For me, the greatest riff EVER and the toughest love jam anyone dropped.

Way fun (if lip-synched) live t.v. appearance from 1965, complete with screaming girls (when the British invasion ruled American rock ‘n roll) and well-synched Go-Go dancers. The Kinks in their dandy mod duds, well respected men grinding out one tasty decibel buster.

Punk rock long before such a thing existed.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

With Halloween only two weeks away, it’s time to ramp up the ghoul flicks and the terror jams!

Danish psychobilly legends Nekromantix are perhaps the greatest of their kind, taking what Reverend Horton Heat laid down for them and their punk-slappy imitators. We’re talking rockabilly trio style with guitar, drum and standup bass, 1950s style rock ‘n roll juiced by a speed freak’s wherewithal, almost always set to horror themes.

Since 1989, Kim Nekroman has been thwacking the tar out of his trademark coffin bass with terrror odes that swing and bop in Duane Eddy and Gene Vincent fashion in one breath, setting velocity records of madcap horror ‘core for more than half of each Nekromantix album.

2007’s Life is a Grave and I Dig It! is perhaps the group’s best and most polished album (though I favor 1992’s Brought Back to Life and 2002’s Return of the Loving Dead for their fearless bravado), for certain their greatest guitar work delivered by Troy Destroy, who is genius level here.

Shred!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Greatest bluesman ever? Probably, but one of the absolute first to be recognized for his sweaty Mississippi licks and an empathetic conjuring of Everyman’s drudgery through his tumbling odes to oppression. Johnson is the first figure you greet if you do the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame on its correct trajectory. He is the foundation of Delta blues, juke joint, old school country, 1950s rock ‘n roll and the early whiffs of soul.

Robert Johnson was gifted beyond words as a maverick musician of The Great Depression. He only had two recording sessions in 1937 and 1938, originally pressed on the ancient 78 rpm acetate records of the times. Johnson died at the far too young age of 27, the same age as future rock legends Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Let that factoid sink in a moment. All of them, masters of their craft in the prime of their youth, snuffed out at exactly the same age. Conspiracy theorists may even have a go with the “J” factor in linking the freaky weird deaths of all four artists.

You may have heard rumors Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil himself to acquire his gifts, for which a brutal tender came due. Lighting in a bottle spelling immortality for history, if not a substantial lifespan. Johnson had hellhounds on his trail, after all. I bet the other “J’s” did too.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Wow, this thing’s a decade old already! When I first got into music journalism, I started by covering electronic music, then known as techno. Also, by its varied subcategories rave, ambient, darkwave, trip-hop, trance and chill, the latter still being a thing with a pop modification of what it used to be. Now the whole enchilada falls under the all-encompassing, more mainstream term EDM, as in electronic dance music.

That being said, I was a techno junkie back in the Nineties and did my fair share of raving and grinding in my old life. Somehow, Canadian electro hipster Deadmau5 eluded my radar for a long time. I became aware of him at the same time as Marshmello, two vogue electronic artists wearing zany headwear behind the turntables. I warmed up to Deadmau5, since he began to evolve and explore.

I’ll stop there, since you can probably scroll way back and find my spiel on Deadmau5 from an old Video Jukebox post. This mindlessly addictive hip shaker, “Petting Zoo,” was a bonus track from the While(1<2) album from 2014. Assuming you bought the Best Buy special edition when they still bothered sponsoring, much less stocking CDs.

All the years my son has held us hostage watching his video games, it was Goat Simulator when I actually pulled my slackened legs up horizontally toward my butt and dialed in once the boyo scooched his natty, leaping, butting, flopping and crashing goat avatar up an elevator to a rooftop house party. DJ’d by none other than a CGI animated Deadmau5, making his appearance, pumping a fist and leading a zombie-like set of dancing clones pumping along to “Petting Zoo.” My kid would get slightly miffed when I’d ask him to go get a drink or a snack so I could stupidly groove to this cut. He caught on quickly, but being a good son (and smart, since he figured on how to keep me there watching), he would always make time to drop into the Deadmau5 zone and give me my fix.

It’s just a goofy, thumping neo-disco spool I couldn’t get enough of, even on a purposefully numbing repetitive loop. When I saw the “Petting Zoo” added version of While(1<2) available at Ebay for a decent price that’s been marked up triple since I got it, I didn’t hesitate. I was already enough of a fan of Joel Thomas Zimmerman to sink the funds and complete his catalog. Ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-ba-baaaaaa…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Let’s keep things in the key of Chili Peppers and drop my favorite cut the band ever did, this slap-happy funk bomb of psychedelic joy, “Show Me Your Soul.”

Dropped as a side nugget during the Mother’s Milk cycle, this song blew me away with Anthony Keidis (back in the long locks, sans porn ‘stache days), Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith humming on all cylinders. Probably the sexiest expression of newfound love, I still have the potential to just lose my shit cranking this one with no one around.

Every time I hear this song or watch the gleeful video, I always sigh at the end (a true sentimental gentleman), knowing it represents the end of an era for this point in the band’s history. The subsequent Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication changed the tide and the band itself, even with the momentary drop-in of Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro for the rowdy if sometimes unfocused One Hot Minute.

Not a lick of it, with moments of greatness amidst the commercialized watering down of the band on those and subsequent albums, compares to the booming energy and love of roots this song shoves out with a wild alpha-omega blend of machismo and femininity. As I mentioned in the last post, I’m very fond of the Chili Peppers’ more recent albums The Getaway (a therapy album I needed during a rough stretch, and I played the snot out of) and the exuberant Unlimited Love.

Still, try putting anything following “Show Me Your Soul” against it. Limp noodle by comparison.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

There’s a plethora of sub-categories in the master genre of metal music, to the point it’s been satirized many times in documentaries and animation. Power metal, thrash, death metal, black metal, doom, sludge, math metal, folk metal, Viking metal, proto metal, nu-metal, taiko metal, psych metal, party metal, I’m surprised a blaring hippie band like Enuff Z’nuff never got tagged with “Flower Power Metal.”

I should know. I covered the stuff for 16 years.

Finnish Goth metal band H.I.M., who carried a massive following from the 1990s through their breakup in 2017, has the distinction of carrying a second brand named after their fourth album, whether they wanted it or not. They probably did, since their music became precise and calculated, whether you were a fan or not. Dark romance anthems swung high largest by former MTV personality, Bam Margera, and the millennial generation he pandered to: Love metal.

As if the calling-card heartagram logo following H.I.M. (dubiously standing for His Infernal Majesty) is indicative, the band formed by vocalist/guitarist Ville Valo and bassist Mikko “Mige” Paananen, engineered a mass-fed Goth movement not even the founding masters Mission UK, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Sisters of Mercy were able to hit outside of the alternative rock ranks.

Dangerously infectious, H.I.M. morphed from the tenebrous world they started into a brand of perfected and polished amp rock carried by Ville Valo’s trademark lovesick weeping. Too slick at times for many critics’ tastes, Razorblade Romance, Deep Shadows and Brilliant Headlights, Dark Light and Love Metal became neo-Goth hipster couture.

The latter album probably being the best of this middle (and most profitable) section of H.I.M.’s career, “The Sacrament” from Love Metal is genius level power pop with a swooning piano melody that’s been a personal earworm for two decades since it came out in 2003. An absolute masterpiece of its kind, much less heavy rock itself, other standout tracks from Love Metal are “Buried Alive by Love,” “Soul on Fire,” “Beyond Redemption” and the incredible, Peter Murphy-esque “Circle of Fear.”

The sacrament is you.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

At one time, my favorite song ever. Still one of the mightiest, bombastic boogie rock cuts anyone ever laid down. The riffs, man, the riffs. Did anyone at the time think the blues could shake and roar this much? Angus Young and company sure as hell did.

I’m still mystified how precise Angus strikes and solos with all of that relentless headbanging and Chuck Berry footwork that’s been his trademark all these decades AC/DC’s been a thing.

Here’s a loud and proud version of “Whole Lotta Rosie” circa 1977, live on the British Broadcasting Corporation. The snaggletooth Aussies planting their beefy cut about getting it on with a loose and thick lady with a greasy groove and featuring the late Bon Scott, one of my top vocalists ever, all respect due to the legendary Brian Johnson.

Crank it. That’s an order.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Yeah, I’m a Cobra Kai fan and I can’t wait for Season 6 to drop at Netflix, even if that means the end of a gonzo karate soap opera that never should have worked but worked like a charm.

I loved the first two Karate Kid films as they came out, while Karate Kid III had some great baddies despite clumsy execution and a real drag of a plot. If anything, Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso turned the same Rocky premise into its own franchise into something more relatable for teens of my generation. What he and William Zabka created later, with danged near everyone of importance to the Karate Kid films (aside from the late Pat Morita) is pure, nostalgic Hollywood magic, bridging to a new school cast up to the task. Cobra Kai has been a drug for me and again, it’ll be sad to see it conclude.

I have the scores for first two Karate Kid flicks and the first five seasons of Cobra Kai, I’m that immersed into the experience. I also have the side CK soundtrack of regular songs, which are half gooey fun and half cringeworthy. All indicative of the 80s pop effervesence in which they made.

Hearkening back to the original film, here is Joe Esposito’s memorable rally song spinning through Daniel’s LaRusso’s improbable decimation of the Cobra Kai team who has been tormenting him all movie long. My generation was found walking around singing this peppy number because it does carry a sense of stride and a sense of pride. Even Johnny Lawrence, showing momentary good sportsmanship at the end of the first film when losing to LaRusso for the All-Valley championship, can take a song like this and run to the top with it. He was the best…around. Still is.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Probably THE happiest song I’ve ever heard, Miss Maxine Nightingale’s stomp-and-clap soul-pop perfection, “Right Back Where We Started From.”

Too bad Maxine was considered a one-hit wonder, but Pierre Tubbs and J. Vincent Edwards gave her a monster groove and the most upbeat message in 1975 of rekindling love with optimism of the deepest conviction before it fades out together. I often wonder if my late Aunt Maxine (a Caucasian woman) was a huge fan of the song, since her hair was, to her dying day, modeled in the precise sculpt as Nightingale’s.

Fans of the hockey comedy Slap Shot (one of the most hilarious romps in cinematic history) will no doubt be thinking of the Hanson Brothers, Paul Newman and Charlestown Chiefs road dogging scene segues criminally replaced on the VHS version with some awful schlock not worth mentioning. No doubt in a scrum of its own at the time for rights to use “Right Back Where We Started From.”

Fortunately, DVD and streaming have rectified this gratuitous error in thinking.

For the longest time, my most favorite song in the world. I can see my young self bouncing all over the living room when this song was out and asking my parents to turn it up whenever it came on the radio while in the car. This lip-synced clip was broadcast on the Dutch music variety show Toppop (not to be confused with the UK-based Top of the Pops), though you can dig up an even cheesier video attributed to the same show of Maxine swaying around in Seventies’ glitz hovering atop a golden ocean and surrounded by a deserted island and a hysterical gliding shark fin. It was the 1970s. You had to have been there.

Try to leave this blog in a bad mood after spinning this infectious number. I triple dog dare you.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

The soundtrack for the zombie classic Return of the Living Dead from 1985 is one of my regular go-tos, usually landing on the deck once a month if not every other. A punk-heavy dash of mayhem befitting of a tongue-in-cheek gorefest featuring The Cramps, The Damned, TSOL, Roky Erickson, Tall Boys, Jet Black Berries, The Flesheaters and punk-metal hybrid, 45 Grave, whose memorable stomp anthem “Partytime” serves as the movie’s rally cry. Albeit don’t be fooled, because the film uses as alternate version while the soundtrack issues its “Zombie Version” of “Partytime.”

Sadly omitted from this glorious soundtrack from 80s punk and heavy metal label, Restless Records, are The F.U.’s “Young, Fast Iranians” (no doubt from the hangover of tensions between that country and the United States when this came out) and Francis Haines’ iconic synth-dashed “Trioxin Theme” which rolls over the opening credits.

Yet anyone who’s seen this splat comedy gem will no doubt be kicking back to SSQ’s Goth masterpiece, “Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die),” a song even more delicious when you know a little history behind it. SSQ was a synthpop unit featuring Stacy Q, who’d score big a year later in 1986 with her bubblegum pop number under her stage name, “Two of Hearts.” She’d partnered with new wave figurehead Jon St. James in SSQ and the band delved a twisted, sexy and haunting number here with its brilliant erotic lyrics, the most savory being “I once slept with the devil, he was really no big thrill.”

Of course, you’re no doubt thinking of 80s scream queen Linnea Quigley as punkette “Trash,” stripping down to just her leg warmers atop a graveyard sepulture with this number playing. Sleazy as hell, but the way the song is spread across the entire scene all the way to its fadeout gives it an element of style atypical for the decade’s brand of horror.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.