Thursday, April 24, 2008

Cool Night Surfin'


The Moon-Rays
Sinister Surf
2006



The Moon-Rays are unique, As MonsterKid Magazine said, "There is nothing quite like them out there today". They have taken Instrumental Surf and blended it with Beatnik jazz, 1950's Exotica, 60's Spy sounds and dressed it all up in a retro Halloween package.In 2001 the Moon-Rays recorded the theme from WGN's "CREATURE FEATURES" television show, which got them immediate attention across the country with people who grew up in the 60's and 70's in Chicago and remembered fondly sitting in front of the TV on Saturday nights watching the show This recording gave them the opportunity to record their first CD for Sound Imp Records. "THRILLS AND CHILLS" came out in 2002 and was comprised of mainly cover songs of groups like the John Barry 7, Henry Mancini, some music from the television show the "MAN FROM UNCLE", as well as two original songs. One of these songs "1313 MOCKINGBIRD LANE" (named after the address of the Munsters home) found it's way onto numerous Halloween broadcasts that year and was picked up for two movies, "DR HORRORS EROTIC HOUSE OF IDIOTS" and the upcomming documentary on the Horror Host history "AMERICAN SCARY".93 WXRT radio in Chicago picked "THRILLS AND CHILLS" as best instrumental release for 2002, quite an accomplishment for a "spook" band. In 2004 they released their second CD for SVI titled the "GHOULS GO WEST". Unlike the previous CD this one was all original songs except for one and had much more of a "spooky" feel to it. The one thing it had in common with the previous CD is that several songs off of "GHOULS" also were picked up to be featured in films. Their unique blend of beatnik surf and jazz has set them apart from other so called "spook-surf" or Halloween bands, most of which rely on a darker heavy metal sound. We like to refer to our music as "Halloween Lounge" with a lot of humor."GHOULS" got widespread airplay on many college radio stations across the country as well as radio stations in Europe, Japan, and Australia. The newest release by the Moon-rays "Sinister Surf" gets to the roots of 1960's west coast surf and drag music and is dedicated to the late Ed "Big Daddy" Roth whos legacy of Weird-oh's, monsters and finks nitro fueled our imaginations for decades. By Scott Mensching
1 Sinister Surf
2 Spookwalk
3 Drag Fink
4 Hare-um Scare-um
5 Hearse With a Curse
6 The Devil In Nylons
7 Mysterion
8 Night of the Rodent
9 The Raven (for Beatniks)
10 Deep Into Midnight
11 Sophmore Werewolf In Love
12 Night of the Day of the Dead

Link removed by request of group.  2/19/10

3 comments:

zillagord said...

TS:
Yet another gem. I have their other two, and they are wonderful, weird, but most importantly, tuneful and fun! Thanks so much for this, and I hope you are well.
As always, peace--
Zillagord

Anonymous said...

I believe they have a new CD coming out which is an homage to 1940's swing music, "Halloween" swing music. Sounds like a party to me!!!

Anonymous said...

Outstanding. Thanks for this one and good to hear new stuff will be out soon. Monstor Swing what a treat...hope it's not a trick. LP