Spike Jones – In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound! (Omnivore Recordings)

A forgotten album makes for a refreshing listen for Halloween

Spike Jones made his mark by taking car horns, sirens, burps, gargles, and gun shots, and somehow making them musical.  Both “Cocktails For Two” and “All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” are hallmarks of the genius at work during his heyday of the 1940’s.  

Jones reemerged in 1959 with In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound!  Long out of print, Omnivore has just reissued this piece of Halloween madness.

Stereo was new technology in 1959, and Jones & Company take full advantage of the expanded sonic soundscape.  He enlists the talent of everyone from Paul Frees (who was the voice of Boris Badenov), Thurl Ravencroft (who played both Tony the Tiger, and the Grinch), George Rock (who sang on the original “Two Front Teeth” recording) and Loulie Jean Norman (who did the singing on Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan).  

The album is both a marvel of stereo technology (characters and sound effects go from left to right, then back again), and an absolute lark full of puns and silliness.  Take the opening track, where Frees and Norman (as Dracula and Vampira) spar with a heavily-reworked rendition of “I Only Have Eyes For You” (Are the bats out tonight / let’s forget them while have a bite”).  Frees then shows his versatility by playing two roles in “Poison to Poison,” a spoof of a 1950’s newscast, featuring spot-on imitations of both Edward R. Murrow and Alfred Hitchcock.  

While some of the tracks are more dramatic, there are some actual songs too.  Ravencroft’s deep baritone resonates on “Teenage Brain Surgeon,” which takes a while, but it eventually starts swinging, and the rollicking “Monster Movie Ball.”  Drac and Vampira return for “My Heart Sings” (“I haven’t had so much fun since I was alive”). 

Frees returns as Frankenstein, imitating the great Boris Karloff for “Everything Happens to Me,” as lush orchestration and piano plays underneath.

We get some of that good ol Spike Jones’ sirens and crashes that open “My Old Flame,” before another TV parody “This is Your Death.”  Everyone returns for the fantastic “Spooktacular Finale.”  

The liner notes go into the extreme care with which this album was put together (Jones and his crew ended up scoring it like a movie).  The end result is an album that makes an excellent soundtrack to your next spooky get-together, but also ensures that it’s full of laughs.  —Tony Peters