Throwback Thursday Jam – Nekromantix – “Life is a Grave and I Dig It!”

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 2 Comments

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.

Cover Reveal for “Behind the Shadows,” by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 6 Comments

I’ve been champing at the bit for this. At last, the cover reveal for my new horror collection, Behind the Shadows, snaggly artwork by the brilliant Matt Slay. 10 tales of terror culled from my love of Stephen King, EC horror comics, Bram Stoker, Saturday night ghost hosts, baseball and 80s horror with a few contemporary twists. Coming for ya soon!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Advance Praise for Ray Van Horn, Jr.’s “Behind the Shadows” from NY Times Best-Selling Author, Michael Jan Friedman

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 9 Comments

Happiness is approving the final edits to the cover of Behind the Shadows and having a gem of a testimonial from NY Times Best-Selling author Michael Jan Friedman behind it: “Van Horn, Jr. takes your fondest memories, cuts the steaming hearts out of them, and feeds them to you perforce. Behind the Shadows is entertaining as hell.”

Thank you so much for this, my friend.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Raiding the Music Library A-Z # 3: The Cure – “The Head on the Door”

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 12 Comments

The Cure being an all-time favorite band for me, they were initially a hard sell when I was in high school and a devout disciple of metal and punk. When I was seen bridging with the punkers of our school, I was approached by someone (my apologies for forgetting who you are, dude) who told me alternative rock was a cousin to punk and he handed me a cassette recording of The Cure’s epochal The Head on the Door. One of those old cheapie Certrons, if you dig my old school jive.

I gave it a chance and I just couldn’t gel with it at first, except for the 1950s feel of “A Night Like This,” with its unexpected sax drag and the mind-blowing lyric, “Your trust the most gorgeously stupid thing I ever cut in the world.” If left its mark upon me, as did the superb grindy bass of “Screw.” I handed the tape back the next day, assured the guy I listened with a politeness I was finally starting to develop after carrying a metalhead’s chip on my shoulder for some time. “Not for me, but I see why they’re liked so much,” I remember saying, with, “That Robert Smith with the black mop for hair sings like he’s being tortured.”

Well, it wouldn’t take me long thereafter once graduating high school and heavy metal taking a temporary dirt nap in America before I turned to the alternative scene and feel deeply in love with The Cure. Disintegration is their inarguable finest magnum opus and to this day, there’s never been a better layered album I’ve ever heard. Yet The Head on the Door is an equal masterpiece where The Cure pushed their own boundaries beyond their palettes of angst and gloom, recording fine art with a ton of groove.

Thank you, my old, anonymous friend. Your efforts stuck in the long run.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

The Real Jericho Covered Bridge from One of Stories in My Upcoming Horror Anthology, “Behind the Shadows”

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 5 Comments

“The Darkest Side of Jericho,” one of the stories I wrote for my upcoming horror anthology, Behind the Shadows, was based on a real place.

Jericho Covered Bridge in Kingsville, MD, has, for generations, reported to be haunted. Ghosts of hanging Civil War soldiers, runaway slaves and ill-fated lovers, the burnt woman, the creepy little girl. Irresistible fuel inspiring my story.

I can’t wait for you all to read it. For now, here is the real deal in its garish glory. Thanks to my good sport wife, TJ for being my photographer and co-conspirator.

–Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr. and TJ Perkins

Raiding the Music Library A-Z # 2: Bad Brains – “I Against I”

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 4 Comments

There are a handful of albums in recording history that just socked me out and left me breathless upon first contact. The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers, for instance. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. System of a Down’s Toxicity.

Rastacore icons, Bad Brains is not a mere band. They’re an experience. They’re the sound of justice, spirituality, equality, love and repressed anger. If you’re not familiar with them, think of Bob Marley throwing a side hustle show with the loudest punk band you can imagine. Bad Brains albums are often constructed with blazing, fierce punk rock or hard proto metal with interludes of sedate traditional reggae psalms to mighty Jah and King Haile Selassie I, the Jesus figurehead of Rastafarian religion.

Bad Brains are dear to my heart and while I Against I is one of the rare albums they don’t drop a dub or reggae track, it is THE most righteous sound I’ve ever heard coming out of a set of speakers. The Bad Brains weren’t merely breaking racial divisions; they were punching out a dictum of unity the likes no one ever saw until then. I literally sagged to my knees and shook my head with a tear swelling in my eye upon first listen in 1987. Just wow.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

I Will Be a Guest Panelist and Reader at the 2024 Philcon, November 22-24th

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 8 Comments

I am honored to be invited as a guest panelist and reader at the illustrious 2024 Philcon, Philadelphia’s decades-standing science fiction convention. I will be discussing horror, comics and superhero films with my fellow panelists throughout the weekend of November 22nd to the 24th at the Doubletree by Hilton in Cherry Hill, NJ. See ya there!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.