Category: Music

Music Monday for 11.11.2019

(NaBloPoMo Day 6)

November is National Native American Heritage Month, so the theme for this week's Monday's Music Moves Me is "Songs inspired by, performed by, or about Native Americans."

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Music Monday for 11.04.2019 – Some Firsts

(NaBloPoMo Day 1)

Howdy!

It's the first Music Monday of November, my first NaBloPoMo post (see my post about NaBloPoMo here.), and since this is a freebie week for Monday's Music Moves Me, I thought I'd post a small playlist of first songs released by some bands I love. Keep in mind that these are not necessarily their first commercially successful singles, though.

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Music Monday and #RMF2019 for 10.28.2019 – The Halloween Edition

This weekend has been just what my soul needed. It cooled off a bit, and it was rainy and so windy. Perfect October weather! I had originally planned to do a huge Halloween playlist (or at least dig one from the past up, dust it off, and pass it off as new!) for Music Monday, but like plans of mine often do, they never came to pass. Mostly because I spent the weekend enjoying my favorite weather, catching up on reading for a book review, making some more household cleaners, and getting boatloads of post drafts made for my (triumphant?) return to Battle of the Bands one of these days.

What I have for you instead, is a collection of ten scary songs – some are Halloween-related, some spooky, some outright disturbing, most are rock (this is still #RocktoberMusicFest, after all), and I tried to pick a few that don’t usually end up on Halloween playlists.

First up…

Johnny Cash – “Ghost Riders In The Sky”
A herd of cattle with steel heels, red eyes, black horns, and horses snorting fire thundering through the sky? Paints quite a picture.

Gerard McMann – “Cry Little Sister”
From The Lost Boys soundtrack, this spooky, moody song was easily one of my favorites of my Senior year in high school.

The Cure – “Burn”
This is another one from The Crow soundtrack (I shared Nine Inch Nails’ cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” here). The lyrics seem *to me* to deal more with devastating loss than being spooky. But it’s pain, and pain is scary.

Warren Zevon – “Excitable Boy”
You can find a wealth of information on Warren Zevon from his Wikipedia page. He has worked with an astounding number of top-notch musicians, and in my humble opinion, is in that category himself. I know everyone is already familiar with “Werewolves of London” – also fitting for a Halloween/Spooky playlist – but Zevon’s vividly compelling songwriting combined with his deep, smooth voice make all of his music sound pretty spooky to me. And if the lyrics to “Excitable Boy” aren’t scary and disturbing, then I don’t know what is!

Jane’s Addiction – “Sympathy For The Devil”
I know this is a cover, and the reason I’m using it instead of the Rolling Stones original is because a) it sounds spookier than the original, and b) I actually like it better than the original. I put this up as a contender for a Battle of the Bands face-off against another band (can’t think of who right now) at one of my other blogs, and I seem to remember this one winning by a landslide. This song was also featured in Sons of Anarchy.

Type O Negative – “Black No. 1”
One of the funnier selections for this list! I couldn’t leave out Type O Negative. They always toured around Halloween, and their shows were part of my Halloween and autumn celebrations.

Donovan – “Season of the Witch”
I don’t really have anything to say about this one, just that I love the whole vibe!

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – “I Put A Spell On You”
This was some really ground-breaking performance art for the 50s, and this is a show I would love to see even today.

Led Zeppelin – “Battle of Evermore”
This one always makes it onto the scariest/spookiest song lists, and I can see (and hear) why.

And last but not least…what would Halloween be without The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

The cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – “The Time Warp”

BONUS:

Ministry – “Every Day Is Halloween”

…and that’s it for me till next Halloween! What is on YOUR Halloween playlist?

Featured image courtesy OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

Writer’s Workshop and #RMF2019 for 10.24.2019

I know, I know. I’m getting entirely too creative with post titles, right? Sometimes I think about NOT titling them, and just typing my first sentence into the title bar. I know you need something intriguing enough to inspire someone to read your post, but I can’t tell that titles have actually helped me all that much.

I digress.

So here we are on the Thursday of a kind of long and kind of stressful week, and surprise! I have another post that will do double duty, as I’d like to throw in a selection for Mary’s Rocktober Music Fest. But first, Writer’s Workshop. Since I’m kind of stress overloaded, I opted to play Halloween This Or That Tag for Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writer’s Workshop.

She has a YouTube vid to go with hers, but I’m not set up for YouTube, so I’m just answering the questions:

  1. Chocolate candy or fruity? Depends on my mood, but probably chocolate
  2. Witches of Vampires? Witches
  3. Trick or Treat? Treat, please.
  4. Halloween Party or Scary Movie? Scary movie
  5. Skeletons or Zombies? Skeletons
  6. Trick-or-Treat or Hand Out Candy? Hand out candy
  7. Hay Ride or Corn Maze? Hay ride
  8. Scary Costume or Funny Costume? Scary
  9. Pumpkin Seeds or Pumpkin Pie? Pie. Always pie.
  10. Bottle Feed A Baby Zombie or Walk Alone Through A Dark Forest? Walk alone through a dark forest
  11. Bats or Black Cats? Both are adorable.
  12. Pumpkin Spice or hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate
  13. Celebrate in your neighborhood or at the mall? Either/or. My kids and I have done both.

Now, for today’s RMF music:

Nine Inch Nails covering Joy Division‘s “Dead Souls”. An amazing cover, from one of my favorite movies (The Crow). I still listen to this soundtrack regularly, and in my humble opinion, it’s one of the best movie soundtracks ever recorded. I still love mine after 25 years! But I am biased; I love this kind of music.

What is YOUR favorite movie soundtrack, if you have one? What is YOUR Halloween This or That?

Music Monday for 10.21.2019

Hello, Music Monday-ers and 4M-ers! I am freshly back from my Mississippi/Memphis trip, where I got to briefly visit family, and got ever closer to the finish line on my Aunt’s estate. (where I have never seen so much stuff in my life – and I have seen a lot of stuff!) I am enjoying my Monday, having gotten up early to tend to the dogs and clean a bit of house while listening to your selections. I’m normally at work today, but since it’s inventory I’ll be working a long shift tonight instead. This is something totally new for me, so I hope I do everything right. I’ve spent the entire past week preparing myself and my department for it, so there’s really no reason for things not to run smoothly.

It’s a freebie this week on Monday’s Music Moves Me – which can be seen at Cathy’s, Dolly’s, and many of the other participants’ as well – meaning a song of your choice. Rocktober Music Fest 2019 is still going on over at Mary’s, so my post today is doing double duty. I’m working on my spooky playlist for Halloween, and I think I’ll share a selection from that:

Gerard Way – “Baby You’re A Haunted House”

What are YOU listening to today?

Featured image courtesy basil smith on Pixabay