Halloween Horror Double Feature

Just to celebrate Halloween here are a couple of horror related items.

Return Of The Living Dead is a horror comedy from 1985.

I remember seeing it around this time as one of my friends had got a pirate video of it from somewhere.

The film is great, very funny and full of memorable quotes, while still remaining quite scary in places.

But of course what most impressed me most and my adolescent friends at this time was when the punk girl takes all her clothes off. No doubt some Freudian psychologist could associate my liking of punk music with this moment.

It was directed by Dan O’Bannon who was also involved in the Alien films, John Carpenter’s Dark Star and also a British Sci-Fi/Horror film called Lifeforce, which happened to feature in much of it a nude Mathilda May, who so impressed the Jamming Arabs they wrote a song about her.

Anyway, the soundtrack to Return Of The Living Dead is a great compilation featuring songs by some of the best Punk/Goth/Death Rock type bands around at that time, plus a solo track from Roky Erickson of 13th Floor Elevators fame.

Return Of The Living Dead Soundtrack

The Cramps – Surfin’ Dead / 45 Grave – Party Time / TSOL – Nothing For You / Flesh Eaters – Eyes Without A Face / Roky Erickson – Burn In The Flames / The Damned – Dead Beat Dance / Tall Boys – Take A Walk / Jet Black Berries – Love Under Will / SSQ – Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die) / SSQ – Trash’s Theme

Second up is one of those compilations with all those one-off kitsch novelty songs that seemed to enjoy a certain popularity in the 50s and 60s. Great for a bit of fun at a Halloween party if anyone’s planning on having one.

Halloween Compilation

The Duponts – Screamin’ Ball (At Dracula Hall) / Billy DeMarco & Count Dracula – Drac’s Back / The Revels – Midnight Stroll / Virgil Holmes – Ghost Train / The Verdicts – The Mummy’s Ball / The Hollywood Flames – Frankenstein’s Den / Round Robin – I’m The Wolfman / The Nu-Trends – Spooksville / Milton DeLugg & The All Stars – Munster’s Theme / John Zacherle – Coolest Little Monster / Billy Doggett – Monster Party / The Jayhawks – The Creature (From Outer Space) / The Kac-ties – Mr Werewolf / Allan Sherman – My Son The Vampire / Bobby Please & The Pleasers – The Monster / The Fiends – Addams Family Theme / Billy Lee Riley – Nightmare Mash / Sonny Richard’s Panics with Cindy & Misty – The VooDoo Walk / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Feast Of The Mau Mau / The Swingin’ Phillies – Frankenstein’s Party / The Monotones – Legend Of Sleepy Hollow / Bo Diddley – Bo Meets The Monster / Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In The Graveyard / Bobby Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers – Monster Mash / Orvin Yoes – The Vampire /

John ‘Speedo’ Reis

I went to see The Night Marchers, the other night, the new band of John ‘Speedo’ Reis, of Rocket From The Crypt fame who I first saw about 10 years ago.

It was an excellent night and the band was fantastic. Not surprisingly their sound was in the vein of that classic rock ‘n’ roll influenced punk that Speedo is famous for.

So here is a compilation of most of the various bands that he’s being in over the last 15 years or so, namely Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes, Sultans and Night Marchers.

This isn’t meant to be a ‘best of’ or anything like that, just a sample of stuff that I happened to have close to hand, as a way of a tribute to a great musician and performer.

The notable missing exceptions are Pitchfork and Drive Like Jehu, not because I don’t like them or because those groups tend to have a different sound to the others – more noisy post-hardcore sort of guitar stuff – but simply because I didn’t have any about when I was doing this.

Speedo Compilation part1

Speedo Compilation part2

Rocket From The Crypt – Middle/Born In ‘69/On A Rope/Carne Voodoo/SOS/This Bad Check Is Gonna Stick/I’m Not Invisible/I Wanna Know, What I Wanna Know/Outsider/

Hot Snakes – If Credit’s What Matters, I’ll Take Credit/Automatic Midnight/Salton City/

Sultans – It Meant Nothing/Hold You Down/Try To Forget You/Chances/I Don’t Care What She Thinks Of Me/Your Mouth Is Open And Your Eyes Are Shut/The Year Of Regret/

Night Marchers – Branded/I Wanna Deadbeat You/In Dead Sleep (I Snore zzzz)/ Jump In The Fire/Whose Lady R U/

Oh Canaduh

I just happened to notice the other day on my Art of Modern Rock calendar – which incidentally has a really cool Siouxsie & The Banshees flyer this month – that it was Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday.

So in celebration of that, here is some classic Canadian punk for which we can all be thankful.

The Subhumans 12″ EP has recently been reissued but it has a slightly different track listing to the one here, which I think is a UK release combining the four tracks from the 12″ EP plus the two tracks from the Firing Squad single and the two tracks from the Vancouver Independence Compilation.

Subhumans

01.Death Was Too Kind 02.Fuck You 03.Inquisition Day 04.Slave To My Dick 05.Firing Squad 06.No Productivity 07.Behind The Smile 08.Out Of Line

I was well aware of the UK Subhumans for a long time before I heard of the Canadian group and it was only thanks to DOA who seemed to make a point at their shows of doing a Subhumans cover or two – well they did have an ex-member – and spreading the word about the group.

The DOA EP here is The John Peel Session. John Peel was the greatest DJ ever on British radio who covered all kinds of alternative music and was certainly the only I can think of who ever paid any attention to hardcore punk. As far as I know this is the only time a classic North American hardcore group ever recorded a Peel session.

DOA

01.General Strike 02.Race Riot 03.A Season In Hell 04.Burn It Down

Finally, back in the early nineties I picked up this book from a local record shop, Smash the State by Frank Manley, which is an excellent discography of Canadian punk from 1977-92.

It came with a 7″ EP that had four rare tracks of early Canadian punk – real KBD stuff. There were also three albums of the same name compiling more of this stuff but unfortunately I never got them.

Smash The State 7″

01.Arson – Coho? Coho! 02.The Fits – Bored Of Education 03.Rock And Roll Bitches – Wild West 04.Hot Nasties – Invasion Of The Tribbles

Modern Warfare discography (well almost)

Well I’m back from my holidays and as promised here is some classic American hardcore.

Modern Warfare were Jimmy Bemis’ band – the guy behind Bemisbrain records. They released two 3-track 7″ EPs and several tracks on compilation albums.

I didn’t get a chance to hear the EPs until about a year ago and they instantly made a great impression on me, particularly the song In The Shadows – it was scary but that song could almost have been about me and how I’d been living my life for the last couple of years. It made me realise that I needed to make some changes.

Anyway, included here are the two EPs and the tracks from the American Youth Report and Hell Comes To Your House compilation albums – what is missing is the track Moral Majority from Life Is Boring.. So Why Not Steal This Record compilation.

As far as I know that is their entire recorded output, although there could be other compilation tracks lurking out there. There have also been plenty of rumours about an unrealeased studio album, although I find the idea of that a bit too good to be true.

Modern Warfare

01. Dayglo 02. In The Shadows 03. Delivered 04. Nothing Left 05. No Passion 06. Suburban Death Row 07. One For All 08. Out Of My Head 09. Street Fighting Man