Bump in the Night

Halloween music. I don’t think it can be called a musical genre, but you know it when you hear it. Or do you? A few years ago, I put together a one-hour set of Halloween songs for myself and my family to enjoy. I was greatly surprised when I played it for my wife, and she kept saying, “that’s not a Halloween song.” So I guess it’s a personal thing. In assembling this year’s Halloween set, I put out a call far and wide for submissions. Maybe some artists did not have a song they thought was appropriate, but I might have disagreed. One thing that makes it difficult is that most songs don’t appear on Halloween albums. That is true of all but one of the songs I chose for this set. (The exception will be obvious when you get to it.) To me, a Halloween song needs to have a creepy ambiance, and either take place at Halloween or have supernatural elements. Enter if you dare, and let me show you what I mean.

Bob Malone: So What If It‘s Halloween

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Is Halloween the scariest day of the year? Bob Malone may not think so. In So What If It’s Halloween, he explains that people are often scarier when they are not wearing their costumes. Malone is a very talented musician who works in jazz, old-style R&B, and Americana, for starters. His refusal to stay with a single musical genre has probably kept him from being better known, which is a shame. Because he is such a musical chameleon, one song doesn’t do him justice. I have in mind to fix that soon. Stay tuned.

Mark Tulk: Ghosts

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Ghosts has the quality of an incantation, as if the singer is summoning a spirit back from the other side. The song can be taken as a literal invocation, or as a summoning of old memories. Mark Tulk makes music that is richly textured, and he communicates his passions with hushed intensity. The textures vary enough to make his album Central State a richly varied listening experience, one that only gets better with repeated listens.

Susan James: Cold Moon on the Highway

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Cold Moon on the Highway is here for the mood of the piece, but it also belongs in this set unambiguously for the lyric. Musicians sometimes say, “this place is dead tonight”, and they talk about “gigs from Hell”, where there is an audience that doesn’t care about the music, and where the band has trouble getting paid at the end of the night. James takes these two statements to their logical extremes, and tells of a show that may well have happened at this time of year. Her album is a solid work of Americana, with folk, rock, and country elements. James is a fine lyricist, displaying great sympathy for her narrators, as well as a wonderful imagination and sense of humor.

Andrew McKnight: Chemical Voodoo

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Chemical Voodoo is an acoustic blues song that suggests that there is a monster in the swamp. Andrew McKnight takes the premise seriously, and, in the manner of the best horror films, he suggests rather than shows. This may be a straight supernatural tale, or an environmental fable, and that ambiguity makes the song that much spookier. Andrew McNight is a fine guitar player, equally at home playing solo pieces on acoustic guitar, working with a mostly acoustic band playing songs with a bluegrass influence, or working with a mix of electric and acoustic instruments making a more pop-influenced sound. In all cases, McKnight creates original songs that sound like something you must have heard before. He knows his various traditions well, and makes classic sounding music in varied settings. Look for another one of his songs on Star Maker Machine next week.

Southern Culture on the Skids: Idol With the Glowin‘ Eyes

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Southern Culture on the Skids has made a career out of celebrating the earthiest, (I’ll say it that way), people of the Amaerican South. Zombified is their “tribute to the horror and exploitation movies that populated Southern theaters and drive-ins during the 60s and 70s”. For some reason, the album was originally released only in Australia as an eight song EP. Now, for the US release, five more songs have been added, and the whole thing has been remastered. The music is crunching Southern rock, done by the modern masters of the genre. Idol With the Glowin’ Eyes is a song of an enchantress who captures the hearts of men with her sinister magic. It is very much in the tradition of songs like Black Magic Woman. Like the album as a whole, this one is a treat, although it is also something of a guilty pleasure for me.

Happy Halloween

It was a windy day, and the witches were clutching their hats. That was the scene this afternoon at the Halloween parade at my son’s school. Were these real witches? That depends on how you look at it. Halloween is all about taking the role of something you are not. Confront your fears by becoming them, was the old idea. Today, Halloween is good shivery fun. So here is a set of good shivery songs.

Sade: Haunt Me

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When you have a voice like Sade’s, you can make a song work with minimal accompaniment. Haunt Me is mostly voice, acoustic guitar, and piano. Strings are used with the lightest possible touch, and a saxophone joins in towards the end. And that’s all Sade needs. Love can be haunting, especially in dreams, and Haunt Me states that perfectly.

Lydia Lunch: Spooky

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This version of Spooky comes from Lydia Lunch’s album Queen of Siam. Many of the songs use noise and dissonance to create an edgy feel. There is also an off-kilter jazz vibe on several songs. So even though Lunch plays it fairly straight here, there is the expectation that the song may fall apart at any moment. This gives Lunch’s version of Spooky an extra edge that the original lacks.

The Incredible String Band: Witch‘s Hat

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Robin Williamson and Mike Herron led The Incredible String Band. The group combined a deep interest in traditional songs and lore of Scotland with the psychedelic music movement of the 60s. Witch’s Hat is a Williamson song which he also recorded in his solo career. Williamson fancies himself as a modern-day bard, working magic with his musical performances. Indeed, Witch’s Hat works like a meditation that transports the listener into another state of being. I know that sounds pretentious, but close your eyes as you listen to this one, and see where it takes you.

Loreena McKennitt: All Soul‘s Night

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On All Soul’s Night, Loreena McKennitt reminds us of the Pagan origins of the holiday. The musical setting combines Celtic and Middle Eastern influences to powerful affect. Over all, the song emphasizes the mysterious quality of this time of year.

Spotlight Song of the Week:

S J Tucker: Neptune

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S J Tucker is something of a musical trickster. I was originally going to post a different song of hers called Salad of Doom. That song is a hilarious send up of B horror movie themes. The problem was, the song gives the impression that S J Tucker is all about novelty songs, and there is far more to her work than that. Neptune is a fairy tale in the best sense, with all of the emotional depths that the form can imply. It is a tale of magic, but it also resonates beautifully as a love song. The mood is achieved with just acoustic guitar, cello, and percussion, plus Tucker’s voice. It’s a powerful voice, but Tucker knows that holding back can often express emotions better. Tucker’s songs, then, are a wonderful combination of power and subtlety.

Halloween Party

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. It still is. This is the night for good spooky fun. I always thought you should dress up as something scary. But my friends didn’t necessarily agree. So, one year, I was a witch and my best friend was a UNICEF box. That was scary in its own way, but was not what I meant.

Danny Elfman: This Is Halloween

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What then are the key elements for a great Halloween? Danny Elfman sets the mood with a catalog of scary costume ideas. This song opens The Nightmare Before Christmas, and does a great job of setting the mood. Here, it does so again.

Shivaree: Goodnight Moon

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You need a properly creepy night. There should be a full moon casting strange shadows. A chill wind makes odd noises. Shivaree describes the night perfectly. The title refers back to the classic children’s book, and the song gives it a great spooky twist.

Dr John: Witchy Red

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There should be scary stories. Dr John tells a dandy here. I imagine that, in Louisiana at this time of year, they talk in hushed tones of Marie LeVeau. Dr John’s character meets a modern-day disciple.

Rose and the Arrangement: The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnatti

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And of course, there needs to be a party. Let’s have great live music and dancing.

What, you may ask, does that have to do with this song? Back when my wife and I were dating, xxxx-xxx years ago, we attended a Halloween contradance. We chose our costumes carefully, making sure we had a full range of motion. The band was assembled once a year for this occasion, out of the members of several local contradance bands. So there was a piano, fiddles, guitar, banjo, a flute or two, I think an accordion... It was a giant folk dance orchestra. We knew some of the musicians from other dances we had attended, but we had never heard any of them sing. So imagine our surprise when a traditional folk-dance piece suddenly medleyed into The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnatti. There was only one possible response: we kept dancing. So this song has a special place in my heart, and must be a part of any Halloween party I have anything to do with.

If you would like to know more about contradances, (like, what are they?), you can see what I wrote about them here.

Warren Zevon: Werewolves of London

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Finally, you knew this one had to be in there somewhere. There may be hundreds of blogs posting this this week, but that is one way to define a classic.

For a Song: Tam Lin

Fairport Convention: Tam Lin

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Tam Lin is a song I must hear every year at this time. The threads of the tale twist like Celtic knotwork, and a chill October wind blows through the whole thing. Last year, I shared the song for the first time online, on Star Maker Machine. You can still read that post here. The song is a tale of travel between this world and the Celtic Otherworld, and that travel, according to tradition, is most easily accomplished at this time of year. The Celts called it Samhain, and it is the time when the barriers between the two worlds break down.

There is always more to learn about Tam Lin. In preparing for this post, I learned that there is an Irish reel also called Tam Lin. The reel and the ballad are clearly completely different pieces of music. I don’t know how the reel got its name, but I hope to find out. I will be featuring two wonderful versions of the reel next week.

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Blog business: This post is the first of two special posts I am presenting this week as my Halloween party. Look for the next one soon. Preparing for this has proven to be more time consuming than I intended; that is why there was no album review this week. That feature will resume this coming weekend.

Also, the fund drive continues. Please give whatever you can. Thank you.