The penultimate Halloween song profile for 2024 turns out to be a doubleheader featuring a 1962 film-related song that I first posted here on October 31, 2009 and a 1972 jazz fusion composition I’d never heard of until last Saturday. Henry Mancini’s “Experiment In Terror” was the theme to the Blake Edwards thriller of that same name, while “Spiders (In Neal’s Basement)” was one of the four extended tracks on McLuhan’s debut album Anomaly. The McLuhan here wasn’t the philosopher Marshall McLuhan but a seven-piece Chicago band inspired by him.
Clocking in at just under six minutes, “Spiders (In Neal’s Basement)” is by far the shortest track on Anomaly. The adventurous song mixes smooth modern jazz with strip joint bump and grind, while vocalist-bassist Neal Rosner delivers the satirical, off-kilter lyrics. (It might also be guitarist-vocalist Dennis Phillips, trumpet player-vocalist David Wright, or a mixture of all three.) At any rate, it’s a fun choice if you have intellectual types at your Halloween party.
Anomaly became a collector’s item over the decades, and a new vinyl edition produced by Ellis Clark of The Social Act and Big Hat Big Trouble fame has been released. Depending on when you read this, you could purchase a copy at a re-release celebration starting at 7:00 pm tonight at Montrose Saloon on Chicago’s north side. McLuhan can be contacted via its official Facebook page or website.
“Experiment In Terror” has a slow, ominous beat and twanging guitars that conjure images of a monster creeping along some darkened street. People in the Chicago area might be surprised to learn this instrumental was composed by Henry Mancini for a 1962 cops and robbers movie called Experiment In Terror. Around here, it’s much better known as the theme for the TV show Creature Features, which presented old time horror movies like House Of Dracula; Frankenstein; The Wolf Man; and The Mummy’s Ghost on WGN every Saturday night from 1970 to 1976. “Experiment In Terror” will be forever linked to that show’s signature graphic of a horrifying guy in the top hat and cloak.
“Experiment In Terror” also brings back memories of our childhood fascination with monsters, hours spent trick or treating, and neighborhood Halloween parties in garages or basements. Here’s hoping everyone has a safe and fun holiday tomorrow.
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