King of the Ghosts

Styled as a sort of hard-bop tango, "King of the Ghosts" by NY septet Homer Erotic is both breezy and gutsy cruise through a pop song. Song's title is possibly a reference to poet Wallace Steven's "A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts," a poem which could be an allegory of the struggle for supremacy between aggressors and defenders in the two World Wars, or maybe just it's about a cat and a rabbit who are rivals in the yard. Band's catchy songs about macabre, paranormal matters sung by female vocalists (and an over-dependence on echo), Homer fits in with Concrete Blonde and Curved Air, and stands up to the comparison.

A day of monsters & angels, including ….

via CrackerBarrel.com

Here's a 14-hour playlist of songs for Halloween, or songs using the day's tropes as metaphors, much like this insanely catchy Monsters & Angels by Voice of the Beehive, led by California sisters Tracey Brin and Melissa Brooke Belland. The band was an on-again, off-again troupe which when it was on, could knock-out a hook like on Scary Kisses -- which isn't metaphor enough for the Halloween playlist.

"Dancing the Devil Away"

via Devangelical.com

"Dancing the Devil Away" by Arden & Ohman, pianists who filmed a number of their Depression Era performances and packaged on PlayMoviesForFree.com

This song appears on a few compilations packaged for Halloween. This from the dubiously dubbed "Halloween Hipster" lumping together some instrumentals (which could be about anything really) and some included for reasons that stretch the imagination, like "Jeepers Creepers" which was written in 1938 for a film with Ronald Reagan. Scary indeed.

And the record has "Headless Horseman" by Kay Starr, highlighted here earlier.

"Costume Makes The Clown"

via Live-Onstage Blog

Although not strictly a Halloween song, here's a dressing down of dressing up. Every now and again it's worth remembering that among ever-growing list of the dance-pop divas, Shakira is more consistently interesting than the others. One example is "Costume Makes The Clown" possibly only known as one of the tracks on "Oral Fixation vol. 2" that isn't "Hips Don't Lie." But it shows her control of her signing gifts include a little growl/roar dropped in like an italic emphasis, and then a bit of vocal fry that makes it modern, and instantly interesting.

"You Scare Me To Death"

via Amazon

It's scary season. But the only thing to fear is halitosis, so says Marc Bolan of T. Rex in this posthumous release. You Scare Me To Death must have been around before the release in '86 because the weird proto-punk/art band Fresh released it in 1970 as "Horrible Breath" on "Fresh Today" -- an LP of which is in my possession, possibly among the last ones on Earth. The record had a minor hit (it got played a couple of times on college FM radio, which in 1970 was the same as saying "never.") called "Stoned in Saigon" found here on CrooksandLiars.com (don't know why).

"Robot Zombies"

Halloween looms like the Angel of Death, so here's kind of surf punk latino rockabilly "Robot Zombie"  from The Benders' album "Who's Your Daddy?" The band has a low-key online presence, but what's there indicates that their live shows are anything but. Yes, they are on Facebook.

via Last.FM