The new season of Danse Macabre kicks off tonight at midnight CET, and trust us when we says this: the following 30+ shows will bring you horror in its purest form! Yes, we will discuss horror film, music and literature like we always do; yes, we will play some of the heaviest and scariest tracks known to mankind like we always do; but this season we will also press way deeper than ever before on the truly awful stuff: the real terrors of our collective past, present and future. Serial killers, doppelgangers, corrupt politicians, conspiracy theorists and hones-to-God fear-mongers are all on the plate this season along with your shady neighbors and ultradark men that roam through the shadows as you sleep. Of course, there will be monsters dying to kill you on our way through this bizarro-world but more often than not, these monsters will take human shape just the way it usually is. So, without further delay... let the horror begin!
Hey there! Just to let you know, the blog is still alive: it was merely resting over the last couple of months as other duties (some horrible, some quite pleasant) took hold over our collective lives. Among other things, we had a few parties organized under the Danse Macabre banner playing mostly surf rock, psychobilly and post-punk while showing flicks such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Monster Squad. In any case, as summer draws towards fall, the show gears up for a new season, which will require some cleaning up of the blog (erasing old links, adding new posters here and there, collecting all episodes etc.) and a proper kick-off on Friday, 20 August! Until then, enjoy the following clip from the Bass-Rankin animation The Flight of Dragons, which may be naive, but is truly scary and accurate in its estimation of the modern world. Until the 20th then, cheers!
It's October, ladies and gentlemen, and this means it's time to show ourselves for the true monsters we really are and have an immense Halloween experience, regardless of where we are in the space-time continuum of religious horrors! The best way to kick off the month-long celebrations is through music, of course, and I cannot think of anything more appropriate for the occasion than Atlas Sound's Halloween Dances, which the guy released on his blog last year just in time for the celebrations. Download, put it on repeat, and start unzipping that human suit you're wearing :)
The summer break is finally over, which means that the new season of Danse Macabre is starting tonight at midnight! As much as we covered throughout the first 13 episodes of the show, it was just an introduction to the truly hardcore stuff that's coming in the following weeks and months. To begin with, we'll be focusing 100% on body horror by the way of David Cronenberg in the very first episode titled "Tetsuo and the New Flesh". You're wondering what Tetsuo we're referring to and what it has to do with the bigshot Canadian director? Well, Tetsuo: The Iron Manis probably one of the 10 most important Japanese films ever and certainly the industrial film of the 20th century, quite infamous for the way it combines body decay with sexual activities - which is what Cronenberg's 1980s output is known for, too.
The next three episodes will follow in similar vein, covering themes related to transformation or transfiguration of the human body. The schedule looks quite a bit like this:
>>> 04.09.2009 ep.15 "Faust and Pinhead" >>> 11.09.2009 ep.16 "The Z Word" >>> 18.09.2009 ep.17 "The Greatest Hits of the Marquis De Sade"
The new season will also bring some very interesting guests. The guest scheduled for tonight is none other than Gorand, the Macedonian comic book legend known for his bizarre characters, transgressive plots, and unflinching persistence on the unwelcoming scene in the last 15 years. Make sure you visit his devArt page!
EDIT: Unfortunately, Gorand had to cancel his appearance tonight due to personal reasons. Make no mistake, we will hear from him sooner rather than later! :)
Last but not least, the new season will bring a lot more updates and musical suggestions so to keep in line with everything that's going on, check out our Facebook and Last.fm pages. In the meantime, enjoy the show!
The last episode of our first season aired on July 17th, completing the run of what we'd like to think of as "the basic episodes", the ones dealing with the foundations of the horror genre, its core archetypes, characters and media. The monster we kept for the big finale is probably the biggest of them all, deeper and more interesting than any vampire of the month (yes, including Eric from True Blood), the one and only Thing-Without-A-Name a.k.a.Frankenstein. Just how this literary creation became such a phenomenon over the course of the last 200 years, what bastardization was necessary to make Mary Shelley's complex story digestible for the masses, and what a deity Boris Karloff really is, makes for a truly tough puzzle, one that we were more than happy to discuss during our lucky 13th show.
The Thing-Without-a-Name is the fourth archetype Stephen King analyzes in Danse Macabre, along with the werewolf, the vampire and the ghost. The Thing... is basically a story about humankind's self-destruction in the attempt to reach for knowledge or power that is beyond what it can handle, parallel in many ways to the contents of Pandora's box. The focus of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus is Victor Frankenstein, the scientist that aims to copy God (creating a human being from nothing, not from "left-over" body parts!), and the monster is the horror, the punishment that he has to bear for his actions.
In this sense, Shelley's Frankenstein has been called the first novel of the "mad scientist" sub-genre. Of course, popular culture has changed the naive, well-meaning Victor Frankenstein into a much more corrupt character just as it has changed the creature into a more sensational, dehumanized being than was originally portrayed. In the original story, the worst thing that Victor does is to neglect the creature out of fear. He does not intend to create a horror. The creature, on the other hand, begins as an innocent, loving being, and develops bitterness and hatred only after the world rejects him because of his appearance (the rejection is so extreme, the creature doesn't even have a name!). There are absolutely no "abnormal brains" involved anywhere in the process, trust me :)
Just as Victor highlights scientific knowledge as potentially evil and dangerously alluring - it is said that Mary Shelley considered the original Prometheus evil - so do all others representatives of this archetype, most notably H.P. Lovecraft (who we'll get to know better next season).
Again, almost all of this rich story about what it means to be human - not a "thing", not a god - has been lost in the book's translation to other media, be it theater, comic book or film. Some have at least attempted resemblance to the original, even as a parody, but the flood of movies that only nominally include Frankenstein is what most of us know and cherish. The best example of this, I think, is Ishiro Honda's Frankenstein Conquers the World, probably the last word in trash movies the world has ever needed!
So the first season of Danse Macabre is over, and what did we prepare for you musically to mark this occasion? Well, after several episodes of italo prog and industrial, it's time to get back to honest-to-God psychobilly! This means, lots of Dr. Frankenstein, Man or Astroman? and The Cramps dashed with quite a few references to good old Frankenstein. 'Till next season and the heap of surprises we are preparing, enjoy the show!
Just for the record, last Thursday marked the debut of Danse Macabre as a horror-tinted DJ set. The event was part of the weekly thematic series organized by the website Plagij.at and the bar Laika, and included some serious psychobilly banging. The promo banner for the show (only the first of many, surely) is taken from the poster of the trash classic It's Alive (1974). Sadly, I didn't record the set but I will make up for it soon with a special mixtape.
Early on in his career as a mega-successful novelist, Stephen King got bored of constantly answering the question, "Why do you write horror stories?" and so he used his lectures on the subject of Gothic literature at the University of Maine to draw up a non-fiction book about the horror genre. The resulting work - Danse Macabre - covered horror fiction in print, radio, film and comics, and the genre's influence on U.S. popular culture in the period from 1950 to 1980. The bookcame out in 1982, and immediately caught the attention of the public, first by shining some light on King's personal attachment to horror comics and films in his youth - all told in the casual style typical for his fiction - and then by exploring common archetypes such as the Vampire-Werewolf-Thing trinity, and the Apollonian-Dionysian nature of horror. The book serves particularly well as a document of American radio programs, B-movies and TV productions made during the period covered, although King does get a bit stuck in the mud on few occasions such as the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series of which he is very critical.
All in all, Danse Macabre is the best starting point for anybody who has passed the stage of mere curiosity about the genre and has acquired proper interest for scary movies and books. Given King's masterful storytelling, I'd even say that anybody with taste for non-fiction would enjoy this book for what it is. Simply put, Danse Macabre is one of the most important books ever published on the horror genre, along with H.P. Lovecraft's own Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927) and Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992).
The new show "Danse Macabre" on radio Kanal 103 (Skopje, Macedonia) kicked off in gory style on Friday, March 10. Hosted by Ivica Serdarot and a revolving door of übercool friends, from now on the show will be casting magic spells via FM radio every Friday at midnight.
"Danse Macabre" is the French phrase for the widespread concept/allegory known as the Dance of Death in the English language, Danza Macabra in Italian and Spanish, and Totentanz in German. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing skeletal figures from all walks of life to the grave. In the late-medieval period, the concept was produced to remind people of how fragile their lives were. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts, the earliest known artistic example found in a Parisian cemetery dating from 1424.
As the visual image of Death personified, the Dance of Death is nowadays routinely tied to the horror genre and related events such as the annual celebration of Halloween.
In this sense, the show "Danse Macabre" is a late night radio program with a horror sensibility, a program that pays its respect to the genre by focusing on all of its manifestations and quirks, having fun with its better-known monsters and creatures, introducing its more obscure representatives, and finally, discussing some serious current issues through the prism of the macabre. Oh, and there's some great music, too! :)
Playlist for episode numero uno
Starting from episode 2, blog visitors will be able to download entire show playlist, and if the gods of currently available technology allow us, we'll put entire shows available for download - but be warned! the show usually goes in Macedonian, hehe...
That's it for introductions. Check this space for regular updates, and stay swell in the meantime!
Danse Macabre is a kick ass radio show dedicated to the meisters of the horror genre. The shows blasts the airwaves with a special theme every Friday from 00:00 - 02:00 CET. On April 10, 2009, episode 1: "Invitation to Dance" ran all the way to Valhalla.
