More Halloween Mixes

An old friend of mine has cooked up a couple of crazy halloween mixes. From Howlin' Wolf to the Butthole Surfers, The Cramps to the Ravonettes to Tom Waits and The Ramones, these pretty much cover the whole spectrum of halloween rock and roll. Guaranteed to scere the sheets off the wee ones when they come beggin' at your door.

Coretta's Halloween

Rockin' Halloween 

Halloween modcasts of yesteryears

By now I know you all have listened to last week's excellent modcast. So, here's a treat for you, you can get all spooked out by past Halloween modcasts.


Modcast #144: Something Wicked This Way Comes



Modcast #107: Monsters A-Go-Go!



Modcast #73: It's Spooky Modoween

More For Halloween - The Aquabats

THE AQUABATS - FASHION ZOMBIES!

I don't want there to be no doubt/I live in a haunted house

Zombina And The Skeletones - Dracula Blood

It Isn't Halloween without The Fuzztones

Fuzztones -- The Witch


Fuzztones -- Ward 81

Modcast #181: Monsters Rule O.K. (Halloween 2010)

Ken from The Shingles is once again at the wheel of this scary Halloween hearse and he's steering it on a creepy course sure to give you a bit of a tingle up and down your spine.  Creepy, kooky, ooky and downright groovy, this year's Halloween modcast has it all.

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1. The Viewers - Monsters Rule O.K. (The Monster Club: The Original Soundtrack, 1980)
2. Boss Martians - She's Creepy! (13 Evil Tales, 1996)
3. Legendary Invisible Men - Headless Man (The Spooky Swingin' Sounds Of Kreepsville Manor, 2006)
4. T.S.O.L. - Blackmagic (Change Today?, 1984)
5. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Candy Man (Tinderbox, 1986)
6. Stan Ridgway - Camouflage (The Big Heat, 1986)
7. Deadbolt - Tiki Man (Tiki Man, 1994)
8. Monty Python - All Things Dull And Ugly (Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album, 1980)
9. Roger Klug - Witch From Hell (More Help For Your Nerves, 2009)
10. Fred Schneider - Monster (Fred Schneider & the Shake Society, 1984)
11. Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains (Thing a Week III, 2006)
12. The Damned - Grimly Fiendish (Single, 1985)
13. Madness - Grey Day (7, 1981)
14. Bollock Brothers - Horror Movies (Single, 1983)
15. The Who - Dr.Jekyll & Mr Hyde (B-Side to "Magic Bus" single, 1968)
16. Dinah Washington - My Man's An Undertaker (Single, 1953)

Bonus Modcast: Partying with The Parties

One of my favorite bands over the past couple years has been The Parties out of San Francisco. Their sound is rooted in sixties pop music and incorporates heavily from the mod/freakbeat part of that catalog. The Parties latest album Coast Garde is no departure, but rather like a jetliner on a standard rate of incline, ever since taking off the band just keeps climbing higher and higher.

So, I got a chance to interview the band while they were putting the final touches on the album and that has lead to this special bonus modcast. You'll hear from all the band about the album, about their journey to this pioint and where they're headed from here, as well as their thoughts on what mod means today, what the state of music is like and what they're listening to for inspiration.

The band has a sort of sweetness to their sound, something I previously described as "a nice warm, beach like feeling," which maybe is a reflection of their California locale. This time around the music is richer, more lush, more perfectly honed to accent the lyrics.

On first listen I thought maybe there was an intentional theme here, but lead singer Jeremy Powers says that is just a happy coincidence. No matter, the songs are all about girls, and there seems to me to be an arc from the swaggering opening tracks about new love, to the middle tracks about deep love, to the final more sober tracks where love's mountain top high disappears.

The album's single, "Lets Call It Love" opens with an easy, breezy feeling, and a soft psychadelic undercurrent that gives it a bit of an ephemeral quality that nicely compliments the lyrics. It's an excellent mix of jangly guitars, tight rythyms, and more harmonies than you can shake a tambourine at. Along with the second track, "Can't Seem To Get My Mind Off Of You", it gets the album off to a pretty upbeat start.

The sound and the songs mature with the swirly, psychadelic "Twenty-Four", a song that could have come right out of the Pretty Things sessions in the late sixties as easily as it could have stood alongside Rain Parade's paisly underground tracks in the eighties. By the time you get to the last couple of tracks, "When The Weekend's Over", the love is lost and the sobering lonliness is all that's left. At last there's only the catchy vocal harmonies of You Ruined Me, a shorty, jaunty tune that has an infectious rhthym and melody and is fast becoming one of my favorites.

The band's love affair with sixties bands like The Who and The Creation are clear, especially in the guitar driven bridges of "Let's Call It Love" and "Twenty-Four". There's also a real sense of melody throught not unlike that of The Zombies and The Kinks.

For all that Coast Garde is a big step forward for The Parties, it also finds the band firmly, and comfortably, settled into the sound of the sixties. Which, at least for me, is a great place to be.

• Let's Call It Love (2010)
• Interview Pt. I
• She's Gone Away (2009)
• Cold Life (2008)
• Interview Pt. II
• You Ruined Me (2010)
• Download

I want to thank The Parties for taking the time talk with me, I think you'll enjoy the itnerview. Their new album, Coast Garde is due out on November 2nd on the Rainbow Quartz label. More info and purchase here.

Modcast #180: Some Hits Hurt

So, lately I've been on a Three O'Clock kick listening to the band's back catalog over and over and over. I've even come to appreciate what was probably their last great song "Her Head's Revolving". Which was of course the last album featuring the band's core lineup. Like all good music does it touched a nerve and then led me on a little musical jaunt. It's one of those jaunts that is probably best listened to rather than explained. I mean, how do you adequately explain all the cool music on tap for you this week from Shonen Knife to 999, The Marigolds to Mooney Suzuki? You don't. The best you can do is listen to it and simply enjoy.


Three O'Clock -- Her Head's Revolving
White Rabbits -- The Plot (2007)
Vibrators -- DNA Robot (2010)
Shonen Knife -- Animal Song (1993)
The Ace -- If You're Out There (2010)
The Cute Lepers -- Some Hits Hurts (2009)
The Marigolds -- Sticks And Stones (1985)
Cuban Heels -- Downtown (1978)
999 -- Action (1978)
Gary Valentine (The Know) -- I Like Girls (1980)
Mooney Suzuky -- Yeah You Can (2000)



Shonen Knife -- It's A New Find


999 -- Emergency

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