The Ghoul Goes Western Electric, pt. 1

Hello long-suffering S&Pbrains!

Monsterpalooza is rapidly approaching, and my ill-timed but very needed stretch of emotional learning and grieving has not stopped me from working on this year's submission to the Museum.

Oh, ol' Edward Van Bone will be back -- he made a real splash last year and I think he ought to head up the Museum every year -- but I've been working on a new figure.

Oh, I know I'd mentioned perhaps having Ray Bradbury and Uncle Forry having a long-awaited discussion now that they're both in the realm of Prince Sirki, but that was simply not to be. Not enough time or resources.

Sometimes life is just like that. No one's going to be injured. I'll take it.

But I still wanted to tribute Papa Ray, so pondering his Walt Whitman-inspired 'I Sing The Body Electric', the idea of a Raybot, of Bradbury's own Body Electric, came to me in a sparking, zapping, giggling dream.

Here he is so far...

He needed those steel blue eyes to be lit, and his neck (along with the rest of his Body Electric, which I'll be working on today) is comprised, I am happy to say, of old radio parts. There's something very apt about that, to me. Vintage radio. I'll take it.

More to come, but I had to update today.

I hope you are all enjoying your first day of Spring. Out here, the S&P is awaiting a big winter storm.

Apparently the weather guys didn't get the memo.

Onward!

DDSnowyPrecipitation!

Old tubes, St. Valenstyle.

Who ever said love was pretty?

Yes, even our trusty old Hallowe'enith console radio knows that today -- and certainly tonight -- we celebrate that most delectable of emotions -- the all-seeing, all-devouring, all-but-can't-be-lived-without energy of LOVE, good S&Pers.

Just now, the crackling and sparking and humming has calmed, and the magic eye tuner on our beloved radio has somehow become the cute li'l lovelorn fella you see drooling and sneering above.

I am pretty darn sure that means we have some new bit of fun to listen to all night long.

First up, a delightfully twisted little tale concerning med school pranksters, an old cadaver, and a med student pursuing the love of a beautiful but mysterious young woman who seems to think she's half a century in the past.

 

Love and the Lonely One was the first episode of the awesome CBC radio horror series Nightfall, first broadcast in 1980. It's probably not for children. Or the kinds of grown-ups who wouldn't venture into the Skull & Pumpkin. 

So I know all of you will love it.

Then, to cap our romantic radio repertoire, we have a tiny little tale of terror, voiced by the master of screen horror himself, William Henry Pratt.

From the 1963 Mercury Records series Tales of the Frightened, here is Boris Karloff spinning the short-but-oh-so-satisfying The Vampire Sleeps, wherein chance brings together a young nobleman and a (yet another) beautiful and mysterious lady.

You're not one of the frightened, are you?

Anyway, we'll be toasting, talking, dancing and romancing here at the S&P all day and night. Do come by.

Good listening, good loving, good night to you all.

DUMDUMSWEETHEARTS!

(C)old tubes.

A quick word from our sponsor:

Yes, pubgoers, our Hallowe'enith console radio receives only the creepiest, kookiest, spookiest old shows and tales still flying through the ether, for our listening enjoyment here at the Skull & Pumpkin.

This time around, the ol' radio playlist (to your left) offers two chilling tales from years gone by, both steeped in cold, wintry terror, both from the radio dens of the Great White North.

First up, from the short-lived 1955 CBC radio series Theatre 10:30 comes The Wendigo -- taken from Algernon Blackwood's terrifying short story about a native American nightmare creature. The audio is a bit rough here -- some swishing and swooshing -- but it's complete and present and worth the 25 minute ride to hear the horror of the snowy beast...

source unknown, but very Grither-like...

Then, we move forward a few decades but stay in Canada for another horror tale, this time from one of the CBC's most revered and remembered radio shows from the early '80s, the fabulous horror anthology series Nightfall!

(source)

The 1982 episode Wind Chill tells the tale of a cabin, a blizzard, and unexpected company -- a chilling ghost story for a windy winter night.

Cold, creepy listening  for us all.

Grab a hot drink, I'll put on another log, and we can spend an hour forgetting the weather and enjoying the ol' Hallowe'enith radio.

DDSP!

Yule tubes.

Hey there, S&P-brains!

After a week of shows, errands and even a little dental surgery, your humble pubkeep is ready for a restful Christmas season.

I know. But even if we Autumn Folk consider it That Other Holiday, we also know very well it's a fine time to let our families and friends in on our darker tastes, a chance to beg for gifts that are decidedly different -- darker than the usual under-tree fare.

And since we all know giving is far, far better than getting (it is, and you damn well know it), this is a fine time of year to pass some of our Autumnness around to our loved ones. Get Gramps a vintage leatherbound Lovecraft collection. Get Mama a pretty sweater... with skulls on it. Get your baby sister or brother a set of DVDs of the shows or films that scared you silly when you were their age.

In short, it's a fine time to help bring more people to Autumn.

And it's a fine time to gather with loved ones around a fire, with good food and drink, and fine distractions full of tales of the supernatural.

The parlour with the ol' Hallowe'enith radio here at the S&P is the perfect spot for relaxing for That Other Holiday, and even as I have been dusting and decorating for the Yuletide, the spooky old console has been buzzing, spluttering and humming.

Let's see what's happened, eh?

Ah! First up, a spooky little bit of seasonal suspense from... Suspense! From December 1943, this legendary radio series brings us Peter Lorre as a strange sort of gardener in Back For Christmas.

Then, another odd little program.

(source)

In December of 1941, the WKY (Oklahoma City) radio series Dark Fantasy brought us the tale of three people lost in the wintery woods, trying to comprehend The Demon Tree.

And finally...

Of course!

The ultimate spooky Christmas tale, this time as a CBS Radio tradition begun on Christmas Eve 1975 -- series host E.G. Marshall as Ebenezer Scrooge in  The CBS Radio Mystery Theater's own A Christmas Carol.

Plenty of shivery Christmastime listening, for now. Just find the Hallowe'enith radio list on the left of this page and select your program!

Please enjoy your families, your friends, and each other.

And please keep visiting this ol' place. Even if your busy pubkeep can't bring new things as often as he'd like (and is now referring to himself in third person for some reason), there is still  lot to see.

A safe and warm holiday season to us all -- a toast!

DUMDUMSHREKPOP!

Digital Hallowe'en, on the air.

It's begun, fellow S&Pers!

SiriusXM just rolled out their SCREAM Channel (145) about ten minutes ago, and they're running until 3am November 1st!

 Songs, stories, sound effects, just spooky fun!

We'll have it on at the S&P for the rest of the week.

Now back to making Hallowe'en... with a cool soundtrack!


DDSProgramming!

Old tubes, vacation edition.

Well, it looks like there are some rather sinister little things crawling around in there...

Not that they're unwelcome at the S&P, of course. I just hadn't seen them before when cleaning. Perhaps, like so many in August, they're just visiting.

Vacationing.

Every month when I change up the jukebox, I hear odd little electrical crackles and whines coming from the old Hallowe'enith console radio, and I know that we'll soon have a few new items for our spooky listening pleasure.

Sure enough, there are two new old shows there for our listening delight, each having as its starting point a traveler, and vacationer, a person or people who have set off for an adventure, and get one they didn't at all expect.

First up, a family rents a creepy old house and for some reason won't believe the tales and warnings the old caretaker offers in The Organ, another beauty from the legendary Lights Out! program, originally broadcast in the summer of 1943.

Then, a strange visit to a strange friend on a strange island -- from August of 1942 and the Dark Fantasy series comes W Is For Werewolf.

Two delightful little trips about two delightful little trips.

Grab your favorite repast, and refreshment, settle into your favorite nook and listen for an hour.

You've only got a month or so, then they change again. But I hope those little creeps will stay in the radio. Goodness knows they're very welcome to live here.

Enjoy!

DDSP!

Old tube invasion.

Greetings, S&P-brains!

I hope you're all comfy and ready for a fun summer!

Here at the S&P we're gearing up for a few eventful months of hot, humid days and nights in the October Country, but it's worth it -- for all my aching and yearning for Fall, there is much to be said for Summer.

As I mentioned in my last update, I knew I'd heard some humming and crackling coming from the ol' Hallowe'enith radio console over in the corner, and sure enough, there are a few new old recordings to enjoy... shall we say, ghosts of radio days long gone...?

First, this spooky old radio console must have a direct link in the ether to important dates and historic events -- an appropriately historic broadcast from some 67 years ago this very day.

I am sure I needn't educate anyone over the age of 12 about the significance of June 6, 1944.

 Wanna be really impressed? Click and enlarge -- and start counting ships, trucks, tanks...

From an NBC broadcast early that morning, Robert St. John informs us of the momentous Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces... and then President Franklin D. Roosevelt leads the nation in a prayer heard on every station, on every radio, shortly after the invasion had been reported.

We will never forget the bravery, sacrifice and terrifying glory of that day. Thank you to all who took part -- the 7,000 planes and 12,000 seagoing vessels bringing nearly 160,000 troops to Normandy. The world forever thanks you.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Still we are a Hallowe'en pub after all, and for some crazy reason the Hallowe'enith radio selected another kind of invasion program to fill our ears, minds, hearts and darkened souls.

Oh, not the old radio invasion program you're thinking it is. That would have been too easy for the ol' console, I think.

No, this is a rather surprisingly disturbing little tale about a very unique kind of Summer invasion, penned by Ray Bradbury in the late '40s and adapted to radio for the wildly popular Escape series in 1953. Hosted by the famous voice of William Conrad, Zero Hour chronicles a healthy, happy middle American town full of Summertime children gathering materials for a very odd new game they call 'invasion', and how one mother begins to think it a little too odd, especially when she hears it's happening on other streets... in other towns...

It's a decidedly different sort of invasion tale I believe you will all thoroughly enjoy, even as the final seconds linger in your mind for a good long while.

So... from D-Day to Zero Hour.

Sounds pretty violent and bleak.

One most certainly was. The other certainly makes you think.

And that can't be a bad thing.

Enjoy!

D-DAY-SP!

Oh I could write a sonnet.

Happy Easter, good Skull & Pumpkin patrons.

I hope you are all enjoying your families and friends on this Easter Sunday. I hope that even if you aren't, you are enjoying yourself.

Also, I hope that no matter your religious persuasion (or lack thereof), you are at least giving thought to the great renewal of life that is symbolized in the annual Spring festival known as Easter.

Birth, sun, water and earth, eggs, blossoms -- life.

For me, a fallen Catholic, there are special reasons to enjoy this decidedly non-Hallowe'enish holiday.

One, it's pretty much halfway 'round the year from Hallowe'en. You have to love the symmetry of that.

Two, if you consider, as Christians do, that Jesus came back from the dead, then we can at least entertain the notion of Jesus being a kind of reverse zombie -- back from the dead, but then (for Catholics at least) we eat His flesh instead of being eaten ourselves.

By the way, for those cynics who make fun of the story of Christ by calling Him the first zombie, I offer the absolute fact that He was certainly not the first. That would be Lazarus, raised by the hand of Jesus.

I know, I know. Some will scream that the very idea of Zombie Jesus is sinful, blasphemous, sacrilege. Hey, I told you, I'm a fallen Catholic. Plus I'm a Hallowe'en Lovin' Monster Kid running a Hallowe'en pub. Is an explanation even necessary?

Besides, it's not like anyone seriously thinks Jesus was a zombie.

But to make amends for any weird feelings, and to celebrate one of my all time favorite musicals and Easter films, I have filled the Hallowe'enith radio to the brim with the entire original soundtrack recording of the 1973 film version of Godspell.

 Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak's fantastic show and the talents of Victor Garber, David Haskell, Lynne Thigpen and the rest of the cast make for a perfect Easter listen.

The story of Jesus' life and death, and for believers His resurrection, will always be a fascinating, inspiring and thought-provoking part of my life, and there is no denying the great impact that story has made on the world over the last two thousand years.

For the better or the worse is up to you. As I've stated before, Linus' admonition about discussing religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin is taken seriously here at the S&P.

But it's Easter, for... well, for Christ's sake. And it's wonderful music. Please give it a full listen, it will reward you many times.

In the words of Nosferhoptu...

... Happy Easter Sunday, from the Skull & Pumpkin.

  

DUMDUMDSHREKPEEPS!

Long Live God.

New tunes & old tubes, again.

Happy Spring, loyal pubgoers!

We are preparing to head WEST to MONSTERPALOOZA as you all know and are by this time likely quite sick of reading about it.

But I wanted to get in one more post before that journey.

That's right, it's the traditional Skull & Pumpkin New Month, New Tunes & Old Tubes post!

And it is very obviously April today:
-- Sunny, check.
-- Green, check.
-- Everything blooming and blossoming anew, check.

Then there is my personal list of criteria:
-- 87 degrees, a brand new record high, check.
-- Dry winds up to 45 gusts (no lie), check.
-- Blossoms and buds blowing green/yellow poison, check.
-- Sinus swelling, check.
-- Itchy eyes, check.
-- Dry throat, check.
-- Severe thunderstorms on tap overnight. Checkity-check-checkah-check.

April is a very dichotomous month, and much has been written about its vivid, ready pleasures and surprise sorrows.

Today is setting record highs all over the Ozarks, but I've seen it snow 6 inches on Tax Day. You just learn to live with it... and after this past Winter, I am very ready and happy to live with it.

Let's get to the new tunes.

First, since we always have a beautiful theme from a cartoon at the top of our playlist, I thought another beautiful cartoon theme would be perfect for Spring.

I have always loved the animated 1979 version of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe ever since it first aired in the U.S.. I believe I was in the fourth grade. The opening score still gives me a chill of emotion and remembrance of a very special part of my young life.

From Britain to Basie... next up one of the most famous recordings in all of jazz and popular music, and surely his most famous work: Count Basie's April In Paris. 

 Recorded in 1955, the Thad Jones arrangement with the sing-song horn solos and infamous triple ending are an unforgettable part of music history, and I thought it belonged here for a month. "One mo', once!"

Then another great orchestra with a brilliant arranger came to mind, and I knew which tune it had to be:

The late, great Paul Weston was one of the world's greatest orchestral arrangers, and among his many accomplishments is the designation as the originator of Music for Easy Listening! In 1958, he re-recorded a number of his lush arrangements from a decade before, and When April Comes Again was one of them. What that guy did with strings and horns was downright spooky... and there a few parts in the middle of this song that are also a bit spooky!

Another great composer and arranger (well, since the '70s we've called them songwriters and producers even though actual songwriters and producers still have their actual services) is a fella by the name of Donald Fagen. You've heard him once or twice here at the S&P. This time his song Springtime, from his 1993 album Kamakiriad, tells of a near-future grown-up playground where one can relive days (and nights!) of one's romantic past by having one's memory scanned "for traces of old heartaches -- the details of desire." 

He remembers Easter breaks, and cold, damp April nights, and it's perfect for our jukebox.

And of course, no April music player would be complete with Simon & Garfunkel's 1966 one-minute masterpiece April, Come She Will. 

It's another very pretty song with, perhaps, a not so pretty hue running through it. 

I've decided to keep the last few tunes from last month's selections, for a few reasons.

One, The Road Goes Ever On is very fitting since we're about to head out on that road with many question marks along the way; as April often teaches in its own up/down style, even good, excited anxiety is still anxiety and can only be met with determination and the will to be joyous as life renews.

And the related song, Concerning Hobbits, winds its song of home, the heart's resting and loving place, where the leaving is an adventure but the returning is a complete joy known only to those who wander enough -- another April-ish irony not lost on this hobbit.

OH, and I nearly forgot that there's a new bit of narrated nightmare for us on the ol' Hallowe'enith radio.

(source)

Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains has rain in its title, but it may be a bit dark for Spring and renewal; still, it's interesting, and causes you to think, and has the lovely voice of one Leonard Nimoy from 1976. Not vintage old perhaps, but vintage enough for us.

Well, on that note, I should really get going. SO much to do before a very early morning comes.

I will, as before, be updating you good S&P brains during the whole trip, and I think it ought to be a LOT of crazy fun! Bring it on!

Happy Spring, happy change, happy everything, to all of you.

Please feel free to hang out and party on. Just don't burn the place down or let Max near the kegs for too long -- even as a drunken severed head, he can do a lot of damage.

DUMDUMSHREKPEEPS!

Son of The Ghoul Goes West, part Lucky 7.

Well, dear S&P Brains, I have some neat news for the Skull & Pumpkin and its resident talking Raven!

I also have a favor to ask first.

PLEASE go here:

(click me!)

... and subscribe for $12 a year (and there are other subscription packages that go higher and have cool discounts and so on) to listen to the funnest, wackiest, Hallowe'en Hauntiest podcast in the world!

If you're a yard/home or pro haunter, there are interviews, articles, videos, regular 'columns' with tips for making props, just so many great resources for all of us. 

You'll even get to hear from one of the S&P's resident artisans, Shellhawk, as she regularly contributes her All Hallow's wisdom in each episode.

The neat news is, the 'Mad Props For Props' segment in this month's episode (#29) is all about our own Nevermore, the Raven! Chris B. at Hauntcast regularly features unique home built props and gave the honor to the Skull & Pumpkin this time around! 

Thank you Chris, and thank you Hauntcast team! And yes, Chris... you ARE worthy!

Now, I will say that Hauntcast is for the grown-up haunter, and may not be completely, comfortably safe for kids or work (unless you have a killer job!). But it's for HAUNTERS ferpetessake, and it's a real blast. 

Do yourselves a favor and go subscribe/listen, would ya?

I'll return later with an ode to the new month, new tunes, and a new journey to MONSTERPALOOZA!

It's April...

DUMDUMSHREKPEEPS!

And the seasons...

Weren't we just talking about the circularity of life?

Just after I posted the previous entry, I received some sad news.

Musician, singer, composer, makeup artist, mask maker, actor, puppeteer, and all around nice and funny fellow Verne Langdon has passed away.

 Verne Langdon

September 15, 1941 --- January 1, 2011

Such a talented man, an interesting character with a really unique and storied life.

He was responsible, in whole or in part, for much that created the Monster Kid Craze of the mid-20th Century. For his work on the Don Post 'Calendar Masks' alone, he ought to have a monstrously-sized statue somewhere.

But he did so many other important things, contributed to or created from whole cloth so much that we horror-lovin' folk have come to know and love. And talk about a musician -- he studied with Korla Pandit, played on radio and television, even composed and produced albums of spooky organ and harpsichord music that have become as iconic to Monster Kids as the Aurora Models or the aforementioned Calendar Masks.

Click all the links and explore the amazing career of this remarkable artist.

I'd known of Verne and his works since childhood, but I actually met him through my travels to Monsterpalooza, where he was Master of Ceremonies in 2009 and 2010 (and looked for all the world like he would be in 2011).

 

 Sure he looks a little green, but what healthy monster doesn't?

 

It's sad to think I won't be seeing him this April. 

Yet another of the greats has passed. Another piece of musical, monstery, magical history has left us.

A toast, to an amazing man. 

DUMDUMSHREKPOP!

Rest peacefully, Verne Langdon.

P.S. What are you thinking, 2011? I thought I asked you to slow things down. Damn.

Old tubes, and a birthday boy.

Hello again, S&P'brains!

I was cleaning up from last night's Possessed Girl party, and heard the ol' Hallowe'enith radio begin to buzz and squeak, and sure enough, there are two new shows for us.

The first is a tribute to the 123rd anniversary of the birth of one William Henry Pratt, known to the world as Boris Karloff, the King of Movie Monsters!

It's a January 1945 broadcast of Duffy's Tavern, and while it's a bit noisy in spots (these recordings were never in Hi-Fi or Stereogooglophonical whatever), it's pure OTR, pure funny, and pure Karloff.

Happy birthday, Boris!

The second is a more recent show -- October 1973 -- produced by WKBW 1520AM in Buffalo, NY. The Darkness is a story written for a 1960's album by the radio legend Arch Oboler, but the staff at WKBW really made a fantastically gruesome, atmospheric go of it for a Hallowe'en Night broadcast.

It's a fitting show for the recent bout of '70s Horror Nostalgia I've been enduring.

Enjoy the radio.

Those tubes'll keep you warm...


DDSP!

Hallowe'en On The Air.

 Hi S&Pers!

I'm just taking a second out of my insane 'will I ever get it all done?!?' schedule to let you know about Sirius/XM's cool week long Hallowe'en event channel that just started airing today!

Called Scream, it's on Sirius 113 and XM 227, playing spooky music and stories (and soundbites from movies and TV specials and on and on) all the way through Friday night, then it switches to nonstop scary sound effect atmospheres all through Saturday and Sunday.

Also, they are featuring numerous Hallowe'en-themed shows all week long on their year-round Old Time Radio channel Radio Classics (Sirius 118, XM 164).

Hallowe'en radio...

... so much fun.

I don't want to leave the house now.

Oh wait... I can take it with me!


BABYBOTBOTBABY!

Finally.

It has happened.

Like it does every year at this time, though it often feels like it will never come.

It has happened.

October.

Images of things which are simply October to me. 

Some of them are October to you too, perhaps; some are

none the worse for having been posted here before.

 Taken in our own backyard, Fall, 2004.

 Our cat, Halli (short, of course, for Hallowe'en).

When the old grandfather clock here at the ol' S&P hit midnight, the Hallowe'enith console radio began to crackle and whistle, and now there are some changes in programming.

First, a rather disturbing and interesting little radio drama from 1970, called The Peoria Plague. Rather like the classic Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast from 1938, this airplay is at once charming, amateur, and very effective. Devote the time, and it will pay off handsomely, I promise.

Up next in the ol' radio, a little mix of radio spookery of my own creation. The Pumpkin Glow of Your Old Radio has been  presented in the S&P's jukebox before, but I think it works well in the Hallowe'enith too, and should probably hang out there for the month.

Speaking of jukeboxes...

I've added some ear candy from my own files, medleys of-a-theme I whomped up to send to family and friends during the Hallowe'en season over the years.

First, we have clips and songs devoted to Monsters. Then, the same tribute to A Brew of Witches, then a miscellaneous Autumn Mix of goofy, rank amateur 'scary album' goodness.

I have decided to return to the playlist a very fun treat, a fully stereo '3D' binaural ride-through of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. Plug in your headphones, close your eyes, and let your mind wander where hinges creak in doorless chambers, where strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls...

The final month before our Big Night... the last month of work, play, decoration, bright cool days and woodsmokey cool evenings is upon us.

Happy October, everyone.

DDSP.