As the world of audioblogs becomes ever-more mindbogglingly expansive, the themed and niche-oriented variety becomes more and more welcome. Today I found one on a subject dear to my 9-year-old, monster-book-devouring heart: The Essential Ghoul’s Record Shelf presents “the mostly undiscussed world of supernaturally themed novelty music.”
The blogger blogs: “It is Dr. Mysterian’s contention that one of the great but seldom-explored themes of popular music is the uncanny. Composers regularly write about unworldly and undead characters, including, but not limited to, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and various space aliens.” He intends to steer clear of goth and death metal takes as too obvious, and so far he’s got Mae West singing about a celebrity psychic, Lavern Baker doing Voodoo Voodoo, The Shaggs with It’s Halloween, Red Sovine’s classic Phantom 309 (which many of us know in Tom Waits’ great cover on Nighthawks at the Diner), the Coasters doing The Shadow Knows, etc. Aside from the Specials’ Ghost Town, it’s clearly got an oldies emphasis, but the accompanying notes and reflections are as much fun as a pair of trick handcuffs.
I’m just back from a couple of days out of town. Catching-up notes on their way.
There’s a great Mr. Show sketch about an In Search Of… style TV show dedicated to “The Monster Mash” and its ilk.
The earnest Nimoeyesque narrator intones something like “It’s thought to be the stuff of novelty records, but what if Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman DID come together … in a PARTY setting?”