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Real Gone Music Announces Halloween Lineup, Including First Reissue of Cartoon Cult Classic "Groovie Goolies"

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OST GroovieGoolies

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Time may feel like it's at a standstill, but Halloween is just around the corner.  To celebrate, Real Gone Music will release a host of spooky-scary releases on October 2, including the first-ever CD and LP reissue of Groovie Goolies.

The 1970 power pop album was the soundtrack to the popular CBS-TV music-themed Saturday morning cartoon show produced by Filmation.  Each episode included two original songs: one from The Monster Trio (Drac, Frankie, and Wolfie - see the album cover!) and one from a rotating group of "bands" such as The Rolling Headstones, The Mummies and The Puppies, The Bare Bones Band, and The Spirits of '76.  In reality, these songs were performed by members of the surf-rock group The Challengers, as well as legendary session musicians like Larry Carlton and Ronnie Tutt.

For the first-ever reissue of this monstrously good LP, Real Gone Music will press the album up on a special "Franken-Green" color variant, limited to only 500 copies.  A pumpkin orange-hued edition will also be available exclusively at independent music shops.  This edition is also limited to just 500 copies.  The CD configuration will feature liner notes by Bill Kopp  based on an interview with The Challengers' Dick Monda.

You can order the special, 50th anniversary editions from the following links:

"Franken-Green" LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop

But the Groovie Goolies soundtrack isn't the only release that Real Gone Music has planned for October 2.  Here's what the label has to say about the rest of its Halloween lineup which includes numerous re-pressings of sold-out vinyl titles.  All descriptions have been provided by our friends at RGM!

45 Grave Sleep In Safety

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45 Grave - Sleep in Safety (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

Formed from putrefying remnants of The Germs, The Consumers, The Bags, The Gun Club, and The Screamers among other L.A. punk outfits, 45 Grave were arguably the first American Goth/deathrock band and inarguably one of the best. Fronted by the Exene-meets-Barbarella vocal and visual stylings of Dinah Cancer (still one of the greatest stage names in a punk rock genre full of 'em), 45 Grave also featured Paul B. Cutler on guitar, Don Bolles on drums, Rob (Ritter) Graves on bass, and Paul Roessler on keyboards, and from that all-star line-up came 1983's Sleep in Safety, their lone studio release and only recording with the band's original members. Probably most famous for the first appearance of the horrifyingly graphic, true-crime track 'Partytime,' the single version of which was subsequently cut in 1985 and featured on The Return of the Living Dead soundtrack, Sleep in Safety also offered the early MTV track 'Evil' and the band 'theme song' '45 Grave' among other blandishments for those who like their rock and roll with a side of the macabre. For our Real Gone Music exhumation of this classic record, we have 'embalmed' a very special edition, preserving the original album's gatefold edition complete with lyrics and adding a custom inner sleeve drawn from the band's very rare 'A Tale of Strange Phenomena' press release.  limited edition of 450 in green & black marble vinyl! Folks have been dying for this one!
Return of the Living Dead

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Return of the Living Dead OST (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

There are zombies...and then there are brain-eating zombies! And Return of the Living Dead was the film where brain-eating zombies got their first lease on, er, life. Co-written by John Russo, who was George Romero's writing partner on Night of the Living Dead, this 1985 quasi-sequel introduced more 'splatstick' humor to the horror formula as well as the indelible image of ghouls groaning 'Braainsss' as they shuffle along. All set to a KILLER score featuring the greatest punk and death rock bands of the era, including The Cramps, 45 Grave, The Flesh Eaters, The Damned, Roky Erickson, The Jet Black Berries, T.S.O.L. and SSQ. This vinyl reissue of this classic soundtrack is just so Real Gone: limited edition clear with blood red splatter vinyl! Braainsss!
Cujo

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Cujo OST (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

Ah, life in the country...such bucolic bliss. Until your neighbor's dog contracts rabies, kills its owner, and then comes after you! With such emotional extremes, Cujo was not an easy movie to score, but when Stephen King's classic novel came to the screen in 1983 starring Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh-Kelly with Lewis Teague directing, composer/conductor Charles Bernstein (A Nightmare on Elm Street) proved mightily up to the task. In addition to employing harsh synthesizer effects and dissonant orchestral layers leading up to the climactic showdown between Mom and beast, Bernstein also penned a tender theme expressing the gentle joys of family life. Unfortunately, post production woes mixed up some cues and caused the score to be abbreviated in the film; Intrada's recent CD release presented Bernstein's work for the first time as it was originally recorded, and that's where the 18 tracks on this vinyl release come from, with new (and terrifying) cover art. The 'Pinto Yellow with Blood Red Splatter' vinyl edition commemorates a particularly horrifying scene.  It's limited to just 400 copies!

Zacherle Monster Gallery

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Zacherle's Monster Gallery (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

Fittingly enough, The Cool Ghoul himself, John Zacherle, passed away right around Halloween in 2016, and now we here at Real Gone Music are celebrating his 'deathday' by releasing his incredibly rare album Zacherle's Monster Gallery, originally issued on the budget Elektra imprint Crestview, on clear with pumpkin splatter vinyl limited to 500 copies! This record was originally released in 1963, and was actually a copy of the 1960 Elektra album Spook Along with Zacherley, except for one very important detail: the cover art to the Crestview release was inked by legendary Mad artist Jack Davis, who actually passed away in 2016 as well. Which probably explains why original copies of this record are selling for about $150 if you can find them.  So consider this release a twin tribute to two guys who brought a big smile to millions of kids, especially those on the East Coast that used to see Zach present all those cheesy horror movies on TV. R.I.P., Zach and Jack!
Demon Knight OST

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Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

Wanna hear the soundtrack to Armageddon? This 1995 film starred William Sadler as the Demon Knight, who, along with his new recruit, Jada Pinkett Smith, is charged with fending off The Collector (Billy Zane) and his army of demons from acquiring an ancient relic that is the only thing preventing the complete destruction of the human race. While the flick did meh box office and was panned critically, the soundtrack was easily one of the best of its era and of its kind, an all-star line-up of thrash and heavy metal acts mostly doing otherwise unavailable material (only the track by Pantera appears to have been released priorlto the movie). The Pantera, Megadeth, Melvins, and Biohazard entries are particularly good, and the one hip hop tune on the collection, Gravediggaz' '1-800-Murder,' is an archetypal 'horrorcore' rap song. But perhaps the best tune is 'Hey Man Nice Shot' by Filter, an outfit that hadn't released anything prior to this soundtrack. Since this movie came out in 1995, it only came out on LP in Europe at the time; our Real Gone reissue brings it back on green 'Demon Eye' vinyl limited to 400 copies!
The Munsters

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The Munsters - The Munsters (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

Did you know Herman, Grandpa, Lily, Marilyn and Eddie Munster doubled as a rock and roll band?! Well, despite the subhead on the album proclaiming them as 'The Newest Teen-Age Singing Group,' they didn't.  But that didn't stop the label execs at Decca Records from trying to cash in on the new CBS hit TV show! Veteran producers Joe Hooven and Hal Winn had the good sense to hire the Wrecking Crew (most notably Glen Campbell and Leon Russell) to play this surf-tinged set of songs, and brought in The Go-Go's (nope, not those Go-Go's, they were just out of diapers - this was a male vocal trio that cut one LP for RCA back in 1964, the same year this record came out) to sing the lyrics to such gems as 'You Created a Monster' and 'Make It Go Away.' The whole thing is a hoot, and a highly collectible hoot at that!  Original copies of this album command 'monstrous' sums.  Aaron Kannowski remastered our reissue, and we've pressed up a limited edition in pumpkin orange with black splatter vinyl.  Get ready to do the Munster creep this Halloween and beyond!
Coven WitchcraftDestroysMindsandReapsSouls

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Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Your Local Record Shop)

We've reissued a lot of 'cult' albums at Real Gone Music. But of all the releases we've put out, this is the cult-iest of them all. That's because it's actually an occult album, the first record to bring Satanic themes to rock music. The upside down crosses, the 'devil's horns' hand's signs that are commonplace with metal bands both past and present...they all started here. Coven even had a bassist named Oz Osborne and the first track on the album was entitled 'Black Sabbath,' for, er, heaven's sake! So there's no question that this 1969 album dealt with the devil first. While subsequent bands exploited demonic imagery and occult themes for commercial success and sensationalism, Coven were true (un)believers. Thus, the last track on the album, 'Satanic Mass,' is a full Black Mass, while the double-gatefold album jacket (which we have faithfully reproduced) not only displays a picture of Coven's lead vocalist, Jinx Dawson, splayed naked across a ritualistic altar surrounded by hooded members of the band and its associates, but also includes the full text of a Black Mass along with lyrics to the unabashedly Satan-worshipping songs. In the end, Witchcraft was a little too far ahead of its time; coming out in 1969, at the height of hysteria about Satanism whipped up by the Manson Family murders, the album generated a firestorm of reaction, which turned into an inferno when Manson himself was photographed holding a copy of the record. The album was recalled, Dunwich withdrew support, and the band bounced around a couple of other labels before going on hiatus in 1976. But Coven remains a crucial, if underrecognized, influence on hard rock and heavy metal. Now, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls is reincarnated with full artwork intact and a limited fire (orange) and brimstone (pale blue) vinyl pressing. Whether approached as a cultural artifact, a totemic fetish, a camp classic, or just really cool music, it will cast a spell on you.
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Sam Stone

Sam Stone has been obsessed with catalog music ever since his folks gave him a Contours best-of collection for his fourth birthday. He quickly began to learn all he could about rock and roll history and beyond, a passion that continues to this day. Sam followed his love for music to the classroom, earning a B.A. from Towson University in Electronic Media and Film, concentrating on radio and audio production, as well as an M.A. in Audio Arts from Syracuse University. He has put his knowledge and skills to work at prominent reissue labels and is excited to bring his perspectives on catalog music to a broader audience. When he’s not writing for The Second Disc, Sam can be found researching about music, talking about Joni Mitchell’s career, and adding another box set to his Amazon wish list.

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Comments

  1. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that Dick Monda was also "Daddy Dewdrop" who had a hit with the song "Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)", which was featured on the Sabrina & the Groovie Ghoulies TV show. I'm also pretty sure the group Coven was the same band that did a version of "One Tin Soldier", used in the movie "Billy Jack". There were two versions of the song out, one from the movie, one was a cover. Not sure which one was theirs.

    Reply

    • Actually, I believe the Coven recording of One Tin Soldier was both a cover and the movie version at the same time. It was not an original song as it had been recorded and released in 1969-70 by a Canadian band. Coven also recorded a more rocking version of the song for the MGM label in 1973. I wish Real Gone would reissue their MGM album on CD.

      Reply

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