Haunted by the Haze

Painting by Joe Coleman

We already heard my all-time favorite Halloween song on the third day of this blog, back in 2011. When I was little, I used to ask my dad to call the radio station in October to request "Haunted House" by Jumpin' Gene Simmons because I was too shy to talk to the DJ on the phone. I thought it was the funniest, strangest, and possibly best song I'd ever heard. Not much has changed since then! You can't go wrong with a song about standing your ground against ghosts and aliens trying to take over your new house before you're even settled. 

Since we've already heard the version I grew up loving (as well as the original recording by Johnny Fuller), today we'll hear a cover by another of my all time favorite performers, Hasil Adkins. In 2015 we heard a couple of Hasil's classic tunes, "No More Hot Dogs" and "She Said." Here he brings his one-man-band, lunatic-in-a-shack sound to a song he was born to play! Plus he throws in a few hunches for good measure.

One more song today, since there's just one day left till Halloween and the end of this blog! In the late 1950s, a few years before he became famous as a game show host, Bert Convy had a brief but successful singing career. He had a top ten hit with his group The Cheers, then went solo and recorded "The Monsters' Hop" in 1959. The success of that song brought him to the attention of film director Roger Corman, who cast him in his now-classic B-movie, Bucket of Blood. 

"The Monsters' Hop" was released a full three years before Bobby "Boris" Pickett unleased "The Monster Mash" on the world. Just goes to show you that monsters have always loved a good party, they just need a place to throw down! Probably what those ghouls were trying to do in "Haunted House" when they were so rudely interrupted by a mortal tenant.