Bob McFadden And Dor "Songs Our Mummy Taught Us" (BL 754056, 1959)

An album of spooky-themed Novelty Pop from 1959 (with a hit single that even mentions "Kookie Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb"!), this was a studio collaboration between the late Bob McFadden (a gifted voiceover actor whose list of accomplishments is impressive indeed) & pop-poet phenom Rod McKuen. Many of you have probably heard one or two of the songs here, or are at least familiar with their descendants ("The Mummy" was most excellently covered by The Fall on 1997's "Levitate", and "The Beat Generation" served as partial muse for Richard Hell's "Blank Generation" circa 1974), but for some reason, superfine as it may be, the whole album has never received the full-on deluxe reissue treatment. Well, guess what? This post isn't gonna completely get the job done either -- my rip is missing their version of "Hound Dog" & sadly it was only encoded at 128 kbps. However in the service of archiving that glorious moment in time when it was possible to score a hit single through the simultaneous mocking of monsters and beatniks, it's a damn good start. Like, "help".


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Children Of The Night "Dinner With Drac!" (Pickwick, PIP-6822, 1976)

No relation to the 1958 John Zacherle hit, this collection of 1970's "Rock & Roll" songs tells the story of a big party at Count Dracula's house and comes across a bit like the plot of Mad Monster Party as done by imitators of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein in the process. The between song skits have a pretty cut-rate vibe throughout (Dracula sounds remarkably like Dan Ackroyd doing his SNL Yortuk Festrunk "Wild & Crazy Guy" character, The Mummy introduces himself with the lyrics to the Bob McFadden & Dor single "The Mummy"), and there's a period charm lurking under the music that makes me want to hear the story behind the band that was actually playing (I couldn't dig up much, but the album cover designer -- looks like he also wrote "Dracula's Undying Love" -- later did work for the likes of David Sanborn & Peter Tosh, and one arranger went on to become "Senior Vice-President, Marketing and Branch Operations for BMG Distribution"). The whole thing feels a bit more like a licensed pickup job rather than something developed in-house, and from my own consumer experience I'd say that this record never got the distribution of previous Pickwick horror albums (made by a completely different team; links here, here & here), but hey -- maybe I was just always looking in the little kid's section. This is clearly music for pre-teens.

UPDATE: Pulled from the comment section is this info from Hamhead

"I KNEW A GUY WHO WAS THEIR ROADIE!!!! Their manager lived across the street from him, no shite!! They were based in Hollywood, Florida in the early 80's.

From what I was told......
they were sued by Zacherly for using the "Children Of The Night" name since Zacherly somehow registered the phrase, the band changed their name to "The Monsters". This roadie guy (who used to come to my old job at a record store I managed and hang out insessivly) used to tell me about what a asshole the Dracula guy is and how he wanted to beat him up all the time, he used to burn reefer with the Wolfman. The Monsters were the house band at the Gold Coast roller rink in Pembroke Pines for years (which is now a furniture store), they also did kids birthday parties and Bar Mitzvahs. I used to joke about them playing Circus Playhouse, the kiddie pizzaria if the Gold Coast closed. I heard them once and that was enough. They broke up sometime in 1986 when the Gold Coast closed down. - M.A."



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The Spooky So Far.

Heya chums! To aid in your downloading as we get closer to Halloween, here's a clickable visual roundup of the spooky sounds posted so far on Scar Stuff. Collect 'em all!


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