Bottle's hastily assembled Halloween Spooktacular

What horror show of an album do you think Bottle will bring out tonight? 

I dunno, Skip. He's never really been a fan of holidays in general. I mean, he'll play along, but you can always tell he's thinking "every day is [insert holiday] in my head, why's this one special?" Plus, he hasn't sent me out to find anything in a while, so it'll be a surprise to all of us. Maybe Sandra has a guess, try calling her. 

Skip picks up the phone and dials Sandra's extension, 4446. Ring, ring, click... 

You have reached the office of Sandra D. I'm currently in another castle, but if you'll leave your name and a brief message, i'll deal with it later... 

No luck. She's probably out painting mustaches on all the garden gnomes. 

I doubt it, Skip, it's too windy to do anything out there today. Guess we'll just be surprised. What's that scratching sound? 

Oh, it's just GREGORY decorating the hallways with cobwebs and rodent entrails. Halloween is in his bones after all. 

The Compiler's head whipped around so fast it almost fell off. That's the first joke i've ever heard from you, are you feeling alright? 

I am kind of tired. I mean the news feed is spitting out so much nonsense lately it's impossible to filter all of it. My brain feels like a colander with swear word sized holes in it. I'm sure we've all noticed the decline in quality.... 

Yeah, i hear you. How am i supposed to compile any of it into a coherent experience? It's like there's a horrible disease in the air that everyone forgot about, or something. Best not to worry too much. Let's go for a walk, i found a couple new hallways off the gallery that might be worth exploring. 

You mean that creepy hallway with all the stock photo families and faceless ghosts running in and out of doorways? No thanks. 

What? You're scared of Bottle's band portraits? Oh yeah, i forgot you have no imagination. Yeah, i guess it is a little creepy for the uninitiated. You just gotta walk it like you own it and tell anyone who gets in your way that you're with the opening band. Nobody knows who they are anyway. Everybody gets a little disoriented their first time backstage. C'mon.... 

Little did they know that Bottle was indeed planning something. Perhaps not an elaborate Oingo Boingo concert in Rodney Dangerfield's dorm room, or the spectacle of his surprise Triple Lindy at the end, but maybe a suitably impressive dive on it's own terms... 

Good eeeevening. I am count Bottle von Beefenstein, your host for this evening's entertainment. Though i am sure you are aware of my personal peculiar postulate that every day is Halloween inside my head, i will play along and give you the guided tour of three truly terrifying albums from my personal collection. A trifecta of terror, from the unlikeliest of ululators. A ghastly group of greatest hits. 

We begin as we surely must. Halloween, after all, is the only time i can really talk about Classics IV. Luckily, Spooky is the second track on this one, so you simply have to suffer only one set of sappy saxophone solos before it begins. They might not be the first thing you think of when it comes to terror, what's really scary about this album is the band photos. 

Call me crazy, but there's something truly terrifying about them, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe about running into this band of secret psychos out in the country. They sure miss a lot of ladies they used to know and love. Give it a bloodbath in that twangy guitar, massive vibraphone, cavernous reverb, and i get a Buffalo Bill, lotion in a basket, kind of terror that send shivers down my back and goosebumps all over. 

Traces of love that didn't work out right? Strange changes taking place on a dark foggy night? Maybe try not murdering all your girlfriends in the basement of an old abandoned farmhouse, Yost, am i right? I guess you don't have to hurry on a soul train ride, you got eternity to go.... 

"Out of the way, dweeb! Skullthrasher's on in 10." Like a deer in the headlights, Skip stood transfixed by the oncoming steamroller of an effects rack barrelling toward him at ludicrous speed, propelled by two behemoth yellow shirted roadies with matching face tattoos. Luckily, he was dragged out of the way by C-man just in time to avoid imminent pancakery. Still shaking, he was ushered into an empty room. 

Stop sputtering, Skip. You gotta keep walking, like i told you. You can't clam up with stage fright just 'cause you're out of your depths. They'll eat you alive. C'mon, i want to see what's around the next corner... 

Onward with this ride into the danger zone. It's Loggins and Messina On Stage! A double doozie of delerium. No, there's nothing particularly terrifying about Loggins or Messina, this is more an esoteric indulgence in the sheer agoraphobia one such as myself might feel at the thought of actually attending a Loggins and Messina concert. See, i used to love going to concerts, right down in the pit with the other gyrating lunatics, but there was one experience so terrible it still gives me nightmares. You don't know real terror unless you've spent an hour and a half surfing the brownian motion of hunderds of bodies pack together like sardines at a Marilyn Manson concert, the only thought you can possibly have being "if i lose my footing i will literally be trampled to death." I saw Marilyn Manson in concert and all i got was this lousy Merinthophobia. No surprise bear-hugs for Bottle, please. I might get a little stabby after you let me go. 

"Stop! I can't take anymore," Skip suddenly screamed. "I'm suffocating on the stifling sorrow of this sappy soft-rock seance!"

Just then a crackly voice, not at all unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, boomed from the loudspeaker with pants wetting ferocity: 

"Oh, you mean your Air Supply is getting low? Here, let me help you with that. Gag on THEIR greastest hits." 

What is that dreadful noise? Why am i feeling woozy all of a sudden? 

More importantly, Skip, why are you humming "All Out of Love" under your breath? Maybe this was a bad idea. Even i'm not feeling so good. We should get back to the office, quick. But no matter how fast they ran, how many corners they turned with comic strafing, those two shadowy figures kept getting closer and closer and louder and louder until our two  hapless victims collapsed in a puddle of sobbing gibberish on the linoleum floor. 

Then, when no man of conscience could watch them suffer a minute longer, and right before Russell and Hitchcock could sink their vampire fangs into those sun starved throbbing jugulars, a sound much like snapping occurred, and they magically woke in their office with the lights on, only a faint wisp of fog machine smoke slowly dissipating in a halo around them. 

See, Skip, i told you we wouldn't die, said the compiler with a hint of nervous laughter. I mean, i kind of thought we would for a moment, i need to change pants for reasons i won't talk about, and i'd like you to remind me not to get the wanderlust next Halloween. On the plus side, at least i'm not curious about potential albums anymore. Let's never speak of this embarrasing episode to anyone.... 

You don't think we were to cruel, do you Sandra? 

It's Halloween, Bottle. They secretly loved it. See, they are pinkie swearing not to tell anyone as we speak. I know i had fun watching them suffer, and i'm pretty happy with my Air Supply joke. 

Yeah, that was pretty good. I'm not thrilled we actually had to listen to it, but it is objectively the most frighting album i can think of in my collection. I'd call this Beefoween a success. 

In my official capacity, i hereby outlaw the word "beefoween," but yes, i agree, totally worth it. Now if you'll excuse me, i have some garden gnomes to bemoustache.