Venturing into the Crypt...

[Vyn]

I almost...ALMOST...dropped that Hamerfall song in place of my Samhain choice. But I'm stubborn.

[Charger]

Well thank you for not doing that! Not sure what I would have chosen for my final one then!

[Zzzptm]

Time for my last pick for the topic, what shall I go for?

Two songs, most likely. 

Slayer - Chemical Warfare (Live 1985)

When I think of mass murder, I think of clouds of mustard gas rolling over the trenches in France... toxins exploding over Kurdish villages... nerve agents working their way through the Basra marshes... I've read the stories of horror, from soldiers desperately clawing for their masks as they stop breathing in a panic reaction to the poisons around them. To me, this is a most terrifying song.


For the next one, a song about realizing the horror from within...

Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell - "Falling Off the Edge of the World" (Live)

Ronnie James Dio, what a legend. Able to reach so deep from within when he knew, as the lyrics mentioned, he was running out of time.

[Charger]

Great choices there!

I don't think I would have even thought of Falling Off The Edge Of The World even had I been considering Sabbath tunes.... Solid pick there sir!

[Zzzptm]

It makes me realize that horror can come to us from many angles and the music itself is a means of coping.

[Charger]

Indeed.


I'm gonna throw in a couple of extra mentions here.


Iced Earth - FRANKENSTEIN

Always loved the guitars in this one....the song itself isn't among the best ones but the guitar work here is great...and ofcourse one of those essential horror stories

Savatage - HOUNDS

I was kind of torn between this and Sirens but ended up going with Sirens...stellar guitar solo from Criss on this one about killer Hounds roaming the moors.

Rob Zombie - MEET THE CREEPER

Had I done another one from Rob this would be it...the riff is great and well it's not just about a creeper it's about THE creeper!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Some honourables from me!

I didn't double up on any bands in the end. If I had I might have included:


The Damned - Wake the Dead

The story is they always heard of these songs that get played at funerals... so they thought they would write one!

Black Sabbath - Too Late

Meddle with things you don't understand...

Hawkwind - Virgin of the World

They're undead folks!! As stated earlier I would have included this with Angels of Death if I could find a video which reflected that they run into each other on the album.

[Zzzptm]

Somebody requested this for my show.

Won't play it for several reasons.

1. Recorded outside the time span my show deals with.

2. It's about a guy decapitating a lady he seems to live with on account of her complaints about hot dogs.

It's not his only song about decapitation, either... 

[Vyn]

Had never heard of the dude. Sounds like he either has a weird fetish or is trying to write a musical autobiography...or both!

What is the year range your show deals with, Z?

[Zzzptm]

1948-1964, Golden Age of Rock and Roll.

[Vyn]

1948-1964, Golden Age of Rock and Roll.

Awesome, I bet that's a lot of fun!

[Zzzptm]

Even more fun when I'm not typing a response on my phone.

It's great being able to trace all the elements that came together to make rock and roll and how that genre then went went on to merge into just about everything else. The power of the syncopated beat is not to be underrated!

Now, enforcing the rules is easy most of the time, but we occasionally get someone who's pissed off that we won't play the McGuire sisters because they're not rock'n'roll. "But they were big in the fifties! Don't you play fifties music???" We play rock and roll, Sally.

My favorite parts are discovering rarities and doing Rock and Roll Football, where I play two versions of the same song and score them like a football game. I like doing close matches, as the idea came to me when I was playing Beatles BBC sessions from 1963 and the original artists and it was like University of Alabama taking on Cupcake Tech... Beatles just didn't have good production on those recordings and, even on their LP releases, just lacked a certain something. When I played the Stones from the same timeframe, night and day. The Stones could stand up to the original artists and play a hard, close game almost every time, and that was way more fun. For this Saturday, I'll be doing Land of 1000 Dances, there's a few great versions to choose from, but I plan to pit one of those against Little Richard's re-hot version from 1968.