We continue our international Dracula tour with this curious Monster Rocker from from 1980. And what better band to sing about Dracula than the biggest rock band in Hungary’s history, Piramis.
No joke either. These dudes were absolutely massive in Hungary. In fact, their hits are still among the most played songs on Hungarian airwaves. They’re like The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Led Zeppelin all rolled into one over there. Except, instead of whatever that might combo might sound like, they all got forged into one proggy, Sabbathy pyramid, which (as it happens) is what Piramis means in German (oddly enough.)
In fact, their very inception is a direct result of their founding bassist, Som Lajos, seeing Sabbath in the early 70’s and saying “yeah, I wanna do that.” And the influence is palpable, such as it is with most any hard rock band formed in Sabbath’s wide wake.
Formed in ‘74, Dracula comes from a bit further in their career, when the band took on some experimental influences, but it’s no less rocking. A heavy riff, some sinister synth lines and a weird ass Dracula voice becoming of a band from Bela Lugosi’s neck of the woods.
It’s a creepy monster jam that’s so perfect for The Shindig it’s insane to me that it’s taken 444 songs to get it here.
So, kick back with the biggest band ever to come outta Hungary, singing about the biggest Monster to ever come out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Our 2nd Drac-Track on the block comes from another European outfit, this time German Prog-Rock ensemble Birth Control.
Despite being the eponymous track from their 1980 album Count On Dracula, Birth Control had been crankin’ it out since 1966. Though lacking any original members by the 80’s, and disbanding briefly shortly after this release, the band had a pretty extended career that lasted into the 2020s even.
Their contribution to the Dracula canon is a pretty lean and straight forward tale. Our narrator recounts a story of meeting a beautiful vampish woman, who looks young but sounds old. She implores him to take her to the cemetery, cause I guess she needs an escort? That part seems a little unclear. Why couldn’t she just go to the cemetery on her own? I guess you’re maybe suppose to imagine she’s a creature of the night, and he’s the intended victim?
Either way, they go to the boneyard and our man asks her what’s the deal. She tells him she’s meeting the Count, whom we presume is Dracula. She says he’s gonna take her away, which eventually he does, I guess. As they leave, she says “now he’s mine” which I suppose is some kind of twist. A double twist, even, if you were imagining she was gonna vamp out on the narrator, who’s just left holding his dick in a cemetery after all this unnatural bullshit.
Like seriously, why is he even there? He seems to serve absolutely no purpose aside from being a witness to this nonsense. We don’t know this story if he isn’t there to be able to tell us the tale. I’ll be honest though, I dunno how valuable this tale really is, as a cautionary one or just pure entertainment.
But thankfully, the music propping this story up is solid. Cause man is this riff doomy as hell for a not-at-all doomy band out of Germany in the early 80’s. It’s a fuckin groove and a welcome addition to the playlist we hope you’ll all enjoy.
Drac is back indeed, as we’re gonna wind down this Halloween season with a selection of hard and heavy Drac-Tracks that have been patiently waiting in the bullpen for their moment on the mound.
You know who else is back? Nightmare. That UK shock-rock band which debuted last season on the Shindig with Boogie Bogie-Man. From the same album, 1985’s Children of the Night, comes Drac’s Back.
This one is fairly short but it packs a frantic punch that’ll set our Dracula block rolling. It’s a rare Drac-Tracker that’s from Dracula’s perspective, with Drac waxing lyrically about needing blood, looking for women to bite, warning listeners and generally being just fun Rock ‘N Roll Dracula.
I haven’t talked much about the samples lately as a lot of them have been fairly self evident, but tonight’s epic lead-in comes from an absolutely awesome in-theater gimmick that preceded Dracula A.D. 1972 called Horroritual. Only a bootlegged version of it exists on the internet these days, and you can watch that here. There’s a record that was released at the time as well, which I assume is the pure audio, and I’m definitely on the look out for that, so one day I might update this track.
The Horroritual features a narrator instructing viewers to chant together to call Dracula back from the dead. Well, this shit works and a Dracula rises from his coffin. He implores viewers to join the Count Dracula Society via recitation of The Oath, where audience members swear allegiance to The Count Dracula Society.
It might sound phony, but The Count Dracula Society was a totally real thing. It was founded in ’62 by a guy named Donald Reed for, as this membership card states “the serious study of Horror films and Gothic literature.” Nice. Wonder if this bullshit I got goin’ here could have net me an honorary membership.
The Society lasted until, well almost exactly after this movie, when it turned into The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. If you’ve ever seen a movie claim a Saturn Award on it’s video cassette, those were the guy’s handing ’em out.
Another interesting piece of trivia from The Horroritual; the vampire is played by Barry Atwater, who the very same year played another vampire in the Dan Curtis helmed and Richard Matheson penned TV movie The Night Stalker. This show, as I’m sure I needn’t tell someone reading this, jump started the hugely popular and influential television show Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
But enough about the 48 seconds before this song starts, here’s the tune. Let’s welcome back Dracula once again to The Shindig for another blood sucking block, with Nightmare’sDrac’s Back.
Since last season was so light on movie tracks, we’re gonna keep the inclusive train rolling here just a little longer, even if we step out of the Halloween cart, with a scorcher that’s been sitting in the bullpen for a while now.
Tonights inclusive jammer hails from Umberto Lenzi’s extra 80’s Nightmare Beach. This late-in-the-game slasher is literally wall-to-wall with late 80’s pop and metal, and while any number of songs could make the cut, the natural selection here is probably Don’t Take My Heart.
The tune acts as the film’s de facto theme and comes courtesy of 80’s pop-diva-in-waiting, Kristen. You know her, right? Of course you don’t, no one does. But making the argument for addition even more compelling, Kristen herself performs her other song, Say the Word, on-screen at a beachside spring break mixer. Double bonus.
That’s not The Shindig’s selection, however. Don’t get me wrong, it probably belongs here, and it’s definitely been in the bullpen too, but tonight we’re gonna keep it heavy.
Cause while Kristen’s jam may get the opening and closing credit duty, our selection appears in Nightmare Beach on 5 separate occasion and itself acts as a theme of sorts for the film’s dirtbag biker crew, The Demons.
The gang’s leader, Diablo, is given the chair right off the rip to open our story, then a mysterious biker shows up at spring break, electrocuting co-ed’s left and right. Is it some jilted incel, just lookin’ to get his rocks off any way he can? Is it some puritanical fundamentalist that hates Spring Break tits? Is it the ghost wraith of Diablo getting his revenge? Who knows? Our weekend warrior is fully suited and ready to dish out some juice.
Then we meet Trina, Diablo’s main squeeze, a girl who’s been begging to be a Shindig Radio logo for over 8 years now. Look, it’s all ready to go. We just need to feature this song on the show.
It’s when we meet her that we’re first introduced to tonight’s song, Rock Like an Animalby the band Animal.
Now, if you’re listening to this number and find yourself asking (as one YouTube commenter inquired) “how is this not W.AS.P.?” you’re on the right path. Apart from basically being a cross pollination of I Wanna Be Somebody and (unsurprisingly) Animal (Fuck Like a Beast), Animal (the band) was the side project of OG W.AS.P. guitarist Randy Piper.
W.A.S.P.-lite or not, this song rips and it’s a no-brainer addition for The Playlist.
And when I say it’s The Demon’s theme song, I mean it. Anytime they show up on screen, this song starts blasting and it’s awesome. In fact, the movie so effectively primes you with this song, that in the climatic moment, when our hero is about to get wasted by crooked cop John Saxon (yeah, cause John Saxon’s in this, of course he is) you hear Rock Like an Animal before The Demons even show up, and you’re pumped. You just hear the roar of their bikes and Randy Piper start belting it out, and you’re like “Fuckin-a right, John Saxon, you piece of shit. Here come my boys The Demons” and it’s goddamn glorious.
And anytime any song is getting this much screen time and is used so effectively, we gotta open up The Shindig and lay down the orange carpet.
Here’s Not W.A.S.P. but kinda W.A.S.P. anyway, I mean just listen to it) with Rock Like an Animal.
We’re gonna sneak another inclusive Halloween track in here, cause why not, right? And this one comes from a literal Halloween movie.
Now, the Halloween franchise isn’t known for its inclusive hits. Outside of incidental additions like (Don’t Fear) The Reaper or Mr. Sandman, Michael’s handlers never engaged in cross media synergy to promote their boogeyman.
In an era where Dokkenand The Fat Boys were teaming up with Freddy, and Alice Cooper was swinging on vines in a hockey mask, Michael should be lauded for resisting the urge to debase his name with an MTV tie-in. Would that have been cool, though? I dunno, honestly. I mean, maybe. Really depends on the song and what band provided it. And even then, I’m still not sure. Feels wrong.
Something about Michael was always a little classier (is that the word?); like something from an older, more dignified era of horror. To be fair though, by the time Freddy hit the scene and Jason jumped on the billboard bandwagon, Michael had already seemingly packed it in. And when Michael did make his return, those guys were already hitting the home stretch.
But even on his initial return, Michael didn’t succumb to temptation. Composer and Shindig hero Allan Howarth returned himself and continued the great work he’d provided since Part II. It wasn’t until the following year, for Michael’s revenge, that the producers finally waded into the waters of licensed music.
In addition to (again) Alan Howarth’s (and again great) score, 5 additional songs appear in the movie and on the soundtrack. Tonight’s track comes from previous Shindiggers White Sister, who (with songs featured in both Fright Night and Twice Dead) are seriously threatening to become Shindig All-Stars.
At least, it would appear to be from White Sister. The song is written and performed by Dennis Churchill Dries, lead singer and bassist for White Sister, under the name Churchill. At least, that’s what the album claims and discogs agrees.
However, all the YouTube videos and even IMDb credits the song to White Sister. Why the discrepancy? Well, it’s because the movie itself credits the song to White Sister. So, The Shindig is following suit. Why the soundtrack credits the song to a band called Churchill instead of White Sister I couldn’t say, but this rose by any other name still sounds like White Sister.
The song plays, albeit briefly, at the Tower Farm Halloween Party. Double bonus! That party features some weird ass costumes too. Like this guy?
What the fuck is he, some kind of Rat Man? Also this ghost with the giant mouth is a little weird too.We’ve talked about Halloween 5 before, and say what you will, I don’t hate it. There’s an argument to be made that it’s the worst addition to the franchise. At the very least, the worst installment from the 80’s.
And that mask? Woah, buddy. I know it’s from KNB and all (Or, shit. Have you seen that new Cryptkeeper? Holy fuck.) but man is it terrible. Like the movie, it ain’t the worst (for me that would be H20’smask) but if you told me that Nicholas Cage-ass looking thing was your worst, I wouldn’t fight ya.
But I have a soft spot for Loomis in this outing, cause he is absolutely unhinged. Screaming at a 9 year old girl the whole time and then using her as bait to catch a dude that basically just absorbs bullets? Sure, it paid off, but it didn’t have to, man. And hell, it might not have either. It was just a chain net. Heavy, OK, but what the fuck is some chain to a dude that just gets shot the fuck up and blown apart in gas explosions? The plan was a just a tad risky and pretty damn unethical, you ask me.
And while we’re on the subject, why are we making a little girl who was only last year the target on her deranged uncle – a man currently at large who routinely attacks his family on Halloween – attend a goddamn Halloween costume contest? Whose fuckin’ awful idea was that? Loomis again? Fuckin’ Cookie Woman over here? He’s the strategic genius? C’mon Haddonfield. Hasn’t this dude routinely showed he can’t be counted on in this scenario?
Either way, it’s not often Michael gets an inclusive track, and when your other options include fuckin‘ Creed from the complete shit show that is H20, The Shindig’s gotta keep it real with our old pals White Sister.
Here they are again, rockin’ a Halloween party no less, with Dancin’ On Midnight.
Our third “Hey this song is from a Halloween Horror movie so you’re gonna hear that shit on Halloween Shindig whether you like it or not cause buddy, there’s a skip button, don’t act like it’s 1982 and this is Dr. Demento and you gotta listen through all this junk just to hear The Monster Mash this Halloween” song hails from 1989’s horror anthology smash hit, Night Terror.
Like The Basement(only with a slightly larger budget, question mark?) Night Terrorsets one of its tales on Halloween. Thankfully though, Night Terror has the decency to serve that segment up right out of the gate in Stuck With The Drinks.
In it, mustachioed 80’s Gordon Gecko-enthusiast sales-dildo Rick is a real manosphere prototype. After trying to give his coworker Harvey some real cocksman’s advice, he turns around and spits game at the girl Harvey was trying swerv on. Dirty pool, Rick.
The smooth talker that he is, Rick gets himself invited to a primo Halloween party, featuring tons of 80’s babes and song rockin music. It’s the kind of music that sticks out like a white pumpkin if you’re a guy like me watching a thing like Night Terror. Truth be told, it became half the reason I was watching whatever the hell I was watching well over 15 years ago. If I didn’t hear a good song, or even any song, it’d feel like a wasted effort most times. So, hearing a jam is always a welcomed sound. And what better place than a Halloween party?
When that happens, I go straight to the credits (or at least IMDb depending) and hope the damn thing is credited. Supposing it is, I just hope the damn thing was released. Good news for Night Terror, as that was the case on both accounts.
The song was 1 of 2 featured in the film from a band called Ten Foot Faces. They were a rock outfit out of LA formed in the 80’s that mashed up Surf, Garage and Experimental elements into a decidedly unique sound.
Though the group had a pair of independent releases in the 80’s, the song is question, Sex Slave, came from a 7” inch released the year after the film in 1990. While it wasn’t a particular hard release to track down, it didn’t seem to exist anywhere online. As such we’ve crossed posted this one to DigTV just to increase its digital footprint.
But back to Rick. He’s wandering around the Halloween party while Sex Slave is blaring and now your Halloween party can finally feel the one from Night Terror. Oh, but you are gonna need those babes, and be totally committed to Wicker Manning some prick during a full-on All Hallows Satanic ritual.
Getting back on track, tonight’s song was a selection set to be featured in the next Halloween episode of Shindig Radio.
It comes courtesy of an obscure and short lived AOR outfit named Avalon. This, along with 3 more of their tunes, are all featured in the 1982 slasher parody Wacko from director Greydon Clark.
While not as good as its 1981 predecessor Student Bodies, I think Wacko is easily the best from a trio of slasher parodies released in 1982, including National Lampoon’s Class Reunion and Pandemonium.
Despite where you personally slot it in the roster of OG slasher parodies, one thing is for sure, it’s definitely the only entry that takes place on Halloween. It’s so Halloweeny, in fact, that it features a Halloween Pumpkin Prom and a killer with a giant Jack O’lantern head. It might even hold the record for utterances of the word “Halloween” in a single film.
OK, now that I’ve made this dumb joke, I have to actually look into it.
OK, I’m back. Thankfully, I was able to find an incredible website called subslikescript.com, that provides viewable subtitles for just about any movie you can think of wanting to search.
Even though I was kind of joking, it turns out I wasn’t far off. The word “Halloween” is uttered a total of 20 times throughout Wacko, which from my digging, is just shy of being #1. That honor goes to The Halloween Tree which contains the word “Halloween” 24 times. Nice!
Well, it’s #1, that is, if you don’t count the Silver Shamrock Theme in Halloween III. When factored, H3 has a grand total of 84 utterances of the word “Halloween.” Holy Samhain! However, if you just account for the dialogue, that number drops to just 16.
It’s a similar story for a Nightmare Before Christmas, which boast a total of 45, but just about all of them are from the opening number. Remove that tune and the count drops to a measly 6 utterances. Pssh. Pumpkin King my ass.
Right behind the Halloween Tree in 2nd place is Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, which manages to have its characters say the word 22 times.
Trick ‘r Treat, from 2006, edges out Halloween III just slightly with a total of 18 occurrences. Not a bad showing.
Hollow Gate is coming in hot at number 5 with 17 utterances. Nice job Mark, ya nut cake. But it’s also in a 3-way tie with Spirit Halloween (yikes) and Satan’s Little Helper.
More recently, Goosebumps 2 provides a shocking 16 occurrences, tying it with Halloween III for 6th place. But more than anything that begs the question of how many of these Johnny-come-lately Halloween movies do I need to be searching? I’ve been keeping it relegated to the movies we usually talk about around here, but there’s an army of dumb shit that’s come out in the last 20 years with an overtly Halloween focus. Where do they rank? Eh, I don’t know if I care.
Alright, I had to look, at least a little anyway (hence the Spiritappearance above) and after further review, maybe I should care, because V/H/S Halloween from last year is apparently the new leader at 33! I guess bump up all those all those previous rankings by 1. I suppose I could do that myself cause this hasn’t published yet, but I’m feeling pretty lazy amidst all this, admittedly unlazy, scrubbing of scripts. I ain’t rewriting all that, we’re just gonna push through.
Now this new (and potentially not even fully correct information – God, that’s gonna wreak havoc on my OCD) information pulls Hack-O-Lantern into a tie for 9th place with 14 separate utterances along with 2015’s Tales of Halloween.
Perennially favorites Halloween 4 and Trick or Treats and Night of the Demons now all tie for 10th position, with appropriately, 10 instances each.
And just to be thorough, how do the OGs themselves stack up? Well, John Carpenter’s original only mentions the word 7 times, as does its sequel. For shame!
So, what have we learned here from this foolish exercise?
Well, for one, thatWacko is definitely not the champ, despite my joke. It puts in a good goddam showing though, and it was not a bad random guess on my part. I really does sound like everyone keeps saying “Halloween.”
And two, we learned that’s there is a load of other movies that I didn’t even search which could prove to be the top dog around town, but I have to put and end to all this and get back to something real. Well, something more real than counting stupid mentions of the word “Halloween” in movies. Yeesh.
With that moronic tangent out of the way, where the hell were we? Oh yeah, Wacko.
So, Wacko’spretty fun and it has a stacked cast, including genre staple and star ofArnold, Stella Steven’s.
We also getNaked Gun’s Ed Hocken and Hector Savage, an ex-boxer named Joey Chicago who fought under the name Kid Minneapolis.
Russ Meyer regular Charles Napier shows up too, along with the guy who played Weather Wizard in Legends of The Superheroes, and the guy who played Zanti in Critters. Weird. And that’s not to mention a very young E.G. Daily, and an even younger, so much so that he didn’t have the “dice” yet, Andrew Clay.
And, then there’s this band, Avalon, who are actually playing on screen during the Halloween Pumpkin Prom, which is pretty awesome. Though they can be heard performing all 4 of their contributions, it’s Messin With My Baby that is featured most prominently. As such, it’s probably the song I should have selected for the playlist, but out the 4 tunes, I like Blackmailthe most. Incidentally, it’s the one featured the least, but it does make an appearance again during the credits.
Ultimately, I think there’s some fun to be had with Wacko,despite it’s reputation. It’s humor, while more successful than that of Pandemonium (in my opinion anyway) suffers a lot from the same dated comedic style and shifting audience tastes. With its seemingly unending slew of incestuous and inappropriate jokes concerning high schooled aged girls, I’m not sure how palatable it remains to a modern audience.
The same might be said of this song, which, now definitely 44 years old, may also not be palatable to a modern audience. But hey, if I worried about that, this playlist might only be like 23 songs deep. So, here’s Avalon’s Halloween Pumpkin Prom hitter, Blackmail, cause this is Halloween Shindig goddamn, and unpalatable is what we’re all about.
Speaking of Halloween, we’re gonna wrap up the 430s with a short block of songs that were supposed to be additions from Shindig Radio Ep. 26 It’s In The Movie: Halloween Edition.
But since that episode hasn’t happened yet as planned, those songs will get a chance to debut on the playlist, as God intended. When that episode manifests is anyone’s guess, so let’s just do the honorable thing.
Ironically, it was last night’s song that was to be featured on that episode, which I can’t say for this song, because we already featured it back in Ep. 21, the What the Fuck? Edition of It’s in the Movie. Because if there was ever a “what the fuck is this song doing on a Halloween playlist, let alone a Halloween movie” it’s Help is On the Wayfrom 1982’s Trick or Treats.
Now, I’ve expressed my love/hate/but ultimately love relationship with that Halloween (but not exactly) knock-off in the past, so I won’t necessarily reiterate those sentiments here. I’ll just say it’s got plenty of holiday atmosphere, is definitely worth a seasonal viewing and you can do that right here on TeleWeen.
As for its tonally incongruous closing number, it’s also worthy of inclusion, at least as far I’m concerned anyway.
This one comes courtesy of the band, well not exactly a real band with singles and albums and such, but the band Horizon. I’m not even sure how much of a “band” it is in the classical sense. They seem to be the pseudonym used by composer and editor Tom Barger when doing soundtrack work, specifically for Gary Graver, the director of Trick or Treats.
Gary Graver was mostly a cinematographer, famously working for years with Orson Welles on The Other Side of the Wind. He also shot Satan’s Sadists, Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Toolbox Murders and Spirits, to name a few. But he didn’t direct too many of his own pictures, that is unless you count pornography, of which he directed a few several dozen under the Name Robert McCallum.
And that’s where we can also find other Horizon songs. Gary’s 1983 film Private Moments features several tunes from the group and they are credited with providing the score for Gary’s Private Teacher. And they’re (or perhaps just he is) no slouch either, because Horizon can boast the Adult Film Association of America’s top honor, which they won in 1984 for their score to Gary Graver’s Susie Superstar. Solid.
Now, does that mean you should end your Halloween-themed slasher with this breezy, carefree, easy-listener? Absolutely not.
But does that mean we should add it to the Shindig? Abso-fuckin-lutely.
I make the joke in Ep. 21 that maybe playing the least scary and least exciting song is the most logical way to end one of the least scary and least exciting Halloween films of all time. So, maybe Horizon’sHelp Is On The Way is the most appropriate Halloween Sweet Song possible.
It’s definitely a most appropriate addition to Halloween Shindig, cause what would this playlist be without a couple of real signifying head scratchers to keep the uninitiated guessing?
So, here to change up the pace, maybe run off the majority of your party goers, and make your Halloween as surreptitiously festive as possible, it’s Horizon’sHelp Is On The Way.
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).
Our next monster rap also comes from 1989 and it is the work of Cuban MC Mellow Man Ace. It’s a humdinger of a shindigger called Hip-Hop Creature, and it’s a little different from our average Monster Rap.
You might find this one to be much more of a referential Monster Rap than the usual Monster Rally style, Monster Mash-but-rap kinds of Monster Raps featured on Halloween Shindig. Here, Ace is basically telling us what a badass MC he is, and using all these horror references to illustrate just that, not unlike Vanilla Ice’s Born on Halloween. However, this is a much better song, with much better rapping, better lyrics, better references and it’s not, ya know, Vanilla Ice.
Now, Mellow Man Ace was also known a Willie Malo, and Willie Malo has been featured on a number of the solo albums from Cypress Hill frontman B Real. And that’s because Mellow Man Ace is actually Sergio Reyes, the younger brother of Senen Reyes, aka Sen Dog.
He was even a cofounder DVX, or Devastating Vocal Xellence, with B Real, Sen Dog and DJ Muggs. However, Willie decided to embark on solo career as Mellow Man Ace, and the rest of the gang renamed themselves after a street in South Gate called Cypress Hill. So it goes.
Now, Cypress Hill may have ultimately enjoyed more notoriety than Willie, but they ain’t on The Shindig. And that’s because they never laid down a referential monster torrent close to what Willie serves up here. It’s not overstuffed, I’ll give you that, but it does feature notable references you don’t see much in Monster Raps. Niche pulls like Vincent Price, Abbot and Costello and Poltergeist all get a shout next to Dracula and the Mummy.
Combine all that with bed of Cuban bongos and Geddy Lee’s OB-X sweep from Tom Sawyer, perhaps the most famous synth-bass note known to man, and you’ve got some Monster Rap gold tailor made for The Shindig.
So, let’s take a few moments to hangout with Mellow Man Ace, the self-confirmed Hip-Hop Creature.
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.
Speaking of parties with no Monster Rap, we’re gonna switch gears here a bit and lay out a block of Monster Rap for ya, so you don’t have to be one of the wipes having that kinda party. Also, it was the last episode of Shindig Radio and we gotta get to adding some more of those gems to the list.
And the first 2 songs of this run were a bit hard to come by, cause just title scrubbing “Dracula” “Halloween” “Trick or Treat” (or any of the dozen or so keywords I have literally scrolled through thousands of pages online scouring for songs) was never gonna return “The House That Rocked.”
So, I gotta take a second here to thank Shindig fan Ryan Kellner, whom apparently I had been swiping tunes from for some years now. Clif and Marty, Lee Lillyand the wonderful Bill Ervin were all tracks I unwittingly picked up from Ryan’s YouTube page over the years.
Cause Ryan’s a DJ and he has spent just about as long as I have spent making this website making his own killer Halloween Mixes, each year featuring a new and fun theme. He’s even posted several of the more hard to come by tracks on that same YouTube page, which is where I found them.
A couple of seasons back he got in touch and was kind enough to shoot me over those mixes and wouldn’t you know, one year was all Monster Raps!
For the most part he had all the big hitters. He even had a bunch of the more obscure tracks represented like Triple Scoop’sHe’s Back. But he had two curious tunes specifically. Two curious and incredibly referential Monster Raps I was not familiar with at all. The Shindig needed them, post haste.
Well, post haste apparently equates to several years later, but we’re here now and that’s all that matters. One of those songs is tomorrow’s addition, but the first one was this awesome tune by Grandmaster Flash, from the insanely Monster Rap filled year of 1987.
You know Grandmaster Flash, right? Well, you should, particularly if you like any music made in the last 40 years that incorporates any kind of turntable.
First and foremost, he’s the Grandmaster Flash of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the first ever Rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Ya know, Freedom, The Message, all of that. It‘s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I kept from goin under. Grandmaster Flash.
Flash also pioneered the art of Backspin or Quick Mix Theory. See Flash figured out how to mathematically identify the drum breaks on the records per rotation, and then he would mark them off visually with a crayon or tape. He then figured, if he just had 2 identical records, he could mathematically time out the drum breaks and manually cue up one deck on the fly while the other was still playing and then hit the cross fader to manually loop the drum break indefinitely. Yeah that trick. Basically the cornerstone of DJing. That was him. And to facilitate that move, Flash invented the first ever slipmat. So there’s that. Dude’s a legend.
And any day we can add an actual legend to The Shindig is a great day. Chuck Berry, Louie Armstrong, Little Anthony; guys not normally associated with this kinda thing just popping off with legitimate monster music is great.
And for Grandmaster Flash, that very legitimate contribution is the hugely monsterous Monster Rap House That Rocked.
A spiritual successor to Whodini’s Haunted House of Rock, Flash’s crew peel off bars about the usual suspects; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Igor etc. That’s pretty much the run of it, by that’s more than enough. The wildest they get it is by shouting Lurch out, which is just a little pumpkin boy on top.
What sets the tune apart is the technical prowess in front of and behind the mic. The cadence and flow on display from all the MCs is much more reminiscent of the rap that would follow than the rap preceded it. The song is from 1987, but sounds more 1992 than 1982, which for Monster Raps is a big move forward.
Additionally, the beat that Flash cooks up for this monster mash is definitely a cut above. And you know we love it, cause he fashions it all out of the Mysterioso Pizzicato. My man.
If you’re at all a fan of the dual arts of DJing and Rapping, it’s hard to deny this epic Monster Rap. While I wish it had made it onto the playlist years ago, I’m glad that we can still find Monster Songs, particularly Monster Raps, of this caliber.
Let’s welcome the legend Grandmaster Flash, as he join other legends like Run DMC, Doug E. Fresh, The Fat Boys and of course, Whodini, to Halloween Shindig
As I mentioned earlier this year (or rather in 2023 when I wrote this cause it was originally slated to appear 2 years ago!), I’ve had to dig around just a little deeper to find songs lately. And sometimes those songs just aren’t readily available.
Halloween by Abstractions is just that sort of tune. No one had this streaming. No one had it uploaded to YouTube. This was a pay to play deal for The Shindig and we were glad to shell out and be able to provide this digital version to the Halloween music loving world.
Anyway, seems about a month before we posted our version to the tube, someone beat us to the punch. Wish that dude beat me to the punch when I was trying to buy this album, but hey, it’s not like it was expensive, and the album’s not a wash or anything. I guess buying an album, ripping the audio, taking nice shots of the sleeve and cutting a YouTube video is a sure fire way to make it miraculously appear on YouTube right before I post it. This sentence was in reference to The Night of the Monster’s Party from that year, the post I’m referring to above. Then, I originally had a line here about EJ Rock’s Freaky Halloween which is (thankfully!) completely irrelevant now. That was a beautiful surprise development of the 2024 season.
Either way, Halloweenby Abstractions is there now, and now it’s here too, closing out our 2025 season and our week of Hallo-Women. The lead singer of Abstractions was Joyce Martin, who co-wrote the lyrics with Rex Martin, who also wrote the music. Are they married? Are they brother and sister? Who knows? We can only speculate. I’d like to think they’re lovers. At least, I’d like to think that only if they aren’t actually related. If they are related, I’d like to think they are definitely not lovers, cause ya know, why would I like to think they were if they were? I wouldn’t like that at all. I’ll move on.
According to Discogs, Abstractionswas from Indianapolis Indiana, which is totally corroborated by the liner notes. These also contain lyrics, which is pretty cool for an LP like this. We scanned them and ran them over our YouTube Video.
It’s a moody sort of ABBA-esque and atmospheric song of loss and self discovery, all set to the Season of the Witch. Sure, it ain’t Bill Ervin’sHalloween, but not everything can or should be, right? Songs of loss and longing fit perfectly with the season. They needn’t all be trick or treating and ghosts, right? At least not literal ghosts.
So, we’re gonna leave you now for the season with this mellow rumination and wish you all a very Happy Halloween. Thanks for stopping by again this October. We’ve got some episodes of Shindig Radio in the can already that should be slowly trickling out next year and hopefully we can record a true blue Halloween episode for you to enjoy next season.
Song Poems: that wonderful intersection of predatory con artists, studio musicians just trying to make a living and average Americans with a pen in their hand and a song in their heart. The things born of this unlikely junction are works of wholly unique art that, stripped of even just one of their 3 components, would cease to be the kind of special that they are.
If you’re unfamiliar, Song-Poems were a strange sort of scam with roots that can be traced back to almost the very beginning of recorded music itself.
Unscrupulous “producers” would put ads in the backs of pulpy publications looking for the next big thing with the promise of fame and unfathomable royalties. Could that be you?
They’d solicit “Song-Poems,” a sort of a condescending shorthand for “lyrics” that they figured the unwashed masses could understand. You’d send them your “song-poem” for “evaluation” (which it would invariably pass) and then the onslaught of salesmanship would pour in. Which, of course, was followed by entreaties for money.
See, they’d have their army of highly skilled professionals record your song, and then put the weight of their aggressive marketing department behind you to make it a hit! Cause your song was just that good. All you had to do was fork over some money, which would be nothing compared to the amount of money you’d make once your song hit the top!
Only there was no top, because there was no marketing. There was just some studio, filled with working class musicians cranking out maybe 12 of these things a day as fast they could. Then they’d slap those puppies on wax and shoot ‘em your way. Now you got a song. Thanks! Onto the next mark.
It was a weird scam, because these companies actually made good with the records, which seems like it would involve far more effort than it was worth. But I guess not, because there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of these things floating around, and lord knows how many that are still undiscovered. For collectors of the bizarre, they’re like a dream come true.
And it is from this unlikely Venn Diagram of greedy but thrifty producers, talented yet rushed musicians and inexperienced and possibly batshit songwriters that these wholly unique, outsider-esque but semi-polished and sometimes tonally discrepant head-scratchers were born. And thank the maker.
As you might imagine, there’s a metric stocking’s worth of Christmas Song-Poems. There’s even a whole compilation of them that’s easily heard called Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? Hell, some of those tunes even appear on our That’s One Weird Ass Christmasplaylist.
However, as you might also imagine, the world isn’t exactly inundated with Halloween Song-Poems. In fact, there’s only 2 that I’m aware of, thus far anyway.
You’ve got the virtually non-existent Halloween by Cinema Records’ in-house band The Real Pros. This one seems so rare that the only mention of it I can even find is the discogs page which states it’s from 1979. It has never sold, no one owns it, and apparently only 1 person other than me even wants the damn thing. And that person better be prepared for a serious fight if one finally does appear for sale.
The other song seems equally rare, but a year ago, some kind soul whom has done the world a great service, posted it to YouTube. And that song is tonight’s inclusion, Charles E. Warren’s The Halloween Queen as sung by Buddy Mix.
Now, a lot of Song-Poem enthusiasts don’t seem to have the same amount of love for the Song-Poems of the late 70’s and 80’s. I’m not sure why though, because I love ’em. Some of my favorites are from this era; AIDS Is Out, Spock and Lucifer are all fantastic. There’s something about the lifeless drum machines, synth heavy arrangements and 80’s stylings that suits the slapdash nature of these weird songs so well.
Rainbow Records seem to be the leading purveyors of such song-poems, cranking out as many as 24 Hollywood Gold albums, each boasting roughly 16 songs a piece. Now that’s somewhere in the vicinity of 400 songs, from just one label, during just the 1980’s. At least I think it’s the 80’s. Sounds like it would have to be, but those damn records ain’t got no dates on ‘em. Go fig.
Buddy Mixhere is featured on most of the early installments. All the Hollywood Gold albums have the same art and are differentiated by a strange 3 digit number code. This one’s HG-504. It seems like they started at 500, but 500 and 501 appear to be unaccounted for on the American Song Poems Music Archives. I have HG-548, which is also not present on the archive, but that page hasn’t been updated in over 10 years, so I’m not sure how definitive that discography is any longer.
Between the different records he appears on, Buddy’s got roughly 30 of these things under his belt, and that’s not too shabby.
Here, he lends his vocal stylings to a song about a stripper from San Francisco. At least I think it’s a stripper, anyway. One can never be too sure, and there’s room for interpretation here, I think. What the hell that has to do with Halloween exactly, I couldn’t rightly say, but man do I think I love it more for that fact.
I suppose you could suggest her role as a stripper (or even perhaps as a woman) is a disguise – her costume if you will – and doing that every night to earn a living could very well make her a Queen of Halloweening. Then again, there’s maybe a more compelling argument that The Halloween Queen is in drag, or even trans perhaps, adding an extra and fairly compelling layer of complexity to the whole affair. Maybe I’m reading too much into Charles E. Warren’s writing. Maybe I’m offending him. If so, I apologize. Whatever’s going on, it’s turning his flame up higher than he’s ever seen.
Seriously though, I have written far too many words now for what amounts to a weird song written by some guy who thought maybe it might be a hit cause some fast talking producer convinced him it could be. Or who knows, maybe he just wanted to hear it recorded and had an extra couple hundred bucks laying around. Either way, we win with Charles E. Warren’s The Halloween Queen.
So, thank you Chuck, Buddy, all the session musicians over at Rainbow and whichever producer decided this one…ya know…“made the cut.” Without y’all we wouldn’t be able to count a Song-Poem amongst the ranks of Halloween Shindig, and what sort of an wannabe all-inclusive musical compendium would that make it?
Our next 3 songs of the season are roughly the same kind of song told in 3 distinct musical styles.
Now, they are for sure different songs, thematically, but they each speak on a kind of festive royalty; a Halloween Queen.
One is pretty much just “you’re far out and spooky and man that really turns my gears.” The second is essentially “Sheskinda repulsive and badass and that’s awesome.” And the 3rd? I dunno really. I guess it’s a different flavor of the first one. But we’ll cross that (very wordy) bridge when we get to it.
For now, let’s kick this off right. First up for us, stylistically, is Heavy Metal. Thematically, it’s of the “I’m ugly and awesome and fuck you” variety and this song is definitely all 3.
From Belgium speed metal pioneer’s Acid comes Halloween Queen, which can be found on the band’s 3rd and final studio release, 1985’s Engine Beast.
Acid formed in 1980 as Precious Page but quickly changed their name to Acid and released their first single in 1982. Soon they were releasing full LPs and shredding across Europe with the likes of Sabbath, Venom and Motörhead. Non-heinous!
Not only were they pioneers in the speed/thrash scene, they were one of the first metal bands to be fronted by a female singer. Her name was Kate De Lombaert and she’s a total badass, a Halloween Queen even (though she is singing in 3rd person here) so maybe this is not exactly autobiographical.
Here she is rocking a Dracula cape and lookin mighty dangerous. Definitely non non-non non-non-heinous.
What better way to wrap up of week of Hallo-Women than with a run of Halloween Queens? And what better Queen to lead the charge, than a Halloween Queen herself?
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)
Exactly 50 songs ago, when another Disco Block was coming to an end, I lamented that there weren’t any true-blue Halloween Disco songs.
But I did name drop a band called Number One Ensemble and alluded to them getting their day on the playlist. Well, we’re at the end of another Disco Block and that day is today.
Number One Ensemble was an Italy Disco/Italo-Disco band from the late 70’s and early 80’s. And it’s true, they have a decidedly Disco-enough sound to be considered as such. Unfortunately, their ode to the holiday, simply titled Halloween, does not seem to have that same disco sound. It’s plays more like a standard sort of early 80’s rock song, honestly, not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just maybe not what you wanna end a Disco Block with. But, as mentioned, this is pretty much it for Halloween specific “disco” songs, from what I can tell anyway. I’d love to be treated one day to an awesome, previously unaware to me Disco Halloween banger.
But that’s ok though, this song doesn’t really need to be an out and out Disco tune for our purposes here, and besides, I like this song! It’s been available our our YouTube page for a few years now and it’s been hanging out in the bullpen for what seems like forever, so here it comes.
Plus, it’s a good way to kick off the next Block’s theme, which is Hallo-Women! We’ve got an 11 track run coming at ya of songs either performed by women (8) or specifically about spooky women (the other 3.)
I’m pretty pumped for this upcoming block, as it contains my favorite addition of the season, 2 awesome title tracks, 1 Halloween mistress we haven’t heard from in years, several long suffering benchwarmers and the first Song-Poem to hit The Shindig!
I’m running a little behind schedule this season, but we’re gonna try to slam all of these in before the big day. So let’s drop the needle of Number One Ensemble and get this thing going, cause we got 7 days to clear 11 songs before Halloween!
Sometimes there’s just some bands that somehow fly just under the radar. Bands that almost seem to actively evade me. Bands that absolutely defy the odds that, given the stuff I’m searching for and the amount of time I spend searching for it, I’m guaranteed to find them.
Nightmare is just such a band.
Nightmare is so just such a band that they’re already Shindig All-Stars. It’ll take at least 3 seasons to get em in there, but they’ll join up soon enough, it’s already a done deal.
When I stumbled upon them last year it was like one of those weird explosive epiphanies where it almost feels like they’re being willed into existence at that very moment. How had I not come across them yet? How had no one sent them to me before? How were they not a more widely popular band?
At their core Nightmare was a shock-rock group from the UK that had wild onstage illusions in the vein of Alice Cooper, W.A.S.P. or GWAR. Their show was a show, and not just any show, but the Shock Show! They employed fire eating, sexy witches, hangings, impalement, an electric chair, burning coffins and beheadings with a big ass guillotine. Fun stuff.
Their music is a weird blend of goth, new wave, rock and novelty song. They’re like something that stepped out of an unofficial but scarier Rocky Horror sequel. And anytime horror meets rock, The Shindig should be there, tipping the hat.
Nightmare was the passion project of singer, bassist and testicle arsonist Ron Dickson, who started out in the late 60’s with the glam/psych outfit Light Fantastic. Their wild and unpredictable stage performances quickly gained them a following in the UK and no doubt set a blueprint for the onstage antics of Nightmare to come.
After about a 10 year run, Ron says himself in this detailed history of Light Fantastic, the band separated and that’s when he formed Nightmare. Their Facebook page is a wonderful repository for old newspaper clippings and videos of Nightmare in the glory days. Like this photo, used to produce the Great Balls of Fire EP sleeve.
In addition to touring extensively and firing off several EPs throughout the early 80’s, they released only one, but one glorious LP in 1985 entitled Children of the Night. The album itself claims it’s more of an approximation of the band’s work on stage. An afterthought almost. A souvenir, if you will, of that time you spent seeing the crazy Nightmare Shock Show. This entire album is a festive treat that I highly recommend spinning this and every Halloween.
While there are probably at least 7 different songs on here we could pump directly into the playlist straight away, it is Track #4 which is fashioning Nightmare’s debut on The Shindig.
While not technically a Haunted Disco, Boogie Bogie Man definitely concerns a haunted theater, a ghostly band and one hell of a lead riff. If this graveyard stomper doesn’t get you moving, you just might not be dead yet.
What’s interesting is that this song is a reworking of sorts (or a cover, if it do ya) of the Light Fantastic song titled Boogi Woogi Bogiman. The two tracks are strikingly similar, if not basically identical. I admit to liking the Nightmare version more, though I’m probably biased, as it’s the version I heard first. I do think it rocks a little harder and is a bit more sinister. That chipmunk voice in the Light Fantastic version kinda kills it for me. That album cover though, holy smokes, that’s a fun sleeve. Again, not quite as sinister as Nightmare, but definitely weird and hedging in the Nightmare direction.
So, let’s welcome a band that should have been here since jump. A band I shouldn’t even be talking about 13 years into this business because all of their songs should have already been added by now. Let’s welcome the children of the night! Let us welcome, Nightmare!
For a Halloween playlist that basically didn’t feature a Phantom of the Opera song from like 13 years, dropping 2 in one season might seem a little over the top.
But as I was putting together that block of Classic Monster tracks to close out the 300s, this was my original song for the Phantom slot. But, as you’ll hear, it ain’t really much of a Phantom of the Opera song at all.
Sure, it’s called that. And they definitely say it, but I’m not really 100% on what this song is really all about. Turns out though, they say “haunted disco” a whole shitload. And, since I was also lining up a Monster Disco Block, it seemed like a perfect fit.
So, who says “haunted disco?” Why it’s Marzio, who I’d say is like an Italian Dio, but, ya know.
But like Dio, Marzio is the name under which Marzio Vincenzi released his sole LP Smoke on the Volcano. In addition to tonight’s tune, this album also features his disco take on the Deep Purple classic, hence the title, I guess anyway. Here’s a picture of him looking not at all like the guy you imagine is singing this weird disco horror song.
Prior to this solo venture, Vincenzi lent his vocal talents to a disco team-up of Italian musician Mauro Malavasi and sketchy business man Jacques Fred Petrus called Macho.
Macho’s big number was a 1978 cover of Chicago’s cover of The Spencer Davis Group hit (written by Steven Winwood) I’m A Man. This 17 minute exercise in keeping coked-up boomers on the dance floor for as long as possible is impressive in its ambition. It’s a jam too, but 17 minutes of anything is asking a bit much, even for notoriously long disco songs.
Thankfully, tonight’s tune is only asking about 6 minutes of our time, which should be just enough to throw down a few moves on the floor and head back to the bathroom for bumps.
Holding up the back end our Monster Disco block, here’s Marzio with Phantom of the Opera!
