Repost: I tell you one thing: as a kid, if I’d gone up to trick or treat at a house and Elvira answered the door … I would have been pretty, ah, scared. Looking at the photo, I’m pretty sure I would have the same reaction today.
Shouldn’t let a Halloween go by without paying tribute to the Misfits. The creators of horror punk movement, the Misfits came out of the swamps of New Jersey in 1977 and are still goin’ strong, more or less. Less singer/songwriter Glenn Danzig, who wrote many of their early songs; less Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein and Michale Graves, who played on the Misfits’ major-label album American Psycho; and without Marky Ramone, who played drums for the Misfits for a while.
The Misfits today are led by bassist/singer Jerry Only, immediately identifiable by his “devillock” hairstyle, guitarist Dez Cadena and drummer Robo (both formerly of punk titans Black Flag). We’re gonna go see the Misfits in November when they roll through Houston, you should see them too when they come to your town.
Face it – rock and roll isn’t that scary. Unless you’re an uptight parent, or some kind of preacher. Rock music about Halloween, and the stuff that comes with Halloween, is goofy and funny, but it isn’t frightening. Although I must admit, I got a bit of a fright the first time I saw Adam Lambert perform … but thankfully that’s not rock and roll. Or is it? Bwahahahaha!
Back in the day, there was Alice Cooper. He had an act that involved boa constrictors, decapitating baby dolls with a guillotine (or something) and an electric chair. Alice also had Top 40 hits – “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” among them. Successful, certainly; entertaining, probably. But scary? No.
Before Alice, back in the 1950s, there was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. He jumped in and out of a coffin during his stage act, performed fake voodoo rituals and had some pretty crazy music. But his snake wasn’t even real. After Alice, you can take your pick among the punk rockers of the late 1970s: they were kind of disturbing, but honestly not scary. And from the 1990s, you had Marilyn Manson – the less said about him the better.
So by default, I guess Alice Cooper is the scariest guy in rock and roll. Unless you count Adam Lambert …
Monsters are misunderstood – it’s tough to frighten people and terrorize the countryside day in, and day out. Surely monsters have to unwind; as the magazine cover suggests, they may enjoy a little recreational hula-hoop activity. Or they may just like to rock out.
After Christmas, the most sung-about observance has to be Halloween. Of course, Halloween isn’t as popular among kids today as it was when we were younger. You can thank uptight elementary school principals and square-nuts church preachers for that.
Even the art of the Halloween rock and roll song seems to have faded into the mists of oblivion. Except … we now have this wonderful internet which lets us find these obscurities and share them in all their rockin’ glory. Here we go, Halloween’s not for a couple of weeks now so expect a few more posts like this.
Television was the one thing found in just about every house in the 1960s. I knew people living in mobile homes who didn’t have a dinner table, but they had a TV. And I remember sitting in front of the damned thing for hours when I was a kid. Radio, I suppose, had the same attraction for kids in the generations before mine – just as cable TV, video games, DVDs and the internet have enthralled generations after mine.
There was a local scary TV show host when I was growing up; I believe his name was Dr. Ghoul-man or something, he appeared late nights on TV around a rerun of some crummy horror movie. People still talk rapturously about Morgus the Magnificent in the New Orleans area, or whoever did the hosting in your area (see link below).
Rod Serling
But the really scary shit on TV appeared on prime time: “The Twilight Zone” hosted by Rod Serling frightened the bejeezus out of me on more than one occasion, sending me to bed more than a little nervous. Then later it was “The Outer Limits,” which was more science fiction but fairly scary nevertheless. Now I grew up in Southeast Texas and whenever a hurricane blew in the TV stations in the late 1960s stayed on all night so they can provide weather updates (they usually signed off around midnight with the national anthem). And in between weather reports, local TV played reruns of “The Outer Limits,” which added to the already-pretty-damn-real fear factor. The Weather Channel today pales in comparison.
My kids were turned on by old “Twilight Zone” episodes, and the best of them are among the greatest things ever to appear on television. You owe it to yourself to catch these on reruns, if you never have. It’s prime chills, 1960s’ style: cheap thrills indeed.
30 Days Out 