Halloween Song: The Hollies - “Lullaby To Tim”

The Hollies surrounded by spooky stage props. Photo from The Hollies Official Facebook page.

Another repost from the BHT haunted vault.

The Hollies are often regarded as “a singles band” and while they did notch a number of Top 40 hits (more so in England than America), some of their best songs are deep cuts from their albums. “Lullaby To Tim” appeared on the group’s surprisingly psychedelic 1967 album Evolution, which was sandwiched between two other excellent LPs, Stop Stop Stop and Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse (For Certain Because and Butterfly respectively in the UK).

The magical imagery on “Lullaby To Tim” kicks off with the very first lines, “Would you like to slide down a rainbow?/Catch a falling star in your hand?/Chase a moonbeam, ride by your window?” The secret to experiencing these adventures couldn’t be more simple: go to sleep. And that’s just the start of the fun things to entice a child to hit the sack “while the moon is peeping.” We hear about dragons, castles, and kisses changing frogs into princes. The kid can also see “witches fly on their broomsticks, stirring cauldrons, casting their spells,” which strays somewhat into nightmare territory.

“Lullaby To Tim” has a slow, almost acoustic arrangement that blooms into a full orchestra at the midway point. But its most noticeable aspect is that Graham Nash seems to be singing in a bath tub. Beneath the water. In his fascinating book on track . . . The Hollies every album, every song, Andrew Darlington describes this vocal approach as phasing. “It is achieved by running two identical tapes together, but slightly out of synch, or in-and-out-of-synch to create a fuzzy distortion.” Darlington suspects “Lullaby To Tim” is an homage to “LSD-guru” Timothy Leary. However, other credible sources state Hollies lead vocalist Allan Clarke wrote the song for his son.

Halloween Song: Amazing Heeby Jeebies - “The Mummy”

Everyone is out partying tonight, one way or another. Here’s a repost from the BHT haunted vault, just for the two of us.

You’d expect a band named Amazing Heeby Jeebies to throw a few chills your way, and the Chicago-based quintet came through on its 2018 Bad Feeling album. Led by vocalist Ary Jeeby and propelled by guitarists Bob Hyatt and Tom “Boss X” Klein, Amazing Heeby Jeebies combine garage rock and rockabilly while spinning tales of werewolves, mummies, and cannibals. They don’t always aim for the dark side, but when they do, listeners are more likely to dance than cringe.

In fact, “The Mummy” suggests the legendary creature prefers sipping martinis in a 1960s discotheque to trudging after anthropologists in pyramids. Ary Jeebie belts out quick rhymes like “King Tut’s got nothing on this guy/When he left, Cleopatra cried.” This mummy’s a recording artist with a least one album under his bandages and hosts a television show. With bassist Earl “Wolfdaddy” Carter and drummer Jerry King adding to the mayhem, “The Mummy” proves to be a rollicking Halloween treat.  

Halloween Song: David Bowie - “Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)”

Another repost from the BHT haunted vault.

Few songs have a more chilling intro than David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out The Fire).”Amidst a tribal drum beat and swirl of synthesizers Bowie sings, “See these eyes so green/I can stare for a thousand years” in a voice so dark it’s impossible not to believe him. The theme from director Paul Schrader’s 1982 horror film Cat People is set to a guitar-driven arrangement crafted by veteran film composer Giorgio Moroder of Flashdance and Midnight Express fame.

Bowie’s lyrics are from the point of view of Irena and her brother Paul, played in the film by Natassia Kinski and Malcolm McDowell. They’re descendants of humans who mated with leopards centuries earlier. This causes them to turn into panthers during sex and they can’t return to human form without killing someone.

Bowie’s music often featured fascinating characters, so he was the perfect choice to convey Irena and Paul’s tortured emotions. “Still this pulsing night/A plague I call a heartbeat/Just be still with me/Ya wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through.” Cat People tapped into long-held superstitions regarding felines and their mysterious nature. Even today, it’s a good idea to make sure black house cats are kept indoors on Halloween to prevent deranged people from hurting them.

Slumgullion

Best wishes to everyone going out for Halloween celebrations this weekend. I offered a sampling of available events in yesterday’s Weekend Reminders post. Be sure to keep safe and be careful.

Author Jennifer Otter Bickerdike’s book Eternal Flame - The Authorized Biography Of The Bangles, which is due out in February 2025, is now available for pre-order on various sites. It would be nice to see the band given some serious consideration for an induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

I was sad to see the news that Matthew Sweet, who has collaborated with The Bangles on a number of projects, and created so many of his own great songs, has suffered a stroke. A GoFundMe page has been created to help cover his medical costs. Here’s wishing Matthew a quick and full recovery.

Trouser Press Books will hold a book launch for its new edition of author Roman Kozak’s This Ain’t No Disco: The Story Of CBGB at the Generation Records store in New York City on November 2. According to a recent Facebook post, the publisher has “invited some fabled figures to share war stories about CB's, answer audience questions and sign books.” Those figures are Chris Frantz from Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club; photographer Ebet Roberts; The Ramones tour manager Monte A. Melnick; singer-songwriter/former CBGB employee Deerfrance; CBGB booker Louise Parnassa Staley; and musician/producer Jonathan Paley.

Those of us who rocked out to Queen long before “Bohemian Rhapsody,” will be glad to learn the band members themselves have overseen a remixed, remastered and expanded version of their 1973 debut Queen I. Apparently, they were not amused by how it was produced back in the day. Now it’s a 6-CD+1LP box set with 63 tracks and 43 brand new mixes. A special 2024 official video of the superb song “Keep Yourself Alive” can be viewed on YouTube.

Peter Himmelman, the Minneapolis singer-songwriter who’s given us emotionally charged songs such “Woman With The Strength Of 10,00 Men,” has released a book titled Suspended By No Strings that offers poems, and tales with a spiritual feel.

Here’s a an event for this weekend that I didn’t have in yesterday’s preview. The Wednesday Beatles Ensemble, comprised of students, will perform the Beatles Revolver album in its entirety at 2:00 pm this Sunday.

Tickets are now on sale for Stevie Wonder’s tour, which opens in Pittsburgh on October 8. It’s slogan, Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation’s Heart, is inspired by Wonder’s call for peace and unity on his new single “Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart?” New York City; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Greensboro; Atlanta; Detroit; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Grand Rapids; and Chicago are the other stops on the tour. 

It’s been a while since the Chicago power pop band The Spindles had a live gig on the club scene, so it’s good to see they’ll open for country music recording artist Kent Rose And The Remedies at Montrose Saloon on November 6. The Spindles will have a new album coming out in March 2025 that will include a cover of the catchy “Rock For It,” originally done by The Elvis Brothers.

Eric Idle, a founding member of the Monty Python comedy group and co-creator of a highly entertaining comedy-musical, has just released a new book titled The Spamalot Diaries. It provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Spamalot came together, based on Idle’s own journal and email correspondence.

Tegan and Sara on Junior High and Crushes, an Old Town School Of Folk Music sponsored onstage conversation with the famous recording duo about writing, music, and their Young Adult book series, will be staged on November 2 at the Athenaeum Center For Thought And Culture. It will be a co-presentation with Chicago Humanities. The Athenaeum Center is located at 2936 N Southport Avenue of Chicago’s north side.

Tickets are now sale for Alison Moyet at the Vic Theatre on May 7, 2025. Moyet started her career as half of Yazoo (known as Yaz in America) and went on to a successful solo career with hits such as “Love Resurrection” and “All Cried Out.”

Sting, former Police vocalist-bassist, will bring his Sting 3.0 Tour to Chicago for concerts at the Auditorium Theatre on October 28, October 29, November 1, and November 2. Sting will be joined by guitarist Dominic Miller, and drummer Chris Maas.

Shindig, the British magazine that does a fab job looking back at everything people loved about the 1960s (or would have loved if they had lived through them) has another Montage Collector’s Edition issue on the way. This one’s titled The American Psychedelic Explosion 1965 – 71, and offers a 128-page “carefully curated collection of articles originally published between 2010-2017.” The articles and interviews have been “edited, redesigned, and updated” for this issue. It’s available to pre-order for £10.99 plus postage from Silverback Publishing Ltd. 

The 2024 Chris and Heather’s Country Calendar Show at FitzGerald’s In Berwyn, IL will take place on December 21. Andrew Sa; Jodee Lewis; Zachary Stevenson and The Oh Boys; Dave Drazin; Phil Angotti; Nora O’Connor; The Hushdrops; Jane Baxter Miller and Kent Kessler; Casey McDonough; Hillbilly Frolic; Scott Ligon and Kelly Hogan; and The Saturn Kings will be the entertainers joining Chris Ligon and Heather McAdams. Each local act will cover a well-known country or rock act.

Also, at FitzGerald’s, a charity event titled To Find A Friend: An Evening of Tom Petty Music for Hurricane Relief will take place on November 23. Several local acts will perform Petty songs, and proceeds will benefit the North Carolina Arts Disaster Fund.

This year’s International Pop Overthrow - Boston will run from October 30 through November 2 at The Square Root in Boston.There will be 21 indie rock and pop acts are scheduled to perform. IPO - New York is scheduled to take place a week later, at The Parkside Lounge.

Tickets are now available for the Joey’s Song Freezing Man Festival taking place January 8 – 11, 2025 at the Majestic Theater in Madison, WI. Several well-known acts will take part in the charity event, which raises funds to help find treatments and cures for epilepsy. This year’s performers are Debbi and Vicki Peterson, Jane Wiedlin, Tracy Bonham, Belly, The Know-It-All Boyfriends, Cory Chisel, Letters To Cleo, Look Park, John Cowsill, Garbage, Against Me!, Kenny Hoopla, Freedy Johnstone, Portugal. The Man, Silversun Pickups, Heather Porcaro, Steve Porcaro, The Goo Goo Dolls, Sierra Swan, The Nielsen Trust, and Gina Volpe.

Six Stories Up On The Campaign Trail - A Student Council Calamity, the latest production from Tellin' Tales Theatre, runs  at Filament Theatre November 18 – 27 weekends only.

Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986 is now available to order as a double-LP or CD Digipak from the Futurismo site. It’s the next volume in Futurismo's Altered Vision compilation series, and features tracks by The Three O’Clock, The Rain Parade, True West, The Bangles, Thin White Rope, Game Theory, The Dream Syndicate, The Long Ryders, Green On Red, 28th Day, The Pandoras, and Wednesday Week.

Chicago: Home Of House, an exhibit honoring the city’s pivotal role in the widespread success of house music, has been extended on Navy Pier through December 15. Admission is free.

Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets will likely play tracks from his recently released album Indoor Safari at Lincoln Hall in Chicago on October 29 and 30. The final shows for his fall will be on November 2 and in Minneapolis.

 

I recently received my copy of Issue 19 of the Second Scene alt rock newspaper, and once again, it’s filled with eye-catching graphics, along with news and reviews. Readers won’t find much copy here on big-name acts, other than a profile on the legendary KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer. But, much like MOJO magazine promotes Brit musicians many of us in the States are unfamiliar with, Second Scene introduces us to indie acts worth checking out.

Sonic45, the self-proclaimed “Chicago-based new-wave quintet” led by sports broadcaster/musician/songwriter Len Kasper, will return to the Hey Nonny venue in Arlington Heights on November 24. It’s likely the audience will hear some of the songs from the band’s impressive new album SuperSonic.

What could be a better night for a new batch of “21st Century Druid Music” than Halloween? The Chicago-based band whitewolfsonicprincess, which proudly applies that label to its inventive indie rock approach, will unveil a new album titled Love Without Fear on October 31 at Evanston SPACE. 

Halloween Song: Oingo Bongo - “Dead Man’s Party”

It’s likely that most of this year’s Halloween parties will take place over the coming weekend. Here’s a post from the BHT haunted vault about a rather peculiar get-together you might want to avoid attending.

Singer-songwriter Danny Elfman has been blending music, theatre, and bizarre humor for so long it’s easy to imagine him freaking out his parents while performing in his playpen. With a maniacal grin. “Don’t run away, it’s only me.” His 1980s band Oingo Boingo actually morphed from a popular Los Angeles theatre troupe, and Elfman currently makes bundles of cash composing film soundtracks.

I’ve often posted his gruesomely clever “This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas as part of my annual October spooky music celebration. Oingo Boingo’s 1985 single “Dead Man’s Party” follows the same pattern of setting disturbing subject matter to an irresistible melody and still making us laugh. An invitation figures prominently in Elfman’s lyrics, as we’re introduced to someone who believes lugging around a corpse is the epitome of being well dressed. 

Although the protagonist complains of having nowhere to go, eventually, a chauffeur arrives and whisks him off to “a party where no one’s still alive.” There’s no ongoing story here, just a series of strange events and Elfman’s not-so-reassuring advice of “Don’t be afraid of what you can’t see.” But his distinctive vocals and the playful drums, guitars, and horns keep everyone too busy dancing to worry about what’s really going on. 

Weekend Reminders

Metropolly will pay tribute to the band Garbage this Saturday night at Montrose Saloon.

Recently, Thursday posts have focused on events that were previously mentioned on Broken Hearted Toy, and are taking place during the upcoming weekend. Today’s post follows that format, along with a few brand new events for this weekend that have only now come to my attention.

Halloweekend takes place tomorrow and Saturday at Montrose Saloon. Per tradition, the event features local musicians paying tribute to an eclectic selection of world famous acts. Some of the better known participants this year are Rachel Drew as Traveling Wilburrys; Phil Angotti as The Verve; Metropolly as Garbage; Mike Cohen and Fred Morg as Nick Lowe; and Androgynous Mustache as The English Beat. Montrose Saloon is located at 2933 W. Montrose on the city’s north side.

Hot Like Mars, the Chicago-based funk-soul-rock band formerly known as North 41, has a gig at Martyrs’ this Saturday night that will include a Halloween costume contest. The band’s special guest will be trumpet player The Parrisian, AKA Parris Fleming.

Reggie’s Music Joint at 2105 S. State Street in Chicago will present a triple bill of classic British rock tributes with The Ready Freddies, The Sluffs, and Super Creeps this Saturday night. The Ready Freddies, The Sluffs, and Super Creeps will cover Queen, The Who, and David Bowie respectively.

Alternative and frightening. The Razor And Die Show Annual Spooktacular can be heard tomorrow on the Chicago independent radio station WLUW from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. 

Chicago-based, guitar-powered instrumental band Outronaut will likely showcase its two latest songs, “The Final Beast” and “Riot Flower,” when it performs at Robert’s Westside this Saturday night. Both tracks, as well as earlier released material, are available to download on the Outronaut Bandcamp page. Robert’s Westside is located at 7321 W. Madison Street in Forest Park, IL.

Congratulations to English musician Matt Johnson on his band The The selling out tomorrow’s gig at The Salt Shed in Chicago. The concert is part of radio station WXRT’s Fall Jam Series. The American part of The The’s Ensouled World Tour (named after its recently released Ensoulment album) ends in Los Angeles on November 8. The Australian leg will kick off about a week later.

The 60th Chicago International Film Festival opened on October 16, and will run at various locations through October 27. The Package, the 1989 movie set in Chicago and starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones, will screen at 11:00 am at the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark) on Saturday.

The Sideshow Villains’ Deviant Cabaret takes place at the Alhambra Palace this Sunday from 6:00 to 8:30 pm. The Middle Eastern restaurant/entertainment venue is located just west of the Loop. Performers will include vocalist-choreographer Dante Ingram, comedian Mark Faje; circus artist Camille Swift; and guitarist Chris Siebold. Patrons are encouraged to arrive in costume.

Halloween Songs: “Neon” and “You’re My World” (Last Night In Soho Soundtrack)

With Halloween just eight days from now, it’s likely most of the celebrations will be held on this Friday or Saturday. If you’re creating a Halloween playlist for a party or event, consider a prelude that will set the mood for the scary material to follow. An instrumental, such as a classic TV show theme from The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, Doctor Who or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, would work and there are plenty of film soundtracks to explore. For example, I picked the song “Neon” from the 2021 thriller Last Night In Soho to kick off one of my Halloween playlists.

The track opens with a simple but haunting piano solo before a full orchestra conjures an invading army of zombies or some other evil force. With an instrumental, you’re free to craft your own nightmarish scenario; a flock of crows or bats swirling around in tune with the string section? Why not? Last Night In Soho doesn’t have those things, but there are plenty of ghosts. Slowly building its massive arrangement, “Neon” effectively conveys a sense of danger that might be inescapable.

In addition to an intense storyline with unexpected twists, Last Night In Soho uses several classic hit songs to establish an authentic 1960s setting for when the heroine, played by Thomasin McKenzie, drifts back to that decade in a series of frightening dreams. There are few selections on YouTube, but the one I like best is a version on the Cilla Black hit “You’re My World”. It not only captures the glamor of swinging London, but establishes an undercurrent of dread. Also, watch for the way director Edgar Wright uses mirrors to connect his two females leads, McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy.

The Last Night In Soho soundtrack is filled with gems from that era.