Month: October 2015

You can stream the tracks of my Spoken Word album, featuring four ghost stories perfect for this evening’s holiday. And, if you’re feeling generous, pick up a copy and help support the little guy. Namely: me.
http://wtbc.bandcamp.com/album/the-ways-of-ghosts-by-ambrose-bierce

Orson Welles has been known for many things in his life, but radio was his first big success, and in the late 1930’s his Mercury Theater performed a number of audio adaptations of classic literature and novels. Welles’ version of “The War of The Worlds” was broadcast 77 years ago, and once you listen to this recording, you’ll know why it caused such a panic, and why it is a Halloween tradition. #HalloweenSpooktacular2015.
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/30/the-war-of-the-worlds

Spike Jones was the king of novelty songs in his heyday, and before “The Monster Mash” arrived on the scene, this album was THE album to put on around the holiday. Tune in for this retrocast from 2011, with monster songs straight and silly, with a little bit of everything to make this a funny and fun occasion. For stream or download. #HalloweenSpooktacular2015
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/29/a-spike-jones-spooktacular-in-screaming-stereo-sound/

With only a few days until Halloween, I thought it would be nice to do a photoshoot of the decorations we’ve accumulated and put up around our home. We don’t go crazy, but we do like to get into the spirit of the season, and my wife even dressed up her doll for the occasion. There’s even a video of the approach to our house in the dark. #HalloweenSpooktacular2015
http://acronyminc.org/2015/10/29/halloweenspooktacular2015-comes-to-a-close

#HalloweenSpooktacular2015 Comes To A Close

IMG_2024We Can Now Move On To Other Subjects.

Whew.  What a season!  I think I did some of my best work on both The Blog and on The Podcast this year, and the Spooktacular was the tacular-est of them all, thanks to everyone who has been following along.  Please, check out All Our October Podcasts and All Our October Blog Posts if you’d like to catch up.  But don’t worry too much about the past.  There’s lots of cool stuff on the horizon, too, so whatever your relative “now” is, it is always a good time to jump on board with our stuff.  To close I will ask, one last time, that you take a look and a listen at The Ways Of Ghosts one more time, and if you’re feeling generous, please pick up a copy.  It’s a good way to support what we do, and a great piece of Halloween listening if I do say so myself.  (End of plugs section.)

As much as I’ve enjoyed Halloween and the music associated with it for a long time, I have never obsessed too much over what I dress up as, or how I should decorate for the holiday.  Sure, I would participate if I was going to a party, or had a pumpkin lying around, but it is only recently that I have gotten into collecting cool decorations for the holiday, and if I were to get very specific, it is only since I met my wife, who is also a big fan of vintage holiday ephemera.  We have an aesthetic we’re trying to cultivate, and obviously we fudge things here and there for the sake of nostalgia, but try to keep it within reason.  We don’t go all-out with crazy decorations, and “tasteful” is something we are constantly weighing when we put things up.  But we do like to have fun, an we’re always looking out for something to add to our collection.  To close out the season here on the blog, here’s a photo shoot of our decorations, and some highlights discussed below.

First, here’s a video of walking up to our house in the dark.  I think it is rather charming.

 

IMG_2038-ANIMATIONLights.

We try to keep our lights simple, and limited to path lighting with a few accent strings here and there.  Among them are a few strings of these flickering lights, that are supposed to replicate the look of candles.  I’m quite fond of them, and the best part is that they are appropraite for both Halloween & Christmas.  The path lights are only problematic because we have shitty people in the neighborhood who will stomp on them.  Otherwise, they are so easy to install and store if you keep the original packaging, and replacement bulbs are easy to find.

IMG_2090-ANIMATIONI would also mention that many of the “electronic” candles that you can get in most stores have “timer” settings, where the light is on for five hours, and off for 19.  (Some have even further settings to fine tune these times.)  These can work really well to accent parts of the room, or light the inside of other decorations (like our stack of pumpkins).  Lastly, I have all of my lights on one switch in the living room, so I don’t even have to go outside to turn everything off.  I recommend this for anyone who wants to set up decorations.  I used to just plug things in where ever I could, and really thought I wouldn’t mind going out to unplug things.  Being able to shut it down with one switch is quite a luxury.

 

IMG_2033Our Wreath.

When we moved into our house last year, it was Spring, and throughout the summer we got to know our neighbors.  But we were still very surprised when they offered this wreath to us last October, just before we were about to put our our decorations, as a gift.  It was so incredibly thoughtful, and is such a great addition to the porch.  I have since made a special box just for the wreath to store it during the off season, we are very proud of it.  While we mostly keep to ourselves, that wreath really bonded us as neighbors.

 

IMG_2154Blowmolds.

My wife and I are fond of vintage blowmolds, and every time we’ve found one it’s been worth buying, no matter where you find them.  Patience has paid off, and we have found four incredible pumpkins at various thrift stores.  Each of these are designed to insert a light that plugs in, creating the effect that the entire plastic item is lighting up (you can see them in action in the video).  These things are really awesome, and we get excited when we can put them out.  As you can see, the biggest one is clearly sun-damaged with age, but the others are pretty fantastic.  We’re hoping that we can find more to flesh out our entire porch as the years go on.

 

IMG_2034Bag of Leaves

Among the other weird thrift scores that my wife has found was this plastic bag that you can fill with leaves.  It is much grosser and harder to fill than you would think, and it is easy to damage or ruin the plastic, too.  However, it has a bit of charm to it, and we have enjoyed putting it on the porch this year.  There are four other versions of this same kind of thing, made by the same company (Kenley Corporation in Mason, Ohio), so it would be cool to complete the set.

 

Sound.

Last year I made this mix of “scary” sounds from a variety of sources, and edited it to fit the length of an audio CD.  I made a CD, and play it on my porch from a small, portable CD player that I purchased several years ago (you can see it in the video above).  I put the CD on infinite repeat, and it works very well as an atmospheric sound for people who walk up to the porch.

 

IMG_2031Paper Crafts.

While we have picked up a few things in stores (like these pumpkins that fold out), my wife has scored a variety of vintage cardboard and paper wall hangings, and you can tell by the designs that they are most likely the from the early ’80s or late ’70s.  However, we have also acquired a folding witch lantern, a Halloween banner, and a stand up cat.  While most of our paper crafts – like the Mummy – are fairly newish, this Pumpkin / Owl Fold-Out item is not only one of the oldest items we have, but by far the coolest.  I added a spider to it this year for effect, but it does not need one.  It is pretty great.

 

IMG_2017Tissue Ghosts.

My mom used to make these tissue paper ghosts when I was a kid, and they are very much something I remember fondly.  They’re incredibly easy to make, too.  After you wad up a bit of paper or newspaper to create the “head,” wrap a piece of generic tissue paper around it.  Tie a piece of thread around the tissue paper to keep the head in place, and cut off the thread at a reasonable length so you can hang it from somewhere (like, you’re ceiling).  I call this part of our living room “Ghost Corner,” and I already have plans for creating little floating styrofoam headstones in the future.  But for now these twenty are a good start to my collection.  These are an easy craft project for kids, too, and is much less messy than carving a pumpkin.

 

IMG_2036Blythe Halloween Doll Party.

My wife used to have a number of Blythe Dolls, and to this day is connected to a group that still interacts regularly.  (She has two that she still keeps).  This year she was invited to a Halloween Doll party, where other collectors brought their dolls dressed up in all sorts of costumes.  To that end, she made the helmet using a styrofoam pumpkin she bought at a craft store.  She cut the bottom out, and covered the surface of the pumpkin with glue, then glitter.  Lastly, she added a coat of hairspray to help “set” the glitter.  The overall effect was pretty great, as you can see.

* * * * * *

So, while we don’t cover every inch of our house with decorations, we like to have fun, and we like the stuff we have.  We’\ve only been together for a short time, and just got married, so our collection is pretty young.  But given a few more years, we could amass some awesome stuff if we keep looking.

It’s hard to resist a little more Vincent Price this time of year, and this is why I urge you to check out “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall,” by Leah Bodine Drake, and read by the man himself. I serialized this story last year on the podcast, but here’s a round up of links and information about this story, and this excellent actor who can make even a silly story have some gravitas. Enjoy! #HalloweenSpooktacular2015.
http://acronyminc.org/2015/10/28/the-water-ghost-of-harrowby-hall-by-vincent-price/

With our #HalloweenSpooktacular2015 winding to a close, we still want to deliver some excellent retrocasts to keep you in the mood all the way through this weekend. With that we return to the Punk-In Patch, with Iggy Pop’s rendition of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” available for stream or download. Creepy music, a creepy story, and ready by someone who looks like a horror movie creature in his old age. Enjoy!
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/28/the-tell-tale-heart/

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall by Vincent Price

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall
The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall
(A radio serial created from A Hornbook for Witches by Leah Bodine Drake (1950), and read by the incomparable Vincent Price released by Caedmon Records in 1976.)

As Halloween began to get commodified more and more in the ’70’s and ’80’s, the kinds of music and recording that were hitting the market began to dabble in strange little nooks and crannies.  Disney had established that narratives could work, and many people stuck with reading Edgar Allen Poe if they wanted a spooky story.  But Caedmon Records expanded the scope of what they were willing to release, and with that they contacted Vincent Price to perform for their Halloween releases.

I’ve written at length about both Vincent Price and his relationship with Caedmon Records, so I won’t bore you too much with that, except to say that to me, he really is a Halloween character, through and through.  My perception of him as a kid was very much that of a horror creature, and I would get pretty excited when I would hear his voice, or see him in a film.  Having Vincent as a part of Halloween just makes sense, and I’m happy to hear him year-round.

Below are five links, that allow you to hear the five-part series I ran last October as part of our Annual Halloween Spook-tacular!  These were delivered into the podcast feed on five consecutive days – Monday through Friday – at 11 AM each day.  String all five of these together for a 25 minute tale that is a fantastic way to spend an evening if you’re looking for something seasonally appropriate to do.

vincent-vincent-price-35944932-1080-960The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (Part I of V)

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (Part II of V)

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (Part III of V)

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (Part IV of V)

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall (Part V of V)

 

There’s something really fun about serial entertainment, as the kinds of people who are prone to binge-watching any TV Show can easily attest to.  We like being cut off at the height of the stories’ telling, knowing that we have to wait for the next segment to come a day, week, month or year later.

I’m not sure how many new fans got into the story as it was being doled out in five-minute chunks, but Vincent Price fans loved it, and I had a lot of fun making it, for sure, so much so that I even made a little commercial for the event.

 

 

If you wanna dig past “The Monster Mash” and the other Halloween novelty songs that are common this time of year, then what you want to pick up is “Halloween Nuggets,” an amazing collection of ’60’s Garage Rock with a monster theme. And here’s 1500 words on why you should get this collection from last year. I promise: it is worth your time. #HalloweenSpooktacular2015
http://acronyminc.org/2015/10/27/halloween-nuggets/

In 1936, Bess performed the last of 10 séances that attempted to contact the spirit world, and specifically, the ghost of her late husband, Harry Houdini. Join me for a new broadcast – the last in our #HalloweenSpooktacular2015 series – as we present songs about magic, escaping, and contacting sprits… and what’s that at the end of the show? Only on WTBC Radio in Beautiful Anywhere, Anywhen, available for stream or download.
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/27/the-final-houdini-seance/

The ’60’s Are Alive With Monsters!

Halloween Nuggets!
Halloween Nuggets!

Halloween Nuggets!
(Originally podcast on 17 October 2014.  Expanded for this presentation.)

Once “The Monster Mash” hit the scene in 1962, two things became clear for artists in the 1960’s: the combination of Monsters and Rock Music was perfect for any aspiring artist, and the “Christmas Effect” was now applicable to Halloween as this songs – not even a great song, to be sure – was starting to get guaranteed seasonal airplay.  In the same way that cutting a Christmas Tune gave your group some longevity, if only because you would get yearly airplay), then anyone with a guitar and some friends could watch a few horror films late at night and cast around for their own novelty hit that might help launch their careers.

But it wasn’t just people like Bobby Pickett and Don Hinson that were cranking out monster songs, and in the early ’60’s, rock music was changing.  Surf had hit the scene pretty hard in the early ’60’s, telegraphing psychedelia by a few years.  Surf taught kids that, so long as your guitar player could solo and your rhythm section could play nice with each other, anyone could start one of these bands.  Once The Beatles made their epic three week engagement on The Ed Sullivan Show, it seemed as if this version of Rock & Roll was not your parents version from the last decade.  Focused on teenagers and their alienation from the rest of modern culture, Rock Music was no longer just about dancing and partying, but had a new range and sound that was electric, and LOUD.

It helped that there was a lot of cheaply made instruments for sale – both new and used – and was thus easy to distribute among the suburbs.  Kids everywhere began to create bands with their friends, and by the end of 1964, hundreds of garage bands across the country started, all picking up instruments, picking up cues from the Rock Stars on TV, and picking up on this Monster Vibe that was reverberating through our Culture in Movies and The Late Late Show.  Just because these groups were not famous, and were not well known outside of their own home town was irrelevant; if they could get a gig at the local armory, or at a house party, that was fine.  And, if one of them had enough savings to sink into pressing up a 45, hey, that was cool, too.  Teenagers – distracted by hormones and parties and the War in Vietnam and girls & boys and surfing – had never gotten together and planned to create a music movement.  Instead, they were just looking for ways to pass the time.

 

Nuggets,_Volume_11 – 4 – 5.  Now Start A Band.

Lenny Kaye was one of these teenagers, and started his own band in 1964 – The Vandals.  As a fanzine writer and music enthusiast, this made sense, and as he got to know other bands and began traveling, he collected records by other garage groups – music that Kaye labeled “punk rock” – and found that many of these songs were in danger of getting lost in the cracks if action was not taken.  In 1972 he assembled the original Nuggets compilation, which showcased music by groups that, while not representative of the entire movement, captured those with some pretty big regional hits: The Blues Project, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Amboy Dukes, and Nazz.  As some would say, the rest in history: Nuggets has become a sort of cottage industry for Rhino Records, who released 14 sequels to Kaye’s original record in the late ’80’s, and assembled three 4-disc sets of other material, along with other 4-disc localized collections like the LA and San Francisco sets.

It is impossible to say if Kaye knew what was happening when he made that first collection in 1972, but before long he set off not only the modern Rock Record collector market, but a whole genre of compilation albums.  The Pebbles series followed in 1978 (which seems to have stopped after 28 collected LPs of tunes), each collecting the lesser-known groups of the Garage Era.  Crypt Records‘ very own Tim Warren started Back From The Grave in 1983, as series of comps that focused on some of the wilder, rawer, and crazier records from this same era.  (Up to 10 volumes, at this point.)

But more importantly, these (and other) compilations that came out in the years since began to document an era that was beginning to be lost.  Classic Rock Radio was the dominant format in America by the ’80’s, and it seemed as if the history of rock and roll was going from Elvis to Led Zeppelin, with little focus on the ’60’s outside of the psychedelic movement (that seemed to map over the political ideology of the counterculture).  However, not everyone was into psyche rock.  Most people in the ’60’s had grown up on Rock & Roll, and want to make something closer to The Troggs than to Jefferson Airplane.  These compilations reclaimed the story of Rock Music from the one that was being heard on the radio, and helped document scenes that had otherwise disappeared once everyone went off to college.

It is ironic that a more complete picture of the ’60’s didn’t come together until the ’80’s, and even then seemed only appreciated by collectors and nerds who enjoyed doing the research.  But people who had worked to assemble these kinds of comps also established an entire market for LPs that were not collections of Hit Songs.  The idea that you could make a record that documents a time and and a place – wherever and whenever that might be – created the Punk Rock that Kaye had identified in Garage Music.  Not only has the Killed By Death series done for punk what these other comps did for the ’60’s, but the larger idea of documenting these fragile (and quickly disintegrating music movements) gave the DIY movement the much needed juice to keep going when things seemed darkest, a tradition that has persisted into the 2010s.

 

R-6095802-1410958660-6932.jpegRockBeat Records

In the early 2000s, S’more Entertainment was just another small record company looking for an angle, and noticed that the reissue market was one place that record sales were not dropping off.  They began with re-issues of Black Oak Arkansas and Nazareth records, and hit gold with Dick Dale’s back catalog.  They quickly assembled a collection – Surf-Age Nuggets – under the name RockBeat Records, hoping that if it bombed, they could quickly shed the name and keep going.  However, Surf was still big money, and this collection (available on both CD and LP) but this new subsidiary on the map.  Very quickly RockBeat, and the work they were doing in that office, subsumed the parent company.

RockBeat had hit on a formula, and went on to release collections of The Moving Sidewalks, Little Feat, The Blasters, Albert King, Django Reinhardt, and the very impressive Los Nuggetz Volume Uno, which assembled the previously-uncharted territory of Mexican Rock Music from the ’60’s and ’70’s.  Armed with this success, they began casting around for something else they could put in the stores, and hit upon the idea of collecting old ’60’s Monster songs.  Plenty of garage bands had recorded stuff like that, and with access to a number of artist’s catalogs, it appeared that they could even release a proper boxed set, music like the comps they were using as their inspiration.

Taking cues from the Wavy Gravy model, RockBeat inserted horror movie trailers into their three-disc set, in-between songs about partying in graveyards and hanging out with vampires.  The the concentration (and quality) of the tunes here is what really sets this apart from the stuff you usually find in stores when September rolls around.  Foregoing anything close to “The Monster Mash,” they really dug into the Nuggets of the past, and assembled almost 100 tracks of incredibly rockin’ songs, many of which had not been comped elsewhere.  (There is some overlap with other sources, but not much.)

As a relatively new compilation – 2014, no less – it remains to be seen if this collection will gain the same kind of notoriety of the Nuggets predecessors that paved the way for this label.  And, to be completely fair, RockBeat might not have a long-term future, either.  (Having only been around for 10 years, and the increasingly declining state of the Record Industry, might make it hard to build a career on re-issues.)  However, in our house, this collection is already a classic, and is absolutely essential listening this time of year.  If you want to class up any party you’re throwing – and you still want to be on-point with seasonal treats – Halloween Nuggets is the only way to go.

* * * * * *

You can purchase the album at Amazon.com.

You can stream the entire thing at Spotify.  (I think you need to be logged in for that link to work.)

It is also available in a number of other places, too.

Playlist:

Watusi Zombi * Jan Davis * Halloween Nuggets
Graveyard * The Phantom Five * Halloween Nuggets
Scream * Ralph Neilsen & The Chancellors * Halloween Nuggets

Mother Box 034

While Halloween Music didn’t take off until the late ’50’s, a number of one-off novelty song hit the market, all taking a stab at ghostly themes and spooky notions. In this 2013 retrocast, I collect a number of older songs in my creepy collection, and mix in selections of a ’40’s radio program, “Yankee Yarn,” that delivers the story of General Moulton! #HalloweenSpooktacular2015. For stream or download.
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/26/the-ghost-of-general-moulton/

Our #HalloweenSpooktacular2015 was spearheaded by all sorts of great podcasts dug up from the record crypt! Tuesdays this month had new drive-in horror-classic podcasts to fill you with fright. And, on the other week-days we retro-casted Halloween shows from all over our checkered past. Follow the link, and check out all our stuff we’ve done so far this month, and remember: there’s still a week of shows left on WTBC. Enjoy!
http://anywhereanywhen.com/2015/10/

Every week-day this month I’ve been publishing stories and links to all my favorite treats as part of my #HalloweenSpooktacular2015 (to complement all the podcasts that have been happening at WTBC Radio in Beautiful Anywhere, Anywhen.) Here’s a link where you can check out all our October 2015 blog posts, and remember that we still have a full week of new stuff ahead starting tomorrow! Get the lowdown on this fantastic Holiday, and some of the coolest parts of this eerie time of year. Enjoy!
http://acronyminc.org/2015/10/