Suddenly October it's October 10, and you have a dilemma. Leif Ericson Day has just ended and now you only have three weeks before Halloween, aka All Hallows Eve, Dia de Los Muertos. How do you find the time to make sure you have a Halloween to remember? You've got your Mark Zuckerberg or Kylie Minogue costume, you've got the Jack O'lanterns, the H.P. Lovecraft, the pumpkin beer. But a sound effects record just doesn't really cut it. In America, Halloween doesn't carry the resonance with adults as it does in some places. For instance Mexico does Dia De Los Muertos right. But that doesn't mean that some of us don't care. I have friends who take Halloween pretty seriously, where the only bad holiday takes a close second to Xmas. Their annual holiday display is pretty memorable and it takes a lot of time and effort to put it together. Trick or Treaters come from all over to see the eerie spectacle.
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| My Bones Will Be Rockin' Long After I'm Gone |
There are a zillion Christmas records out there. Rock bands seem to have no interest in putting out records celebrating the Devil's night. Sort of ironic. Finding really good Halloween music is not easy. The late great Cramps are one of the obvious consumer choices. Though they are no big secret, The Cramps are for me an indispensable part of Halloween. They were a revivalist group in a lot of ways, playing a dark evil semi-tongue-in-cheek crazed rockabilly. Just as one time showing an ankle was risque in public but subsequently are standard moved further north, the Cramps took old rockabilly conventions and showed a little more skin, thus creating the subsubgenre "psychobilly". They let you get a look behind the veneer of civilized society, behind the velvet curtain. In addition to really cool and often obscure covers and novelty numbers they penned a lot of their own wild songs. Because the music is played with such wide eyed conviction the music doesn't sound corny--it's vitality comes from basically the same wellsprings that punk arose from--revved up 50's and lysergic garage bands of the 60's.
And yet somehow the songs all seem to be filtered through the theme song to The Munsters and 50's B-movies. The music is macabre, outrageous, funny. But the instructive thing is that in this worldview, the world is not full of ghosts and vampires--people with their crazy brain chemicals and urges are the real monsters--the ghouls and zombies are living right in your own home town, like a Stephen King novel. The main members of the Cramps were vocalist Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. Unfortunately Lux died last year. They were supported by a rotating cast of musicians, including Knox and Kid Congo Powers. I could have picked any record they did as a Halloween choice, but I decided to be budgetary conscious and review the two-fer Cd Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits.
The music speaks for itself--dark plodding sinister stomps interspersed with slavering revved up rockabilly.
Nearly half the songs here are covers. The disc is off to a strong start with the anthemic Green Fuz. The second album is the terrific Goo Goo Muck, a funny song using horror metaphors to spoof teenage adolescence. My favorite is the over the top wrestling dance song originally by the Novas, The Crusher. Do the Hammerlock! Do the Eye Gouge! Other notable tunes here are Rockin' Bones, Voodoo Idol, the BoDiddleyish Jungle Hop, Primitive, and Don't Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk.
The Gravest Hits section follows in the same vein as Psychedelic Jungle. The Natives Are Restless is a nifty original rockabilly number. They do an extra seedy version of the old chestnut Green Door. One of the best things here is the fuzz filled creepy Human Fly. Other cool things here are the freaky cover of the Trashmen's Surfin' Bird, the sassy The Way I Walk, and the stomping Domino. The album ends with a perverse take on the ballad Lonesome Town. Fun fun stuff. A great album to listen to with your favorite ghoul.
More macabre stuff to follow in Future Posts.
