Halloween 2020 may be behind us now, but it’s weirdness will forever remain.
Here’s all the tunes from our 2020 Halloween episode of Shindig Radio, Happy Halloweird, condensed into one, easy to listen to and bullshit free playlist. Enjoy everyone!
halloween songs
The Old Gray Goose: Scary Stories for Halloween
We’ve long talked about our love for The Old Gray Goose here on both Halloween Shindig, and Shindig Radio.
An old story and songster from New England, Goose weaves many a tall tale in a way that only he can.
Here, he spins us several Halloween themed yarns, and damn it if I don’t just love the hell out of it. This album is an annual favorite of mine, and I hope it can become one for you all as well.
So, what should have been done years ago, is happening now. The Old Gray Goose’s Scary Stories for Halloween is another one of those things you should be able to hear right here on Halloween Shindig, so now you can.
So, put on a little beanie, find a good plot in the graveyard, and watch out for the high threshold, cause here comes The Old Gray Goose.
A Heavy Metal Halloween: The Playlist
In honor of Halloween and our newest episode of Shindig Radio, I’ve compiled a mini-playlist for all you Halloween headbangers.
I even added a couple extra songs not featured on the show, just to spice up the bash.
Trick or treat…muthafuckas!
Episode 11: A Heavy Metal Halloween
It’s Halloween again and Shindig Radio is celebrating its reason for your season: Halloween Songs.
But not just any Halloween Songs. These are songs exclusively called Halloween and performed exclusively by weird 80’s metal bands.
It’s a Heavy Metal Halloween!
Matt Mastrella returns to join Graham C. Schofield and Mikey Rotella on a Halloween journey through Heavy Metal history with 10 of the hardest, most head bangin’ Halloween hits the world has ever heard!
Halloween
TRACK #180:
Halloween by Ostrogoth
No Halloween on Halloween Shindig would be complete without a Halloween Song called Halloween. This year it’s from Belgian metalers Ostrogoth.
If you’ve never heard of them, don’t feel down, I’m pretty sure unless you were a serious hesher in 1985, you probably haven’t. And if they didn’t have a song called Halloween, I probably wouldn’t either.
Wading in the dregs of 80’s euro-metal stands a band named after a sect of the East Germanic Goths, partially responsible for the fall of the Western Roman Empire! Do these guys know how to party, or what!?
Partiers or not, they know how to Halloween. And they’re Halloweening hard here with a song so spooky it even features a creepy Devil voice.
Loaded with clips from Halloween 4, cause we haven’t tapped that keg yet, and because Don LaFontaine absolutely kills on this trailer.
I’ve seen Halloween 4. I don’t much care for Halloween 4, but every time I hear Don’s voiceover, I forget how much I don’t actually care for Halloween 4 and almost throw it on.
When they wanted to provide some damage control from the consumer fallout of Halloween III…they weren’t fuckin’ around.
“Ever since that night, no one…has forgotten his name…and Halloween…has never been the same.”
Happy Halloween, Weeners!
It’s Halloween
TRACK #170:
It’s Halloween by The Shaggs
Supposedly Frank Zappa once called The Shaggs “better than the Beatles.”
Kurt Cobain cited their sole album, Philosophy of the World, as his 5th favorite album of all time.
So they’ve got that going for them.
That same album has also been called “the worst album ever recorded,” and “hauntingly bad.”
Wherever the truth lies for you (as with most things of this nature) will somewhat depend upon your temperament. Say what you will however, The Shaggs, with only 1 album to their credit, managed to record a song about Halloween and we all know what that means as far as The Shindig is concerned. Pick em up!
Perhaps more bizarre than the song however, is how The Shaggs came to be.
Hailing from New Hampshire, The Wiggin sisters were forced together with instruments by their obsessive father Austin. Seems their grandmother had a prophetic vision that one day her son would sire girls who would form a famous band.
That was good enough for old Pops Wiggin, who set about providing training and putting secondhand instruments into the hands of his less than willing daughters. The results were, well…
Legendary singer, songwriter and music critic Cub Koda probably sums it up most accurately:
“There’s an innocence to these songs and their performances that’s both charming and unsettling. Hacked-at drumbeats, whacked-around chords, songs that seem to have little or no meter to them … being played on out-of-tune, pawn-shop-quality guitars all converge, creating dissonance and beauty, chaos and tranquility, causing any listener coming to this music to rearrange any pre-existing notions about the relationships between talent, originality, and ability. There is no album you might own that sounds remotely like this one.”
However, this one from Rolling Stone’s Debra Rae Cohen is pretty spot the fuck on as well:
“The Shaggs warble earnest greeting-card lyrics in happy, hapless quasi-unison along ostensible lines of melody while strumming their tinny guitars like someone worrying a zipper. The drummer pounds gamely to the call of a different muse, as if she had to guess which song they were playing – and missed every time.”
Just one go-round of this tune and every one of these descriptions will all become clear.
As typically, I’m pretty centrist on the matter. The Shaggs produce not the worst music I’ve ever heard but it’s more than just a little difficult to sit through. I wouldn’t say their better than The Beatles, as Zappa suggests, but I do think they’re more interesting. And despite Kurt’s empathic inclusion, I won’t be putting Philosophy of the World on any top five albums list.
What I will be doing however, is including It’s Halloween on The Shindig, because c’mon, how could we not?
“It’s time for games, it’s time for fun. Not for just one, but for everyone!”
Halloween
TRACK #140:
Halloween by Dead Kennedys
Halloween needn’t always be about ghost and goblins, right? Well, at least not according to Dead Kennedys front-man Jello Biafra, who uses the holiday as a jumping off point to throw some criticism at the socially repressed who use Halloween as an excuse to dress up like idiots and get drunk.
Your business suit and tie are your costumes, insists Biafra, satirically jabbing
But why not everyday?
Well, I somehow doubt your boss is gonna be too jazzed about you showing up to work everyday and getting hammered in a Batman costume.
Nor is that sexy cashier from the Jamba Juice gonna be too excited to go have dinner with some jackass dressed up like The Wolfman.
Well, what will they say?
Probably “You’re fired,” and “don’t ever call me again,” respectively.
Maybe that’s the right reaction. Maybe it just means you need a new job and a better girlfriend. Or maybe you are the asshole. Maybe leave the crepe hair and capes at home like a normal person, idiot.
But I get Jello’s point,…to an extent.
It’s metaphorical, in its way and we could all stand to live less reserved lives and quit reserving Halloween as the one night to break out of our social conformity.
But is that what’s really happening on Halloween? Is that what it’s really all about? Are these people to whom Mr. Biafra speaks seriously stuffing themselves into a costume for work? Is Halloween really the night they’re their truest selves? Should it really just be all the time? I doubt that, but maybe that’s the problem he sees.
Maybe we’re all so programmed into that 9 to 5 lifestyle that it’s no longer just a costume, but who we all really are now. Maybe that’s his gripe. Maybe he’s right.
I can’t say for certain, but that’s no reason to exclude it from a Halloween playlist.
One thing I am certain he’s right about is that you better plan all week, all month and all year, cause some of you are really phoning it in with these costumes. But that’s a conversation for another song.
For now, let’s just enjoy the Dead Kennedys’ Halloween.
Happy Halloween, Weeners!
Trick or Treat
TRACK #132:
Trick or Treat by Elvira
If you’re an Elvira fan like me, than you’re no doubt at least tangentially aware of her Halloween albums.
There are a number of them, the bulk of which feature the mistress herself singing on her own original tracks. They’re pretty great.
What you may notice however, is that while these Halloween albums feature lots of allusions to the holiday, Elvira herself only participates in songs tangentially related to Halloween itself. What gives?
If you’re like me and you administer a Halloween themed music blog, you may have even dug deep enough to find the many references to an actual Halloween song she sings called Trick or Treat. There’s even a couple of clips on YouTube of her performing the track. So where’s the damn song?
Who knows exactly, as it seems it was never officially released on any of her albums. However, The Shindig dug deeper still and purchased an episode of The Dr. Demento Show from October of 1983 that featured Cassandra Peterson as co-host.
As you’ll hear in the clip, The Doc mentions Elvira’s forthcoming album will be including original tunes, one of which they preview on the show, our white buffalo Trick or Treat. Why this never came to fruition is a Halloween legend of limited and myopic interest.
So, here it is Weeners! Enjoy.
Trick Or Treat
TRACK #114:
Trick Or Treat by Nekromantix
Referential hits, spooky themes and inclusive Rock ‘N Roll are all well and good, but nothing really captures the spirit of The Shindig quite like a straight up Halloween jam.
And psychobilly spooksters Nekromantix (a name which itself is referential) have just the jam the mad doctor ordered.
Trick Or Treat is the kind of no frills Halloween gem that’s just kinda toss onto an innocuous album because well, that’s just how they roll. “Halloween? Sure, we gotta Halloween song. Here ya go.”
Full of nostalgia and rubber remembrances for the Halloweens of our youth, this tune is essentially all about the costumes; picking out the right one and having a great time doing it, all in the spirit of trick or treating.
And just like any good Halloweeners, they’ll even catalog passed costumes and the myriad of ideas they have for upcoming costumes as well.
So come on Weeners, whadda you gonna be this year?