Hello, partygoers!
Welcome to Part 2 of the Listening Party’s Halloween Spooooooktacular!!!! We know it’s more in line with American Thanksgiving, but due to some bad planning – like when a character returns to the haunted house at night instead of in broad daylight – we ended up with a show that outstayed its welcome more than the demon in The Exorcist. So – like the neck of a teen who’s just had sex – we severed the show into two parts, and this week we present the grisly remains.
Once again, our remit: To counter Sneaky Dragon co-host Ian Boothby’s claim that there is only one Halloween song and that song is Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash”, we decided to put together a selection of Halloween-themed or Halloween-adjacent tunes for your next Halloween party or summer camp bloodbath! Also, we read and respond to a bunch of your great comments.
This episode we are spinning:
- The Diamonds – “Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula” – Mercury Records 45” b/w “Walkin’ the Stroll”, 1959 – 16:05
- The Five Blobs – “The Blob” – Columbia 45” b/w “Saturday Night in Tiajuana (sic)”, 1958 – 24:16
- Bobby Please and the Pleasers – “The Monster” – Jaime Records 45” b/w “The Switch”, 1959 – 39:43
- Joe South – “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor” – National Recording Corporation 45” b/w “My Fondest Memories”, 1958 – 46:03
- October Country – “My Girlfriend Is a Witch” – Epic Records 45” b/w “I Just Don’t Know”, 1968 – 56:42
- Hans Conreid and Alice Pearce – “The Invisible Man” – Monster Rally, 1959 – 1:05:55
- Bill Buchanan – “Beware” – United Artists 45” b-side to “The Night Before Halloween”, 1962 – 1:21:51
- Tarantula Ghoul and Her Gravediggers – “Graveyard Rock” – Meadows Records 45” b-side to “King Kong”, 1959 – 1:30:08
- Little Tibia and the Fibias – “The Mummy” – Mad Monster Party? (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 1998 (1967) – 1:49:54
- Dr. Shock – “Let There Be Fright” – Cougar Records 45” b-side to “The Bloody”, 1970 – 2:00:02
Also playing on the old Victrola:
- Cat Stevens – “Portobello Road” – Matthew and Son, 1967 – 30:42
Fangs for listening!
We invite you to attend the Mad Monster Party? !!!
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That was great fun, guys – really cheered me up after a busy working day. I think you may have invented a new holiday, so let me be the first to wish you a ‘Happy Pranksgiving!’
Was it my imagination or was there a lot more of that damned instrument, the Devil’s Horn, a.k.a. the saxophone, in Part 2 of the Halloween Spooktacular? Whatever possessed you, Dave?
I did enjoy the smooth Latin flavour of “The Blob.” It moved the party out of the sock hop in the gym and into a cocktail lounge for a track.
I also like “My Girlfriend is a Witch” but what’s with the guy saying, “I become a warlock out of spite”? First, that’s petty and second, stay in your lane, singer boy. Doing magic is your girlfriend’s jam.
With its helpful advice on how to tell if your boyfriend is a vampire, I think “Beware” would have made a great edition to the Twilight movie soundtrack.
And since “Everybody digs the Graveyard Rock” I dug that too, especially for the well-grounded pun.
I have an alternate theory about that woman who CLAIMS she’s dating “The Invisible Man.” Who’s to say she’s not hallucinating and/or just pretending to have a boyfriend? The pressures to conform to the social norms of the 1950s have clearly driven her insane.
I waited until I listened to both Parts of your Halloween Spectacular before writing, I’d have to say I liked Part 1 better and not because you played my “Lucky Seven” playlist. I liked the more creepier less wholesome doo-wop kind of songs from Part 1, like “Gingerbread Coffin” for example. The “Halloween” from the Golden books took me right to this commercial for Jameson Whiskey television ad: https://youtu.be/sNoeOv4yXBA
I knew I remembered the Danse Macabre from somewhere, it’s ghoulishly delightful. I think of ghosts dancing in a haunted ballroom. I really enjoy your themed shows, even the doo-wop early 60’s stuff…I guess those songs remind me of my Mom’s kind of music she grew up with. Even so, great dive into the dusty record shelves for some Halloween inspiration.
I should thank you for playing my Playlist, I will also take full responsibility for inflating your podcast with seven songs forcing you into a Part 2. That’s all my fault…but Thanks nonetheless. I’ll comment on a few things concerning my music and I may have misspoke when I wrote that they have no context…they do have much context to me in that they reflect certain times in my life. This makes these songs very nostalgic to me and each evokes a very vivid memory of mine. “Shattered” is basically my late friend Sean and I cleaning up Lone Star at the end of the night, he introduced me to The Rolling Stones. “Money for Nothing” was playing endlessly on the The Loop radio station while I had a very memorable trip to Chicago back in ’85 and it’s pretty much my favorite song of all time. As much as I enjoy the classic Pink Floyd from the 70’s, “Learning to Fly” brings me right back to my dorm room on a very snowy night in ’87 where we stayed up all night knowing classes were cancelled. It’s funny though, “Brain Damage” could have easily been a substitute for the 80’s Floyd since that was also a dorm favorite from a different experience. My god, that’s another great song…I do love Pink Floyd, all of it. And even though I do enjoy the Shrek films, “All Star” is my memory of me starting my new job in 2007 after being at Dr Pepper for 17 years. I was terrified but had this exuberance that I could do anything as I stepped off the train on my first day. Shrek was nowhere near this. These are all my memories reflected in music, they could be any song but they just happened to be these.
Choosing albums is and always will be a completely different experience, that’s probably where I concentrate more on the music and how it all comes together collectively. I remember buying “Synchronicity” by The Police when it was released. I put it on and played it through twice, afterwards I had this illustration of Sting I had done while the album played. It was like the music flowed through me onto the paper, I’ve never had an experience quite like that before and the style in which I illustrated was unlike anything I had ever done. Repeating it almost seemed impossible. If we’re talking Beatles, I think “Rubber Soul” would be my favorite with “Revolver” as a very close second. I also remember being very fond of “Invisible Touch” by Genesis and “Sports” by Huey Lewis and the News back in the day. Albums are hard though, I’m just reflecting on what I remember playing over and over.
Who could ever forget Barnabas Collins!! I had a Dark Shadows hangman game as a kid and it came with a pair of fake plastic fangs you could put in your mouth. I would put them under my pillow thinking I could trick the Tooth Fairy but that was a huge bust, so I just tried wearing them while eating a ham sandwich once. I could never clean off the mustard stains from the fangs after that….