26 October 2007

Mix Tape Friday: The Monster Mash Mix

Halloween, next to Christmas, was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. When you spend those first ten years (well, okay, nearly fifty years) living in an imaginary world, there’s nothing better than getting to wear a costume — and you got candy, too! I spent weeks thinking of just the right costume. My favorite get-up was as a gypsy — mainly because I got to wear lots and lots of Mama’s (1970s-era, mind you) baubles.

And so I also spent weeks pulling tracks for today’s Halloween mix tape. Splotchy smartly jumped the gun with his (now, sadly, defunct) Green Monkey Music Project’s Can’t Wait for Halloween mix. This posed a bit of a problem, as several of these (brilliant) tracks were on my initial list. But I love a challenge. And I set some rules:

Cannot use any song included on the GMMP Can’t Wait for Halloween mix — or “Monster Mash” or “Thriller.”
Must include the same number of tracks as on Splotchy’s mix (51).
Cannot use any track featured on previous Mix Tape Fridays. (Damn my rules and OCD tendencies; “Attack of the Ghost Riders” and “Blood Makes Noise” would have been cool on this mix.)
Cannot include an artist twice — except, of course, for R.E.M. Because R.E.M. is always the exception to the rule.

And now, dear music zombies, here’s your Halloween weekend mix:


NAHPI: Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?

The Specials: Ghost Town

David Bowie: Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

The B-52’s: Devil in My Car

The Black Lips: I Saw a Ghost (Lean)

The Minus 5: Dr Evil: Doctor of Evil

Beulah: A Good Man Is Easy to Kill

Natalie Merchant: Sympathy for the Devil

Roky Erickson & The Aliens: Night of the Vampire

R.E.M.: I Walked with a Zombie

Wilco: Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: I’m a Ghost

The Pixies: Ed Is Dead

XTC: Poor Skeleton Step Out

Daniel Johnston: Casper the Friendly Ghost

Serge Gainsbourg: Bloody Jack

eels: My Beloved Monster

Belle & Sebastian: Sukie in the Graveyard

Imogen Heap: Spooky

Talking Heads: Psycho Killer

Suicide: Ghost Rider

Neutral Milk Hotel: Ghost

The Rocky Horror Picture Show OST: Over at the Frankenstein Place

Jeff Buckley: Witches Rave

Elvis Costello: Spooky Girlfriend

John Wesley Harding: Your Ghost Don’t Scare Me No More

The Mountain Goats: The House That Dripped Blood

Pavement: The Killing Moon

Neko Case: Ghost Wiring

Guided by Voices: Bright Paper Werewolves

Jenny Lewis + The Watson Twins: Run Devil Run

The Decemberists: Shankhill Butchers

Annie Lennox: Love Song for a Vampire

Belly: Witch

Badly Drawn Boy: Bewilderbeast

The Patti Smith Group: Ghost Dance

Kingsbury Manx: Baby You’re a Dead Man

Richard & Linda Thompson: Wall of Death

Robyn Hitchcock: My Wife and My Dead Wife

The Replacements: Rock ‘n’ Roll Ghost

Sufjan Stevens: They Are Night Zombies

The Lollipop Shoppe: You Must Be a Witch

Afghan Whigs: The Vampire Lanois

New York Dolls: Frankenstein

Count Five: Psychotic Reaction

R.E.M.: Burning Hell

The Sonics: The Witch

The Vaselines: Monsterpussy

George Clinton: R&B Skeletons

Gorillaz: Dracula

The Rolling Stones: Dancing with Mr. D


Here are your zipped bags of tricks and treats, kiddies — so don’t TP my lawn or egg my car.


UPDATES


1. Because there are so many tracks on this mix, I split the songs among two zipped files. If you want all 51, you’ll have to download the tricks and the treats.

2. Another site copied the links to many of my Dylan covers, which is eating up my daily bandwidth at MyDataBus. You may need to come back this weekend to complete your downloads. Sorry!



Be sure to listen to The Minus 5’s “Dr. Evil: Doctor of Evil.” Rumor has it the song is one of Little Steven’s fave tunes. BTW, if you haven’t heard Little Steven’s syndicated garage band show, track it down; always something cool spinning on those turntables.

"Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?" was a great eMusic find two years ago. It was released in 2005 by Vice Records, under the band name The North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative (NAHPI). All proceeds were donated to UNICEF. The NAHPI includes appearances by Arcade Fire's Win & Regine; Redd Kross' Steve McDonald; Beck; R.E.M.'s one-time drummer Joey Waronker; Buck 65; Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis & Blake Sennett; David Cross; Roky Erickson; Devendra Banhart; Sloan's Chris Murphy; Elvira, Mistress of the Dark; Smoosh's Asya & Chloe; Feist; Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore; Gino Washington; Sparks' Russel Mael; Les Savy Fav's Syd Butler; Subtitle; Islands’ J'aime Tambeur; Sum 41's Stevo; Malcolm McLaren; Inuit throat singer Tagaq; Peaches; That Dog's Anna Waronker; Postal Service's Jimmy Tamborello; Wolf Parade's Dan & Spencer; Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O.

R.E.M.'s "Burning Hell" has one of the most cerebral opening verses ever recorded in Athens: Women got legs / Men got pants / I got the picnic / You got the ants.

Don't miss the very end of Daniel Johnston's "Casper the Friendly Ghost." It’s my favorite five seconds of this mix.

Because I shot my Zevon wad back in September, I was unable to include “Werewolves of London” or “Excitable Boy” on this mix. It’s always fun to find the loophole in rules — even those you set for yourself — so here’s the promo video for “Werewolves of London”:


And now I'm off to get a big dish of beef chow mein. Happy Halloween, kids.

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25 Comments:

At 10/26/2007 12:32:00 AM, Blogger Splotchy said...

Holy crap, Beth.

You rawk hard.

So much good music here. And also, "Burning Hell".

I kid, I kid!

May you mix into the far, far future.

 
At 10/26/2007 01:22:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now I know what I'm going to listen to tomorrow at work! Awesome!

I saw Warren Zevon in 1987 at the Auditorium on I.U.'s Bloomington campus. It was one of my favorite shows ever!

 
At 10/26/2007 08:25:00 AM, Blogger Allison said...

Damn, there is so much goodness here! I've been digging the Black Lips a lot this year.

 
At 10/26/2007 08:42:00 AM, Blogger Evil Genius said...

If we were in high school and you left this in my locker, I would be so in love with you right now.

 
At 10/26/2007 09:14:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OMG. I had never heard Pavement's cover of The Killing Moon. How is that possible? I need to re-examine the way that I'm living my life.

 
At 10/26/2007 10:08:00 AM, Blogger Mike Lewis said...

TRICK OR TREAT!

I just love what you done to my Fridays! They have never sounded better!

Neutral Milk Hotel brings back a lot of memories.

I also love the Baldly Drawn Boy tune, I'm a big fan of BDB. They have a beautiful song called, "a minor incident" about having a child with Autism.

Once again you rock my Friday!

You can shoot your zevon wad at me anytime!

 
At 10/26/2007 12:05:00 PM, Blogger Joe said...

Thank you! I can hardly wait to put myself in some horrible makeup and make someone physically sick to look at me this weekend.

 
At 10/26/2007 12:36:00 PM, Blogger Barbara Bruederlin said...

You scooped me! I was going to post Do They Know It's Hallowe'en (on Hallowe'en)! But since there is some overlap with the Zombie Files anyway, I may still.

Very nice Hallowe'ening, my dear. I always liked it better than Christmas, actually.

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner makes another good Warren Zevon Hallowe'en song. Oh right, it's now on GMMP, never mind.

 
At 10/26/2007 12:48:00 PM, Blogger bigshoulders said...

awesome mix, beth!
saves me from even having to try to come up with a spooky mix!

cheers,
kevin

 
At 10/26/2007 01:58:00 PM, Blogger BeckEye said...

I know what I'm doing this Halloween! Binging on music and candy corn!

 
At 10/26/2007 03:36:00 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

My wife sits down on the stairs
And stares into air
There's no one there
I'm drilling holes in the wall
Holes in the wall
I turn round and my dead wife's upstairs
She's still wearing flares
She talks out loud but no one hears

My wife and my dead wife
Am I the only one that sees her?

 
At 10/26/2007 05:01:00 PM, Blogger Earl Cootie said...

I've never been able to come up with a decent Halloween mix. Just not enough appropriate music in my collection. I know it's time to hang it up until the next year when I start dicing lyrics. ("I think I heard the word 'ghost' in that second verse!") Can't wait till I can squeeze in and hear these.

 
At 10/26/2007 06:11:00 PM, Blogger paperback reader said...

Nicely done! I did not see Neutral Milk Hotel coming, and I'm impressed. My mix would have been lame as hell, like 18 Misfits songs and Kristen Hersh's "Your Ghost."

 
At 10/26/2007 06:50:00 PM, Blogger Artful Dodger said...

OOOOOOOHHHHH!!! I love this. ^_^ I'm prancing around right now. Though I probably shouldn't be eating all the candy MTG bought right now. But oh well, how can one not eat all those tiny Snickers bars? Uhm..you wouldn't by chance actually have "Monster Mash" would ya?

 
At 10/26/2007 11:55:00 PM, Blogger justacoolcat said...

Sweet Jeebus that is some list! That should keep my weekend rocking spboooookily.

 
At 10/27/2007 09:06:00 AM, Blogger Tenacious S said...

I feel like such a loser. All we have to give away are miniature Kit Kat bars. I should rip and burn this mix and hand out this on CD instead. The children of Evanston need music education!

 
At 10/27/2007 10:29:00 AM, Blogger Diane Mandy said...

Wow! I've never heard of half these songs. How much effort you've put in to this!

 
At 10/27/2007 02:16:00 PM, Blogger Erik Donald France said...

Love it! One more version of "Sympathy for the Devil" to consider -- Bryan Ferry's. Campy creepy laughs :->

Cheers to your Monster Mash up!

 
At 10/28/2007 02:08:00 PM, Blogger Eebie said...

Awesome stuff ... I must admit I'm always a sucker for the 80's bands and songs.

 
At 10/28/2007 03:02:00 PM, Blogger Katie Schwartz said...

girl, what a kick ass halloweeny mix. I used to love getting dolled up at halloween.

 
At 10/28/2007 06:20:00 PM, Blogger bigshoulders said...

beth said:
Another site copied the links to many of my Dylan covers, which is eating up my daily bandwidth at MyDataBus. You may need to come back this weekend to complete your downloads. Sorry!

Beth: you can prevent another domain from "hijacking" your links w/ MyDatabus. When you make the links public, there is an option to enter your domain to ensure that the person downloading the file is actually visiting your page, and not clicking on the link from another page.

hope this helps!
kevin

 
At 10/29/2007 06:32:00 PM, Blogger thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

Happy to see "Love Song for a Vampire" on here -- it's long been my favorite Annie Lennox tune.

 
At 10/29/2007 06:54:00 PM, Blogger Moxie said...

My only exposure to Zevon was the Werewolves song - I love howling along with him and the lines "Ha! I'd like to meet his tailor" and "His hair was perfect". Hope the beef chow mein was divine!

 
At 10/31/2007 02:04:00 PM, Blogger mom said...

Wow - this is just amazing. I love it. My favorite is the Shankill Butchers, but I looove me some Decemberists.

 
At 11/02/2007 02:16:00 PM, Blogger Mother of Invention said...

Wow! You're amazing! You really should be working in this field! If I ever want to know aything about music and/or movies, I'm comin' here!
Thanks for the visit.

 

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