When MISFITS Walked The Earth

 

It really wouldn't be Halloween without some Misfits music, would it?  There was truly nothing like them.  One measure of the extent of their influence is the number of tribute albums and cover songs that they have inspired.  It's a worldwide phenomenon, as you can see from this list.

The album Walk Among Us found me at the perfect age.  I was 16 years old in 1982, in the throes of adolescent awkwardness and emotional turmoil.  Turning into a Martian, a zombie, an undead creature with 20 eyes in its head and an insatiable appetite for blood -- Glenn Danzig's tales of possession, transformation, lust, revulsion and "murderlation" resonated in ways that I couldn't articulate.  High school was miserable.  Sex was both an obsession and a mystery.  The world of the 80's seemed to be on the brink of nuclear annihilation.  Eating brains sounded better than applying for a job or taking a college entrance exam.  

Part of the band's brilliance was that it separated everything that was great about heavy metal from everything that seemed excessive and cliched.  It did the same with punk, by decoupling its primitive speed and rage from its self-righteous politics and insularity.  The songs on Walk Among Us are both foreboding and inviting.  "Come on to the violent world with me," Danzig sings.  "Come alive in the house that screams."  And it was so much fun to sing along.

Everything that was appealing about horror movies (their fascination with death, sex, pain, fear, evil and otherness) seemed to be personified in the Misfits' appearance and embodied in their songs.  The lure of forbidden knowledge.  The end of childhood and innocence.  The transformation of the human body as both an unwanted betrayal and a source of monstrous power.  Mindless, directionless hatred toward all sources of authority, including (and especially) one's parents.

Today I'm sharing two sets of Misfits covers.  One follows the trackist of Walk Among Us and Earth A.D.  The other set includes the songs collected on Legacy Of Brutality, plus more of the singles.  The music is performed in a variety of styles, including surf, ska, jazz, and rockabilly (as well as punk and metal).  The artists include both big names and unknowns.  Maybe a Misfits cover band is playing somewhere near you tonight.  May it always be so.

Halloween 2026 Vol. 5 - NOW WITH MORE WEREWOLVES!

 

Halloween 2026 Vol. 5 - NOW WITH MORE WEREWOLVES! 

Between Jon & I, we’ve posted SIX original HALLOWEEN comps, already this month, and this one makes SEVEN!

As advertised, this one is heavy on werewolves, & wolfmen.  It contains; I’m A Wolfman, Werewolf, The Wolfman, & The Wolfman Stole My Baby.  Not to mention, Rock-A-Die Baby by American Werewolves.

There are a few of “The Usual Suspects” from the comps I assembled this year; The Cramps, The Raymen, & The Fuzztones.

Some artists make their first appearance; Tito & Tarantula, The Mad Daddy’s, The Uncle Devil Show, & Kepi Ghoulie.

Some may surprise folks, like She & Him doing I Put A Spell On You, R.E.M.’s turn with The Muppets, Furry Happy Monsters, & Laika & The Cosmonauts combining of the themes to Psycho, & Vertigo into Psycko.

So sink your fangs into these 28 tracks of terror, and drink deep of the Halloween goodness that courses through their veins!

Horrorble Halloween (In Dub)!

Very excited about Horrorble, the new Mekons dub album!  Tony Maimone (former Pere Ubu bassist) is at the controls, creating a dubbed out companion to last year's Mekons album, Horrible. 

It got me thinking about dub albums that didn't use reggae music as source material.  One of the best-known is No Protection, Mad Professor's dub version of Massive Attack's 1994 album.  Mad Professor also recorded Ruts DC's Rhythm Collision back in 1982.

Another great example is Echo Dek, Adrian Sherwood's dub version of Primal Scream's album Vanishing Point.  In 2022, Sherwood created a dub version of Spoon's album Lucifer On The Sofa; and the following year he did it again for Reset (the album by Panda Bear and Sonic Boom).  

Dennis Bovell is a reggae musician and producer who also recorded post-punk bands like The Pop Group and The Slits.  One of my favorites is Bovell's collaboration with Steve Mason (ex-Beta Band) on Ghosts Outside, a lovely dub version of Mason's solo album Boys Outside.  Bovell also recently created Y In Dub, a version of The Pop Group's 1979 debut album.

Speaking of The Pop Group, their recently deceased frontman Mark Stewart often collaborated with Sherwood and others on dub-influenced projects.  Exorcism Of Envy (produced by Youth) is the dub version of Stewart's album The Politics Of Envy.  And speaking of Youth, he revisited the catalog of his band Killing Joke to create Killing Joke In Dub.  

The extraordinary guest list for Exorcism Of Envy reflects Youth and Mark Stewart's history and their influence: members of Crass, PiL, Raincoats, Slits, Massive Attack, The Orb, Factory Floor -- plus the legendary Lee Scratch Perry, Richard Hell, and Kenneth Anger (on theremin!)  Nun Gun was Mark Stewart's collaboration with members of the band Algiers, and together they created Stealth Empire In Dub, a companion to their record Mondo Decay (with remixes by Adrian Sherwood, among others).   It's also exciting to hear Keith Levene (as part of Necessary Intergalactic Cooperation) dubbed by Twilight Circus (from The Legendary Pink Dots) on NIC In Dub.

The band Khruangbin called on Scientist (another dub legend) to create a couple of dubs for their album Hasta El Cielo (a dub version of Con Todo El Mundo).  Today's mix also includes selections from dub albums by Michelle Shocked, Franz Ferdinand, Foals, and Jeb Loy Nichols' Fellow Travelers (mixed by Martin Frederix of Family Fodder and On-U artists London Underground), plus Snuff and The Dead 60's.  The Foals and Franz Ferdinand dubs were produced by Dan Carey.

Nathan Nothin recently shared the Spacemonkeyz dubs of Gorillaz tracks. After spending time with the album, I understand why it's one of Nathan's faves. Nathan has also shared the excellent Lucifer In Dub by Peaking Lights, which didn't quite fit on my compilation.   (I skipped Bill Callahan's dub album because it's boring.)  

ELSEWHERE ON THE BLOG:  more Adrian Sherwood, Dennis Bovell, Jeb Loy Nichols and Killing Joke.  

ELSEWHERE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE:  Enjoy new Halloween mixes at Kogar's Jungle Juice and MusicHoarder's Record Vault!  And check out One Buck Guy's feature on The Crow (soundtrack to the film).

Halloween 2026 Vol. 4 FIENDS Flesh Eaters BOMBORAS Cramps & MORE!

HALLOWEEN 2026 Volume 4 (POST)

I honestly feel this fourth volume of my HALLOWEEN comps has something for everyone in the (Manson) family.

There are at least two great garage groups named THE FIENDS.  One is from Los Angeles California, & the one that starts us off with Stake Through My Heart, from Vancouver Canada.  (No less a garage god than Rudi Protrudi designed the cover art for their entry in the TEEN TRASH series.)

Thanks to psychobilly bands like The Cramps, & The Brains there are plenty of twangy songs to choose from on All Hallow’s Eve.  But more of the bands on Volume 4 are full fledged rockabilly bands; The Leroi Brothers, The Paladins, The Delta Bombers, & Vince Ray.

Speaking of stylistic departures, The Cranberries’ Zombie is a song about “The Troubles” in Ireland, but that’s easy to forget when Bambi Thug puts in creepy contact lenses and runs it through their Spookometer.  I suspect Harley Poe borrowed their unit to inject some spooky into his version of that old chestnut The Hearse Song.  Gary Stewart is known mainly for honky tonk weepers like She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking’ Double), but he must have gotten a wild (werewolf) hair up his butt before he recorded Morbid The Great!  

KC & The Moonshine Band may have been included just for their name—but their Zombiefied became a favorite as I listened to Volume 4 over & over to make sure it passed our 14-point quality inspection.

This volume breaks one of my cardinal rules regarding compilations: “Never have two tracks by the same band.”  It was an oversight on my part—because the offending tracks are by an instrumental group; The Bomboras &—I didn’t catch it until I had done all the artwork.  C’est la mort.

There’s another gaffe; In Dreams by Roy Orbison is mistitled Candy Colored Clown.  If David Lynch hadn’t shown the darker side of the song in Blue Velvet, I probably wouldn’t have considered including it at all.  Any song about a clown tip-toeing into someone’s room at night is perfect for any Halloween collection.

I can say that I love the cover art—because I didn’t design it—I co-opted a meme I found on the (spider) web.

 

Halloween COMES ALIVE!

 

Stinky is the undisputed King of Halloween around here.  He shared the idea for today's compilation: artists performing on All Hallow's Eve. 

This was inspired by the recent release of Devo's Nitrous Nightmare, a live recording from October 31, 1975.  The spudboys were not yet a household name, and now it can be told: they did not go over well with the crowd at WHK Cleveland Auditorium.  

Bauhaus gets a better reception at ULU on 10/31/1980 (a show reposted by Floppy Boot Stomp at my request so that we could kick off this comp with "Bela Lugosi's Dead".)  I also found The Cult live on Halloween at Floppy Boot Stomp, and The Who's acoustic Halloween set at the Voodoo Wagon.  

Most of the rest comes from radio appearances, Guitars101 and the Internet Archive.  The band Local H did a Halloween set "in costume" at the Double Door each year, and you can hear Local H performing as Nirvana (in 1997 and in 2016), The Doors, Kiss, Led Zep, ZZ Top, AC/DC, Springsteen, Oasis, and Tom Petty.  Also found a great set by Robyn Hitchcock performing Hunky Dory (plus more Bowie songs).

Halloween is a fun time for bands to break out cover songs, and we've got the Smashing Pumpkins doing "Wipeout" (a showcase for their extraordinary drummer, Jimmy Chamberlin), plus Duran Duran ceding the spotlight to their backup singers on "Spooky".  Cass McCombs does Metallica's "Unforgiven" (recorded by NYCTaper).  Not a "fun" song, but an impressive performance.

I really wanted to include The Cramps.  I found two Halloween shows, but both were low fi audience recordings.  Instead, you get Mary Huff and SCOTS doing Lux & Ivy proud with "Goo Goo Muck".  The original intention was to include only seasonal songs (like "Werewolves Of London").  It didn't turn out quite that way, but at least the comp ends with the Dream Syndicate performing their song "Halloween" on Halloween.

ELSEWHERE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE:  It's Weird October at Nothin' Sez Somethin'.  Twilight Zone has been posting Screamin' Jay Hawkins almost daily.  AJ's got several goth compilations at Themes From Great Cities (here, here, and here), and Black Lodge Relics has a massive rack of Elvira and Vincent Price records.  Plus there's Zacherley at Luigi's 50's & 60's Vinyl Corner!

Halloween 2026 Vol. 3 THE MEMBERS Promptgenix ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS 38 Coffin & MORE!

HALLOWEEN 2026 Vol. 3

We love our Halloween music here at Jonky.  Unless The Creature From The Black Lagoon starts blogging, no other blog is going to serve up five different CD-length horror-filled Halloween comps. And Vol. 3 may be my favorite of them all.  

PROMPTGENIX starts it off with The Thing In Grafton Woods—a story song about a creature with “skin like something dragged from hell” that maintains a genuinely creepy, atmospheric, & swampy groove.  I don’t have words to describe how much I love it.  Equally ethereal is Buffy Sainte-Marie’s scarily skeletal The Vampire.

My second favorite track is Rocket From The Tombs' unhinged version of the garage rock classic Strychnine.  I've never seen a haunted castle with a garage, but garage music sure fits well, & makes another appearance in the form of Zombina & The Skeletons' The Count Of Five.  

India Ramey and Fabienne Delsol may not have expected to land on a Halloween compilation, but I think you’ll agree their songs fit right in.  So does The Hoodoo Gurus’ tale of revenge; Hayride From Hell, & Gregg Allman’s raw-boned Devil Got My Woman.

Big Boy Bloater takes a savage stab at Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ Alligator Wine.  Joe Bouchard already paid tribute to Godzilla when he played with B.O.C., but now he turns his solo sights on The Wolfman.  I sure hope he remembered his silver bullets.

Doing Johnny Cash one better, Sonny George recorded Hillbilly Wolfman for his Live At The Tennessee Prison For Women album.  I’m not sure if he brought along a handful of pardons, but that hillbilly sure can howl.  L.A. rockabilly weirdo Johnny Legend tells the tale of the House Of Frankenstein complete with ascending doo-wop “Ahh’s” provided by a choir of fallen angels.  The Necromantix serve up Haunted Cathouse, and Webb Wilder blows the dust off of his classic track Hoodoo Witch.

Without a doubt, the most fun tracks are Rockapella’s Zombie Jamboree, & the always awe-inspiring Petra Haden who vocally supplies all the instrumentation in her version of Tubular Bells.  Bringing to mind an entirely different kind of tubular is 38 Coffin’s Dead Surfer Girl.  The Members completely tear up Jack The Ripper—thanks to their guitarist, Nigel Bennett, who definitely deserves the MVP award (Most Vibratorsesque Performance).

And dragging it all down to the dungeon is The Damned’s Wait For The Blackout, which some folks might not feel is a Halloween song.  I’d argue that it's being sung by a guy dressed like Dracula.

 

Punks Got Soul (and so do tribute albums)

 

After listening to dozens of tribute albums, one thing has become strikingly clear:  there are too many tribute albums.  Posting about them again is perhaps ill-advised, as though wishing more of them into existence.  Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to make tribute albums.  

Who am I kidding?  The listening experience is addictive.  It's like crate digging, playing one tribute album after another in search of a gem to share with you folks.

At the risk of segregating the artists of color and historically Black and Latino genres of music, today I offer you Tributes Got Soul.  This one leans heavily on the albums produced by Jon Tiven to celebrate the songs of Arthur Alexander, Otis Blackwell, Don Covay and others.  This comp also features several releases from the Red Hot Organization, plus a Hal Willner production.  (That last hyperlink is to Koen's excellent post on Mr. Willner, which inspired this deep dive into tribute albums.  Friends, don't let friends become obsessed with tribute albums!  It only leads to wasted hours combing Discogs, blogs and Soulseek.  Just when you think you've found them all, another appears from the cracks, like roaches.  

Speaking of soul, the long-running Punks Got Soul series is back for the dozenth time.  Again, a caveat: not all the performers are punk (really, only the first two this time), and not all the songs are soul.  Maybe too many synthesizers this time around, which often strike me as less soulful, even soulless at times.  But there are some fun songs here, including Yellow Magic Orchestra's goof on"Tighten Up" and Alan Vega's take on Hot Chocolate.  And some earnestly soulful performances by The Lolitas, The Bunnymen, and Cyndi Lauper.  If it gets a bit vanilla, you can always go back to Tributes Got Soul.