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Episode 15: A Fistful of Title Tracks

Shindig Radio fans have spoken!

And they want more Title Tracks.

Or they want more Kyle Sullivan. We’re not sure, but we have more Title Tracks and not more Kyle, so Title Tracks it is.

Join Graham C. Schofield and Mikey Rotella as they catch another wave of rockin’ plot-talk, and hear the titles of Teenage Exorcist, The Hidden, Dead Heat and many more repeated incessantly!

So, grab a boogie board, some sun-screen and say goodbye to Summer with your friends at Shindig Radio on…

A Fistful of TItle Tracks.

 

Video

Fondle Corpse: “The Nightmare Force”

This summer, Dutch metallers Fondle Corpse decided to let old Halloween Shindig take a crack at producing a video for their new single entitled The Nightmare Force.

The song itself is a tribute to the latex maskers of reality over at Nightmare Force. And the video we whipped up, a tribute to the culty, Satanic cinema of the 70’s and beyond.

Featuring clips from over 60 different movies across 4 decades of films, and dozens of Nightmare Force masks, it’s a visual cacophony of ritualistic proportions.

From all the guys in Fondle Corpse, all the artists of Nightmare Force, and of course, the ghouls here at Halloween Shindg, we hope The Nightmare Force melts your brain, sacrifices your stereo and rocks your face off.

The Latex Cults Rise!

Audio

The Haunted House of Rock: Mini-Playlist

Ok. So, now that I do have a record player, I can finally spin my previously only decorative copy of Whodini’s 12″ 45 for The Haunted House of Rock.

What does that mean for you, dear readers? Why a mini-playlist, of course!

Here, for your listening pleasure, are the 4 different versions of The Haunted House of Rock on offer from that single, including the exceedingly spooked-out Vocoder version.

For the uninitiated, a Vocoder is something you’re familiar with even if you aren’t familiar with the term.

Developed throughout the ’30s by Homer Dudley for Bell Labs, it was first unleashed to the public at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

It’s essentially a device that synthesizes human speech. It analyzes the source (your voice) and assigns different parts of that signal to different frequency bands. On the other side, a a series of band-pass filter reproduces those frequencies and, with the  help of an envelope follower, creates a robotic facsimile of your voice.

Initially, it was intended to reduce the bandwidth of vocal information for transmission over long distances. Problem was, it kind of sucked at reproducing the human voice convincingly. Too creepy.

Since that sort of thing never stops the United States Military, they put it to use during WWII to encrypt voice messages. See, without the proper frequency band information on the other end, the enemy could not decode that messages. Pretty neat.

However, thanks to several industrious souls, the vocoder soon found its way into the hands of musicians. Not the least of those souls were legendary synth builder Bob Moog and equally legendary synth user Wendy Carlos.

The musical incarnation works a bit differently, but it uses the same principle. Your voice is analyzed and then reproduced by the band-pass filters, but in this case, a “carrier” is sent through that filter as well, like the notes of a synthesizer. This allows you to alter the pitch of that robotic voice and create something altogether more interesting and musical.

Think Earth Wind and Fire’s Let’s Groove Tonight, Michael Jackson’s PYT,  Daft Punks Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, or (the ultimate example, if you ask me) the evil Decepticon Soundwave on the Transformers cartoon.

Used abusively throughout the 80’s by all all different genres, its has the unmistakable sound of a decade. Here, in modulated grandeur, Whodini asks…

Is this what you wanted?

Something funky and haunted?

To which I reply…

Yep.

Also of interest on the single is an Acapella version, which is kind of fun to hear and a Haunted Mix, which is mostly an instrumental track. There’s also a version which claims to be extended, but sounds no different to me than the version already present on Halloween Shindig.

Either way, it all adds up to the a spooky good time any fan of this song should definitely enjoy.

If you don’t wanna party, take your dead ass home!

 

Audio

Wings Livinryte: Your Love Keeps Me Off The Streets

Perhaps you know him as Arklon, Dar’s half-brother from Beastmaster 2? Or maybe you know him better as the pimp Ramrod: scumbag extraordinaire, from Vice Squad? How about Stoney Cooper from Deadly Force? Perhaps the murderous police officer, Strom in Tales from The Hood? Could it be you know him as The Conners’ neighbor Ty Tilden from Rosanne? Or maybe, just maybe, you know him best as Huck Finney from John De Hart’s Road To Revenge.

Whatever name you know him by, Gerald Dwight “Wings” Hauser is an American actor best known for a slew of 80’s and 90’s Action movies like L.A. Bounty and Street Asylum, and the occasional Horror outing like 1984’s Mutant and Watchers 3.

Wings even stepped behind the camera and directed a few pictures like Cold Fire and The Art of Dying, both of which I highly recommend.

But before all of that, Gerald Dwight Hauser was called Wings Livingryte, a 70’s balladeer somewhere between Billy Joel and Elton John. Shades of Michael McDonald, Joe Cocker, Tom Waits and even a Young American-era David Bowie crop up from time to time.

Now, you might think a guy who’s been writing a music blog for the past 9 years might also be a guy with a pretty serious vinyl collection. Surprisingly, the complete opposite is true. Despite my love of music and physical media (particularly of the analog variety) vinyl was just never something I got into.

This is, until I found out Wings Hauser cut an album under Wings Livinryte called Your Love Keeps Me Off The Streets…

…and it was only available on vinyl.

I couldn’t find this album on any streaming service. There were no YouTube uploads of single songs. There wasn’t even a cassette on eBay. Nope, just a lone 33rpm record. Buy the ticket…take the ride.

So I did. Well, that is, after I unsuccessfully ripped the copy I had purchased for Mikey Rotella. See, he was the only guy I knew with a record player, and I needed to hear this album and make a copy. Problem was, I didn’t have the proper cable or a phono-preamp, so it sounded like complete trash.

Incidentally however, and completely unbeknownst to be, he had already purchased the same album for me some months prior and just forgot to actually give me the damn thing. Nice!

So, with a bunk digital recording and and a perfectly good vinyl copy of Your Love Keeps Me Off the Streets in hand, I did what any red-blooded American would do…I purchased the cheapest record player I could find. Well, the cheapest one with a built-in preamp, a full sized platter, a counter weight, anyway.

And surprisingly, the album’s not bad! Wings has a pretty good voice and the songs aren’t nearly as silly you might expect coming from The Carpenter. In fact, there’s some I rather like.

No sir, this was a bonafide album, and you can almost imagine an alternate reality with Wings making a go for it as a serious Songsman. It was not to be, unfortunately, but we do have this scratchy testament to Wings’ musicality.

So I thought, since I was gonna rip this album anyway, I’d make it available here to anyone else just dying to hear Wings do his thing.

It’s not gonna be for everyone, I’ll say that. Most of the tracks have a quiet, ballad-like quality that’s just not gonna do it for some folk. But cuts like Title Track Your Love Keeps Me Off The Streets and album opener Sunshine In The Rain are worth the price of admission alone. Also, Silver Stallion and his cover of the Randy Newman hit You Can Leave Your Hat On ain’t too shabby either.

So, without any further ado, Halloween Shindig Presents Wings Livinryte: Your Love Keeps Me Off The Streets.

Enjoy. And let Wings get ya Livinryte and off the streets. There’s an epidemic goin’ on people.

Audio

Action Distractions Vol. 2: The Playlist!

Did you love all the songs you just heard on Action Distractions Vol. 2?

Oh, you didn’t?

Well, even if you definitely got enough of all the action packed tracks we extracted for episode 14, here’s a Vol. 2 Mini-Playlist all the same. Enjoy!

 

Audio

Episode 14: Action Distractions Vol. 2

It’s been 6 months, but Shindig Radio is back to respack you’re sacks with more action backed tracks on another thrilling installment of…

ACTION DISTRACTIONS!

Volume 2 of Shindig fans’ least requested diversion brings you tracks from The Stablizer, Death Promise, Vice Squad amongst others…including a special, double-barreled blast from Road House!

So, grab an uzi, jump on your dirt bike and rock out with your 3 favorite fools as they listen to your least favorite songs on…

ACTION DISTRACTIONS….VOL. 2!

 

Audio

Episode 13: Outtake Outbreak

CONELRAD CHANNEL … This is a Class 1 Emergency

– Unreleased material from the Shindig Radio Containment Vault has broken out and is infecting your airwaves! –

Citizens are being advised to quarantine in their homes with Graham C. Schofield, Mikey Rotella, Matt Mastrella and Kyle Sullivan during this outbreak of Season 1 outtakes.

CONELRAD CHANNEL – This is a Class 1 Emergency!

 

Audio

Freddy’s (Actual) Greatest Hits

Well, what’s good for Jason is good for Freddy. These 2 monsters of 80’s horror go mask in glove, especially around here. So, I can’t give Jay his own private playlist without giving one to Fred too, right?

Well, I’m sure Freddy would conclude as much, anyway.

So presented here is what I think you could accurately call “Freddy’s Greatest Hits,” unlike the very real album Freddy’s Greatest Hits, which is comprised of (at best) the only songs Freddy ever released.

From 213’s original Nightmare to (well, eventually) Iggy Pop’s Why Was I Born, and even a few gems from Mr. Big Time himself, here’s the Shindig’s celebration of Freddy Krueger in song. Enjoy!

Audio

The Best of Jason Voorhees

For some years now, I’ve been meaning to make a small playlist that groups all the Friday The 13th tracks into one convenient place. Well, this year it’s finally happening.

Sure, you could just click Jason’s picture in the Icons category, but there’s no playlist, damn it!

So, this year, grab a hockey mask, jump in the Jeep and head on down to Camp Blood. While you’re there, smoke a little grass, dance up a storm and celebrate Friday the 13th with The Best of Jason Voorhees, on 4 cassettes or 2 compact discs…

Or uh, one small playlist.

Happy Friday The 13th!

Audio

Episode 12: Happy Life Day, Tim Martin

Shindig Radio Strikes Back, and they’ve brought Star Wars Fan Film Director and Special FX artist Tim Martin along for the attack.

Join Graham C. Schofield and Mikey Rotella as they talk to Tim about all things Star Wars, including working on the The Mandolorian, Rise of the Skywalker and Tim’s very own Star Wars fan film Birth of a Monster!

It’s more Star Wars than anyone should care to talk about or listen to!

So put on a weird red robe, grab your Ponda Baba thermos and buckle this, cause Shindig Radio is about to make the jump to hyperspace.

 

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

After Midnight

TRACK #239:

After Midnight by Fastway

No movie gets championed around here quite like 1986’s Trick or Treat. And why not? It’s everything we’re on about over here. It’s a Rock ‘N Roll Horror movie that takes place around and then on Halloween. An undead rock star electrocutes an entire gymnasium of teenagers with a real electric guitar. It’s got Gene Simmons. I mean, what more do you need?

The Super Soundtrack, which I thoroughly recommend listening to the day before Halloween, features loads of songs by Fastway, including tonight’s penultimate selection of the season.

When a movie like Trick or Treat is throwing a Sweet Song at you like After Midnight, how can we ignore that?

Wake up, sleepy heads. It’s party time!

 

Audio

Dead Heat

TRACK #238:

Dead Heat by Philip J. Settle

My personal pick for Favorite Addition to the Playlist: 2019 has got to go to Philip J. Settle’s rockin’ 80’s, four-to-the-floor Title Track, Dead Heat.

Shindig Radio personality and Showdown Shogun himself Graham C. Schofield brought this glaring omission to my attention just before the season started. And I couldn’t believe I had totally forgotten about this track.

How had this track, this Title Track of all things – particularly one as awesome as this –  to a movie I thoroughly enjoy – eluded The Shindig for so long? I love Dead Heat, but I must admit, it’s been some years since I’ve just sat down and watched in it’s entirety…

And this track isn’t just a Title Track, it’s also a Sweet Song, so you gotta stick it through to the end credits to be treated to this dozy, which I definitely would have loved to have taken a go at on any one of our Title Tracks episodes of the Podcast.

All good things eventually reveal themselves to The Shindig and we can thank a dutiful rewatch from Graham for bringing this champion of Title Tracks home, where it belongs.

Playlist fans can now rock out to this tune, which is kind of an Indirect Title Track; one of those song where they definitely say the name of the movie incessantly, but aren’t quite talking about the movie at all really.

Playing off the films double-entendre, Philip J. Settle settles for steering this hot rod of the track toward the racing side of a dead heat, and it works out just fine.

If you’ve never seen this Treat Williams/Joe Piscapo/Kolchak The Night Stalker/Vincent Price zombie-gore bonanza, I say correct that as soon as possible.

With out of control FX from Steve Johnson’s XFX team and additional work from the likes of Todd Masters and Rick Lazzarini, Dead Heat is an 80’s gore/make-up/creature tour de force.

I first saw Dead Heat after my first day of work at an old video store called “Mike’s Movies” in Boston. I had just been introduced to a co-worker (and eventual good friend) named Malachi (I know, right?) and was tasked with assisting him in creating a small shelf of Halloween recommendations to be placed near the entrance for October. What a first day, huh?

We each split up grabbed a handful of titles from the impressive selection that store had to offer. He came back with some selections you might imagine, probably along with some foreign shit (he loved weird old foreign shit.) But it was one cover in particular (and the only one I 100% remember) that caught my attention.

“Piscopo? An Uzi? What the fuck is this?” I asked “This is a horror movie?”

“No.” He replied. “It’s so much more. You gotta see this.”

So we proceeded to get higher than shit that night, and became fast friends while watching his hero, Treat Williams, become the Dead Heat. And Malachi was right. Cause you gotta see this.

So, it seems only fitting then, that 2 days before Halloween, from a small Halloween shelf on the other side of the country, Dead Heat joins the ranks of Halloween Shindig. This one’s for you Malachi!

Lady…I’m fuckin’ dead.

 

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

April (You’re No Fool)

TRACK #237:

April (You’re No Fool) by White Sister

Originally filmed in 1984 and titled The April Fool, Killer Party wasn’t released until 1986, alongside 2 other foolishly themed slashers,  April Fool’s Day and Slaughter High.

Though not terribly celebrated (from what I can tell) nor especially gory, Killer Party is a surprisingly enjoyable slasher despite, mixing elements of its contemporaries without all the rug pulling or meanness.

Slasher fans might say it’s too tame or too schizophrenic or that it takes too long for it to get to any genuine horror. They wouldn’t be wrong, but at least when it gets there, it’s real. Out of left field perhaps, Evil Dead-lite, no question, but definitely not a joke.

The characters here are fun, the actors likable and it’s got a fitting, almost Halloweeny, ambiance. The movie has a look and I vibe I just kinda dig, and it could certainly hold up to an October’s viewing.

The censors apparently had a field day with this one though, and the kills are so non-existent you’ll actually be surprised when it all doesn’t end up like April Fool’s Day. If you want something with teeth, you’d be better served sticking with Slaughter High, perhaps the most conventional (though still weird) of the 3.

But that’s not to say Killer Party doesn’t come correct at times, particularly out of the gate. Because it features this kick-ass track, the culmination of its effective double pump, April fool’s fake-out opening.

What starts out as a Creepshow-styled funeral gone awry, quickly reveals its melodrama to be the evening’s Drive-In fare of choice for 2 young neckers. It was only a movie!

The female viewer, April, excuses herself from the car to get some popcorn, but upon returning finds her date is nowhere to be found. Where could he be?

Why he’s creeping up alongside the car and looking mighty unhealthy. He suddenly brandishes a knife, thrusting it at April through the window! She flees as zombies jump out from all corners of the Drive-In parking lot.

Boom! Homeboy in the headband hits the OB-8 hard and Dollar Store Jack Burton lets his receding mullet do the talking. I dunno where I’m at anymore, but it’s definitely somewhere I wanna be.

What you now thought was the real movie reveals itself to be the Thriller-esque preamble for the zombie filled music video to White Sister’s April (You’re No Fool). Bonus!

White Sister rocks the most lavish concession lobby I’ve ever seen while April dodges her zombie attackers as we the audience just look around confused, having absolutely no fuckin’ bearings anymore whatsoever. Where the fuck are we? Where’s the movie? Who edited this, and did he fall asleep?

It’s been about 9 minutes, and our movie has just started. Ah, our main protagonist Phoebe is just watching a little MTV. “Gotcha!” says the music video. It is about April being a fool, after all.

So rock out with April, a few zombies and the boys of White Sister, mourn the lost of a much more appropriate title, and enjoy April (You’re No Fool)!

Side Note: to any hardcore fans of Killer Party who may be a little baffled as to how we’re not including the film’s superior (and reoccuring) number Best Times…patience is a virtue. It’ll be coming soon enough, and that’s no April Fool!

 

Audio

Power of the Night

TRACK #236:

Power of the Night by Terrence Mann

Ah, Critters, the quintessential 80’s Sci-Fi-Horror-Creature-Feature if there was one.

Critters was a big film for me as a kid. Being a little too young for having anything but just passing exposure to the gorier slashers of the day, films like Monster Squad, Critters and Killer Klowns are what grabbed me early and drew me into the wide world of horror.

Incidentally, The Chiodo brothers, responsible parties for those Killer Klowns, are also the culprits behind the Crite, amazing little 80’s puppet monsters such as they are. These brothers definitely informed my youth, without question.

So what brings us here tonight? Why Johnny Steele, that’s who! The coiffed haired rocker from whom the intergalactic bounty hunter Ug steals his visage.

Those bounty hunters are cool, with their weird faceless goo-heads that mimic whatever person they’d like. Pretty neat.

Now, Johnny Steele’s just some Earth rocker Ug sees while getting a crash course in Earth culture from the video montage he’s watching en route to our planet. Ug likes the cut of ole Johnny’s jib, and quickly programs Johnny face into his weird goo-head for full metamorphosis. The scene is a great example of bitchin 80’s reverse FXery, and no doubt leaves an impression.

And Johnny’s 80’s arena-anthem Power of the Night is all over this movie. Dee Wallace is watching it’s video on the TV. Brad throws on it’s tape in defiance after being sent to his room. Even Billy Zane’s ponytail-rocking douchball Steve is bumpin’ this shit in his Porsche 944. Damn straight he is.

Curiously though, this song isn’t played during the end credits. Doubly frustrating is that it appeared on the original vinyl LP of the Critters soundtrack but not on any subsequent cassette or CD releases. So finding clean, uncompressed versions that don’t sound awful is harder than one might imagine. We made do with the best we could find.

Sweet song or not, it’s a certified Shindigger that was written and performed by actor Terrence Mann, who plays Ug/Johnny Steele in the film. Pretty solid. Now that’s commitment to a role right there, and damn it if Terrence doesn’t sell this shit out of that performance.

What’s more? Terrence is one of only 2 actors to appear in all 4 Critters films. This guy gets the fuck down on Crite.

So let’s bring Terrence aboard and rock out with Johnny Steele’s  Power of the Night!

 

Audio

Devil Take Me

TRACK #235:

Devil Take Me by Moloch

Hey, remember that one episode of CHiPs where Ralph Malph plays a Shock Rocker named Moloch who discovers secret backmasked messages on his own albums after someone mysteriously tries to murder him?

Oh. You’re using that real estate for actual memories of real experiences from your life and don’t have the any room for myopic bullshit from a 37 year old cheeseball cop show? Yeah, I get that.

Well, in the event that you don’t remember, or can’t remember cause you’ve never seen it, or wouldn’t remember cause CHiPs is some stupid shit you wouldn’t waste your time with, Halloween Shindig is here!

Rock Devil Rock was the name of that episode and it was the CHiPs Satanic Panic Halloween special in 1982. It aired on Halloween Night and guest starred Elvira! She MC’s the Highway Patrol’s holiday party and even cuts a rug with Ponch himself. Halloween bonus.

In fact, our bitchin’ Season 2 Shindig Radio logo that will probably totally earn us a cease and desist from the Mistress herself, is taken from this episode.

Anyway, so yeah Moloch. He’s this KISS-styled Alice Cooper type that sings about the Devil while uppity do-gooders protest his very existence. His car also starts spewing smoke from the vents and tries to kill him while spouting Devil shit from its wood-paneled cassette deck. Now, if that paragraph doesn’t grab ya, I gotta believe you’ve just stumbled upon this website by complete accident and may want to hit the back button.

Yep. This is totally Robert Trujillo playing Flippy on CHiPs

Yep. Someone’s got it out for old Moloch and it’s up to Ponch and the boys of the California Highway Patrol to save the day. After fraternizing with Elvira and helping the bassist from Suicidal Tendencies deal with some Halloween issues, of course.

This episode’s pretty fun, plenty festive and, as you may have already assumed, provides us with tonight’s musical selection.

From the man himself, Moloch, comes the Black Magic Rock Opus…Devil Take Me!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I literally just found someone on teepublic selling this t-shirt and I have to go place that order immediately. Will post upon arrival.

Heaven’s the pits!

 

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

The Darkest Side Of The Night

TRACK #234:

The Darkest Side of the Night by Metropolis

The Friday series was no doubt long in the tooth and well past it’s prime by Part 8, but Jason Takes Manhattan still remains totally 80’s and appropriate when compared to subsequent installments.

Attempting to take the series in a fresh direction and shake the claustrophobic confines of Crystal Lake, the producers thought Jason should get into the Muppet spirit and take Manhattan. This isn’t a necessarily meritless approach, except for the fact that rather than New York, the action takes place on a much more claustrophobic cruise ship on it’s the way too Manhattan.

So much for that.

Despite being a highly derided entry for this very reason, I’d argue it’s actually the film’s saving grace. Thank God this whole thing doesn’t take place in Manhattan. I know it was the draw card, but it’s really where the film starts to fall apart for me.

Because it’s just weird seeing Jason takin’ it to the streets. Perhaps funny, I guess, but only for a gag or two, and then what? The movie isn’t quite sure it wants to be a full-on parody yet, and as such it has a bit of a Jason Lives vibe to it; not totally embracing its sillier parts, yet not committed to being a fully horrific affair either.

Jason Takes Manhattan does have a meaner streak than Jason Lives though, and sharper teeth. It’s self aware, but not all neutered like Part 6. So it’s got that going for it.

I would say Jason X, for all it’s millennial sensibilities and glossy lameness, navigates this sort of self conscious ground much more deftly. As such, I think it’s delivers a much more self assured spin on this series than either Jason Lives or Takes Manhattan. Even has some solid kills, and before Jason gets all Mechagodzilla meets Robocop, he looks pretty dope. But it’s still hard to get behind that movie.

That being said, Jason Takes Manhattan is still a Paramount Friday that’s 80’s to the max with Kane Hodder just giving it his all. So, for my money, its in a different sphere of Friday than everything after.

Of the Paramount 8 however, I do feel it might be least of the bunch. Depends on what day you catch me. I recently rewatched Part 6 this passed Friday the 13th and found myself more irritated with it than usual. Part 8’s pulling ahead of it for me at this particular moment.

But hey, what the hell are we here for? Not my unsolicited bullshit. We’re here for some music, and Part 8 ain’t coming up broke, depending on your musical proclivities. If you can get down on cheeseball 80’s Power-Ballad-lite Pop Rock, than Metropolis here has got you covered.

I actually wanted to include the song J.J. puts on right before Jason steals her pink flying V and smashes her head in, but apparently that’s not a real song, just some composite that was put together from 2 other songs. Bummer, cause that one rocks, Lita Ford style. Oh well.

Here’s Metropolis kicking off Friday the 13th Part 8 with The Darkest Side of the Night!