Out From His Coffin, Drac's Voice Did Ring...

Hey there travelers, long time no-see!

It’s been a tremendously busy few weeks for ol’ Mild-Mannered-Alter-Ego. Between

family-related travel and overtime at the day job, the IRL distractions have been

practically insurmountable.

But I don’t return to this blog just to whinge and whine... For one thing, the latest

episode of The Atomic Hour has been uploaded to PRX! Our “chestnut” this week is

Mister 1960’s Record Review of the swingin’ soundtrack to the 2005 Xbox title

‘Stubbs The Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse’, featuring singles by The Raveonettes,

Death Cab For Cutie, The Walkmen, and more. We hope you dig it!

Even more exciting is the news that our shiny new Predictor Productions Youtube

channel is now up and running, featuring the first four time-traveling song covers

we’ve been teasing all season. I’ll speak to all of these videos in turn as the days go

by, but for today, let’s ride the “Spooktober” wave and talk about our (thus far)

most popular offering: ‘Zombie Zoo’, originally by Tom Petty (and produced by Jeff

Lynne of ELO!)

From the first time I heard this track on the ‘Full Moon Fever’ album, I thought that it

was a natural fit for a Bobby “Boris” Pickett-style arrangement, both serving as a

parody and an homage to his 1962 chart-topping hit ‘The Monster Mash’.

While it was tricky enough to affect a Boris Karloff impression (or at the very least, a

Bobby-Pickett-as-Boris-Karloff impression) for the lead vocal, the real challenge

came as I helped Mister 1960 record a suitable number of backup vocals for the

track. We recorded two tracks of deep, dopey sounding zombie/ghoul voices for the

bass and baritone parts, and two tracks of hooting, wailing ghostly voices to serve

as tenor and falsetto parts. But when we lined them all up together, there seemed

(to my ear) to be a gaping hole in the middle. Mister 1960 suggested that a Tom

Petty impression might do the trick of serving as a stabilizing middle-part. Before we

sent all the tracks off to Mike, our sound-mixer, I was a little concerned that the

“Tom” voice might overrun the “Boris” lead vocal, but in the end, Mike balanced all

these disparate pieces very nicely, in my opinion.

Coupled with a phenomenally frightful lyric video animated by our visual wizard

Malika, we couldn’t ask for a more dynamic debut on Youtube!

So, we hope all you crypt-kickers manage to get a jolt from our electrodes! Wouldn’t

it be terrific if our little Atomicover became a Graveyard Smash in its own right?

I’ll be back soon, Travelers. Until next time,

Be Well. Do Good Work. And Touch Some Grass Today.