# 30 Days Till Halloween



## Dinosaur1972 (Mar 28, 2007)

30 Days Till Halloween
10/01/2013

Here it is! October! It’s decorative gourd season, m*****f*****s! You ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest?

*Vampire Themes (1997)*
Some of the tracks here are fairly timeless … the cover of “Sympathy For the Devil”, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” … others sound a little dated. It’s kinda angsty, kinda “Twilight”y. Pretty good though.

*Victor R. Vampire and Friends - Halloween Bash (2000)*
This one’s for kids. Not a bad collection of songs, actually … all original songs, real instruments, a few different vocalists, most if it is in a folk-music / country-music vein. Nothing to write home about, but at least you can tell there’s some effort. 

*Jeff Wayne - The War of the Worlds (1978)*
An all-time favorite of mine. I’d never heard of this until college. For two weeks up until Halloween, the local classic-rock radio station kept promoting their Halloween night broadcast of Jeff Wayne’s “Musical Version of the War of the Worlds”. I’d never heard of Jeff Wayne, and other than the old movie and the very old radio hoax with Orson Welles, I didn’t know much about WotW, either. So I was intrigued … I popped in a blank cassette to record this baby off the radio and excitedly looked forward to the show. It did not disappoint … it was a little bit Moody-Bluesy thanks largely to the vocals by Justin Hayward. It walked the very fine line between musical cheese and sci-fi art rock. I loved it. They played only the first record on the radio for some reason, but weeks later I had the 2 CD set in my hands. “The Eve of the War”, “Thunder Child”, and “Dead London” are my favorite tracks. Richard Burton narrates masterfully. There have since been re-releases of this music, and live tours and video games – this must be pretty popular across the ocean. The only related album I’ve got is…

*ULLAdubULLA - War of the Worlds - The Remix Album (2000)*
I think you’d have to listen to the originals a lot to really enjoy this remix album. The things these guys did … making some songs spookier, others dancier, and completely reggae-fying one song … it’s pretty crazy. But unless you know the originals inside and out, you might not marvel at what the remixers have done here. So … maybe you won’t enjoy this as much as I do. Then again, 2 hours and 10 minutes of remixes on something that was only a 1:40 to begin with – I’m ready for a change.

*Cincinnati Pops Orchestra - Erich Kunzel - Chiller (1989)*
A terrific collection with really fun sound effects – not what you’d expect from a classical music CD. It does have every classical piece you WOULD expect … “Bald Mountain”, “Danse Macabre”, “Funeral March of a Marionette” … along with some movie / TV themes. The bit with the TV noise and music from “Poltergeist” still give me chills, as that movie scared the crap out of me at an early, impressionable age. Part of the fun is hearing a different take on classical songs I’ve heard a few times … differences in tempo in particular. Of course, the screams and sound of blood running down the drain while the violins shriek during “Murder From Psycho” … that’s hard to top.

*Halloween Classical (2009)*
Must just be some guy’s collection of scary Halloween stuff … I don’t know where I got it. Lots of repeats from above.


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## GobbyGruesome (Sep 14, 2005)

Heh! Great reviews as always but I'm mostly glad you referenced the McSweeney's piece.  Took me a while to place it though. Sooo good!


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## Dinosaur1972 (Mar 28, 2007)

That McSweeney piece cracks me up.


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