Rather than post “Monster Mash” or “Werewolves of London,” which everyone will post, I’m picking some of my favorite, lesser known holiday tunes, and listing my 20 favorite scary movies. Every movies gets either a picture or a song. Nobody gets apples or pennies.

Drop a comment and tell me what I left off the list!

1. Night of the Living Dead (The original. Saw it for the first time in Maine when I was 6. Scared me for two weeks.)

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (The original.)

Saw saw saw saw. Ouch.-Drunk Country. I loves me the DC. Such great music. Why haven’t they been signed yet? Wake up music people! What the fuck is wrong with you? You all zombies?

3. Halloween. (The original.)

Every Day Is Halloween-The Postmarks (Ministry cover)

4. Nightmare on Elm Street.

5. The Exorcist

6. Dawn of the Dead (the original). I know it’s not scary, but it’s a fantastic film on so many levels. Not the least of which is this great tribute, in song . . .

Re: Your Brains-Jonathan Coulton

7. The Hitcher.

Ridin’-50 Cent. (From his classic “For Love or War” bootleg.)

8. Evil Dead 2

Candyland-Soul Position. Because what’s Halloween without candy?

9. An American Werewolf in London. Because horror films are all about sexual guilt, on some level, and when dead people talk to you during a stroke film, you know you’ve got issues.

Witching Hour-Red Collar

10. Freaks. Todd Browning’s classic exploitation film.

11. 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. (A two-parter.)

12. Alien

Monsters I’ve Met-Shel Silverstein

13. The Fly (David Cronenberg version). The perfect parable for why love is scary.

14. Hellraiser. Sure, everyone remembers pinhead. But what about skinned Frank?

Highway to Hell-Red Star Brigade

15. Triple feature: Return of the Living Dead; Young Frankenstein; Scream. Because sometimes horror is funny.

Thriller-Petra Haden

16. Saw. Yes, it’s torture porn. But it was scary as hell.

Psycho Killer-Bishop Allen

17. Dracula (The original.)

Dracula’s Cigarette-Spoon.

18. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 version).

19. Poltergeist.

Friendly Ghost-the eels

20. Frankenstein (The original.)

Honorable Mentions: Jaws (more of an action film than a horror film, but undeniable scary); Dawn of the Dead (the recent remake); Psycho; Near Dark; Nosferatu (1936).

I daresay that Old Time Relijun’s, “Catharsis In Crisis” is the most unique record I’ve heard this year. It’s not quite angry, and it’s definitely not mean, but it’s as intense and voracious as Tom Waits and as musically inventive as The Tom Tom Club.

Hailing from Olympia, Washington, the center of Old Time Relijun is Arrington de Dionyso, the singer and main writer of these ragtag tunes. Together with Aaron Hartman (bass) and a passel of drummers worthy of Spinal Tap discussion, the band has created a jazzypunk sound unlike any other.

The content is obscure to say the least, unintelligible at times. I can’t understand what “Daemon Meeting” is about, but I think it’s funny. And then some of it is not even in English, like “Veleno Mortale,” which sounds like its whispered and screamed by David Byrne with laryngitis. Undeniable, unignorable, this is a fascinating album with heart, D.I.Y. spirit, and lots of clatter. I highly recommend it.

Indestructible Life

Daemon Meeting

Liberation

Pearl Jam and Robert Plant share a stage and make beautiful music together.

Goin’ To California-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

Little Sister-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

Money (That’s What I Want)-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

Fool in the Rain-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

Thank You-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

Rocking in the Free World-Pearl Jam with Robert Plant

The lead singer of Our Lady Peace has gone indie! Canada’s Raine Maida is releasing a solo album on
Kingnoise Records, and he’s abandoned the falsetto affect you might be familiar with (well, not abandoned—he still falls into it occasionally, especially when he’s harmonizing with himself on overdubs), and traded it for an honest, rock and roll voice.

“Hunter’s Lullaby,” like most indie rock coming out these days, is a little dark, a little creepy, but there’s traces of the pop chops he showed when he helped write Kelly Clarkson’s, “Walk Away.” “The Less I Know,” for example, has an Alice In Chains lite
feel, and it would be easy to imagine that in a teen girl’s hands, with a big band a crashing flourish, it would be a monster hit. (I could do without the rap break, though—whoever Jared Paul is, he should hang it up.) “The Snake and the Crown” has a Buck 65 feel—it’s edgier than Everlast, but its white blues rap all the same. I’m interested, but I’m not loving it until the bridge into the alt-rock chant, “Who let
you down? We did. We did.” Other tracks keep the grimey feel going, like creeping menace of “Careful What You Wish For,” which could easily be a Nick Cave outtake, featuring a chilling recurring piano riff crawling through darkness.

Check it out.

Yellow Brick Road

Snake and the Crown

Bonus live cuts!

Life Of Leisure

Soul Singer

Breakfast of Champions

Preliminary notes:

This is a hip hop post, but don’t forget our Annuals giveaway–check the swag corner of this page.

Also, rapper Saul Williams is pulling a Radiohead–you can download his album for free or pay $5, whatever you prefer. Awesome. Go here to order. I wasn’t a huge fan of his last album, but now I really want to like him so I’ll give the new one a chance. Plus, it’s produced by Trent Reznor. Mos def worth a checkout.

And now the main event:

I’m hesitant to recommend any hip hop album with a guy who goes by a name with the word “fudge” in it, but here we go anyway. Insight and Damu the Fudgemunk are Y Society, whose debut album, Travel At Your Own Pace, has now officially dropped on Tres Records.

It’s full of samples, riffs and rhymes borrowed from classic material to create a conscious, joyful collage or hip hop culture. Both Damu and Insight have bios
that include successes as DJs, and it shows in this remarkable record. Both have smooth and easy flow (a welcome respite from the in-your-face bling-bling crunk dominating the airwaves these days), and both are intelligent enough to tell their stories with a minimum of profanity.

The old school blended edutainment begins at the beginning, with “This is an Introduction,” the kind of here-we-are track that you don’t find too much on modern rap records, but which used to be the rule back in the Native Tongue ‘90s. “Never Off (On and On)” is heavily influenced by Tribe Called Quest, from the hook to the samples, scratches and generally superlative turntable marksmanship. But “Hole In You Pocket” changes it up, relying heavily on the rhythm track to make the message. Then “Good Communication,” with its Beastie-Boy/TCQ influence, brings back the complex funky drummer beats of guys like Grandmaster Flash. If you listen carefully, each song is a tribute to a different kind of classic record.

This album should be fascinating to hip hop scholars, and, hopefully, inspiring to new jacks. With so many rappers using canned beats created before the lyrics
by a faceless producer, it’s cool to see an album where MC and DJ work together, back and forth, weaving in and out, each alternately laying back for the other: True teammates. (It’s mostly Insight on the mic, but Damu pops in now and then.) Younger readers may not realize that this used to be the rule, not the exception: When guys like KRS-One and Chuck D were coming up, the DJ was an essential part of the act, he wasn’t just a backdrop. Now, gang-bang production jobs are the rule: Throw on a Storch jam here, another by Neptunes there, so no real album, no real style, emerges.

Please check this out. Artists like this need our support.

For fans of: Mr. Lif, BDP and KRS-One, Jurassic 5, Tribe Called Quest.

Good Communication

We love Annuals here at Berkeley Place, and we’re happy to announce a show, tomorrow night (10/28) at D.C.’s Rock and Roll Hotel, where they’ll be co-headlining with Manchester Orchestra. They’re covering each others works, and they’ve put together an exclusive, limited edition 7-incher. On it, Annuals cover Manchester Orchestra’s Where Have You Been, and Manchester Orchestra cover Annuals’ Brother.

Annuals covering Where Have You Been

Manchester Orchestra covering Brother

(Here’s the original: Brother-Annuals)

Want a copy? Well, there’s two ways to get it:

1. Go to the Rock and Roll Hotel show, Sunday night, and get it from the guys.

2. Win it. Here. By e-mailing me or dropping a comment, WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS. A winner will be chosen at random some time next week, so check your e-mail regularly.

Good luck!

Bonus music:

Dry Clothes-Annuals

Bleary Eyed-Annuals

Manchester Orchestra – Wolves at Night (live on WBRU)

Manchester Orchestra – Colly Strings (live on WBRU)

Manchester Orchestra – Where Have You Been? (live on WBRU)

“It’s too short,” said the person who gave me this CD, to which I responded in my usual knowitall kinda way that I like short albums because it means the work is not bloated with extras and mystery tracks and all kinds of nonsense that I’ll just end up skipping anyway. But this time, after I listened, I agreed.

Bettye LaVette’s The Scene of the Crime is a collection of one original work (the autobiographical “Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)”) and nine Southern soul reinterpretations of classics you might never have heard before, from a diverse and skilled roster of established pop stars, blues grinders, and singer-songwriters. The album’s title derives from the fact that Ms. LaVette, now over 61 years young, has returned to Muscle Shoals, where she cut her amazing debut recording way back in 1972. The difference is that back then the label gave her a studio band and selected her songs, whereas now Bettye, backed by no less than the Drive-By Truckers, has done it all herself.

She hops through Willie Nelson’s “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces” and kills Eddie Hinton’s “I Still Want to Be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am)” and John Hiatt’s “The Last Time.” But LaVette isn’t just picking songs she likes: She’s picking artists she wants to defeat.  Just as Aretha stole “Respect” from Otis, after hearing these covers you may never want to go back to the originals again. Bettye even manages to one-up the legends Ray Charles (“They Call It Love”) and George Jones (“Choices”). The brightest gem is Elton John’s “Talking Old Soldiers,” in which LaVette uses her age to her credit, rasping with swagger and bravado, “I may be just an old has-been to some/But I know how it feels to grow old.”

That autobiographical cut tells the story of her 1972 session, which was , LaVette cut what was meant to be her first solo album in that same place. For some reason, shelved by the label (Atlantic Records) and wasn’t released for three decades—and then only in France. Like Big Daddy Kane or the Biz, Bettye talks of being screwed by the industry and denied her dues, proving that her hard-living singing style was hard won. If you compare LaVette’s voice now to the way it was back then, you can hear the wisdom in it. It’s richer, it’s deeper, it’s older. But it’s no less powerful. Bluesmen become grizzled and throaty, more authentic. If Scene of the Crime is any evidence, then we can say the same for at least one soul stirrer’s latest effort.

Even if is too short.

Talking Old Soldiers

You Don’t Know Me At All

Thanks in part to the fact that Hype Machine now refuses to pick up more than 3-5 mp3s per post (argh), and owing also to inflation, the top 10 reasons posts I usually do will now be 5.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled post.

1. and 2. I think MOKB ripped off my idea, don’t you? It’s too much of a coincidence. Anyway, my great readers continue to stay in the spirit of contribution, offering these cuts:

Shockedelica-Ween

Rasberry Beret-Of Montreal. (Thanks Ryan!)

3. I’m Your Puppet-The Drive-By Truckers with Kelly Hogan. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I don’t have to to know I’ll love it.

4. Mr. Weiss has the new Ghostface single, Celebrate, and it’s waaaay better than that weak-ass Beatles sludge that the Wu Tang crew released a few weaks ago. And in case you’re wondering, GFK doesn’t sample Kool & the Gang–it’s the old Rare Earth celebration song.

5. And last but not least, this looks really cool. A mix of the top songs from 1981. So sweet and so retro.

All Hail Reader Participation!

1. Darling Nikki-Rebecca Romijn Stamos

2. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man-the eels

3. Purple Rain-Leroy Justice

4. Pac’s New Life-Tupac

5. 1999-Disco Biscuits

6. Pop Life-Dead or Alive

7. Purple Rain-Ben Harper

8. Sign O’ The Times-Heaven 17

9. When Doves Cry-My Brightest Diamond

10. U Got the Look-Gary Numan