Dr. Gangrene's Horror Hootenanny 11

The details for the 11th annual Dr. Gangrene's Horror Hootenanny are officially announced, and we're excited to announce a new venue this year, as well as a slightly different format. This year we'll be showcasing 3 bands early on in the evening, with a special 40th anniversary/Marilyn Burns tribute screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Midnight, with special guest John GRANDPA Dugan.

As always the event is a costume party, with special prizes for winners, plus a dollar discount at the door for all who come dressed in costume. There are 2 separate areas at the new venue, the CULT FICTION UNDERGROUND. One is the screening room where the bands will play and the movie at midnight. The other room is the bar area where the Halloween party will rage until the wee hours of the morning.

The Horror Hootenanny has been howling for over a decade - this is the eleventh annual Hootenanny, Nashville's premiere Halloween event. make plans now - it's gonna be a scream!

Dead Dick Hammer and the T.B.A. – Four Play by the 8-Track Player

“Not everybody loves Dick, but Dick loves everybody…”

I have been meaning to tell you folks about a fantastic new CD for a while now. It’s called FOUR PLAY BY THE 8-TRACK PLAYER, by Dead Dick Hammer and the T.B.A. Band. I first ran across Dead Dick and company a few years back while searching for a headliner for our annual Horror Hootenanny show. I was immediately blown away when I heard the track LAST CALL, of their album RES-ERECTION. I checked out more of their music, then quickly found a contact for Dead Dick. The rest was Horror Hootenanny history, as they’ve played three Hoots since!
 

 

Dead Dick Hammer is made up of Dead Dick on guitar/vocals, Dead Doreen on bass, and Doc Kong on drums. They play their own unique style of horror rock – part metal, part punk, part rockabilly – all spooky. On their previous CD we learn the sad fate of the DDH band, who died tragically on their way to a gig in the 50s, their van swerving off the road into the Green River where their water-soaked corpses lay until re-awakened in the 2000s by the god-awful, unearthly, inhumane sounds of “Boom-Boom” music. Dead Dick, Doreen, and Kong now travel the countryside playing their own version of shock and roll, determined to bring quality rock and roll back to an unsuspecting public grown accustomed to auto-tuned garbage.

Four Play by the 8-Track is as full of Dead Dick’s twisted sense of humor as it is his kick-ass guitar riffs, and is not for the easily offended. The tracks are:

Farmer Dick’s Fun Time Acres

The Devil’s a Dick

Green River

What’s the Emergency

Four Play by the 8Track Player

Psycho Pussy Sideshow

Lil Children Shouldn’t (Play with Dead Thangs)

Baby Lives in Batesville

Rubberneckers

Confessions (of a Truckstop Cowboy)

The Attack of the Music Makers

Dead Air for Dead Dick Hedz

It is impossible to pick a favorite track, but some of the highlights of this CD include:

Farmer Dick’s Fun Time Acres - If you have any doubt what you’re in store for with this CD, the opening track makes it quite clear. It’s Dead Dick leading an inquisitive group of kids on a tour of his Fun Times Acres farm, a tour that ends in a real blast!

The Devil’s a Dick - actor John Dugan (of Texas Chainsaw fame) plays the Devil in this one – fun!

Green River is one of my favorites on the CD, it tells the story of how Dead Dick became dead, at the bottom of the Green River.

What’s the Emergency is a grooving jam played over a collection of 911 calls about a strange dead looking guy pleasuring himself outside these various individuals’ houses.

Four Play by the 8-Track Player rocks, singing about exactly what the title implies – this one has some of the heaviest guitars and grooves of any song on the album – plus a cool theremin effect throughout.

Psycho Pussy Sideshow is a hilarious trailer for a fake movie.

I know I said it’s impossible to pick one, but Lil Children Shouldn’t is probably my very favorite track. It is amazing. The story of a kid who takes a bag of dead puppies home as an initiation to a gang – with horrifying results…

And that just scratches the surface. I love the packaging - made to look like an old LP, the cd itself even looks like a little vinyl record - with blood spattered across it, that is. Four Play is a terror-ific CD – unless you’re not an uptight, easily offended, judgmental non-fun havin’ prude, that is. If so you’ll want no part of this one – there’s way too much unadulterated rockin and perversion going on for you. Jackie. JACK-ie.

If you are of less delicate persuasion, however, and enjoy a walk on the dead side, then grab a heapin’ slab of anti-boom-boom music to keep your undead groove going till next Halloween.
Find it at deaddickhammer.com

Horror Hootenanny 10

It's coming again, Dr Gangrene's Horror Hootenanny!!

The TENTH annual shock n roll event takes place Sat Oct 5th at THE END in Nashville TN - check out the podcast at the top of the page for a sampler of the mayhem we're bringing to Nash-evil this October, with special guests THE KOFFIN KATS, Dead Dick Hammer, The Creeping Cruds, and Alucard! This is a Halloween shindig, so wear those costumes and get a discount on admission!!

More info coming soon!!

Horror Hound Weekend Report

My son Luke and I went to the Horror Hound convention in Cincinnati this past weekend. I’d never been to Horror Hound before, so I was interested in checking it out. I contacted convention organizer Jason Hignite beforehand and he asked if I would speak at the Horror Host Hall of Fame induction ceremony. I of course agreed, and he told me the ceremony was planned for Saturday afternoon, which worked well for me, since I’d be arriving on Saturday morning..

We hit the road Friday afternoon after work and drove to my friend J Sorrells house where we stayed for the weekend. Sat morning we got up and drove to the convention, getting there around 10am. There was a huge line outside, which was just the first of many we’d encounter. I found out they were lined up to see Doug Bradley, so we made our way inside and quickly found Jason. He informed me that the Horror Host ceremony had been bumped up to 9am that morning, so I missed it! Jason apologized and said enjoy the show anyway, so we got wristbands and headed in.

Who were the guests there you ask? Doesn’t really matter, we couldn’t even get near them - they were all sequestered in a separate room with a hoard of people standing outside. AND, to make matters worse, you had to pass this room to get to the room where the panels were being held at the end of a hallway. We could not honestly make our way near that room either. Just too many people. So we said forget it, and just headed for the dealer’s room. (We were also told you had to have a VIP pass to get into the panels. Don’t know if that’s true, but I assumed it was. Very disappointing, as I was looking forward to a couple of these panels).

The dealer’s room was nice. Big room with tons of great booths and I caught up with a lot of friends of mine who had tables, which was good. One thing I really liked was the music piped into the dealer’s room – they played mostly music from the bands that were playing later in the evening (more on that in a bit). Good stuff. There were a handful of horror hosts at the show but they were separated from the rest of the dealer’s room in a side room, sort of an overflow room. Except for the Ghooligans, who were in the main room. Not sure why they had a table in the main room, but they’re one of the groups that had a panel, so maybe that was it. The Ghooligans are hosts that have elaborate makeups and are pretty visually striking. I’ve never seen their show but I hear good things about it.  

 

Count Gore DeVol was there celebrating his 40^th anniversary as a horror host. 40 Years!! Quite an achievement! Another classic host was there also – Fritz the Night Owl. He looked great and was a funny and friendly guy. A. Ghastlee Ghoul was there, as was Halloween Jack, both friends of mine from way back. There were a half dozen or so other hosts there as well, newer hosts who all seemed to be enjoying themselves. I carried my labcoat in a backpack and planned to quick-change into character for the induction ceremony. Instead I only broke it out for a group shot with Gore and Halloween Jack. Otherwise I was really there to just enjoy the show.

We roamed the dealer’s room, making a few purchases and talking with a lot of people. The original CHRISTINE car from the Stephen King movie was at the show, which was really cool.

 

Around 5 we left for dinner. We walked to the hotel across the street but the service was so lousy we actually got up and left after being ignored at our table for over 10 minutes. We drove to a great barbecue place called Jim Dandy's just down the road, and have to admit this sign drew us in:

 

 

The food was great, btw, as was the service. Gotta love a bbq place that has their own catering ambulance! Afterwards I got directions to a nearby Starbucks. Caffeinated and full, all was happy again!

Back at the hotel it was time for the evening entertainment – bands!! This was the part of the show we were most interested in. They had 5 bands playing – THE BIG BAD, DEAD DICK HAMMER & THE TBA BAND, HARLEY POE, THE STELLAR CORPSES, & THE KOFFIN KATS. They were all really terrific. The lighting and sound was really top notch and the room was nice and big – unlike the convention there was plenty of room to accommodate the crowd. Afterwards I congratulated the sound guy on a terrific job.

SO – my overall thoughts on Horror Hound are this… They need a bigger venue. A place with halls and rooms off it is NOT conducive to that size crowd. They need to rent a larger space or at least a different portion of the convention center, and arrange it so you DON’T have to wade through the autograph lines to get to the panels. KEEP bringing in great musical guests. I came up pretty much only because the Koffin Kats, Stellar Corpses and Dead Dick Hammer were playing. I mentioned this to Ken Daniels, organizer of the Fright Night Convention (who also had a booth there) and he got a chuckle out of that, but it’s true! My son had been dying to see the Koffin Kats for a couple of years, but since there are no real all-ages places in Nashville any more this was his first opportunity to see them. They are SO GOOD! Definitely keep the bands and night time activities – although the acts between bands went waaay too long. Need to speed up the between band activities. But the bands were a good time and something more conventions need to do.