Ghoul House Rock: Monster University Pajama Party

By WALLACE McBRIDE

Once upon a time, Halloween's greatest anthems had an unforgiving, inflexible life cycle. Each year around Oct. 1, the likes of "Monster Mash" and "Purple People Eater" would begin trickling to local radio stations, allowed to run free for a few weeks before being promptly stuffed back into their cages by program managers on Nov. 1. That's the cultural tradition, anyhow.

But something interesting started happening during the 1970s. During one of the scheduled, unsupervised releases, music that was thought to be nothing more than a seasonal holiday began breeding with rock and roll. Thanks to acts such as Alice Cooper, Ramones, The Damned, Blue Oyster Cult, Misfits and The Cramps, "horror rock" began to expand its tentacles outward from October, eventually mutating once-seasonal music into a perennial orgy of the damned. Yay!

Case in point: The Von Hoffman Orchestra's 2010 release, "Monster University Pajama Party." While mainstream acts have created their own distinct monster mashes, the Von Hoffman Orchestra crafted a near-flawless love letter to the kinds of Halloween novelty songs of the 1960s. The "orchestra" is actually the work of artist/writer/musician Mike Hoffman, who also created the cover art. If you visit his website you'll see the guy is supertalented.

There are a number of releases in his "Monster University" series, but "Pajama Party" is easily my favorite. From the slinky seriousness of "Island of Dr. Moreau," to the adorable creepiness of "Icky Feelings," the album isn't so much a pastiche of '60s Halloween  novelties as it is a distillation of them. The album has such an irreverent sweetness to it that it could also double as a children's album, though those children would have to be especially smart to understand its many references.

Speaking of references, "Pajama Party" has not one, but two tracks dedicated to DARK SHADOWS. The first is the chipper "The Ballad of Barnabas Collins," which deals with the problematic nature of our vampire anti-hero and his troubled relationships with Willie Loomis and Julia Hoffman. The second, "Dark Shadows," takes a broader view of the series and reaches the optimistic conclusion that we'll all be watching it "until the sun explodes." Both tunes take jabs at the show's inconsistencies, but it's done with love.

Also among my favorite songs on the album is its closing track, "Alma Mater." This is the literal anthem of Monster University, performed with Hoffman's terrific baritone as he encourages all the young monsters marching into "science, commerce and law" to do their best in life ... even if that "best" might result in a lot of terror for everybody else. The song actually makes me nostalgic for my own college years, which were comparatively boring and monster free.

Even though there's a rich tradition of Halloween-related parodies, those represent the only duds on "Pajama Party." Featured on the album is a somber parody of "California Dreaming," which somehow manages to be even more maudlin that the version by the Mamas and the Papas. It pauses once more to cover Rick Derringer's "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo," re-titled here as "Halloween Hootchie Koo." I tend to skip these tracks when listening to the album, but the rest of the songs are so good that it doesn't really matter.

"Monster U, we love you."

Mike Hoffman and the Pre-Wedding Jitters

I'm getting married in a few weeks. It's not really a coincidence that it's happening near Halloween, which is Christmas for the Horror Kid Nation. There are quite a few family members coming into town for the event and, to make sure they've got something to do besides hang out in their hotel rooms until the big day, we decided to combine some of the rehearsal events with a costume party.

Mike Hoffman gratuitously agreed to create a piece of art for our invitations. The original is above; the final version with my added typography is to the left. I included some fake "movie credits" to the poster design thinking they'd be illegible on the final invitations, but nope ... you can CLEARLY read the credits from the movie ALIEN at the bottom. But that's OK, seeing as how ALIEN is my favorite movie.

Comics, pornography and the long, dark migraine of the eternal soul

Curiously, my review of DARK SHADOWS/VAMPIRELLA #2 got a lot of traffic this week, despite being only three words long. I made the mistake last night of trying to read the most recent issue of this series, but only got as far as the fourth page before I put it down in disgust. It's a horrible, offensive book and reads like the worst kind of fanfic.

There have been some cynical defenses mounted for the book, coming from no less than DARK SHADOWS majordomo Jim Pierson.  "It's fun to further expand the reach of Dark Shadows and hopefully expose the classic characters to new fans who might just be discovering Barnabas with the new Johnny Depp movie," he said in a press release prior to the release of this series. Yes, he's right, in the sense that this book is probably introducing new readers to the DARK SHADOWS name, but they're seeing nothing that resembles any iteration of the television series. Barnabas Collins flies like Superman, casually decapitates enemies with a flick of his wrist and gets into more fistfights than Lawrence Tierney on St. Patrick's Day. Anyone who has their interest piqued by this book is going to be sorely disappointed when they explore the DARK SHADOWS "brand" and discover it has no use for adolescent male power fantasies.

There's also the problem of combining DARK SHADOWS with such a tired, sexist character as VAMPIRELLA. For a television show produced in the 1960s, SHADOWS was shockingly ahead of its time in terms of gender politics, especially when compared to not-as-progressive-as-they-thought-they-were programs like BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE.

SHADOWS is known for its strong female characters and disproportionately large female fanbase, yet someone thought it was a good idea to pair this concept with VAMPIRELLA, the kind of book that looks engineered to keep women out of comic shops. There's a sickness in comics, which have matured a great deal in the last 30 years yet seem intent on clinging to regressive sexual dynamics. If the comicbook industry was a person they'd be required to register as sex offenders, and society has given up on the notion that those kind of people are capable of change.

Yet, there's hope. Not long after posting my "review" of DARK SHADOWS/VAMPIRELLA, artist/writer/musician MIKE HOFFMAN posted a more eloquent essay on his blog about the gross, backward sexuality seen daily in the comics industry. He says:

"Make no mistake, today's comic art is porn, it's just a matter of degree.  Porn relies on objectification, mainly of women, and this effects falls across a wide spectrum."

If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you're probably familiar with Hoffman's work. If not, head over to his website and take a look for yourself. He admits he's catered to the kind of mentality he's complaining about in the past, and he's not calling for anything as stupid as a boycott. Instead, he's asking artists to start taking responsibility for their work, and to recognize that what they do has consequences:

"What I want to begin here is a pledge list for Comic Artists, that they will no longer pander and if necessary die by starvation rather than continue and contribute to this miserable and negative trend.  As I've said I have contributed to it in the past, but enough is enough.  Are you brave enough, and do you have enough faith in your talent to go it alone--without taking the easy way out, demeaning women and yourselves?"

Unfortunately, I'm trapped by circumstance. Because I run a DARK SHADOWS blog I feel it's necessary to continue to buy these books so that I can stay informed about what's going on in the fan community. It's not easy reading these books, and having to fork over $4 an issue is insult to injury. But thems the breaks.

I also don't want to give anyone the impression that I've got a grudge against the comic's publisher, Dynamite Entertainment, because the same day I bought the embarrassing pieces of shit that are DARK SHADOWS/VAMPIRELLA #2 and #3, I also bought the latest issue of their great series, THE SHADOW. The problem of treating female characters like life-support systems for T&A is not unique to that company. It's a problem shared by just about every company that publishes comics, and it's time to retire these tired, destructive values.

I also suspect these sentiments are going to open the door to a lot of complaints from people who don't understand the point we're trying to make, and that I'm in for a lot of Spinal Tap-esque bitching about "What's wrong with being sexy?" I'm not sure if I've got the patience for those types of online arguments anymore, but there's a comments section below ... feel free to press your luck.

The Ballad of Barnabas Collins

Artist/writer/musician Mike Hoffman performs an acoustic version of his song The Ballad of Barnabas Collins, one of two Dark Shadows-themed songs from his album Monster University Pajama Party. There's no evidence that he's related to that "woman doctor" from Wyndcliffe Sanitarium, but he's amassed quite an impressive collection of lunacy over at his website.

I own Monster University Pajama Party and think it's pretty terrific. It's not another lame post-punk ripoff of The Misfits, and instead dips into the well of guys like Zacherle and Bobby "Boris" Pickett. It's a lot of fun, and kind of innocent in its own way.

Dark Shadows by the Von Hoffman Orchestra

Here's a cheap little video I tossed together for the song Dark Shadows by the Von Hoffman Orchestra. It's one of two songs about Dark Shadows featured on the album Monster University Pajama Party, which I heartily recommend. If you decide to give the album a spin you should know this isn't the usual Misfits-style horror punk album. Monster University Pajama Party is a throwback to early '60s novelty performers like Zacherle and Bobby "Boris" Pickett. It's actually quite sweet and innocent in its own way. Check it out!

The Ballad of Barnabas Collins

The Ballad of Barnabas Collins by the Von Hoffman Orchestra, from the album Monster University Pajama Party. The work of artist/writer/musician Mike Hoffman, the album also features the track Dark Shadows.

Hoffman also has a few Dark Shadows-themed prints for sale at his website.
Get the Barnabas Collins print here, and the Julia Hoffman print here.