Nightmares, Evil Hoodoo and Other Bad Trips
Ten mind-frying Halloween jams
Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!
It is time for our fourth installment of my favorite Halloween-related (or semi-related) songs, all of which are being compiled on the still-evolving JTL Halloween Jams Spotify playlist. If you’re still catching up on this ghoulish exercise, be sure to check out Part One (witch songs) here, Part Two (monster songs) here, and Part Three (BIG monster songs) here.
This terror-filled ten-track batch is less specific to certain types of creatures or monsters, pertaining rather to more abstract horrors — the sort of scary stuff that’s produced by your own subconscious, or comes from meddling with things that you don’t fully understand. Most of my favorite horror writing (Poe, Lovecraft, James, etc.) hails from these dark realms; and, not surprisingly, so do quite a few of my favorite songs…
The Creation — Nightmares
Best-known for such mod rock anthems as “Making Time” and “Biff Bang Pow,” The Creation were evolving in a really cool psychedelic direction at the time of their breakup in 1967. Rather than love or flowers, their brand of psych had some real bad-trip menace to it; on this marvelously spooky B-side, legendary producer Shel Talmy helped them create a disturbing sonic stew of guitar feedback, pounding piano, Eddie Phillips’ plangent violin bow scrapes and spectral, “La La La” backing vocals that made a splendid base for Kenny Pickett’s evocative lyrics about a very troubled sleep. “Touched on the brow by an unseen hand,” indeed!
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown — Nightmare
Speaking of nightmares… The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s self-titled 1968 LP is always in regular rotation at JTL Manor this time of year, but even its wild-eyed charms can’t beat the jaw-dropping visual spectacle of the man in action. At least, I find this performance from the 1968 indie flick The Committee to be pretty freaky — his entrance with the flaming headdress is alone the stuff of my fever dreams — but the young lady at the 1:16 mark seems to be having some difficulty keeping a straight face.
Black Sabbath — Black Sabbath
Sure, I already included one Sabbath track on this Halloween playlist, and devoted a whole post to them last week — but a) Black Sabbath is a major band for me, and b) their stuff sounds especially great in October. That goes double for this song — the opening track from their self-titled 1970 album — which virtually defined what we now know as doom metal. “Black Sabbath” was inspired by an actual incident where bassist Geezer Butler borrowed an ancient book on the occult arts from singer Ozzy Osbourne, then awoke in the night to find a mysterious black figure standing at the foot of his bed. Ozzy’s pitiful cry of “Oh no, no, no — PLEASE GOD HELP ME!” pretty much sums up how most of us would respond in that sort of situation.
Deadbolt — Watongo
I saw San Diego psychobilly greasers Deadbolt — the self-proclaimed “Scariest Band in the World” — more times than I can count back in the ‘90s. They were absolutely brilliant, but far too few people ever heard their records or “got” their demented sense of humor. For me, Deadbolt’s masterpiece was the 1998 concept album Zulu Death Mask, which featured the aggrieved, hippie-beheading witch doctor Watongo as one of its characters. “One day you’ll turn around, Watongo will be there,” warns singer Harley Davidson. “Holding a hippie’s severed head by the hair.” During live performances of this song, drummer Les Vegas would open up an Igloo cooler, pull out a beauty school male mannequin head with long “hippie hair” and shake it meaningfully at the audience. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in all my life.
Monster Magnet — See You in Hell
Monster Magnet is another sorely underrated band I love, albeit one that’s achieved far greater success than Deadbolt ever did. Dave Wyndorf’s gang of New Jersey space lords are primarily known for their bruising, bong-addled brand of hard rock, but there’s really so much more to them than that. Case in point, this track from their 1998 breakthrough album Powertrip, which sounds like a Music Machine outtake but tells the disturbing story of a drugged-out couple who dump their dead baby in the Meadowlands. The horror intensifies exponentially when the baby comes back — and Wyndorf’s lyrics are artfully vague on what that means. Has the baby been discovered by the authorities? Have the chemicals of the landfill brought it back to life as a vengeful monster? Or is it all just a mescaline- (and guilt)-induced hallucination?
Cactus — Evil
Howlin’ Wolf’s blues classic about the palpable presence of evil in everyday life (and how it can easily manifest in the form of some sketchy dude mackin’ on your old lady) has been covered by a number of artists, including Monster Magnet, but the Cactus version of “Evil” is my personal fave — Jim McCarty’s guitar sounds like it definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed, singer Rusty Day puts some real blood and guts into the vocals, and Carmine Appice pounds his drums like he’s delivering a serious beatdown to the aforementioned sketchy dude. Listening to this, you’d have no idea that Appice would go on to co-write Rod Stewart’s infamous disco anthem “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy”.
The Seeds — Evil Hoodoo
A veritable festival of fuzz, “Evil Hoodoo” — from The Seeds’ self-titled 1966 debut — finds frontman Sky Saxon blaming a hex on his girlfriend for their relationship difficulties. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? Well, not exactly… but Jan Savage’s ripping guitar riff is so loaded with dark magic and ominous portent that Sky’s crazed (and quite possibly gaslighting) assertion seems almost plausible.
Scorpions — I’m Goin’ Mad
If you only know German metal legends Scorpions for their striped spandex trousers, hurricane-like rocking abilities and alleged CIA-plant power ballad “Winds of Change,” then the weirder, more experimental side exhibited on their 1972 debut album Lonesome Crow will surely blow your mind. And blown minds are indeed the subject of this prog-psych groover from that album. “Sun is drying out my brain,” a bushily bearded Klaus Meine wails, “The smile and installations are my pain!” It was a long way from here to “Lovedrive”…
Iron Maiden — The Number of the Beast
“What did I see? Can I believe? That what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy?” Maiden’s 1982 anthem was inspired by a nightmare that bandleader/bassist/songwriter Steve Harris experienced after watching Damien: Omen II, though of course it got the British metal band tagged as Satanists by right-wing Christians in the US. We can argue all day about whether Paul Di’Anno or Bruce Dickinson was/is the best Maiden singer, but the latter’s performance on this track is undeniably fantastic — not only is the scream that he unleashes at the 1:18 mark wonderfully blood-curdling, but you can really hear the panic and terror rising in his voice as the song progresses, like he’s a terror-maddened villager trying desperately to warn his unbelieving neighbors of the dark figures moving and twisting in the mist. And if that’s not enough to make “The Number of the Beast” a Halloween classic, there’s also the video, which features brief clips from numerous vintage horror films.
Jason Crest — Black Mass
Back when I would regularly have friends over to my place to listen to records — and boy do I miss those carefree days — Jason Crest’s “Black Mass” was a track that I would always pull out, though I would usually wait until two or three hours’ worth of booze and smoke had been consumed to really maximize the mind-melted “WTF?” reactions. The whole production of this 1969 track (the flip of the band’s far less demented “A Place in the Sun”) is so far ahead of its time, and so deeply insane. Dig the speed-up vocals, backwards guitar and cymbal loops, industrial explosions, sepulchral church organ, unearthly cackles and shrieks, and the pseudo-Gregorian chant section where the monks intone “Black Mass!” — because, you know, that’s totally what happens at a real Black Mass. Like the best Hammer horror films, the whole thing is both utterly ridiculous and genuinely terrifying. Share it with someone you love this holiday season!
Ditto for the rest of the JTL Halloween Jams playlist, which is now up to 40 songs, and which you can find here:
There’s more groovy ghoulishness to come, too — stay tuned! Have a great rest of your weekend, and be careful with those pumpkin-carving knives…
A.) I like the Scorpions now
B.) RE: Black Mass. That’s my new fall sound. Thank you
C.) For the longest time, I thought Arthur Brown was just Eric Clapton all sweaty in the “Eyesight to the Blind” scene. But then later learned who was who, and that Clapton was probably even more of a mess at the time of the filming. They even glued teddy bear fuzz on his face for continuity because he had shaved his beard during the filming.
D.)Spiders on the Dancefloor https://brittapejic.bandcamp.com/track/spiders-on-the-dancefloor
Monster Magnet rules! Glad you included them!