satisfied in that.
Our version here on the playlist is pulled directly from the 45, which sits proudly in the Halloween Hole. The single is split between side A and B, featuring Parts 1 and 2, respectively. We’ve combined them both for your epic Disco Dracula pleasure.
I will note that there is a nice rip of this on YouTube that also combines parts 1 and 2. For whatever reason though, that version cuts ’em together a bit early and completely forgoes the 3rd chorus. Not sure why it does that, but ours does not. Perhaps the other one is a bit less repetitive, and the impact of that climatic crescendo isn’t lessened by having already heard it. That version flows a little better too, not gonna lie. Maybe that’s why they did it. I’ll never know, unfortunately, because you can’t send people on YouTube messages and you can’t comment on that particular video, cause for some reason, the Disco Dracula sex song with the lady audibly climaxing is on YouTube Kids. Search me.
I think this is the way the song was meant to transition though, assuming it was meant to be combined at all. Besides, any excuse to make this one last a little longer is alright in my book. And it made some sense to me to let that version exist over there and have a different option over here, rather than just having the same version exist in 2 places.
We’ve bookended this one with samples from 2 contemporaneous Dracula adaptations. The first, 1977’s lengthy and faithful multi-part BBC production Dracula, and the other from Frank Langella’s classic 1979 turn in John Badham’s verison.
Hey, is it weird that 2 years after directing Saturday Night Fever, John Badham directed that Dracula and released it in 1979, the year you couldn’t get away from Disco Dracula? I dunno, but I think we were robbed of a classic John Badham crossover disco horror hit. Oh, well.
Kicking off the Disco portion of our Dracula Block, here’s Solcyst with Haha! I Need Your Blood (Disco Dracula.)
Looks like we got another Shindig Exclusive coming at ya, cause with all the Dracula Disco out there, we still somehow managed to dig one up that didn’t seem to be available anywhere else.
Finding this one wasn’t too big of a trick, but finally getting to drop a needle on it was definitely a treat. How this song isn’t in more places is beyond me, cause it grooves.
The song is titled Count Called Dracula, which is in the chorus, but it also features the line “Just a dude named Dracula” which is immeasurably cooler. Now, why they didn’t go ahead and call the song Just a Dude Named Dracula is beyond me, but I’ll take this track whatever it’s name might be, cause it’s a jam.
The funked out disco beat, the silly voices, the dated (even for 1978) Mae West joke. It’s all pretty great.
The Showman is actually a guy by the name of Alexander Simmons, who wrote and produced this one. He doesn’t seem to perform on the track however, which is a bit strange.
Here he is Dracin’ the fuck out with 2 ladies of the night, presumably Catalina Sevilla and Linda Kaye Hal, who both provide vocals on the tune.
Smooth.
Unfortunately, Alexander didn’t seem to produce anything else. The album lists a ton of players, but only Ray Chew seems to have much of anything under his belt. For the rest of the crew, a Count Called Dracula appears to be it.
But if I had a chance to produce and release one song, and only one song in my lifetime, I would be so lucky as to drop a banger like Count Called Dracula. Y’all should be proud, cause in deference to the songs lyrics, it is pretty spectacular.
Here’s another Drac-Track about the good count getting down. Or at least a dance that’s named after him, at any rate. Ya know, like The Lurch, or The Freddy. Either way, boogieing and Dracula are involved and that’s what we’re here for.
This one comes from Top Shelf, a Funk/Soul/maybe Disco (I guess) group from possibly New York. Discogs lists all three and the record company Sound Trek Records is a NY based outfit, so it’s inferences all around.
Sound Trek Records doesn’t seem to have released much outside of these singles and LP from Top Shelf. Though the label did aslo release a pair for singles from successful soul singer Laura Greene. Laura even had a role in Robert Downey’s classic satire Putney Swopeas Mrs. Swope. Nice!
Laura Greene, however, has nothing else to do with Top Shelf (that I can tell), outside of this minor intersection.
Needless to say, I couldn’t seem to find much in the way of information on these guys. Night People seems to be their only real album.
The funny thing is, Night People was released in 1980, however the single for Dracula’s Boogie(with the excellent b-side Goin’ Thru the Motions) was released in 1979. So, this song was certainly recorded and released in the 70’s, despite the release of the albums. I guess I’ll chalk it up to a 70’s, cause hey, that seems like a more appropriate place for it to be anyhow.
So, grab a cape and cut a rug with Dracula’s Boogie!
I dunno what the cocaine was cut with in the 1970’s, but people were goin fuckin’ nuts for Dracula. The amount of Soul, Funk, Disco and Rock tunes from that era, dedicated specifically to the old leech, is staggering.
In the bullpen right now I have another 16 Dracula songs from the 1970’s, of which 6 are from 1979 alone. And there’s already 7 of those on the playlist! So, I had to be a little picky here or we’d be stuck listening to Dracula songs until track #400.
We’ll stake out a healthy block here though, cause I gotta clear out some of these long suffering prospects.
And to kick off our Dracula block in style, we got Jimmy Castor, aka The Everything Man, and his funked out ode to the Prince of Darkness.
In 1975, right on the heels of (or perhaps even before) Soul Dracula, Jimmy and his Bunch dropped Dracula Pt. 1. Don’t worry about Pt. 2 though, it’s just an instrumental version.
Jimmy takes on the persona of Drac and slips in and out of character on this laid back cut that pays tribute to what a smooth motherfucker that count was.
According to the BBC (who are clearly the authorities on such matters) Jimmy Castor is one of the most sampled musicians of all time. And Jimmy’s been sampled quite a bit, no doubt. Specifically, bits of his 1972 songs Troglodyte and It’s Just Begun have popped up on tracks from the likes of N.W.A., Kool Moe D, Ice T, Arianna Grande, JJ Fad and Redman!
But one of the most sampled musicians of all time? I dunno about all that.
So, I consulted an actual authority, ya know, not just some tosser over at the British Broadcasting Company, to find out if that claim held any water.
According to whosampled.com, Jimmy isn’t even cracking the top 100 most sampled artists of all time. At 320 samples, Jimmy is a full 183 samples away from the 100th most sampled musician, legendary composer Ennio Morricone.
So, one of the most sampled? Not exactly, but definitely more than most.
And what of Dracula Pt. 1? Well, unfortunately no one seems to have sampled any parts of this tune. Which is a shame, cause this thing grooves. If the hip-hop constituency doesn’t wanna show this Jimmy Castor track any love, it’s ok. That’s what Halloween Shindig is here for.
So let’s let Dracula introduce himself now, cause we’re gonna be spending a little time with the old Count.
Is there a single character – literary or otherwise, dead or undead, monster or not – more referenced than Count Dracula?
Since 1897, that unholy creature has captured mortal minds the world over. Some 200 films feature appearances from The Count. Over 150 of those films contain his name. Almost 100 different actors have played the fiend in just as many years. Those are some pretty big league numbers, any way you slice it.
And the songs? Where do we even start?
According to discogs, there’s 666 master releases with the word “Dracula.” Are you serious with that number? Is that bonkers or what? I will say, some of those look like doubles though. It’s hard to completely bypass dupes in the discog search. But still, a peculiar number to pop up, to say the least.
A search over at Lyrics.com pulls over 2,300 hits for songs containing the word “Dracula.” A similar search over at The Music Lyrics Database has a more alarming statistic at some 236,000 mentions. That number is a little wild though. Has me wondering if they’re just counting instances of the word in each song, cause that shit is ridiculous.
Point is, this guy’s fuckin’ name can’t keep out of anyone’s fuckin’ mouth.
So, given that this is the year of the Referential Monster Jam, we thought we’d pay tribute to the most referenced of all time, the King of the Monsters himself, Count Dracula.
I have a jugular vein’s worth of Dracula songs still waiting in the bullpen. We’ll clear out a few here, but you have yet to hear the last of Dracula on this playlist, I can assure you of that.
So, let’s all grab a cape and sink our teeth into a big ole pint of Drac-Tracks.
Oh yeah? Big Eric, huh? So, what’s this guy’s deal?
Well, let’s start with that name. “Big Eric “ appears to be a one-off pseudonym used by German artist Eric Billinghurst specifically for this track.
But Eric Billinghurst is better know throughout Germany as Bill Hurst, a standard issue AOR style rocker who produced 2 albums including the (apparently quite rare) 1982 release, Ice Cold Calculation. That fucker’s going for over 200 buck right now on Discogs. This is a shame because it contains a track called Horror that I’d love to investigate. Is it a different take on this song? Is it some other referential rock rarity? Who knows? Not us. Well, at least not yet anyway. That’s fuck off dollars from something I ain’t heard before. I’m hesitant to buy the Critters LPs that are goin for half that much, and the playlist needs a cleaner copy of that song pronto. But Ice Cold Calculation is in our sights, so we’ll keep you posted.
Until then, we can satisfy our Bill Hurst fix with Horror Ball, a peculiar Discoish tune that doubles as a fun play on words.
This one’s a bit silly, but that’s never been a problem around here, and it’s got a good groove, which is always a plus.
On top of that, it’s giving you what you need. All the Monsters you want getting shouted out to an infection disco beat.
And look at the cover to this thing! That’s just plain old fashion monster awesome.
So let’s get some horror going with Big Eric, shall we?
His plan to turn Halloween on forever is commendable and the episode is a great example of what The Real Ghostbusters was great at – a crazy occult plot with wild ass creature taking center stage.
