'Alternative' soundtrack to your holiday season (Halloween, that is)

Here's a nice little list (complete with listening samples) of some spooky music you can play to freak out your guests/trick-or-treaters this Halloween. It's not your traditional 'ghoulish laughter/church organ' combo, but it'll get the job done.

First, this fucked-up album:
I'm not really sure who Don Bradshaw-Leather is, but this is some pretty wacked out stuff. Kind of like the soundtrack to an imaginary horror film, the music ranges from atmospheric electronic stuff to spacey psychedelic jamming. It's a double-LP, but only has like, 2 songs or something. Here's side one of the first record, aka "The Distance Between Us, Part 1."

Next, we've got some black metal:
Not just any black metal, though; the blackest of ALL metal. That's right--Burzum from Norway. This shit is intense, creepy, and wholly evil. Check out this background info about its one and only member, Varg Vikernes, if you don't believe me. With all the pagan mythology that went into this, it's the perfect soundtrack to fall as a whole. While in prison, Varg recorded some atmospheric synthesizer albums that are actually pretty Halloween-y, but Filosofem is the classic. Check out the song "Jesus' Tod."

Of course, some Residents:Basically any album by this group is going to be creepy, but Duck Stab is where they perfected the creepy electronic pop that makes up about 1/3 of their recorded output. Sure, anybody interested can know who the Residents are nowadays, but they'll always be the eyeball-clad weirdos to me. Listen to "Hello Skinny," one of the creepiest tunes here.

This one's pretty good too:
These fellas and lady are Coven, a mid-60's psychedelic band that slightly resembled Jefferson Airplane. They were also practicing witches and warlocks (those terms are right, I think?) and wrote a lot about that sort of stuff. Their album is called Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls. DEFINITELY Halloween-y, especially the final track which is supposedly a live recording of a Satanic mass. I'll probably save that one for the Halloween show I'm putting on next week...but, here's the tune "Black Sabbath."

And, finally:
What Halloween would be complete without novelty folk tunes about vampires? The one and only Robbie the Werewolf put out this album titled Live at the Waleback in 1964. Apparently this guy was some coffee-shop beatnik and didn't put out another album, but this one's enough anyhow. Some songs are parodies of folk tunes that were popular at the time (i.e. the Kingston Trio, whose tune "Greenback Dollar" was the basis for the song I'm posting here) and some are Robbie's own creations. Regardless, it's all good monster-loving fun. Here's "Vampire Man."

That's it for now. Be sure to tune in tomorrow night (Thursday) from midnight til 2 am for another edition of Obscuro! And of course, tune in next week for the Halloween extravaganza, which will feature spooky music of all kinds.

Here's the Obscuro! podcast page.