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Baker's Dozen

Constellations In The Sky: Jonathan Donahue Of Mercury Rev's Top LPs
Yousif Nur , October 22nd, 2015 10:15

From spooky narrations in the Catskill Mountains to avant-garde masterworks, the New York band's singer and guitarist tells Yousif Nur about the albums and one song that have had a lasting impact on his own music

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Vincent Price - Tales of Witches, Ghosts And Goblins
Here, Vincent Price is reciting all the witches' spells from a place I can't quite remember in England. It was meant to be around a Halloween vibe, which in the Catskills is everything. That's our Christmas, that's our New Year, May Day, Wicker Man… that's our pagan holiday supreme. Holiday ornaments are already out right now - you can go into any store and buy Halloween stuff. Growing up here, it wasn't a stretch that these kinds of records would be played by my mother or at elementary school almost ad nauseam. I became so inoculated to spooky, scary stories that they just became like urban legends.

Another case of a children's story narration that was entrancing. These weren't just songs, these were whole inner emotional moments for young kids like me. When you're six and hearing about witches, ghosts and goblins, it's permeating your whole being and likely to shape the rest of your life, certainly in terms of the possibility of a supernatural world. Or probable, in my case.