"What you should be scared of is Romney's plan for those of us in the working class!"

It’s been just long enough since last year’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup hangover to allow me to look forward to another Halloween. Assuming I will have learned nothing from previous celebrations, I’ll undoubtedly be purchasing an extra big bag of candy under the pretence of preparing for trick-or-treaters, knowing full well that, in the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve gotten exactly one caller.

Let me tell you though – that one trick-or-treater made me so excited I gave him three huge handfuls of candy; enough that both he and his mother looked a little concerned; there was almost certainly an after-hours comb-through to search for pins and poison in the hoard I’d bestowed.

I’m digressing here, but why hasn’t anyone invented candy pins? Am I alone in thinking that would be neat?

Still better than Necco Wafers!

Every year I assemble folks to watch horror films and eat candy. I don’t yet know what we’ll be watching (last year it was Susperia) but I am ready with a playlist of atmospheric Halloween music, some of which I’ll share with you…

First, nothing fills out a Halloween playlist better than a hearty dose of organ music by the baddest mutterficker of baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach.

I can state with ease, and it is a well established fact, I am something of a record geek. I prefer the term ‘record collector’ or even ‘music buff,’ but I can live with the ‘geek’ moniker.  Now I also know as a matter of fact, my wife wishes wholeheartedly I wasn’t such a collector/geek. See, there’s a particular and peculiar trait in people like me, and it’s called “the completist syndrome.” The definition: “somebody who collects a particular kind of thing and wants to obtain an example of everything available, even of inferior items.” I can’t just buy a CD of one of my favorite artists and be content, I feel compelled to collect everything in their discography … everything.

Let’s say I’m a Paula Abdul fan. I would have to collect, not just all her full length CD’s and Albums, but I would find it compulsory to track down every single variant of "Straight Up" or "Opposites Attract" in its many forms: 7” singles, CD singles, 12 inch singles, remix here, remix there…

side note: I ‘m not a Paula Abdul fan at all. In fact I can easily state, again as fact, I think she erred in not fulfilling her destiny as a Lakers Cheerleader. In fact, I believe her going into the music industry caused some kind of “butterfly effect,”  which might explain the personality of our chaotic American lives since the eighties. And to think, I always blamed everything on Ronald Wilson Reagan, (here’s one reason, just add up the letters, he’s President 666. Coincidence? There are no coincidences! Know what I mean ...)

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.

It's exactly like Cee-Lo performing, but with perhaps a mouth full of hot dogs!