So here's an interesting thing. I got a Fang Club email yesterday from a guy named Simon McCorkindale, who is guitarist for a band called Mary Shelley Overdrive. He sent me a bio on his band and links for free music from MSO because he had seen The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween and thought we might be interested. So today's post for our 31 Days Of Halloween will be about this band, which I quite like. (Warning: not for young kids.)Mary Shelley Overdrive is from the Rob Zombie school of horror-themed
post-punk/metal, with heavily distorted guitars and vocals and samples inserted into the music. However, this band is going Rob Zombie one better on the aesthetic front: while I liked Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe, his roots are in grindhouse and 70's horror movies. MSO has more of a late-night-horror-TV vibe, which I vastly prefer. Listening to this music, I am reminded of the same things I love about the Ramones, the Cramps and the Misfits.The band has three collections of tunes available at their website for free download: Hideous Sexy, Shock Theatre and Bride Of Shock Theatre. Hideous Sexy is a collection of cover tunes that were recorded during the making of their self-titled debut album, which is now on sale at their site. The covers range from the Batman theme to Blue Oyster Cult to Devo to Black Flag, but the showstopper is a cover of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" that eschews the Diddley beat to create a voodoo-laced mood of an exceptionally dark twilight on the Mississippi Delta. Shock Theatre and Bride Of Shock Theatre are free EPs that revel in the band's horror aesthetic, featuring originals and cover songs such as "The Lament of Janos Skorzy," "Zombie Toolshed" (a fan favorite), Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (kind of expected) and an exceptionally frightening cover of the Misfits' "Halloween" which exchanges Glenn Danzig's hyperdrive pagan ceremony for a walk down a lonely street past the old Myers place in Haddonfield, Illinois.
There is also a cover of Rob Zombie's "House Of 1000 Corpses" on Shock Theatre 
that I find especially satisfying. I view Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses as one of the worst movies ever made, and though I like this song its connection to such a horrible movie has always bugged me. In the Overdrive's hands, with the dual vocals of singer Mark Wood and bass player Miss WyckedEvil Jones, the vision of ancient 1970's cult actors stumbling through neo-grindhouse sludge falls away and leaves me with the mental picture I've always wanted: a view of a dark house at the end of the street that the neighborhood kids refer to as "that house", where no one ever goes in... or comes out. (Occasionally my house has been referred to as "that house," but... oh, well.)
Anyway, MSO is a great new band and worth a listen, and their website also has a free zip file of downloadable artwork to create your own double album CD of Shock Theatre and Bride Of Shock Theatre. Check out their site at www.maryshelleyoverdrive.com and get their cool free stuff... perfect to get you in the Halloween spirit. If you like what you hear, then buy their new album and tell your friends!Thanks to Simon McCorkindale for viewing my blog. It was much appreciated. --M.D.
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