Vinyl Flicks is back with a special vinyl mix for Halloween!
Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band – Stranger Things Theme
It had to be done. Seriously. But why did it take so long? Hamburg’s cult funk outfit Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band take on Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s now iconic theme tune with the aplomb they use on all their cover versions. And steel pans.
The Originals – Supernatural Voodoo Woman (Pt.1)
The smooth vocals from Motown’s The Originals line this theme tune from the Blaxploitation horror Sugar Hill, not to be confused with the 1994 Wesley Snipes film of the same name. More I Walked With A Zombie and The Plague of the Zombies than Romeo’s The Night Of The Living Dead, this keeps to the voodoo origins of the creatures rather than a flesh-eating apocalypse. Co-writer and producer Dino Fekaris would go on to co-write and produce Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. Which could be the theme of every ‘Final Girl’ in horror films.
The Devils – The X-Sorcist
The so-called ‘Devils’ only released one single, but it was on James Brown’s People label in 1974. Cue Brown producing a fiery hell and brimstone funk effort, arranged by his regular collaborator Dave Matthews, no doubt to build on the success of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.
Champs Boys Orchestra – Tubular Bells
Which brings us neatly to this 1976 effort from France’s Champ’s Boys Orchestra. Taking Mike Oldfield’s iconic electronic score – which Friedkin may have used after the fact in The Exorcist, but forever became synonymous with horror – and melded it to the bassline of Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby (not that Giorgio Moroder gets a credit?)
Hot Blood – Soul Dracula (7″ Version)
More European novelty, as German disco act bring us their 1975 hit Soul Dracula. Here longer on the original 7” than the later album release. At this point be warned. There will be more dubious Bela Lugosi impressions coming up, though I haven’t gone as far as including The Count (this time at least!)
Blue Magic – Freak-N-Stein
Philadelphia soul legends Blue Magic find their inner freak on this wonderful opener to their 1976 album Mystic Dragons, proving how much of a thing ‘freak’ was, long before Nile Rogers. Producer Bobbi Eli, who died earlier this year, brings together an illustrious collection of musicians, from Larry Washington’s percussion and ‘Fat’ Larry James’s drums to Dexter Wansel’s synths and Norman Harris’s guitar, even Vince Montana on the vibraphone. Way better than any fun, novelty record should be.
Roberto Donati – NYC Main Title
As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, it was just disco that was #trending. Though not the first, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust had courted controversy using actual footage real cruelty to animals, as well as groundless accusations of being a snuff movie. Who wouldn’t want to get in on that action? Well why not Italian exploitation director Umberto Lenzi, who actually did make the first Italian cannibal movie in 1973 with his A Man Called Horse inspired Man from the Deep River? Returing to the genre with Eaten Alive! And Cannibal Ferox, also released as Make Them Die Slowly and Woman from Deep River, from which this track comes.
Paul Zaza & Carl Zittrer – Prom Night
In America can anything be truly as terrifying as prom night? And that’s before you start adding in the telekinetic powers of Carrie, or worse a mysterious slasher. Post-Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis augments her scream queen status, alongside a post-Airplane Leslie Nielsen. But it’s underlaid by a stomping disco soundtrack, courtesy of regular Bob Clark collaborators Paul Zaza & Carl Zittrer. I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.
Nostromo – Alien (12″ Version)
Time to fall heavily into disco novelty, with the alias of producer Kenny Denton, taking inspiration form the fated spacecraft in Ridley Scott’s film, with an effective version of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme. The flipside Around The World In 80 Seconds is something of a boogie favourite, but sadly Denton didn’t stop there. Reworking John Barry’s theme for The Black Hole and even a disastrous take on John Williams’s Imperial March.
Captain Zorro – Phantasm (12″ Version)
More disco novelty, this time from British-Indian producer Biddu, who made massive disco hits for Jimmy James & The Vagabonds with Now Is The Time and Tina Charles with I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance). No stranger to musical cash-ins, he produced Carl Douglas’s Kung Fu Fighting, here he gives us the disco version of the Phantasm theme we didn’t know we needed. Until now. It even ended up as bonus audio on the collector’s laserdisc of the film, so we’re presuming writer director Don Coscarelli didn’t have a problem with it.
Hemant Bhosie – Sansani Khez Koi Baat
Otherworldly but also completely danceable in the way that only someone like Giorgio Moroder can be, Hemant Bhosie song from the 1981 Bollywood horror Sansani (The Sensation), hits all the right notes. According to the sleeve notes on Finders Keepers compilation Bollywood Bloodbath, Bhosie was the son of legendary playback singer Asha Bhosie, who turned his back on a career as a pilot for a sporadic career as a soundtrack composer. Mummy does vocals here.
The Vamps – Disco Blood Part II (Instrumental)
The Vamps (not the Pop band from England) were a disco outfit from Brazil that didn’t seem to make much else save for this hit song and an album of the same name. The brainchild of producer Santiago “Sam” Malnati (aka M. Smith). Even the performers hardly turn up anywhere, except for lead vocalist Binah Gipsy, who has a song on the imaginatively titled compilation Discotheque Number Three, with various cover versions (and the occasional original) of disco hits. Right after The Vamps take on Soul Dracula. Hang on, who’s the producer of the compilation? Santiago Malnati? That name sounds familiar…
John Davis And The Monster Orchestra – Up Jumped The Devil
You want a Monster? I give you a monster orchestra. A monster disco orchestra really. Led by a man who would go on write, produce and perform the theme From Beverly Hills, 90210. But let’s not sully our vision yet. This is more than glossy disco, thanks to having some familiar names on the production from the Philadelphia/Salsoul playbook, like backing vocalist Barbara Ingram (Slick), percussion genius Larry Washington and arranger Don Renaldo. Early album track I Can’t Stop became a mainstay of Hip Hop after being sampled by the Jungle Brothers, Run-DMC, Missy Elliott and others.
Mass Production – Scary Love
Well it is, isn’t it? I fell in love with funk and disco collective Mass Production ever since I bought an album of theirs in a charity shop for a quid. Firecracker was a minor hit in the US, while Welcome To Our World (of Merry Music) and the Jazz Funk flavoured instrumental Shante were minor hits in the UK. Another band who don’t get the love they deserve.
Halloween – Come See What It’s All About
Disco was full of one-off studio projects by studio musicians, but few went to all the trouble of dressing up especially. Another pet project from a producer, this one was led by Jerry Marcellino, who had also had the dubious honour of being one of Berry Gordy’s anonymous production collective The Corporation. He worked on various Motown hits, including several for the Jackson Five and Michael Jackson, including Rockin’ Robin and Ben, so knew how to write a catchy tune.
Soul Messengers – Burn Devil Burn
In the late 1970s, a group of American ex-pats brought the native sounds of their Detroit and Chicago homes across the Atlantic, and combined them with the messages of the Black Hebrew culture. These sounds became a searing mix of jazz, spiritual soul, inspired funk, and Old Testament gospel psychedelia, as heard here.
Vicki Sue Robinson – Nighttime Fantasy
I know. Disco is popular, isn’t it? What with that Travolta and his Staying Alive. And vampires are pretty popular too, right? So what if Dracula’s daughter fell in love with disco? And that’s 1979’s Nocturna for you. Save for disco divas Gloria Gaynor and Vicki Sue Robinson and short-lived vocal group Moment Of Truth, a lot of familiar Philadelphia/Salsoul musicians, and two disc of extended workouts. (Do I need to name them again.) Bizarrely, this first emerged at almost exactly the same time as the similarly disco-themed Love At First Bite.
The Jeff Lorber Fusion – Monster Man
The last proper release for the rather formally named The Jeff Lorber Fusion, the next stage for the eponymous band leader could already be heard. Like many other jazz fusion players of the era, he would increasingly ditch extended instrumentals for vocal-led tracks, later working with Audrey Wheeler, Karyn White and Michael Jeffries. It would be several albums before he ditched his best mate Kenny G though.
Rasputin’s Stash – Devil Made Me Do It
They would have been just Rasputin Stash if not for a record company misprint. Such a relationship with record companies would colour the career of the band, floating from one to another they only produced two official albums. Both are filled with a mix of social commentary and to-die-for catchiness, and a promise of something that could have been. Decades later unreleased recordings would be discovered.
A. Blonksteiner – Cannibal Apocalypse
The fantastically named Alessandro Blonksteiner, here credited under his initial but also as Alexander, only composed three soundtracks. One of many contributors to Italy’s CAM label, which specialised in creating music and cues for films, it’s typical of his sound. All horror discordance with slamming funky basslines. Originally titled Apocalypse Domani, and also released as Zombie Apocalypse and Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, the film itself was a crazy mash-up of virus-infected cannibals, zombies and the aftermath of the Vietnam war, but perhaps not John Saxon’s best work.
Fabio Frizzi – Zombi 2 (Seq. 8)
Both as a solo artist and part of Bixio, Frizzi & Tempera, film composer Frizzi’s work touched everything, from the jazz and funk of Trouble Man on Vai Gorilla, to the haunting Morricone-esque scores of Sette Note In Nero (The Psychic). But it was for scoring Lucio Fulci’s zombie films that he will be best known, with soundtracks for Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters), The City Of The Living Dead and The Beyond. Here he reuses an earlier track Godzilla as the base for an electronic exploration that has as much to do with Patrick Cowley and early forays into what would become House music as it does horror. In a future mix we’ll include Linda Lee’s (aka Rossana Barbieri) misplaced disco track There Is No Matter from the same film.
Willie Hutch – The Mark Of The Beast
Hutch may well have been channelling a bit of Curtis Mayfield – hardly for the first time – with elements of (Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go, on The Mark Of The Beast. But this title track from his 1974 album, which also saw his score to Foxy Brown, is hardly a pale imitation. A concept album in the mode of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, this is Hutch at his very peak.
Jenny Devivo – Season Of The Witch (Hyponix Edit)
Taking a darker line than Donovan’s original, this Ashley Beedle (X-Press 2, Ballistic Brothers) & Marc Woolford (Black Science Orchestra) production puts this downtempo and trip hop vocalist right at home.
François de Roubaix – Les Dunes d’Ostende (From Daughters Of Darkness)
Self-taught film, television and advert composer, created a legacy with his soundtrack for Harry Kümel’s Belgium horror Daughters of Darkness (Les Lèvres Rouges). Les Dunes d’Ostende was sampled by Lil Wayne on President Carter.
The Crystalites – Blacula
Reggae production Derrick Harriott was fully immersed in cinema popular with Black communities of the early 1970s, from Blaxploitation to the early Kung Fu classics. He even recorded a rather whistful, melodic song with melodica player Augustus Pablo named after Shaw Brothers classic Bells Of Death. Many of his productions, such as his dubby take on Isaac Hayes Shaft, Black Moses, are closer to musically to their inspiration. (He also recorded a straight cover.) This one, however, is fully dub with the emphasis on the drop.
Dusty Springfield – Spooky
The iconic, sultry-voiced Springfield first recorded her take on Mike Shapiro’s song Spooky, not long after the first vocal version by Classics IV had been released in 1967. Before she went off and recorded her groundbreaking Dusty in Memphis, which proved she was the white queen of soul. But it wouldn’t get a release until 1970 as the B side to How Can I Be Sure, though some territories flipped the songs, where it reached a paltry 36 in the UK charts. There’s no doubt the rediscovery for the soundtrack of Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels helped bring this into the limelight.
Giuliano Sorgini – John Dalton Street
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, also released as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, was a Spanish film production that was an early take on zombies as we know them now in the Romeo mould, not their voodoo origins. It really wasn’t until after Romeo’s truly apocalyptic Dawn Of The Dead that (mainly Italians) took these ideas and ran with them. Giuliano Sorgini provides a groovy base for the ghoulish going on, if more psychedelic in sound than funky.
R. Dean Taylor – There’s A Ghost In My House
In the mid 1960s Taylor was best known as one of Motown’s few white artists. Written by Taylor himself and the powerhouse team of Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song didn’t chart when it was originally released in 1967, but seven years later would make it to the UK top 3 thanks to its popularity in Northern soul clubs like the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino. It would be covered various times, even by another initial heavy artist, Mark E. Smith and his band The Fall, becoming their first song to break the top 40.
Demon Fuzz – I Put A Spell On You
The wonderfully named Demon Fuzz were one of several British Black bands who were acclaimed and successful abroad, particularly in the US, but failed to chart in their home country at all (See also Cymande). This take on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s classic from their debut and only single proves this band deserves the props they never got here.
Gene Page – Blacula (The Stalkwalk)
Gene Page had a long and varied career as an arranger and conductor throughout the 1960s, before a deep-voiced guy named Barry called on him to arrange his string section. Those soaring orchestral sounds became as much a part of Barry White’s output as his monologues and Melvin Ragin’s (aka Mr Wah Wah Watson) echoed rhythm guitar. But Page’s effort for the superb Blaxploitation Dracula update with one-time Star Trek guest star William Marshall came a year before.
Woods Empire – The Boogie’s Gonna Get You (12″ Version)
Woods Empire, led by frontman Thomas Aaron Woods, are one of the lesser-known acts to come from Clarence Avant’s Tabu Records label. It would become synonymous with production duo Jam & Lewis, and various acts they produced including The S.O.S. Band, Alexander O’Neal and Cherelle. But this is one fine, danceable slice of boogie from 1980/1, from a short-lived band who sadly only every recorded one LP. Producer David Crawford would go on to work with Vesta Williams on Once Bitten Twice Shy, so horror puns must be in his blood.
Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band – Halloween Theme
Back with Hamburg’s funk act, and the flip to this orange-coloured 7” is a take on John Carpenter’s iconic theme for the unstoppable franchise that everyone has used since. Even Rob Zombie couldn’t help himself on his reboots. (Those hoping that David Gordon Green’s abysmal trilogy – perhaps with the exception of Kills– would have finally put an end to Michael Myers reign of horror will no doubt be disappointed by the possibility of a Miramax-produced TV spinoff.) Here the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band slow the theme a lot, putting a Billie Jean emphasis on the downbeat. With steel pans. If only we had this for our ‘If I Was A Carpenter’ show!
Michael Jackson – Thriller
It might be the title song of the biggest-selling album of all time, but it would still feel a little churlish not to include Thriller in this lineup. MJ had form with the creatures of the night, recording The Boogie Man on 1973’s Jackson Five album Skywriter. But it would be his second album with legendary producer Quincy Jones and British songwriting genius Rod Temperton that would cement his place as the ‘king of pop’. In hindsight, here backing vocal refrains play more into Rod’s Heatwave territory than most of his arrangements for MJ.
Weeks & Co – Your Next Door Neighbour (12″ Version)
There’s no doubting this track from disco/boogie producer Richie Weeks riffs off MJ’s Thriller, but what it suggests – a ‘friendly’ neighbour who will pop over when you’re feeling scared – is perhaps the creepiest thing here. (I’m doing myself a favour, and bolting those doors tight!) Despite his success as an artist and producer on the Salsoul label, this single only saw the light of day in France, complete with an errant apostrophe in the artist’s name that will be the stuff of nightmares for many of us.
Whodini – The Haunted House Of Rock (Extended Version)
I often feel like Whodini doesn’t get the recognition they deserve. The trio emerged from the vibrant rap scene of Brooklyn, New York in the early 1980s, and broke through with much success thanks to adding proper R&B and pop twists to their music. Early tracks like this and the Thomas Dolby-produced Magic’s Wand may have played up to the novelty of rap, still in its infancy, but the fun rhymes of Jalil Hutchins and John ‘Ecstasy’ Fletcher lifted them above many of their peers. What a way to finish! But yes, we will play The Freaks Come Out At Night next time…