Sean Madigan Hoen: “Bloodfeast”
Southerly will be checking in later this week with two new tracks! The band have just returned from Spain, where they played the AV/Cervantes festival in Malaga, and are gearing up for some regional shows in support of the song-a-week campaign…
In celebration of Halloween, Sean Madigan Hoen has sent us this cover of the Misfits classic Bloodfeast. Some words from the man himself:
Happy Halloween. After some mild success with an acoustic version of
The Misfits’ seasonal classic “Halloween” for a 2004 Halloween card, I
decided to try again this year with the much darker and more
provocative “Bloodfeast.” However, after the first night of recording
my laptop perished and the Apple sanitation department has yet to fix
it. So, all I was left with was this very poor rough mix with some
hoarse vocals that surely does the prince of darkness, the Dark Elvis
no justice. While the spirit is there, it is an obvious failure…
hope you get a kick.As a child familiar with the Roman Catholic mass and a cold, impending
sense of crucifixion guilt, October 31st’s ghoulish escapism made
Halloween my favorite holiday. Much more so than the tinseled
alcoholism of Christmas. I always found Santa’s silly red ass
metaphysically offensive. I’d much rather rot in the orange and black
neo-Satanism of Hallow’s Eve; where the undead and the macabre have
their day.And no one since Bella Lugosi has better embodied the spirit of this
day better than the Dark Elvis, Glenn Danzig. The Misfits album “Walk
Among Us” was the fourth record I ever purchased, with a handful of
dirty bills from my Dearborn Press and Guide paper route. This
important purchase succeeded the “Thriller” album, Poison’s “Look What
The Cat Dragged In,” and Metallica’s “Garage Days” EP. In my humble,
yet studied opinion “Walk Among Us” is the Misfits’ finest moment.
They were momentarily signed to a bigger label and the production
values were raised. Not to mention, it is a collection of hits that
puts to shame anything the Ramones or Sex Pistols ever released.
“Walk Among Us” is occasionally overlooked due to the fact that it is
not included in the Misfits box set (a result of it being licensed to
a larger conglomerate and not the band’s own Plan 9 records). The box
set does feature alternate and demo recordings of virtually all the
songs on “Walk Among Us,” yet these prove to be inferior.However, the song-of-the-day, “Bloodfeast,” is taken from the band’s
last and most ferocious outing “Earth Ad.” While many of my friends
prefer the early B-movie gloom of the “Legacy of Brutality” LP (which
is actually a compilation), I have always favored “Earth AD” as my
second favorite Misfits album. It is twice as fast as anything they
had done, thanks in part to the inclusion of Black Flag drummer Robo.
While the speed of the performances obscure some of Glen’s melodies,
if one searches deeply enough it is easy to find that the Dark Elvis’
craft is still intact. The change in sound was evidently as result
of them “playing with a lot of skinhead bands.” “Bloodfeast” is the
record’s slowest track. After all these years (about 17) as a fan,
I am still convinced that Glenn Danzig was utterly sincere about his
subject matter. And I still find it mortally enjoyable.
