Axemaster - "Slave To The Blade"

The underground Heavy Metal scene of the 1980s was just so rad. Case in point is this incredible gem from the (local to me) band, Axemaster. 

Now picture it. It's 1986 and you're watching your local horror host on a Saturday night (in this case, it's Cleveland's own Son of Ghoul), ready for another unending roll of terrible-yet-hilarious skits and bad jokes, all enveloping this week's awful horror film. And then during one of the show's breaks, you get the privilege of this added bonus. A one-take "music video" of a local heavy metal band belting it out, complete with astoundingly low-budget video effects and a live "dungeon master" actor, complete with prop axes and a hood, who looks like he's not sure where he's supposed to be. IT IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. 

You just know everyone is having a total blast with this, and that's what makes it so strangely authentic. The band is giving its all on a show that doesn't even take itself seriously. It's a campiness that is painfully missed today and a reason why I love this video so much. Enjoy!

And a silver lining to this video is that Axemaster is still around today, releasing new records and playing shows! True metal will never die!!

  

C.W. Stoneking - "The Zombie"

A perfect track for the weekend! Classic American roots blues by C.W. Stoneking with a really great illustrated video by Patrick McHale (of Over The Garden Wall fame).

Enjoy!

  

Halloween - "What A Nice Place"

Halloween, an amazing 80's dark glam metal band from Detroit. Iconic samples taken from Halloween III: Season of the Witch (long before it became a cult classic). A music video themed around a horror film. A stage that looks like something pulled from an old haunted house. Incredible Halloween masks and costumes. Cheap pyrotechnics. Lots of headbangers. Zero budget.

Mix this all together and you get "What A Nice Place," the greatest music video ever produced. A fun, nostalgic 80's Halloween-themed heavy metal video. This is how metal SHOULD be made. DIY. It must have been an absolute riot to make this.

And the song itself rips! Heavy metal forever! Enjoy.

  

Ghost - Hunter's Moon

So technically, the annual October Countdown to Halloween starts tomorrow, but this one is WAY too good not to share now!

Ghost (a long time favorite of the Cemetery) and the Halloween film franchise (another long time favorite of the Cemetery) team up for a new track for the upcoming Halloween Kills.

It took 2 listens and I was hooked. Surely another Ghost classic and it gets me even more excited to see Halloween Kills on October 15.

Enjoy the new track and video, and we'll see you tomorrow for the official kick-off to the Countdown to Halloween!!

 

Michael Jackson - "Thriller"

This week, I was in charge of putting a Halloween playlist together for my son's Kindergarten Halloween party. And what was the obvious first choice? Thriller, of course!

It really has become the official song of Halloween. And honestly, I'm okay with that. It's a perfect melding of really catchy pop song, creepy fun and horror royalty. And honestly, every time I hear that breakdown before Vincent Price's epic monologue, I smile. It's so, so good.
I also went back and revisited the iconic 1983 video that was made for the song. Directed by John Landis, incredible special effects by none other than Rick Baker, and co-staring a former Playboy model in Ola Ray, Thriller took the music video and turned it on its ear. It was one of the first videos to turn the standard song-length video format into a full 15 minute feature. And the quality is still amazing by today's standards!

When this video was originally released in 1983, my aunt had an early VHS deck and she recorded the "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller" documentary. I can't tell you how many times we watched it! It was woven into the fabric of Halloween memories growing up and trick-or-treating as a kid.

My son, who is now 5, got his first taste of Thriller this week. He absolutely loves the song. I may wait another year before the creepy zombie video is shown, but the song has now been passed on to the the next generation of Halloween memories. And I couldn't be happier!!

Darkness falls across the land

The midnight hour is close at hand

Creatures crawl in search of blood

To terrorize y’all’s neighborhood

And whosoever shall be found

Without the soul for getting down

Must stand and face the hounds of hell

And rot inside a corpse’s shell

The foulest stench is in the air

The funk of forty thousand years

And grizzly ghouls from every tomb

Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive

Your body starts to shiver

For no mere mortal can resist

The evil of the thriller...

The J. Geils Band - Fright Night

Somehow, we have reached the third Thursday of October which means it's time for another Throwback Thursday, where we visit the classic tracks from classic and not-so-classic 80s horror.

This time, we visit Charley Brewster, Peter Vincent, Evil Ed and Jerry Dandrige in the 1985 mega-classic, Fright Night!

The theme song was performed by previous classic blues rock band,  The J. Geils Band, who in this track, ditch their famous lead singer Peter Wolf and take a right turn into 80s New Wave Synth Pop territory. 

Soon after this track was recorded, the band called it quits. I guess after you perform the theme song to a movie starring Stephen Geoffreys (Evil Ed, who shortly after this movie started acting in gay porn under the name Sam Ritter), I guess there's really no place left to go.

"You're so cool, Brewster!"

From 1985, it's the J. Geils Band with the theme song to Fright Night:

Anger Is My Middle Name...

Not much going on around the Cemetery lately, although I did stumble upon something that MUST be shared...