Here’s an interesting Frankenstein song, in that it makes the strange delineation of referring to him as Mr. Frankenstein and not Dr. Frankenstein.
Okay, fair enough. But who the hell is Mr. Frankenstein?
Well, it’s Victor Frankenstein, right? He is a Mr. Frankenstein. But why specify an honorific different then the one typically associated with this classic literary character? Don’t make no sense.
So, does he mean the monster? Could you refer to the monster as Mr. Frankenstein?
Sure, why not, right? Dr. Frankenstein is technically a kind of father, so the surname could carry over. The monster has no medical degree to speak of and is himself not a doctor. So if you were going to make the distinction, you’d make it for that reason, right?
No, no, I’m not talking about Dr. Frankenstein, I’m talking about his monster, Mr. Frankenstein.
Oh, ok then.
Well, how bout the lyrics? Surely they’ll provide some clarification.
Well, at one point this Mr. Frankenstein character (whomever he may be) opens his mouth and bites the head off the singer, thus causing him to die. Does that sound like something Dr. Frankenstein might do, or is even capable of doing? Not in my book.
Honestly, it doesn’t really sound like anything the monster would do either, but c’mon, he is a monster, so he’s probably more liable to do such a thing.
So, this song is either about unnaturally bitey Frankenstein’s Monster, or some cannibalistic jerk named Frankenstein who just happens eat people at local cafes.
Because there seems to be a serious shortage of songs specifically about The Creature from the Black Lagoon, we’re gonna spin you a twofer for the old Gillman.
This one comes from Welsh singer/songwriter/producer Dave Edmunds, who had a pretty solid career performing in several different rock acts in the late 60’s and 70’s while also producing a number of different artists.
The story behind this album is a little goofy, because by all accounts, this is an album by the band Rockpile.
You see, after several years of limited success with different bands and a solo album, Dave hooked up with notable singer/songwriter Nick Lowe. Together, with guitarist Ed Bremner and drummer Terry Williams they formed the band Rockpile. However, Lowe was signed to Stiff Records at the time and Dave was signed to Led Zeppelin label Swan Song. This caused a bit of confusion for recording and releasing albums.
What followed was a series of solo releases that actually featured the entire band as background accompaniment. These included Edmund’s 1978 Tracks on Wax 4, Lowe’s Labor of Lust and this album from 1979, Repeat When Necessary.
Offically, the writing credits for this tune belong to Ed Bremner. Now, why Ed decided to write a strange toe tapper about a 25 year old soggy monster, we may never know exactly. Why they all decided to slip it among the rest of the tracks on a fairly standard Pub Rock album, we may also never know.
My guess? Well, it’s a pretty fun tune that’ll quickly worm its way into your head.
This has been in the Shindig Bullpen for years, as it appears on Elvira’s compilation Haunted Hits. The bullpen is a secondary playlist I have filled with songs yet to get officially added or songs that I’m considering for addition. I listen to it throughout the year. I add songs, remove songs, play around with order, see what fits together nicely. That sort of deal.
For years this was a song I kinda hated. Slowly but surely though and against all odds, it finally weaseled its way into my head and I’ve come to enjoy it quite a bit. Perhaps you may find yourself having a similar response. Though, I certainly wouldn’t blame you if this one never comes around for ya like it did for me. I get it.
However, since there is that shortage I mentioned earlier and Lagoony is one of the Big 5, Dave Edmunds and his strange by the numbers rock song about a classic monster get their chance to swim.
(I’m In Love With) The Creature from the Black Lagoonby Hans Conried & Alice Pearce
Long before Guillermo Del Toro won Oscars and appalled your Grandma by having a mute girl fuck a fish man, people have been musing about what it might be like to engage in some inter-species monster sex.
While not nearly as explicit, this old time ditty comes courtesy of an unlikely duo with whom you may be at least vaguely familiar.
For some reason (perhaps other than it seemed like a solid move in the late 50’s) comedians Hans Conried and Alice Pearce released the creature feature album Monster Rally. This classic Halloween LP from 1959 features tons of fun songs and another great album cover from the legendary Jack Davis.
Let’s take a moment here to just appreciate what an awesome artist and influence on horror imagery Jack Davis was. Here’s the full painting for the Monster Rally LP.
Now, if you’re a Bewitchedfan, you may recognize Alice Pearce’s name and cadence, as she played nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz to Samantha and Darrin Stephens. Here she is:
Though it doesn’t seem like Conried makes much of an appearance on this particular tune, Alice sings up a storm detailing a brief and heartbreaking affair with our titular lagoon lurker.
In the end though, he leaves her for a sexy young flounder that swims passed. It’s all a little sad, really.
Hans Conried probably just provides some background sound FX here, but I couldn’t say for sure. Whether present or not, Hans may sound familiar to you as he is not only the voice of Dudley Do-Right antagonist Snidley Whiplash but also Captain Hook in Walt Disney’s classic Peter Pan.
More significantly (at least to the Shindig) he was the voice of Dr. Dred on The Drak Pack, and is the narrator for The Dr. Seuss Halloween Special Halloween is Grinch Night. Pretty neat. Plus he cut a fun novelty monster album? This guy’s batting 1000 right here.
So let’s take another brief moment here, amidst all of the very wholesome fare, to enjoy this short number and imagine what monster we might like to have sex with.
I’ll take the entire cast of Hammer’s Vampire Lovers.
While we may not be entirely sure who the fuck The Wolf Man actually is, we can safely say we know exactly who The Mummy is, and his name is Long Tall Ernie.
Dutch rockers Long Tall Ernie and The Shakers started out life in The Netherlands in 1968 as a band called The Moans, which they later changed to simply Moans.
These guys were all a bunch of jokers I guess, because during live performances The Moans would go offstage halfway through the set and re-emerge as a sort of spoof act called Long Tall Ernie and The Shakers. As The Shakers,The Moans would play traditional Rock ‘N Roll from across the pound…as they probably don’t say over there because that’s a definitely a British phrase.
Whatever they say, these guys never found much success as The Moans, but people seemed to love Long Tall Ernie and his Shakers. No problem for them, they just said “fuck it” and changed the band completely to Long Tall Ernie and The Shakers and started knocking out albums.
One of the last of those albums, from 1979, was Meet The Monsters. While maybe a little late in the game for this brand of Shock Theater styled rocking , being a direct goof on 50’s Rock ‘N Roll sensibilities, it only makes perfects sense that these jokesters might eventually release a full on novelty Monster album.
And god bless ‘em, because they threw on a song about the Mummy, and those aren’t exactly spilling out of the sarcophagi.
The Mummy is a bit underrepresented in the Monster Song game, at least when compared to Bash Brother’s Dracula and Frankenstein. Even the Wolf Man, or at the very least, Werewolves, are getting more at-bats than The Mummy.
And rightfully so. Of the Big 5, you’d have to slot this bozo 4th.
The Wolf Man-Dracula-Frankenstein lineup is a veritable Murderer’s Row when it comes to Monstering and popularity. Them’s just the breaks, kid. These dudes are batting 1000, mercing fools left and right and you’re over there lumbering around all slow, reaching at people, looking for some a lost lover or purloined artifact or some shit.
You don’t think you belong 4th, band-aid breath? Come at me. I’ll take you the fuck out, Rudy style, without even breaking a sweat. Frank’s tossin’ me straight into a river, I got nothing for a walking corpse quilt of those measurements. The Wolf Man’s probably ripping my gentials straight off and God help me if Dracula’s got any of them bimbo’s in tow, cause I’m a goner. You? You’re getting unwrapped up quick.
But enough calling out of probably imaginary Monsters. Let’s get back to Long Tall’s take.
For some reason, The Mummy here sounds like any numbers of novelty Dracula’s or weird Igor fashioned character. Seriously, why does The Mummy sound like this? I understand these guys are Dutch, but surely they realize this is not a voice associated with The Mummy, right?
But maybe that’s the problem. Is any voice really associated with The Mummy? What is he supposed to sound like? Egyptian I’ll wager, at the very least. You do have Karloff just Ardath Bey-ing it up, and maybe that’s what they were going for here, cause you could claim this is a voice approaching Boris.
Either way, this is a fun Novelty Monster song about a guy we don’t get to hear too much about. And in regards to Meet the Monsters, it’s a great Monstrous album that deserves a full listen, if you’re into that sort of thing. An album we certainly haven’t heard the last from around here.
For our next nerve racking number, we have a rockabilly classic of monstrous proportions.
This moon lit hit is attributed to a fella named Round Robin. Problem is, there seems to be some debate among Rock ‘N Roll aficionados as to whether this song was actually recorded by Round Robin or by its author, Baker Knight.
This doesn’t concern us however, as we aren’t that kind of nerd. We’re a different sort of nerd. So, let’s just say it’s Round Robin, a sort of Chubby Checker wannabe who tried to start his own dance craze out of The Slauson, which some of you may know as a street in downtown L.A.
Unfortunately for Robin, The Slauson (in any of its forms) failed to capture the American public’s imagination the way Chubby’s Twist had. But it certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. Robin gave it a go with Do The Slauson, Slauson Street, Slauson Shuffletime, Slauson Town and Slauson Party.
What can I say, dude loved him some Slauson.
However, if you listen to any of Round Robin’s catalog and then give I’m The Wolfman a spin, you’re liable to come to the same conclusion as our Rock ‘N Roll Nerd contingency…
“Yeah that’s not the same guy at all.”
…because they sound totally different.
Either way, whoever is really rockin’ the mic here, I’m The Wolfman is a surefire Shindig inclusion that’s sure to get some hairy feet a-movin’.
On the surface it might seem like The Monster Club and Halloween Shindig would go hand in hand; a horror anthology starring such genre vets as Vincent Price, John Carradine, Donald Pleasence and Britt Ekland, that has tons of fun monsters and masks plus numerous monster related musical numbers? It’s a no brainer, right?
And it’s true, we love The Monster Club. It’s kinda like Night Train to Terror, only it’s coherent and cuts back to different and actual songs. It has a fun premise, with 3 solid monster vignettes and a spooky, synthy score.
So what’s the problem? Where’s the “but” that has kept this blog for talking about it for 7 years now?
That, dear readers, is my own prejudice against those same monster related songs. I kinda hate them. I don’t want to, but I kinda do. I want to love them. I want to include them all and have wanted to since the beginning. But I’m just not a huge fan.
I’ve tried, over the years, to warm up to them but the love just never seems to flows out of me. They have this late 70’s/early 80’s British new wave, pseudo-reggae, Clash meets The Police vibe that neither suits the movie, the songs or me, despite their monstrous leanings.
Because I think it needs to be represented and because I do quite enjoy the film, Halloween Shindig has decided to include the tune I’ve warmed up to the most. Performed on camera by The Pretty Things, it also happens to be (perhaps not so incidentally) the film’s Title Track.
After discussing over 30 different Title Tracks across 6 or so hours on the podcast, how did we not mention this one? Well, as we noted, there’s a mountain of Title Tracks and we had to keep some in our pocket, no? Leave a few surprises for the blog still, right? And we may even have a few more up our sleeve this year.
Additionally, this seemed like an appropriate way to kick off the season and usher in a monster block of Monster Songs, which have been sorely under represented as of late.
Lead in here with Vincent Price’s overly long (and overly awesome) laundry list of solid reasons the Human Race deserves to be represented in a club full of horrible monsters.
It’s good to have you back. Hopefully you’ve been listening to the podcast we’ve been producing over the last year and it hasn’t been too long since you’ve last visited the ole ‘Dig here. Either way, you’re here now and we appreciate that.
Speaking of last year, our 1st track of 2019 was supposed to be the last track of 2018. Seems I was too busy handing out candy and futzing with malfunctioning fog machines to remember to post the last track. Oh well, at least it was for a good and truly Halloweeny cause.
Well, last year’s lost is this year’s gain, as rather than ending the season with a song called Halloween, we’re gonna start the season with one; a Shindig first!
And we got a doozy for ya in the form of another good ole fashioned 80’s Metal Halloween headbanger we’re so fond of over here.
This time, it came from deep in the heart of Texas. The band? Ripper!
Formed in 1977, they had a flare for the theatrical, taking cues from Alice Cooper and KISS with their ghastly appearance and spooky names. They even toss in some sinister horror synths on ya, just for ambiance! Though, admittedly, I think this is one of the few songs where they don’t utilize any de-tuned saw waves. Bummer.
Rippers’sHalloween comes from what is essentially the bands only album …And The Dead ShallRise, which is definitely worth checking out in its entirety.
Spruced up here with some cuts from 1988’s Halloween hoot Hollow Gate, for a little extra festive flare. Listen to local nutcake Mark Walters taunt his grandmother and cause some costumed havoc as you ring in the new season.
So let’s let ‘er rip, and let’s let Ripper lead the way.
Special guest Kyle Sullivan joins the gang for an unexpected and impromptu journey deeper into Title Track territory.
Could be these songs weren’t good enough. Or perhaps they weren’t quite bad enough. Or maybe they just weren’t genuine enough for Parts 1 and 2.
Whatever the case may be, songs from Prom Night, Transylvania 6-5000, Hellraiser 3, Happy Birthday to Me and many more will get the chance to plead their case when Shindig Radio reaches back into the bag…
Last episode you heard all the poor songmanship and poorer audio quality of the worst Title Tracks Halloween Shindig has to offer.
Now, the gang is back to walk you through the best Title Tracks in Horror History.
Join Graham C. Schofield, Don Dokken, Joey Ramone, Mikey Rotella, Gary Busey, J. Geils and all the Dudes of Wrath for an evening of top shelf Horror hits!
It’s Title Tracks Pt. 2: The Good!
The most celebrated Sub-Category on Halloween Shindig gets the Shindig Radio treatment, as the gang teams up on the the worst Title Tracks horror has to offer.
In Part 1 of this 2 part retrospective, prepare to pay your dues with unfortunate tunes from the likes of Hauntedween, Ghost Fever and Scream Dream, before basking in the gleaming light of Part 2’s certified gold.
Join Graham C. Schofield and Mikey Rotella for a night of crud, duds and CHUDS, as we trudge through the dregs of this great Category.
Matt “The Perfect Meatball” Mastrella returns to cut the ribbon on the inaugural round of Shindig Showdown, Shindig Radio’s new audio-based Horror Trivia Game!
He squares off against Mikey “The Northridge Ripper” Rotella and Graham “The Shaman” Schofield in an all out sample-assault disguised as a game show!
Who will win and will you have the audio endurance to find out?
30 questions. 3 contestants. 1 winner.
Test yourself as Shindig Radio tests them and the its audience’s patience on…
Rejoin Graham C. Schofield, Mikey Rotella and Ed Twilley as they delve further than anyone asked into the Shindig sub-category nobody likes: MONSTER RAPS!
Covering the span from 1988 to 2011, they touch on everything from rappin’ peck Warwick Davis to Monster Rap juggernaut Ghostbusters 2 on an odyssey of poor rhymes, questionable beats and rampant commercialism.
But they don’t want to hurt anyone, they just like to have…fun.
For 2018’s 3rd belated official-induction of a Shindig All-Star, direct from Motor-City, it’s Halloween Metallers Acid Witch. They’re coming correct with the calendar date on which this whole holiday has always taken place.
Posting this song on any other day seemed, well, it seemed pretty stupid. So, we’re kicking off a heavy metal Halloween double-header with this tune, sure to make your Halloween a little more rockin’.
We’ve led it in with a sample from Halloween 2, where Loomis explains the meaning of that strange word they just found graffitied on the school chalk board to Haddonfield’s finest.
Of course, Donald Pleasence pronounces “Samhain” phonetically, but we can forgive him that transgression because, as always, he just sells the fuck out of this dialogue.
Only days after talking about how this video had not managed to emerged in 30 years…boom…as if we collectively willed it back into existence. And on Halloween no less!
And it’s the extended version? You gotta be kidding me.
It is a def day.
Well, shit. I’m not sure when this video go yanked, but due to probably the same copyright infringement that got it pulled 30 years ago, it appears to be no longer available.
But, ya’ll must think I’m silly. This rumored video appears out of thin air after 30 years – after I emphatically petitioned the universe for it to be rediscovered – and you think I’d leave that shit to the whims of the Internet? Dear God no. I downloaded that fucker the first chance I got.
And since I’m not YouTube, and I’m not specifically bound to their regulations, you better believe I’m gonna host this fucker myself. Since no one actually visits this site, I don’t imagine it’ll be discovered quite so fast. I’m sure it will be, one day, and I’ll be forced to pull it down or just shut down myself. But until that day Shindiggers….enjoy!
He may just be using the whole Frankenstein motif as a metaphor for teenage alienation, but Alice Cooper crams enough monster imagery in this cut to make that mostly irrelevant.
Add to that the songs inclusion within Jason Livesand you’ve got a double-decker monster song sandwich of Shindigging proportions.
Particularly considering the scene, which is one of the more badass moments from Friday 6.
Jason has stowed away on an RV and proceeds to cause a straight up ruckus, imprinting Nikki’s face through a wall and stabbing Cort in the neck. He then allows the motor home to completely upend itself before blasting out of the top in straight Boss Voorhees fashion.
All of this of course is set to Cooper’s Teenage Frankenstein, where Cort emphatically cranks the volume on the fiddle and shouts like an idiot while his motor-Rome burns all to hell.
Here’s Alice Cooper, reinforcing his All-Star status with Teenage Frankenstein.
