Monday, March 28, 2022

Night of The Living Dead's Unidentified Music Box Melody and The Fun Sons - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Chayote"

We started this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM with a song by The Fun Sons titled: Don't Hold It Against Me which is the B-side on their Hang Ten single. If the name Fun Sons sounds familiar, you may recognize them from the soundtrack of the 2016 action video game Mafia III. Of course, The Fun Sons wasn't really a band but rather one of Question Mark and The Mysterians' aliases. According to the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame (whew!) Question Mark and The Mysterians were pressured to quickly put out more singles in order to bank on their recent success with 96 Tears. During this time the band's label, Cameo-Parkway, released another single by the group, this time a novelty surf record under the band name The Semi-Colons. Did Cameo succeed in squeezing out a couple more hits from The Mysterians? Maybe, but it wasn't enough to keep the label from folding and being sold in 1967. 

As the show went on you heard The Rebels perform their cover of The Zombies' song It's Alright With Me which I found, along with another artist you heard on this episode Moha Jamin, on a compilation titled: Pebbles Vol. 10, Iran Pt. 1, Originals Artifacts from the Psychedelic Era. There are two volumes floating around the web but I couldn't really find a lot of information about most of the artists.

 


Anywho, because I mentioned The Zombies I went on a little tangent about the music box that appears in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. If you haven't seen the film, there's a scene around 20 minutes in where one of the main characters finds an unusual and creepy sounding music box which, along with her recent trauma, leaves her in a momentary stupor. The automaton music box features lovely moving doors which open and close, however, according to Joe Kane's 2010 book Night of The Living Dead: Behind The Scenes of The Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever the melody that plays during the scene actually came from another music box which belonged to Karl Hardman, who co-produced the film and played one of the more hostile characters, Harry Cooper. The origin of the haunting melody appears to be lost to time as many people have failed to properly identify the song but maybe someone out there can let us all know what it is.

Well, that's it for this episode's summary! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm, or on Mondays at 10pm. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In.


Check out this episode's playlist below:


 

The Grodes - Cry A Little Longer

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