Current Events: Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls - A Halloween Playlist

 

“Red Right Hand” - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 

This song is probably Nick Cave’s creepiest, which is saying a whole helluva lot. X-Files creator Chris Carter used to listen to this song while writing episodes for the show. 

 

My friend Claire Campbell (now, of Athens band Hope for Agoldensummer) took me to see Morphine at the Music Farm in Charleston, S.C., when I was 18. The singer in the opening band scared the shit out of me. I was in the front row, and while the band was galloping through all these apocalyptic, minor-key songs, the guy was just staring a hole in me. Not like most frontmen, who might look at you and then look away. No, he was singing and looking right through me, and I would’ve run, but I thought he might’ve put a curse on me if I did. The band was 16 Horsepower and the singer was David Eugene Edwards. When I found out he wasn’t a practicing Satanist, but a devout Christian, I was absolutely shocked. “Coal Black Horses” is one of the scariest songs I’ve ever heard. The band’s crawling cover of CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” is pretty freaky, too. 

 

“Astro Zombies” - The Misfits 

An alternate version of this “Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls” mix could be comprised entirely of Misfits songs. Glenn Danzig’s obsession with low-budget ’50s horror movies and his velvety, Satanic Elvis croon make The Misfits the absolute-most-perfect Halloween band in the history of rock ’n’ roll. I could put almost any of their songs on here: “Horror Business,” “Vampira,” “Teenagers From Mars,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “Skulls,” “Ghouls Night Out”—the list goes on and on. But since we don’t have room for all of them, I’ll pick one representative track—“Astro Zombies,” the most brilliant song ever written about the undead arriving from outer space to devour the flesh of the entire human race. 

 

“Moanin’ at Midnight” - Howlin’ Wolf 

Chester Burnett (aka Howlin’ Wolf) might be the greatest vocalist in the history of recorded music. Size-wise, he was a monster of a man, the vibrations of his gravel-dragged vocal chords resonating cavernously in his enormous chest cavity, the guitar often looking like a toy in his hands. The sheer menace and portent in his delivery on this song makes my hair stand on end. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wolf morphed into a werewolf during the sessions for “Moanin’ at Midnight.” 

 

“Hellhound On My Trail” - Robert Johnson 

Continuing on with the blues portion of this mix, we’ve got a particularly haunting track from infamous Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson. As the legend goes (fueled by his mind-boggling guitar skills, foreboding lyrics and mysterious death-by-poisoning at age 27), Johnson’s powers came from a deal he struck with the Devil. The bleak desperation in this song will make you believe it’s true.