Show #20 October 31, 2009 HALLOWEEN!

Tonight it's All Kindsa Ghouls and dedicated to Ethyls cold and otherwise....

Cold Ethyl- Alice Cooper Welcome To My Nightmare

Date With A Vampyre- Screaming Tribesman High Time
Godzilla- Blue Oyster Cult Spectres
Science Gone To Far!- The Dictators Manifest Destiny
Death Ship- Hoodoo Gurus Stoneage Romeos
The Brain That Refused To Die- The Slickee Boys The Brain That Refused To Die 7"
She's Fallen In Love With A Monster Man- The Revillos She's Fallen In Love With A Monster Man 7"
Lost In The Night- Secret Affair Business As Usual
^I Don't Like Mondays- The Boomtown Rats The Fine Art Of Surfacing
Goo Goo Muck- The Cramps Bad Music For Bad People
Invasion Of The Gamma Men- Shake Invasion Of The Gamma Men 7"
Screamin' Skull- The Fleshtones Hexbreaker
Halloween- Siouxsie & The Banshees Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Halloween
My Body's A Zombie For You- Dead Man's Bones Dead Man's Bones
*The Witch- Pointed Sticks Part Of The Noise
*Meet The Witch- Big Dipper Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology
*Hunting For Witches- Bloc Party A Weekend In The City
*You Must Be A Witch- The Lollipop Shoppe Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
Grimly Fiendish- The Damned Grimly Fiendish 12"
Dead Rock'n Rollers- Detention Dead Rock ' N Rollers 7"
Ghost On The Highway- The Gun Club Fire Of Love
Creature With The Atom Brain- Roky Erickson & The Aliens Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Halloween
Robots- Flight Of The Conchords Flight Of The Conchords
Night Of The Living Dead- The Misfits Walk Among Us
>Timothy- The Bouys Timothy
Deviltown- Groovie Ghoulies Monster Club
The Creature From The Black Lagoon- Dave Edmunds Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Halloween
Devil In My Car- The B-52's Wild Planet
Bewarewolf- Rudi Big Time
Me & My Mummy- Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt Kickers The Original Monster Mash
Graveyard Rockin'- The 3-D Invisibles They Won't Stay Dead!
Night Creatures- The Flys See For Miles (1978-1980)
At The Frankenstein Place-Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack

^Power Pop Peak: #73 Billboard Hot 100 2/2/80

*SacroSet: For All Da Wee-yotchs

>Power Pop Prototype: 1971

It's ALL KINDSA GHOULS with your host DICK HATE! A Halloween special has always been part of the plan, so it's very cool that my regularly scheduled show happened to fall on October 31st. I've been making Halloween mixes for people for years, so the challenge wasn't finding songs to play but rather limiting it to thirty or so choices. (In fact, next year's show is pretty much good to go.)

The album pictured above was one of the first I ever bought. I remember hearing "The Monster Mash" for the first time while driving at night with my dad in the early 70's. He turned up the radio, singing along in a passable Karloff imitation and my mind was blown. A song about vampires, the wolfman, Igor? This was right up my alley and my dad loved the song too. Turns out "The Monster Mash" had been a huge hit when it was first released in 1962, so he knew ALL the words. A day or two later I got him to drive me to the record store at the Westgate Mall in Brockton, Mass. I was intending to shell out 85 cents for the single, but the album caught my eye and I was hooked. The Original Monster Mash became a year-round favorite. In 1973 Cousin Rich had yet to teach me proper album care and storage so the record isn't as well preserved as others in my collection, but it is no less loved. What's more, I consider the scratchy "Me & My Mummy" on tonight's playlist to be a crucial part of the show.

One postscript to this Monster Mash story is that in the late 80's I got to meet singer Bobby 'Boris' Pickett. He was living in Scituate, Mass. (or maybe Cohasset, another one of those names we kept to rub it in after we stole the Indians' land) and came in to WMJX, where I was working at the time. Our sister station, WMEX, was hosting a charity fun run called "The Wimex Bash" and Bob Spicer, the production director, had written new verses for Bobby 'Boris' to sing to "The Monster Mash" tune. He was a great sport about the whole thing and what's even cooler is that my future wife Jaime got to sing the "Wimex Bash" background vocals.

Bobby 'Boris' Pickett died at the age of 69 on April 25, 2007 in Los Angeles. Aside from "Monster's Holiday," a Christmas knockoff from December of 1962, "The Monster Mash" was his only Top 40 hit. But what a hit it was; #1 in 1962, #91 in 1970 and #10 in 1973 (when I finally caught on). I thought a lot about Bobby 'Boris' when reading Nick Hornby's About A Boy. Will Freeman (who was played by Hugh Grant in the movie) feels the Christmas novelty hit "Santa's Super Sleigh" ruined his life because his father's inability to write any other hit songs destroyed the family. In the short time we were together, I didn't get any of that from Bobby 'Boris' Pickett. He seemed happy people still loved "The Monster Mash" and was very patient with a young assistant music director's many questions about The Original Monster Mash album.

Needless to say, it was fun putting this show together. I debated on "I Don't Like Mondays" but it's so creepy I couldn't pass it up. I did pass on songs about John Wayne Gacy, Son Of Sam and the Violent Femmes "Country Death Song" where a guy kills his daughter, so you see I do have standards. "Timothy" was a great find- a catchy, upbeat song that hit #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and happens to be about CANNIBALISM! Songwriter Rupert Holmes' other great contribution is "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" so the guy clearly has some kind of oral fixation. Finally, big ups for Lux Interior of The Cramps who died on February 4th of this year. Halloween just doesn't seem as spooky without him...

You can download Hour 1 of the Halloween Show here (right click and "Save Target As"):
http://thmm.com/ksvy/showarchive/public/2009-10-31__20_59_57.mp3

and here's Hour 2:
http://thmm.com/ksvy/showarchive/public/2009-10-31__21_59_57.mp3