Music to Make Horror Movies By: Audrey Landers, “Dallas Feels Like Home”

Published November 24, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Coming full circle is usually a good thing. Well, unless you are talking my stomach after the holidays. Not so good, that!

As ‘Miri’ on Battlestar

Fans of gorgeously talented blondes, though, have been giddy about the deserved resurgence of Audrey Landers, whose easy going glow always made her seem like one of the sweetest divas that television had to offer. Landers, of course, is best known for her 8 year run as songstress Afton Cooper on the original Dallas and for her committed hoofing in the glitzy film version of A Chorus Line. But, this eclectic wonder has earned her genre stripes with performances in such giddy exploitation epics as Deadly Twins (85), Getting Even (86) and Ghost Writer (89). Memorable guest shots on shows like Battlestar Galactica and The Hitchhiker and a role in the little seen horror comedy Highcliff Manor earn her howls of terror fiend delight, as well.

The popularity of TNT’s Dallas remount has benefited, greatly, by including Landers in the mix and this revival has, seemingly, inspired a beautiful new recording from Landers entitled, appropriately, Dallas Feels Like Home.

Full of lush 80’s style balladry and pop music magic, this disc contains 11 songs all either written or arranged by Landers and her talented musician son, Daniel. Here, lush story songs (the touching, fun Still Dreams to Dream) stand beside powerfully pretty declarations of survival (Through the Eyes of Winter). Monte Carlo is a sprinkling of exotic Beach Boys magic while Let Me Down Gently is one of the simplest odes of surrender ever committed to tape. Soap opera fanatics, of course, will thrill to the subtly implied passions of Steal Me Away, the popular song that Landers wrote for her initial Dallas stint. The full version is heard, for the first time, on this recording.

Of course, the professionalism of this venture should come as no surprise to Landers’ devoted followers. She maintained a successful singing career, with great overseas’ popularity, for decades.

Dallas Feels Like Home can be purchased at

http://www.AudreyLanders.com

Just in time for Black Friday, her Christmas recording is, also, available, here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you-came-to-me-on-christmas/id485234682

http://www.amazon.com/You-Came-To-Me-Christmas/dp/B006GQTBRK

Be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook, as well:

http://www.Twitter.com/AudreyLanders

http://www.facebook.com/AudreyLandersOfficial

Until the next time, as I investigate how to become an honorary Landers sister, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Rockin’ The House by the Cemetery with Hotlips Messiah!

Published November 21, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Usually, as I attempt to clone an American version of Italian terror goddess Dagmar Lassander, the only soundtrack I have to work to is the hiss of frazzled bolts of lightning and the scorched sighs of my rapidly frying equipment.

Luckily, kick-ass punkers Hotlips Messiah have just released a fantabulous single based on Fulci’s House by the Cemetery, the gruesomely fun flick in which Lassander plays doomed real estate agent, Laura Gittleson.

The single is, appropriately, titled House by the Cemetery and it is loads of loud, fan-loving fun! Best of all – it is free to listen to and can be owned, completely and totally, for only a $1.

Be sure to check it out at http://hotlipsmessiah666.bandcamp.com/track/house-by-the-cemetery

And – Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Anthony Perkins, “On a Rainy Afternoon”

Published November 17, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Chocolate syrup on your hot dog, that three-way with the kleptomaniac butcher and the serial killer (whom doubled as a mid-wife for zoo wolves)…these are things that you just don’t want to try a second time.

Well, that is the way horror treasure Anthony Perkins should have felt after his 1958 full length album On a Rainy Afternoon. Me, sing? Never again!!! Unless it’s as a maniacally obsessed preacher under the direction of Ken Russell, that is. (1984’s Crimes of Passion, yo!)

Recorded in 1958, two years before his life was irrevocably linked with Psycho and Norman Bates, On a Rainy Afternoon finds Perkins warbling on such well established tunes like Miss Otis Regrets, I Remember You and Why Was I Born? Unlike many film stars, who choose to back their meek musical stylings with lush, full blown orchestral arrangements, our honorable Anthony wisely places himself in front of a nimble, fully realized jazz sextet here.

Unfortunately, producer Fred Reynolds allows Perkins to strain, often, for notes his pleasant yet weak voice simply cannot reach. Modern listeners, as well, will find it hard to divorce themselves from the fact that this is everyone’s favorite Hitchockian psychopath gamely syncopating on the tunes of Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart and Jerome Kern. Perkins’ tone is that distinctive.

Witness:

Ah, well. (A voice only a mother could love, I guess.)

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Guitar Goddess Lita Ford!

Published November 10, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Deadly spider on my wall, how did you get on the cover of the magnificent Lita Ford’s 1984 LP Dancin’ on the Edge? Perhaps, Professor Arachnida was trying to illustrate the correlation between rock ‘n’ roll and horror. Indeed, this slamming effort from our favorite goddess of leather-graced thrashing is inundated with titles such as Dressed to Kill and Lady Killer.

Ford, whose 1988 Lita is a must hear pop masterpiece, entered further reaches of darkness with her biggest hit, Close My Eyes Forever, a duet with Ozzy Osbourne. Indeed, with lyrics stating “Like a dagger, you stick me in the heart and taste the blood from my blade. And when we sleep, would you shelter me in your warm and darkened grave?” this song is a commandingly hardcore look at velvet terror.

Ford, whose scare credibility is further enhanced by a saucy appearance in 1991 horror-comedy Highway to Hell, will be appearing the weekend of November 15th, 2013 at the Chicago faction of the Days of the Dead convention. http://www.daysofthedead.net/chicago/.

Sounds like a perfect time to get out your guitar string codpieces and head on Back to the Cave, no?

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Sissy Spacek, “Hanging Up My Heart”

Published November 3, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Oh, Divine Sissy, how we have done you wrong! Your iconic horror role, Carrie = recast, remade (but never equaled) and your solid 1983 recording Hanging Up My Heart can be found for $2.99 on vinyl at the local record shop! For shame!

Yes, after the Oscar winning success of Coal Miner’s Daughter, Madame Spacek, whose other terror efforts include The Ring 2 (2005), An American Haunting (2005) and such gothic stained efforts as Badlands (1973) and 3 Women (1977), released a country tinged recording in 1983. What surprised many about the effort, though, was its level of competence and the impressive talent involved behind-the-scenes (including such musical stalwarts as Rodney Crowell, Roseanne Cash, Vince Gill and KT Oslin).

The project even resulted in several modest hits and the effervescent title track featured, below:

And, if you ask me, that’s almost as cool as watching twenty-something actors (playing teenagers) exploding, bloodily, at the prom, any day of the week!

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

It’s Your Jam, Pumpkinhead! Graveface Records’ Halloween Mixtape!

Published October 30, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Considering that even a creaky creature of the night needs to get down on occasion, the amazingly spooky Graveface Records have provided us eager ghouls with the perfect (free) Halloween mixtape.

Check it at: https://soundcloud.com/graveface/graveface-halloween

Be sure to keep your bones jangling, year round, by keeping up with all the haunting Graveface happenings at https://www.facebook.com/GRAVEFACE, as well.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Films By: Sheena Easton, “I Like the Fright”

Published October 27, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

Sheena “BLADE RUNNER” Easton

Its Halloween time and some orange colored connoisseurs like their candy corn mixed with peanuts. But true terror babies, including the irreplaceable Sheena Easton, really prefer… the fright!

Yes, on her 1983 masterpiece Best Kept Secret, this queen of high school pop sings an anthem to all those who like their lives brimming, consistently, at the edges of scare!

Mainstream pop bliss and a true love of horror! Will life EVER get more perfect than that??

Well, maybe. Easton’s one true terror credit, John Carpenter’s Body Bags (1993), wherein she plays the sympathetic girlfriend of hair challenged Stacy Keach, is getting the deluxe Scream Factory treatment on November 12th, 2013.

And THAT should get the Deborah Harry stamp of approval, no?

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Kissing Stacy before he takes the ‘Morning Train’!

Music to Make Horror Films By: Les Baxter, “Hell’s Belles”

Published October 20, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

If there were any justice in the world, I would have my own multi-level drive-in theater (playing banging Euro-trash, 24/7) in the middle of my studio apartment, that muscular Idris (IE: Hot guy!! Thanks to Christine and Valerie for the slang), sitting across from my writing group at Dollop Coffee Shop, would be moon-glowing over my every word — and awesome, eclectic musician Les Baxter would be every punk rock prom king’s totally slammin’ mentor!!!

Known to record collectors for his exotica jazz contributions, Baxter also conjured up amazing, swinging soundtracks to genre epics like Roger Corman’s House of Usher (1960), the US version of Black Sabbath (1963), Frogs (1972) and even 1982’s boy-is-cicada monster classic, The Beast Within.

Thankfully, the ever cool Sidewalk Records are trying to give Baxter his hipster due by reissuing his naughty soundtrack to 1969’s Hell’s Belles on a thick slab of (nearly eatable) vinyl!

Be sure to check out the title track, here:

and http://www.lesbaxter.com, as well!

Until the next time, keep your dreams of Les growing ever-leather and…

SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!!!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Films By: The Casket Girls, “Sleepwalking”

Published October 13, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

How come I never feel sexy while wandering among the headstones, in the midnight cemetery, dressed in nothing but a bloodied nightgown?!? Probably because I haven’t been hanging with the scintillating The Casket Girls during my fevered traipsing.

The brainchild of Ryan Graveface, The Casket Girls, comprised of the spectacular Elsa and Phaedra Greene, provide the world with darker, Shangri-La’s style pop.

Check my new most favorite song!:

http://www.casketgirls.org

https://www.facebook.com/casketgirls

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan.

PS: I am, also, available on the scraped knees regular at http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan!

A Nightmare of Events in Chicago!

Published October 11, 2013 by biggayhorrorfan

“Don’t go to sleep!” How well I remember the bloodied horny goat who pounced on my chest while chanting that! Or is it just a flashback from all those 3 a.m. viewings of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series? H-m-m…

Whatever the case may be — two of the Nightmare family will be gracing Chicago-land with their bloodily awesome presences this weekend.

Mark Patton from A Nightmare on Elm St 2: Freddy’s Revenge will be appearing at The Movieside Massacre, a 24 horror movie event, for a presentation of the film that shows off his eclectic acting skills, the power of naked screaming and so much more. Speaking of shrieking (in delight, that is), I will be interviewing Patton after the screening! Yahoo!

Here are the details for that event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/490868644336874/

Meanwhile, Lezlie Deane, that amazingly kick-ass personality from Freddy’s Dead will be rocking the Underground Lounge in Chicago with her glitter punk band Scary Cherry and the Bang Bangs. Deane kicks it like a overpowering goddess on stage – so this is one show not to miss! (Doors open at 8.)

Details for this raging musical extravaganza are here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/372192812914142/

Hope to see you at one (or both events) and /or visiting me at http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan!

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE!