Monthly Archives: September 2011

09/30/11

Spirit Rappings

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Apparently séances are a perfect time to sneak a peek at your crotch

From the mid-1800′s up until 1920, Spiritualism was a huge movement in the United States. Although it was similar to other monotheistic religions in that it said there was only one God, Spiritualism differed in its belief that all necessary knowledge came not from any scared texts, but from communication with spirits! Its support for women’s rights and ending slavery also helped attract numerous followers. The movement started on March 31, 1848 in New York. On that date, Kate Fox asked that whatever was making the strange rapping noises in her family’s home to respond to her snapping her fingers. It did. Soon Kate and her sister Margaret had worked out a code to communicate with the spirit they claimed was haunting the house. When the sisters were sent to their brother’s house by their parents (for claiming that a spirit told them a man in the area had killed someone in their home), the rappings came with them. But it wasn’t until they went to stay with some friends of the family in Rochester that things really took off. Said friends were very taken with the rappings and spread the word to their friends. The friends told their friends, who told their friends and so on until the Fox sisters (and spirit rappings) became famous. Others claiming the ability to communicate with spirits soon appeared on the scene and further increased interest in ghosts, mediums, séances and such. Interestingly enough, the friends who had taken in the girls were Quakers, which explains how certain social issues became ingrained in Spiritualism. As the years went on, things got worse for the sisters. By 1888, both Kate and Margaret had publicly denounced Spiritualism and Margaret confessed that it was all a hoax to the newspaper “New York World.” Not only that, but she demonstrated her hoaxing techniques at the New York Academy of Music! It turns out the original rappings where created by bouncing an apple on a string on the floor of their bedroom. The rappings done in response to the request to answer were a combination of moving their knuckles, joints and tendons in their legs in certain ways. When the admission of fraud made their lives worse, Margaret made a failed attempt to recant her confession (presumably hoping that people had forgotten she had demonstrated her hoax techniques in public). The fact that skeptical authors revealed other methods of producing “spirit rappings” didn’t help matters either.

In 1853, a song called “Spirit Rappings” was written by J. Ellwood Garrett (lyrics) and W.W. Rossington and the sheet music is available online. Under US Copyright law, any American work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. Remember, this only applies to copyrights, not trademarks. In other words, any US citizen (aka most of our readers) can record themselves playing this song and can do whatever they want with said recording. Just keep in mind that a new recording of the song would be copyrightable, so the same freedom doesn’t apply to other peoples’ versions of it. If you decide to record your own take on “Spirit Rappings,” please feel free to send your Youtube videos and/or .mp3s of your performance to us. Who knows, maybe it could get featured on our podcast!

That’s not the only piece of spooky music that’s in the American public domain. In 1919, Joseph John Davilla wrote a little ditty called “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz (Don’t Scare Me Poppa).” The tune was named for the “Axeman of New Orleans,” a serial killer that terrorized the Big Easy from 1918-1919. The Axeman (or pranksters claiming to be the Axeman) was fond of writing to local newspapers about his crimes and in one such letter, he claimed that he would kill again on the night of March 19 and would only spare those who were in the presence of a jazz band. On that night, jazz halls were packed and anyone with a shred of musical talent was playing jazz at private parties. Nobody was killed that night and the Axeman vanished after his final murder on October 27, 1919. Although only the cover art for the above mentioned sheet is available online, the sheet music for this instrumental ditty is not currently available online. As the Historic New Orleans Collection has a copy of it, I hope that they will one day scan it and share it with the world through their website.

Although we think our information is solid, at the end of the day we have to admit that we’re not lawyers. Our legal commentary is worth exactly what you paid for. We’re just sharing this since this is interesting and those seeking to benefit from allegedly public domain works should consult at least one lawyer before doing so. Gravedigger’s Local 16 is not to be held responsible for anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any of the links in this article or using the material noted here. Attempt at your own discretion.

09/29/11

Even More Cool Cover Art

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Like many of you reading this, I love old school VHS cover art. Since I recently found a bumper crop of websites devoted to showcasing 80′s VHS cover art, I just had to share. Although most of these focus solely on horror/sci-fi, a few do feature cover art from other genres:

Video Cultures
80′s VHS Cover Art
The Great VHS Haul of 2011 – VivaVHS
VHS Wasteland – Serial Killer Magazine
those we left behind: Video cover art of the 80s
VHS Cover art from the 80s – THE RUE MORTUARY
those we left behind: VHS Video Posters from the 1980s
Profondo VHS: Italian Horror Cover Art from Around the World
Insane 80s Horror Movie Video Artwork | THE SURFING PIZZA

I also discovered there are numerous videos on Youtube devoted to showcasing VHS covers. First up is a collection of British cover art uploaded by dawnsbrother68:

Up next, here’s MrMovieNight’s collection:

This video by jmsflyXdvd focuses solely on VHS covers with drawn artwork. He also has several videos featuring covers from every horror movie released for each year during the 80′s:

Finally, MoviePalaceOfBlood offers us “167 Of The Greatest Horror Movie VHS Covers”:

Of course, I would would be in remiss if I didn’t note that cool cover art doesn’t necessarily mean the movie will match up to the expectations that said cover raises, let alone be good. On the flip side, sometimes a film’s cover art will be so bad that it can drive away people from a good movie. Then again, sometimes bad art can be so bad that it somehow becomes good. The following will show several examples of this (covering horror and other genres):

those we left behind: Bad VHS cover art
those we left behind: Bad VHS cover art sequel
Awesomely Bad ’80s VHS Horror Movie Cover Art
80 Awesomely Bad ’80s Video Covers | TotalFilm.com
80 More Awesomely Bad ’80s Video Covers | TotalFilm.com

As you’ve probably guessed, there are videos devoted to bad cover art. Here’s a several part series from
OcpCommunications (although I disagree about Robo Vampire; I think the artwork for that movie is amazingly awesome):

If that isn’t enough VHS cover art for you, then I recommend checking out the Lunchmeat VHS fanzine, which often features interviews with the artists behind the artwork we love.

09/28/11

The Slide

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I guess this answers my question about whether or not zombies poop...

Strange things are happening in the small English town of Redlow. After being hit by a major earthquake (despite such things being very rare in the UK), large cracks have been opening all over the area. Greenish mud starts oozing out of these cracks, animals start dying off and many people are isolating themselves in dark rooms and refusing to eat. As a team of scientists investigate, they discover that not only is the mud is alive, but it can control peoples’ minds and has dark plans for humanity…

The Slide has a very interesting genesis. Inspired by his fears of England being hit by a major natural disaster, famed British scriptwriter Victor Pemberton originally pitched it as a Doctor Who storyline in 1964. After it was rejected, he retooled it as standalone radio project. A few years later, he reworked the concept into the Doctor Who serial Fury from the Deep. On top of that, some elements from that revision worked their way into Doctor Who and the Pescatons, the first audio drama of the franchise! Adding to the Doctor Who connection are the theme music and sound effects created by the Radiophonic Workshop and Roger Delgado (better known as “The Master”) plays the heroic Dr. Josef Gomez (whose lines were ironically given to Dr. Who in the Fury from the Deep reworking). As far as I’m concerned, Delgado’s performance is the highlight of The Slide.

The Slide runs for seven episodes, and could have benefited from having an episode or two trimmed out during the planning stage of its production. The constant repetition of scenes featuring people discussing organisms in the mud or possessed people acting weird gets very old very fast. I’m guessing these were included for the benefit of people who tuned in midway through the story, but it still drags the story to the point where it seems much, much longer than its 3 and a half hour running time. That’s not to say there aren’t good things about the script. Although you might think a story which constantly jumps from location to location would be confusing, The Slide handles it quite well. I especially liked the idea of the possessed people rounding up and trapping normally resistant people to break their wills and how the ending was not all flower and sunshine. I think this drama will appeal the most to those looking for a Quatermass-esque adventure and diehard Doctor Who fans.

Apparently lost for some time, this release of The Slide was created using recording from Mr. Pemberton’s personal collection. I didn’t notice any issues with the audio and I doubt anyone would notice this wasn’t taken from the original masters unless they were told in advance. As is the case for AudioGo’s radio drama releases, The Slide comes with excellent liner notes which detail the history of The Slide, trivia and reproductions of vintage ads. In fact, they reveal that Amicus was considering a film adaptation at one point! Oh, and if you’re wondering about the title, the liner notes reveal it’s a reference to both a slide into chaos and the mud its sliding out cracks in the earth.

Special thanks to AudioGo LTD for the review copy!

09/27/11

The Internet Rips You Off

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Things are quiet around here as everyone prepares for the annual Halloween Countdown. We’ll have new, daily content for you throughout October (even weekends. Rad, right?) You can help out GdL16 by spreading the word – tell people to check us out, interact with us on Twitter and Facebook.

In the meantime, I’ll chat a bit about something I read over at ComicsAlliance involving artist Francesco Francavilla and TeeFury, a Shirt.Woot.com copycat that sells one shirt design every 24 hours (though it seems more transparent with its payment policy than Woot. And, artists retain rights of their designs whereas Woot retains rights in perpetuity.) Francavilla got pissed off because a TeeFury design depicting H.P. Lovecraft had some elements similar to something Francivilla drew.

Of course, both designs seem to rip off one of the two existing pictures of Howard, so it’s a question of “who ripped off who?” The answer is “they both suck” and that ultimately, Francavilla doesn’t have as strong of a standing to sue, in my opinion. If he had a more original piece of work, instead of adapting a existing photograph, he’d be in a better position. Hell, we all would. Hell, people, there are more classic horror writers than H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah, C’thulu and all that but c’mon. It’s like how Hollywood keeps making movies out of Philip K. Dick novels. We’re turning C’thulu and H. P. Lovecraft into the McDonalds of Horror literature.

My main point is not that people are overexposing Lovecraft (they are) or that some whiny dirtbag artist stole artwork from another whiny artist (Jimi Benedict, artist of the TeeFury piece, is innocent in this case but his blog posts kind of reveal that the guy’s a dick.)  The main point, one that ComicsAlliance hinted at, is  that if you contribute to the Internet and don’t cover your ass, it will rip you off.

Example: Some guy posts a picture of his cat wearing a custom-collar that looks like a tie. Someone makes a few captioned pictures and thus BusinessCat, the meme, is born. Shortly thereafter, Icanhazcheezburger.com starts selling pictures featuring a black cat wearing a similar tie-collar. The design is a drawing and it’s altered enough that while it retains similarities to the original meme (the cat is black, there’s no discernible facial expressions, tie-collar), it’s clearly different from the original picture. This difference is made to scuttle any possible lawsuits that the original photographer might make, though if the guy wanted some of the profits, he could probably make a decent case. I’m not entirely sure if the cheezburger group reached out to the original poster (the picture first appeared on the SomethingAwful.com forums. The cat’s name, by the way, is Emilio.) They might have but after seeing how they use all the troll faces from 4chan/reddit with gleeful aplomb, it’s pretty clear that unless you put a signature on the piece of art, you’re going to get fucked over.

We here at GdL16 are against intellectual property theft. I’m personally for reforming the Intellectual Property laws, since a lot of the corporate culture has lobbied for laws that will erode away the ‘public domain.’ Big respect, personally, goes to Senator Ron Wyden for putting the ‘PROTECT IP’ act on hold, since its obtuse, vague language gives sweeping powers in combating piract and copyright infringement. Yeah, the AFL-CIO supports the bill but so does the MPAA and RIAA. Yeah, the MPAA/RIAA have stopped suing grandmothers but they’re still assholes.

So. What can we learn about this Francavilla/Benedict issue?

1. Lay Off of H.P. Lovecraft. Seriously, people. The dude had some good stories but c’mon. He’s not the be-all, end-all. He was also racist as fuck and not terribly kind to women in writing or in life.

2. Don’t rip off work in the public domain and cry foul when someone else does it. Originality is key. If you’re going to hi the ol’ PEE DEE, then make sure your work is clearly transformative enough that it establishes a style and at least, something that if someone ELSE steals, you can have some stable ground for your lawsuit.

3. When defending your position on a blog, have some sympathy for others or else, you’ll look like a total asshole. Don’t be an asshole. This is the “Jimmy Benedict” rule. The guy’s pretty entertaining and witty but he’s kind of a dickhead on his blog, sometimes. Writing “all’s fair in love and art”  without some kind of empathy towards the opposite side in the recipe for Instant Shitbag(tm). If someone calls you out for doing something, EVEN IF YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT, don’t be an asshole.

However, if that person is clearly being an asshole themselves, you’re allowed to ignore Rule 3.

4. Seriously, knock it off with all the Lovecraft. Find someone else. I mean it.

5. There are enough legislation on the books to combat internet piracy. This is more of an opinion, though I’m sure if someone set up gdl16.me and just ripped off everything we did, I would change my tune. Actually, no. Who the fuck would go to gdl16.me? Which, brings me to:

6. Cover Your Ass. Don’t put stuff up on the internet without either expecting it to be copied or without you securing the right paperwork to protect your work. And when someone DOES steal it, use the tools at hand to combat piracy. Yeah, they’re jerks for ripping you off but don’t seek vengeance; seek justice.

That’s pretty much it. I’m going to be busy for the week so I hope this half-brained sermon will hold you over. Trust me, the next month will be entertaining.

09/21/11

Bruce and Sam v. The Evil Dead

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By now, you’ve probably read that the Evil Dead remake won’t include the main character, Ash, in any form. Bruce Campbell won’t show up as an aged S-Mart employee doling out advice to some new bunch of saps who happened to read from the Necronomicon. Sure, Bruce will be in the film but not as Ash.

Problems? Eh. I don’t have a problem with this. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t really get pissed off at remakes anymore, since the derivative nature of the movie industry will continue to mine nostalgia and comfort for money. Sure, when they remake ‘Citizen Kane’ or ‘The Godfather,’ it’ll unleash a portal into the chittering unreality where foul monsters will teach us a new way to worship. But I think that’s what? Five, maybe ten years away? They still have to remake Disney’s “The Black Hole” first. So speaks the prophecy.

Anyway. Evil Dead is going to be done again and this time, they’ll find some other actor to do his or her best Ashley J. Williams impression while giving it a 2012 twist. Look, don’t you know? Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have been in the process of remaking Evil Dead for twenty years. They’ve just been doing it in other movies, one scene at a time. Did you see Spider-Man 2? Did you see the scene where Doctor Octopus’s arms came alive? Hell, let me find it.

Here:

Hell, half of Darkman is Campbell and Raimi screwin’ around. Don’t throw up any rage at the idea of this venerable horror classic somehow being tarnished. The whole legacy is rusty as a bloody chainsaw.

09/20/11

Bela Lugosi’s Post-Rehab Interview

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Bela Lugosi’s battle with drug addiction is well known throughout horror fandom. Lugosi developed sciatica due to leg injuries he received in the first World War. As his leg pains grew worse and worse, he was eventually prescribed painkillers like morphine, Demerol, and methadone. Like many (but not all) people who are given such drugs, he became addicted. The fact that methadone could be obtained without a prescription didn’t help matters. Although his (then) wife was able to wean him off drugs in 1953, he relapsed after she divorced him and took custody of their son. Two years later, a private sanitarium advised Lugosi to get help, which led to him checking into the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norfolk, CA for a three month stay. The following video shows Lugosi’s interview with the press given right after he left the hospital. Although celebrities going into rehab is common these days, such things were unheard of back then.

For more on Bela Lugosi, be sure to check out this classic Gravedigger’s Local 16 article.

09/16/11

6′+ Episode 13 is Up!

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To quote the description given at the new listing:

“Though Autumn is not really a season associated with the words NEW and FRESH, with everything dying around your feet, when do you need new music more than ever? See, we’ve got your back. With this episode, we have music from artists who haven’t been on 6′+ before. You’ll hear songs from The Moans, The Deadbeats, Gigi and the Cretins, Big Lazy, Thee Wild Wraith, Ursula 1000, VAGORA and more.”

You can find all episodes of 6′+ over at the official site as well as on iTunes. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter.

09/14/11

All Dark, No Depp

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Can’t say I’m a big Dark Shadows fan, having been born ten years after it went off the air (and never caught a rerun on SyFy or whoever might have carried it post-mortem) so I have no attachment to the franchise. I watched the first twelve episodes or so about a month or two ago, those episodes before anything terribly spooky started. The signature character, Barnabas Collins, hadn’t shown up yet.

So when the first photos of Johnny Depp as Barnabas hit the internet today/yesterday, it didn’t really inspire any rage or disgust. More as “casual indifference.” And that’s how I think any of you should handle this upcoming movie. I wasn’t surprised that Depp looks like a powdery Truman Capote playing at Darkman. Nothing about this coven surprises me anymore.

Look at the stats: It’s a big screen adaptation of a 70′s soap opera that wasn’t that popular to begin with. It’s being directed by Tim Burton. It stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Danny Elfman is the music composer. Yes, it’s just as you think: this is the same exact movie as Sleepy Hollow/Big Fish/Corpse Bride/Sweeney Todd/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Alice in Wonderland. I’m sure you can toss in half of Edward Scissorhands and half of Planet of the Apes in there as well, bringing up the total to 7 movies spanning twenty years.

But should we get mad? No. It’s going to happen. No matter what, some fool will give Tim Burton to make movies with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. They will always get funding, they will always get distribution. Warner Bros. knows that there is a contingency of the population that will always go see a Johnny Depp movie, no matter what. There’s also a slice of the public that actually enjoys Tim Burton’s movies, even if there’s no story, no character development, no plot or no real sense. The shit will always have a distinct spooky look to it.

Until Burton has a divorce (from either Helena or Johnny) these movies are always going to be made. We can’t stop them. It’s a Big Brother/Chinatown thing. Either you can end up loving Tim Burton or you can walk away. Getting mad won’t do anything anymore.

09/12/11

Tuesday uEtsy Update

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As we prepare for the upcoming Halloween schedule, we’re going to suspend out Tuesday uEtsy feature until the start of November. We’ll resume the feature on November 1st or 8th, depending on how well things go.

However, we do have good news. Loretta, Bernie and Poinsettia welcomed young Humphrey Freakshow into their family on September 5th. Healthy, smart and loud as one of Bernie’s excavation machines. Both child and mother are doing well.

09/8/11

GdL16: Origins

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Although the origins of this website have been previously touched on here, nobody at the Local has really delved into the entire history of this website.

Back in 2006, Strange Jason and I were chatting via AIM when he notified me of his plans for a “personal Halloween countdown” where he would listen to some spooky audio every day in October. Being a good friend, I looked far and wide and sent him as much scary music, MIDI files, old time radio, audio books and sound effects as I could find. The following year, I decided to modify his idea by picking a new horror/Halloween-related Myspace profile song every week to entertain my friends. However, things didn’t exactly work out the way I had planned. I had unknowingly linked to unauthorized Myspace profiles featuring two of the songs I had used, which make it very hard to find a replacement version of the song. I ended up substituting Tenacious D’s “Tribute” for tracks that were taken down numerous times and eventually quit in frustration. And, yes, “Tribute” counts as a spooky song. Read this if you doubt me. Anyway, the three songs I ended up using were:

Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield (as made famous by The Exorcist)
Main Theme from Halloween – John Carpenter
Tribute – Tenacious D

In 2008, talking with Jason inspired me to give it another shot. In fact, Jason was planning on doing something similar on his Myspace profile. Jason, being impressed by my knowledge of Halloween props and horror movie trivia, encouraged me to try writing articles for my Myspace blog for each day in October. It took some convincing, especially since I felt my knowledge wasn’t as impressive as Jason thought it was (due to me copy-pasting stuff from movie review websites and various horror-related forums during lulls in our AIM conversations), but eventually I agreed. The fact that Jason said he would do something similar on his profile was also a big factor in that decision. It got to the point where he was so stunned by the stuff I was finding that he tried convincing me to start a website instead. Eventually, Jason offered to start up a website if I would agree to participate. I agreed (not realizing that he meant starting it immediately) and, well, I think you can guess what happened next.

At the same time, I was still preparing for the Myspace countdown. Although the article part was ditched in favor of posting at Gravedigger’s Local 16, the music part was still a go. Thankfully, Myspace switched to allowing its users to select five profile songs instead of just one. This meant that instead of changing songs every week, I could create a five songs a mix of cool music and spooky atmospheric tracks that I kept up for the entire month of October. The tracks selected were:

Family Secrets – Midnight Syndicate
Jack the Ripper – Screaming Lord Sutch
Hall of Portraits – Hedstorm Productions
The Trouble with those Mothra Girls – Daikaiju
Spooky 2007 (Diablo’s Theme) – The Ghastly Ones

Oddly enough, it took me until the 2009 Halloween countdown to actually start posting the trivia I had shared with Jason which prompted him to start up the site!

Happy Birthday Gravedigger’s Local 16!

09/6/11

Monstermatt Patterson’s BAD MONSTER JOKES VOL.1

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Having contributed to GdL16 in the past, we were pleasantly surprised to get word that Monstermatt Patterson’s first book, “Monstermatt’s Bad Monster Jokes Vol.1″, found a new publisher and will be released by Pill Hill Press on Septermber 21st.

Over 400 bad monster jokes, BAD MONSTER JOKES VOL.1 will be released with additional content than the first run. It’ll be a great addition to your 2011 Halloween preparation, in case you want to add a bad joke “trick” to your Halloween “treats.”  From the press release:

Monstermatt has written over one thousand bad monster jokes,and this first volume gives you a sizable introduction to the humor that resides within.The marriage of the jokes to Kyle Kaczmarczyk’s insightful illustrations,are what has fans waiting for more!

According to duo,the book is  acting as an introduction to the horror genre for newcomers, while entertaining those already familiar with it. Jokes and illustrations about Frankenstein and Dracula, to jokes about “The Manitou” and “Basket Case”, even “The Human Centipede”, are turning many a newcomer into a horror buff.

Word has it, for better or worse, that Volumes 2 and 3 of Monstermatt’s over 1,000 bad joke repertoire are being written. So you might as well buy as many copies of Vol.1 as you can to get your immune system up. Soon, Monstermatt’s jokes will be all over the world and you don’t want to be caught with your guard down.

The book will be available at major online book retailers. For more information,and updates, or to keep up with Kyle, Monstermatt and Pill Hill Press, follow them on Twitter at:
www.Twitter.com/zombieinkcomics
www.Twitter.com/1monstermatt
www.Twitter.com/pillhillpress

09/3/11

Show and Hell

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It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of PuppeTose Theater. But with all the focus on puppets, it’s all too easy to forget that the mastermind behind it all, Ross Wilsey, also dabbles in animation. So in honor of back to school season, here’s my favorite animated work of his, straight from the official PuppeTose Youtube channel:

As is the case with all PuppeTose productions, this is NSFW. Hardcore PuppeTose fans will undoubtedly notice how the demon resembles one of the hallucinations from the “A Question of Clean” segment from Random Stories Grab-Bag and how the father looks uncannily like Druid Hemlock from the third episode of PuppeTose Street. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I thought it was pretty cool to see those characters again in some form and it also shows that PuppeTose has a “conceptual continuity” similar to Frank Zappa’s discography.

09/2/11

6′+ Episode 12 is Up!

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To quote the description given at the new listing:

“The parent website of 6′+, Gravedigger’s Local 16, turns 3 years old in September 2011. With gratitude and humility, we give thanks for another year online and above ground. A lot has changed to GdL16 in the past twelve months, but the same appreciation for all things creepy, weird and bizarre remains the same.

We celebrate here on 6′+ with a bevy of songs, some odds and ends (and some really odds, at that) that reflect the GdL16 site. Can’t put three years in one podcast, so either the party will spill over into another episode or who knows? Maybe we’ll celebrate the birthday next month* (*we won’t.) You’ll find music from some of the favorites here on 6′+ – Daikaiju, The Ghastly Ones, Witches In Bikinis, The Crimson Ghosts, The Pine Box Boys, and more!”

There’s also a very important message regarding Danny “Daddy-O” Amis of Los Straitjackets. Please click on the above link to learn more.

You can find all episodes of 6′+ over at the official site as well as on iTunes. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter.