PLAYLIST: HALLOWEEN – SEASON OF THE HITS

Another round of Halloween listenin' for the year of our gourd 2021.

This one really fought me this year. Hopefully it doesn't suck.

Allow me to soundtrack your spooky season: 

PLAYLIST: HORRIBLE SOUNDS OF HALLOWEEN

Of the many rituals I take part in to celebrate October and Halloween, spending weeks and months agonizing over the yearly Halloween playlist is one of them because I'm a psychopath and I put more effort into this than what it's ultimately worth.

In any case, here is this year's offering to the Halloween gods.

I try to make the annual Halloween playlist as unique and non-generic as possible. You won't find Thriller on here, nor Time Warp, Flying Purple People Eater, nor all those other severely overused titles that appear on every single so-called "ultimate" Halloween playlist. The idea is to find new music yearly that, to me, drips that lovely Halloween sound. Traditional songs, along with instrumentals, film scores, and creepy/ambient/avant-garde tracks -- these are the guidelines I follow with the occasional deviation. Two of the tracks I wanted to include aren't on Spotify so they appear below the main embed. Call them an addendum if you wish, but don't skip them. It's all part of the experience.

Also, if you're a repeat visitor to this blog (hey, thanks!) and you hit this playlist more than once, chances are it's already different from the last time you were here because I am never satisfied with anything. This is my curse.

Enjoy the spooks.

 

And for the finale:

JOHN CARPENTER: LIVE RETROSPECTIVE

"I'm a director of horror movies. I love horror movies. Horror movies will live forever." 

After thirty years, John Carpenter is finally getting his due. And he's having fun again.

For those who have followed the trials and tribulations of the cult director, everyone knows that he's a man who has consistently proven to be ahead of the times. One of his most celebrated films, Halloween, was met with critical dismissal and audience disinterest upon its initial release, but which saw a total reversal on both of those fronts over the coming months. It was "the little indie film that could," as the dearly departed co-producer/co-writer Debra Hill once put it, and it would go on to become one of the most respected horror films of all time and spawn a franchise comprising eleven films, with two more entries on their way. A similar fate would befall The Thing, perhaps the director's most respected film, which would not only have its own reversal in the minds of critics and hearts of audiences, but nearly derail Carpenter's career, putting him on a different path of safer studio fare (Christine, Starman) to show audiences he was capable of telling less icky, mean-spirited stories.

But the 2010s have shown that Carpenter's impact hasn't just been on audiences, for whom he's provided decades of nightmares, but on a legion of filmmakers who have grown up under his tutelage. Adam Wingard with The Guest. Jim Mickle with Cold in July. Jeff Nichols with Midnight Special. David Robert Mitchell with It Follows. And this list is endless, as new films are announced all the time that cite Carpenter as their inspiration. None of these filmmakers hide their love and respect for a man who, for much of his career, received too little of both. The current iteration of Hollywood, which so far has remade four of Carpenter's best efforts, with more on the way, and where Halloween and Vampires have been sequelled into mediocrity, is the same land where Carpenter can't find funding for his own projects. To film fans, that can be especially aggravating. But as he's so far proven during his John Carpenter: Live Retrospective tour, he has gotten the last laugh, night after night. Because try as producers might to keep re-purposing Carpenter films through remakes or sequels in a blind effort to achieve mastery through affiliation, they will never even begin to touch the majesty of seeing him perform his most famous themes as part of a six-piece band (which includes his son Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies, John Konesky, Scott Seiver, and John Spiker).

In July of 2016, I got my chance.

Much like Carpenter's filmmaking style, musical style, and much like the man himself, John Carpenter: Live Retrospective featured zero bullshit. There was no opening act, and no intermission. There were no pyrotechnics, no surprise guests, no gimmicks. The presentation was simplistic, to the point, and somewhat dorky (said in the lovingest way possible). During performances of his film themes, a large screen behind the band played a muted montage of the appropriate title. And for cuts from his two Lost Themes albums, that screen either displayed abstract light shows, or nothing at all. During The Fog, the stage filled with...you guessed it...fog. For They Live, the band paused after the song's intro to slip on some Ray-Bans. During Big Trouble in Little China, which Carpenter introduced as being a search for "the girl with green eyes," the lights illuminated solid green. And for every single one of these tracks, film themes or otherwise, Carpenter was chewing gum and dancing adorably behind his keyboard. He was beckoning to the crowd for rhythmic hand claps, the devil horns, and during Big Trouble in Little China's "Porkchop Express," the hand gesture shown off by several of its characters, known as the "Buddha finger." And the crowd, who waited with bated breath for the most recognizable horror theme of all time, lost their minds as the band launched into the main titles for Halloween, which they followed up with In the Mouth of Madness, likely the closest thing to rock 'n roll the director has ever scored. Even cuts from the surprise album "Lost Themes II," which is quite different from its predecessor, demanded new evaluation when presented so intimately and enthusiastically by its musical personnel. "Distant Dream" alone proved this.

In a night filled with surprises, the band chose to end the show with an unexpected choice: a track from Christine, a less celebrated title with a less celebrated soundtrack. But as the band performed, you could see why: because they enjoy the hell out of themselves as they play it--more than any other song in their set list.

Some film tracks, such as The Fog, are as you remember them. But so many others, now with the use of a full band, sound electrifyingly new. Never have the main titles from Escape From New York, confined so long to merely synthesizer, sounded so full and tremendous and utterly bad-ass. And with scenes from the film playing out on screen featuring Harry Dean Stanton's Brain and Donald Pleasence's President of the United States, the crowd was reminded that they don't just love Carpenter's films, and they don't just love his music, but they love his music because of his films, and they love his films because of his music.

Seeing John Carpenter embark on a tour during which honors his own legacy--one so often disregarded unless it's being exploited--offered another stark reminder: in this world of endless sequels, remakes, and loving cinema homages, there will only ever be one John Carpenter. The John Carpenter: Live Retrospective tour has come to an end, but a second tour that promoted his movie themes, was immediately announced. Will Carpenter and co. tour again? Never say never. If they do, and you haven't yet had the pleasure, don't miss out. (Or, of course, you can pick up a Blu-ray of the tour from Storm King Productions.)

Set List

Escape From New York (Main Title)

Assault on Precinct 13 (Main Title)

Vortex (from Lost Themes)

Mystery (from Lost Themes)

The Fog (Main Title)

They Live (Coming To L.A.)

The Thing (Main Theme - Desolation) (Ennio Morricone cover)

Distant Dream (from Lost Themes II)

Big Trouble in Little China (Pork Chop Express)

Wraith (from Lost Themes II)

Night (Daniel Davies solo; from Lost Themes)

Halloween (Main Title)

In the Mouth of Madness (Main Title)

Encore:

Prince of Darkness (Darkness Begins)

Virtual Survivor (from Lost Themes II)

Purgatory (from Lost Themes)

Christine: Christine Attacks (Plymouth Fury)

DRACULA'S GREATEST HITS

In my continuing quest for Halloween playlist material, the process of which begins in July because I’m insane, I discovered this lovely, wonderfully stupid novelty record from 1964. Normally I’m not into the '50s/‘60s Halloween party music scene because it tends to dominate other Halloween playlists and it all sounds like generic surf-rock and The Monster Mash after a while. But man, this thing has won me over -- and entirely because of how dumb it is. The design is delightfully simple: Dracula's a singer and his favorite things to sing about are monsters and being a vampire. Essentially, "Dracula's Greatest Hits" is a compilation of original monstrous creations and top radio hits containing hilariously altered vampire-centric lyrics, both complemented by a Dracula-voiced singer.

While the whole thing is ridiculous, the standouts from this thing are the two song parodies, "I Want to Bite Your Hand" and “Drac the Knife,” both of which the album art goes out of its way to clarify with their original titles...just in case the concept of vampire parody party music is too complicated for you to keep up with.

The whole album is on Youtube (because of course it is—everything is on Youtube), but there are used copies on eBay if this is something you need in your vinyl collection. And if you ever wanted to hear Dracula bellow "COWABUNGAAAA!," you're in luck.

Full tracklist:

1. I Want to Bite Your Hand
2. Drac the Knife
3. King Kong Stomp 
4. Monster Hootenanny
5. Ghoul Days
6. Frankenstein
7. The New Frankenstein & Johnny Song
8. Monster Goose Rhymes
9. Surf Monster
10. Monster Bossa Nova
11. Carry Me Back to Transylvania
12. Little Black Bag

Image borrowed from Zombo's Closet.

#HALLOWEEN: YIKES

 

You will never be the same.