.... what bloody awful music they make.
Apologies in advance. You've
The Book Of Lists: Horror to blame for this ....
Type O Negative - Suspended In Dusk: Spoilt for choice with sadly missed Pete Steele's incendiary beat combo.
Black #1 is a twisted love song to a predatory Goth chick,
Bloody Kisses is sad, sad, sad,
Suspended In Dust, a beautiful ugly dirge. "I am forced to dwell in grey Autumnal twilight/ I am suspended in dusk ... Father, please forgive him, For he knows not what to do ..." Take your pick, they're all class.
Birthday Party - Release The Bats: The original 4AD single is pop smash gold, but check also the ritual trashing they afford it on the live
It's Still Living semi-bootleg. "This is the song you love the most and we hate the most ....."
Lee Harvey Oswald Band - Vampires: Runaway train of a non-riff, lyrics unintelligible but for the storming "I'm just gettin' wasted with the vampires" refrain.
Slaughter and the Dogs - Victims of the Vampire: Special effects, this was your finest hour! Wayne Barrett would introduce this glam-punk classic by swirling his cloak, bursting a bag of flour over himself, run around shrieking and cackling in the "mist".
"One of you victim's are gonna be dead!" Radiorama - Vampires: Absolutely brill 80's italian Synth Disco pop!
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead: Glam rock for the morose and it still sounds like the most fun you can have without actually being dead.
Lestat - Passing: Criminally under-rated, sample-heavy industrial-goth gloomsters. I was gonna go with
Dark Trick but
Passing wins out as for once we get to hear a vampire hunter's perspective. Could be that the dialogue is ripped from a movie but I've no idea which one.
Peter Hammill - Energy Vampires: "This guy says he wrote all my songs/ This girl says she's having my baby/ Me, I don't know them from Adam & Eve/ sometimes I really believe I'm going crazy/ Excuse me while I suck your blood/ excuse me when I phone you/ I've got every one of your records, man/ doesn't that mean that I own you?" So upset a sizeable proportion of his fan base that the dark prince of Gothic gloom used a page in the
World Record tour programme to reassure it was only the soul-draining psychic sponges he had in his sites. Another of his vampire episodes, Van Der Graaf Generator's
When She Comes, is also recommended listening.
Xmal Deutschland – Incubus Succubus II: Arguably the Hamburg-based Goth Goddesses' finest five minutes. No idea what Anja's singing about, but chances are we'd not be far off the mark in including it.
Rocket From The Crypt - I Drink Blood: The direct approach. Not quite up there with the mighty
On A Rope, but teddy boys on Dexys and the Clash make for an exciting din. "Ahhhhhh!!!! Whoo! Man. Oh. I drink blood on a Halloween/ yeah what I need/ It make me feel alive", etc.
The Meteors - My Daddy Is A Vampire: "My mother is a mummy and she needs plasma too ...." Psychobilly kid realises his family
aren't like other families. And he's complaining?
Nerf Herder - Theme From Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Whether by accident or design doesn't matter. This short, sharp, punk pop thrash is perfect for the job at hand.
Nosferatu - Vampires Cry: "Most people have a miserable time of it. They get depressed often and try to put on a brave front. We say forget that. Enjoy the depression. Feast on the emotional turmoil." For all Louis DeWray's unhappy-go-lucky demeanour, Nosferatu never sound quite miserable enough to these ears - not singling them out: Goth bands don't as a rule - and the overwrought
Vampyres Cry is typically too jolly by half.
Meco - Love Me, Dracula: Perhaps the apex of jaunty, infuriatingly catchy Euro-disco.
The Legendary Pink Dots - Casting The Runes: MRJ fans needn't trouble themselves unduly. Not a slide projector or demon in sight, just the beautiful Madeleine, doomed to an eternity of solitude because she's a vampire or goth or both.
The Inca Babies - Big Jugular: You've got one, they want it, and they've recorded an all-out sonic attack in best Birthday Party cod swampland blues tradition to prove it.
Theatres des Vampires - Carmilla: Radiorama, Bruno '
Dracula ChaChaCha' Martino, Sabrina if she'd only shoved a pair of plastic fangs in her mouth - the Italians are brilliant at being vampires and these mean Goth metal muthas, fronted by ice queen Sonja Scarlet, are no exception.
Wire - Feed me: This probably isn't about vampires. Knowing Wire, it probably isn't about anything at all, but Graham Lewis sure has a voracious appetite for something.
"How Fast can you run?The Only Ones - The Beast:
"Out in the street the modern vampire prowls/ He's been spreading disease all around/ It's an epidemic, if you don't believe me/ You oughta take a look at the eyes of your friends..... There's no cure!"Rory Erikson - Night Of The Vampire: The great psychedelic punk warrior got himself as together as his precarious mental health would allow to warn us of impending attack. Later covered - reverentially - by Entombed.
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Trust In Me: The self-penned
We Hunger and
Night Shift qualify, but it's their cover of the snake's song from Disney's
The Jungle Book gives off an authentic vampire vibe.
T. Rex - Jeepster: "I said girl i'm just a vampire for your lu-uh-hu-uv ...." Bit cheeky to include it on the strength of one line when bands like Warfare were knocking out entire concept albums celebrating
Hammer Horror but, strangely, I feel no guilt.
Daisy Chainsaw - Dog With Sharper Teeth: There was a dog in
Zoltan, Hound Of Dracula. Good enough for me.
3D Invisibles - I Wanna Dig Up Bela Lugosi: Creepy Rick sets agenda for bands forthcoming vacation in Hollywood.
The Damned - Plan 9 Channel 7: Vanian's tribute to 'fifties horror hostess Maila Nurmi, the wasp-waisted, designer-shroud modeling star of
Plan 9 From Outer Space. As is ....
Misfits - Vampira. Mini-masterpiece from a band whose entire repertoire was built around similar horror-themed blasts of short duration.
We Bite and
Horror Hotel likewise fit the bill.
Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting: Ms. Napolitano comes to grief down in New Orleans. Best line. "You were a vampire and now I am nothing at all ...."
Girlschool - Love At First Bite: When they weren't busy perpetuating a
Valentine's Day Massacre with Motorhead, the girls found time to bash out a pop metal celebration of vampire luv.
The Cycle Sluts from Hell - Soultaker: Venus Penis-Crusher and the gals escape their S&M dungeon to record .... a soft-metal torch ballad!
Don Hinson & The Rigormorticians - Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood: As enthusiastically covered by 45 Grave. Don and his ghouls were a Boris Pickett derivative
Monster Dance Party act whose songbook includes
Robbin Graves,
Little Ol' Graverobber Me,
The Monster Jerk and
Werewolf Watusi.
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Subs bench. The first four - make that five (snigger) - are from the novelty end of the spectrum. Finnish goth rockers Two Witches also include
Dracula Rising Bites And Bloody Kisses and
Like Christopher Lee - all nine minutes of it - in their repertoire. They're very serious about this stuff. Red Lipstique were a Bollock Brothers disco offshoot.
Night Of The Vampire is a twangy, Joe Meek enhanced instrumental. Meek sacked the bands vocalist, Rod Stewart, to give them a better chance of conquering the charts. When that somehow failed to happen, the scream was promptly recycled to Sutch for
My Big Black Coffin.
Dracula's Tango, and the skyscraper-haired cannibal eaters invent The Saturdays. Dark Theater. Might come back to them, but in the meantime give their
Gypsy Girl a miss if you know what's good for you .....
John Zacherley - Dinner With Drac
Bruno Martino - Dracula ChaChaCha
Allan Sherman - My Son, The Vampire
Screaming Lord Sutch - Dracula's Daughter
Warfare - Prince Of Darkness
Alice Cooper - Fresh Blood
Two Witches - Mircalla
Dark Theater - Undead
Moontreckers - Night Of The Vampire
Toto Coelo - Dracula's Tango
Red Lipstique - Drac's Back
Kings Of The Sun - Vampire
Marilyn Manson - No Reflection
Dreamboys - Bela Lugosi's Birthday.... and three I despise so much it's almost love (but isn't even close).
B. A, Robertson - Sucker For Your Love: Everything on
The Monster Club soundtrack brings me out in hives, but this is worse than even the Viewers' theme song. Saw him live once, pre-hits, supporting VDGG. He introduced himself as "the new wave Pam Ayres." And then, God help me, he went on to prove it.
Sting - Moon Over Bourbon Street: It's Sting. Enough said.
Annie Lennox - Love Song For A Vampire: Don't even go there ....
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