Ha Ha Hallowe'en

A spooky selection today, in a nod to Hallowe'en, whether you will ready for the hordes of Trick or Treaters, or battening down the hatches and pretending you're not in when the doorbell rings.

Inevitably, lots of Halloween-referencing songs to choose from, though dig a little deeper into some of the lyrics and you may be surprised by what you find. I've also lobbed in a few pumpkins, though they're not necessarily seasonal tunes.

I had to include some music by John Carpenter, though rather than go for the obvious with the main theme of 1978's defining moment Halloween, I've instead picked an extract from the 2018 'sequel', which Carpenter scored for director David Gordon Green. 

1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins was a classic slice of nostalgic rock until Moby got his hands on it and transformed it into a spine-tingling horrorshow. 1979 was a ripe year for horror films, with Alien, Phantasm, The Driller Killer, The Amityville Horror, The Brood, Nosferatu The Vampyre, and a(nother) remake of Dracula.

The Prisoner by Tears For Fears is the penultimate song on their debut album The Hurting and a re-recorded version of an old B-side. It gave me the chills when I listened to it as a young lad, though it was - and remains - one of the best things they've ever done.

The Basement Jaxx remix of Trick Me by Kelis is arguably far too upbeat for inclusion in this selection, but I like the jarring juxtaposition with Siouxsie & The Banshees before and Phoebe Bridgers afterwards.

And, having recently discovered EMF's unexpected but strangely compelling cover of Bauhaus' classic Bela Lugosi's Dead, it was a shoo in for this selection.

And who better to start and end proceedings than Misfits? 

1) Halloween: Misfits (1981)

2) Halloween Parade: Lou Reed (1989)

3) Halloween: Ash (1997)

4) Laurie Sees The Shape: John Carpenter (2018)

5) 1979 (Moby Mix): The Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

6) Pumpkin (Reincarnated): Tricky ft. Lucia (2023)

7) Halloween: The Gaslight Anthem (2014)

8) Pumpkin Head Xscapes: The Fall (1992)

9) Halloween: Japan (1979)

10) Halloween: Kirsty MacColl (1991)

11) Halloween: Sonic Youth (1986)

12) The Prisoner (Album Version): Tears For Fears (1983)

13) Halloween: Dead Kennedys (1982)

14) Halloween (Album Version): Siouxsie & The Banshees (1981)

15) Trick Me (Jaxxbackclash Rerub) (Remix By Basement Jaxx): Kelis (2004)

16) Halloween: Phoebe Bridgers (2020)

17) Bela Lugosi's Dead (Cover of Bauhaus): EMF (2025)

18) Halloween II: Misfits (1981)

1979: Quiet Life: 9

1981: Halloween EP: 1, 18

1981: Juju: 14

1982: Plastic Surgery Disasters: 13

1983: The Hurting: 12

1986: Flower / Halloween EP: 11

1989: New York: 2

1991: Electric Landlady: 10

1992: Ed's Babe EP: 8

1996: 1979 EP: 5

1997: A Life Less Ordinary EP: 3

2004: Trick Me EP: 15

2014: Get Hurt (Deluxe Edition): 7

2018: Halloween OST: 4

2020: Punisher: 16

2023: Maxinquaye (Reincarnated): 6

2025: Bela Lugosi's Dead EP: 17

Ha Ha Hallowe'en (1:06:08) (GD) (M)

If that's not frightening enough for you, then I've refreshed my #SpookyTunesSeason selections, originally posted on Bluesky this time last year. Follow the link for Volume One and Volume Two. 

Goin' In, Out, Goin' In, Not Out

I know it's Friday but pre-empting the week ahead, here's the Happy Mondays with - what else? - Hallelujah.

 

I have a stupidly early start for work, and slightly more so this morning, as I'm typing this post whilst it's still dark (& raining outside) so I didn't stay up all night to watch the election results coming in.

Even so, it was hard to imagine waking up to a nightmare scenario where somehow, impossibly, the Tories had managed to cling onto government. At the time of writing, we're still some way to go but it's clear that the reality and long-held hope is that they are out, out, out. Labour have a lot to do, and to prove, especially in the next year or so, but at the very least we have change and we have hope.

Thankfully, my patch is no longer blue and we have a Lib Dem MP for the first time since 2015. In a marked contrast to scenes elsewhere shown on TV, when I arrived at my local polling station on my way home from work, there was one other person at a voting booth, so we were outnumbered 3:1 by the election volunteers. Numbers of voters who turned up yesterday was 2% up on 2019.

A more worrying statistic - yet, having lived here long enough, not entirely surprising - is that a large chunk of the Tory vote appears to have shifted to the Reform candidate, who comfortably came in third with nearly 50% more votes than Labour (though their candidate did improve on 2019). Farage is now an MP, so we'll no doubt be subject to even more of his smug mug and hate-filled hyperbole on screen, but...we also have change and we have hope of something better.

Back to Happy Mondays, I was always tickled by the video for the single, mostly Shaun, Bez and the band in slo mo, with a hint of the chaos that underpinned pretty much everything that they did. 

 

Given the song is two minutes and forty three seconds long, I have to feel for the video directors and editor, who I suspect may have had a substantial amount of footage yet very little that they could actually use! Opting for slow motion to eke out the precious few seconds may have been a reactive measure out of necessity perhaps, but somehow it works.

What I hadn't realised before now was that Richard Heslop and the Bailey Brothers (Phil Shotton & Keith Jobling) were in fact sent the extended Club Mix by Andrew Weatherall and Paul Oakenfold to shoot the video too, so in fact they had nearly seven minutes of music to work with. I think they did a pretty good job.

When Ewan Pearson remixed the song in 2020, a couple of official videos were commissioned to assist with promotion. I've opted here for the Dub Remix version, which stretches the song out to nine and half minutes of mind-bending bliss, with video director Glenn Kitson pushing elements of the original video through a psychedelic rinser.

And I think it's a mandatory requirement (or if it's not, it should be) that any post about Hallelujah must include Happy Mondays appearance on Top Of The Pops, joined on stage by the wonderful and much-missed Kirsty MacColl. 

Cut The Night

Twelve inches of indie(ish) pop pleasure for the weekend, with a selection of well-known and lesser known songs, spanning the upper and the nether regions of the UK singles chart. 

Troubling the Top 30 with their selected songs back in the day were Echo & The Bunnymen (#30), Gary Numan (#19) and The Beat (#9). Bringing up the rear were Kirsty MacColl (#80) and Win (#63). Having trouble getting the car started were Flesh For Lulu, Paul Haig and INXS, who didn't make the Top 100 and where's the justice in that?

 

As it's Friday, the forty-five minute/C90-friendly rule be damned, here's a full-fat, forty-eight minutes of goodies to usher in the weekend. 

1) Silver (Tidal Wave): Echo & The Bunnymen (1984)

2) Every Little Word (Remix): Flesh For Lulu (1989)

3) Big Blue World (12" Version): Paul Haig (1984)

4) Music For Chameleons (Album Version): Gary Numan (1982)

5) The One Thing (Extended Version): INXS (1983)

6) Hands Off... She's Mine (12" Version): The Beat (1980)

7) Innocence (The Guilt Mix): Kirsty MacColl (1989)

8) Super Popoid Groove (12 Inches For Love God): Win (1987)

 

Cut The Night (48:25) (Box) (Mega)

Keep On Falling

After yesterday's high energy workout, time to chill out and calm down with an ambient-themed selection.

Thirty two years, thirteen songs and one hour with some stripped back versions of some popular pop songs, an unexpected cover version and a few that are hopefully new to you or at least not heard for a long time.

Sit back with your favourite brew, close your eyes and think lovely thoughts for the next sixty minutes.

1) Dominica (Kenneth Bager's Sunset Ambient Mix): RüF Dug (2016)

2) Golden Brown (Fila Brazillia Remix-Ambient) (Cover of The Stranglers): Better Daze (1997)

3) Brilliant Fault And Sky Was Blue (Ambient Version) (Remixed By LFO): Soft Ballet (1992)

4) So Swell (Ambient Version By James & Brian Eno): James (2001)

5) Love Comes Quickly (Blank & Jones Ambient Remix): Pet Shop Boys (2003)

6) Shot In The Back Of The Head (Ambient): Moby (2009)

7) Ruined In A Day (The Ambient Mix By Booga Bear aka Cameron McVey): New Order (1993)

8) Walking Down Madison (6 a.m. Ambient Mix By Howard Gray) (Single Edit): Kirsty MacColl ft. Johnny Marr (1991)

9) Call A Wave (Return To The Deep Ambient Mix By Mark Moore & William Orbit): Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra (1989)

10) Ambient 2: Turin Brakes (2005)

11) Come Come The Rain (Ambient Version): Max Essa (2021)

12) Pulsing (Citadel Ambient Version): GLOK (2020)

13) Geek Love (Irresistible Ambient Mix By Mixmaster Morris): Bang Bang Machine (1993)

 

1989: Call A Wave EP: 9

1991: Walking Down Madison EP: 8

1992: Alter Ego: 3 

1993: Geek Love EP: 13

1993: Ruined In A Day EP: 7

1997: Remix Project: 2 

2001: Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) EP: 4

2003: PopArtMix: The Hits (limited edition 3x CD): 5

2005: JackInABox (hidden track): 10

2009: Wait For Me (Deluxe Edition): 6

2016: Island Remixes EP: 1

2020: The Citadel EP: 12

2021: Miró In The Bathroom: 11

 

Keep On Falling (1:00:42) (Box) (Mega)

Now That's What I Still Call Jangly

Side 2 of a compilation tape, originally recorded for me by my girlfriend, circa 1996.

 

When I posted the first side of this mixtape in November last year, I mentioned that I hadn't heard several of these songs in over a decade. It's been a bit less of a gap for most of the songs on this side but even so, I'd forgotten what a great compilation this is. More of The Wedding Present and The Field Mice and a couple by The Jam at their finest. 

 

I had thought about swapping out the Manchester racist for another song by a different artist, but I've decided to leave the sequence as originally intended. The song plays from approx. 19:44 to 23:27 if you want to skip it.

 

I realised as I was recreating this side that several of the artists have recently been featured over at The Vinyl Villain: Kirsty MacColl, The Field Mice and Fade Into You by Mazzy Star; completely coincidental, I'd only really plumped for posting this side today because it featured The Sundays. Yes, that's really as sophisticated as my planning gets sometimes...

 

1) A Small Slice Of Heaven: Lightning Seeds (1992)

2) Tread Lightly: Kirsty MacColl (1989)

3) The Great Depression (Single Version): The Jam (1982)

4) Divine Hammer (Album Version): The Breeders (1992)

5) Sorrow (Album Version) (Cover of The McCoys): David Bowie (1973)

6) Think Of These Things: The Field Mice (1991)

7) Spring-Heeled Jim (Album Version): Morrissey (1994)

8) My Favourite Dress (Single Version): The Wedding Present (1987)

9) But I'm Different Now (Album Version): The Jam (1980)

10) Slide Away (Album Version): The Verve (1993)

11) Fade Into You (Album Version): Mazzy Star (1993)

12) You're Not The Only One I Know (Album Version): The Sundays (1990)

13) Beyond Belief: Elvis Costello & The Attractions (1982)

Side Two (44:44) (GD) (M)

Side One here