Life Is a Grave & I Dig It!

Nekromantix’s new album, which was set to be released in late 2006, but apparently hasn’t yet as the date has been moved forward to the 10th April 2007, looks set to be a pretty damn good album. Since the two Sandorff brothers, both Peter and Kristian, left in 2005, they have since been replaced with guitarist Troy and drummer James Mesa, from Californian Psychobilly band Rezurex to record the new 13-track album.

So far, the band has had two “sneakpeaks” of songs from the album on their myspace profile, of which I only caught the second one, the instrumental entitled “Panic at the Morgue”, I don’t even think I need to tell you just how awesome it is. The album is said to be finished, and as stated before, will be released on 10th April.

The wikipedia article is here if you wish to find out more about them.

The Power Of Suggestion

Yesterday I was watching some Saturday Night Live videos on Youtube, in particular, ones in which Jim Carrey makes an appearance, when Ace Ventura crept into my mind. Now I saw this movie many years ago and loved it, particularly the soundtrack.

I did a search on Youtube for Ace Ventura and came up with the introduction to the first movie, in which there is a song, with I now know to be “The Power of Suggestion” by Steve Stevens. It’s a pretty good song, the Youtube video is below, although the only intro I can find of the movie, is the spanish dub. Oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7qIUlGSUzo

Go Nuts!

Puttin’ On The Ritz

So Saturday afternoon, I was looking for a new song to put on my myspace profile. Since I’m into the whole Rockabilly Revival thing at the moment, I’d thought I’d look into The Brian Setzer Orchestra (though more Swing orientated). Brian Setzer being of Stray Cats fame. I came across one BSO myspace profile, with only one song on it, that song being “Puttin’ On The Ritz”.

I gave it a listen and thought it was pretty cool, but something struck me as odd, the singer doesn’t sound much like Brian Setzer, and the instrumentation was alot different to what I had expected. I looked on Google for any Brian Setzer Orchestra discographys I could find, and this particular song appeared on none of them. I then searched directly for the song, and came across the wikipedia article. As it turns out, its an old Swing song written in 1929 by Irving Berlin, it should also be noted that The Stray Cats have done a cover version of it.

Still, it didn’t sound like a Stray Cats song. Needless to say, I continued looking. I scanned through the same article again and found the following:

“A return to the hit parade with a New Wave version by Taco Ockerse recorded in 1982, reaching #4 on the American Billboard’s Pop Chart.”

That sounded more like it, although the song could probably be better described as “Synth-Swing”. Turns out this cover version isn’t by BSO at all, but in fact by singer Taco Ockerse who released it as a single during his first album “After Eight” in 1982 to which both single and album became popular in Europe and America. He released albums after that, but they weren’t as popular and he quickly fell out of the mainstream soon after his second one was released.

The Youtube video can be found here. It’s a pretty good song in my opinion, but I guess there are those who would disagree with me. The only thing that remains for me to do now is to look into The Brain Setzer Orchestra.

The Munsters Today

So anyway, I was searching Youtube for the actor Jason Marsden, who plays Dash X in Eerie Indiana, and came across a TV remake of the original Munsters, which I vaugely remember as it used to be on ITV on Saturday afternoons in the Mid-90’s. It probably doesn’t hold a candle to the original (which I watch if ever its on), but the new theme tune is pretty rockin’, that is until Herman opens his mouth.

The Munsters Today Season 1 Opening (1988)

Looking at the IMDB, the show ran for 3 seasons from 1988-1991. It should also be noted that Hilary Van Dyke, is in no way related to either Dick or Jerry Van Dyke. I checked..

There is also a Munsters Today fan-site at www.themunsterstoday.tk if anyone’s interested…

The Odyssey and Eerie, Indiana

Two TV shows that I didn’t think I’d even remembered until they popped into my head a week ago. Did a search and found all 3 seasons of The Odyssey on Youtube. It’s this Canadian kids show which (after looking it up) aired from 1992-1995, and was about this kid who falls out of a treefort and ends up in a coma.

He is then thrust into a world created by his own sub-conscious which resembles a combination of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Peter Pan in that no-one is over 16 and a Police State has been elected under one ruler. At the time of writing I have watched through the first season, and have just begun watching the second. Good stuff.

Eerie, Indiana, now that I didn’t remember as well, in fact, the only episode I can remember is one where the main character (Marshall) finds a blank TV script in his mail, after which, everone starts refering to him by his real name (Omri Katz). The show was shortlived, it ran from 91-92 (in the US, it must have been shown later in the UK, otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered it), and only had 19 episodes in its run. Despite this, it apparently gained a cult like fan following. It’s kind of like the Goosebumps TV series, but better obviously.

I went and checked on Amazon.co.uk, turns out the Region 2 DVD was released some time ago, so it when straight on my list of “Things to Buy When I Have the Money”