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Boo! It’s Halloween! Throughout October, HollywoodLife is running The Sound Of Halloween, Where some of your favorite fiends of music, movies, television, and pop culture pick songs that should be on your Halloween 2022 playlist. Today, Rev. Beat-Man stops by to drop some terror tracks into the mix.
Rev. Beat-Man formed The Monsters in Bern, Switzerland, in 1986, creating a sound that is “a fuzzed-out mix between 60’s garage punk, wild teenage trash rockabilly, and primitive rock’n’roll,” according to their Bandcamp. As pioneers of the underground, The Monsters would inspire many with their in-your-face, unapologetic rock sound. In 1992, Beat-Man founded Voodoo Rhythm Records, a self-described “haven for misfits” in the music world. Bang Bang Band Girl, SLOKS, The Me’s, The Giant Robots, and Trixie and the Trainwrecks are just some of the artists currently involved in the Voodoo Rhythm roster (and any of these could be added to your Halloween playlist.
In addition to his tenure in The Monsters and running Voodoo Rhythm, Beat-Man plays as Rev. Beat-Man as a solo musician (or sometimes along with others, like Isobel Garcia) In October, he will “go on tour in Mexico for the Day of the Dead tour, as Reverend Beat-Man I think [for] 7 or 8 shows, costume party madness,” he tells HollywoodLife. “It’s going to be amazing. But right now, I’m on working for a dance theater, making the music calls. It’s Confession and the director is Marcel Leemann
Ahead of that costume party madness, here are Rev. Beat-Man’s picks for The Sound of Halloween.
Rev. Beat-Man’s Halloween Playlist Picks
Die Zorros, “Der Lachende Sarg”
Rose and the Arrangement, “The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati”
[Editor’s Note: “The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati” is a staple of The Doctor Demento Show, the radio program that gave rise to “Weird” Al Yankovic and more oddball songs. Since the original version by Possum/Rose and the Arrangement isn’t on streaming platforms, we’re including the version by the horror punk pioneers Misfits (which in itself is odd, since this is the first and sofar only Misfits song on TSOH playlist.)
The Monsters, “Walkin’ Through A Cemetery”
What is your most prominent Halloween memory? Like, when someone says “Halloween,” what’s the first thing that jumps into your mind from your past?
At home with my son, when the kids are trick or treatin’, me, [musician] Delaney Davidson and my son dressed up, super scary as f-ck, and when the doorbell rang, we had a 100 watt speaker with Schubert’s Funeral March, and it blew everybody away. They were soooo scared — still are, 15 years later
Some of the kids, we used white wall paint for make-up — that was a bad idea.
What do you think will be the most popular Halloween costume this year? What SHOULD be, in your mind?
We should be all dressed nude — to demonstrate about the discrimination and sexualization of the natural human body. But I think it will be as boring as Trump or Putin or the Queen, etcetera.
Do you have any particular October/Halloween traditions?
No, in Switzerland we don’t celebrate Halloween; it swapped over from the USA, and I like it. We have Karneval here or Fasnacht, mostly in the mountains. Some people dressed up as devils (the winter) and beat the sh-t out of the people (summer) which means the cold area begins.
If given a budget and free range to do whatever, what horror movie would you star in? You can remake any film of the past, or you could create your own.
I would like to be a bug that eats everything, and I sh-t out galaxies and create new life with my crap.. that would be my movie.
What’s on tap for October for you — and the rest of the year?
I go on tour in Mexico for the Day of the Dead tour, as Reverend Beat-Man I think [for] 7 or 8 shows, costume party madness. It’s going to be amazing. But right now, I’m on working for a dance theater, making the music calls. It’s Confession and the director is Marcel Leemann.
