Friday, October 27, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 43j


"This Ends Here" by David Lyle

<spooky voice>
Greetings, everyone!
</spooky voice>

Our long national nightmare is over, it's Halloween!

I'll give you three guesses what word I searched to make today's playlist, and the first two guesses don't count.

Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, & Charlton Heston, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom August 28, 1963

"Zombie Jamboree" was originally "Jumbie Jamboree". It was written by, or at least credited to, Conrad Eugene Mauge, Jr. A jumbie is a sort of a demon, or spirit, like a Caribbean leprechaun but more evil. They were supposed to be able to make people dance. I'm not actually 100% sure if this is the 1962 Harry Belafonte version, he recorded this song a few times.


The Cramps are yet another band who could have filled up a Halloween playlist by themselves. They pretty much invented the genre of "psychobilly" by playing late fifties/early sixties sleazy rockabilly and just cranking up the sleaze to about 11.


Harry Manfredini wrote a lot of horror movie music. In addition to the immortal classic "Zombie Island Massacre" (I've never seen it), he also wrote the music for Friday the 13th. By a stunning coincidence, he was also the sax player in Carl Bonafede's group The Gem-Tones, whose song Were Wolf I featured in part 43d. (That was all the way back on Wednesday! Oh, so long ago.)


Eddie and the Subtitles were a band from Orange County. Beginning as more of a New Wave act, a membership shift took them in a more psychedelic/hardcore/punk direction. The Subtitles reunited  in 2015 but apparently Eddie won't return their calls.


Eugene Ahn was a podcaster and a lawyer from Memphis when I first heard of him; I was a fan of his War Rocket Ajax podcast from episode one. I got to hear him make the transition from lawyer to rapper, which became his full-time career as he left the podcast as well. Adam WarRock is now a successful indie rapper, touring the country performing at conventions and comic book stores in addition to regular music venues.

Fela and his wives

I guess this is the epic conclusion. "Zombie" was recorded by Fela Kuti and Afrika 70 in 1976. The album was "a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military". The song was a massive hit with the public but not with the government and led to Kuti's compound and recording studio being raided and destroyed by government troops. Fela's mother was killed in the raid.

Well, that's it for Halloweek. I'll be back on Sunday with a new, non-spooky show. I hope you've had a fun & spooky time, I'll talk to you next time!

Enjoy!

- Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill


Zombie Jamboree - Harry Belafonte (1962)


Zombie Dance - The Cramps (1980)


Zombie Island Ritual (Zombie Island Massacre) - Harry Manfredini (1984)


Zombie Drug Killers - Eddie and the Subtitles (1980)


 Zombie Girl - Adam WarRock (2010)


 Zombie - Fela Kuti and Afrika 70 (1976)

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 43i




<spooky voice>
Greetings everyone!
</spooky voice>

THE HALLOWEEK KEEPS A ROLLIN'!

Some songs today that aren't really about Halloween, even the one called "Hallowe'en". One song specifically mentions Halloween but that song is about post-traumatic stress and associated symptoms. It's a grab bag.


"Hallowe'en" was the b-side of the 1985 Sonic Youth single "Flower". It isn't specifically Halloween themed, but it showed up on CD reissues of their album Bad Moon Rising, which has a fantastically Halloween-y cover.


I had a conversation recently where the subject of Marxist hip-hop came up. The Coup fits that description. They're some good old fashioned East Bay revolutionaries from Oakland, CA. This song came up while searching the word "grave", and although it isn't scary it is pretty good.

I had to check a couple of times to make sure "Haunted Cocktails" by Intro wasn't actually "Intro" by Haunted Cocktails. Intro was a kind of a goth-y New Wave band, from the UK, I think. Like I said, it's hard to google them. There was another band called Intro from the early 90s, but they were an R&B group.

This is not a great photo of Paul.
Another track that came up in a keyword search is this piece from Paul F. Tompkins' 2007 album Impersonal. Although Paul had been doing stand-up for many years, Impersonal was his first release. It was recorded at the Upright Citizens' Brigade, where I have seen him many times.


The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo were the band/theater troupe founded by Richard Elfman, featuring his brother Danny on lead vocals. They later shrunk down from over a dozen members to a tight 8-piece (including a horn section) and likewise shrunk their name down to just Oingo Boingo. (A caveman is a Halloween thing. Just go with it.)


I try to avoid using the same song in multiple episodes but I do love Roky Erickson. He really got monster movies embedded deep in his brain, and not even the shock treatments could get them out.



"Hung Up On My Baby" is from Isaac Hayes' soundtrack for Three Tough Guys, a blaxploitation action movie starring Fred Williamson and Lino Ventura, with Isaac Hayes in his acting debut. It was sampled by the Geto Boys on their classic track "Mind Playing Tricks On Me", which in addition to mentioning Halloween directly, also has some pretty nightmarish imagery.

That's it for today, see you tomorrow for the finale of HALLOWEEK!

Enjoy!

- Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill


Halloween - Sonic Youth (1985)


 Piss on Your Grave - The Coup (2002)


Haunted Cocktails - Intro (1983)


Goth Girl - Paul F. Tompkins (2007)


Ghost Bitch - Sonic Youth (1985)


Ballad of the Caveman - Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (1976)


Creature With The Atom Brain - Roky Erickson & The Aliens (1987)


Hung Up On My Baby (excerpt) - Isaac Hayes (1974)


 Mind Playing Tricks On Me - Geto Boys (1991)


Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 43h



HALLOWEEK WILL NEVER END!

...that's not true.

All the big hits are in Part 43h!

...that's not true either.

This was supposed to be the easy one. The one where I just put all the top hits, the big popular Halloween songs that everybody knows.

It turns out I can't do that. I mean I meant to, but you can see what came of that. A few million-sellers, sure, but I couldn't help sticking in some of my weirdo faves, plus some that I didn't even know I had. (Also I forgot Dead Man's Party. How could I have forgotten Dead Man's Party?)


The "invocation" here is from "Doctor Druid’s Haunted Seance". It's a record that is a tool for performing a real seance! It comes with instructions on techniques you can use to ensure that your seance is successful. Considering that Verne Langdon, who plays Doctor Druid, arranged the music, and plays the organ, is also a stage magician, you can guess what kind of techniques those might be. This record also has liner notes from Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, and was produced by Milt Larsen, founder of The Magic Castle!


Midnight Stroll is another great spooky doo-wop track that I got from dearly departed horror music blog The Essential Ghoul's Record Shelf. It was run by Max Sparber, you can read an interview with him about it here.


I don't know where I got this track by Curtis Knight Zeus (or is it Curtis Knight, Zeus?) but that guy's pretty weird. He was the frontman of an R&B group in Harlem called Curtis Knight & the Squires. He hired Jimi Hendrix as his guitarist and recorded a few demos and singles. Jimi signed a management contract with Knight's manager, which he promptly forgot about and went to London to form the Jimi Hendrix Experience. After Hendrix became famous, Knight & his manager Ed Chaplin issued hundreds of albums of the Hendrix recordings, resulting in legal action.


"The Devil Made Me Do It" is from the period after Jimi died when Knight went to London himself, formed the band Curtis Knight, Zeus (or changed his name to Curtis Knight Zeus?) and toured extensively, trading on his Hendrix connection.


 The Hits! Everybody knows BÖC, right? A bunch of dudes from Long Island who planned to be the American answer to Black Sabbath. Also, there's that cowbell sketch.



Another song by Darling Pet Munkee. Read about them in the notes for part 43h.


Superstition was written by Stevie Wonder while improvising over a drum pattern played by guitarist Jeff Beck. It became one of Stevie's biggest hits of the 70s. My favorite version is the one he played live on Sesame Street.


"Release The Beast" isn't actually scary. It also isn't a big hit, so my bad on that one. Breakwater is a funk band from Philadelphia. From the looks of their album cover, I guess they love to sweat? Maybe, I don't know. This song was sampled in the Daft Punk song "Robot Rock".


Bauhaus were an English post-punk band, one of the first so-called "gothic rock" groups. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is considered the first gothic rock record. It was recorded in one take with no overdubs in January 1979.


"Disco Devil" is a "dub", or remix, of "Chase The Devil", a 1976 record by Max Romeo and the Upsetters. Lee "Scratch" Perry, the song's producer, released the dub three years later. Lee Perry is a real weird guy, I should include more of his stuff in the future.


Thriller! Everybody knows Thriller.


The Green Slime (ガンマー第3号 宇宙大作戦 Ganmā Daisan Gō: Uchū Daisakusen) is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. I've never seen it, but the theme song is amazing.

Doesn't this guy look terrifying?
  Finally, the ultimate Halloween track, familiar to everyone, 1964's novelty blockbuster "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett And The Filter-Tip Kickers. Everyone knows it. It's in every sitcom Halloween episode, you've heard it a million times. It's the only song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett I know...


...wait. I'm getting new info here... The Monster what? The what Mash? Nope. That's nothing. I refuse to include it. This one's the hit, I don't know what you're talking about.

Until tomorrow!

Enjoy!

- Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill


 Doctor Druid’s Haunted Seance - Verne Langdon (1973)


Midnight Stroll - The Revels (1959)


The Devil Made Me Do It - Curtis Knight Zeus (1974)

(Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Öyster Cult (1976)


MONSTER S-I-Z-E MONSTERS - Darling Pet Munkee (2012)


Superstition - Stevie Wonder (1972)


Release the Beast - Breakwater (1980)


Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus (1982)


Disco Devil - Lee Perry And The Full Experience (1979)


Thriller - Michael Jackson (1982)


Green Slime - Richard Delvy (1968)


Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) - Bobby "Boris" Pickett And The Filter-Tip Kickers (1964)