Halloween Horror Music: Ice Nine Kills

I first discovered this band in early 2020 when a guy from work recommended them to me as he knows I like heavy metal music as well as horror movies. I admit I’ve not listened to their other albums as it was The Silver Scream album that appealed to me. It’s a heavy metal album with each song being about a different horror film. It couldn’t be more perfect for me & my interests & this blog! I’ve been meaning to write a little something about them & now seemed like the perfect time just before Halloween. Plus, they’ve just released The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood!

Well, my main focus here is movies but I do love music too. I’ve never written about music, though, so I’ll be very brief. This post is mainly just to maybe introduce these albums to others. I don’t know how the hell to write about music. Well, I don’t know how to write about movies, either… Ha!

Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream

I really like this album, although it’s heavier (well, “screamier”) than the classic type of metal I tend to go for. A lot of the movies they did songs for on this first album are favorites of mine (A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Shining, The Crow & even the not-so-horror Edward Scissorhands). Now, with both of these albums, I don’t love every song. Some are definitely better than others but I absolutely love the concept & it’s a lot of fun having two albums based on some of the best horror movies. (I should point out that they also did an album of songs based on books, Every Trick in the Book, which I’ve not checked out yet.)

From this album, my favorites are probably The American Nightmare & Stabbing in the Dark. Here’s the full list of songs & the movies they’re based on (from Wikipedia):

1. “The American Nightmare” – A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. “Thank God It’s Friday” – Friday the 13th
3. “Stabbing in the Dark” – Halloween
4. “Savages” – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
5. “The Jig Is Up” – Saw
6. “A Grave Mistake” – The Crow
7. “Rocking the Boat” – Jaws
8. “Enjoy Your Slay” – The Shining
9. “Freak Flag” – The Devil’s Rejects (not seen this. not bothered)
10. “The World in My Hands” – Edward Scissorhands
11. “Merry Axe-mas” – Silent Night, Deadly Night (not seen this either but want to)
12. “Love Bites” – An American Werewolf in London
13. “It Is the End” – It

Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood

I’ve only just found out about this new album so have only listened to it a couple of times while working. I believe that some have videos as well? Will check it out more this week but the first one to really catch my ear was the Child’s Play one Assault & Batteries. It seems to be a take on the old Toys R Us jingle (in America), so I thought that was clever. Here’s the track listing for this one from Wikipedia:

1. “Opening Night…”
2. “Welcome to Horrorwood”
3. “A Rash Decision” – Cabin Fever
4. “Assault & Batteries” – Child’s Play
5. “The Shower Scene” – Psycho
6. “Funeral Derangements” – Pet Sematary
7. “Rainy Day” – Resident Evil (not seen this)
8. “Hip to Be Scared” – American Psycho
9. “Take Your Pick” – My Bloody Valentine
10. “The Box” – Hellraiser
11. “F.L.Y.” – The Fly
12. “Würst Vacation” – Hostel (not seen this. not interested)
13. “Ex-Mørtis” – The Evil Dead
14. “Farewell II Flesh” – Candyman

My Top Ten Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs

Happy Birthday to Anthony Kiedis, who turns 57 today.

I’ve been meaning to do this post for the past three years. I like the Chili Peppers a lot, although I’m not sure if I’d now call them a favorite band of mine. Hmm. Maybe Top 30. Okay, maybe Top 20. They were certainly a favorite when I was in my late teens/early twenties, though. And I had a huge crush on Kiedis. I have fond memories of this Rolling Stone cover on my dorm room wall:

Lovely! Well, as with most of my “Top Ten” lists, I’m just going to do a ranking of all the Chili Peppers songs that I can think of. To be fair, I don’t remember some at this point and don’t know everything from their later years. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the album I listened to like crazy in my late teens and it’s still my favorite. I should refresh my memory on their oldest stuff. Time to go dust off those CDs…

So, counting down to My Top Ten Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, here’s my ranking for 35 of them:

35. Get Up And Jump
34. True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes
33. Desecration Smile
32. Aeroplane
31. Fight Like A Brave

Top Thirty:

30. Around The World
29. Hump De Bump
28. Monarchy of Roses
27. Me & My Friends
26. Snow (Hey Oh)
25. The Zephyr Song
24. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
23. Fire
22. Mellowship Slinky In B Major
21. Road Trippin’

Top Twenty:

20. The Righteous & The Wicked
19. Funky Monks
18. Dani California
17. Otherside
16. Can’t Stop
15. Suck My Kiss
14. Blood Sugar Sex Magik
13. If You Want Me To Stay
12. Californication
11. Breaking The Girl

Top Ten:

10. By The Way
9. Soul To Squeeze
8. I Could Have Lied
7. Scar Tissue
6. Knock Me Down
5. Taste The Pain
4. Brendan’s Death Song
3. Higher Ground
2. Under The Bridge
1. Give It Away

I can’t do a Red Hot Chili Peppers post without a cocks in socks picture…

My Top Ten Queen Songs

Today would have been Freddie Mercury’s 71st birthday. I figured this would be a good time to do a Queen top ten list.

I like Queen. I went through a phase for about a year in my twenties when I listened to loads of Queen (I went through a lot of musical “phases” then). I’ve not listened to them as much in recent years and, like with a lot of bands, I must admit that I don’t know much beyond their greatest hits. I didn’t even really know Brighton Rock, which featured heavily in Baby Driver.

But Queen rightly deserve the reputation as one of the all-time greatest rock bands & I miss the days when we had performers as amazing as Mercury. Who do we have nowadays? Ed Sheeran?? Ugh. Everyone is so damn boring now. It truly sucks.

Like with all my lists, this is a ranking of every Queen song I know. If you know of a great album track missing from this list, I’m open to recommendations of songs I should check out. So, counting down to my favorite, here are My Top Ten Queen Songs:

The Rest Of The Songs That I Know:

33. Don’t Lose Your Head
32. Save Me
31. Play The Game
30. Tie Your Mother Down
29. Seven Seas Of Rhye
28. Somebody To Love
27. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
26. Headlong
25. You’re My Best Friend
24. Don’t Stop Me Now
23. One Year Of Love
22. I’m Going Slightly Mad
21. These Are The Days Of Our Lives

Top Twenty:

20. The Miracle
19. I Want It All
18. I Want To Break Free
17. Keep Yourself Alive
16. Stone Cold Crazy
15. Hammer To Fall
14. Princes Of The Universe
13. Flash (all the Flash soundtrack stuff…)
12. The Show Must Go On
11. Who Wants To Live Forever

Top Ten:

10. TIE: Fat Bottomed Girls & Bicycle Race
9. We Are The Champions
8. One Vision
7. Radio Ga Ga
6. We Will Rock You

Top Five:

5. Killer Queen

4. A Kind Of Magic

3. Under Pressure

2. Another One Bites The Dust

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (I didn’t want number one to be so obvious but it’s a damn good song)

And an honorable mention for Brighton Rock, thanks to Baby Driver.

And, sorry, but I have to include the Wayne’s World scene. Not ashamed to admit that this will always be one of my favorite movies…

Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin (Book Review)

I did a long post at the end of the year with mini-reviews of everything I’d read in 2015 (you can see that post HERE). I posted it New Year’s Day so it got very little action as I suppose everyone was hungover. 😉 I plan to re-post a few of those mini-reviews of my favorites from that list. I’ll post the original but will add a little more as some were only a few sentences.

In the case of Tank Girl, I’ve since seen the movie. Um. Urgh…. The film is, shall we say, not as good as the book?!? (Unlike Tank Girl, I’m being really f*%king polite by saying that). But I’ll be posting a review of the movie tomorrow – for now let’s talk about the Tank Girl graphic novel.

Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin

What It’s About: (via Wikipedia)
The eponymous character Tank Girl (Rebecca Buck) drives a tank, which is also her home. She undertakes a series of missions for a nebulous organization before making a serious mistake and being declared an outlaw for her sexual inclinations and her substance abuse. The comic centres on her misadventures with her boyfriend, Booga, a mutant kangaroo.

My Thoughts:

This is the second (of two!) graphic novels that I’ve read (the other being Watchmen). Wait – is this a graphic novel? It’s more of a collection of several comics… I think?? Is there a difference?

This sort of thing is something I have NO knowledge in but I have to say that I did enjoy Tank Girl. She’s a cool character and I really appreciated the (inappropriate) humor (it took me a while to read it all as I had to keep putting it away someplace where my young daughter wouldn’t grab it). I mean, Tank Girl has sex with a kangaroo. Whaaaat? It’s pretty damn bizarre but it’s fun and I was entertained.

What I didn’t talk about in my mini-review was why I decided to read Tank Girl. My hubby bought it years ago and it had always been sitting in our bookcase (with that exact blue cover up there) but it wasn’t until last year when I’d run out of things to read that I decided to ask him about it as I did like the look of that image on the cover.

To be honest, although I hadn’t seen the movie, it looked really bad & was trashed by critics so I never gave the comic much thought. Well, hubby was all “you know why you’re drawn to that cover? Because its co-creator (Jamie Hewlett) also created Gorillaz with Damon Albarn”. That convinced me to finally check it out as I LOVE the band Gorillaz! I’ve always thought their virtual cartoon band was a brilliant idea (helped by the fact that the music was equally as cool as the band members Hewlett designed) and I’ve never understood why they weren’t absolutely huge in every country. Here they are:

Anyway, as for Tank Girl, I loved its “attitude” and the fact that the title character does NOT give a fuck. She’s violent, irresponsible, alcoholic, surprisingly dumb, and her boyfriend is a kangaroo yet you can’t help but like her. The “storylines” are all over the place (kind of like the inside of the character’s mind, I suppose) but I didn’t care as it was, overall, a funny & enjoyable read. I don’t exactly know if I can recommend it, though, as it’s not for everyone. It would really need to be your type of thing if you’re going to check it out but I’m glad that I finally did.

My Rating: 3.5/5