Be sure to tune in for the 23rd Annual Show!
days 'til...
2001: A NIGHTMARE CITY HALLOWEEN ODYSSEY
Nightmare City Halloween first hit the airwaves in 1979,
as the ultimate soundfest celebrating all hallow's eve.
Nightmare City Halloween features nearly every genre of music--
ambient, avant garde, big band, blues, classical, childrens, comedy,
country, dance, disco, electronic, electronica, experimental, folk,
house, industrial, jazz, metal, novelty, pop, punk, rap, rhythm & blues,
reggae, rock, soul, soundtracks, spoken word, and techno
(i'll probably never find any gospel!!!!!!!!!!)
--from the 20's to present, offering monsterishly ghoulish tunes from
Alice (Cooper) to (Frank) Zappa, (even such unlikelys as Buck Owens and Lawrence Welk!)
played against a dense soundscape of 'eerie ambience'.
Nightmare City Halloween has aired at:
KGOU 106.3FM - Norman, Oklahoma 1979-1980
KNON 90.9FM - Dallas, Texas 1983-1984
WZRD 88.3FM - Chicago, Illinois 1986-present
Nightmare City Halloween celebrated it's 20th Anniversary in 1999 with a colossal 12-1/2 hour show, featuring special guest Mr. Nuclear, the creator of the original show, including a special rebroadcast of the "original" NIGHTMARE CITY RADIO HALLOWEEN!!!
Nightmare City Halloween 2000 featured the spectacular return of MR. NUCLEAR & THE INFINITE ONE & THE SOUNDTRACKS OF HORROR CONTEST. Plus A TRIBUTE TO GOZILLA & our first ever LIVE WEBCAST on the Internet!!!
Unfortunately *AFTER BEING WARNED NOT TO TOUCH THE COMPUTER*
It had always been a lifelong dream of mine to be a DJ on the radio. I used to play DJ as a boy with my little record player and 45's, as young as about seven or eight years old. I grew up listening to "Subterranean Underground" on the local college radio station, KWGS-FM, in Tulsa, with such intriguing DJs as "The Foxy Lady" playing "psychedelic" music. By high school I was hanging out late-nights at KKUL-FM, an extremely "progressive" station, with "Rob On Your Radio" and decided if I ever became a DJ I would call myself "Stevo In Yr Stereo".
The other ingredient in this Halloween extravaganza came in 1974 and 1975 when I worked at "Scream In The Dark"! Tulsa's ultimate Haunted House!! All night long everynight the most incredible music played throughout the entire house. It was "Black Mass" by Lucifer! I was hooked and soon thereafter began collecting Halloween audio. The first, and to this day, STILL, my all-time favorite haunted sound effects LP is "Sounds To Make You Shiver"! I now possessed the formula for "Eerie Ambience"!!!
I was a bit rough at first but within a couple of weeks I was like a duck in water! Even though KGOU was a commercial station with a strict format, I was allowed to play and do about anything I wanted on this late (early!) shift. I soon began experimenting in the production studio, on and off the air and before long was developing new shows and programing.
Meanwhile, a good friend of mine--in fact my best buddy in college--Mr. Nuclear, had made a Firesign Theateresqe tape called NIGHTMARE CITY. It was quite bizarre and I suggested that we expand the tape into a Halloween show. NIGHTMARE CITY RADIO HALLOWEEN was born.
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Mr. Nuclear recalls:
When I first got a TEAC 4-track recorder, I made a tape of "The Nuclear Fun Park". It was a takeoff on the Firesign Theater's "We're all Bozos on this bus" It was about a computerized theme park. One of the parts of my fun park was "Nightmare City". That's where the original version came from.
Stevo was working at the University of Oklahoma radio station, KGOU. I played the tape for him, and he got it on the air. Part one was "Nightmare City" and part two was "Japanese Tribute". We also hosted a Halloween Costume contest sponsored by Sound Warehouse, where the radio show was being played live. When the show was over Stevo and I rushed over to the record store to judge the 'Best Halloween Costume'.
I forgot that "Japanese Tribute" had the word 'fuck' in it twice, so when we arrived at Sound Warehouse, The University Station Manager, Jazbo, told us, "People really liked the show, but don't ever say 'fuck' on the air again". (I still have a film of us running around Sound Warehouse during that contest).
The next "Nightmare City" was mixed live on-the-air at the radio station, where we had the "Satellite Nest" (Hey, even before the "Computer Web"). It was just like knocking a rock down a hill after that, it just kept rollin".
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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the "original" version of NIGHTMARE CITY was so fucking sick, nasty and perverted, we had to virtually rerecord the whole thing to get it on-the-air!!!!!
Mr. Nuclear and I also created the short lived radio shows "Over The Rainbow" and "Future Radio Now", while I created the local musicians music show "Public Access Radio". (later known as "Independent Music Artist", in Chicago)
By the second year, 1980, I had developed the classic NCH haunted soundscape sound known as "Eerie Ambience", while Mr. Nuclear continued programing the more bizarre and kitsch bits and pieces.
The radio version of the show continued in 1983, now in Dallas at KNON, 90.9FM, public radio station. 1984 saw the "MEGA" Halloween event which consisted of a one hour video program playing constantly on QUBE cable television; a live remote broadcast at The Twilight Room, with a haunted house created in the basement by The Dallas Artists Coop; video projected Horror movies, and the live remote radio show on the first floor with the bar; and live bands, featuring Spazbot, and a costume contest on the second floor. The show had a slew of sponsors who supplied countless prizes for the on-air "Soundtracks of Horror" contest winners and "Best Halloween Costume" contest winners.
Since 1986 the show has been in Chicago on "The Wizard" WZRD, 88.3FM, hosted by Stevo In Yr Stereo, and has continued to grow by continually acquiring an endless supply of "Halloweenish" source material.
Nightmare City Halloween, a radio show since 1979, playing all genres of music with a 'halloweenish' theme over a bed of 'haunted ambience'
Various frightful (yet fun) installations at commercial/public locations
'Mega' Nightmare City Halloween event in 1984 which included a one hour video for cable tv, a live remote radio broadcast from a club featuring a haunted house, live bands and costume contest, with a host of commercial sponsors
Recording and performing original 'scary' music
Halloween archive (collecting anything and everything pertaining to halloween;
Halloween installation in my home/studio since 1994
Halloween resume:
Scream In The Dark, a haunted house, as both designer and performer, 1974-75
(Tulsa, Oklahoma)
(KNON; Twilight Room; QUBE Cable; Dallas)
particularly audio materials including vinyl, tape and cds)
Special Thanx to:
Artists:
Amazon Mollies
George Crampton
Dr. Skull
King Dapper Combo
James Simmons
Theo's Thang
Labels:
BMG Entertainment
Brentwood Communications
Cleopatra Records
Columbia River Entertainment Group
Delta Entertainment
Dionysus Records
Disney Records
DRG Records
Dr. Strange Records
Eclipse Music Group
Family Arts Theatre
GNP/Crescendo Records
Greathall Productions
Heads Up Records
HighTone Records
Interscope Records
Invisible Records
Island Records
Kid Rhino
Knitting Factory Records
K-tel International
Lifetime Classics
Madacy Entertainment Group
Milan Entertainment
Matador Records
Monstrous Movie Music
Music For Little People
Nobody Records
Peter Pan Industries
Platinum Entertainment
Rhino Records
Sony Music Entertainments
Sony Wonder
Sub Pop
Sugar Free Records
Turn Up The Music
Warner Bros. Records
Weddington Productions
Zombie A Go-Go Records
NCH playlists
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nch links
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siys home page
Nuclear Enterprises
(home of Mr. Nuclear)
