Musical Monday with Oingo Boingo

Before they were Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman and his fellow bandmembers were known as the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo and they performed covers of 1930s and 1940s songs while putting on bizarre and elaborate shows.

This music video featured in today's post was made as a proof-of-concept/test shoot for what eventually became the full-length movie "Forbidden Zone" (1979), directed by Richard Elfman.

Johnny (1977)
Starring: Marie-Pascale Elfman and the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo
Director: Richard Elfman
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Musical Monday with All Hallow's Evil

 "Face to Face" is another one of those songs that we love dearly here at Shades of Gray, but which very few have done justice to when they attempt to cover this Danny Elfman-penned song; Souixsie and the Banshees nailed it so perfectly in the original versions that covers are mostly just copies or fumbled attempts.

This is not the case with the version that All Hallow's Evil recorded and released in 2020. His version captures the sensibilities of the song, has clear echoes of the original version, but he also makes it his own. Check it out.

(As for this writing, the YouTube version of this song only has 750 views. That's a crying shame! And it's why we aren't saving this for a perhaps more logical place in the 31 Nights of Halloween line-up coming in October.)

Halloween is coming....

... and the Shaolin Death Squad is celebrating with an excellent version of Danny Elfman's "Dead Man's Party".

(Sure... the lead singer seems to flub the lyrics at one point during this live performance, but damn if this isn't a great and energetic version of the Halloween anthem! I think these may be the best guitar work on the song since Oingo Boingo recorded the original.