This is really, really cool.

In anticipation of competing in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship in Washington, D.C. Friday night, The Pitch’s Justin Kendall has written an awesome  coverstory on my past movie/TV/rock exploits and air guitar future.

Click here to read the entire thing (5 pages!) or click here to see a video I made in 1990 that proves I’ve been air guitaring for a long, long time. (It’s really funny and I have some pretty great late 80s/early 90s metal/grunge hair.)

Justin interviewed me several times and came out to watch me practice my routine at my house. He got it seriously right. Then I did a photo shoot with staff photographer Emily Henson that was really fun. The shot of me air guitaring in the produce section while a grocery store employee loads cantaloupe is one of my faves.

Here’s an excerpt from the article and I’ve embedded the video from 1990 below because I have no shame:

From Eric “Mean” Melin is a real musician — but it’s air guitar that might make him a star:

There’s a giant hole in the crotch of Mean Melin’s pants.

Seconds ago, he hoisted an imaginary guitar over and behind his head, strumming the invisible strings to Motorhead’s frantic metal anthem “Ace of Spades.” Then he dropped to his knees — and this became a bust-out performance.

He’s the last one onstage at the Kansas City regional air guitar finals June 9 at the Record Bar. He’s tonight’s favorite, although he faces stiff competition from Hammerin’ Cock And Thunderin’ Ballz, Longbottom Leaf, Banana Man, Dirk Tickler and Satanica.

And he’s already banged up. He bruised his foot practicing and could barely walk last night, but now adrenaline, tape and a few beers have numbed the pain. He keeps playing despite the rip in his pants. His head bangs, whipping sweat from his floppy dark hair. His fingers slide up and down the neck of his air guitar. He windmills and hammers on the imaginary chords. His fist pumps.

He spots a beer cup sitting on the edge of the stage and punts it into the crowd, then executes a flying elbow drop to end his set.

The crowd erupts. Longbottom Leaf jumps onstage and bows to him. Another fan dives onstage just to touch his red Chuck Taylors.

A goofy smile crosses Mean Melin’s face.

Air Guitar World Champion Hot Lixx Hulahan — the host of tonight’s battle — gazes down at Melin’s crotch.

“A testimony to his rock,” Hulahan says, getting an eyeful of Melin’s manhood. “Is that a fucking moose knuckle?”

This is exactly why Hulahan and air-guitar hall-of-famer Björn Türoque hopped on a bus for a 25-city tour of air-guitar competitions. They’ve been looking for new talent just like Mean Melin.

Now it’s time for the judging.

“I was going to give you less than what I was going to give you, but then you kicked that fucking cup,” says judge Charlie Burt, who DJs around town.

“Yeah, he did!” a woman screams.

Burt raises a satanic score of 666.

“I think it was the behind-the-head that convinced me,” says judge Lacey Storer, a former reporter for the St. Joseph News. “You are ready to play with the big boys.” She raises a perfect 6.0.

“Goddamn right!” a woman yells.

Impressing the last judge, Türoque, isn’t going to be easy. Türoque knows air and he knows “Ace of Spades.” That much is clear from the opening moments of the 2006 documentary Air Guitar Nation, which shows the genesis of competitive air guitar in the United States and follows Türoque’s heated rivalry with C-Diddy to become the first American to compete in the World Championships.

“I don’t know, dude,” Türoque says. “You guys thought that was all right?”

“Fuck, yes!” someone yells.

Türoque raises a 6.0.

“Mean Melin. Mean Melin. Mean Melin,” the crowd chants.

They’re cheering for a guy who just pretended to play guitar — and rocked their fucking faces off.

Mean Melin throws up the devil horns. He’s going to the U.S. Air Guitar Championships in Washington, D.C., on August 7. Read more>>

Tags: 2009, air, championships, funny, guitar, kansas city, mean melin, photo, regional, rock, stills, video

They say all actors want to be rock stars and vice versa. There are a select few who are able to do both, but for the most part, we don’t want musicians (especially not will.i.am in “Wolverine,” in theaters now) in our movies and we don’t want our movie stars (especially not Kevin Costner and Modern West, on tour now) on our stages. That’s why the rock star cameo is a fun and harmless little way for our favorite rockers to appear for a short time (sometimes as themselves) and disappear before they can do any real harm to the movie. Many times, the rock star cameo sounds way cooler on paper (Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow’s daddy “Pirate,” for example) or just plain fizzles out (Neil Diamond in “Saving Silverman”). This list is proof that there is a way, however, to have rock star cameos that actually … well … rock. I know I missed some, so please leave comments below! If you have an idea for a Top 10, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com.

Runners-up: The Beach Boys and Rick Neilsen (from Cheap Trick) in the Fat Boys’ “Disorderlies,” Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum) and Evan Dando (Lemonheads) in “Reality Bites,” Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) in “Airheads,” Dave Grohl, Meat Loaf, and Ronnie James Dio in “Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny.”

10. Elvis Costello, “200 Cigarettes” (1999)

The ensemble movie, set in 1981 and co-starring Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Dave Chappelle, Courtney Love, Jay Mohr, Christina Ricci, Janeane Garofalo, Kate Hudson, and Paul Rudd (sporting the worst sideburns ever), is pretty terrible and emblematic of the Gen X formula movie (with a dash of nostaligia), which makes Elvis Costello’s cameo pretty unexpected. (Then again, he also cameoed in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” so I guess he’ll do just about anything.) Costello is the huge crush of Martha Plimpton’s character. She’s throwing a big new Year’s Bash and is worried no one will come. But come they do and all manner of drama and relationships is discussed. At the party, she eventually passes out in the kitchen and misses the arrival of her idol. At the end of the movie, the weirdest couples end of pairing off—one of them being Elvis, but not with his admirer. It should also be noted that David Johansen of the New York Dolls (and Buster Poindexter fame…ugh.) is in this movie too, although it’s not really a cameo.

9. Flea, Aimee Mann, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, “The Big Lebowski” (1998)

“Okay. So we take ze money you haf on you, und ve calls it eefen. Ve don’t care. Ve still vant ze money, Lebowski, or ve f*** you up.” We also know the nihilists from the Coen brothers’ cult classic “The Big Lebowski.” But did you know that two of the nihilists were played by big rock stars? Nihilist #2, or Kieffer, as he’s known in the script is played by Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea, while the girlfriend of Nihilist #3 (otherwise known as Nihilist Woman in the script) is none other than Aimee Mann. Mann’s bleach-white hair and lanky body are perfect for the role, which is way bigger than you might think. After all, she’s the one who sacrificed her toe. (That’s her on the left, and him second from right.) Country-rock singer/songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore is also in the film as one of Walter’s Vietnam vet bowling buddies. He’s the one Walter accuses of cheating by brandishing a gun.

8. Lance Bass, “Tropic Thunder” (2008)

OK, he’s not really a rocker, but this this cameo gets a lot of credit for just being plain creative. In 2006, the ‘N Sync’er and former teen heartthrob to millions of girls came out of the closet. Two years later, he made his second cameo in a Ben Stiller film (more on that later) when he appeared in the vicious war-movie-set Hollywood satire “Tropic Thunder.” In the movie, rapper/actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) seems to be hiding something under his tough veneer. He also keeps referring to someone named “Lance,” and later confesses it’s his boyfriend. I remember thinking, “Lance—like Lance Bass.” Sure enough, during the last scene of the film at the Oscar ceremony that year, Chino’s got you-know-who on his arm.

7. Twisted Sister, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985)

Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens) is being chased by studio security through the Warner Bros. backlot when he all of a sudden the pounding orchestral music comes to a screeching halt and we see a bushy-haired blonde dude straddling a car and trying to look tough. He’s singing something about the Devil. It’s lead singer Dee Snider with his band Twisted Sister behind him and a bunch of chicks that looked like they stepped off “The Road Warrior” set but with more make-up. They’re filming the music video for their never-a-hit single “Burn in Hell.” (Not quite as harmless as “I Wanna Rock”!) As Santa and a dazed Godzilla come around the corner chasing Pee-Wee in a big sleigh being dragged by a boat, the band disperses quickly. Pee-Wee—a loner, a rebel—remains unflappable. “How ya doin’?” he yelps joyously as he rides off. Tim Burton’s directorial debut is still the funniest movie he’s ever done. What’s that? Do I hear calls for a Pee-Wee/Burton reunion?

6. Alice Cooper, “Wayne’s World” (1992)

This cameo is a perfect example of playing against type, and it probably has something to do with a bit of an Alice Cooper re-emergence around the early nineties. Not only does he encourage the lovable metalheads to stay and hang out with him and the band, he turns out to be some kind of Milwaukee history buff. As Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) are wandering around backstage flashing their passes proudly to everyone they see, they run into Alice and the band. Eschewing the party-hard atmosphere of most hard rock bands, Alice engages them in a discussion of French missionaries and explorers from the late 16th century and Algonquin word origins. Curious indeed.

5. Billy Idol, “The Wedding Singer” (1998)

How many washed-up 80s rockers get to save the day in a hugely popular romantic comedy? Since Adam Sandler’s “The Wedding Singer” takes place in 1985 but was filmed in 1998, that means Billy Idol was 43 years old playing himself at 29 when he showed up on that fateful plane ride with Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Not only does Idol introduce Sandler’s win-her-back acoustic number over the airplane intercom, but he also blocks Barrymore’s Don Johnson-looking fiancée from getting anywhere near him with a sly “How you doin’ sir? Chicken or fish?” He also has the most devilish look on his face ever when one lady in first class asks, “What’s the mile-high club?” This appearance alone probably upped his nostalgic “cool” factor for a good 5 years or so.

4. David Bowie, “Zoolander”(2001)

It all gets too dangerous when male supermodels Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) decide to settle their beef on the runway at the old Members Only warehouse with a “Rocky”-like “walk-off.” There’s only one person with the fortitude and experience to judge this spur-of-the-moment meeting of the feeble minds—former glam rock king David Bowie. Bowie is a serious actor in his own right (from playing an alien in Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” in 1976 to playing inventor Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s 2006 thriller “The Prestige”), and he shows impeccable comic timing when he volunteers his services at a late-night party and covers the ground rules with his competitors. It should also be noted that his cameo on Ricky Gervais’ “Extras” doesn’t count because it’s a TV show, but it’s actually way funnier. Bowie improvises a song on the piano about Gervais’ “little fat man with the pug-nosed face” that has me in stitches every time I hear it.

3. Alanis Morrisette, “Dogma” (1999)

I’m not a big Alanis Morrisette fan, so when her cameo in Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” was first leaked, I was pretty poo-poo about the whole thing. When I found out that he had cast her as God, I thought—“Wow, is he trying to say something about her music?” Yikes. But this is one of those instances when you just have to trust that the director saw something that you hadn’t. I mean, he is the freaking director after all—who are we to sit here and judge before we even see the film? Since then, I try to remain pretty open about all casting news I hear. The statement—that God is a woman (or in woman form at least)—was enough. All Smith was trying to do was push our buttons, after all. What Morrissette brought to her small but ultimately HUGE role is this little-girl impish kind of playfulness that completely suited the conclusion to a pretty far-out religious adventure film that flirted with some pretty heavy subjects. Smith was right—she was perfect for the part.

2. Ozzy Osbourne, “Trick or Treat” (1986)

Way before the Prince of Darkness became a stuttering reality TV star, Ozzy was about as dangerous as you could get in heavy metal. Back in the 80s (before the Internet), his supposedly Satanic lyrics and rumors of him biting the heads off bats onstage were real enough to scare the beejezus out of younger metal fans. (After the bat actual incident, which happened just once on accident with a dead bat in Des Moines, phone calls to the Wisconsin Humane Society on the same 1982 tour warned that Osbourne would be slaughtering a goat onstage in Milwaukee.) That’s why his cameo in the backwards-masking horror flick “Trick or Treat” is so much fun. No, he’s not the possessed rock star—instead, Ozzy plays a man of the cloth. He’s shown on the TV—in the background of two separate scenes—railing against the evils of rock n’ roll pornography and the “sick people” who listen to it. In one clip, he’s passionately denouncing an album called “Do It Like A Dog.” Gene Simmons of KISS also cameos in the film as a DJ named Nuke, but it’s not nearly as funny or cool as Ozzy’s part.

1. Bruce Springsteen, “High Fidelity” (2000)

Rob Gordon (John Cusack) is obsessed with music and he can’t seem to take the next step in his adult life. In Stephen Frears’ brilliant adaptation of the novel (a book that speaks to me louder than almost any other), Rob also consistently breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the audience. In the book by Nick Hornby, the main character wishes he could handle his past girlfriends as well as the musician does in the Bruce Springsteen song “Bobby Jean.” In the movie, Rob has a conversation in his head out loud with the Boss, who shows up strumming a guitar in the studio, to offer some sage advice. At that point in the movie, he may be the only person that Rob will actually listen to. He lies on his pillow, looking up to the ceiling and has the conversation all by himself. “Thanks, Boss,” he says, saluting after it’s over. (Watch it at the link above. Now.)

Tags: 10, acting, best, cameo, Cameos, film, in, list, movies, musician, rock, singers, star, top, Top 10 Lists, top ten

Sometime in the 1970s, rock n’ roll became big business. (If I had to place it, I’d say around the time A&M Records pushed Frampton Comes Alive to quadrillion-platinum status.) But before the corporate world really knew how to create artificial buzz and market rock music, it was the territory of dreamers, stoners, hippies, and outsiders who all had vaguely the same socio-political view.

Filmmakers Joe Heyen and Anthony Ladesich have captured that last gasp with a sweet cloud of nostalgic smoke in the documentary “Cowtown Ballroom … Sweet Jesus!” The film, which chronicles the short life of a grassroots rock venue in Kansas City, Mo. that attracted some of the country’s best talent, isn’t merely about what happened when the hippies took over the giant ballroom on 31st and Gillham from 1971 to 1974. Instead, the venue itself was kind of a local lightning rod for the changes that were sweeping the country at the time.

There’s that old saying that everything happens on the coasts first and then slowly trickles to the Midwest. What’s interesting about “Cowtown Ballroom” is that it views the small group of music fans and ill-advised entrepreneurs who opened the independent club as just as important as one would view, say, the hippies of Haight-Ashbury in 1967. Being a Kansas City native, it’s quite an eye-opener to see hastily thrown together events happening in Volker Park with thousands of kids in attendance.

In 1927, the club was known as the El Torreon Ballroom and during its run hosted jazz legends like Count Basie, Jay McShann, and Cab Calloway. It was the only integrated club in town—a place where black musicians performed regularly for white audiences. B.B. King, who would play for a mostly white audience at the Cowtown some 45 years later, recollects being young and stoned out of his mind listening to the sweet music coming out of Kansas City until the wee hours of the morning. But that’s another story—one briefly touched on just enough to give us some historical context.

The movie is more about the scene than it is any one building, and apparently it was an exciting time in Kansas City too. Cowtown founder Stan Plesser ran a coffeeshop called the Vanguard in the late 1960s and came in contact with Kansas City transplants Danny Cox and Brewer & Shipley (who had a hit with the pot-smoking anthem “One Toke Over the Line”). He formed Good Karma Productions to manage the acts and once the Cowtown Ballroom was in full swing, Good Karma was signing and supporting local artists like the Springfield, Mo.-based Ozark Mountain Daredevils as well.

The Cowtown Ballroom’s highlight reel also includes the production of one of the first ever concert series broadcast live on the radio. Stories about the “Live at Cowtown” recordings, as related by the engineers who were behind them, reveal a charming naiveté—they may not have known what they were doing, but that wasn’t going to stop them. By all accounts, though, the quality of the recordings was great.

The production value for “Cowtown Ballroom … Sweet Jesus!” is top notch, featuring none of the amateurish lighting, motion graphics, or cinematography that mars other low-budget documentaries. Ladesich’s editing is spot-on too, and covers a lot of ground, cramming in a crap-ton of music and vintage photographs in a short amount of time (about 80 minutes). Visually and sonically, “Cowtown” manages to capture much of the era’s freewheeling atmosphere—a wonder considering the filmmakers never found the supposed treasure trove of old sound recordings that led them down this path to begin with.

It’s hard telling a sweeping story without one or two main characters to really latch onto, and even harder when there isn’t one central conflict or defining moment. Still, thanks in part to the huge breadth of interviews that were conducted for this movie, director Heyen and editor Ladesich score their biggest win by making a bygone era—when music and ideas changed culture and mattered more than money—“come alive” again.

(Apologies for the bad Frampton pun.)

“Cowtown Ballroom … Sweet Jesus” has a two-week engagement at the Tivoli Cinemas in Westport Manor Square starting Friday, May 22.

Tags: Anthony Ladesich, brewer, Cowtown Ballroom, documentary, el, jazz, Joe Heyen, kansas city, movie, rock, shipley, Sweet Jesus, torreon

Sometimes it’s because they need an original band to fit into their fictional story, sometimes it’s for parody, and sometimes it’s just because the filmmakers don’t want to pay to get somebody else’s song on the soundtrack. For whatever reason, there are a ton of made-up bands played by actors in the movies these days. I picked out some of my favorites for this list, but I have to issue dome caveats. Tenacious D did not make this list. Not because they put out an album before they released a movie and because they went on tour, but as a show of protest because their six HBO episodes were so much funnier than their movie, “The Pick of Destiny.” Many of the other bands that were created for movies have also actually played live and/or been on tour as well. Enough of my yappin’, let’s boogie!

Honorable mentions: Josie and the Pussycats (featuring Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and writing/production by and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Matthew Sweet) and DuJour from Josie and the Pussycats (2001), DJay (music by Three 6 Mafia) from Hustle & Flow (2005), Future Villain Band (played by Aerosmith) from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), The Looters (Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones, The Clash’s Paul Simonon and actor Ray Winstone) from Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1981), The Fabulous Baker Boys (Jeff and Beau Bridges, with Michelle Pfieffer) from The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell ) and Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt) from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2000), The Quadratics (Mark Weiner’s band with cute guy Steve Rodgers) from Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995).

10. Blueshammer from Ghost World (2001)

God, I hate white-boy blues bands. One of the most tragic and funniest scenes in Terry Zwigoff’s underrated outsider-teen flick “Ghost World” is where lonely record geek and old-timey blues fan Steve Buscemi goes to a blues club to check out a grizzled old blues veteran who’s trying to play an opening set at a sports bar while the crowd ignores him. He tries in vain to make conversation with a woman about music, but when she says, “If you like authentic blues, you really gotta check out Blueshammer,” he knows he’s in trouble. Four frat-tastic white boys get onstage, introduce themselves as “authentic, way-down-in-the-delta blues” and start singing about “pickin’ cotton all day long.” It’s bad enough that the woman leaps to her feet and starts shakin’ it, but insult is added to injury when a dancing Blueshammer fan knocks Buscemi’s drink off the table and all over his pants. It’s a brilliant scene that shows the insular world of the record geek who can’t relate to people and the inherent comedy of “authentic blues.”

9. Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate from Coming to America (1988)

It’s a short scene, to be sure, but an oh-so-memorable one. Remember when Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall were funny? They each play multiple roles in this cable-TV staple, and in this scene, Hall plays an reverend who introduces a local hero you all know as “Joe the policeman from the ‘What’s Goin’ Down’ episode of That’s My Mama.” Murphy comes strolling out as the jerry-curled crooner Randy Watson, singing a perfect parody of half-sung/half-spoken sexy soul with his cheesy band Sexual Chocolate. The song is Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All,” but it’s Barry White and Michael Jackson that Murphy oughta be paying royalties to with his fey loverman character. The topper? When nobody claps after his stirring rendition, Randy stomps his foot, drops the microphone, and does a Jesus Christ pose in a cheap attempt at applause. “Sexy chocolate!” Classic. I worked at the movie theater in high school, and we used to time our favorite scenes in this movie just right so we could stand in the back and watch them over and over again. I must have seen this a hundred times in one month.

8. The Carrie Nations from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Roger Ebert wrote this insane cult classic directed by schlockmeister Russ Meyer about an all-girl rock band that travels to Hollywood with big dreams. Sucked into the dangerous post-Summer of Love, post-Charles Manson rock n’ roll/entertainment scene, their hopes are soon dashed and everything comes crashing down in a spiral of drug addiction, bisexual confusion, attempted suicide, and ultimately, murder. Their music—none of it written or performed by the actresses—falls somewhere in a category between bland and unintentionally funny. But the movie itself is so incredibly wrong and hilarious in so many ways that they have made the list. This is one instance where everything surrounding the band (formerly known as The Kelly Affair) is so bad ass that it makes the derivative music sound a whole helluva lot cooler than it really is. British all-girl band The Pipettes did a shot-by-shot parody of one scene in their music video for “Pull Shapes” (which is a way better song). First, the original performance from The Carrie Nations, backed by The Strawberry Alarm Clock, here:

7. Curt Wild and the Rats from Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Todd Haynes does the history of glam rock in this ponderous movie, but the music and performances are electrifying. It was a bad move to have the whole thing framed by Christian Bale as a journalist trying to reveal the truth behind Jonathan Rhys-Meyer’s washed-up rocker’s death. But the music has a special air of authenticity because Haynes used actual rock musicians and real tunes from the era, mixed with original songs performed in the very specific styles of each band being referenced. Ewan MacGregor fares best as Iggy Pop doppelganger Curt Wild, covering actual songs by The Stooges (“T.V. Eye,” “Gimme Danger”). The band on the recording features Mark Arm of Mudhoney, Ron Asheton of The Stooges, and Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth. Rhys-Meyer’s David Bowie-like character Maxwell Demon sings Brian Eno’s “Baby’s On Fire” with his fictional band The Venus in Furs, and the musicians on that track feature Suede’s Bernard Butler, members of The Verve, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Add in Placebo as T.Rex stand-ins The Flaming Creatures covering Rex’s “20th Century Boy,” and you’ve got the most authentic “fake” rock band soundtrack ever. You can search any of these on YouTube, but here’s curt Wild doing “T.V. Eye.” Beware: Because of MacGregor’s full monty, this is definitely NOT safe for work.

6. Three Times One Minus One from Run Ronnie Run (2002)

Take the best (worst) parts of Blueshammer and Randy Watson and put them together and you’ve got Three Times One Minus One. Originally appearing on the brilliant HBO sketch comedy show “Mr. Show,” this freaky soul duo consists of Pootie T (David Cross) and Wolfgang Amadeus Stallonies Von Funkenmeister XIX 3/4 (Bob Odenkirk). “Run Ronnie Run” is a patchy affair, but the video for 3×1-1’s hit “Eww Girl, Eww” is a lesson in extreme soul. It’s about as subtle as the movie’s main character (redneck mullet-haired Ronnie Dobbs) and his non-existent courting skills. These guys don’t just sing in sexual innuendo, they go all the way. Well, at least Pootie T does. His co-hort just holds his cane steady and puts a schmoove exclamation point on each verse. Beware, this clip may have you falling on the floor in laughter, but it is also NOT safe for work.

5. Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)

The only fictitious group on this list to win a Grammy Award, the Soggy Bottom Boys (in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Depression-era retelling of Homer’s “The Odyssey”) are played by George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and Chris Thomas King. They perform “Man of Constant Sorrow,” which won a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, once in a recording studio for some money and again at a political rally to get themselves out of some hot water. The real Soggy Bottom Boys (a pun off of Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs’ famous ‘50s/’60s bluegrass outfit the Foggy Mountain Boys) are Union Station’s Dan Tyminski , Nashville songwriter Harley Allen, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band’s Pat Enright. Nelson himself actually sings the lead vocals on “In the Jailhouse Now,” another song they perform onstage. The soundtrack to this film is good enough to convince anyone once and for all that what currently passes for popular country music on the radio has way more in common with Britney Spears than it does Hank Williams. I wish I could say similarly good things about the uneven movie. Here’s Clooney and company lip-syncing in the studio:

4. Stillwater from Almost Famous (2000)

Cameron Crowe’s rock thinly disguised autobiography of his early years reporting for Rolling Stone featured this fictitious band. (Ironically, there actually was a ‘70s band called Stillwater, too!) His real-life on-the-road experiences with the Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin informed the entire film, but musically Stillwater is a simpler and more straightforward Southern rock band, keeping in line with their not-so-stellar reputation as a “mid-level” touring act. Jason Lee (“My name is Earl”) plays egotistic lead singer Jeff Bebe, Billy Crudup (the upcoming “Watchmen”) is charismatic guitarist Russel Hammond, and real-life musician (and amazing singer/songwriter) Mark Kozelek plays the bass player. The band’s pitch-perfect ‘70s-appropriate music was actually written by Crowe, his wife Nancy Wilson (of Heart), and Peter Frampton. “Feverdog” is their newest single just when Patrick Fugit (the surrogate Crowe) meets the band and this scene is one of the movie’s most memorable, capturing all the excitement of being backstage at a huge rock ‘n roll event. Here’s Stillwater, whose actors underwent extensive training under Crowe’s supervision, performing the song for the first time in the movie:

3. The Wonders from That Thing You Do! (1996)

I’m only rating The Wonders higher than Stillwater because I like their song(s) better. (Well, that and the fact that Tom Hanks’ directorial debut turns on the premise that a good drummer can make an OK band a great one, which is so true.) “That Thing You Do” was written by Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and Mike Viola of The Candy Butchers provided the lead vocals. How it didn’t win the Best Song award at the Grammys that year, I’ll never understand, but it was a pretty significant hit on the Billboard Pop charts. Anyway, The Wonders (originally The One-ders, but changed because that could be mistakenly pronounced “oh-need-ers”) were a one-hit wonder band from Erie, Penn. who were heavily influenced by the British Invasion. In this affecting picture—a nice snapshot of a more innocent moment in time—the unlikely teenagers-turned-rock stars get put through the industry wringer, and all the band’s struggles and their fleeting moments of fame are expertly rendered by writer/director Hanks. And that song, that perfect song! It’s so catchy, it won’t leave your head for days. Here’s a music video for it, with lots of clips from the movie:

2. The Rutles from All You Need Is Cash (1978)

Am I cheating by including this one? A little bit. Although it first appeared on NBC (and was the lowest-rated show that week) in 1978, the feature-length Beatles parody “All You Need is Cash” could really be considered a movie. Written and co-directed by Eric Idle of Monty Python, it traced the rise of The Rutles, a fictional band whose career just happened to mirror every single highlight of The Beatles. The band’s songs were written by Idle and Neil Innes, and not only mimicked the subject matter and style of the Fab Four, but it seemed like some of the Beatles’ melodies were actually turned inside out—the parodies are that familiar. Of course, it was all done in good fun, since there are cameos by Mick Jagger and even George Harrison, a longtime Python supporter. The Rutles began as a sketch on Idle’s BBC television series “Rutland Weekend Television,” and when the comedian brought clips with him to America when he hosted Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels suggested they turn it into a movie. The songs are great fun even if you aren’t that familiar with the Beatles, but if you are a huge fan like myself, you may believe they border on genius. Here’s just one of many brilliant tracks, a parody of “Help!” called “Ouch!”:

1. Spinal Tap from This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Duh. The greatest movie of all time is Rob Reiner’s groundbreaking mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap,” which offers a brief and fictional history of “England’s loudest band” (parodying every rock genre along the way), then follows them through a disastrous American tour in support of their newest album of heavy-metal cock rock titled “Smell the Glove.” As Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer (who play their own instruments and also wrote all the band’s songs with director Reiner) poke fun at every kind of stadium rock excess, they also manage to make a truly touching film. Taking inspiration from The Rutles, Spinal Tap went one step further and actually made the audience care about them. They were so true-to-life and the mockumentary format was so new (see “All You Need is Cash” and Albert Brooks’ 1979 “Real Life”) that many people thought the band actually existed. The actors helped that idea along by performing on Saturday Night Live and appearing on a Ronnie James Dio-organized heavy-metal hunger relief single called “Stars.” Hard rock bands everywhere were petrified to see their lives up onscreen in all of their ridiculous glory, as some of the movies’ most famous scenes were inspired by actual events (Black Sabbath had a dwarf crawling across a 30-foot fiberglass replica of Stonehenge, and one night, he fell backwards off of it!). I’ve seen it a million times and it never gets old. Witness a young Anjelica Huston in a clip that recounts the years before “the dawn of history”:

This actor voiced the leader of the Decepticons in both 2007’s “Transformers” and the new movie, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Who is he?

Tags: 10, Bands, fake, Fictitious, film, in, mock, mockumentary, movies, rock, roll, spinal, tap, ten, top, Top 10 Fictitious Bands in Movies

First off, Dustin and I want to thank everyone for who donated any of their time and/or money to the Scene-Stealers.com “Night of Rock n Roll Horror” event last Wednesday night at the Screenland Theater in downtown Kansas City. Everybody had a great time, and almost everybody went home with some kind of badass prize. Most importantly, we also raised a lot of cash for the Children’s Music Fund.

As you can tell from the photo on the right, sitegoer Lindsay Parker was pretty excited to win the 32GB iPod touch, and she wasn’t alone. Scene-Stealers Top 10 author Tony Sams kicked everyone’s ass in the horror trivia game (despite answering “Kazaam” to one of the questions he didn’t know), walking away with a full-sized autographed “Grindhouse” poster.

We played Rock Band (apparently, I don’t know as many of the words to Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” as I thought I did, and I certainly can’t sing in tune), did some “Thriller” Jacko zombie dance moves, and drank the Screenland’s special of the night–an actual drink called the Trick or Treat that contained vodka, triple sec, amaretto, and orange juice.

We watched original 80s trailers for “This is Spinal Tap,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” “Say Anything,” and “Breakin’.” It was a pretty nice score to have the four original fake trailers from last year’s “Grindhouse,” especially since three of them are not available on the two DVDs they wrongly split that movie into. But I have to say…the trailer for “Theodore Rex,” starring Whoopi Goldberg and a giant animatronic farting dinosaur was pretty spectacular.

Our feature presentation, “Trick or Treat,” in my mind, held up pretty well as a really fun B-movie in a campy sort of way. It was a lot funnier then I remembered, and the Scene-Stealers crowd yelled out their fair share of punchlines. “Don’t play that tape, it’ll blow your bra off!” from the girl in the front row was one of my favorites.

Anyway, thanks again to Transmuto, Spiral16, the Screenland Theater, and all our sponsors for a great night. Here’s a link to more pictures from the event.

Tags: benefit, children's, fund, horror, music, n, night, of, rock, roll, scene-stealers

That’s right. My band is playing in front of the AMC Olathe Studio 30 (119th & Strang Line Rd.) for free on Saturday night at 6:30pm to celebrate the opening on their Fork & Screen wing of full-service theaters. I got an early peek at them on Tuesday, and this weekend is the first chance for the public to check ‘em out for themselves! 

Now this is a loose tie-in for sure, but I’ll attempt to figure out why The Dead Girls are playing for free in the veranda outside the theater: “RocknRolla,” despite being about dumb British gangsters and not about rock n’ roll, is opening today. AMC Olathe 30 is showing it. They also have food and alcohol. We like movies, food, and alcohol. Therefore, we must rock.

We’re on at 6:30 and Pompous Jack is opening. Bring the family! Did I mention it’s free?

Tags: &, 30, amc, dead, fork, free, girls, olathe, rock, screen, studio, the

Last week I asked readers to send in their picks to help me create the perfect Halloween rock playlist. I had lots of picks of my own to start with, but I wanted to see what you all could come up with. Not only were there a lot of cool songs I had never heard before, but there were a lot of suggestions that I should have remembered and just plain forgot. This list is my reflection of all those contributions from you, the Scene-Stealers. Thanks for all the great comments. I’ve spent many late nights listening to all these cool tunes. Now I offer you my commentary on 10 songs that you suggested and I felt somehow compelled to write about. (If you want to contribute your own Top 10 for a future Tuesday, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com at anytime with your idea!)

10. The Kinks- “Wicked Annabella”

Many of the songs on this list have a creepy element in their music and not merely a Halloween-themed lyric. This is one of those songs. Suggested by Randall, it’s a song that I often overlook because of its short length and simplicity—even though it’s on one of my favorite Kinks records, 1968’s “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.” It is based around a dark, sinister riff from Kinks songwriter Ray Davies, and features lyrics about a wicked woman who lives in a dark, twisted house. She waits for sleeping children to open their eyes at midnight so she can enslave the “little demons.” The guitar sounds like its slinking along in the forest, and I get visions of the Big Bad Wolf stalking poor Red every time I listen, reminding me of a time when I was young and fairy tales were actually pretty damn scary.

9. The Sonics- “The Witch”

Rich Yarges, a badass songwriter in his own right, suggested this badass piece of 1964 garage fuzz rock from Tacoma, Washington’s The Sonics. “The Witch” is a crazed slab of wax that sounds like its literally trying to explode out of the speakers. Listen to singer Gerry Roslie’s blood-curdling scream accompanied by drummer Bob Bennett’s sped-up machine-gun snare fills. “The Witch,” released on a local indie label, went on to become the biggest-selling local single in the history of the Pacific Northwest, even though its radio airplay was restricted because of its “possibly misogynistic” subject matter. This is where The Stooges and MC5 got everything from, and you can trace that lineage right through to garage rock loyalists like the Hives. Are they the first punk rock band? Maybe.

8. Dokken- “Dream Warriors”

Easily the worst song on this list, I put it on here only for nostalgia’s sake and because both Dana and Tony Sams picked it. Why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to get the wimpiest singer in hair metal (Don Dokken) to sing the 1987 theme song from the third installment of the quickly fading “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, I’ll never have a clue. Yet, here it is. Proof that some awful ideas simply cannot be stopped. I have nothing to say about this song other than I never liked it, and I (true confession time!) used to be a Dokken fan for a while. But I’m not going down alone on this one. Don Dokken was so desperate to be considered “heavy,” that on a later solo tour, opening for Poison in Manhattan, KS, in 1990, my friend Bill McShane told me this infamous quote that has stood the test of time: “I’m Don Dokken and you need to buy my new album.” Dramatic pause. (grabs crotch vigorously) “It’s got plenty of this!”

7. Meat Puppets/Nirvana- “Lake of Fire”

Scene-Stealers user Chickencha was right on the money in suggesting the most unlikely radio song ever, “Lake of Fire,” by the Meat Puppets. The imagery in this off-key little ditty, of bad folks frying in a lake of fire in a desert, is terrifying. Originally on “Meat Puppets II” from 1983, it is the song that has come to define the acid-fried Arizona rockers, thanks to a cover version that was recorded one night in New York City by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. Getting an assist from Puppets brothers Cris and Curt Kirkwood, “Lake of Fire” was one of three Meat Puppets songs the group covered for their MTV Unplugged taping. Since Cobain’s death, the song has grown in stature and despite—or maybe because of—his gravelly, impassioned delivery and the song’s chilling lyrics, As weird as it may seem, “Lake of Fire” is a staple on modern rock radio these days.

6. NAHPI- “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?”

Everybody should trust the dust. I do. That’s why he’s my cameraman and editor. Trustthedust is better known as Dustin Schirer, and the fact that he knew about this very cool Halloween benefit song from three years ago proves that he is infinitely cooler than I am. “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?” is a satire of the Band-Aid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in which Bono, Boy George, and Bob Geldof sang about starving kids in Africa. While that song raised money for hunger relief, this one donated all proceeds to UNICEF. The artist is listed as the North American Hallowe’en Prevention Initiative (NAHPI), but is really members of the Arcade Fire, Sonic Youth, Sloan, Rilo Kiley, Les Savy Fav, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beck, Feist, and David Cross(?). for what (on paper) may seem like the biggest inside joke ever, it’s actually a great song—lots of fun—and it has an inventive music video.

5. Crispin Glover- “Ben”

If you’ve ever read any of his comments on this site, you would know that Chris Knudsen is somewhat of a freak. So it’s no surprise to discover that one of his Halloween playlist submissions is a song by cult-favorite actor/weirdo Crispin Glover. He is most known for his oddball performance as George McFly (Marty’s Dad) in “Back to the Future,” but he also recorded some really strange music, tried to kick David Letterman, and starred in “Willard,” a remake of a low-budget 1971 horror flick about a disturbed young man who has feels strange magnetism towards rats. Here he covers the title track from that movie’s 1972 sequel, “Ben.” 14-year-old Michael Jackson took this song to number one—probably the only love song to a rat ever to reach that position—and here, Glover turns the ode into a surreal short film. The song alone is not nearly as creepy or effective, so make sure you watch the whole video!

4. Motley Crue- “Shout at the Devil”

Michael Jackson had Vincent Price do spoken-word spookiness on 1982’s “Thriller.” Iron Maiden couldn’t afford Price so they hired some guy to speak like Price on “Number of the Beast.” Well, nobody ever said Motley Crue was original. Tony Sams suggested this classic bit of heavy-metal nonsense from 1983, which, aside from featuring lots of high-pitched notes that singer Vince Neil can’t even get near anymore, also contains—you guessed it—another spooky oratory. This one is some sort of alternate Biblical “In the Beginning” bullshit about good always overpowering the evil of all man’s sins, spoken by a metallic robo-voice that could have been Mr. Roboto. It may not have made a lick of sense, but it served its purpose as a menacing introduction to an album that featured a shiny black pentagram on the cover and featured four guys wearing more make up and lipstick than your mother. I believe that in reality, the lyrics are some kind of anti-Satan rallying cry to stand strong against the Devil, but I prefer to extend my index and pinky finger and let my rock fist fly high!

3. Jason Segel- “Dracula’s Theme” from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”

A very astute pick from Randall, Segel wrote this song and performed it in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” one of the best comedies of this year. This song was the first hint that Segel (one of those prodigiously talented Judd Apatow “Freaks and Geeks” alums) had a Muppet fetish. His character in the movie is a frustrated slacker musician who writes spooky incidental music for his girlfriend’s hit TV cop show that sounds like a monkey could play it (as long as he stepped on the right two keys on the synthesizer). His dream project is a puppet musical about Dracula that he takes deadly seriously, but soon realizes everybody else thinks is a joke. At a bar one night, his new flame springs a trap to get him onstage at a club to play it. I couldn’t find the version from the end of the movie, performed with Bill Hader and a full cast of puppet masters, but this one—an out-of-costume trial run—will do just fine thank you. Segel is currently writing a reboot of the Muppet movie franchise. Perfect!

2. Electric Light Orchestra- “Fire on High”

Scene-Stealers sitegoer Aaron picked this ELO song as a scary one, and for the first minute or so, he is right on the money. By the time the band kicks in, “Fire on High,” from the group’s 1975 “Face the Music” record, goes into full-on sports theme mode, but until then, it’s a backwards-masking nirvana. Hell, ELO maestro Jeff Lynne and company didn’t even try to disguise the fact that there were backwards vocals on the song. Preachers and teachers all over the world were threatened by the menace of “Satanic rock n’ roll” in the 1970s and 80s, listening over and over for traces of a message in songs that never had any in them in the first place. Judas Priest was even brought to trial for hiding backwards messages in their songs that subliminally told kids to commit suicide! (They were acquitted.) Play the beginning of this song backwards and it’s a shock to find out it was spoken that way on purpose—the drummer says “The music is reversible but time is not. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back.” In other words, stop wasting your time, playing records backwards when they are supposed to be enjoyed the other way, dumbass.

1. The Who- “Boris the Spider”

Bassist John Entwistle wrote and sang this creepy, crawly little number from The Who’s 1966 “A Quick One” album, which was another suggestion from Rich Yarges. I’m a little embarrassed I left this one off in the first place. Besides a wicked descending bass line, and a lower-than-low vocal delivery, Entwistle delivers a funny parable about one spider’s life and ultimately, his “sticky end.” It may not have any specific Halloween theme, but the music itself is bizarre enough to not feel out of place in an episode of “The Addams Family.” Entwhistle was a bass virtuoso and all-around weird dude, one of two total freaks that made this British Invasion band so unique in the beginning. Now I’m afraid, many young people know The Who from their “CSI” theme songs and the Broadway musical “Tommy”—a far cry from the madness that surrounded the band in their early days.

List of other “notable” contributions…
AC/DC - Highway To Hell
Alice Cooper - Feed My Frankenstein
Alice Cooper - I Love The Dead
Alice in Chains - Them Bones
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
Arcade Fire - Vampire/Forest Fire
Arctic Monkeys - Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong But…
Audioslave - The Curse
Band of Horses - Is There A Ghost
Bauhaus- “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
Beck - Scarecrow
Ben Gibbard – Thriller
Black Sabbath - Hand of Doom
Black Sabbath- “Black Sabbath”
Blue Oyster Cult-”Don’t Fear The Reaper”
Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues
Bobby “Boris” Pickett - Monster Mash
Burn the Witch - Queens of the Stone Age
Cat Power - Werewolf
CCR - Bad Moon Rising
Classics IV - Spooky
Coil - First Five Minutes After Death
Current 93 - Dogun (calling for forgotten faces)
Daniel Johnston- “Haunted House”
Danny and the Nightmares (Daniel Johnston) - Haunted House
David Bowie-“Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)”
Dead Kennedys - Halloween
Dokken - Dream Warriors
Donovan- “Season of the Witch”
Echo and the Bunnymen - People are Strange
Edgar Winter Group- “Frankenstein”
ELO - Fire On High
Elvis Costello - Spooky Girlfriend
Evangelicals - The Ghost of Abner E. Norman (The Halloween Song)
Evil Boy - Stiv Bators
Fastway - Trick or Treat
Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff - A Nightmare On My Street
Gerard McMann - Cry Little Sister
Geto Boys - Mind’s Playin Tricks On Me:
Golden Earring - Twilight Zone
Helloween - Anything!
Iggy Pop - Candy
Iron Maiden- “The Number of the Beast”
J.J. Cale - After Midnightt
Johnny Cash - (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
Killbot2000 - Murder By Death
KISS- “God of Thunder”
Led Zeppelin - Gallows Pole
Leon Redbone - Witch Queen of New Orleans
Lou Reed - Halloween Parade
Love Spit Love - How Soon is Now
Matt Pond PA - Halloween
MC Hammer - Adams Family Groove
Metallica - The Thing That Should Not Be
Michael Jackson- “Thriller”
Ministry - Everyday is Halloween
Ministry - Scarecrow
Misfits – Halloween II
Misfits- “Halloween”
Modest Mouse - The Devil’s Workday
Mudhoney - Halloween
Murder by Death- “Killbot 2000″
Neil Young - Vampire Blues
New York Dolls- “Frankenstein”
Nurse with Wound - I’ve Plummed Through This Neighborhood
Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever
Oingo Boingo- “Dead Man’s Party”
People in Planes - Vampire
Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads
Queens of the Stone Age - Burn the Witch
Radiohead - Bodysnatchers
Ramones - I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement
Ramones - Psycho Therapy
Ramones- “Pet Sematary”
Ray Parker Jr – “Ghostbusters”
RJD2 - The Horror
Rob Zombie - Dragula
Robert Johnson - Me and the Devil Blues:
Rockwell - Somebody’s Watchin’ Me
Roky Erickson - I Walked with a Zombie
Rush - Witch Hunt
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins- I Put A Spell On You
Siouxsie and the Banshees- “Halloween”
Sleepy Jackson - Vampire Racehorse
Sonic Youth- “Halloween”
Squirrel Nut Zippers-“Hell”
STP - Dead and Bloated
Suicide - Ghost Rider
Superdrag - Do The Vampire
Talking Heads- “Psycho Killer”
The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Imposter Costume
The Arcade Fire- “Vampire/Forest Fire”
The Cramps- I Was a Teenage Werewolf
The Flaming Lips - Halloween on the Barbary Coast
The Gruesomes - Way Down Below
The Gun Club - Walking With The Beasts
The Lawrence Arms - Ghost Stores
The Melvins - Blood Witch
The Misfits - 20 Eyes
The Stations - The Gutter Twins
The White Stripes - Walking With A Ghost
This is Halloween -from “The Nightmare before Christmas” soundtrack
Urge Overkill - Stitches
Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London
Wilson Pickett - In the Midnight Hour
Wolf Eyes - Stabbed in the Face
Wolfmother - Joker & the Thief
Wolfmother - Witchcraft

Tags: 10, creepy, halloween, mix, party, playlist, prefect, rock, scary, scene, songs, spooky, stealers, submitted, ten, top, tunes, user

ADDING MORE GREAT PRIZES SO KEEP CHECKING BACK!

We have been lining up lots of cool stuff to do and a lot of great prizes to give away in the raffle Wednesday Oct. 29 at our Night of Rock n Roll Horror event at the Screenland Theater in Kansas City. Here’s the lineup, getting larger every day:

6:30pm:
-First 50 people in the door get free advance passes to Kevin Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”
-Raffle tickets will be sold for a chance to win big prizes, such as a brand-new 32GB iPod Touch, donated by our good friends at Transmuto Media.
-Rock Band will be available in the Screenland’s big room for everyone to join in and shred some nasty-hot licks and pound those drums.
-The Screenland’s bar will be open and rocking, and much socializing will occur.
-Food donated by our sponsors will be available until it runs out.

7:30pm:
-Eric will host a horror-movie trivia game. The winner will get one of the extremely cool prizes we have to give away. (Not the iPod, that’s up for grabs in the raffle!)
-Inevitably, someone will think they are playing a real guitar and try to smash the plastic toy in their hand. In true rock-show fashion, the drunken lout will be forcibly ejected.

8:00pm:
-Everything we have, including the iPod Touch (see list below), will be given away in the charity raffle.
-A short reel of cheesy 1980s movies, horror and not, will be shown.
-“Trick or Treat” (1986), starring the guy who played Skippy on “Family Ties,” will be shown in its entirety, and you will learn what happens when bad heavy metal albums are played backwards. The bar will stay open.

Prizes for raffle (updated as they continue to be confirmed):
brand new 32 GB iPod Touch
autographed “Grindhouse” poster
autographed “Grindhouse” mini-poster
Quentin Tarantino action figure from “Grindhouse”
huge “Grindhouse” hardcover book
2 Rob Zombie-autographed “Halloween” posters
“Saw I-IV” DVD Box Set
10 “Saw V” T-Shirts
lots of “Saw V” posters
2 “The Strangers” DVD
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” DVD
“30 Rock” Season Two DVD
2 “The Dark Knight” movie posters
2 “Iron Man” movie posters
“Incredible Hulk” movie poster
2 sets of six “W.” shot glasses
“Religulous” movie poster
2 “The Spirit” movie posters
lots of “Blindness” posters
lots of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” posters
Gift certificate for a free breakfast @ The Classic Cup
25$ Gift Certificate to Grinders
Jazz Bucks from Jazz, a Louisiana Kitchen
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” FX Theater (diorama of boulder scene) from Clint’s Comics

All proceeds go to the Children’s Music Fund.

A special thank you to all of our sponsors, to whom we couldn’t have done this without: Transmuto Media, Allied Advertising, B-BOP Comics, Grinders, The Classic Cup, Jazz, Clint’s Comics, Waldo’s, Zebedee’s rpm, and Chipotle.

Tags: 2008, 29, a, Children's Music Fund, free ipod touch, horror, n, night, october, of, raffle, rock, roll, screenland, theater

Alright, Scene Stealers: If you love making mix compilations as much as I do, you’ll help me out with this one. I’m creating the ultimate spooky, scary rock playlist of all time. In no particular order, these are the songs I’ve got so far. Add your own in the comments below, and if I like ‘em, I’ll add ‘em to the list. (Yes, anything by The New Kids on the Block is truly scary, but that kind of thing won’t make the cut, funnyman!)

Added 10/24: Wow. A lot of great suggestions, everybody. Keep ‘em coming, I’ll try to keep up! This post will be a great resource in the future for anyone wanting to make a spooky rock playlist!

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins- “I Put A Spell On You”

Bauhaus- “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”

Blue Oyster Cult-”Don’t Fear The Reaper”

“This is Halloween” -from “The Nightmare before Christmas” soundtrack

Iron Maiden- “The Number of the Beast”

KISS- “God of Thunder”

Misfits- “Halloween”

Ramones- “Pet Sematary”

Ray Parker Jr – “Ghostbusters”

Michael Jackson- “Thriller”

AC/DC- “Highway to Hell”

Sonic Youth- “Halloween”

Talking Heads- “Psycho Killer”

Black Sabbath- “Black Sabbath”

Squirrel Nut Zippers-“Hell”

David Bowie-“Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)”

Oingo Boingo- “Dead Man’s Party”

Edgar Winter Group- “Frankenstein”

The Cramps- “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”(suggested by Tony Sams)

Queens of the Stone Age- “Burn the Witch” (suggested by chickencha and Dan)

The Arcade Fire- “Vampire/Forest Fire” (suggested by Reed)

Radiohead- “Bodysnatchers” (suggested by chickencha)

Fastway- “Trick or Treat” (suggested by Tony Sams) see this song Wed. night!

Arcade Fire’s Win & Regine + Redd Kross’ Steve McDonald + Beck + R.E.M. + Rilo Kiley’s Jenny & Black + David Cross + Roky Erickson + Devendra Banhart + Sloan’s Chris Murphy + Elvira, Mistress of the Dark + Feist + Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore + Malcolm Mclaren + Postal Service’s Jimmy Tamborello + Wolf Parade’s Dan & Spencer + Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O +  too many more - “Do They Know It’s Halloween?”  (suggested by trustthedust)

Rockwell- “Somebody’s Watching Me” (suggested by Reed)

Murder by Death- “Killbot 2000″ (suggested by Dan)

Siouxsie and the Banshees- “Halloween” (suggested by Tony Sams)

Johnny Cash- “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” (suggested by Reed)

Motley Crue- “Shout at the Devil” (suggested by Tony Sams)

Jason Segel- “Dracula’s Theme” from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (suggested by Randall)

Donovan- “Season of the Witch” (suggested by Reed)

The Who- “Boris the Spider” (suggested by Rich Yarges)

Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff- “A Nightmare On My Street” (suggetsed by Aaron)

Daniel Johnston- “Haunted House” (suggested by Chris Knudsen)

Dokken- “Dream Warriors (Theme from Nightmare on Elm Street 3)” (suggested by Tony Sams and Dana)

New York Dolls- “Frankenstein” (suggested by Reed)

The Kinks- “Wicked Annabella” (suggested by Randall)

The White Stripes- “Walking With a Ghost” (suggested by Rich Yarges)

Robert Johnson- “Me and the Devil Blues” (suggested by Tony Sams)

Electric Light Orchestra- “Fire On High” This one is so evil, it has overt backwards messages! (suggested by Aaron)

more to add as I get time…thanks!

Tags: create, halloween, mix, playlist, rock, scary, songs, spooky, ultimate

This is the coolest news of the week. Our old touring buddies from the Ultimate Fakebook days have invited my new band, The Dead Girls, to play two shows at the last minute on their current U.S. tour. Motion City Soundtrack are on tour now supporting their new record, “Even If It Kills Me,” and we’ll be lucky enough to rock the socks off of their audiences in at The Blue Note in Columbia, MO and Liberty Hall in Lawrence, KS this Thursday and Friday night, respectively.

How cool are the Motion City guys? Here’s evidence right here from three years ago when we first starting interviewing touring bands about their favorite movies, what they were seeing on the road, etc. They were coming through town on the “Commit This to Memory” tour, playing at The Granada Theater, and I caught up with them for a quick interview. There’s also some great live footage here. Ironically, the guy who edited this piece is Bill McShane, Ultimate Fakebook’s lead singer!

Nick, UFB’s bassist, is in The Dead Girls with me, so this is pretty cool for us. If you are anywhere near Kansas or Missouri and are a fan of upbeat, catchy rock with hooks that’ll leave you on the floor, you should try to make one of these shows. Until then, enjoy this encore presentation of the MCS interview from 2005.

Tags: eric melin, interview, motion city soundtrack, rock, scene-stealers.com, the dead girls, ultimate fakebook