Halloween mixes abound during the Halloween season. Most of them are a pleasing mix of the familiar, the obscure and the downright left-of-field. One of my favourites for 2007 is Canuxploitation expert and occassional Horror Roundtable contributor Paul Corupe and his House of Shock. Paul is the go-to guy for vintage cult cinema over at Rue Morgue magazine, so it should come as no surprise that his Halloween mix is packed to the gills with oddball novelty tunes and forgotten classics. I’ll admit that I’m not much of an expert on music to begin with, but I swear I’ve never seen the vast majority of these songs. You know you’re in dangerous territory when the radio spots interspersed throughout are more familiar than the songs themselves. While you’re at it, make sure you download the CD cover for the mix.

For the past few years I’ve left one post at the same time every year at my very first blog in honour of International Read A Comic Book Naked Day. It’s possibly the most consistent, least updated blog on the internet. Runner-up could be Ghost Town, an mp3 blog that reappears every October to provide 31 days of music for ghouls and creeps. It’s only four days in and already The Dude has posted a wide variety of musical selections, including a memorial to “Boris” Pickett, a couple of unlikely hip-hop selections and an appreciation for the Wolfman. Dig it.

You may remember that a few weeks back the topic for The Horror Roundtable was horror songs. Well The Manchester Morgue has compiled a selection of horror-themed tunes that fit the bill entitled Werewolf In Unnecessarily Short Gym Shorts. Songs range from Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult to Freddy Krueger by S.O.D.:Stormtroopers of Death and everywhere in between. The Morgue even includes annotations for particular songs, and promises that a follow-up is forthcoming. While you’re at it, make sure you dig through the archives for tons of ghoulish delights, including Friday the 13th 3-D, Battle Royale, License to Drive and plenty more.

Kill the pig, pig, pig, pig
Kill him, kill him, kill him and make him bleed
Get the blood, blood, blood, blood
Kill the pig, make him bleed
Take the blood that’s all we need

- Out For Blood from Carrie, the Musical

I haven’t been keeping up with my favourite music blogs recently, and that’s too bad, because I nearly missed out something I’ve been seeking for awhile now. You Don’t Have To Visit This Blog has a bootleg compilation available of the Carrie Broadway adaptation from that most glorious of decades, the 1980’s. Thrill to the operatic jazzercise sounds of such songs as Out For Blood, The Destruction, and Shower Scene. YDHTVTB also provides plenty of info for those interested in the play’s shameful history. The audio was taken off the floor, so don’t expect pristine quality. Considering the rarity of these songs, I’ll take whatever I can get my hands on.

Recently, the proprieter of You Don’t Have To Visit This Blog has been considering an early retirement from blogging, so make sure you take a peek, dig around, and let him know his work is appreciated.

Drilltar! As Paul mentioned in the comments of an earlier post, vinyl and soundtrack sharity blogs have a short shelf life. The erratic nature of the downloads is the main reason I haven’t linked to any in the past few months. Well, it’s about time I got back into the swing of things, and what better way to reintroduce the world to the wonders of obscure music then through The Slumber Party Massacre. Parts 1 and 2, no less, from the super fine proprieter of The Manchester Morgue. Make sure you read all the way through for links to even more slasher soundtracks.

Diane, in my hand I’m holding a small box of chocolate bunnies.

I’ve been rewatching Twin Peaks recently, a show I haven’t seen since it first aired over fifteen years ago. Even though it’s been a decade and a half, and my memory is usually lousy, when the end of the pilot was creeping up it all came flooding back to me. It’s funny how the show has lodged itself in my subconscious.

Today we present the Grammy Award-winning tie-in, The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper, of interest only to fellow Peak Freaks. Available in both Mp3 form and through Rapidshare.

Halloween brings with it so many wonderful treats that it’s going to be months after that date before I exhaust all the wonders I’ve collected. This year was especially great for aural delights, and one of my favourite mp3 blogs stepped it up with a trio of garage band goodness. Office Naps presents a trio of truly whacked out and rare novelty 45s for a cold Autumn night. All three selections are fascinating, but if you choose only one make sure you check out Strangler in the Night for it’s pure psychotronic giddiness. How could they allow these deviants the freedom to roam the streets with normal, God-fearin’ folk?

This is how kids get their kicks these days. Squatting in filthy rags, all hopped up on goofballs and ludes, pretending at freedom. That is, until Daddy’s money runs out and the world comes knocking. Then those lousy beatniks end up looking down the neck of a bottle, or the barrel of a gun. Just like we did when we were kids. Yeah, the gutter is one sure way to close the generation gap. And if I were to place the blame for this epidemic of delinquency anywhere it would be square on the shoulders of one Little Danny, proprieter of a happening little pad called Office Naps. He’s the pusher. The one playing all the tunes and calling all the shots. Do you know what your children are listening to? Whatever Little Danny wants them to…

Shock Music in Hi-Fi

Hello Horror Blog readers! Little Danny of Office Naps here. The Honorable Mr. Wintle graciously extended the invitation for a Halloween-related post, and, in response, I’ve included a vintage bit of odd-io for your delectation.

I suppose the common complaint about some of our favorite holidays is that, in the interest of selling holiday-related merch and placating the anxieties of our more righteous, religious sectors, these same holidays tend to be expurgated of their color, piquancy, and content. That is, if you’re disappointed by the way that Halloween is routinely represented by ridiculous, warmed-over pap like “The Monster Mash,” I’m here to say that I feel your pain, horror fans. Of course, you likely know better. You likely know, when seeking your Halloween audio fix, to turn to the very musical underpinning of your obsession: the horror soundtrack. Yes, from the eerie synthesizers of the Italian horror oeuvre to classic Hitchcock-style staccato strings, the horror soundtrack has always been - and will always be - where the most unapologetically terrifying sounds dwell.

Enter Shock Music in Hi-Fi. Released in 1958, it was the first of two similarly-themed volumes (the second entitled, naturally, Panic: The Son of Shock) by noted composer, arranger, and producer Creed Taylor. These weren’t soundtracks per se. They were, rather, albums comprised of miniature 3 minute tableaux, self-contained musical storylines which took their cues from horror cinema and exercises like The Twilight Zone , and which set about terrifying us with dark, jazzy arrangements, creepy sound effects, and titles like “The Crank,” “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” and “Time Runs Out.” Take “The Crank,” for instance. We hear a phone number being dialed, we hear the phone ringing, we hear a friendly male voice answer. And then we hear the click of disconnection. It’s hard to convey its distinctly banal variety of psychological terror, but, repeated with increasing frequency - and set against a rising crescendo of dissonant horns and strings - this routine was typical fare for Shock Music in Hi-Fi. And it served its purpose very effectively.

Hand picked for the Horror Blog, this selection, “Heartbeat,” is also exemplary. Here we’re reminded that nothing can be as weirdly ominous as the awareness of our own breathing and heartbeat at the threshold of a darkened room. And the awareness of… ahem, someone else in that darkened room.

As you’ll hear. Here, then, is to heavy breathing! Happy Halloween!

The Creed Taylor Orchestra, Heartbeat
from Shock Music In Hi-Fi (ABC-Paramount, 1958)

You wouldn’t know it by this blog but I do have a number of interests outside of horror. For example, I also enjoy chillers, thrillers, terrors, creepers and all sorts of other cinematic genres. So far as music goes, one of the consistent loves of my life has been ska. No matter how it’s preceived by the rest of the world, usually due to the insidious influence of various punk-bands-with-horns, I’ve always stayed the course and danced to that ska and rocksteady beat. Distinctly Jamaican Sounds, a wonderful mp3 blog devoted to all kinds of Jamaican music, has taken up the mind-boggling challenge of presenting 21 tracks of horror-themed music for the month of October along with interesting information and anecdotes accompanying each tune. So sit back, relax, have a Coke, crack a joke. Put on your dancing shoes, and listen…

Thanks to Senses Working Overtime for the link.

A few days ago My New Plaid Pants posted a link to an MP3 of Fiona Apple covering Sally’s Song from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Supposedly this is a 2-disc set was produced to coincide with the 3-D rerelease of the film, with the first disc being comprised of the original soundtrack and the second including five covers from various bands and assorted demos by Danny Elfman. Another track that’s popped up early is Marilyn Manson’s version of This Is Halloween, available at Deaf Indie Elephants.

“We’re partners aren’t we? Let’s work together…”

Some infantile genius has taken apart dialogue from the Resident Evil games and pieced them back together as porno. Doors opening and closing as people accidentally stumble into sticky situations, the moans of the dead substituting for carnal grunts, and gunfire as orgasms.

Sometimes I wonder what my neighbours must think of me.

What the fuck is going on? Everytime I visited Horror Roundtable contributor Louis Fowler’s blog, there didn’t seem to be any new posts. I chalked it up to a bit of downtime, or perhaps those lovable bastards over at Bookgasm were taking up all his time with Louis’ new comics column over there. But no, the truth was I’m just some kind of idiot who doesn’t know how to work a web browser and Louis has been posting all along. And what posts! In a way I’m glad I haven’t been over there in awhile. It’s like finding twenty dollars in your winter coat from last year. What a pleasant surprise. He’s currently rocking the 80’s cheese in a number of wicked soundtrack sharities, including Trick Or Treat, Black Roses, Freddy’s Greatest Hits and, uh, a disco version of An American Werewolf in London?

Not horror, but who visits on the weekends anyway?

Office Naps is a wonderful little mp3 blog that posts three or four songs taken from 45s under a different theme every week. A few months back they featured a group of songs under the banner “Vocal Noir”, and the name couldn’t be more appropriate, particularly for the first track in the selection. Come and Get Me by Mark Murphy is one bleak little tune and concerns a man imploring his lover to come take him out of the situation he’s in. Of course, he’s singing to a dead woman so it’s unlikely she’ll ever make it, and he’ll be sitting there for the remainder of his life, wasting away.

First you dream, then you die.

Pirate-hating he-man Louis Fowler has been steadily posting the various Dawn of the Dead cuts on his blog, including the U.S. version and Goblin’s contribution, with the promise of more to come. And while you’re at it, you may want to dig around for even more classic cult movie soundtracks.

One thing that definitely hurts my credibility as a horror blogger is my indifference to the original Dawn of the Dead (and the remake, for that matter). It’s not that I think it’s bad, or that it isn’t historically important, but I think Romero was just trying too hard, especially in comparison to the effortless beauty of Night of the Living Dead.

A few weeks back David Z. cited the sleazy exploitation film Mad Foxes as his choice for a rare gem. I was sold even before he mentioned that Krokus was on the soundtrack. Now you too can enjoy those smooth, metal sounds, as soundtrack site Skunkape’s Crap has posted both of the songs from Mad Foxes by the mighty Krokus for your enjoyment. And hey, while you’re there take a look around. Skunkape has a plethora of trash and art house treasures awaiting your perusal.