Haunted House Music Company "Haunted House", "Night In a Graveyard", "The Ride of the Headless Horseman" (1985)
Part of an almost bootleg-looking series that popped up in the mid ’80’s, the “Haunted House Music Co” line shared a similar format from record to record: Side One conveyed the larger concept while Side Two concerned itself with a hodgepodge of separately banded sound effects that sometimes related to what was listed on the back cover and sometimes didn’t. From packaging on down they’re totally budget in scope, but for me their B-Grade quality adds heavily to their effectiveness with some genuinely ghoulish atmosphere coming through the speakers. Of this trio only The Ride of the Headless Horseman contains a story with a spoken narrative; Haunted House and Night In a Graveyard seem more than content to paint their themes as sound collage alone (a later CD that would seem to pair House and Graveyard is actually a completely different animal, you can hear it here).
The (almost always blurry) back cover info is pretty cool too, claiming that the recordings were made “Live in Transylvania Studios”, “Live on the Estate of Count Dracula”, and (get ready) “Live in the Village of Sleepy Hollowville at the Ichabod Crane Studios”. Continuing the theme, the record company info is listed as “Haunted House Music Co., 2 Crypt Way, Eerie USA” with various pressings containing much smaller type below detailing a few different addresses for “Golden Circle Inc” (most of the other releases on the label seem to have been of the budget/ early-recordings-of-now-popular-artists variety). Oh, and there’s usually a REALLY blurry Dolby Digital logo tacked on somewhere just for good measure. Reeking of delicious Halloween audio cheapness, these titles must proudly number among the last of their kind before the rise of the compact disc. Not bad as death rattles go really.
Haunted House Music Company “Haunted House” (HHST 10-31AB, 1985) (192 kbps)
Haunted House Music Company “Night in a Graveyard” (HHST 10-31BB, 1985) (192 kbps)
Haunted House Music Company “The Ride of the Headless Horseman” (HHST 10-31CC, 1985) (192 kbps)
thank you so much for these spoooooky records! they were so scary that i had to listen to them with my eyes covered, no lie!
More great stuff!! Although Rapidshare keeps saying wait 1 mins for the past 2 hours..I need to get a premium.
Man, when I think about the scarey noises that you hear in a creepy graveyard or something, I always think of quail and woodpeckers. Boy, that’s some supernatural bird noise. This stuff is great!
I have the privelege of actually owning the three LPs with cover and everything. I’ve been listening to them since I was eleven, I’m 23 now. My dad says that when I saw these vynils at Target back in 1986, I went wild and wanted all three of them. He bought them but I was too scared to make it through the sound recordings… well anyways. If anyone’s interested in exchanging wavs of spooky sounds, my blog is http://www.alvarozendejas.blogspot.com and my e-mail is zendejas.alvaro@gmail.com
God Bless You! I bought this as a cassette back when I was about 11 years old. I am now 30….and I must say with the violins in the background make this one of the scariest soundtracks ever! I serached and searched for over three days until I found your site and now I have this treasured classic. Thanks for sharing!!!!!
Bjorn
ducksfan4life@hotmail.com
OMG…I bought the cassette tape back in the 80’s and have played it in the yard for the trick-or-treaters ever since. It broke last Halloween and I used some other scary music, but it just didn’t do it for me, so I have been looking for a CD of it. I stumbled across your site and couldn’t believe it when it started downloading…THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I am 50 years old and still love to decorate and dress up to give the candy out to the kids. I can’t wait for next Halloween to play my favorite music again.
My uncle gave me this cassette tape (Graveyard/Haunted House) back when I was 8 yrs old (’89) – I could never manage to make it through the whole thing! I always got too scared and had to turn it off. I made a move for school back in ’99 and the tape was lost. Thanks to your site, I have FINALLY made it all the way through – THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! 😀 😀 😀
A thousand thanks!!! My parents bought the Graveyard vinyl and Haunted House cassette when I was a child to play for trick-or-treaters. I was such a Halloweenie; they became sacred items. Now, at 24, I have lost the tape to a hungry radio and my parents possess the record. I've been looking for replacements ever since, but as you know, the face of Hallowe'en has changed dramatically and they just don't make music and sounds with the same atmosphere anymore. When I found your site, I almost soiled myself with excitement. I feel like a kid again. It may be small to you, but for a die-hard Halloweenie like me, sharing these albums is an act of kindness on an epic scale. Thanks again & keep on keepin' on!
Thanks for taking the time to post this, this used to scare the crap out of me when I was like 10! Now I’m 30, still sorta creepy!
I can not believe I have actually found this.. it rekindles the usefulness of the internet.. this was gold when I was a kid. My neighbor when I was younger played this EVERY halloween and one year he made a tape for me of it from vinyl I lost it to a greedy tape player the same year and never had the stones to ask for another… Thanks. I’m going to introduce my neighborhood to this tonight! I can’t believe I didn’t google this years ago!!!. Cheers