HAPPY    ALL    HALLOWS    EVE


OK, so the day has finally arrived...All Hallows Eve...Devils Night...So my final three suggestions for listening pleasures this wicked evening are here as well...

First, I'll break ranks and suggest a compact disc.  Not just a compact disc but a compact disc single, CD5, whatever...In 1997, the visionaries @ K-Tel came up with the idea to release a novelty single for the Halloween season by none other than Chubby Checker...Maybe they had seen his half-time extravaganza with the Rockettes back in '88 and, that being pretty scary, they thought he could pull of the Halloween thing. The tracks- Doin' The Zombie, House of Horror, The Twist, & Screams From Beyond rival the Fat Boys collaboration on the scare-o-meter (of course none of these tracks come close to the Fat Boys collaboration that the Beach Boys did, or worse yet Mike Love's "Rock n Roll Again" LP where he helps butcher some older songs...check out "Walk Away Renee" by the Association, Midi/Yamaha DX7 frights from hell...anyhow I digress)

 

The second installment in my October favorites series starts with an opera LP from Brazil, it's a single LP of excerpts from Johann Strauss' "O Morcego" or "Der Fledermaus" or "the Bat" if you must.  Issued on the Copacabana label, the sound quality is radio broadcast level and the performance by the Zurich Radio Orchestra is fine, but it's the cover art that makes this a Halloween treat. Cool record store sticker from the Loja Gomes store on Av. Afonso Pena. It appears that the store was once in the center of Belo Horizonte-a huge city about 300 miles above Rio...





Up next...a classic American mix



Folkways and Edgar Allen Poe...Folkways records released this version of the Pit & the Pendulum in 1967, the orator is David Kurlan.  I was abe to dig up a little about  his Broadway work, mostly roles in musicals. He also did a couple of other Folkways voice overs. His reading is straight forward and very effective, kind of like the polar opposite of the Lou Reeds double CD nightmare based on Edgar Allan Poe. The LP comes with a small pamphlet containing instructions for teachers as well a sheet of transparency images for the old mimeograph...

Another round of well executed, attention grabbing promotional sales stickers.  A very transitory artform as said stickers are almost always attached to the outer shrink wrap, most of them get thrown away as soon as an LP is opened for play .  In vinylandia we often come across NOS Long Players or records that have their shrink  wrap preserved and once in a while a brilliant little piece of advertising art will still be on that shrink.  Here's this weeks finds...

                     

                          THE ART OF CAEDMON RECORDS
                 (click on any image for full size and better detail)

The month of October begins the massive turn inward that results in the great isolation of the later winter months. We in SoCal tend to be spared the brunt of all the snow and ice that is the harsh reality of winter for much of the rest of the country.  Even so, the general isolation that comes with winter certainly occurs here- try getting people out to a performance during even a light Feb. rainstorm and you'll know a true feeling of loneliness deep in your heart.  I thought that I'd put together a three parter featuring some of my favorite recordings for your post Mabon listening pleasure...those lonely nights in your SRO curled up next to your illegal space heater, anticipating the Samhain spirit night quickly approaching...

"SPOOKY SOUNDS" or "SPOOKY AND
OUT OF THIS WORLD SOUNDS" on
SOUNDS RECORDS
(Glendale, CA private press)



Always a favorite around the (((6))) compound this time of the year, this LP not  only has some truly great cat screeching and chain rattling, but really spooked out THEREMIN SOLOS.  Originally issued as two separate Halloween themed 7" EP's (one pumpkin cover, one werewolf cover). I have the LP, the cover of which is a picture of a"spooky" Victorian house.  My copy had a former life  as a library LP so the cover has a big rip where the card pocket was ripped off and there's a heat warp warning sticker to the left, which I believe gives my copy creepier feel.