Return to The Mansion....

It's back.. by mild demand! Got a request from reader 'Ed' , for this old gem, so I thought.. "why not? It's my blog!" So now, I present a re-up of my own little retro throwback to the days of Halloween-on-vinyl, the audio tour known as "The Mansion That Is Haunted."

Yet another of the files that bit the 'big one' with my old pc, I present here, actually, a re-rip of the file from the cd that I burned for myself. Hey, if yer one of those people who sweats the loss of audio quality from such an exchange.. just console yourself with the fact that the sound effects & music were originally ripped from old vinyl anyway, by Jason, at Scarstuff (Thanks for the source material, dude!) and is already loaded with those oh-so-retro clicks & pops.

And yet, I love it so.

The narrator is me, your own Harvey Midnight, making my meager attempt at a Criswell impression-- With this project I tried to skirt the line between being really cheesy, with lines like, 'I too, was once alive... but then I died! And now, I am NO LONGER ALIVE!", and also bearing some real chills, as well. I think I pulled it off, and I hope you enjoy.

Love Criswell? Check out this blog entry!


Think the Criswell narrative is off-putting?
Think you can do better?
Or, just wanna use the sound effects for Halloweenish background ambience?

Here's the entire routine without the narration.

Time To 'Make You Shiver' Some More!

Yes-- to this day.. 'Sounds To Make You Shiver' is still my favorite Halloween record of all time.There are places online (thanks, Scarstuff :)) that you can grab the original album in all its glory-- Heck, on a prior post, I even provided a link to what may be a cd version for sale on Amazon. (I suspect it's a bootleg, though...)

But.. much as I love it, it does have its own weird quirks. Example: Welll... that constant loud wind through the Haunted House drives me a little nuts.

This was my plan when I created 'The Bride of Sounds To Make You Shiver' awhile back.. eliminate some of the quirkiness, give it my own style, add some of my own original music. However, that file never really lit my fire. Didn't seem to live up as a tribute, to something I've loved since childhood. I felt there was so much more potential to the nostalgia of the ol' Shiver....

So, this year I decided to punch it up a bit-- you know, fire up the ol' multitrack editor, turn on a little Les Baxter, pull out the audio from my favorite Halloween album of all time, and see what shook loose.

Submitted for your approval: The Shiver Extras -- (try to imagine them as dvd extras.)

1. Sounds (and music) to make you shiver
2. Sounds (in the stillness) to make you shiver
3. The dragging chain limp
4. Frankenstein breaks loose-- now with Frankie's 'dialogue'
5. Glass breaks
6. Additional Monster Sounds
7. Additional Screams


The attached files actually represents a lot more work than may be apparent. In order to mix in a musical soundtrack for the original 'Night In A Haunted House', I had to eliminate as much of that howling wind as I could. To do this, I had to hunt for every single solitary sound effect.. and that track is made up of LOTS more that just the effects on side 2 of the album... there are screams, monsters, chains--- heck, I think there's even a police siren mixed in there somewhere. (I didn't keep that one, sorry.) and I did my best to isolate them, and put them in the correct time-frame. (I included the isolated versions, too, in the zip. )

Of course, I didn't stick to that completely. I had to leave in a little of the wind here & about... In places such as the 'Don't turn around...' line, and the 'phantom piano' segment. BUT... also, about 9 minutes into the original track, the original creator must have just gotten tired of trying to fill up an entire side of a record-- so, he started repeating himself. Imagine my shock, when I noticed some of my favorite bits: the 'Don't turn around' line, the 'scat, you cats' line, the ghostly wail... even the Frankenstein breaking loose sequence--- all repeat themselves very quietly within the last 5 minutes.

No biggie.. I felt, if the original artist was gonna screw around a bit, why couldn't I? So I added a few things... just a few, to make this thing a little fun, give it my own spin... my usual 'Criswellian' nuttiness. Listen close for such homages. (Heh... I even hid the "Wilhelm Scream" somewhere in there, too!)

Hope you likee... The Shiver Extras