The Necro Tonz
"Fare Thee Well (And Go To Hell)"
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From the album |
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This is Vintage Now Vol. 1 ends with the highly entertaining B horror-inspired Halloween jazz group The Necro Tonz. They make a postmortem appearance here with “Fare Thee Well (And Go To Hell)”, from their now out-of-print album Welcome to Cocktail Hell (2002).
This talented “Vampira And Her Addams Family Swing Combo” act do Halloween jazz exactly the way you would want it done, with swingin’, atmospheric music, vampy sex appeal, and black humour and high camp galore, all underscored with rock solid musicianship. Red-haired chanteuse Colleen “Necrophilia” Morgan, self-proclaimed “Diva of the Dead”, croons in a sultry “come hither if you dare” contralto, backed by four corpse-painted musicians named Mike the Mangler, Smilin’ Jack the Ripper, Robin Graves, and Glooo (with three “o”’s). In their late-1990’s heyday, this group would fill the dance floors of goth clubs with swing dancers, leaving people bewildered and unsure of what to make of them. Particularly impressive is their solid commitment to jazz in this environment, when everything around them was firmly entrenched in goth and punk. Hence why we have included them on This is Vintage Now Vol. 1.
The Necro Tonz have done some clever and well-executed (no pun intended) swing covers of heavy metal and hard rock songs that work surprisingly well. One of these is “Black No. 1” by heavy metal band Type O Negative. Their cover version came to the attention of Type O Negative’s late frontman Peter Steele, who tried unsuccessfully to have The Nerco Tonz tour with Type O Negative as the latter’s opening act. After this fell through, Steele continued to stay in touch with Necrophilia. This turned into Steele falling head over heels for the Diva of the Dead and chasing after her over the course of a summer, leaving dozens of warped, demented messages on her answering machine (which she kept on a CD and still has). Irony of ironies, the irresistible “Diva of the Dead” refused Steele’s advances and sent him looking elsewhere because she was too much of a good girl (or is that “a good ghoul”?) for him. :-D
Although Welcome to Cocktail Hell is out-of-print, there are copies available at Amazon.com (US). The group disbanded sometime in the mid-2000's, but they have reformed for a couple of reunion shows in their home city of Dallas, Texas, one in 2012 and one in 2016.
Around the time of The Necro Tonz' 2012 reunion show, the band released an EP entitled Unearthed that featured some of the tracks from a promo-only full length demo they recorded in 2000. This full-length demo, entitled Demo 2001, featured eight tracks that were rerecorded for Welcome To Cocktail Hell, plus another five that were not recorded anywhere else. Unearthed features these latter five tracks ("Thirteen Men", "Tremble", "The Innocence of Babes", "Blue Turk", and "Tiki Torture") plus one more track, "Spooky", that had previously never been released anywhere. We are planning to use "Thirteen Men" for an upcoming edition in the This is Vintage Now series.
The Necro Tonz Discography:
Are You Dead, Yet? (Last Beat Records, 1997)
2001 Demo (promo only) (The Necro Tonz, 2000)
Welcome to Cocktail Hell (The Necro Tonz, 2002)
Unearthed EP (The Necro Tonz, 2012)
