Real Gone Music: Halloween Rare Vinyl Reissues, Part II

By Tony Mastrianni.

The Ghouls: “Dracula’s Deuce”

Do you think that hearses and hot rods go together? Well, they sure do in the fevered mind of famed producer Gary Usher! Usher made his bones penning songs for the Beach Boys (he co-wrote “In My Room” with the late Brian Wilson) and producing a band you might have heard of called The Byrds.

In between those celebrated stints, he indulged his love of surf and hot rod music with a series of albums by such studio outfits as The Hondells, Mr. Gasser and the Weirdos (featuring album art by custom car painter Ed “Big Daddy” Roth), The Kickstands, and The Super Stocks. But the one album from the Usher oeuvre that everybody has been wanting to rescue from the vinyl crematorium is his frightfully funny 1964 foray into horror rock, “Dracula’s Deuce.”

In the hands of Usher and his crack outfit of Capitol studio musicians (a.k.a. The Wrecking Crew) and long-time collaborators like vocalist Ritchie Burns, “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” became “The Little Old Lady from Transylvania,” “Johnny B. Goode” became “Bela Be Good,” and “Be True to Your School” became, you guessed it, “Be True to Your Ghoul.”

The originals, composed by Usher, Richie Podolor, and Roger Christian among others, are the main attraction, including the creepy exotica of “Dracula’s Theme” and the surreal “Monsterbilly Heaven.” Original copies of this one command monstrous sums, and it has NEVER been reissued in any format until this orange “pumpkin burnout” smoke vinyl edition that Real Gone Music is releasing for Halloween this year. Limited to 2000 copies!

 

Don Hinson and His Rigamorticians: “Monster Dance Party Dance”

A 1964 horror rock classic from the king of the genre, Gary Paxton! Gary was the producer behind the all-time Halloween hit “Monster Mash,” and that song rears its revivified head here (in an  R&B way) along with such frightening songs as “Monster Surf Stomp,” “Werewolf Watusi,” and “That Little Old Graverobber Me.” And let us not forget the classic single, “Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood,” which was later covered by modern-day horror rockers, 45 Grave!

Very, very collectible stuff that has been buried in the Capitol vaults outside of a budget cassette release back in the ‘80s, featuring Las Vegas DJ Don Hinson doing excellent Bela Lugosi et al. impressions to producer Paxton’s driving beats. Orange and black pumpkin splatter pressing limited to 2000 copies!

 

The Deadly Ones: ‘”It’s Monster Surfing Time”

You ready to catch a monster grave? Surf on this 1964 classic from the venerable Vee-Jay label! While this album has been reissued before, this is the first time it has been cut all-analog straight from the original tapes. And there are some real treats to savor in all their pure sonic glory, like “There’s a Creature in the Surfer’s Lagoon,” which the Cramps must have heard a time or three.

As always with these anonymous Halloween concept albums (see the Frankie Stein and the Ghouls releases), speculation has run rampant as to who’s playing on It’s Monster Surfing Time; suspicion this time falls on legendary “Games People Play” guitarist Joe South, who penned five of the numbers here and whose first hit was, after all, 1958’s “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch
Doctor.” So, we are going to go with him as a likely suspect. This pressing is one in bloody pumpkin vinyl, limited to 900 copies!

These album rights were acquired by REAL GONE MUSIC. All three albums were long out of print and highly collectible. Make no mistake about it, these remastered reissues on special color vinyl are quite limited (2,000 copies for the first two, and only 900 for The Deadly Ones LP. These make for fun listening and good investment because of the extremely limited amount pressed and
unique color of each..

Demand these at your local independent record shop, or order from the REAL GONE MUSIC at: www.realgonemusic.com Get ‘em now before they are gone!

Till next time …