# 71 Days till Halloween



## Dinosaur1972 (Mar 28, 2007)

71 Days till Halloween
8/21/2013

*Ruth White - Seven Trumps from the Tarot Cards (1968)
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Early electronic weirdness from one of its pioneers. White made extensive use of the Moog synethesizer to generate these unusual sounds. It’s all instrumental and was composed as the score for a dance performance. This one isn’t bad, but for truly great weirdness from Ruth White, you have to go to …

*Ruth White - Flowers of Evil (1969)
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Another one I never would have heard of if not for “Never Ending Wonder Radio”. More early-electronic music, but this time we have a bonus: Ruth reads from Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal” (“The Flowers of Evil”) over the music. According to Wikipedia, the poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism, and were pretty scandalous for the time (the late 1850’s). Ruth’s electronically modified voice speaks mysteriously of darkness, the devil, damnation, cats, owls … while the electronic music plays … it is eerie and spooky and odd. The last track … “The Litanies Of Satan” … is a little bit freaky, like one of those old audio recordings that should never be played out loud, lest it awaken some Ancient Evil.

*Louise Huebner - Seduction Through Witchcraft (1969)
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One of my favorite weird, spooky albums. Huebner describes witchy rituals on this album - when to perform them, how to do them, what to chant, etc. Most of the instruction is geared toward ensuring that the listener achieves satisfaction from her love life. There are lots of descriptions of spells to cast, amulets to use, which gods to pray to, even how to set up an orgy. She sounds very official, the instructions are clear and direct (with some reverb added to set a mysterious mood). It is a fascinating listen. Again, there is late-60’s electronic music in the background, this time by Louis and Bebe Barron, who composed the incredible score for the film “Forbidden Planet”.

* Clara Rockmore - The Art of the Theremin (1987)
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Not particularly exciting, but not bad. Nothing sci-fi about it … just is a woman playing solo Theremin (with piano accompaniment). All of the music is classical in nature. It kinda makes me wish I had a Theremin.

* Forrest J. Ackerman and Frank Coe - Music For Robots (1964)
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Fun to hear the late Forry’s voice here. Side A of the record has Ackerman discussing robots in fiction … books, plays and movies. He is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject. Then Ackerman time-travels to 2050 and describes what he sees – a robot factory in which a robot sacrifices himself to save a human, and other robots are rushing injured humans to hospitals. Then Ackerman calls his pal Frank Coe to see if robots might one day like music, and what would that sound like?. Side B has the answer, a 15-minute electronic composition that. Hard to believe this is almost 50 years old now.

*Scary Stories - The Radio Spook Show (2005)
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This is a pretty fun CD that sounds like an old-timey radio variety show with news, calls from listeners, interviews, etc. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but really entertaining and nostalgic. The main narrator is a pretty solid Orson Welles impersonator. Really fun, silly stuff.

*Spook Show Radio Spots
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Not sure where this came from. Lots of terrific radio promos for old theater shock shows. “You will actually see, at this theater, in person … a man BURIED ALIVE.” “The theater is turned into a graveyard … your seats become coffins.” “Girls – do not come alone! Bring your boyfriends to protect you!” “In person! On the stage!” … in between the promos are some old-time musical interludes that sound like they were made about 20 years before all the promos, but still very good stuff.

*Radio Spots Horror
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Not sure where I found this one either. Eighty-six radio spots … mostly 30 seconds or a minute long … for movies from the 60’s and 70’s mainly. A few I’m familiar with … “Black Sunday”, “Horror of Dracula”, “Count Yorga”) and many I’m not (“Abby”, “Vampire Playgirls”, “Monsters Crash the Pajama Party”). I reckon if you are putting together a mix of any kind, particularly of 60’s / 70’s songs, sprinkling these in would be fun.


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