Summer’s still underway, but Real Gone Music is looking to October with the announcement of a new batch of reissues due for the month that gives us Halloween and the World Series.  Returning favorites will take their place alongside artists new to the label, and a certain ghoulish host is even getting involved!

On October 2, the Real Goners will collect, for the very first time, The Complete Laurie Singles of Dion DiMucci.  This 2-CD, 36-track comp offers the crème of the Dion crop, including “Lonely Teenager,” “Lovers Who Wander” and “Abraham, Martin and John,” all in original mono mixes.  Illinois power pop luminaries The Shoes have carried on the attitude and rock spirit, if not the sound, of Dion, for the past three-and-a-half decades, and Real Gone’s 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection brings together the best of the band from 1977’s incendiary debut all the way through 2012’s Ignition.

Two seventies albums from David Cassidy kicked off Real Gone’s reissue campaign for the former Keith Partridge, and the series continues with a real rarity.  1985’s Romance never received an American release (not the first time this had happened to Cassidy, always popular on the European continent), but that hardly stopped it from becoming a Top 20 album in the U.K. and spawning hit singles including one collaboration with George Michael!  “She Knows All About Boys” and “The Last Kiss” anchor a powerful pop album that has to be heard to be believed.  In addition to Cassidy, The Grateful Dead returns to Real Gone with another reissued installment of Dick’s Picks.   Volume 27 - Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA 12/16/92 preserves the final Grateful Dead line-up featuring Vince Welnick on keyboard. With rare cover versions of Beatles and Who songs, this is a special Dead concert not to be missed, if you didn’t grab it the first time around!

Last but certainly not least, the Cool Ghoul, John Zacherle, arrives on Real Gone with a Halloween-themed two-fer containing his hit single and Halloween perennial, “Dinner with Drac.”  Monster Mash and Scary Tales were originally recorded for Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway family in 1962 and 1963, respectively.  These were first reissued on Collectors’ Choice Music in 2010 but quickly went out-of-print.  They’re back now on Real Gone in an edition retaining the liner notes by Zacherle and his ardent fan, Mr. John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful!  As it’s ready-made for your Halloween party, you won’t want to miss this!

Hit the jump for pre-order links and more details on each title!

We’re presenting Real Gone’s official press release in full, just below!

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Real Gone Music’s early fall releases, due out October 2, 2012, are highlighted by Dion’s The Complete Laurie Singles, featuring the multi-decade superstar’s most famous and influential solo recordings (both A and B sides), and 35 Years: The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012, a 21-song chronicle of both indie and major label recordings by Midwest power-pop legends Shoes.

If that weren’t enough, Real Gone Music also resurrects David Cassidy’s 1985 Romance album, and anticipates Halloween with a two-fer (Monster Mash/Scary Tales) from the Cameo-Parkway catalog of the cool ghoul, John Zacherle. Finally, the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks series continues with Dick’s Picks Vol. 27—Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA 12/16/92, the only volume of the Dick’s Picks series to feature the final Dead line-up featuring Vince Welnick on keyboard.

Dion DiMucci’s original Laurie singles, the very tracks that established him as a superstar solo act during the ’60s, have never been collected in one place. Real Gone Music’s 36-track The Complete Laurie Singles collection features all the single sides, both A and B, that Dion recorded for Laurie in their original mono single mixes, including the early singles that sparked his solo success, the sides that Laurie released after Dion signed with Columbia in 1962 (Dion was the first rock ’n’ roll artist to sign with that hallowed label), and, finally, the radically different and progressive singles from his triumphant return to the Laurie label, beginning with “Abraham, Martin and John” in 1968. It would be hard to find the original mono single mixes of any of these songs except for the big hits, and some of these songs (e.g. the later singles and the B-sides) aren’t on CD at all. Remastered from the original tapes at Capitol Studios by Kevin Bartley with assistance from Andrew Sandoval, and featuring liner notes by compilation producer Ed Osborne that include vintage photos of Dion, shots of the original singles and exclusive quotes from Dion himself, this 2-CD set is a must for any Dion fan or collector, and encapsulates the Laurie years of this legendary artist like no other release. Highlights include such chart-top hits as “The Wanderer,” “Little Diane,” “Love Came to Me,” “Sandy,” “Lonely Teenager,” “Lovers Who Wander” and of course “Abraham, Martin and John.” (Dion is still making credible music today as the solid new blues album titled Tank Full of Blues attests.)

Improbably hailing from the dry, church-dominated town of Zion, Ill. on the banks of Lake Michigan, Shoes were formed, like a lot of rock bands, by three kids who were just looking for something to do. The difference? Very few bands — none actually come to mind — write and perform perfectly crafted power pop songs for 35 years and counting. Indeed, Gary Klebe and brothers John and Jeff Murphy reign as deans of the entire power pop scene. And now, concurrent with the release of Ignition, their first new studio album in 18 years, and Boys Don’t Lie: A History of Shoes, a behind-the-scenes biography detailing their odyssey through the musical industry, Shoes and Real Gone Music have teamed to release the first-ever career-spanning retrospective of the band. 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection includes 21 tracks chosen by Shoes from the eight studio albums that saw an official release, starting with the DIY masterpiece of 1977, Black Vinyl Shoes, through the three albums (Present Tense, Tongue Twister and Boomerang) released on Elektra, the three albums (Silhouette, Stolen Wishes and Propeller) the band self-released in the ’80s and ’90s, and culminating in a newly-released track, “Say It Like You Mean It,” from Ignition.  Included are classic Shoe-tunes like “Tomorrow Night,” “Too Late,” “She Satisfies,” “In My Arms Again” and “Feel the Way That I Do.” The liner notes by Stephen "Spaz" Schnee feature fresh, exclusive interviews with the band and pictures from their private archives. Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to Shoes’ sublime power pop pleasures, 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012 is essential.

Straight from the crypts, er, vaults of Cameo-Parkway comes this fiendish find, a gruesome twosome of vintage albums, Monster Mash/Scary Tales, from the Cool Ghoul himself, the original TV horror host, Zacherle. The first of these albums hit #44 on the charts, as it boasts Zach’s Top Ten hit “Dinner with Drac” (plus, as one of four bonus tracks, its flipside, “Dinner with Drac Pt. 2”). His sleeve notes alone are worth the price of admission — and these albums come to you in original “moan-o.” None other than Zach acolyte (Zacholyte?) John Sebastian chips in with new notes, too. The albums are back in print in America following a long absence, just in time for Halloween.

The Romance album, David Cassidy’s first and only for Arista, was withheld from the American market upon its original release in 1985. Which, one suspects, may have sparked some second guessing in the label’s corporate suites after it scored a Top 10 hit in the U.K. with “The Last Kiss,” which featured George Michael on vocals. “She Knows All About Boys” was a European smash as well, while the album itself went to #20 on the British charts. Romance is also notable for being the only ’80s release from the former Partridge Family teen idol, and for the production and songwriting work of Alan Tarney (a-ha, Squeeze, Leo Sayer, Matthew Sweet). Nevertheless, this reissue marks the first time Romance has been released in any form in the U.S. Mike Ragogna’s liner notes place this long-lost recording in context of Cassidy’s one-of-a-kind career.

“Dick” was Dick Latvala, the official tape archivist for the Grateful Dead until 1999, whose inspiration and encyclopedic knowledge of the band’s vaults spawned the fabled Dick’s Picks series of live Dead concert recordings. The 36-volume Dick’s Picks follows the band on its long, strange trip through a multitude of eras, tours and venues, featuring handpicked shows that display the band at its visionary, improvisational height. Dick’s Picks Vol. 27—Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA 12/16/92 is the only Dick’s Picks volume to feature the final Dead line-up, with Vince Welnick assuming all keyboard duties after the departure of Bruce Hornsby, and, fittingly enough, it provides quite the showcase for the ex-Tubes keyboardist’s vocal chops on the unexpected covers of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Those are two of the four bonus songs taken from the next night’s show at the same venue; the rest of this 3-CD set presents the complete 12/16/92 Oakland show, which offers among its treasures a rare (albeit abbreviated), ‘90s reading of “Dark Star,” a great, Pigpen-tribute rendition of “Good Lovin’,” Bob Weir’s reading of Willie Dixon’s “The Same Thing” and a marvelously exploratory “Playing in the Band/Drums/Space” segment. The set preserves one of the best ’90s Dead shows, presented in HDCD sound, previously unavailable in stores.

You can pre-order all titles below!

Due from Real Gone Music on October 2

David Cassidy, Romance (1985 – reissued 2012)

Dion, The Complete Laurie Singles (2012)

Grateful Dead, Dick’s Picks Vol. 27—Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA 12/16/92 (2002 – reissued 2012)

Shoes, 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection (2012)

Zacherle, Monster Mash/Scary Tales (1962/1963 – reissued 2012)