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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