June 5, 2008
The Monster Mash: A Song for
All Seasons.
By Jerry Murphy
I started Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs in the midst
of late 60’s pyschedelia while baying at the Moraga
moon pining for the simple songs of simpler times. To me
the music and the times are indistinguishable, and indeed
they are, however, as I got older I realized that neither
the music nor the times were that simple.
So about a week ago in late May, 2008, while sitting at
home changing the strings on my guitar, the sound track
to the Cuban Missile crisis came over the XM Radio air waves
and filled my house with the sound of bubbles and chains
and a coffin opening, and I paused to recall that terrifying
nuclear stand off and . . . the Monster Mash? In late May?
The October 1962 #1 smash by Bobby Boris Pickett and the
Crypt Kickers, was the hit of the land during the 13 day
stand down between the Kennedys and their Ruskie counterparts,
when school kids across America practiced hiding under their
desks bracing for the moment the thermonuclear Bomb hit
. . . Fresno, in my case (looking back I think we were pretty
safe).
Well, JFK kicked Khrushchev’s fat commie ass and
the world was safe for the upcoming Our Lady of Victory
annual Halloween bonfire hop where the shadows of ghouls
danced above the licking flames while adolescent hobos preened
for admiring young lady witches. Since then, the Mash has
been played so frequently in the weeks preceding All Hallows
Eve that one doesn’t hear it as a great record; it
is so ubiquitous, you don’t hear it at all -- you
hear the chains and the bubbles and hit the dial before
the coffin opens.
But hearing it out of season last week caught me off guard
and caught my ear, and I stopped what I was doing and fell
in love with the Monster Mash all over again. I realized
I love that record. First, it is a funny poem narrated by
a mad scientist, which even today remains a well crafted
lyric tying together the cinematic wax museum characters
into a three verse mission – to create a dance that
becomes the hit of the land that gets the body on the slab
off his back and dancing at a party attended by all of the
famous monsters, all set to the beat of the then current
dance craze, the Mashed Potatoes. Next, the sound effects:
a nail wrenched from a board to sound like a coffin opening,
live bubbles blown into glass near a microphone to get the
cauldron boiling effect – no budget whatsoever; and,
of course the impersonation of horror actor Bela Lugosi
as Dracula who observes the scene and asks at the end of
the bridge "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?"
The Crypt kickers’ answer: “It’s now the
Mash”.
Yeah, the Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi imitations are
as irreverent to the then established Hollywood royalty
as they are accurate, but listen to the rock solid rhythm
section drums, bass, rhythm guitar and particularly the
piano), listen to the backing Cameo Parkway style vocals
chime “tennis shoe wah –ooh”, listen to
the tight around the horn drum roll at the end of the bridge
. . . this record contains every top 40 device used on hit
records on the charts when it was cut. In fact, these guys
are great musicians dumbing down to a teenage pop session
for union scale (what? 500.00 bucks for three hours work
maybe) with no clue their work would be granted eternal
life, played forever more, and reviewed today 45 years later.
So I began to wonder, who are those masked men? So with
some thanks to Wikipedia, let’s start with the mad
Professor:
– Bobby “Boris Pickett”. Pickett was
an aspiring actor who sang with a band called The Cordials
at night while going to auditions during the day. One
night, while performing with his band, Pickett did a monologue
in imitation of horror movie actor Boris Karloff while
performing The Diamonds' "Little Darlin'". The
audience loved it and fellow band member, co-writer Lenny
Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the Karloff
imitation.
Pickett and Capizzi composed "Monster Mash"
and recorded it in time for the 1962 Halloween release
with Gary Paxton (Creator of the Hollywood Argyles’
Alley Oop), Leon Russell, Johnny McCrae, Rickie Page and
Terry Berg, credited as "The Cryptkickers".
This song was partially inspired by Paxton's earlier novelty
hit "Alley Oop", as well as by the Mashed Potato
Time by Dee Dee Sharp, on Cameo Parkway records (home
of Chubby Checker, the Orlons, Bobby Rydell, the Dovells
and others). As for the spoofed actors, they loved it.
In fact, Boris Karloff performed
it himself on Shindig in 1965.
Pickett and Company weren’t through with their
cast of holiday monsters. Next up was "Monsters'
Holiday", a Christmas -themed follow up, recorded
by Pickett and released in December 1962, peaking at #30
on the Billboard chart.
The Monster Mash has been used in the media on countless
occasions, including most recently by none other than Bob
Dylan, a fan of the song who played it on the Halloween
2006 edition of his Theme Time Radio Hour program on XM
Satellite Radio.
So there you are, music from the cold war, alive today on
XM Radio and here on the Glass Pack website. Monster
Mash is a song for all seasons best heard when you are
least expecting it.
# # #
P.S. Fellow Glass Pack Gary Murphy reminds us that another
member of the Cryptkickers back-up ensemble was David Gates
("If", "Make it With You," and "Goodbye
Girl theme"etc.) who played some of the opening
sound effects on "Monster Mash." It was one of
his first jobs after moving to LA from Texas. Here's a medley
of some of David's
hits. |
