This October, Daily Grindhouse is celebrating the collision between music and horror with a series of posts under the banner of Rocktoberfest 2019. There will be daily features, recurring bits, and some special posts around the subject.
Mourning Jams is your daily kick off every morning with a different music video that has some horror elements to it. Crossing genres, decades, and more, it’s a good way to get in the spooky mood this Halloween month.
It’s fascinating that so many attribute the synthesizer as the sound of the ’80s. The instrument was certainly used prominently in a bunch of movies of that decade—CAT PEOPLE, THIEF, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, THE TERMINATOR, NEAR DARK—by artists like Giorgio Moroder, John Carpenter & Alan Howarth, Brad Fiedel, and Tangerine Dream (a LOT of Tangerine Dream). But if one were to review movie soundtracks, scores, and pop music of the ’80s? I would argue the apex instrument of that decade was the saxophone. It’s in everything—goofy snobs v. slobs comedies, sexy romcoms, detective stories, scatting on pop songs, gritty urban tales, R&B songs, and more. So while Stranger Things has soaked its Reagan era in synths…it really should have a lot more sax appeal.
Which brings us to today’s Mourning Jams—”Dark All Day” by Gunship featuring Indiana and Tim Cappello. Oh yes…THAT Tim Cappello: strongman in leather pants belting on the sax as he still believes in THE LOST BOYS and not needing another hero with Tina Turner for MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (on two songs for that film!). The veritable proto-Sergio is in full sax swing, melding the key components of ’80s music alongside Gunship’s retro synthwave sounds.
Sprinkle in sultry sounds of singer Indiana and an animated/live action music video filled with vampires, blood, and references to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, BLADE, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, and, yes, THE LOST BOYS and that is the video for “Dark All Day.”
It was the lead single off Gunship’s sophomore album (also named Dark All Day) and highlights how the band traffics in nostalgia while also finding clever ways to do something new and unexpected in its songs. It legitimately feels like what would happen if a geektastic Saturday morning in Summer of 1985 became a musical group…minus a crippling cocaine addiction. The video was directed by The Junquera Brothers (animated portion) and Sitcom Soldiers (live action portion). It’s a fun throwback that will launch your day off just right.
Tune in tomorrow and every morning in October for a new music video to help start the day on the frightening foot as Halloween swiftly approaches.
Tags: adi shankar, Alan Frog, Animation, anime, Blade, blood, Blood+Chrome, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark All Day, Edgar Frog, Frog Brothers, from dusk till dawn, Gunship, Indiana, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mourning Jams, Music Video, Pop Music, Retro, Rocktoberfest, Rocktoberfest 2019, saxophone, Seth Gecko, Sitcom Soldiers, Stranger Things, synthwave, Tangerine Dream, The Junquera Brothers, The Lost Boys, Tim Cappello, Tina Turner, vampires
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