Les Baxter - Space Escapade

This is the late, great Les Baxter and one of the several albums he put out in 1958, Space Escapade. I love the cover for this. Looks like those astronauts are gonna get tanked off of some space cocktails and try to score with those Martian chicks. Who can blame them? I'm not really into women from other planets, but man that pink one is hot. You know, for a Martian. The great thing about the cover is that it fits the music perfectly. If you were to throw a retro-futuristic cocktail party, this would be the only album you'd need. Holy crap that's not a bad idea. If I knew more than like 6 people I would absolutely throw a retro-futuristic cocktail party. All the guys have to come wearing really bright space/snow suits with fishbowl helmets. And all the ladies have to come as neon colored Martians in go-go boots. Since I don't know more than 6 people, I hope someone out there uses that idea. Here's the album, just in case:

1 Shooting Star
2 Moonscape
3 Mr. Robot
4 The City
5 A Distant Star
6 The Commuter
7 Winds of Sirius
8 The Other Side of the Moon
9 Somewhere in Space
10 Earth Light
11 The Lady Is Blue
12 Saturday Night on Saturn

Identify this clip - Win nothing!

Okay, I had someone post this track over on my requests thread. They weren't sure what it's from, and sadly I had no idea either. However, I've encountered many knowledgeable people since this site started up, so hopefully one of you can help to identify this music.

Link

While searching around for a picture of a man in a question mark suit to symbolize the questioning nature of this post I stumbled upon a truly frightening image. An image that sent shivers down my spine. I give you The Riddler - Serial Murderer:

Yikes.

Graveyard Alive

Sadly there are only a few tracks in this post, these were ripped from Graveyard Alive, which is a rather low budget (yet very well shot) Canadian zombie film from 2003. Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love is sometimes used as the full title, it sort of reminds me of fellow Canadian film Fido, or maybe Bob Balaban's My Boyfriend's Back, only Graveyard Alive is less of an outright comedy, or at least not as funny as those other two. All three have a 50's look and feel to them and all three of the films have a character attracted to a zombie, but done in a cute way, and not a gross necrophilia kinda way. This one is a bit darker though and has a pretty downbeat ending.

There was no soundtrack from what I could find, so I present to the couple dozen or so people who have actually seen the film a few tracks I ripped from the DVD. The music was done by Martin Pelland who plays bass in the band The Dears. One track plays during an erotic bath/flesh-eating dream sequence. The next track is of Patsy Powers (our titular Zombie Nurse) singing a song during an open mike night in a club. And the third and final track is a very catchy French pop/rock song that plays over the end credits. Could probably be a moderate radio hit if they released it as such. I wasn't totally sure on the title, but the only French title in the music credits was by a band called Les Breastfeeders, so I assume that was it.

1. Bubble Bath of Blood
2. Zombie Patsy Open Mike
3. Les Breastfeeders - Laisse autant le vent tout emporter

...those scissor thingies...

Sorry for the small amount of tracks, the score was really cool, but not a lot of it was rip-able. Here's hoping some kind of actually soundtrack comes out eventually. Stay tuned for John Carpenter's They Live.

The Beginning of the End : A Manchester Morgue Compilation

Before I start, don't worry, this post does not mark the "beginning of the end" of the site. This post will also not have anything to do with the gigantic radioactive grasshopper film from the 50's. Instead this is just another compilation I put together. It occurred to me the other day that there has been a veritable assload of songs to use "The Beginning of the End" or "The End of The Beginning" as the title. Sure, it's a clever title. Once. Not 2 or 3 hundred times. I mean seriously people, have we run out of words? At least the Smashing Pumpkins tried to mix it up a bit with The End is the Beginning is the End. But that still had the same basic idea, they just made it more confusing. So this compilation is my way of saying "See - I told you there were a lot of songs with that title".

Despite the lack of titling creativity on the part of those who named the songs, it turns out a lot of the Beginning of the End/End of the Beginning songs are pretty good. I started making this compilation as a joke, but I actually quite like a majority of the songs, I've already listened to this thing twice now today. Hopefully you guys like some of these songs as well. And before anyone points it out, I realize bitching about how it's dumb to name a song "The Beginning of the End" when I myself am calling this compilation that very same thing makes me look like an asshole. But really, I'm no writer, I couldn't think of anything else to call it. So The Beginning of the End it is. If they can do it, why can't I?

The cover for this one is art I borrowed from Criterion's DVD of the Karloff film First Man Into Space. I'm not sure who did the artwork for that cover, but I really love all of the art from the Monsters and Madmen set, so I wanted to use it for the cover. Being the Photoshop wizard that I am, I had the painstaking task of typing 9 words and strategically placing them on the cover. Hard work, as you can imagine. As with the last compilation I made, or any I might make in the future, I'm posting it to be a bit of a smartass and make fun of the abundance of different songs with the same title, but I'm also hoping to expose some of you to bands you haven't heard before that you might end up really liking. So if you like anything you hear on this I recommend you seek out and purchase music from these bands or artists. For example, God is an Astronaut actually has a new album coming out very soon. Or, it might be out now even. Hint. So with that said, I hope you enjoy this celebration of one of the most overused song titles in the history of song titles.

Ikon - Beginning of the End
God is an Astronaut - The End of the Beginning
30 Seconds to Mars - The End of the Beginning
Cockney Rejects - Beginning of the End
HIM - The Beginning of the End
Into Eternity - Beginning of the End
Wizard - The Beginning of the End
Morose - Beginning of the End
Bastards - Beginning of the End
Tragedy - Beginning of the End
Eddie and the Hot Rods - Beginning of the End
Nine Inch Nails - The Beginning of the End
Robert Leiner - Beginning of the End
Spineshank - Beginning of the End
Maroon - The Beginning of the End
Crematory - The Beginning of the End
The Bananas - Beginning of the End
Sworn Enemy - The Beginning of the End
Extortion - Beginning of the End
Amebix - Beginning of the End
Ironsword - Beginning of the End

Download

By the way, aside from the God is an Astronaut track, I highly recommend the Ikon, 30 Seconds to Mars, (Hey, their first album was good) Morose, and Wizard tracks. Also, I don't know if the Ironsword song is supposed to be funny, but I found it pretty hilarious. Hilarious enough even to cause me to make some weird snorting noise from laughing so hard. The vocals are magnificently cheesy in just the right way. Genius.

Bob Clark we hardly knew you...

Tremendously awful news to report. As some of you know, I'm a huge Black Christmas fan. Well I just heard that it's director Bob Clark (2nd from the left in the picture above) was killed in a car accident early this morning. He was 67. His son Ariel, 22, was with him at the time and he died as well. Here's an article with more details, looks like a drunk driver caused the accident. As usual in this kinda thing the drunken asshole is gonna be perfectly fine, (physically, not so much legally) while the respectable, non-drunk person doesn't make it out alive. This is the bullshit of all bullshits, and I hope the person responsible gets what is coming to him.

If you aren't familiar with the man by name, you'll surely know some of his work. Bob was responsible for several classic films, Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, Porky's, as well as a couple of lesser known (among regular folk, my people are familiar with these as well) films like Deathdream, and Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. I was just watching Bob on the Black Christmas remake DVD extras yesterday, he seemed like a genuinely sweet guy. It's a terrible shame to see him and his rather young son go, they will be missed.

Tangerine Dream - Flashpoint

Tangerine Dream's music from the 1984 film Flashpoint, starring Treat Williams, Kris Kristofferson, and Kurtwood Smith. I've never seen the movie before, (or really heard much about it for that matter) but I'm willing to bet that Kurtwood plays a complete hard ass. I'm also willing to be that Miguel Ferrer's character is a bit of a cocky bastard.

I can't say I'm a fan of the CD cover. Looks like some kind of low budget Desert-themed white guy rap album that would be called something like "If U Can't Take Da Heat...", or some other intentionally misspelled nonsense. Normally if the cover is this bad I'll use the movie's poster or a DVD cover instead. Sadly, the poster isn't very good either, and the DVD cover seems to be trying to sucker people into buying it based on the fact that Treat Williams can kinda look like Mel Gibson if you see him from the right angle. So, CD cover it is. Anyway, the music underneath the crappy cover art isn't TD's best work, but it still makes for a good listen. I think it'd be really good "driving while in a bit of a hurry because you're a little late for work" music. It has a good "mildly urgent chase" feel to it. I don't know, as you can see, it's kinda hard to explain. Check it out though.