Well, it was only a matter of time before all these Drac-Tracks started to stack and needed a coffin to call their own.
So, for all The Count’s solo outings (and for all those still yet to come) here’s a mini-playlist for all ya’ll Fang-atics to enjoy!
Sink your teeth into the (admittedly, mostly disco, and mostly already blocked out) goodness that is Dracula on wax, without any of those annoying songs about Freddy Krueger or Trick or Tricking to harsh the buzz.
Not since the Shock! Theater revival of the late 50’s and early 60’s had so many non-acts decided it was a groovy idea to start singing about Frankenstein and Dracula. Especially Dracula, yeesh.
And why? Is there something I’m not understanding about Monster Music? Did this shit sell? Were they making a killing tapping into this market? Who knows. Someone was making something beyond these folks just making these records, or else no one would been having them make ’em, right?
But it’s not like this is Christmas music, where you’re almost guaranteed a boot-load of sales, and for years to come, so long as your record isn’t a complete pile of shit. No, this is Monster music. You’re already dealing with a pretty lean fan base to begin with and without that wholesome, doesn’t-it-just-make-ya-feel-good-by-the-fire vibe, what’s the angle? Your Grandma ain’t listening to fuckin Disco Blood, ya know? Well, I mean, unless she is, and that’s awesome. Doubt that’s most of our Grandmas, though.
Was there a large market for this shit in the late 70’s that I’m just not understanding? Pretty much all of these pre-date Thriller as well, so I’m just confused. Why were so many artists leaning into this?
I couldn’t tell ya, but boy am I glad they did. Above you will find the finest in Monster Disco The Shindig has to offer, including a couple of Monster Disco Ball exclusives!
So blast a rail or 2 off a mirrored ball, throw on a Don Post Mask and Boogyman down!
TRACK #357:
Ooh Dracula by Empire
So here’s a weird Disco Dracula with a confusing release history.
I originally came across this song as simply Dracula, sung by Linda Susan Bauer. I loved it and shoved it in the bullpen, as is custom.
Later, while digging around for other monster disco madness, I ran across the suggestion of the song Ooh Dracula, as performed by Hysteric. I listened to that, but it wasn’t really much of anything except a remix, yet it sounded a little different from Linda’s song.
What was it a remix of then?
Well, apparently the song Ooh Dracula by the German Disco group Empire.
So, I double checked around on Linda Susan Bauer and found out she was one of the singers for Empire, and that her version was itself a reworking of that version. Ok then.
Problem is, the band Empire isn’t really a band at all. They’re basically just this other band called Methusalem. Wait, what?
Ok, so bear with me with on this, cause the information is a little spotty. From what I can garner, Methusalem was a project of a producer named Jack White. Not that guy with the white pants, but this guy.
See, he was German. He also used to be a professional soccer player. But more importantly, he produced David Hasselhoff’s albums, including his Berlin Wall-leveling hit, Looking for Freedom.
More famously (I would assume), he was the man responsible for producing Laura Branigan, including her very actual hits Self Control, How Am I Suppose to Live Without You? and her insanely popular version of Umberto Tozzi’s Gloria. In fact, he also produced her hit The Lucky One, which appears in 1986’s Killer Party, is sitting in the bullpen and waiting it’s debut on The Shindig.
I think even more importantly though, Jack White is the man that produced the soundtrack to the 1984 Sci-Fi Musical Pia Zadora vehicle Voyage of the Rock Aliens. Choice.
However, before all of that success, Jack had been releasing disco singles to limited acclaim in the late 70’s. Methusalem’s lone album, Journey Into the Unknown, was released in 1980, also to limited acclaim.
So, Jack just continued producing disco singles, including one with Linda Susan Bauer entitled Shot Down under the moniker Empire.
When that single performed well, Jack figured he’d try and give Methusalm a new set of legs. So in 1981, he took Journey Into the Unknown, added Shot Down and another a new song he’d also produced with Linda entitled Ooh Dracula and released it as Empire’s lone LP, The First Album. Incidentally, that was also their last album as neither Empire nor Methusalem released anything after.
Some later, bootleggy repressings of Journey Into the Unknown feature the additional 2 songs, but from what I can tell, those are mostly erroneous. Even some places online will attribute this song to Methusalem, which is just as well I suppose. But as far as I can tell, nothing official by the Methusalem moniker was ever released containing Ooh Dracula. This appears to be “Empire” song, whatever that really means.
Linda herself released the song as just Dracula in 1982, and that’s the one I was familiar with. It’s not terribly different, from what I can tell. Maybe a little less synthy. Hard to say, really. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was the same track.
So what is Empire then? Well, basically Shot Down and Ooh Dracula, that’s what Empire is, featuring vocals by Linda Susan Bauer.
Methusalem is the rest of that album, with vocals from English singer Vicky Brown.
Now that that’s cleared up, what with this song?
Well, it’s your typical sort of Dracula tale. A woman is obsessed with that god forsaken creature of the night, and despite what everyone (including common goddamn sense) tells her, she’s determined to become a slave to that thing.
Oh well.
Better her than me, I suppose. Seems like it’s hard to resist that guy. Thankfully, we’ve never crossed paths. However, I do feel confident that my years of listening to Dracula songs has given me the tools necessary to fully protect myself from his evil ways.
Oh fuck yooh, Dracula! I dont’ care what you say!
TRACK #356:
Sweet Sexy Dracula by Café Au Lait
Disco was pretty big in Japan. While American Rock ‘N Roll grabbed Japanese pop culture for the late 60’s and early 70’s, by 1974, that island was dancing to a new beat.
As such, lots of Disco artists enjoyed great success overseas. Some even went so far as to release records exclusively in Japan. Ice (aka Captain Dax) is a good example of a band directing their attention almost entirely to the Japanese market. And it seems such was the case with our next Disco Dracula enablers, the curiously French named, Café Au Lait.
Café Au Lait is a coffee drink. I know this now because if you try and search for this band, the results are pretty much exclusively this drink. It’s kinda like a latte I guess, only it’s made with regular coffee instead of espresso. Great. I feel more sophisticated already.
Now, what the fuck a French coffee beverage has to do with Disco, Dracula or Japan is anyone’s guess. But let’s talk less about coffee and more about those other 3 things for a moment.
Hot Blood’s 1975 gateway drug Soul Dracula, was a pretty big hit in Japan. I mean, it was a pretty big hit here too, and practically spawned what’s shaping up to be an entire sub-genre of music, but in Japan, they were clamoring for it a bit more insatiably.
So much so it seems that, according to wild and unconfirmed sources on the crazy ass internet, Japan (the entire country, I guess) asked Mr. Alain Goraguer to produce his Soul Dracula sound-alike Sexy Dracula. Ok, that seems plausible, weird commenter on discogs, sure. We’ll just go with that.
Was it a hit. I dunno. Maybe?
Not to be outdone, Café Au Lait sought to court a case of Japanese disco fever 3 years later with Sweet Sexy Dracula.
Now, it can be tricky digging up info on these old, sometimes one-off, bands from over 40 years ago. And that difficultly gets compounded if you name your group after a fuckin’ coffee drink.
They don’t sound French to me. Could be Canadian, I suppose. Hell, could be French, but I’m not hearing it. Least not from the lead singer.
So, who were Café Au Lait? Where were they from? Surely they’re not Japanese, but this record was released there. They actually produced a whole LP titled Midnight Bazaar. That’s more than you can say for a lot of these Disco Dracula folk. Sweet Sexy Dracula is the lead-off batter on that album too and you’re goddamn right it is.
I search and type, and dig through YouTube comments and discog notes. Search again with different keywords but mostly I just find people selling the record or featuring it on write-ups or mixes of Disco Dracula songs with no more information than “Hey, here’s another one.” Maybe I’m just bad at looking. Maybe I can’t read Japanese. Maybe the information just isn’t out there.
I did find this fascinating article recently from Diabolique Magazine in 2018. It details a bunch of the big Dracula Disco hitters, in addition to the films of 1979, all as a framework for Disco Demolition Night.
That was the night of the infamous anti-disco promotional shitshow cooked up by Shock Jock Steve Dahl in Chicago. They held it at Comisky Park after a White Sox double-header in July of 1979. The plan was that everyone who came to the stadium that night would bring a disco record with them and then Steve would blow up the whole lot after the games. And he did! Then shit got a little out of hand over at the ballpark. It always comes back to baseball around here, it seems.
But this article appears to be the only thing of its kind really. And perhaps rightfully so. But it doesn’t touch upon any of the little guys; the Hotlines, the Bob Babylones or sadly, the Café Au Laits.
Am I crazy? Am I the only one who cares? Am I the lone person hearing these tunes thinking – man, I’d like to know just a little bit more about the people that made this weird song, so I can write more than “Hey Dracula and cocaine were a crazy duo in the 70’s, huh?”
Feeling at my wits end I actually consulted the harbinger of human civilization’s ruin du jour, ChatGPT.
After wrestling for hours with that goofball, who can’t even seem to return the results of a basic Google search, I did get a bit of information.
Who knows how solid that it is though, as I have yet to get that dipshit to provide me a link that actually takes me where it says it’s suppose to.
Seriously, anyone who’s afraid ChatGPT might be the end of humanity, go have a fuckin’ conversation with that nimrod about a 40 year old Dracula Disco song. Your fears will be instantly quelled, particularly when it repeats back the information you just feed it as though it dug it up on its own. Oh Café Au Lait seem to be fairly obscure Disco band that only released 1 record called Midnight Bazaar, huh? No shit, buddy, I just fuckin’ told you that.
So alas, that’s what I’m left with. That and some speculation. Maybe no one actually cares. Maybe no one wants to read about me caring that no one seems to care. Maybe nobody wants to read at all, particularly dumb things written by dumb me on this dumb blog devoted to dumb shit. Who knows?
Maybe all they want (if they even want this at all) is to just hear the damn song and move on. And maybe that all ya’ll want too, so here it comes.
TRACK #355:
Sexy Dracula by Monsieur Goraguer
Now, I know when I started this Dracula block, I forgot to mention that it was basically gonna be another Disco Dracula Block. Sorry about that.
If you’re all like “Seriously? There’s more of these fuckin’ Disco Dracula songs? How is that even possible?” I feel it’s only courteous to inform you that this batch doesn’t even cover them all.
So, you’ll definitely be hearing more, eventually. But this will probably be the only other “block” of them, as after this batch, there aren’t as many I really like.
First and foremost, there’s Sweet Exorcist’s Disco Vampire. There’s a few different versions, but even the best of them can’t stop that tune from being just a little bit irritating.
Sweet Exorcist was one of many aliases used by our old friends The Lafayette Afro Band, whom you may remember as Captain Dax of Dr. Beezar Soul Frankenstein fame. They used a lot of names over the years like Krispie and Company, Bionic Unlimited and Ice.
As Ice they actually released a grip of Playlist prospects like Disco Frankenstein, Igor’s Reggae and Creature from the Freak Lagoon. Unfortunately, I don’t particularly like those much more than Disco Vampire.
Then there’s Possession’s Black Dracula. That one kinda grooves. You might catch this one of the playlist eventually.
Of course there’s also the other 2 tracks I mentioned from Dracula Blows His Cool. I may still include one of those yet, I dunno.
Pan Demonium cut a tune in 1979 called Dracula’s Dream, which definitely looked to jump on Disco Dracula train. That song’s fine and all, but it wasn’t really exciting enough for this block. Later on in the playlist? Possibly.
Maya’s Mister Dracula is definitely worth a spin and likely to join this playlist within the next few years I’m sure, while Bobby Babylone’s Viva Dracula definitely will be and narrowly escaped not being featured this year.
There’s also Disco Vampirella, Vampire State Blvd., Super Blood Sucker, there’s even The Rah Band, with their cut Vampire Vamp. Now, I like that one a lot, but it’s only an instrumental and doesn’t directly reference Dracula or have much ambience.
Tonight’s Disco Dracula tune, however, has that in spades. It too is mostly an instrumental, like Soul Dracula or Disco Blood. But also like those songs, it’s got Dracula vibe to spare.
From Monsieur Goraguer, comes Sexy Dracula, a sort of Disco Blood with a French tickler twist complete with the requisite moaning and sucking sounds you’ve come to expect from this kind of thing.
Monsieur Goraguer was a barely-alias used by pianist Alain Goraguer, who was an incredibly prolific composer and arranger in France. Though having scored music for dozens of features and TV shows, he’s perhaps most famous for his work with the French legend, Serge Gainsbourg.
Now, why this classically trained and renowned Jazz musician would cut something like Sexy Dracula is anyone’s guess. The pull of Disco Dracula was just too great, I reckon.
We’re all glad he did though, cause he uncorked a doozy here, as maybe only someone of his skill could.
Here’s Sexy Dracula.
TRACK #354:
Haha! I Need Your Blood (Disco Dracula) by Solcyst
If you would have told me 10 years ago that some of my favorite songs on this playlIst would turn out to be disco jams, I’m not sure I would have believed you.
But here we are, and it’s definitely true. Struck By Boogie Lightning, Fly By Night, Dr. Frankenstein’s Disco Party are all recent additions I enjoy more than I probably should.
There’s something about the combination of this era’s empty, danceable sound and monster bullshit that at once seem so completely at odds yet uniquely suited for each other.
Like Monster Raps, it’s bizarre that these song even exists, but man, am I sure glad that they do. They make for great playlist inclusions.
If you don’t happen to agree, I apologize, as the rest of our Dracula block is unquestionably disco, because there’s just an inordinate amount of these fuckin’ things, and I can’t seem to stop finding them.
Leading the charge is a song I absolutely love. Legit. I love this song. It’s been in the bullpen for years now and over those years I randomly toss it on cause I haven’t heard it in a while and I miss it.
I’m not sure if I can even fully articulate why either. Is it the key? Is it the melody? Is it that short Rhodes solo? Those mean-ass Minimoog hits? I couldn’t rightly say. I guess I just like the way it sounds. I suppose that’s the reason anyone likes any song, really.
Unlike the last couple tunes though, which lean a bit more funk and soul, this one’s a true-blue Disco Dracula tune, at least in name anyway. There isn’t any explicit mention of him, but you do get the double-shot Disco Dracula hallmark of a vaguely Dracula-sounding voice mumbling bullshit while a woman basically orgasms into a microphone. Nice.
From the short lived band, Solcyst comes 1980’s Haha!…I Need Your Blood (Disco Dracula.)
Now strangely, this track was released in Germany. But the band only has one other single, featuring 2 songs, and that one was released in France. So is Solcyst German? Are they French? Italian? None of the above?
They’re singing in English, but it’s a bit strained. This was just around when Italo-Disco was starting to emerge, which was rife with tracks coming out of Germany sung in English by people from neither place, so who knows. This definitely isn’t Italo, though it’s Disco features a nice amount of electronic instrumentation, which is always appreciated.
We may never know with some of these artists, as real information doesn’t seem to exist. So, let’s just be thankful then that the song exists and be satisfied in that.
Our version here on the playlist is pulled directly from the 45, which sits proudly in the Halloween Hole. The single is split between side A and B, featuring Parts 1 and 2, respectively. We’ve combined them both for your epic Disco Dracula pleasure.
I will note that there is a nice rip of this on YouTube that also combines parts 1 and 2. For whatever reason though, that version cuts ’em together a bit early and completely forgoes the 3rd chorus. Not sure why it does that, but ours does not. Perhaps the other one is a bit less repetitive, and the impact of that climatic crescendo isn’t lessened by having already heard it. That version flows a little better too, not gonna lie. Maybe that’s why they did it. I’ll never know, unfortunately, because you can’t send people on YouTube messages and you can’t comment on that particular video, cause for some reason, the Disco Dracula sex song with the lady audibly climaxing is on YouTube Kids. Search me.
I think this is the way the song was meant to transition though, assuming it was meant to be combined at all. Besides, any excuse to make this one last a little longer is alright in my book. And it made some sense to me to let that version exist over there and have a different option over here, rather than just having the same version exist in 2 places.
We’ve bookended this one with samples from 2 contemporaneous Dracula adaptations. The first, 1977’s lengthy and faithful multi-part BBC production Dracula, and the other from Frank Langella’s classic 1979 turn in John Badham’s verison.
Hey, is it weird that 2 years after directing Saturday Night Fever, John Badham directed that Dracula and released it in 1979, the year you couldn’t get away from Disco Dracula? I dunno, but I think we were robbed of a classic John Badham crossover disco horror hit. Oh, well.
Kicking off the Disco portion of our Dracula Block, here’s Solcyst with Haha! I Need Your Blood (Disco Dracula.)
TRACK #353:
Count Called Dracula by The Showman
Looks like we got another Shindig Exclusive coming at ya, cause with all the Dracula Disco out there, we still somehow managed to dig one up that didn’t seem to be available anywhere else.
Finding this one wasn’t too big of a trick, but finally getting to drop a needle on it was definitely a treat. How this song isn’t in more places is beyond me, cause it grooves.
The song is titled Count Called Dracula, which is in the chorus, but it also features the line “Just a dude named Dracula” which is immeasurably cooler. Now, why they didn’t go ahead and call the song Just a Dude Named Dracula is beyond me, but I’ll take this track whatever it’s name might be, cause it’s a jam.
The funked out disco beat, the silly voices, the dated (even for 1978) Mae West joke. It’s all pretty great.
The Showman is actually a guy by the name of Alexander Simmons, who wrote and produced this one. He doesn’t seem to perform on the track however, which is a bit strange.
Here he is Dracin’ the fuck out with 2 ladies of the night, presumably Catalina Sevilla and Linda Kaye Hal, who both provide vocals on the tune.
Smooth.
Unfortunately, Alexander didn’t seem to produce anything else. The album lists a ton of players, but only Ray Chew seems to have much of anything under his belt. For the rest of the crew, a Count Called Dracula appears to be it.
But if I had a chance to produce and release one song, and only one song in my lifetime, I would be so lucky as to drop a banger like Count Called Dracula. Ya’ll should be proud, cause in deference to the songs lyrics, it is pretty spectacular.
TRACK #294:
Rock Me Dracula by Mokka
Speaking of bizarre skin-flicks disguised as Disco Dracula films, let’s talk about Dracula Blows His Cool, a German sex comedy with a surprisingly interesting soundtrack.
When smut photographer and “Dracula” descendant Stan decides just shooting nudie pictures in his old family castle isn’t quite enough to keep it from being repossessed, he does what any self respecting Bavarian in 1979 would do. He opens a disco!
What ensues is a bevy of silly sex gags, tons of mistaken identity hi-jinx and some funny English dubbing. While certainly not even approaching good, there’s less amusing ways you could spend an hour and 20 minutes, if you like this sort of 70’s sex trash. I mean, check this out:
It’s at least worth a viewing.
Additionally, the film is filled with tons of fun (read: appropriately ludicrous if you have a horror-themed music blog) songs.
Most notable of course, and submitted for your approval this evening, is the 1979 hit Rock Me Dracula, performed by Mokka.
Mokka is an iteration from the brief musical career of Italian twins Nadia and Antonella Cocconcelli. Nadia and Antonella even appear in the film performing the tune. Or at least they appear dancing around with garden hoses and lip syncing to it poorly, anyway. But hey, we’ll take it!
Though played several times throughout the film, it is not included on the official Gerhard Heinz soundtrack for Dracula Blows His Cool, which has several potential Shindig inclusions like Graf Dracula and Disco Strip. Both of those songs are pretty great and may find their way into the playlist in their own right.
For now though, we’ll only indulge in the perfectly appropriate and extra referential Rock Me Dracula, from Mokka.
TRACK #75:
Soul Dracula by Hot Blood
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) there was more than one disco Dracula tune.
In fact, there was a whole album. It was even called Disco Dracula. It was the only effort from weird German band called Hot Blood and there’s a couple of vampire themed tracks on this sucker. Hell, there’s even a Frankenstein song called “Baby Frankie Stein.”
Mostly a funky instrumental, this lyrically sparse number does repeatedly feature the the titular phrase “Soul Dracula,” which is honestly enough for the Shindig. However, Hot Blood puts a little pepper on the porridge by using a goofy Dracula voice. Bonus.
Leading this track in is a clip from Blacula, cause lets face it, Blacula is the soulest motherfuckin Dracula around. To quote James Brown “Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out.”
And because it is mostly an instrumental, we went ahead and saddled the whole track with some Blacula clips, cause Blacula is awesome, and he deserves it.
Enjoy!