See You December 2nd

Remember The Beastles?

            It was in the early 1960s that the American audience for pop music’s new offshoot, rock’n’roll, heard of a new band from the other side of the Atlantic pond.  It was four Vlads who played loud and hard and long.  Whispers among excited fans was that this new band, The Beastles,  was slayin’ ’em right and left.

             It was true -- literally.  This quartet of supernatural swing -- John Venom, Paul McCoffin, George Hairyson, and Ringo Stab -- became known to the world as “the Slab Four,” as the popularity of their music and their only-after-dark public appearances made a ticket to a Beastles concert the hippest “Ticket to Debride,” as one of their song titles put it.

 

            In 1964 they signed with the American label Decapitate Records.   Over the next six years, until 1970, when a curtain malfunction in their tour van brought about a sudden and smoky and smelly and crumbly end to their career, The Beastles were the rulers of the musical underworld, producing dozens  of hits, such as

• Yelp!
• Grey Mood (with its famous three-minute-long fadeout)
• Scum Together
• She Digs You (Blehh! Blehh! Blehh!)
• I’ve Just Seen a Throat
• Dying (the group’s only instrumental; culminating in a whispery sound signifying a sheet being drawn over one’s head)
• Don’t Dig Me Up
• Carry That Deadweight
• Axeman (from their first Sickedelic album Repulsor)
• A Hard Day’s Fright
• You Mother Should Croak
• Clavicle Blistery Tour
• Lady Belladonna
• I Dig Up Bony
• Twitch and Howl
• While My Widow Gently Weeps
• You Never Give Me Your Mummy
• Get Black
• PS I Bit You
• Revulsion (echoed in their eight-minute sound montage, Revulsion #9)
• Festerday
• The Long and Winding Shroud
• Things We Bled Today
• Everybody’s Got Someone to Bite Except Me and My Creature
• I Am the Werewolf
• Get Drac
• I’ve Just Been Erased
• Long-Buried Fields Forever
• Old Brown Bat
• You Know My Name (Look Up the Obituary)
• She Came in Through the Charnel Window
• No Werewolf Man
• The Cool of the Thrill
• Dead Letter Writer
• Back in the U.S. ER
• I Should Have Dug Deeper
• Doctor Leper’s Heart Transplant Club Band
• Please Mr Ghostman
• Grave Stripper
• Filling a Hole
• You’re Going to Lose That Ghoul
• Getting Deader
• Good Night Moonshine
• Lucy in a Box with Flowers
• She’s Bleeding Out
• I Want You (She’s So Bloody)
• Don’t Let Me Drown
• Maxwell’s Silver Bullet
• Happiness Is a Cold Slab
• A Waste of Honey
• I’m Happy Just to Drink from You
• Rotting Raccoon (which inspired Loudon Wainwright III’s “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”)
• Decay in the Life
• And Your Wolf Can Sing
• Baby, You’re a Dead Man
• Being for the Death Benefit of Mister Kite
• Blue Blood Way
• (The Worms Crawl) Within You, Without You
• Two of Pus
• A Little Help from My Fiends
• Norwegian Stake
• Let It Beat (nicknamed “the Poe song” by fans for  its retelling of Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”)
• Rot Naturally
• We Can Dig It Up
• Got to Get You into My Crypt

 

            Ironically, their final single release reached Number One on the US and British pop charts the same week of their passing.  Perhaps prophetically, it was titled “Here Comes the Sun (Better Hide).”

             But their first hit made such a smash that I am including its lyrics here today.

 

I Want to Bite Your Neck

by 

The Beastles

(John Venom, Paul McCoffin, George Hairyson, Ringo Stab)

 Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you something,

I hope you won’t object.
When I say that something,
I want to bite your neck.
I want to bite your neck, I want to bite your neck.

O please say to me

You’ll let me be your wreck,
And please say to me
You’ll let me bite your neck.
You’ll let me bite your neck, I want to bite your neck.

            And when I touch you I feel thirsty inside.

            It’s such a feeling for your blood
            I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide.

Yeah, you’ve got that something,

So don’t keep me in check.
When I feel that something,
I want to bite your neck.
I want to bite your neck, I want to bite your neck.

 

Bid Farewell to the Interloper!

As the sun sinks slowly into the west for this year's Blog-o-Ween, we see the last of the scenario of the normal male hoping to make time with Marilyn Munster and being scared off by her oddball family...

 

Looks as if Marilyn's tutu is snagged on a tree branch...

 

Meanwhile, we say "Whew!" with weariness and regret, to the winding down of another October.  See you tomorrow on Hallowe'en for an (intended) big ending!

That's Grandpa Just Showing Off

When we last left The Munsters, a nameless klotz has been introduced to The Munsters, who are too creepy and kooky for him.  ("Creepy and kooky"? sorry, wrong catchphrase)

The hapless young fellow is spooked by the sight of Igor, Grandpa's bat.

 

With that Beauty-Queen Parade Wave. we bid farewell to Horn Dog, Junior.

MA-23 - Disc of Doom

Here we have last year's Halloween musical offering.

1)   Count Chocula Intro  13 Days of Halloween     0:40

2)Trick or Treat      Halloween    3:11
3)Have You Ever Seen?     Boss Martians     3:16
4)Spook Opera        Hawaiian Pups     2:55
5)TV Monster Show     The Munsters 2:05
6)Land of the Dead Voltaire 1:59
7)Dracula's Deuce Freddy & the Four-Gone Conclusions 2:37
8)It's Spooky in Here Baha Men 2:41
9)Green Slime The Green Slime 2:18
10)My Body's a Zombie for You Dead Man's Bones 4:30
11) Spooksville Nu-Trends 2:37
12)The Mummy Radio Ad 0:48
13)The Ballad of Vlad the Impaler Bettie Blackchurch 1:31
14)Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Matthew Sweet 3:11
15)Exorcist Theme Halloween Remix      4:59
16)I'm Gonna Scare You Sue Rose 2:39
17)The Bat Children of the Night 2:37
18)Munsters Theme (Halloween edit)  Figure 2:42
19)Return of the Living Dead Ghoultown 3:35
20)Martian Hop    Ran-Dells 1:28
21) Halloween Party Music Andrew Gold    3:04
22) The Haunt of Room 402 Wally Wingert 3:00
23)Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati Rose & The Arrangement  2:12
24) Rockin' in the Graveyard Jackie Morningstar 2:37
25) Banditos Halloween Mash Jonathan Rubinger 4:49
26) Phantom of the A-Go-Go Don  Hinson and the Rigamorticians 2:32
27) Castin' My Spell Marci Lee 2:09
28) Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Lewis    Lee  2:54
29) Werewolf Five Man Electrical    Band     3:28
 Have fun, Kiddies!

Monster and Bride

 

 

Some have said that after folks have been married a while, they begin to resemble each other.

 

That's patently false ... I don't have red hair!

Monster Hits

Here's a not-for-sale-anymore seasonal item from the Blockbuster chain.  You decide how many of them actually are Halloween-ish.

1 Bat Out Of Hell Meat Loaf 9:49
2 Time Warp "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" Cast 3:18
3 Werewolves Of London Warren Zevon 3:25
4 The Devil Went Down To Georgia The Charlie Daniels Band 3:36
5 Clap For The Wolfman The Guess Who 3:25
6 Ghost Riders In The Sky The Outlaws 7:03
7 (Don't Fear) The Reaper Blue Oyster Cult 5:07
8 Season Of The Witch Donovan 4:56
9 Frankenstein The Edgar Winter Group 4:46
10 Evil Ways Santana 3:56
Her here's you chance to get rocked.

See ya!

 

When Last We Visited the Wolf Man ...

 

This past weekend Araya (just turned three) and I watched the first two-thirds of this wondrous movie.  She was pretend-hiding as Talbot's legs started sprouting fuzz, and looked away when he sprang in for his close-up, in the forest a minute later.

 

 

 

 

I explained to her that it was just hair glued onto the man's face, that it was just pretend.  I'm pretty sure she understands, since she is the one who likes to run down a darkened hallway with hands arched into claws, hollering, "Monsters comin' -- monsters comin'!"

 

 

As I said to somebody a few nights ago, "It's a full moon -- anybody feel hairy?"

 

 

Isn't it just loads of fun to throw your head back and let out a big ol' howl?  With me it  always sounds like Lon Chaney channeled through Count Floyd ....

 

 

A few days later, Araya was at her house, and I had to watch by myself when I finished the movie.  Such a great synthesis of story, actors, music, and directing!

 

I wondered why the amulet Larry gave Gwen earlier didn't protect her at the very end.  Maybe she left it at home...

 

It's a little interesting that the above illustration doesn't show the silver-headed cane that was the instrument of Father killing (transformed) Son.  Maybe this was so that any casual viewer who doesn't know the story will think that Sir John Talbot is just trying to wake up his hairy little boy.

 

The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own...

 

 

See you tomorrow for some audio excitement!

 

 

Mr Mundane Meets Grandpa

The poor everyday schlub who offered to help Marilyn Munster carry home her groceries now meets the patriarch of the family...

 

1313 Mockingbird Lane has never looked so inviting!

 

No, silly, not the whole clock!  Only the raven!

 

We are supposed to intimate that Grandpa is playing with the Invisible Man.

 

 

Man, that is one seriously big bat!  It couldn't get stuck in your hair.  It might mug you and take your leather jacket, though ...

 

For the kiddies, here's a page to print out and color yourself.

MA-16 - Ghos-Terrific Sounds

Thanks to the wonders of changing file hosts, you too can take a trip down Memory Lane as I re-post my earlier Halloween music compilations.

We've made it up to the fine aulde yeare of 2011.

And here's the straight poop...

1    Mr After Halloween Costume Shop Salesman      Al Lowe       1:00

2    "The Return of Dracula": The End      Gerald Fried      4:08
3    Teenage Frankenstein      Alice Cooper     3:27
4    Trick or Treat      Andrew Gold     3:23
5    Everybody Loves You When You're Dead      Stranglers   2:39
6    Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon       The Cramps       3:12
7    Count Dracula     All About Halloween     1:09
8 Halloween in Heaven Type O Negative 4:50
9 The Nightmare Before Christmas Pharaoh Atem 1:37
10 Godzilla (Album Version) Blue Oyster Cult 3:42
11 Halloween Parade David Berkeley    3:16
12 Gigantor Helmet   4:12
13 Surfin' Halloween Big Chopper 1:27
14 Count Dracula Robbie the Werewolf 5:09
15 Halloween Monster Mania stAllio!   7:55
16 Planet of the Apes Frankenstein Drag Queens   3:00
17 The Legend of Wooley Swamp Charlie Daniels   3:56
18 Spooks of Halloween Town   Yoko Shimomura   1:20
19 Hand of Blood Bullet for My Valentine 3:37
20 Casper, the Friendly Ghost      Peter Pan Singers 0:53
21 Scary Song Frankenstein Drag Queens    2:37
22 Zombie Stomp      H. Zombie featuring Toño Pneumo 4:14
23 Halloween Party     Sue Schnitzer 3:54
24 Frankenstein Rock Eddie Thomas 1:50
25 I Want a Monster     Prairie Dawn 2:12

 

So, have a Spooky Monday!


PS...this is the original 1955 art that I adapted for my CD front: