By Tony Mastrianni.
Herein is a special Halloween snapshot of rare, precious artifacts in the form of LPs as reissued by Real Gone Music. Kudos to them for securing the rights to reissue some great, long-out-of-print vinyl albums that will fascinate collectors. From classic horror to monster metal, with some exotic campiness and ingenious sounds in between. Let’s dive into the interesting collectables just hitting the market. Ask for them at your local independent record store or contact the label through their website.
Elliot Goldenthal – “Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack)” – NEON GREEN WITH ORANGE SWIRL “DEAD CATSEYE” VINYL
While it obviously references such classics of the genre as Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” and Lalo Schifrin’s “The Amityville Horror,” Elliot Goldenthal’s first-ever Hollywood score for “Stephen King’s Pet Sematary” displays the avant-garde verve one has come to expect from his subsequent work in the classical, theater, and film (e.g., his Academy Award-winning score for “Frida”) worlds. Employing the wordless vocals of a boys’ choir, a small orchestral ensemble, and electronics, Goldenthal creates an increasingly unsettling atmosphere, highlighted by “The Return Game II (Louis and Gage),” which is like the music to the shower scene in Psycho on steroids. We’ve pressed this classic 1989 soundtrack in neon green with orange swirl “Dead Cat’s-eye” vinyl in honor of the revivified feline who plays a key role in the film’s plot … spooky sounds for Halloween and beyond!
Rod McKuen / Heins Hoffman-Richter ‘Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease’…’ Vinyl LP:
Tired of “Monster Mash”? Through with calling “Ghostbusters”? If your Halloween playlist is begging for something different, look no further than the frightfully fun ‘Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease.’ Don’t believe this? Take The Bride of Frankenstein’s word for it–she’s on the cover! Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records, in their relentless quest to leave no musical stone unturned, have given a new lease on life to one of the most unusual records of all time. Upon its initial release in 1974, this “Symphony for Tape Delay, IBM Instruction Manual, & Ohm Septet” was credited to “recognized raconteur, genius, composer, musicologist, conductor” Heins Hoffman-Richter, whom the original liner notes indicate “died from an earlobe tumor.” It turns out that the late Hoffman-Richter was none other than best-selling poet and all-time cult music hero Rod McKuen. This is Rod’s very own ‘Metal Machine Music.’ Like Lou Reed’s later experiment in feedback and noise, this features no songs or traditionally structured compositions. Simply put, this wild journey through the electronic underground has to be heard to be believed. It arrives on dark and
stormy night vinyl to commemorate the circumstances surrounding the birth of Elsa Lanchester as Frankenstein’s bride, in a package that replicates the collectible original release and also includes an insert with liner notes from The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese. ‘Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease’ will indeed act as a potent pal and landlord repellent…limited to 500 copies!
Consumers, The Bags, The Gun Club, and The Screamers among other L.A. punk outfits, 45 Grave were arguably the first American Goth/deathrock band and inarguably one of the best. Fronted by the Exene-meets-Barbarella vocal and visual stylings of Dinah Cancer (still one of the greatest stage names in a punk rock genre full of ‘em), 45 Grave also featured Paul B. Cutler on guitar, Don Bolles on drums, Rob (Ritter) Graves on bass, and Paul Roessler on keyboards, and from that all-star line-up came 1983’s ‘Sleep in Safety’ their lone studio release, and only recording with the band’s original members. Probably most famous for the first appearance of the horrifyingly graphic, true-crime track “Party time,” the single version of which was subsequently cut in 1985 and featured on The Return of the Living Dead soundtrack, Sleep in Safety also offered the early MTV track “Evil” and the band “theme song” “45 Grave” among other blandishments for those who like their rock and roll with a side of the macabre. For our Real Gone Music exhumation of this classic record, we have “embalmed” a very special edition, preserving the original album’s gatefold edition complete with lyrics and adding a custom inner sleeve drawn from the band’s very rare “A Tale of Strange Phenomena” press release—green with black splatter vinyl! Folks have been dying for this one to come back from the (45) grave.
Next month will look at some new LP releases as we head toward the end of the
year!
Till Next Time…
