31 Days of "Spooky" Music Day 30: The Living Dead

      Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I did not think this series of blog posts out fully before I started writing it, and maybe I did not do something smart like write out the thirty-one pieces of music I wanted to have on this list before I started writing it. Maybe that is part of why this is not a ranked list, and seems kind of random, and maybe that's why today's piece is the third appearance by No More Kings on this list, which is not to say that all three of these songs do not belong on this list.

     The issue is certainly not that I do not have more than 31 tracks on my Halloween playlist, there is more music on there now than can actually be played in a single Halloween night, but some of them are different versions of the same song (at least 3 versions of "Ghost Riders in the Sky", 3 of "The Phantom of the Opera", 2 "Gravity Falls", etc), and it grows each year ("Wellington Paranormal" is a new addition this year, as I was unaware of the show's existence prior).

     Still, there are more than 31 different pieces, even discounting remixes and covers, but while some songs may be good enough to actually play on the list, are they good enough to make it into a list of 31, or do they fall into the "Rock Lobster" category? 

     "Rock Lobster" category? 

     Yes, "Rock Lobster" Category.

     That term refers to the song by the B-52's that I have seen show up on countless Halloween compilation CDs despite if being about the beach and sea life and not at all anything even remotely to do with Halloween, or ghosts, or monsters, or death, or anything even remotely creepy! Why does it make it onto Halloween discs? I assume it is because the vocals and synthesizer in it do sounds like they belong in a spooky song. I expect that if I originally heard this song in a foreign language, I would think it was something creepy, and so I put songs in the "Rock Lobster" category if they either have what sounds like a Halloween-adjacent title or have a spooky sound despite the lyrics not being spooky.

     So do I put "Rock Lobster" songs on this list? Does Weezer's "Haunt You Every Day" really count as "Spooky"? What about Shiny Toy Guns' "Ghost Town"? 

     What about other novelty songs that haven't made it so far? "Purple People Eater?" "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"? "Li'l Red Riding Hood"?

     Then there are all the other theme songs that are on my list, but do they belong on this one? The themes to "Blade Runner", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Army or Darkness", "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", and "Harry Potter" are all on my actual playlist, but if I had to cut it down to 31, would any of them make it?

     Anyway, yeah, it's hard to narrow it down to just the 31 I want to share with you, so I figured why not go with something you may not have heard before, and that is why our penultimate song on this list is another No More King's song.

     According to Wikipedia, "The Living Dead" is from their album "III", which I find weird because I have it off of a disc called "1973 "Linton Edition"", which seems to have the exact same track list as "III", and I actually cannot seem to find any reference to the CD I have, which was purchased through the official No More Kings site, online at all. Which is weird.

     Anyway, "The Living Dead" is sung from the point of view of a zombie apocalypse survivor who has reached a point in his post apocalyptic existence where the shambling corpses of former humanity just annoys him due to how much noise they make.

     This song gives me some real Billy Joel circa "My Life" vibes, but I don't know if that is intentional or not; it very easily could be.

     I promise that this is the last zombie themed song on this list... being that the next part is the last one, that should be an easy promise to keep.

31 Days of "Spooky" Music Day 15: They're Coming To Get You, Barbara

      If you are anything like me, the words "They're coming to get you, Barbara" make you instantly think of the film classic "Night of the Living Dead", and you would be mostly right in this case. "They're Coming To Get You, Barbara" is a song by No More Kings (making their second appearance on this list) about that very movie.

     The song is slow and almost pretty until you realize it is about flesh-eating reanimated corpses.

31 Days of "Spooky" Music Day 6: Zombie Me

      Back when I was writing my old Blognovel, "Mallville: A Journal of the Zombie Apocalypse", I listened to a lot of Pandora, and one day music from a group called No More Kings started popping up periodically. Their music was both catchy and incredibly geeky, referencing things like "Knight Rider", "The Karate Kid", and "Short Circuit". Not only did this all hit me right in the childhood, but one song in particular really resonated with me, I am sure largely because I was working on a zombie story at the time, and that song was called "Zombie Me".

    "Zombie Me" is told from the point of view of a zombie, is full of pop culture references, and is just generally a good song. I went right out to my local music store (R.I.P. Dimple Records) and bought the album it came on: "And The Flying Boombox".

     Here is the original song:

And here, from their third (and so far, final) album, "III" is the Zombie Me Apocamix

Pick Three

A few weeks back, a listener asked the hosts of “The Weekly Geek” what their three favourite albums were. This is of course not a question a person can just answer off the top of their heads, and indeed may just be impossible to answer. Can you pick your three favourite albums of all time? I have trouble even picking my ten favourite winter movies.

What the hosts ended up doing were picking the three albums they would want to expose to a stranger to. This stuck in my rather cluttered mind, and has now come back with answers. The three albums I would suggest that you listen to are:

No More Kings (2007)

While there is a lot of great stuff on their second album, “And the Flying Boombox:”, No More Kings' first album is still my favourite. From the zombie-ness of “Zombie Me” to the love letter to “Knight Rider” that is “Michael (Jump In)”, their original album is just fun, and cheerful, and listening to it never fails to make me smile (the same can be said for “And the Flying Boombox” as well).

I originally discovered No More Kings through Pandora. I listen to Pandora a lot while I am writing, and it was while I was working on Mallville that I first heard them. The station I was listening to had artists like Jonathan Coulton, Bareknaked Ladies, Bowling for Soup, and Weezer as its basis, and as I was busily typing away I suddenly realized that the song playing was about the living dead; it was “Zombie Me”.

After hearing a couple more of their songs, “Michael (Jump In)” and I believe “The Grand Experiment” , I rushed out to Dimple Records and bought their album (new, not used). Aside from having a good sound, the lyrics of the songs appeal to my inner geek (as well as my outer geek) with references to everything from “The Smurfs” to “Ghistbusters 2” to “Peanuts” sprinkled throughout them.

Sadly there is no video for “Zombie Me”, but the video for “Sweep the Leg” is a truly awesome, if long, vid which brings me back to the Michael Jackson style of music video production. Check out the appearance by Mr. Belding from “Saved by the Bell” in the beginning



Apocalyptica: 7th Symphony (2010)

I know, I've already babbled about them a couple of days ago, but that was about their sixth album, which is good, but it's no “7th Symphony”. I do not have all of their albums, but of what I do have, this one is my favourite. From the awesome rock of “End of Me” (featuring Gavin Rossdale of Bush fame) and “Not Strong Enough” (featuring Brent Smith) to the instrumental piece “The Shadow of Venus” (which appears on the deluxe version) which is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard, this album is fantastic from start to finish. Even the song “Bring Them to Light”, which is exactly the sort of screamy heavy metal that I don't like has grown on me.

I first discovered this group while listening to a political podcast that was using some of the tracks from “Plays Metallica by Four Cellos” and “Inquisition Symphony” as transitional music between segments. Hearing Metallica's “Nothing Else Matters” played beautifully on the cello got my attention to the point that I had to go to that show's web site and see who this group was.

I love music done in unusual styles, at that point I had already had an album of Metallica music done on classical piano (Scott D. Davis' “Pianotarium”), and could not pass up a chance to get some more Metallica done in the wrong style, so when I happened to see “Inquisition Symphony” while looking for something to use a coupon on at Borders, I snatched it up.

If you listen to their early work, where there is just the cellos and almost all the songs are covers, and then compare it to their last two albums where it is all original music and they have added a drummer and vocals, you can really hear how this group has matured from simply making metal beautiful to making it epically so.

The video I've chosen to provide as a demonstration is “Broken Pieces” which features Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf.



Flyleaf: Memento Mori (2009)

“Memento Mori” is Flyleaf's second album, and while the band's Christian background shows A LOT more strongly on this album (on the first album, someone who knew nothing about the group could easily not realize that this is Christian Music), they do not consider themselves a Christian group. I'm not sure why they feel the need to distance themselves from their faith (especially since the we're-not-a-Christian-group argument seems a little harder to defend given the lyrics on this album), but I don't really care because I love their sound.

I find listening to this album to be very uplifting, now whether that's due to the spirituality behind the lyrics or now, I cannot really say. I really like the tracks “In the Dark”, “Beautiful Bride”, and “Swept Away”, but my absolute favourite on the album is “Arise”.

“Arise” is the song I was heard in my head when thinking about how to end “Mallville”, and I consider it to be a sort of unofficial closing theme to the story. It is probably no surprise that this is my favourite of all of Flyleaf's songs, only possibly edged out by the awesome remix of it by Ben Moody on the “Remember to Live” EP that came out last year.

I discovered Flyleaf because Dimple Records was pushing their original EP at the register back when it came out in 2007. The clerk pushed it as being similar to Evanescence, saying that “she screams while she sings”. The idea of screamy singing did not really appeal to me, but it was also only two bucks, and I'm always happy to try something new, especially if it's cheap. I loved all of the songs on the EP, and bought the original full album twice (the second time because it was re-released with acoustic versions of some of the songs).

There is no video for “Arise”, or In the Dark”, or “Swept Away”, and the video for “Beautiful Bride”, like most of their Memento Mori videos is extremely WTF-y, so I have chosen the video for “Again”. The video is still WTF-y, but not to the point that it may distract you from the music like some of the others might.



So there you have it; the three albums I would most recommend you give a chance. Are they my all time favourites? Would I still choose these three albums five years from now? Ten? Not necessarily. I could never narrow down my CD collection to a mere 3 that are the best; heck, these three weren't even easy picks (with the exception of “7th Symphony”). Even once decided on picking a No More Kings album, it took a lot of thought to not choose “And The Flying Boombox”, and for a while there the third album was going to be the “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” soundtrack (which is every bit as awesome as the film... for the most part)

This tends to guarantee that I get no feedback, but I”m going to ask anyway. What would your three be?

Alright, that's enough babbling for now. Until next time, remember that the first cut is not always the deepest; in fact it's usually shallow and hesitant since it takes a few stabs to really build up your confidence in what you are doing.

No, that's just creepy, and way too long.

Early Morning Amusement:: Michael (Jump In)

It's Friday, and I managed to not oversleep by two hours today, so that seems like a good reason for an Early Morning Amusement.

I originally discovered "No More Kings" while I was working on the first draft of "Mallville - A Journal of the Zombie Apocalypse". I was listening to Pandora and a fairly catchy tune came on. A short ways into the song I realized it was about zombies; it was "Zombie Me" by "No More Kings". As I continued to listen, more of their songs played andd I ended up going out and buying the album.

If you are unfamiliar with "No More Kings", their albums are basically my childhood set to music. The songs are cheerful, upbeat, and frequently more than a little silly, and I find it to be very uplifting. They have songs about "Peanuts", "Short Circuit", "Gulliver's Travels", "The Karate Kid", and of course the subject of this song, "Knight Rider"

You may be wondering why I am highlighting the video for "Michael (Jump In)" when it was "Zombie Me" that first got my attention, and even became a bit of an un-official theme for "Mallville" (I'd be happy for it to be the official theme if I could get permission). Well, there's not a video for that song, but this one is a lot of fun too, and it's a great way to start off the day.

If you like this video, I suggest going to their website and checking out more of their music, and buying their albums.

Rock Band DLC I Want to See

Like a lot of people, I love Rock Band 2; it addresses almost every issue I had with the original game, and is loads of fun to play. Also like many people, there are songs I would love to see come to the game that so far have failed to. To remedy this, I have decided to write about what track packs I would create if I were in charge (regardless of any licensing issues that may get in the way)

Halloween Pack 01
They came out with a Holiday Pack last year with Christmas and Hanukkah songs in it, so why not Halloween?

Monster Mash - Bobby (Boris) Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers
Zombie Me – No More Kings
RE: Your Brains – Jonathan Coulton

Holiday Pack 02
I enjoyed two of the three songs in last years pack (I did not care for that version of Blue Christmas), so this is what I would like to see this year.
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
I Want an Alien for Christmas – Fountains of Wayne
Green Christmas – Barenaked Ladies

Bowling for Soup Pack 01
This band has a perfect sound for Rock Band, and a lot of their songs are just plain fun.
1985
Almost
Shut-Up and Smile

Weezer Pack 02
Pork and Beans (it is a crime that this was not in the first pack)
In the Garage
Buddy Holly

Fountains of Wayne Pack 01
Red Dragon Tattoo
92 Subaru
Too Cool for School

Jonathan Coulton Pack 01
So we've been able to get “Still Alive” and “Skullcrusher Mountain”, but there are so many more good songs out there. They should probably just do full albums, but this is what I would like to see first.
IKEA
Shop Vac
Code Monkey

No More Kings Pack 01
Geek influenced pop at its best. I discovered this band through Pandora, and if you have not heard of them, you should definitely check them out.
Sweep the Leg
The Grand Experiment
Michael (Jump In)

I could frankly do this all day, but these are definitely the first ones that come to mind. So come on Harmonix, give me good reasons to spend my Microsoft Points!

If you could make any track packs, what would you make? What songs do you want to play your plastic guitar to?