nwobhm – Halloween Shindig

TRACK #303:

To the Devil a Daughter by Incubus

Bet you never thought you’d see Incubus on The Shindig, huh? Well, I certainly wouldn’t have ever added them, because I don’t like Incubus.

And if you don’t like Incubus either, then you’re in luck, because this isn’t that Incubus.

Nope. Just like any band post-1990, there’s probably 4 other bands that already held that name in the past. And such is the case for, the perhaps inappropriately named, Incubus.

No, this one comes from New Wave of British Heavy Metal outfit Incubus, and their sound is much more aligned with what you might expect from a band named Incubus. Not wholly, but certainly closer.

Now I’ll admit, this isn’t strictly a referential track, I don’t think. But what few lyrics we are given don’t not conjure images of the film.

Should it be added? I dunno. I like the tune, and since To The Devil a Daughter is technically a Halloween movie, we’re pickin’ em up!

I would also like to add that there is no shortage of metal songs called To The Devil a Daughter. In fact, Shindig-adjacent Wytchfynde actually have one as well. I say adjacent because that’s not a typo, as Wytchfynde with two Y’s was an offshoot of Witchfynde (with an I) vocalist Luther Beltz when he left the band in 1999. However, Luther Beltz didn’t join Witchfynde until 1983’s Cloak and Dagger, the album after Stagefright from which the Shindigger Trick or Treat appears.

However, Luther’s era of Witchfynde sounds pretty different from our Witchfynde, which kinda make’s Luther’s Witchfynde a completely different band altogether than our Witchfynde, which would then make Wytchfynde with two Y’s even more different still. So much so that I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned them at all, but here we are.

Are any of those other To the Devil a Daughter songs more aligned to the film? Not sure. I didn’t really like any of them very much, or at least enough to really cross reference the lyrics. Wytchfynde’s didn’t seem particularly referential, and it was a newer cut, so I wasn’t too keen on the sound. So Incubus it is, names be damned.

We kinda blew our To the Daughter a Devil sample load on the Hallo’s Eve track, but we’ll still pepper in some here, cause hey, it seems a bit more appropriate than maybe it was there.

TRACK #302:

Dr. Phibes by Angel Witch

I love the Abominable Dr. Phibes. You should too! It’s a great old horror flick with a neat premise and a sinister performance from Vincent Price. Here he is hookin’ himself into his acoustic contraption which recreates his lost voice:

It’s also quite musical, as Dr. Anton Phibes plays a mean pipe organ and even built a full-on band of automatons that play tunes for him: Dr. Phibes’ Clockwork Wizards. Here they are just shreddin’:

For years I’ve felt bad that I’ve never included any of the music from the film, but it’s brand of old-time Hollywood scoring doesn’t really fit a playlist of this kind.

And sure, there’s plenty of songs out there called Dr. Phibes, but none of them have ever really jumped out at me until I found this one, from another New Wave of British Heavy Metal outfit: Angel Witch.

And this one rips. However, like some other Phibes-based songs, for some reason it’s also an instrumental. No one really wants to sing about the Old Doc it seems.

So, loaded up with some Phibes samples to set the appropriate mood, here comes Dr. Phibes by Angel Witch.