Spawn: The Album

It may have taken me a while to see Spawn: The Movie, but I’ve been a big fan of the film’s soundtrack for some time. Spawn: The Album features a bunch of collaborations between some of the biggest alternative metal and electronic music acts of the late 1990s–two musical genres I was really into at the time. The resulting album was a lot of fun.

The lead single teamed up Filter with the Crystal Method for a reworking of the techno duo’s “(Can You) Trip Like I Do”, which pretty much features Filter’s singer Richard Patrick contributing some vocals. There is a bit more guitar work, too. The other big single was Marilyn Manson and the Sneaker Pimps’ “Long Road Out Of Hell.” Both of these songs wound up having Spawn inspired music videos. Also, both songs have appeared on countless other movie soundtracks.

Spawn: The Album also features some team-ups filled with metal credibility. There’s a remix of Metallica’s “For Whom The Bells Toll” by DJ Spooky that’s pretty epic. Metallica’s guitarist Kirk Hammett and Orbital teamed up for the riff-heavy “Satan.” Even Slayer makes an appearance, collaborating by digital hardcore act Atari Teenage Riot for “No Remorse (I Wanna Die)” which combines Kerry King’s wicked guitars with ATR’s trademark screaming over the hardest use of the Amen break.

As a whole, the album is catchy. It’s metal enough if your into the louder musical genres, and filled with enough breaks and beats to make techno fans happy. It holds up extremely well fifteen years later.

The Last Emperor’s Secret Wars

Good pal Pancuco from Action Figs & Things! shared this great clip of Philadelphia based rapper the Last Emperor’s track “Secret Wars”. Last Emp tears it up, describing what would happen if some of the greatest MC’s tussled with some of the best super heroes. Pay attention to the verse about KRS-ONE and Professor X where he just kills it. Check out some more tracks from Last Emperor here.

The Secret Origin Of The Ghost Rider Song

Hello everyone! After battling the flu and an office move at my job, I’m back! With a new movie coming back and litigation involving its creator, Marvel’s Ghost Rider is back in the public eye. But today we’re going to talk about the song “Ghost Rider.”

I first heard “Ghost Rider” at some point between the end of high school/early college and just thought it was awesome that Henry Rollins was singing a song about Ghost Rider.

Oh, silly naive Chris.

It turns out that “Ghost Rider” wasn’t an original Rollins Band song. They were borrowing it from early industrial/synth band Suicide.

The proto punk rockers Suicide!

A few years ago I was introduced to the band, which loosely took its name from the title of a Ghost Rider story called “Satan’s Suicide.” The minimalist duo was one of the first–if not the first–acts to call themselves punk rock, and Suicide has been named as an influence to a wide variety of bands and musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead and Primal Scream. Rollins was clearly influenced them, just watch the two videos to see how much of his stage mannerisms (including the way he holds the microphone was borrowed from Suicide front man Alan Vega. You can hear a whole slew of covers of “Ghost Rider” by musicians of all different genres, and M.I.A. even samples the riff in her song “Born Free”.

 

Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

Did you know that twenty years ago this Spin Doctor’s song was promoted as a single? Their debut album Pocketful of Kryptonite came out in 1991 and this was chosen to be the first single off of the album. It’s chock full of Superman references, vaguely telling the story of how Jimmy Olsen seems to be a little smitten with a certain Lois Lane. Listening to this song and this album brings back memories of middle school.

Ridiculously Awesome Halloween Music

I might not be that into horror movies or comics, but that doesn’t stop me from liking horror influenced music! Here are some tunes you can add to your party playlist tonight.

Misfits – “Scream” from the album Famous Monsters

The Misfits and Halloween go hand and hand. This video from their 1999 album Famous Monsters shows a hostile vampire takeover and was directed by none other than George A. Romero. He knows a thing or two about zombies; he directed Night of the Living Dead!

Marvel has this clip of the current Misfits lineup talking about their favorite Marvel characters and their new album Devil’s Reign.

Rob Zombie – “Dragula” from the album Hellbilly Deluxe

This was the first single from Zombie’s solo debut album. I hold Hellbilly Deluxe to a special fondness because it was a then-current soundtrack to my senior year of high school. Getting back to the song, it’s a loving homage to the Munsters’ hot rod. I love how the video is so simple yet effective, with the band playing behind projections of classic horror films. Trivia buffs will note that the dancing robot is from Bela Lugosi’s movie serials The Phantom Creeps.

Lordi – “Would You Love A Monster Man”

Finland’s very own monster rock band is super awesome, like the lovechild of Gwar, Alice Cooper and Kiss. “Would You Love A Monster Man” was a single for Lordi back in 2002 and a new version in 2006. The video has the band being reawakened in a morgue and trying to recruit a female coroner into their posse.

The Ramones – “Pet Sematary” from the album Brain Drain

1989’s Brain Drain was a turning point in the history of the Ramones, as it was the last to feature Dee Dee and was the return of Marky to the band. It also had the hit single “Pet Sematary” which was written by Dee Dee. The song was made for the same-titled movie, based on the Stephen King book. Why? Because the author was a super fan of the band.

Type O Negative – “Black No. 1”

Finally, if there was ever a band made for Halloween it would be Type O Negative. Their songs have countless referenced to fall (like the album title October Rust or the song “September Son”) as well as horror movies and

As a bonus, here is a clip of Type O playing “Halloween in Heaven” at Philadelphia’s Trocadero Theater. Here are some pictures I took of the concert.

Crossbones Dance Party!

Did you know that super villain extraordinaire Crossbones is available to DJ your party? When he’s not out being a bad-ass mercenary, Crossbones likes to spin his favorite tunes at industrial/techno parties.

Crossbones is going to be a big part of next week, which is themed after Captain America. He’s put together a playlist of some of his favorite tracks for you to get your groove on to.

McCartney and Titanium Man

I’ll admit it. I’m not a fan of the Beatles. Well, to clarify, I like the Beatles’ songs, but not the versions that they recorded. A while back, a friend of mine was going out of her way to try to attempt to convince me that I should like the Beatles (and their solo projects, which by the way, I do enjoy my Paul McCartney solo stuff) and introduced me to this song.

“Magneto and Titanium Man” is the B-side to the “Venus and Mars/Rock Show” single from 1975 by McCartney. When I first heard this, I was flabbergasted. He’s giving a shout out to two super villains.

There is an absurdness to the fact that this song exists, and it leads me to more questions. How did this song come about? Does McCartney have a secret love of comic books. Being that he grew up in England, why wasn’t this about Marvelman/Miracleman?

Sadly the internet doesn’t shed any light onto this, and unfortunately neither did VH1’s Behind the Music. Even Wikipedia, the greatest resource in the world, didn’t add anything substantial to the story, other then it was played while he was on tour with a backdrop projecting images of the characters on it.

What Wikipedia did add was this:

Following the group’s performance at the Los Angeles Forum in late 1975, Paul met backstage with Jack Kirby, the artist who co-created Magneto. Kirby presented McCartney with an original drawing of Magneto capturing the “band on the run”, Wings.

If this is true and really did happen, I would love to see a picture of this. I bet McCartney would be shooting out ‘kirby crackles’ out of his guitar.