Hey--this time of year, airplay for "Monster Mash" goes way up. Next time you hear it, think of your forum pal: I'm playing all the instruments and singing the harmonies (the lead vocalist is Bobby "Boris" Pickett). It's one of the few things I've produced/engineered/played on that gets regular national airlplay.

Get the hell outta here!

Totally cool!

Excellent!

Yikes I still have a 45 of that somewhere in the basement.....so what happened to Mr. Pickett ????

... and what kind of pedals did you use on that cut ?

that's totally cool! i teach that to my k-3 kids every halloween along with Purple People Eater. great stuff.

my favorite line... the cryptical five

so, who wrote the lyrics?

Wow that is too cool.When I was a kid this was my anthem.I would drive my mom crazy playing this over and over.That song is as much Holloween as pumpkins and trick or treatin'

I not worthy

http://www.themonstermash.com/

I totally forgot about that song!! WOW, NOW it feels like Halloween...

Pretty neat! I'd put that in the same category as Williebudda playing guitar on those Quizno's commercials from several months ago. You guys remember those, with the "Spongmonkeys" singing We Love The Subs? Monster Mash, that goes back quite a few years if I'm not mistaken.

Goose - what's your name?

Are you super session man Leon Russell?

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Originally posted by SouthPhoenixDave:
Pretty neat! I'd put that in the same category as Williebudda playing guitar on those Quizno's commercials from several months ago. You guys remember those, with the "Spongmonkeys" singing We Love The Subs? Monster Mash, that goes back quite a few years if I'm not mistaken.

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Is that why Willie had them as his avatar for awhile??!! That's pretty cool. I never heard about that! Is it true, or am I just gullible?

Head

No fuggin way!

That's awesome... screw Eric Clapton, the 'Goose' is my new hero. What a great song.

Yeah, it's true that Willie played on those commercials. The original Spongmonkey stuff can be found on this site. http://www.rathergood.com/ It's done by some British guys. Willie may want to chime in on some of the details, but he & a friend did the commercials for Quizno's.

There are a few interesting facts about Willie. First, he is a Marshal. Not like the amp, more like the Earp. He's the Marshal of Statesboro GA. What a cool job title, especially for a Blues fanatic. Also, not too long ago he purchased a 4x12" cabinet that used to belong to Ted Nugent, & has Ted's name stenciled on it. Also, Willie is one of a very small group of Soiled Dove owners. I have the original & one with a tone knob. My nephew has one with a tone switch. DonneR & Willie have the other two, both with tone knobs. I don't have much time to build them so that's all I've made so far. Back to Willie, he's wacky, he's ultra conservative & he has a great face for radio. I say this with obvious fondness.

Mongoose, would you be the Lenny Capizzi mentioned on the website listed above?

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Originally posted by John_M:
Goose - what's your name?

Are you super session man Leon Russell?

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Nah. I'm nowhere near that good-looking.

My name is Dave Starns--I'm an English Professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. But all through the 80's, I worked as an engineer/producer/director in Los Angeles (I'm in retirement now--I play music for a living and teach college for a hobby).

The original "Monster Mash" came out when I was two, so Willie, your old 45 won't have me on it. But the version they play on the radio nowadays is me, because it's the only version on CD.

Around '86 or so, I was a staff producer/video director for Rhino Records (some of you might remember my band on Rhino, Big Daddy). I was producing an album for Elvira (yes, that Elvira) called "Elivira's Haunted Hits." It was a compilation of all the great Halloween songs with spoken banter by Elvira between the tracks (her real name is Cassandra Peterson--she has short, red hair, small breasts and a really good wonderbra).

Anyway, they wanted to include "Monster Mash," but the only copies of the master they could find were on vinyl, and Rhino didn't want to remaster a snap-crackle-pop 45.

So they had me start from scratch, duplicating it. I approached it like a 50's record: one mic on the drums, bass mic'd 6 feet away, playing through an original Bassman, etc. I didn't use any pedals at all--it was either my '68 tele or my mid-70's strat, through a blackface twin. My girlfriend sang one of the background harmonies with me ("He played the Mash...").

When I had the track down, we brought in Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who at that time, was driving a truck. He was a nice guy, but I couldn't shake the knowledge that his life had peaked when he was 20 (maybe he was just a little depressed out of nostalgia, standing in a studio, singing the tune again).

The only tricky part of the recording was the sound FX at the beginning: the bubbles, the creaking coffin-lid, and the chains. I had snow chains in the trunk of my car, so I used those. I was drinking a Coke Icee, which became the bubbles (I blew through the straw--mic'd with a u87, of course, though I've read that Bob Clearmountain prefers ribbon mics for recording frozen beverages). I had some sound FX records with creaky doors on them, but none of them sounded like the record. Remember: my job was to duplicate it as closely as I could. I was sitting behind the board, trying to decide what to do, and I leaned back in my chair, making this ridiculous creak. "Eureka!" So the coffin lid was my engineer's chair.

I compressed the crap out of the mix (nothin' fancy, just a dbx 160).

I also used the same tracks for a Sears Halloween shop commercial--Sears provided the lyrics, and Pickett sang them at the same session.

When the thing came out, the folks who owned the master threatened to sue Rhino--they thought we'd stolen their version.

It's a cool Halloween album (it's also got the Purple People Eater and some other great songs); I did the same thing on that album with the "Theme from the Blob," though we didn't bring in the original vocalist--they didn't know who it was! So that one's just me and Jim Reeves, the sax player from Big Daddy, appearing as "The Five Blobs."

As far as I know, that CD is the only CD version of "Monster Mash" in circulation, unless Rhino (who has owned the license since just before CD's became popular) has released it on another complilation, in which case it would still be the same version.

I did the "duplicate an oldie" thing several times while I worked for Rhino. My favorite was the re-do of the original "Louie Louie" with Richard Berry, the guy that wrote it.

Now, if only I got royalties....

Here's the info I found:

"Bobby (Boris) Pickett (The Original Monster Monster Mash - Garpax): Lennie Capizzi lifted himself out of Somerville and put himself an the world's turntables with a mashed potato cum ghoul song. Produced by Gary Paxton of "Alley Oop" and "Cherry Pie" fame."

So Mongoose, you must be either Lennie, or Gary right?! Are you amazed that we all want to know who you are!!!

Head

After I posted that, I went over to Amazon and checked; sure enough, Rhino has released the track on a whole bunch of compilations now. Leave it to those guys to milk a license for all it's worth!

If you're curious about the Richard Berry "Louie Louie", here's the amazon link where you can hear an exerpt:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000032IJ/qid=1098480161/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/102-7465513-7596131?v=glance&s=music

That's me and three guys from Big Daddy, along with Berry. On that same (really goofy) album, we also did a horrible David Bowiesque version of LL under the name "Les Dantz & His Orchestra."

That's an AMAZING story...hahaha....I wonder if you could get an mp3 rip of the vinyl to stack up against your newer version Dave...

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though I've read that Bob Clearmountain prefers ribbon mics for recording frozen beverages

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Also that made me laugh out loud haha...

great story brother and perfect timing

wow man. it's crazy that i'm on a forum with people that have done really significant things musically. kinda makes me feel really small. i'm in a young, 4 piece garage rock band and have not done anything as cool as most of you guys. that is so cool. it's kind of inspiring, and very humbling, but in a good way. i only hope to be able to something even slightly significant like that at least once. too cool.

Great story, Dr. Eyeball!