TRACK #65:

Down In The Boiler Room by The Elm Street Group

Segueing nicely out of our Horror Host block is this oddity that only the 80’s could have produced, featuring a man whom himself was briefly a Horror Host, Mr. Big Time…Fred Krueger.

Between Dream Warriors and The Dream Master, Freddy-Mania was nearing its peak, and some producer (bless their soul) thought it made perfectly sound financial sense to green-light Freddy’s Greatest Hits.

Dinosaur Dracula puts it best when he writes:

Beyond the costumes and suction-cupped window dolls was this album. This beautiful album, aimed at God knows who. I doubt it sold more than a few thousand copies, but then, maybe no more than a few thousand copies were produced to begin with.
It’s a bizarre thing with no clear audience. Too sophisticated for kids, too stupid for adults. Too much like show tunes for the horror crowd, too much like scary bloody horror for anyone else.
A mix of covers and original songs, Freddy Krueger is all over the album, but only rarely does he actually “sing.” Usually, he just tacks one-liners onto the verses. The actual music-making was done by the “Elm Street Group,” who I’m guessing were regular studio musicians gathered to make two months’ rent with the weirdest work they’d ever do.

Naturally, there’s a couple of these gems on Shindig, starting out with this particularly strange number concerning Freddy’s boiler room.

Led-in with a clip from Freddy’s Nightmares – Mr. Krueger’s own personal horror anthology television show that first aired the following year. The program had Freddy playing Rod Serling to all manner of neutered Elm Street-style tales where Freddy fucked with the protagonists for any number of ridiculous reasons.

Enjoy!