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10.20.07 The following submissions came directly from the musicians themselves and appear exclusively in Babble & Beat. We want to thank each and every one of them for sharing them with us! Personal Experiences
Submitted by Steve Kilbey of THE CHURCH The church played a gig in Armidale once. I think it was Armidale, or might have been somewhere else. That night we stayed in a motel on the edge of town. Our drummer at the time immediately didn't like it. I admit it had an oppressive feeling; it was unnaturally cold for one thing and dark with strange shadows. I fell into an uneasy sleep. Our drummer burst into my room and demanded to sleep in there. He was quite beside himself as he was more tuned in to this sort of stuff than the rest of us. I tossed him out but he kept coming back. Eventually I let him sleep at the foot of my bed. In the morning we packed up and got out fast. The other guys all had had bad nights... bad dreams, disturbed sleep, etc. As we paid up I asked about the motel's bad vibes. "Oh you noticed," said the guy on the desk, "the previous owner killed his wife and kids in there." Jesus it showed! LINKS:
Submitted by JOOLZ DENBY The Devil's Factory In my travels working in the music industry I've come across many haunted venues, ranging from old icy, hell's-mouth cellars beneath sparklingly re-decorated discos, to dressing rooms no-one wanted to stay in longer than ten seconds. There have been venues where equipment got mysteriously re-arranged and gear that moved by itself. I once even had a haunted juke box that played rock records - and only rock records - at midnight when it was visibly unplugged. There's a ballroom in Scotland that is haunted by the ghost of the owner's murdered son and a pub gig in Ireland that holds for eternity, a boy who still doesn't know he's dead. But the most genuinely terrifying case of haunting in the music business is one that made my flesh crawl and my lungs struggle for air, that dominated my time onstage and made me desperate, and I mean desperate, to leave the cursed place before my heart broke. I was touring with a small acoustic outfit, two singer-songwriters, a bass-man and myself, doing spoken-word. We'd played the show for over 15 years round Germany, Holland and the UK, which meant that we'd done, or knew, most of the venues of a size suitable for our - ahem - bijou appeal. Let's say that outfit is a cult within a cult within the underground. But we loved doing it and it was a great show to be part of. When we heard we'd been booked into a new-to-us venue in central Germany, we were mildly interested in the novelty of a different stage for a change. It turned out to be one of those gigs created out of an old industrial unit, a factory of some kind, that had been generously funded by government arts grants and was now all exposed brick, sturdy roof beams and perforated stainless steel. You know the kind of thing. Ex-Industrial Brutalism, every country does it, and they all congratulate themselves on their originality and sense of urban chic. But from the off, we knew something wasn't right. It was very cold. Colder than the weather, the season and the massive heating pipes on full bore would allow. Soundcheck was done in coats and scarves and no-one fancied the beautifully presented food laid out like a wedding breakfast in the chilly dressing room. Normally, we eat like ravening wolves - but not this time. Eventually, I wandered off to the Women's toilets. It was decorated in the house style of stripped-down walls and grey rubber flooring. Grumbling to myself about how I preferred Rococo, gold glitter and pink plush I stepped over to the long trough, an old piece of industrial stuff re-used and now punctuated by taps, that served as wash basins. I put my hand out to turn the water on. I couldn't. I couldn't touch the tap. I couldn't look in the long, dull mirror. I couldn't breathe. A dreadful clamour of voices screaming, mumbling, gasping, howling and weeping rose up like a formless, freezing mist from the old trough like a crossed line to Hell. Struggling to get hold of myself I turned to run but I couldn't do that either. It was as if a hundred arms, incorporeal, un-living, desperate, caught hold of me and stopped me, dragged at me, begged me to - what? To do what? My mind was shutting down against the weight of these unknowable pleas and with a huge effort I wrenched myself out of the room and slammed the shining new steel door shut. The voices ceased. I ran - at last - to the tour promoter, a sweet, gentle Buddhist guy. What - what was this place before, I asked, wiping tears from my face and feeling both foolish and terrified. Oh, just a factory, he replied. Breaching the unspoken rule that we don't talk about World War 2 in Germany, I asked what it had been during the conflict. He looked sad, and very grave. A forced-labour factory, he said. You know. I did know. I also knew most German factories during the war were run by forced labour. Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Poles, Artists, Musicians - anyone the Third Reich deemed 'degenerate', or 'inferior'. Some factories ran their workers decently enough as best they could, some did not. And some - well. Many human beings are not good with power, and the power of life and death is a dreadful burden some carry better than others. What had happened in this brightly-lit, smartly-painted and Artified venue, in the dark days of mass insanity that had held sway over Germany? What horrors, what brutality, what cruelty? How much blood had coursed down that fashionably-reclaimed trough now frivolously used in the Women's room? What would I have seen in that mirror, had I dared look in it? If you read this, breathe a prayer or a thought for those lost voices. For all the lost voices. (c) Joolz Denby 03/10/2007 LINKS:
Submitted by Loto of LOTO BALL Me and my friend, Robert Ryder, made our own Ouija board one day and I forget who we were trying to contact. Jimi? Maybe, I don't remember. But the lights went on and off in the house as soon as we started messing with the Ouija board, so we stopped right then and there. That's all! LINKS:
Submitted by Hope of TECHNIKULT OF FLESH A very true ghost story... Phoenix, AZ. 1993. I had broken up with my drug addict boyfriend after he pulled a gun on me and I decided it was time to go on my own. I had moved into a studio apartment by myself. One evening I came out of the shower, put my hair up in a towel wrap and looked in the hall mirror. I felt something was watching me from behind and I turned around and I saw this long black-haired man in a white shirt quickly move toward me. I tried to back away and he simply went right through me and into the kitchen area and right through the refrigerator. I felt my chest had caved in and I lost all my breath from the shock of it all. It seemed he was running from something and I never saw him again for the next 4 months living there. LINKS:
Submitted by SUIT OF LIGHTS We were recording in a studio in Utica, New York, and the owner told us this story: There once was a jewelry business next door to the studio, and one day three teenagers decided to rob the jewelry store by climbing down the chimney. The first teen got stuck halfway down the chimney. Panicked, the other two fled the scene for fear of being arrested. After a few weeks, a sour smell began to fill the jewelry store and the body was discovered. To this day, strange noises are heard in the studio, and they're always attributed to "the chimney king." LINKS:
Submitted by If by IF WEN When I was a boy in St. Ives (UK) I used to sleep in an attic with a view of Godrevy Lighthouse. I loved that room when the sunbeams swept through the windows, or when a driving south-westerly wind rattled the frames and for hours I could watch the sea churning with white horses. But I was always uneasy at night in the black under the pitched roof of the house on the hill. One night I was woken by a finger jabbing at my left shoulder. I screamed and ran to open the bedroom door, and found it locked, just as I had left it. I flicked the light switch, and turned with my heart pounding to face the room, but it was empty and quiet. I unlocked the door, ran down the attic stairs, and slept in another bedroom. From that day on, I still enjoyed the view from the attic window during daylight hours, but asked not to sleep there at night. LINKS:
Submitted by Gavin of MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE I was doing an organized ghost hunt at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield several years ago and happened to be in part of the old administrative section around the time when the spirit of a former warden's wife was said to appear. There were several people gathered in the location where she was reportedly killed - a set of stairs - and we began taking pictures of the area. After reviewing the photos I took, I discovered a large, solid, moving orb in the center above the empty staircase. I've gotten orbs in many pictures before and am of the belief that they are generally the result of light reflecting off of airborne dust, insects, or other matter, but this orb was solid white and clearly had a slight wispy trail behind it." LINKS:
Submitted by Phanie of GIRL IN A COMA When I was 8 years old I use to watch a white figure knock on my mom's door. Her bedroom was located in the hallway of our home and my bedroom faced hers. I was never afraid of it... more curious. In the morning I would hear a female and male voice call my name. I never thought much of it. I continued to see this apparition for three days. On the third day it turned to me and walked up to me. That startled me and I screamed. Never saw it again. LINKS:
Submitted by Jacqui Vixen of DEVILISH PRESLEY During the recording of their debut album "Disgraceland", London based rockers Devilish Presley (best known for their song HALLOWEEN QUEEN) had a very strange experience with the supernatural, which was in fact captured on one of the albums tracks. Vocalist & bass player Jacqui Vixen tells the story. We were in this old railway arch studio in Waterloo called Alaska, it had been open since the '70s and people like Marc Bolan used to rehearse there. Johnny used to work at Alaska a few years ago and he had already told me that the place was weird. The far end room in the studio had a door which would always slam shut, even when it was propped open with a fire extinguisher. When we came to record there this room had since been converted into the live area with a wooden floor being added as part of the acoustic treatment. The engineer told us he was convinced the room was haunted, stuff was always going wrong and gear would go missing and then turn up in weird places. We were in the process of recording an acoustic song called "Pin Cushion Girl" and no one was in the live room but the mics were active. Suddenly the engineer said, "Look at the VU meters" and they were moving - so he pushed up the faders and hit the record button. Then clear as you like were the sound of footsteps, someone or something was walking across the room!! So at the start of the track "Pin Cushion Girl" on the "Disgraceland" album you can hear these 'ghostly footsteps'. Some time later we found out that the original owner of the studio had hung himself in the room but even before that, in Victorian times, a navvy who was working on the arch had fallen to his death on the same spot. "Disgraceland" is still available from www.devilishpresley.com. Check out Devilish Presley on Tour now!!
Submitted by Brooks Tipton of BEAR COLONY I grew up out in the country outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. I had 3 sisters (who were pretty mean most of the time). The house we lived in was two stories and the bottom floor went under the ground (like a basement). There were a lot of strange things that occurred in that house but one time in particular will always stand out to me. Mine and two of my sisters' bedrooms were in the basement of the house. Our parents worked late, so we were usually at home alone in the afternoons after school. Well, the day that it all happened I took the bus home (I was about 9 years old) and walked up the long driveway to the house. It was the only house within about a mile. I figured my sisters were already home but I didn't see anyone when I came in. I went downstairs to the basement and threw my bag on the floor. Right at that moment I felt a very strange feeling come through me. I turned around to look at the (double door) closet and the doors flew open and stuff was hitting me from inside the closet. Pencils, books, and shirts were flying out of the closet at me! I was really freaked out and yelling my oldest sister (Rachel's) name because I figured it was probably her in there trying to scare me. Then everything was quiet and I sat down on my bed. All of the Sudden, I felt something like a hand with fingernails scratching my leg! I tried to stand up but something was holding me down on the bed! I looked down and there were claw marks on my leg (it was on the verge of bleeding). At that same moment, I heard someone come inside the house upstairs, it was all three of my sisters. They rode home together from school and found me down there in that basement all freaked out! Do you like that story? I just made it up. Haha! But, that's what it's all about, right? The story. LINKS:
Submitted by Edgars Legzdins of PLANE See I reside in my own recording studio, called Blue Room Studio, located on State and Superior in Chicago. The building is one block south of the Holy Name Cathedral. It's a rear building surrounded by condos owned by the Gold Coast rich. When the Playboy Club was still in Chicago, Hugh Heffner lived in the condos just in front of my recording studio. The story goes he was dating a very young and beautiful catholic girl for a while and she was expecting marriage. When Hugh left her she hung herself in the condo. It is believed her spirit now roams the Holy Name Cathedral across the street, the line of condos and my recording studio. Upon moving in I was told this story by the maintenance people. One of the very first nights recording this is what happened. I was in the control room late around 3 am when I heard scuffling in the live room. Mics were still on but the musicians had left. I then noticed a pen rolling across the table and papers falling down. Then suddenly a light bulb in the control room exploded and projected out of its socket. The bulb fell to the floor and I picked it up. The missing glass from the bulb was shaped in a heart. True story. P.S. Things come in full circle. My picture will be in this December's issue of Playboy. I play the role of a serial killer in the pictorial of a Stephen King short story. LINKS:
Submitted by Chantal Claret of MORNINGWOOD I don't really have many ghost stories except for when my mom died. I was convinced she was my own personal ghost, god, angel, whatever you want to call it. She was all powerful while she was alive and I knew that would follow over into the afterlife. So on a perfectly calm, clear & beautiful night in NYC my best friend and I walked around on 86th Street & 5th Avenue in tank tops and underwear asking our deceased parents (her father had passed away as well) to make it rain to prove to us that they were listening to us. Within two minutes of asking, there was a torrential downpour and we ran around for 20 minutes getting soaked. We were laughing and yelling and crying, and within 20 seconds of uttering the words "ok, now make it stop" the rain ended and it became a perfectly still night again. That's all I got. xo, cc LINKS:
Submitted by Nick Anastasi of FAT CITY REPRISE Wow, it's funny that you asked us for a ghost story because we actually have a whole bunch of them from a haunted house we used to live in. We moved into a band house on 10th Street in South Philly around 2005. The first day Frankie walked in there he said it was haunted but no one wanted to believe him. We just signed a year lease so we tried to ignore it. But weird stuff was always happening. We were all sitting on the couch one night playing Xbox and hanging out. There was a loud noise in the kitchen and a stack of Solo cups flew out of the cabinet and onto the floor. Everyone in the house was on the couch and we all saw the cups fly. We had to lock the door to the bathroom because when you would get a shower, the ghost would knock on the door and slam the door if it was open. Even when you were the only person in the house; it was terrifying sometimes. Some nights we would feel something grab our leg and woke up many times feeling like someone was standing at the end of bed watching us sleep. The lights used to flicker all throughout the house... at random times they would go on or off and the TV volume would jump. We would rehearse in the basement and when Frank would sing the line, "I'll miss you just in case" a breeze would always kick up as if someone was blowing in our faces. After six months of paranormal activity in the house, we went to the corner store and asked what the deal was with our house. It turned out a guy named Andy was murdered by his girlfriend in the kitchen. He beat her all the time and she finally had enough and stabbed him 34 times with a kitchen knife. There was a huge bleach stain on the carpet by the stairs, this was where the guy tried to crawl out of the house. Five years later, the girl who killed him was sitting on the step and she got shot during a drive-by shooting. She wasn't the target but she died on the steps too. So, the two ghosts locked in the house were enemies, which made it a lot harder to live there. We lived there for a year and a half all together; the place was just creepy. You got the goosebumps the second you walked in the door. I really wish these stories were exaggerations but they're not. It all happened. I didn't even believe in ghosts until I moved into that house. LINKS:
Submitted by Dan Leo of ACTION ACTION I've been interacting with ghosts, or whatever they might be, since I was very young. The one incidence that I remember very vividly is the first time that one of these "ghosts" affected me physically. It started with a dream I had. There was a gigantic raven in my dream, and it was gliding around the whole sky. Then suddenly, the raven's wings were sliced off when it glided through electrical lines. Its wings fell through the sky lights of my house, spilling blood all over the walls and furniture. That's when I woke up too - this ghost was trying to rip my arms off. It had me 4 feet above my bed, and I couldn't escape its hold that it had on me. I finally broke free from it, and I was thrown into my desk, cracking it down the middle. I had bruises around my arms, and got cut up a little from the desk. LINKS:
Submitted by Phil of PHIL HONEY-JONES / HONEYGENE A sporting Spirit... It was 2002 and I had travelled from home in London to Los Angeles for a 10 day summer vacation checking out the music venues, etc., a little bit of what we call in England a "Busman’s holiday." I travelled alone but was met at the airport by my good friend Susanne Hyatt, singer in U.S. band Stimulator. We picked up a hire car and I drove us to an apartment in uptown LA. It was the home of one of Susan’s friends, a female drummer in a glam / rock band who was out of town and so kindly loaned us her flat. Her name eludes me, but here’s a belated "thank you" to her for letting us stay. During my 10 day stay in LA we slept in this apartment for 6 or 7 nights. It didn’t feel particularly spooky and there were no cold chills or anything like that. What did happen though was the television and the shower would switch themselves on. At first Susan thought it was me, and I her, but it was only a small flat and it wasn’t long before it happened while we were together - ruling out the possibility of one of us playing a trick on the other. The TV and shower did not always switch on at the same time as each other but it did happen simultaneously twice. We didn’t feel scared, particularly alarmed, or threatened but each time it happened we acknowledged it and would glance at one another with a wry smile accepting that there was at least one other presence in the room. One significant detail that we noticed was that on the 2 occasions when the TV and shower switched on together there was a sports programme showing, baseball and football (not soccer lol). So we figured we must be in the presence of a sporting spirit between bases as it were. I never met the owner of the flat and so did not find out whether she had experienced the same... and to be quite honest, I hadn’t thought about it until I received Stacy’s request for musician’s ghost stories. LINKS:
Submitted by Scareifina of WICKED LITTLE DOLLS Wow, I have so many strange experiences it's difficult to choose one. I did work for the ASPR (the American Society for Paranormal Research) and heard tons of crazy stories and saw insane things in their occult library. Anyway, I'll share two of my favorite personal ones for you. I once lived in a church in Elizabeth, NJ that was built in 1852. The new owners turned it into a playhouse, hence the name 'The Elizabeth Playhouse.' It was also apartments, mine was number 12. One weekend I went away and when I got back my neighbor said, "Grandmother looked like she really missed you, she spent all day looking out the window." I was shocked, my Grandmother had died years ago and there was no one in my apartment at all. I told my neighbor that and she didn't look that surprised! She said, "Oh then it must be Mrs. Havasham," then told me to talk to Marlow and Karen, the building owners who also lived there in apartment 0. I went and spoke to them and they told me that the spirit of an old lady had been here for years. They call her Mrs. Havasham and they think she may have been the Sunday school teacher in the 1800s that died in a fire. They say sometimes the actors will hear a little bell ring right by their ear and nothing is there. Also, the scent of roses fills the air when she is near. I went on to live in the playhouse for a few years, I saw her myself only once. It was the middle of the night and LuCi and I had friends over and I went into the theatre part of the building and saw an old women with long white hair writing by the light of an oil lamp. Startled I jumped and in a half second she was gone, along with the oil lamp. You can find information on the playhouse, I'm sure, online somewhere because a ghost research team came from Phili every year to do research. Sadly Marlow and Karen sold the place in 2005 and have relocated to Virginia. I now live in a mansion in Weehawken, NJ that was also built in 1852. I have stories from here too, this time it is not an old lady but and old man and a servant girl who I think is named Molly. You can see the house by watching our 'Rotten Candy' video, it was all shot here. Now this is a short story of how I got my name Scareifina. I was raised in Fairfax, VA by my Mother (who has Schizophrenia) and her Mother, who I called Granny. When she died she put my Uncle in charge of everything and, to make a long story short, he made my Mother and I homeless. Then we moved into a trailer park. I wanted to start a band but knew I had to first make money and get my Mom out of the shitty trailer park. So I made a fake resume, moved to Elizabeth, NJ and b.s.'d my way into a high paying job as a Associate Producer for NHK. Kept the job just long enough to buy my Mom her dream home in the Poconos. It was on the drive from the realtor's office, when the deal was done, to go to my new house that I started talking to my dead Granny, who always called me her "Angel." I was crying and said, "Granny I hate this stupid job and know I want to start my band, the Wicked Little Dolls, please. I've done so much to help my Mom. Please give me a sign that I can now start my band... I need a stage name." Just that second a big black limo came out of nowhere and cut me off. I was pissed, but then I looked at the license plate and it said "Seraphina." I knew that "Seraphina" meant "Angel" and I knew my Granny meant me to take that name. I did make it more wicked by changing it to Scareifina. The next day I told my boss everything, and he said he found out my resume was fake after a few weeks but that no one cared because I was kick ass at my job. He said, "You can make anything happen, so go for it." So, I quit that job and started WLD. LINKS:
Submitted by Noble of BRITISH SEA POWER My first encounter with some kind of ghost was in a family photograph. It was just a face in the window, but that could've been some trick with the lights and wasn't very scary at all. My second one was in my house at University. I was sat down by the kitchen table minding my own business when a pan that was hung on the wall flew across the kitchen. It didn't just fall from the hook, it went to the other side of the room and made a big old bang. Was it a poltergeist or something else? I don't know. If I had believed in ghosts then maybe I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at this sort of thing, just picked the pan up and told the naughty ghost off. Instead I was all shook up. My 3rd encounter was one the whole band encountered. He was the famous "little drummer boy" at Fort Tregantle in Cornwall where we were recording for our new album. It could have been the pipes. It could have been the wind, or maybe the boiler? But some nights you could hear the little drummer boy drumming away, beating his pigskin. The squaddies who once lived in the fort nicknamed him the "little bummer boy". He didn't get that far with us. LINKS:
Submitted by Hamilton of BRITISH SEA POWER It was my first time in Paris, 18 years of age, and taking my first trip out of the blighty to wander the earth. I ended up in a rickety old hotel, which, if my memory serves me well, was entirely made from wood and cheese. It was run by a crockety fat man, and there was an old deaf lady swinging and humming in her rocking chair by the fire. I also remember a little blue girl who appeared to me in the middle of the night, waving pleasantly and smiling. It seemed to me a good omen for the beginning of an exciting adventure. I had made my first French friend. LINKS:
Submitted by Scooter James of LOVE ME DESTROYER It was high school and I worked for a friend's aunt. He and I, along with three others, used to skateboard together every day. His aunt had sold a car to a woman in a small Colorado mountain town called Salida. The woman had gotten behind on her payments and she offered my friend and I money and a hotel room to go to Salida and "repossess" the car. We took the opportunity to explore the town for skateable terrain. One of our crew had heard a story about a bridge outside of town; the story talked of a young mother working by the creek. Her child fell in and drowned before she could get to her. Lots of local stories went around about people seeing strange things there. We went out and parked our car on the bridge, got out and were just standing there looking down the creek. After awhile we saw a light about fifty yards away in the water by the bank. It lingered for a moment and rushed up stream and when it disappeared under the bridge we heard a loud, low sub boom and the bridge shook! We all jumped into the car and sped off! We hardly slept that night and in the morning took the car and left. Everyone speculated that it was the mother's ghost looking for her baby. I still to this day have no idea, we were all together in the middle of nowhere. It couldn't have been a prank. Regardless, twenty years later anytime any of us get together it's still the first thing to come up. LINKS:
Submitted by Bobby Steele of THE UNDEAD Big Ghouls Don't Die... Okay - you want a true Ghost Story - you got it. I'll start by introducing myself... I'm Bobby Steele - notorious guitarist for the original Misfits from 1978 through 1980. I'm now best known for my band The Undead - a name I've managed to live up to in ways that still amaze me. This starts in the Winter of 1979, when The Misfits were preparing to tour the UK with The Damned. While I was away, I let some friends stay at my NYC apartment in the desolate Alphabet City. One of these was Celia Valli - daughter of "Jersey Boy" Frankie Valli. She'd been living in a hotel, and this would give her a break from paying something like $60/night - plus I'd have someone to keep an eye on things for me. This one month stay grew to where they were still in my apartment a few months later, and I was getting annoyed. One morning, I called, and asked for Celia. Her roommate, Melody (of the David Johansen song), answered and said, "Celia's dead." At first, I thought it was just an evasive ruse, but she insisted, "she fell off the roof yesterday morning." I finally pieced the story together. They'd been partying all night - and when they got home, Celia decided she wanted to get a cup of coffee. Melody assured her that she'd be awake to let her in, and she left - with another friend, Belle Awful - who was the daughter of a Foreign emissary at the U.N. When they got back to the building and made their way up to my fifth floor walkup apartment, Melody had nodded from the Ludes, and whatever else she'd consumed, and no matter how hard Celia hammered on the door, it wouldn't wake her up. So, Celia - in an act of very bad judgment - decided to go up to the roof, and see if she could find a way in. She noticed the bathroom window wasn't too far out of reach, and had Belle hold her feet and lower her to the window. What happened next, I'm sure you can imagine. Belle wasn't quite strong enough, and ended up dropping Celia - about fifty feet to her death. When I was finally able to move back in the first thing I noticed was a tapping at my bathroom window. Then, I started to notice, through the corner of my eye, a shadow moving across the bathroom doorway. Things mounted a year later, after I'd left The Misfits and started The Undead. I was working on a poster for some upcoming gigs, and decided I needed a logo. I was racking my brain over ideas, when a button fell off of the million-dollar Franz Kline painting that I'd garbage-picked a few years earlier. It was a button that another friend had made for me - where she'd written 'The Undead' in stylized letters. What makes this unusual is that, in order for the button to come off of the canvas it had to be lifted. Almost immediately after the button fell, my phone rang and it was the girl who'd made the button - she wanted to stop by. After I hung up the phone, I realized that the button couldn't have fallen off the canvas, so I said out loud, "Celia, I wish I could be sure this is you." Immediately, my radio turned on and the Frankie Valli song 'Walk Like A Man' started playing... not a tape - the fucking radio. On my birthday 1982, every girl that visited me saw the ghost. LINKS:
Submitted by Mum of MOTHER AND THE ADDICTS A lounge lizard in the North Lands For many years now I have been haunted by the voice of Bryan Ferry. It seems that every time I visit my local pound stretcher or picture frame palace it is invariably to the glossy charms of late seventies Roxy Music. If I visit a motorway service station which I do so with frightening regularity, if the haunting voice of Newcastle’s fourth favourite son (after Richard Hamilton the painter and the comedian Jimmy Nail and Gordon Sumner) is not present, it now reads as an omen of dark and uncertain times. To add to this strange and compelling saga of lounge lizard themed metaphysical mystery, when Dougie, the guitarist for the Addicts, moved into the flat next door to mine his new living room was decorated with electric blue wallpaper and dark blood red trim. Naturally the walls had to be stripped. As him and his good lady proceeded with this job, one particularly dark and stormy evening, they peeled back the final layer of wallpaper to find the ghostly imprint of Brian Eno, feather boa and all holding exactly the same pose as he does in the inner sleeve of 'For Your Pleasure'. Gibber... I have also seen two UFO’s, I think. LINKS:
Submitted by Lore of LORE I did have something strange happen to me fairly recent. It's very personal. My father died almost a year ago. On a night not so long after, still extremely sad, I was alone and talking to him, sad, missing him and very distraught. I'd say it was about only an hour later, around 4:30am, when my dog started growling and barking. Not the kind of whimpering dogs do in their sleep, but that get away from me / don't touch me kind of serious growling and then barking. In a pitch black room, what could she be barking at from the end of my bed? So, I sat up and pet her. Then a few minutes later, a padded envelope fell off my desk from across the room. I asked out loud, "Dad is that you?" LINKS:
Submitted by Ivan Peña of SOULFOUND Back in 2001, we used to play at a place in Gainesville, Florida called the Purple Porpoise. The Porpoise had two other bars in the same building: the Lavender Mullet and The Blowhole. After a long night of rocking and boozing, we would usually hang out at the Blowhole until we got kicked out. One night, I was canoodling with a sexy coed post-gig (let's call her Jane) and we decided it was a good idea to go hide out and get some privacy. After failed attempts in puke-soaked bathrooms and freezing beer coolers, Jane and I ventured on through a staircase to what looked like an empty dressing room on the second floor. I had been going to this bar for a couple of years and was totally unaware of the upstairs. Once we go there, we started to go about our business, when suddenly we heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Half not caring, I cocked my head and tried to look out the door to see who was coming up. No one was there. We continued. Then, more steps... but this time they were closer to the door. Jane freaked a little and asked me to go check it out. Feeling like the "feeling" was lost, I check it out. No one was there. As I turned back into the room to let her know the coast was clear, I noticed a female silhouette on the wall across from the door, and it was not Jane. At this point, I suggested that we go back downstairs before we got locked in the bar until morning. The next day, I went back to the Purple Porpoise to chat with one of the bartenders. I asked him if anyone had ever reported any "strangeness" upstairs. He said, after a deep breath (for added dramatic effect), that back in the 70s a girl had been raped and stabbed upstairs and that whenever people snuck up there to get "friendly" she made an appearance. Weird, eh? LINKS:
Submitted by Julio of METROPOL Years ago, when I was a young teenager, we lived in a two hundred year old house. It was in an older district of my town. This house always had a bad feeling about it. I never felt comfortable living there and I was always scared of the dark in this house. No other place before, or since, has made me feel this way. There were many weird things that happened here, including lights going on and off without any real explanation. Even had an electrician check the wiring and he couldn't find any problems. Also, strange noises would come from the basement, with no obvious explanations either. I hated going down there. It wasn't a basement that most people think of, but more like a crawl space. It was probably animals that were making those noises, but it was still quite unnerving. The creepiest thing about the house was this one particular bedroom. It was upstairs and in the back. It was used as the guest bedroom. As soon I would walk into this room, I would feel cold and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It also had a strange smell about it. Musty and damp. No matter how much we would air it out, the smell never went away. It just had a nasty feel to it. Not friendly at all. A lot of guests would have nightmares in this room. One woman had a nightmare of an old woman sitting on her and trying to smother her. Others would just wake up screaming and covered in sweat. I always wondered if someone died in this room or if someone was murdered. One night, I was alone in the house. I was just settling down to sleep. I had the dog and the cat sleeping on my bed. A few minutes after turning the lights off, both animals started growling. I sat up, turned on the light and they were both staring at a corner in my bedroom. Nothing was there. Those animals kept staring at that spot all night. I didn't sleep all night. I didn't move either. I was too scared. I was so glad to see that sun come up. To this day, I think about that house and I still get the creeps. It has put me off old houses for life. LINKS: A Scientific View
Submitted by Andrew Futral of THE AGE OF ROCKETS Not trying to ruin anyone's Halloween fun but I think sometimes science is a lot more fun than candy and being scared. The human brain is a very interesting little thing. We all know it is what we use to perceive the world around us. It is not always accurate though. Something interesting to think about is that light and sound are basically the same thing. Our eyes are the mechanism that figures out the ultra high frequencies of light and our ears are the 'lil guys that figure out the other stuff. Our ears figure it out and make sounds out of it and our eyes make a picture out of it but it's the same thing. This is interesting because it means the world we experience is not 100% exactly the way we are experiencing it. Another little trick our brain does is superimpose human faces on things we see. IS THAT TRUE!?! Yes it is. It's a self defense mechanism we have developed over millions of years. You see, for as long as there have been people there has been only one natural enemy for those people... other people. You are much, much more likely to think you see a person in the shadows than to have a person in the shadows you didn't see jump out at you. This is because our brain is constantly attempting to put human features and movement onto objects we see just in case it is a real person trying to harm you. It's far worse to be caught off guard by a crazy lunatic killer than to waste a few seconds thinking you saw something you didn't. So think about that next time you hear a ghost story from a friend who actually saw one. Also, this field of science is called "cognitive science" and is usually a whole section in your local bookstore. If you would like to read more I recommend Steven Pinker to start out with. LINKS: A Different Kind Of Ghost
Submitted by Greg Oguss of LIL BECK
The Beast In The Hills, The Ghost In My Bed Well, I believe in ghosts, most rockers do. But I don’t believe in the paranormal. I’ve been through a fuckuva lot. I lived in hospitals for four years and under “house-arrest” when I was bed-ridden from 2002-2006. But I never stopped making records, despite being doped-up on lots of sleeping pills, and a series of very powerful prescription drugs that my Neurologist at UCLA prescribed... I eventually figured out in the fall of 2006 that they were actually killing me, not helping any. My weight had dropped to 96 lbs. I had punched my right hand (which is sort of crucial for a guitarist) through panes of glass several times and it’s sheer luck or the divine intervention of some “Rock n’ Roll” ghost that I can use it all. One ER doctor told me it was a “miracle” the tendon beneath my right pinky hadn’t been severed, rendering it useless. I also had one serious o.d. attempt with half a bottle of Klonopin, a full bottle of Restoril and enough Fetanyl to stop the Spanish navy, back when they had a good one. I woke up four hours later feeling well-rested. After that, I wrote a song about the experience (and memoir-ish piece of fiction) called, 'My Heart Still'. It’s on an album I released in 2006 called, 'Dyin’ Ain’t Loofy' and features the line “My Heart still beats like a motherfuckin’ brick.” My wife pointed out to me, “bricks don’t beat.” I told her I knew that when I wrote the damn line. Dramatic license, baby. The album opens with a song called, 'Paranoia in the Key of Bree'. That’s a “playin’ in the key of nothing” Lou Reed type noise-fest as my friend Moj once called it, about a bad “break-up” I had with a one-time friend / fan of mine, Bree B. Bree got a little too clingy, so I stopped talking to her. This was when I was in and out of hospitals, basically dying, and didn’t really need that shit in my life. Lately, I’m a lot better. But I still write songs about, life, death and “life after death.” I’m friends with Bree again. And I’ve been writing about other old ghosts — Edie Sedgwick, her relationship with Bob Dylan, Bobby Neuwirth and Andy Warhol, etc. I will always write about Lou Reed, the Stones, Johnny Thunders, the Ramones, Jonathan Richman, etc., as most Lil Beck fans know. Some of these folks are dead, some are alive. They all went through a fuck of a lot to accomplish what they did. None of them are saints. Nor am I. But as long as people write about them, "nobody's dead" - that's the last line on the first track, 'Stuck Inside of Glendale with the Sedgwick Blues Again', off my latest record, 'Coffee Table' (2007). That’s my ghost story. Here’s some bullshit I told Bree to explain some of this when I got in touch with her again a few weeks back. The first thing Bree obviously wanted to know was, what the fuck? So you’re healthy now, what happened, “magic?”, she asked. I answered... "Magic"... That's as good a word for it as any. Happens to be the title of the new Bruce and the E Street Band CD. Which comes out tomorrow I think. First one in awhile I am semi-interested in. 'Stuck Inside Of Glendale With The Sedgwick Blues Again':
She had a leopard-skin pill-box hat, Lil Beck (copyright 2007) LINKS: Ghost Photo Exhibit & Story EXHIBIT: SEEING THINGS
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 27 *All gallery events are free and open to the public.
Drkrm. Gallery After years of dismissing inexplicable sounds, fleeting images and broken crockery, owners of a modest Mt. Washington home began to suspect that their house may be haunted. They began taking Polaroid pictures of cold spots and places in the house where their Saint Bernard refused to tread. What they got back were snapshots that were anything but ordinary. In fact, it changed their lives forever. Drkrm. Gallery is hosting a special, limited-run, Halloween retrospective called SEEING THINGS. It is the first public viewing of this rare and unique collection of paranormal photographs. As featured on the TV shows SIGHTINGS and UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES, these images are just a fraction of the hundreds of photos captured in the last two decades, most never before seen by the public. Many of the photographs on display were taken before Photoshop, digital imaging and cell phone cameras changed photography. Each Polaroid is original and unique. They show familiar rooms with wispy, feathery tendrils and misty tufts of white substances and, amazingly, cloud-like writing. Even more extraordinary is the relevance of the words to whatever questions had been asked. Usually a response came in English, but sometimes it appeared in Latin. For example, after questioning the identity of the answering spirit, a response came in Latin; "Et alla Corpus delicti," (among other things, a murder victim). The words floating in midair were invisible when the photo was taken. SEEING THINGS explores the boundary between the known and the unknown. It asks whether something as simple and functional as photographs of record — people at a party, an empty room, an open door — can be a gateway to something more. These startling photographs challenge perceptions of reality and art. Is the image of the room with the ghostly writing the way we see ghosts, or is it the way ghosts see us? Who is seeing things, after all? Come explore these strangely surreal photographs and decide for yourself. Drkrm. Gallery is an exhibition space dedicated to fine art and documentary photography, cutting edge and alternative photographic processes and the display and survey of popular cultural images. PERSONAL MT. WASHINGTON EXPERIENCE:
Submitted by Lady Capo, girlfriend of Lee of LEE JOSEPH PUBLICITY That house is totally haunted. Even walking up the path, things were rustling and shadows darted. There were two experiences I will share with you! :) We were sitting on the couch talking about ghosts and how they make their presence known to the living when all of a sudden I felt a cold embrace. It felt like someone was wrapping their arm around me except that it was icy cold. I stiffened and almost cried!! It totally freaked me out. I told my hosts as calmly as I could, tears welled up in my eyes, that something was touching me. Completely calmly, they told me to ask the ghost to stop and it would. Sure enough, it let go upon my request. Later in the evening we were talking about angels and John mentioned an old Bible he had. I opened it and began to read. Earlier in the evening, the boys had said they were out of Polaroids and that the ghosts did not always turn up in all photos anyway. Nevertheless they pulled out the camera while I was reading and there was one photo left. Sure enough, the photo revealed several orbs. Two formed a circle on my back... just where angel wings would be... coincidence? The boys had said that the book was haunted itself. While we were in the house, they pointed out that the dog would not go in certain areas of the house. They tempted him with a treat and while he whined and begged he would not move one paw closer to certain parts of their house. It was totally eerie! LINKS: |
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MORE GHOST STORIES!
Read the 2006 Musician Ghost Stories feature by clicking here!
ROCKFIELD STUDIOS
It is believed by some that Freddie Mercury (Queen), among others, haunt the legendary Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, South Wales.
Dean White of New Model Army once told me that he ended up with the "haunted room" years ago, and to his horror, he saw a phantom cat on his bed in the middle of the night.
The Dykeenies told of their unexplained experiences at the studio during an XM Radio interview.Read now Hear detailed clip Visit the official website of Rockfield Studios. MILES HUNT (THE WONDER STUFF) Indie / Alternative / Other "Sorry, no ghostly stories to report and I'm afraid Halloween doesn't figure big in my world, it being an American import for Hallmark cards & the like to jump on in order to squeeze money out of less questioning types. I'll stick with good ol' Guy Fawkes, a fine part of English history and a great excuse to get everybody 'round a fire." - Milo. Miles Hunt MySpace The Wonder Stuff HAL SPARKS Actor / Comedian / Writer / Musician Earlier this year I asked Hal Sparks (Zero 1) if he'd ever seen a ghost. Here's what he had to say: "Many. I grew up in a haunted house. My Sister and I saw glowing figures float through our living room in Peaks Mill (KY). Apparently I had an out of body experience in Louisville when I was 3 that my mom used to talk about. I saw the ghost at the old state Library in Frankfort when I was 10. And of course I met Gary Busey so..." Hal Sparks MySpace Zero 1 MySpace MUSICIANS IN COSTUME Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"I like it 'cause I am taking the job so seriously." - Aleksa Palladino Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"The one I have attached is a favorite. I had dressed up as Dracula or at least my interpretation of him when I was in grammar school. Looking at it now brings to mind of early Bauhaus photos of Peter Murphy."- Edward Bennett Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"A picture of me in Halloween costume at 4 years old. Which gave me the line of lyrics "at four I was a cowboy, at five I was a motherfucker." That's on a song called 'Spittin' Outta the Tunnel' which I play live but is unreleased."- Greg Oguss Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"One is me at like 5, dressed as a clown, rockin' the same stash and hairdo as I rock today... hahah..."- Johnny Dunn Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"Here is a pic for
your mag. It's pretty old. But it's from a Halloween
show we did in 2004. Rock on!"- Ryan Baustert Visit her website Click on image to enlarge. 
Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"The devil made me do it."- Nicole Morier Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"Photo of child Douglas Addict, dressed as ghost, finder of the mysterious Eno imprint, Queens Park Glasgow 2007." Visit their website Click on image to enlarge. 
"Halloween was always my favorite holiday. Probably
because I get to be somebody else. Here I am as
Screamin' Jay Hawkins, before I even knew who he was.
Each year my parents would ask me and my sister what
we wanted to be for Halloween, and then Mom would
custom make our outfits. We would enter Halloween
contests for best costume - usually a parade - and
always win. Prizes would be a silver dollar. We each
had several years worth, which I imagine would be
worth alot of money now.
Halloween is STILL one of the
only times I go all out - in fact, this year The
Fuzztones will be doing a rare Halloween performance
at the Bassy Club in Berlin (Oct. 31), where we will
perform the entire 'Monster A Go-Go' album (our 1992
Halloween album) and if the moon is full, we will turn
into the garage ghouls pictured on our 'Lysergic
Emanations' LP cover." - Rudi Protrudi
"I was so excited to be a baton twirler! This was my absolute favorite costume."- Stacy Sardelli - Rob Carlyle of The Compulsions Official Compulsions SONGS FOR HALLOWEEN Creature Feature Rock / Electro / Gothic 'Six Foot Deep' Nebula-H Electro / Industrial / Trance 'Twilight Zone' The Ghastly Ones Surf / Garage 'Spooky 2007' John Ralston Indie / Pop 'I Believe in Ghosts' Gathering of Darkness Gothic / Ambient / Classical 'March Into Darkness' Manntis Metal / Hardcore 'Sleep in Your Grave' Ghost Bees Indie / Folk / Shoegaze 'Haunting Intervals' Cradle Of Filth Metal / Black Metal / Gothic 'Tortured Soul Asylum' Wednesday 13 Rock / Punk / Gothic 'Haunt Me' Roy Garrou Electronica / Acoustic / Experimental 'Monster Outro' The Massacres Psychobilly / Punk 'Scarecrow Acoustic' The Coffinshakers Garage / Other 'Phantoms of the Night' Band of Horses Indie / Alternative / Rock 'Is There A Ghost' Haunted George Experimental / Gothic / Folk Rock 'The Embalmer' The Specials Ska / Other 'Ghost Town' The Headstones Rock / Rockabilly / Other 'Cemetery' |
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Copyright © 2008 by Stacy Sardelli / Babble and Beat. All rights reserved.