Haunted House Music Company "Haunted House", "Night In a Graveyard", "The Ride of the Headless Horseman" (1985)
Part of an almost bootleg-looking series that popped up in the mid '80's, the "Haunted House Music Co" line shared a similar format from record to record: Side One conveyed the larger concept while Side Two concerned itself with a hodgepodge of separately banded sound effects that sometimes related to what was listed on the back cover and sometimes didn't. From packaging on down they're totally budget in scope, but for me their B-Grade quality adds heavily to their effectiveness with some genuinely ghoulish atmosphere coming through the speakers. Of this trio only The Ride of the Headless Horseman contains a story with a spoken narrative; Haunted House and Night In a Graveyard seem more than content to paint their themes as sound collage alone (a later CD that would seem to pair House and Graveyard is actually a completely different animal, you can hear it here).
The (almost always blurry) back cover info is pretty cool too, claiming that the recordings were made "Live in Transylvania Studios", "Live on the Estate of Count Dracula", and (get ready) "Live in the Village of Sleepy Hollowville at the Ichabod Crane Studios". Continuing the theme, the record company info is listed as "Haunted House Music Co., 2 Crypt Way, Eerie USA" with various pressings containing much smaller type below detailing a few different addresses for "Golden Circle Inc" (most of the other releases on the label seem to have been of the budget/ early-recordings-of-now-popular-artists variety). Oh, and there's usually a REALLY blurry Dolby Digital logo tacked on somewhere just for good measure. Reeking of delicious Halloween audio cheapness, these titles must proudly number among the last of their kind before the rise of the compact disc. Not bad as death rattles go really.
Links Removed
posted by Jason at 2/15/2006 04:43:00 AM
21 Comments:
thank you so much for these spoooooky records! they were so scary that i had to listen to them with my eyes covered, no lie!
2/15/2006 3:49 PM
More great stuff!! Although Rapidshare keeps saying wait 1 mins for the past 2 hours..I need to get a premium.
2/15/2006 10:21 PM
Man, when I think about the scarey noises that you hear in a creepy graveyard or something, I always think of quail and woodpeckers. Boy, that's some supernatural bird noise. This stuff is great!
2/19/2006 1:07 PM
I have the privelege of actually owning the three LPs with cover and everything. I've been listening to them since I was eleven, I'm 23 now. My dad says that when I saw these vynils at Target back in 1986, I went wild and wanted all three of them. He bought them but I was too scared to make it through the sound recordings... well anyways. If anyone's interested in exchanging wavs of spooky sounds, my blog is www.alvarozendejas.blogspot.com and my e-mail is zendejas.alvaro@gmail.com
10/09/2006 6:32 PM
God Bless You! I bought this as a cassette back when I was about 11 years old. I am now 30....and I must say with the violins in the background make this one of the scariest soundtracks ever! I serached and searched for over three days until I found your site and now I have this treasured classic. Thanks for sharing!!!!!
Bjorn
ducksfan4life@hotmail.com
10/20/2007 10:03 AM
OMG...I bought the cassette tape back in the 80's and have played it in the yard for the trick-or-treaters ever since. It broke last Halloween and I used some other scary music, but it just didn't do it for me, so I have been looking for a CD of it. I stumbled across your site and couldn't believe it when it started downloading...THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I am 50 years old and still love to decorate and dress up to give the candy out to the kids. I can't wait for next Halloween to play my favorite music again.
2/04/2008 6:16 PM
My uncle gave me this cassette tape (Graveyard/Haunted House) back when I was 8 yrs old ('89) - I could never manage to make it through the whole thing! I always got too scared and had to turn it off. I made a move for school back in '99 and the tape was lost. Thanks to your site, I have FINALLY made it all the way through - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! :-D :-D :-D
9/20/2008 9:36 AM
A thousand thanks!!! My parents bought the Graveyard vinyl and Haunted House cassette when I was a child to play for trick-or-treaters. I was such a Halloweenie; they became sacred items. Now, at 24, I have lost the tape to a hungry radio and my parents possess the record. I've been looking for replacements ever since, but as you know, the face of Hallowe'en has changed dramatically and they just don't make music and sounds with the same atmosphere anymore. When I found your site, I almost soiled myself with excitement. I feel like a kid again. It may be small to you, but for a die-hard Halloweenie like me, sharing these albums is an act of kindness on an epic scale. Thanks again & keep on keepin' on!
10/20/2008 9:27 PM
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10/27/2008 12:05 AM
Thanks for taking the time to post this, this used to scare the crap out of me when I was like 10! Now I'm 30, still sorta creepy!
10/27/2008 12:06 AM
I can not believe I have actually found this.. it rekindles the usefulness of the internet.. this was gold when I was a kid. My neighbor when I was younger played this EVERY halloween and one year he made a tape for me of it from vinyl I lost it to a greedy tape player the same year and never had the stones to ask for another... Thanks. I'm going to introduce my neighborhood to this tonight! I can't believe I didn't google this years ago!!!. Cheers
10/31/2008 6:44 AM
TOOO, FUNNY, myself and a frind who will remain un-named unless he chooses to reveal himself did the art for these when we were in our early 20's, way back in the early eighties, it was actually printed in CT. by Golden Circle Inc, we were the art dept guys, A guy named richie I think it was, did the sounds, we did some message machine tapes too, this brings back memories of my early days in the graphic arts, glad so many people enjoyed this.
bg
4/07/2009 4:37 PM
bg!
Completely excellent! I honestly have always really loved the cover art on these -- it's entirely perfect for the overall package, the logical purchasing demo & the era it came from.
I've worked design at a number of places (I'm currently doing "creative director" work) so my hat is sincerely off to you a quarter century after the fact.
( ...and hey, I'd love to hear more if you wanna hit me up directly: aweathypatronofthearts AT yahoo DOT com )
Thanks for commenting!
4/07/2009 4:46 PM
SOOO So So SO Cool! I actually HAVE the "Night in a Cemetery and Night in a Haunted House" on CD, but these older albums are a lot harder to come across. Thanks you SO much for helping me add to my ever-expanding collection of Halloween sound effects!
Many kudos to you :)
-Monster Matt
7/05/2009 3:21 PM
Howard Stern played this becuase Richard Christy plays this every night to go to sleep to. I know they would love to hear form teh people who made this. If you are out there you should email the show!
8/18/2009 1:59 PM
I'm here for the same reason as the last poster. I'm a huge Howard Stern fan, and he played some of this today on his show. Whoever made the post about working on the cover art should really contact the show. You might be able to contact the narrator whom Richard Christy is trying really hard to reach.
8/18/2009 8:20 PM
Read in the description it said "a later CD that would seem to pair House and Graveyard is actually a completely different animal"....
This is not the record that Richard Christy from the Howard Stern Show
is referring to..
9/10/2009 5:51 PM
Actually, I found these last year on two CDs for about $3.00 each at Walmart. One CD contains A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED HOUSE and A NIGHT IN A GRAVEYARD and the other CD is called THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN. These are GREAT! I love the narrator's voice. Anyone have his name? I LOVE the original cover art, but the CDs have different art. These are GREAT to listen to for Halloween! I wanted to research these and found your site. GREAT STUFF! :)
10/29/2009 2:10 PM
WOOPS! Sorry! I bought two CDs with the same titles that you listed and thought they were the same. I downloaded yours just to be sure and was pleasantly surprised! They are completely different! But mine are listed as being released by the Haunted Sounds Music Company on Itunes as well. Maybe these were all part of a set? Odd that they have the same titles.
Here are the CDs I own:
http://www.amazon.com/Headless-Horseman-Jack-Dorsey/dp/B000ANEJWM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256851670&sr=1-6
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Haunted-House-Graveyard/dp/B0009P7E8M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256851965&sr=1-1
They are really good too if you want more ghoulish greatness! ;D
THANKS for introducing me to the three you have here!
10/29/2009 2:34 PM
I was 8 yrs old when I got these sometime in late '88. I had the "Ride of the Headless Horseman" and the "Haunted House" tapes. I had these in perfect working order until 2002 when I lost them to a house fire. Now over 8 yrs later, I can relive the memories. These truly sound scary. The analogue recordings give them even more of a spookey feel. Now at 30, I can relive the 80's all over again. Thanks so much for the memories!!!
5/24/2010 8:43 PM
30 years old and I cannot BELIEVE I tracked these down. And having also made contact with one of the men who did the cover art? That's incredible! I owned these in the 80s and they were lost sometime in the 2001 when I moved and I was devastated. I'm so excited to see that you are hosting these and thank you SO much! And to the artists, well I think this blog is proof enough that these recordings have most definately stood the test of time. Nothing like a good old fashioned radio show or story to get me in an AWESOME mood.
10/15/2011 4:37 PM
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