Halloween Records

The records that belong to the occasion: Bobby Pickett’s “Monster Mash”, Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters”, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London”, Sheb Wooley’s “Purple People Eater” and the soundtracks to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Plus a part of our stock that hardly anyone else carries: German spooky audio dramas on vinyl — Hui Buh the castle ghost in several episodes, Otfried Preußler’s “Die kleine Hexe” (The Little Witch) and “Das kleine Gespenst” (The Little Ghost), the witch Schrumpeldei, Spuki the cheeky ghost. And for the party: Mike Harding’s “Sound Effects — Death & Horror”, a whole record of creaking doors, chains and screams.

Here it is not the subject that is dark, but the music. Bauhaus and the Sisters Of Mercy stand at the beginning of goth rock, Siouxsie & The Banshees with “Cities In Dust” beside them, Clan Of Xymox and Fields Of The Nephilim in the darkwave generation that followed. Older and rawer: Screaming Lord Sutch, whose “Jack The Ripper” we have in several couplings, and Arthur Brown with “Fire” — also in different pressings, plus the B-side “Nightmare”. And Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and John Carpenter, whose synthesisers shaped the sound of the modern horror film.

Music that does not sound spooky at all but is about the supernatural. Santana’s “Black Magic Woman”, Redbone’s “The Witch Queen Of New Orleans”, “The Witch” by the Rattles from Hamburg — in several pressings, including a double A-side with “Devil’s On The Loose”. Kate Bush’s “Hammer Horror”, Jethro Tull’s “The Witch’s Promise”, David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters”, Johnny Cash’s “(Ghost) Riders In The Sky” and the Rolling Stones with “Sympathy For The Devil”. Subject rather than mood: this group runs from folk rock to Italo disco.