creepshow – Halloween Shindig

TRACK #403:

Don’t Let Go by Unit Eight

Every season there’s a song (well probably a number of songs really) but always at least one specific song, that finally gets it moment to shine.

A song that has been in the bullpen for years, waiting patiently for its moment. A song I have desperately wanted to squeeze in for years. A song for which getting on the playlist was never a question. A song that was always destined to show up, just a matter of when.

I think of such long suffering additions like last years Freaky Halloween from EJ Rock, or Solcyst’s Haha! I Need Your Blood from 2023, or hell, the entire 2 season spanning run from track 100 to 130. That’s a meaty part of the playlist right there.

And for 2025, that song is definitely tonight’s addition, Don’t Let Go from Unit Eight. I can’t tell you how long this one has been in the bullpen. A while, like over 10 years, if not since the beginning of the bullpen altogether.

Now, I’m not sure why I’ve left it out of our last 2 disco blocks (yeah sorry, Cerrone was the opening salvo of our Biennial Disco Block) but I’m glad I still have something this damn undeniable after 400 tracks.

And is this one ever undeniable. If you know, I definitely don’t need to convince you, but to those out there that don’t recognize this title (and aren’t immediately jogged by the album art above) this is the kind of song that makes Halloween Shindig the kinda playlist it is.

From 1982 horror opus Creepshow comes the song a young Ed Harris absolutely cuts a rug to during the Father’s Day segment. If you’re as big a Creepshow fan as me (and the many others reading) that’s all there is to say. Tonal incongruous and questionable inclusions that seem wildly out of place if you don’t understand their origin is what Halloween Shindig is all about. Plus, the song absolutely slaps. Unless you don’t like Disco, which I can understand.

Unit Eight was a band out of the UK, and this song can be found on their 1978 album Discos Like This, which features a full line up of fine disco cuts. How this one found its way in George Romero and Stephen King’s epic team-up I simply couldn’t say. But man I’m glad it did, as it gives us another example of actors (maybe even future stars) doing ridiculous dances in Horror movies. Crispin Glover in Friday 4, or Jim Carey in Once Bitten, or Tiffany Helm in Friday 5, and now, we present Ed Harris in Creepshow…

Now, that is some Disco dancing. Again, I know not everyone reading likes this kinda thing. I get it. But personally, and at the risk of losing all semblance of musical credibility, I enjoy the hell out of Discp. Or at least Disco about monsters and ghosts and shit. And boy we got a whole acrylic plaform’s worth of disco fish in the tank. So we’re gonna blast you with another hardcore block of coked-out, fever inducing disco demons to haunt your dance floor.

And to set it all on fire is Unit Eight…

Where’s my cake!?

TRACK #232:

The Creepshow Welcomes You by John Harrison

As I’m sure anyone reading this is probably well aware, the steaming horror platform Shudder has been airing new episodes of Greg Nicotero’s Creepshow revival.

And while the response seems to be pretty positive, with some even claiming the show “nails” the vibe and spirit of Creepshow, I would respectfully like to disagree. That show isn’t nailing anything for me except the coffin lid on the belief that “sometimes…dead is better.”

That isn’t to suggest it’s not worth watching. It’s a new, and weekly, horror anthology from Greg Nicotero and a pile of other guys directly involved with the original Creepshow. That’s definitely a commendable and worthwhile effort.

But Creepshow, it is not.

I do appear to be in the minority on this one though, so maybe I’m just an old, purest curmudgeon.

Whatever your impression of the show may be, I’d like to hope we can all agree that an area where it’s coming up disappointingly short, is its score.

I mean no disrespect to the team of composers creating music for these new installments, because they’ve produced some interesting and creepy arrangements that definitely sound good. They just don’t sound like Creepshow.

Because Creepshow has a very specific sound. And that sound is the sound of the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5.

Created by Dave Smith and released in 1978, The Prophet 5 was the first completely programmable polyphonic (5 individual and articulated notes simultaneously) that featured a microprocessor for scanning knob positions, allowing for the storing and recalling of sounds; a technological revolution for the fledgling Synthesizer.

And composer John Harrison made extensive use of those novel and stock Prophet 5 presets.

So much so that the Creepshow score practically plays like a demo track for this breakthrough instrument.

The American made Prophet 5 then became indelibly stabbed into the heart of American Horror.

The bulk of Carpenter’s scores with Alan Howarth, from Escape from New York to Halloween 3 to Christine, all feature prominent use of the board, albeit with Alan’s own programming.

Tim Krog’s score for The Boogeyman, Wakeman’s for The Burning, Brad Fidel’s for The Terminator, Jay Chattaway’s for Maniac, and probably a dozens of others, are all smeared Sequential’s sonic signature. It’s the sound of horror

The Prophet 5 and its big brother the Prophet 10 (essentially just 2 Prophet 5’s strapped together in the same enclosure) became as ubiquitous as the MiniMoog, but with a sound all its own.

It saddens me that these new composers have yet to muster much what John Harrison accomplished with just a Steinway Piano and a Prophet 5; pure 80’s synthy horror. Creepshow.

But maybe they’re not trying to. And maybe that’s the problem. Or at least my problem with it. I think they’re fine horror scores. But, to me, if you’re trying to capture the spirit of Creepshow, at least a third of that vibe lies in the score, and if you’re not trying to capture that, you’re fighting a losing battling.

And it wouldn’t be hard to do. Vintage Prophet 5’s may be expensive, but nothing outside the realm of this production or any professional composers. Hell, you could easily just rent one in here in Los Angeles, if that was a concern.

But even then, assuming you couldn’t get your hands on an original Prophet 5, modern equivalents like the Prophet 6, or a Prophet REV2 or the older but still attainable Prophet 600, would all get you right in that ballpark. A Polysix, a Trident, hell, a 300 dollar Kawai K3, could all to get ya some Creepshowy sounding stuff.

Or shit, even if you just used a laptop. There are several software recreations of the Prophet 5 (including Uhe’s excellent Repro5) which would get you so close to the mark, you’d be Creepshowing out in no time.

Seriously, with just a few clicks: Preset 2-1: Unison Glide with Resonance or any recreation of that and you’re all over Richard Watches Them Drown from Something To Tide You Over. It’s seriously that easy. No programing necessary. It’s a fuckin preset. They practically all were. The thing just sounds like Creepshow straight from the factory. It’s nuts.

So, I’m a rambling nerd right now, and I get that, but I don’t get why this show sounds the way it does. Particularly considering John Harrison – the man himself! – is involved. He’s right there, on set, directing some of these stories.

That is, unless they’re consciously tying to make it sound different. So, I have to conclude that this is the case. And it boggles my mind why you wouldn’t want it to sound like that. It’s so iconic, so 80’s, so exactly the thing they’re trying to evoke.

Now, with all that being vented, if you’re finding yourself a little disillusioned by the new music as well, let John Harrison and The Creepshow Welcome You.