"How To Haunt A House" Cassette

Welcome to another weekly installment of Freebie Fridays where I share another nugget from my ever-expanding Halloween "spooky sounds" collection!

I originally picked up this cassette on a whim, based solely on the creepy font and standard Halloween orange cassette color. With these two boxes checked, I knew I was in for another stellar Halloween release.

And when I pulled this cassette out earlier this year, deciding to add it to this October's Freebie Friday offerings, I wanted a little bit more info on it. So off I went to scour the internet for more information. And what info I found!!

It turns out that this cassette was part of a pack from 1995 entitled House Haunting Kit, by Dan Witkowski. And in this incredibly cool fold-out kit came an instruction book, this cassette, a packet of cotton spider webs, AND a small tube of theatrical blood! A full intro on how to become a home haunter in one convenient package!

I ended up finding a full kit on Etsy and quickly put my money down. Aaaaaand unfortunately a full month later still no package. I've had conversations with the seller and promises to get it out, but as of right now nothing. So I'm going to borrow their photos in the meantime. No setback is too big!

I was able to go back and record the original cassette and what a release it is! Nothing earthshaking it its content, but it has all the continuous howls, groans, shrieks, wind, cackles, roars, heartbeats, crashes, organ, and screams to make a really great "spooky sounds" release! Roughly 15 minutes of continuous sounds, and different sounds on each side.

Overall, this cassette is a lot of fun. It really nails that old nostalgic "spooky sounds" feel, and has a pretty high production quality that makes this a really good one to add to your collection. Enjoy!

(And if the book package EVER arrives, I will add a post for it, too!)

DOWNLOAD "HOW TO HAUNT A HOUSE" HERE.

Metatron Omega - "Ecclesia Universalis"

Here's one from all the way back in 2017, but Serbian artist Metatron Omega's beautifully haunting Ecclesia Universalis still holds up as a ritual dark ambient Halloween classic. A truly perfect dark atmospheric track for a cold autumn night.

Enjoy...

The Highbury Cross Tombstone Prop

With less than two weeks to go, I was able to quickly knock this cool little tombstone prop out!

I saw the original 20" foam tombstone two-pack at Lowe's, specifically eyeing the cross tombstone. As I sat and thought about what to do with it, I realized that it was pretty uniform and getting a second stone and gluing them together would give it the thickness and realism that I'm always putting into my cemetery display. So I grabbed a second two-pack and made my way home to get to work on it.

The other stone in the pack was a cool carved woman figure. I'm not sure what to do with them just yet, so they are going into storage in the basement for now...

So the first thing I did was glue the two cross tombstones together back-to-back, and luckily they lined up pretty closely. I then quickly spackled out the seam all the way around, as I wanted this to look like one stone. And after a quick sanding the stone was ready for the next step.

I then took a separate piece of foam and quickly made a simple epitaph, printed it out, attached it to the foam, and then carved it with a Dremel. The finished plaque was then glued to the front of the stone, and once dried was ready for paint.

I gave it my standard three-color paint job: first, a full coverage of dark purple-black (just a color of paint I happen to have on hand), followed by an overall dry brush wash of white (leaving all the recessed areas black and giving the stone a natural, aged grey look), and then finishing with a sparse, dripping patchwork of green to give it an organic, weathered, mossy feel.

The final step was drilling two holes into the bottom and inserting two pieces of old pex-pipe PVC that I had on hand. These pieces act like sleeves that will slide over dowel rods inserted into the ground, holding the tombstone in place.

And before calling it done, I decided to add a coating of dense spider webbing to really give it an aged look. I have been having success with the new Web Caster Gun spider webs on my earlier props this year, so I added another coating of the hot glue webs to this stone. And again, I was really happy with the results.

A completed tombstone in about two days, and the short size of it will fit nicely among the other larger stones, breaking up the uniformity of tombstone sizes across the display.

40 Years Ago Today...

Okay, so this one was technically released in February of 1986, but calling it "today" fits better with yesterday's post...

As I have gotten older, I have become a much bigger fan of Samhain, Glenn Danzig's lesser-known band between the Misfits and later, Danzig. Darker and more mature both lyrically and musically than the Misfits, and still more punk/deathrock than the straight metal of Danzig, I find that I'm listening to Samhain much more often.

And "today" marks the 40th anniversary of Samhain's third release, November Coming Fire. There's just something so unique to the raw, haunting sound to Samhain's music that makes it a staple every October season.

Happy Anniversary, Glenn!

16 Years Ago Today...

I just found out that 16 years ago today, Ghost released their debut album, Opus Eponymous. How can it be that long?? It seems like it came out yesterday...

I was fortunate and discovered the band early on, just as this record came out and was immediately hooked. The incredible costuming and that retro sound was something unique and I instantly became a die-hard fan. 

Fast forward 16 years and the band carries on, releasing more records and becoming a bigger and bigger phenomenon. I have collected a ton of their music and have seen them live 6 or 7 times, but I just keep coming back to this one. It was pretty groundbreaking when it was released and it has the rawest, least overproduced and most authentic 70s metal sound of any of their releases. Don't get me wrong, there is a long list of amazing tracks that came out after this, but for me Opus Eponymous is still the king.

Happy Anniversary, Tobias!

Throbbing Gristle - "Hamburger Lady"

Just like last year, I can't go the entire month of October without posting one of my all-time favorite ambient industrial audio tracks. Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady" is so dark, raw and visceral, and still just grinds on you even 49 years after its initial release.

Add to it the horrifying nature of the lyrics (less "lyrics" but more a reading of a grotesque account of a fictional burn victim - hence the "hamburger"...) and the reverberation and repetition in which they are recited just adds to the unsettling nature of this track.

But it's just so good. Like an accident that you can't look away from, you'll just keep listening to the grating, repetitive dirge of this song. A perfect creepy element to take us through another Halloween season.

Enjoy...