No Turning Back!

Quick post for the weekend..


House of 1,000 Corpses was a decent horror film-- gets a little criticism, tho.... You have to kind of approach it like a B-movie, and embrace some of the cheezy fun of it, along with the creepiness.

Click here for the audio of the 'Murder ride' sequence.

The Theremin

The Theremin remains the ultimate in freaky, kooky instruments of all time! Nothing can imitate the spooky, spacey, bizarrely unusual, Halloween-esque voice of the theremin, one of the first electronic instruments ever made... using transistors & antennae it literally converts movement into sound, requiring its player to stand dead still & move only the hands ever so slightly to 'bend' the eerie notes...

When it first was invented, there were attempts to make it a marketable instrument for home use-- including songbooks and a release of albums like 'Music Out Of The Moon' and 'Perfume Set To Music' -- 'easy listening' style music composed by Les Baxter & Ray Anthony, which featured the theremin playing of Samuel J Hoffman, a world-famous Theremin virtuoso.

Check Amazon for the cd 'Waves in the Ether', the re-release of this early theremin music.

Two schools of thought on the Theremin.. that it can be beautiful & classical, such as the music of Clara Rockmore, or that it can be creepy & menacing, such as the groundbreaking soundtrack to the Day The Earth Stood Still-- both of which can still be purchased, see the links to buy them at Amazon.

I love the sound of the theremin.. but, as its not ever likely that I'll ever afford one, or have the time to learn to play one, I've had to fake it.

There's a freeware VSTi plug-in, for you music software users, that simulates some of the creepier elements of the theremin, called the 'Spook Keys' (click to download) -- as well as a lost program from the BBC, a desktop theremin that you play with your mouse-- click here for what is probably the LAST place to get it online!

Here now are a few tunes played on a real theremin, which were given away free from this site:

http://www.thereminvox.com/

There are lots of songs of different styles there... I suggest you visit this cool site, and peruse their library yourself. For the Countdown, I pulled out just the ones that seemed to be the best Halloween-style tracks & put them together into a Zip file:

1. Freddie & the Hitchhikers - Sinners
2. Madam Absolut - Bruit Electronique
3. Roger Ballenger - oooOOOooo
4. Samuel J. Hoffman - Moonlight Sonata
5. Samuel J. Hoffman - So Attracted To You
6. Scott Marshall - Ghost Sonata
7. Ted Matson - Out
8. Welcome - Eviltech


Click to download ThereminVox Songs For Halloween

Bonus: In the early days of my electronic composing, I created this wacky, Halloween-related tune with a sample from the 'Rheem Kee Bass' and the aformentioned BBC Virtual Theremin.
Click here for 'That Was No Martian' in mp3, 192 kbps.

The Poet Macabre

This is, I suppose, my entry for the first day of the Halloween Countdown 2008.

I'm not totally sure I can post something every day-- I may try to pace myself, skip a day or two every so often, so I don't use up all my 'good stuff' the first week. I'll most likely aim at things I have edited myself, in some way... Which brings us to this curious little file.

The Poet Macabre.

A little backstory: There's a strange & quaint little album, pipe-organ played alongside percussion instruments, called 'Fantasy In Pipe Organ And Percussion' -- Get it now at Amazon, that & 'Pipe Organ Favorites' both credited to one allegedly French wunderkind called 'Georges Montalba', together on one c.d.

Legend has it that Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church Of Satan, once claimed he was actually the organist on these albums, the mysterious Mr. Georges Montalba. Turns out, though.. LaVey's claim has allegedly been debunked-- so the story goes, Montalba was actually a former child prodigy from California, by the name of Robert Hunter. More about that in this article. in The Village Voice

Whatever the truth, the record itself remains an oddity-- it's kooky & strange, great for Halloween ambiance-- why, it even has the Danse Macabre as one of the tunes. Rob Zombie took a sample from it to use on Sinners, Inc., even... I won't share the album, as it is still in print & available for sale. But you know my policy... I'm perfectly comfortable editing one track into a parody, and sharing that.

'Dave' over at Mostly Ghostly Music Sharing recently shared a recording of yet another Satanic figure, Aleister Crowley, reciting poems. One of these, "the Poet" was also sampled by Rob Zombie, in the film House Of 1,000 Corpses. So, I just had to get these two crazy kids together!!

Along the course of trying to edit together Montalba's 'Danse Macabre' with Crowley's The Poet, I discovered something truly freaky.. the words of the poem fit the tune!


Here's the short-but-freaky result of my tinkering, which is now my first entry in the 'Halloween Countdown', suitable as a bookend for your Halloween mixtapes. (nudge, wink...)

Click to download: The Poet Macabre

Heck, this one's pretty 'out there'... I wasn't even planning on sharing it when I started. Happy Freaky Halloween, everybody!!!

UPDATE!

A previous reply suggested that I made the organ music a little too loud, so I've tinkered with the file & made it a little clearer.. longer, too. Here's the 'extended' version; a full 2 minutes, plus!

Click to Download: The Poet Macabre, Extended

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.

Ah, There You Are! And Just In Time, Too....

The Exotic Haunted Mansion. Just in time for 03/31/2007, the first ever Halloween In March. I have been so looking forward to completing & sharing this little kooky mashup.

But.. it's not as cool as I hoped it would be. Oh, the many, many setbacks & obstacles! I have an audio disc full of mp3's of music & effects from the Mansion... get this; My pc decided not to open it. Here I have the full narrative by Paul Frees the Ghost Host, with none of the background music, all set to be used for my mystic mashup... the Leota Seance, the Mellomen singing 'Grim Grinning ghosts' a capella... and I couldn't open it.

But I was stuck. I was so sure this would be the perfect Halloween-in-the-Spring cocktail, what with the Exotica & the Happy Haunts... I decided it was a solid enough idea, that even my own amateurish vocals couldn't kill it. So, I decided that I would take on the mantle of the 'Ghost Host' myself.

I think it turned out well. A few 'dodgy' portions, yeh.... that caretaker's dog is whining for a very different reason, when the Happy Haunts 'begin to vocalize'. Ouch...



As for copyright issues... All songs & effects are copyright their respective owners.., etc, etc... I also invoke the same defense as I used for the Pirates of the Exotic Carribean... this is technically a 'parody' of the Haunted Mansion ride, which gives me a little more breathing-room... Plus, since I did the vocals & most of the sound effects myself, there's really very little of Our Friend Walt's material actually being used. Also, I'm not using any of the the full exotica songs, either---- just low-quality, low-volume, edited versions of them that function more like 'samples' than anything else.... if you like this & want to hear more, I recommend you visit Disneyland, and purchase 'The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny' 2-disk set, and also grab a Les Baxter reissue or two. Or three... just cuz they are cool, daddy-o.

Anyway... This was fun to make, and I hope it's as much fun to hear. Take a moment (or 10-plus minutes at 192 kbps in mp3 format) to enjoy The Exotic Haunted Mansion.


Oh, yes.... And here's the Voodoo Dreams/ Courtyard Bells mashup, too!

Listen for my quick homage to Criswell, and Ed Wood's 'Orgy Of The Dead'....

My 'Criswell' Impression... so bad it's scary!

My Final Project For Halloween, 2006.

And here it is, my friends, for your free consumption-- in the future. My mish-mash of dozns of old & out of print Halloween albums, all combined, fused... along with my bad, bad impression of Criswell.

THE MANSION THAT IS HAUNTED

Once again, big hats off to Jason at scarstuff-- the music & sound effects I used on this, were mostyl taken from his treasure-trove of out-of-print Halloween albums... Except for some of the music from the Plan 9 film. I tossed in sooo many kooky tributes here... So many obscure references-- even the Beatles at one point. The Beatles?!!? Why, why, WHY!?!?!??!

I tried my best to tread a very thin line... I wanted this audio-file to be just goofy enough, to make it campy.. but still pretty scary & Halloween-ish as well. I think I pulled it off.

And, yes.... that IS my own voice... providing the narration! Since I was a bit 'iffy' on how 'great' it actually is, I have offered 2 files here in mp3 format-- one with & one without the ghostly narrator.

I put a lot of work into this.. hope you enjoy it.

The Mansion That Is Haunted

Listen to it, and then add the phrase 'in the future' to the end of every fortune cookie you open, in memory of The Amazing Criswell.

Hornbook: The "After Midnight" Edition

So... I'm listening with glee, to one of horror's great elder statemen-- the late Vincent Price, chill my bones & occasionaly throw in a laugh or a grim smile. Happily 'grooving' to the many mp3's I now own, of Vincent Price's Caedmon spoken-word albums.. courtesy of Jason's blog, Scar Stuff:
A Hornbook For Witches,
Tales of Witches, Ghosts, and Goblins,
A Coven Of Witches Tales,
A Graveyard Of Ghost Tales

As I enjoyed the sometimes humorous, sometimes creepy-- mostly creepy-- storytelling of horror legend Vincent Price, a thought occured to me. "These stories might be even cooler, with some background music; the whole treatment, like Boris Karloff's 'Tales of the Frightened'!! "

Thus the idea was born.

Thus, I've spent my free time like Igor in the graveyard, scrounging up retro-ish moody music & the occasional sound-effect from numerous sources--I'd prefer a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on the music, thankee... even though it's all 'out of print' music from various sharity blogs----

(You should KNOW my sharity philosophy: Don't share albums currently for sale! BUT... If it's NOT for sale- indeed, if an old album has NEVER been released on cd, then nobody's getting cheated by sharing mp3's that were recorded from 20-year-old vinyl. If it's not been released on a cd, or a cassette, IN the last 25 to 30 years(?!?!!?!) ..... well, that's because the owners don't believe there's a market for it. The money I'd be spending on unreleased Les Baxter, Russ Garcia, Kenyon Hopkins, , etc, is chump-change to their respective labels & owners; otherwise, they'd BE selling it as cds!)

10/28/06 - The links below have been updated-- if ya missed it previously, here's your last chance before the big H-day!


A Hornbook for Witches: The 'After Midnight' Edition
Part 1
Part 2

Despite the title, I haven't included all of the tracks from the 'hornbook' album. That one just has the neatest title! What I did was pick a cd's worth of my faves of about 4 different albums--(and I only hope the engmatic Jason, whom I've never met, doesn't get sick of me 'piggybacking' off of his blog!)-- put them to music, put them together in (I hope) a coherent, thematic track-order... and here they are! Just in time for YOU, to play it at your next swingin' Halloween Horror Party!!


"They swore they couldn't and wouldn't die!
Books say they did.. but they lie! They LIE!"