Wear These Ugly Christmas Sweaters to Scare Your Family this Creepmas

Have Yourself a Creepy Lil' Christmas Sweater

Ugly Christmas sweaters don't have to be tacky disasters adorned with tinsel and snowflakes - now you can find ones that are tacky masterpieces adorned with skulls, monsters, bats, skeletons, and Krampus!

Of course, there have been some rad Creepmas sweaters the past few years (check 'em out here, here, here, and here!), but it seems that every year there are even more eerie options for us spooky fiends. This year, I found some gorgeously gothic sweaters that are perfect for scaring the holly-jollies out of your neighbors, little old ladies, and your family when you sit down for holiday get-togethers.

Watch Now on Netflix: The Devil's Candy (2015)

I was so excited to see that Netflix added The Devil's Candy to their instant streaming catalog! I had been looking forward to seeing it since early 2016 (where I had it as one of my most anticipated movies of 2016). Even though it technically had a 2015 release (probably at film festivals), it was really hard to track down, though I think it was available on Amazon at the beginning of 2017.

I really enjoyed writer/director Sean Byrne's last film The Loved Ones, so I couldn't wait to see The Devil's Candy. As soon as I saw it pop up on Netflix I dimmed the lights, lit a few candles, and snuggled up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn to finally watch The Devil's Candy!

Spooky Travels: San Diego Mini Get-Away

San Diego's Museum of Man at Balboa Park

Apologies that I have not been updating as much as I would like here, but things have been so busy lately (in a good way) that I haven't had much spare time to do things I enjoy, like write here! I did want to share with you a mini get-away I was able to take last month. I recently got promoted at work, so I decided to treat myself to a quick weekend get-away in San Diego. San Diego isn't very far from me (about an hour and a half to two hours), but I hardly ever get down there. I had been wanting to try some new vegan restaurants down there, so I booked an AirBnB for Mister Spooky and I and we took a Friday off to visit SD.

Gothic Christmas Music Playlist

By this time every year, I'm usually sick of Christmas music, especially since I can't stomach most of it to begin with! Yet, I still have a yearning to listen to festive holiday music when decorating or baking, so I decided to make my own Christmas music playlist of songs of the season I can actually enjoy. Many of these are atmospheric gothic renditions, with a few alternative, punk, and orchestral tracks thrown in.

You can listen to my Spotify Gothic Creepmas playlist below:

Creepmas Sweaters for Naughty Boils and Ghouls

MOB's Elvira Sweater

During every Creepmas season for the past several years I've shared ugly Christmas sweaters that were inspired by horror movies or celebrated the darker aspects of the season. Looking back on these posts (check 'em out here, here, and here!), it seems that every year our options for Creepmas sweaters get better and badder! This year is no different, with so many rad Christmas sweaters to choose from!

As in previous posts, I've only included sweaters that are not made with any animal products like wool (the wool industry is really cruel and gentle sheep are often barbarically treated for their wool - don't buy wool! Here is more info on the cruel wool industry if you'd like to learn more.).

Here are some of the awesome holiday sweaters that are available for us naughty kids this time of year:

Wish List: Vegan Tees I Want NOW!

I discovered two rad vegan tees in the past couple of weeks that are worth sharing here. I have a TON of tees, so I have some strict requisites for buying new ones. First and foremost, I like my tees like I like my coffee - black and bold. And secondly, while I like them bold, I like the lines of any designs to be clean and simple. Finally, I look for designs that are slightly weird and/or dark-themed, which I suppose you could call goth or metal.

The two t-shirts below (both from small companies based in the UK) fit my requirements perfectly! I may just have to splurge on them and have them shipped across the ocean to me. Check them both out below:

Esoteric Order of Vegans tee

The obscure cult of the Esoteric Order Of Vegans. Worship Elder Gods whose maddening influence will not only scramble your brains, it'll scramble your tofu.

NYC Travelogue (Part 2)

Yesterday I shared part one of my trip to New York City, and below you will find the continuation of my travelogue!

We left off after I had eaten myself silly through Manhattan and Brooklyn, strolled through Central Park and attended the goth/industrial Triton Festival...

NYC Travelogue (Part 1)

Hello Foolish Mortals,

I apologize for my absence…I am usually chock full of updates this time of year (the most wonderful time of the year!), but I recently got back from vacation and then got overwhelmed with work, etc. upon my return. I wish I could be permanently on vacation (doesn't everybody?)!

Since I can’t be forever on vacation, I wanted to share with you my vacation to New York City I took earlier this month! Mister Spooky and I jetted off to NYC for Triton Festival, a goth/industrial music festival held every year there. We've always wanted to go, and this year we decided to do it! Below you'll find my travelogue of the trip, though I want to share so much that I'll be breaking it down into several posts over the next few days.

Our vacation began with a red eye flight on Wednesday night that got us to New York in the early morning on Thursday. Our friend that lives there was gracious enough to meet us and show us the ways of the subway back to his place on Wall Street, where we stowed our luggage and went off to explore! The streets of Wall Street were eerily empty and hauntingly beautiful just as the sun was rising. Then we hopped the subway and ended up in the East Village near Sustainable NYC, so I took a look around at this adorable eco-shop and grabbed a vegan muffin to go!

31 Days of Halloween: My Top 10 Zombie Songs

In preparation for our Zombie Prom-themed Halloween party at the end of the month, I decided to put together a song list featuring my top 10 songs about zombies and share it with all you readers! The zombie songs are from a few of my favorite genres like goth, punk, industrial, aggrotech, EBM, metal, electro and alternative.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of zombie songs, but rather just 10 of my favorites. Feel free to share your favorite songs about zombies below!

1.)    Brains – God Module (Buy the MP3)
2.)    Now I’m Feeling Zombified – Alien Sex Fiend (Buy the MP3)
3.)    Zombie Nation – Grendel (Buy the MP3)
4.)    Brains! – Voltaire (Buy the MP3)
5.)    Night of the Living Dead – Misfits (Buy the MP3)
6.)    Living Dead Girl – Rob Zombie (Buy the MP3)
7.)    Blood, Brains and Rock ‘n’ Roll – Zombie Girl (Buy the MP3)
8.)    Surfin' Dead - The Cramps (Buy the CD)
9.)    Zombie Graveyard Party – Be Your Own Pet (Buy the MP3)
10.)    Zombie Stomp - Elvira (Buy the CD)

Listen to the mix below!

They're Coming to Get You, Barbara! from thespookyvegan on 8tracks Radio.

What are your favorite zombie-themed songs?

13 Days of Creepmas: Gothic Christmas Music

I'm pretty sure 97% of the population loathes Christmas music by mid-December (if not earlier). Sure, it can be fun the first few weeks of holiday shopping (even I like Christmas music in small doses...very small doses), but it gets old quick...especially since it seems like the same five songs play over and over in a hellish rotation (Jingle Bells can go suck it!). And if you've ever worked retail during the holiday season and sat through endless hours of saccharine music, I commend you for your bravery and hope you retained your sanity. I did that once during high school and by the end of December I seriously wanted to rip every single speaker out of the store. Ugh...

So,  I'll bet you'd be surprised if I told you that I've developed a taste for Christmas music during December...but not for just any holiday music and certainly not the kind they pipe through malls to torture already frazzled shoppers...No, my holiday musical choices are a bit darker and decidedly more gothic. If you are looking for a different kind of holiday music that is as haunting as it is beautiful, please check out the music below to get you in the Creepmas spirit!

Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning) available on October Rust

Nox Arcana - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen available on Winter's Knight

Arcanta - Carol of the Bells available on Projekt's A Dark Noel

London After Midnight - The Christmas Song available on Oddities

Lycia - We Three Kings available on A Dark Noel - The Very Best of Excelsis

Unto Ashes - Krampusnacht available on Projekt's Excelsis Box Set

Love Spirals Downward - Welcome Christmas available on Projekt's A Dark Noel

And just for ghoulish giggles:
Tales from the Crypt - 12 Days of Cryptmas available on Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas  

13 Days of Creepmas: We're Gonna Have a Gothic Christmas

[source]

A few years ago, symphonic metal/gothic rock band Within Temptation released a free song around the holidays called "Gothic Christmas". With lyrics like, "Santa's going to grunt in Latin; And slay a dragon or two." and "Rudolph, he will change his name, 'Cause "Rudolph" just sounds really lame— Now we'll call him Ragnagord, The evil reindeer overlord" this song is just plain fun!

To make it even better, a fan has cut scenes from The Nightmare Before Christmas and set them to Within Temptation's "Gothic Christmas" song!

Enjoy the video below:

31 Days of Halloween: Trick or Treat (1986)

To get in the Halloween spirit, I decided to watch the festively named Trick or Treat, the one that features Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons in cameo roles. Trick or Treat isn’t a great movie by any means, but it has a certain spellbinding charm that keeps it entertaining, and not just for metalheads.

Eddie (Marc Price, or “Skippy” from Family Ties as most people remember him) is a metalhead outcast at his high school. The jocks always pick on him and pull cruel pranks on him, like pushing him naked out into the school gym when the girl’s volleyball team is practicing. His outlet for all his anger and pent-up frustration is metal music, and his idol is rock star Sammi Curr (Tony Fields). When Sammi dies in a hotel fire, Eddie is devastated. A radio DJ (Gene Simmons) gives Eddie the studio master of Sammi’s unreleased record to cheer him up. After playing the record backwards, Eddie unwittingly unleashes the spirit of Sammi. At first, Eddie finds Sammi to be useful at getting revenge on the jocks, but soon realizes Sammi is evil. Sammi becomes more and more powerful until he materializes in the flesh on Halloween night to raise hell…

Trick or Treat was quite a surprise and I really found myself enjoying it. Though there aren’t any scares, its entertainment value alone makes it worth watching. The story is pretty original and I love how the filmmakers took a look at metal music and the big controversy that surrounded it in the ‘80s.

My one big gripe with the film was the poor pacing at the beginning. The first 30 – 45 minutes just crawl by and consist of scenes of Eddie being tormented at school, then getting home and blaring his metal music, then going back to school and being hassled again and returning home to listen to more metal in his gloomy room, rinse, repeat…you get the idea. I think just one scene of this would have elicited enough sympathy for Eddie at which point we could have gotten to the real action of the film.

The real action doesn’t start until somewhere around the one-hour mark, when Sammi is finally unleashed and starts strutting around, zapping people. My favorite part is when Sammi crashes the high school’s Halloween dance and puts on a killer performance – literally! He shoots electrical charges out of his guitar that basically pulverize his victims. He can also move through electrical currents and can get you pretty much anywhere there’s electricity.

The logistics, as well as the how’s and why’s of Sammi’s satanic, electrifying ways are never quite explained, but that niggling little problem is easily quieted by the overall fun you’ll have watching this flick. Besides a few unexplained, illogical plot points and a slow start, the film’s story (by Rhet Topham, with the screenplay written by Joel Soisson, Michael S. Murphey and Rhet Topham) is actually quite inventive. I mean, where else could you find an outcast metalhead conjuring up his dead rock star idol with a satanic ritual, causing irreparable harm to the neighborhood on Halloween? Not to mention all the killer ‘80s hair metal fashion – leather, chains, piercings, tattoos, and who can for get the big, frizzy, poofy hair!

The music, performed mainly by Fastway, is actually pretty good. It’ll put you in that metal state of mind! And, of course, the cameos by Ozzy Osbourne (as a conservative, religious/political pundit speaking out against metal music on TV) and Gene Simmons (as a radio DJ) are pretty enjoyable as well!

Surprisingly, the acting (even by Osbourne and Simmons) is well done. Marc Price plays a convincing teenager that’s fed up with the status quo and the mainstream. He is very relatable and I know many people (myself included) can relate to him and what he is going through in high school. I also loved Tony Fields’ portrayal of Sammi Curr…he completely nails it and had me checking on IMDB to see if he really was a rock star! He is just that good!

For a nostalgic kick, Trick or Treat is a fun movie that’ll take you back to hair metal’s heyday. Don’t expect any scares, but you’ll definitively be entertained by Trick or Treat’s music and unique story.

Metalhead or not, Trick or Treat is a definite horror movie treat!

Buy it on Amazon!

(Ed. note: My review originally posted on Fatally Yours September 19th, 2008.)

Happy Birthday, Mister Spooky!

Today is my love's birthday and I just couldn't let it pass without giving him a shout-out here!

Ti amo, mi amore, and here are some birthday songs in your honor!

Here's to many more years of celebrations together!

Muah!!

New Episode of Vegan Black Metal Chef!

Horns up, peeps...a new episode of Vegan Black Metal Chef was posted today!

I wholeheartedly agree with a comment on YouTube that states, "Pretty sure this kicks the sh*t out of Epic Meal Time"!! Hells to the YES!

Check out video #2 below!

In case you missed it the first time, here is the badass video that started it all!

Check out Vegan Black Metal Chef on Facebook!!

ALL HAIL VEGAN BLACK METAL CHEF!

What I'm Listening To: A Playlist Shuffle Meme

The gorgeous TwiggX

Memes like this are a guilty pleasure for me, so when I stumbled upon a friend who completed this one I just had to take part!

Feel free to post your own list, just follow the rules below:

(1) Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.

(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.

(3) List the first 15 songs that come up (song title and artist) NO editing/cheating, please. Even if you might skip the song when it comes up or be embarrassed for people to know that it's in your collection, you still must list it.

Here are the songs that came up for me during this little experiment:

1. Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins
2. Well I Wonder - The Smiths
3. Untitled - Silverchair
4. Gold - Repo! The Genetic Opera
5. Start Again - Ayria
6. Sanctuary - Midnight Syndicate
7. Sorry - Assemblage 23
8. Shiddin - Glenn Danzig
9. I Feel Loved - Depeche Mode
10. Slasher - Dawn of Ashes
11. Coward as a Slave - Hocico
12. Blut Royale - Combichrist
13. Sklave - Nachtmar
14. A Letter to Elise - The Cure
15. Architect - Aesthetic Perfection

And, for your pleasure, the B-sides:

1. Kill Kitty - Angelspit
2. Self-Made - Otep
3. Dead March - Suicide Commando
4. Voice of the Sun - Ikon
5. St. Vitus Dance - Bauhaus
6. Go Into the Water - Dethklok
7. The Endless Feed - Dark Tranquility
8. Bats in the Belfry - Nox Arcana
9. Dead or Alive (God Mod Rotten Skin Dance Mix) - Amduscia
10. She - Misfits
11. Banboro Koubou - Aural Vampire
12. See You in Hell - Voltaire
13. The Day the World Went Away - Nine Inch Nails
14. Pale - The Birthday Massacre
15. October Skies - Glis

Feel free to participate and make sure to tag me in your post...I love seeing what other people listen to!

The Birthday Massacre, Black Veil Brides, Dommin and Aural Vampire at the HoB Anaheim - November 14th, 2010

The always amazing TBM!

Last weekend yielded another Sunday night concert, this time with the amazing The Birthday Massacre! I was pretty stoked that the venue was just a short drive from my house, so I figured it would be no big deal getting home late and getting to work the next day adequately rested (this did not go to plan - more on this later).

I pulled on my super-cool skeleton girl shirt I snagged from the last Birthday Massacre show we were at a few months ago, slipped into some purple tights and a puffy Lolita-like skirt, yanked on my boot and was ready to go! Mister Spooky and I headed to the House of Blues Anaheim, located in the stroller-hell that is Downtown Disney. We arrived at the venue, dodging screaming tots and tired parents all the way, picked up our tix and went to find some pre-show grub.

After enjoying a veggie sandwich and some fries at La Brea Bakery (which came back to haunt me later), we headed back to the venue. It was still about an hour to doors, but the line was already snaking around and around the venue, so we decided to jump in and just wait. The supporting band Black Veil Brides, who I had never heard of, brought out quite the assortment of tweens and their moms. Hmmmmm...this did not bode well with me and their annoying chatter put me in a pretty foul mood. Wow, do I act like an old lady or what?! Doors finally opened and we managed to snag some free seats in the VIP section. I DID NOT want to be surrounded by excitable young girls who squealed every time a guitar tech ambled onto the stage.

Exo-Chika of Aural Vampire

Aural Vampire, a Japanese electropop/darkwave act, hit the stage on schedule and were pretty frickin' awesome! I'd been listening to AV's CDs a few weeks prior to the show, and they certainly did not disappoint!! I also loved that super-cute vocalist Exo-Chika made an attempt to talk to the crowd even though her English wasn't that great. She was just so darn cute and her costume was amazing! I just wish their set had been longer. My favorite song of the set was "Economical Animal Superstar".

Next on was Dommin, who were more mellow but still put on a good show. They opened with their best and catchiest song, "My Heart, Your Hands", which has been stuck in my head for DAYS. They have a more straight-up rock sound with gothic influences, though vocalist Kristofer Dommin's deep voice reminds me of Glenn Danzig.Yummy! My favorite song was the previously mentioned "My Heart, Your Hands", but "Tonight" was equally good!

 Black Veil Brides

After Dommin's set was over all the tweens rushed the floor in anticipation of Black Veil Brides. This band looks like they are trying to rip-off both Mötley Crüe and Kiss and their music isn't all that great...correction, it pretty much sucks. I seriously don't understand their appeal, but to each their own. They did put on a very energetic and fun show, though ragging on the metal kid that kept flipping them off was pretty douche-y (that kid was my HERO!). They better get used to people flipping them off because I don't think anyone really likes their music besides twelve-year-old girls and their moms. Ummm...I didn't really have a favorite from their set. Like Twatlight, I'll just never understand the appeal this band has for tweens (and their moms).

The tweens are intent on devouring Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Six/6

The Birthday Massacre

After BVB, it was finally time for one of my favorite bands, The Birthday Massacre, to take the stage!! This was my first time seeing them as a headlining act, so I was pretty stoked that they would have an extra-long set length. I thought they did an excellent job mixing older songs with their newer stuff, though I love it all equally! They are touring to support their new album Pins and Needles (absolutely amazing album, BTW!), so the set list had new songs like "In the Dark" and "Pins and Needles".

Chibi of TBM

Chibi was her usual cute self and had all the boys drooling over her standard schoolgirl outfit! She, and the rest of the band, always put a lot of energy into their stage shows and Sunday's show was no different! They really rocked the house and seemed to play everyone's favorites. I certainly could not pick a favorite song they played because everything was just so darn awesome!

 We love you too!!

So I mentioned earlier in the post how dinner came back to haunt me? Well, after the show I got awful food poisoning and was up all night...so there went my plan for getting a good night's rest! I stayed home sick the next day, and the day after that I still felt awful. Ugh...I can't remember the last time I got food poisoning (on a veggie sandwich with NO DAIRY on it, no less), so thanks a lot for breaking my winning streak, La Brea Bakery...more like La Brea Barfery. Ick.

Besides that (and the tween invasion), it was a good show. I even got to meet a cool cat named Q who Mister Spooky (otherwise known in concert circles as The Bloody Lumberjack - here is his YouTube page) has moshed with at other shows. Q has a cool concert blog you should check out called From Pit to Lawn. See you at the next one, dude!

Here are some videos of the show I shot:

Tonight's Show: The Birthday Massacre, Black Veil Brides, Dommin and Aural Vampire

I'm getting excited for tonight's concert with headliners The Birthday Massacre, one of my favorite bands!! Support includes Black Veil Brides (meh...), Dommin (yes!) and the Japanese Aural Vampire (love!).

Check out what I'm in store for (and what you're missing out on!) below: