Rock Schlock Vintage Halloween Music

Taking a break here from personal projects... (to look at a hobby of hunting down the more alternative side of holiday audio and video - those bits belonging to the more obscure catalog of holiday kitsch and novelty). At some point I'll have to create a more defined list of these interesting links.

For a couple of years I was mixing together old Halloween-themed music from the 1920's to 1940's. (See a short post on these really old tunes at Halloween Music at 78 RPM). This was great fun to share at Halloween... and really stunned people to hear that such songs existed for the holiday. (Most of us all hear the same old standard lists when it comes to jazz or 50's music.... and I'm so glad the internet has allowed us to get less "encapsulated views" of these eras).

grim (cover photo for a mix of vintage Halloween tunes)

As I started searching the internet for more content for these mixes... searching for terms like "ghost" or "Halloween" and the years.... I think I must have stumbled across one of my now favorite radio stations WFMU. This station has some awesome playlists archived! One of my favorites for novelty Halloween music (aside from the sadly defunct Greasy Kid Stuff) is a show called Fool's Paradise:

WFMU - Fool's Paradise

The show hosted by Rex Doane, is awesome all year, but check out the shows dated at the end of October for Halloween rock schlock and novelty sounds from the fifties and sixties. There's a two hour show for each year from 1999 up to the present!

Seriously cool connections to this station include the WFMU Ichiban (Japanese for #1) blog:

WFMU's Rock and Soul Ichiban Blog

Amd this artist and Ichiban blogger:

FLICKR: JRPOPARTZ

Halloween Music at 78 RPM

I love vintage Halloween and I love all types of music --- so I have a real fondness for any Halloween themed music I can find from around the 1950s and much earlier. If you can find used CD's of  Halloween Stomp or Haunted House (offering early jazz compilations from around the 1920's to 1940's), I highly recommend them! (A song listing is pretty easy to find via search engines -- click on the images to read some other folks who have blogged about these CD's):

Since hearing those compilations, I've been searching for more music from that era, and at some point I'll have to post an additional listing of desireable tunes. Today, a friend posted an exciting link to the Library of Congress Electronic Jukebox and I located a few choice spooky songs from the early 20th century. Here's a couple of links (I had hoped to embed the players but they were a bit clunky):

When the Moon is in the Sky (1905)

The Skeleton Rag (1912)

If you like this era of music, you'll love the CD's mentioned above. You might also like a station called Radio Dismuke on Live365 which has a general selection of music from the 20's and 30s.