A Halloween/horror-themed set. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Science Fiction/Double Feature
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place
3. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare
4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Demon
5. Ramones, I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement
6. David Bowie, Subterraneans
7. Blue Oyster Cult, Subhuman (live, from On Your Feet Or On Your Knees)
8. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D
9. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow
10. Link Wray, The Black Widow
11. Link Wray, Switchblade
12. Ramones, Chain Saw
13. Link Wray, Jack The Ripper
14. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer (live, from Stop Making Sense)
15. Alice Cooper, I Love The Dead
16. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard
17. Black Sabbath, Disturbing The Priest
18. Link Wray, The Shadow Knows
19. AC/DC, Night Prowler
20. Concrete Blonde, Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)
21. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street
22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Science Fiction/Double Feature . . . College daze memories come flooding back listening to any song from this album, released along with the movie in 1975. Thanks to the brilliance of singer/songwriter/musician/producer and brains behind the whole thing Richard O’Brien, who played Riff Raff in the movie, plus Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter, it’s a terrific and fun listen. This album opener name drops many classic sci-fi or horror movies and features that to me classic line sung so memorably by O’Brien: “I wanna go . . . in the back row.” A pre-Bat Out Of Hell album (released in 1977) Meat Loaf appears in the movie as delivery boy/biker Eddie, performing the song Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul.

I first saw the film in a quiet college auditorium in 1978 as part of a film elective I took during my journalism school days so I first saw it unvarnished, without all the rice-throwing and other participatory elements that became part of the Rocky Horror cult phenomenon. So I actually had an appreciation for it as a movie, such as it was, without having to figure out whatever actual plot or flow existed amid the extraneous stuff that developed around the movie and stage plays of it.

I did, however, soon enough get into all of it, attending and participating in the movie, six times as I recall, at a theatre in Burlington, Ontario that ran it throughout the summer of 1979. Fun times.

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place . . . Triple vocalists – Richard O’Brien again with his stirring “into my life . . . into my liiiiiffe’ refrain halfway through – Susan Sarandon in one of her first film roles and her co-star/fiance in the movie, Barry Bostwick.

3. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare . . . It’s a deep cuts show and this was a single but I do play the occasional single, obscure, not heard in ages, or otherwise. Title track from the 1975 album whose big hit was Only Women Bleed. Welcome To My Nightmare made it to No. 45 on the Billboard charts and has been ranked in the top 10 on many lists of best Halloween songs.

4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Demon . . . Best, I think, to let the influential shock rocker tell his own tale:

“You gotta be real cool to hear the words he said . . . Mugmgmgugmgubumububmub” . . .

“He made the sky turn green, he made the grass turn red
He even put pretty hair on Grandma’s bald head
He made the moon back up, he even pushed back time
He took the Frutti out of Tutti, he had the devil drinkin’ wine”

Etc.

5. Ramones, I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement . . . Nor do you want to look under your bed, your pillow, all those childhood scare locations. The monsters await . . .

6. David Bowie, Subterraneans . . . underneath, in the caverns real or imagined in your mind. Bowie, dark, ambient, from Low, part of his 1970s Berlin trilogy of albums – the others being Heroes and Lodger. This minimalist, lyrically speaking, musical piece has nothing to do with Halloween or horror, but it fits.

7. Blue Oyster Cult, Subhuman (live, from On Your Feet Or On Your Knees) . . . Extended live version of the typically early BOC-spooky type piece, originally – three minutes shorter than this 7-plus minute version – on the studio album Secret Treaties, released in 1974.

8. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D . . . From the 1973 album Goats Head Soup, thought to be something of a sequel to 1968’s Sympathy For The Devil, depending on who is analyzing the Stones’ output. A different vibe, more pedestrian perhaps as some critics have dismissed it, but compelling.

9. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow . . . From the Welcome To My Nightmare album featuring a fun spoken word cameo from actor Vincent Price in celebration of would-be spider supremacy.

10. Link Wray, The Black Widow . . . Not the same Black Widow song. Just typical instrumental intensity from the original master and maybe inventor of the power chord, depending on who and what one reads.

11. Link Wray, Switchblade . . . From Wray’s 1979 Bullshot album, with a similar riff to the B-52’s song Planet Claire, released on that band’s debut album from the same year.

12. Ramones, Chain Saw . . . Switchblades, now chainsaws, leading to . . . a no doubt foggy night. In London.

13. Link Wray, Jack The Ripper . . . Dark, spooky, moody, expressive.

14. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer (live, from Stop Making Sense movie/soundtrack album) . . . A different, similar and recognizable but funkier live arrangement of the hit (although while well known it just scaped inside the top 100 at No. 97) from the Heads’ 1977 debut album Talking Heads: 77. In the concert movie, Head, er, Head David Bryne notably wore an oversized suit.

15. Alice Cooper, I Love The Dead . . . The Billion Dollar Babies album, released in February, 1973, was a constant presence on my high school cafeteria juke box. You could count on hearing a tune from it no matter what time of day you went in for breakfast, lunch, a card game or just a break. But it was usually Hello Hooray, Elected, Generation Landslide, the title cut and No More Mr. Nice Guy, not this tongue in cheek take on necrophilia. Probably wouldn’t have been allowed.

16. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard . . . Originally on Waits’ 1978 album Blue Valentine, it was later covered by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who I played earlier, and definitely fits Hawkins’ shock rock persona such that some think Waits covered Hawkins.

17. Black Sabbath, Disturbing The Priest . . . I could have chosen any number of Sabbath songs for a show like this, from all eras and singers of Sabbath. But I decided to go with this one, from the 1983 album Born Again, the one and only album Sabbath did – complete with controversial devil baby album cover – with Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan out front as lead singer and whose maniacal vocals are the feature attraction along with Tony Iommi’s cascading, metallic guitar riffs.

18. Link Wray, The Shadow Knows . . . Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men . . . followed by diabolical cackles. ‘Nuff said.

19. AC/DC, Night Prowler . . . Bluesy hard rocker from the last album, Highway To Hell, the band did before lead singer Bon Scott’s death. It caused AC/DC controversy as serial killer/rapist Richard Ramirez, an AC/DC fan, used the song title as one of his nicknames (actually the Night Stalker but Night Prowler was a favorite song of his) although the band always said it’s about a boy sneaking into his girlfriend’s room at night. However, reading the lyrics – and I’m not criticizing the band – one can see a disturbed person using them for their own ends.

20. Concrete Blonde, Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) . . . Brooding title cut from the band’s commercial breakthrough album, released in 1990 and featuring the compelling vocals of one of my favorite singers, Johnette Napolitano. The song was the first single from the album but didn’t do much on the charts. It was the later-released singles, Joey in particular plus Caroline and Tomorrow, Wendy which had the biggest impact.

21. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street . . . The song, from Curry’s 1979 album Fearless, has nothing – that I can tell – to do with Halloween or horror. But, guitarist Dick Wagner of Alice Cooper fame plays on it, I played Alice earlier in the set and Curry was the key character Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I opened the set with, so here you go. Curry, as I’ve often mentioned, is a terrific talent; a scream as an actor/singer in Rocky Horror and also the movie Clue, a 1985 film adaptation of the board game where he hilariously plays the butler. Curry sadly suffered a serious stroke in 2012 but continues to perform as a voice actor and singer.

22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train . . . Pulsating, propulsive nine-minute title cut from the British blues band’s 1972 album. I saw them in 2013 at the Kitchener Blues Festival, great show with some of the performances available on YouTube. Founding and forever member, guitarist and chief songwriter Kim Simmonds died in 2022, and the band with him.