Prime Directive: Exterminate!

Ye Sons of Fallen Angels, Purple Phantoms, Powers and Principalities of Darkness, Mistresses and Misters to the Horror Kid, verily I say unto thee, there has never been a musical entity quite the equal of Glenn, Jerry, Doyle, Arthur, Bobby, CHUD, Dez, Marky, Michael, who-and-what-have-you. In short: THE MISFITS.

Who but they could write the Book of Cruel?

Undoubtedly the greatest horror rock band of all time, ever, the ne plus ultra of all that is great in a world of very great things, the Ghouls from Lodi have been rocking past the cemetery, not whistling, but howling, ghouling, crooning songs like "We Are 138," "Ghouls Night Out," "Astro Zombies," and, my personal favorite, "Last Caress."

Earth A.D.

I'm not into rock band histories, cataloging endless E.P.s and seven inches, colored vinyls, or any of that fan boy shit. It's enough to enjoy my music, my childhood history of being a Fiend Club Member (although I never actually was), with the Crimson Ghost emblazoned on my tee-shirt; a "heart full of hell, with room to burn," as maestro Glenn "Uncle Glenn" Danzig bellowed so softly on his album Lucifuge in 1990 or thereabouts. (Song: "Pain in the World"). Glenn, a sawed-off violent powerhouse of pure cacodaemoniacal energy, created a musical enigma that still influences today. When Metallica cover your songs religiously, when none other than Cliff Burton (RIP) is calling you up to get the exact lyrics to your songs--you know that you've given birth to something special, something, if not eternal as a shuffling grinning ghost, will rise, again and again, like the deathless revenant of yesteryear, to haunt the captive listeners, again and again, for the rest of their lives upon this churning, damnid earth (as Poe so rightly put it).

The Strange History of THE MISFITS

Glenn confesses to having been influenced by comic books, by Poe, and, of course, by the late-night creature features which the Misfits made more famous by their songs than the films themselves ever were. "Vampira," "Night of the Living Dead," "Astro Zombies" (a classic song about a truly terrible film), and, in the mid-Nineties incarnation of the band, with the redoubtable Michael Graves giving a very different sort of vocal gravitas to the delightfully dour dirges of death rock dance halls, "American Psycho," "The Crawling Eye," and "Scream," The Misfits celebrated horror like no other band ever had, or ever would again. That they were American Punk, born and bred on the mean streets of Lodi, New Jersey, is a testament to the fact that Glenn understood punk rock and horror fandom exist in the same twilight world as comic books, roleplaying games, and general geekdom--or at least often. Alice Cooper identified with a Teenage Frankenstein he called "the local freak with a twisted mind." The Misfits carried this to its logical conclusion. And to this day, those phantom, Devilock souls remain the untouchable icons of this time of year.

I've seen The Misfits twice--both times in the mid-Nineties, a loser on the way to a life of boredom. "We eat, we shit, we fuck, we kill and we die," said the Divine Marquis. So what? Some of us burn inside. And the world spins on to random insect doom. (I met Jerry Only and got a picture with him I later lost. He was a big, burly Jersey boy who busted heavies at a factory on the way to the Ghoulden Throne. And to this day, he was the coolest emeffer in the entire bloody world.)

Misfits-Last Caress

Along the way, guys and ghouls, we lift our heads, fill our mugs with the brimming blood, that "is the life, Mr. Renfield."

And then we dance. And sometimes, All Hell Breaks Loose.

And sometimes the powers of darkness are kept at bay.

And sometimes they come out to play.

And no one asks Mommy if they can "go out and kill tonight."

It is, after all, Halloween. And I remember. Oh yes I do.

L&N, Fiends.

The Misfits-Halloween & Halloween II

My book: Cult Films and Midnight Movies: From High Art to Low Trash Volume 1

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My book: Silent Scream! Nosferatu. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, and Edison's Frankenstein--Four Novels.

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