Darkness Falls Across The Land . . .

To make up for my lameness of not doing anything for Halloween this year, I'm gonna reminisce about the good times I had last year. My excuses this year have to do with still feeling sick after a couple weeks and needing desperately to unpack my shit after the recent move. Maybe I'll watch a scary movie later tonight.

So, last year I had a great costume, possibly the best ever. Here I am with my Halloween posse during our pre-party before heading out to the real party in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

I'm the one in the middle, rockin' the mini-turntable (a vestax, in case you're curious). Maybe you need a closer look at the dopeness of my costume. See below:

The turntable was connected to an "amp-can" in my backpack behind me which made a whole lot of noise. At one point I walked on to the dance floor at the party we went to and tried to take over with my mobile DJ costume and I would have had a chance, but Mr. Stationary DJ wasn't having it and tried to drown me out. I would like to think if I was DJing a party and some dude walked on to the dance floor with a costume like mine, I would give him some time to shine . . . Come on, I had a disco ball floating over-head even and a holster full of funk and soul. So I retired to the upstairs and we had our own little party in the living room which I DJed.

I remember one of the "musical" high-points of the night was when I played the monologue from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as spoken by Vincent Price. I remember sitting in silence listening to the monologuge, unaccompanied by any music, and it's truly haunting. It's available on the 2001 "Thriller" resissue. The monologue contains a second verse to Vincent Price's "rap" that went unused:


The demons squeal in sheer delight
It's you they spy, so plump, so right
For although the groove is hard to beat
It's still you stand with frozen feet
You try to run, you try to scream
But no more sun you'll ever see
For evil reached from the crypt
To crush you in it's icy grip

Vincent Price (with a particularly wimpy intro from MJ) doing his "Thriller" Voice-over



The CD also has Rod Temperton, the mastermind behind Heatwave, who wrote the lyrics to "Thriller" talking about how he whipped up the "rap" in the limo on the way to the studio to record with Vincent and Michael.



For the liner-notes readers only, the interview excerpt from Rod Temperton discussing the making of "Thriller"



More from Rod Temperton coming soon . . . don't sleep on Heatwave. 'Til next time . . .