NEW! Ghosts Of The Virgin Suicides - Podcast Part 2 "Happy Haunting Ground"

The Lisbon girls were 13, Cecilia, 14, Lux, 15, Bonnie, 16, Mary, and 17, Therese. This is the second installment of our ongoing Ghosts Of The Virgin Suicides series of podcasts. "Happy Haunting Ground" tells a different story. All songs here have a central focus on the original main theme song from the movie, "Playground Love" by Air with vocals by Gordon Tracks, better known as Thomas Mars, lead singer of Phoenix. Unlike our first in the series, this isn't so much a ghostly reminder of the original, but more a story of "...what the girls listened to", while still retaining the "Playground Love" theme just below its' surface. The songs, like the girls, are different in attitude and style, hopefully reflecting their different personalities. The ghosts of the Lisbon girls make their presence known once again for another haunting collection of songs. We hope you will like this! Download the entire podcast featuring Go-yo, Broken Bells, Sacred Animals, Joy Zipper, The Swerve and several other bands and hard-to-find tracks below.

- Michael Fierce

Download Happy Haunting Ground Podcast From iTunes

Download Happy Haunting Ground Directly From Our Server

Electronic / Shoegaze / Chillwave Gem - PALLERS "The Sea Of Memories" (2011)

Pallers are Henrik Mårtensson and Johan Angergård from Sweden, on Labrador. Both have worked together under Johan's previous moniker, The Legends. However, while their previous work was notable and had memorable moments, when they officially became a full-fledged band as Pallers, their new band added elements and a production sound that enhanced everything they do to a higher level. This is their debut album. For me, from beginning to end, this is a mesmerizing, emotionally complex, original, instant classic.  Well, I should say, with the exception of #9, "Wicked", every song is incredible. "Wicked", isn't a bad song, just abruptly too upbeat, and being the one song sung by a girl, feels out of place. The album is a mixture of warm and cold. Like snow-covered fields on a sunny day. Like hot blood running through you as you make your way under a cold, grey sky. Like a warm night with an unexpected eclipse of the moon breaking through the clouds above. Together, Johan's voice and heart-breaking lyrics, are a thing of beauty. The Pallers music is sometimes subtle and sometimes epic but not with any of the usual forced epicness many bands seem to be at fault for. It has elements of synthpop, chillwave, shoegaze, electro pop and electronica but is seamless in it's weave of perfection. Standout tracks are "Come Rain, Come Sunshine", "Years Go, Days Pass", "The Kiss", "Wired" and my favorite, the closing song, "Nights". If you haven't heard this yet you are really missing out. This is our first recommendation in a wave of albums, and EP's I will be reviewing in our new feature, spotlighting "gems" and "diamonds in the rough" you need to know about and might have missed out on dating from 1997 to the present. Pallers, "Sea Of Memories" is my highest recommendation of 2011!!!

- Michael Fierce

Michael Fierce's "Halloween Food For Thought - Huge Implausibility in Halloween? Or Not?"

For those of you that are huge Halloween, Michael Myers fans, I noticed something that needed further discussion.

Michael Myers was locked up in an asylum after killing his sister, Judith, when he was just 6 years old in the year 1963. He escaped 15 years later in 1978 just as his psychiatric doctor, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) arrives with an assistant in his car to the Smith's Grove Sanitarium. While Dr. Loomis is checking out the unusualness of patients roaming about in the rain and the driveway gate being left open, his suspicions immediately jump to the conclusion that Michael Myers has somehow escaped. He knows it is the night before Halloween, when Michael not only became a murderer, but when he was locked up, hopefully forever. But it was not to be so. "The Shape", as Michael Myers was known then, attacks Dr. Loomis' assistant, still in the car, who jumps out, leaving Michael Myers to escape away in the car to terrorize the town of Haddonfield on Halloween once again.

So how did Michael Myers, who has been carefully supervised and locked up in an asylum since he was 6 learn how to drive? Is this a huge and terrible implausibility made by writer / director, John Carpenter, and screenplay writer, Debra Hill? Or is it that someone at the asylum gave Michael driving lessons as Dr. Loomis cynically suggests? Well. I don't think so. Research has determined that the Smith's Grove Sanitarium had a pretty big budget, being able to afford a nearly world-renowned Dr. Sam Loomis, who regularly meets and evaluates the condition and progress of a murdering child in a seemingly well-off community. It is no stretch whatsoever during the 70’s for the sanitarium to have been able to afford many luxuries during the more financially prosperous generation of baby boomers, in what is now considered to be the "golden age of the working class.” Arcade games were very popular then and it would not be uncommon to find one at a pool hall, pizza parlor, skating rink, bowling alley, and yes, even occasionally at a hospital, or in this case, sanitarium. I have even determined exactly what arcade game Michael Myers played, learned, and practiced his skills as a driver, based on its' year of release, popularity (it was voted one of "The Ten Greatest Arcade Games of the 1970's”) and the nature, and object of it's goal, stated here in this description:



Death Race
Released: 1976
Genre: Combat
Platform: Arcade
Developer: Exidy
Designer: Howell Ivy
Sequels: Death Race 98, Super Death Chase
Inspired by the 1975 cult film Death Race 2000 (starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone) Death Race featured a steering wheel and an acceleration pedal. The nature of the game - running down "gremlins" that resembled stick people - and the working title, Pedestrian, touched off a media avalanche of controversy.

Maybe this idea should be explored further, maybe even in a short film context? Who knows? Well....not most of the Smith's Grove Sanitarium staff, anyway. Most of them are gone. Maybe only Michael Myers knows for sure. Halloween food for thought.

- Michael Fierce


Check out my podcast that Mikael Johnston and I compiled especially for Halloween.

And for those of you who don't use iTunes you can download our podcast episode here.