Halloween album featuring all local bands bewitches the valley with spooky sounds and desert-themed horrors

A new Halloween-themed record featuring local artists and original music is bewitching the valley with its spooky selections and macabre musical stylings. Several of the featured bands will be haunting Center Stage in Downtown Indio this weekend for a release party.

The album, “It Came From the Desert!, Vol. 3” is the brainchild of Matt King, local music journalist and a musician himself. Volume 3 is 34 tracks long, more than double the length of the first volume King released in 2022. 

King was the mad scientist working in the lab late one night when he came up with the idea for a Halloween-themed record. He cites Rob Zombie’s 1999 “Halloween Hootenanny” compilation record as one of his inspirations along with old-school Halloween sound effects albums, and a Christmas-themed record from local musician, Derek Timmons.

Each villainous volume is structured around a fictional radio broadcast on 106.6 KILL. In between the songs, hosts will break in with an interlude to tell you what’s next on the set list until desert-themed horrors and cryptids come on to the scene.

In Volume 1, Deranged DJ Digital D-Rex Sleazy D, voiced by Timmons, is spinning records and broadcasting from Salton City when mutant fish monsters emerge from the Salton Sea. In Volume 2, even 106.6 KILL isn’t safe from the AI takeover with Robotic Süper Compüter 6060842 hopping on the ones and twos before sentient windmills begin their path of destruction through Downtown Palm Springs. 

King said he doesn’t write the interludes, “I’ll have an idea for what monster I want with a rough idea for a story but it’s always the hosts that take full creative control,” he said. “The valley is blessed with a lot of creatives, both musically and people that can just hop on a mic and create this entire world and narratives from scratch.”

In Volume 3, Jasyn Smith and his father Jason Smith broadcast live as they hunt for the Yucca Man. Their interludes are accompanied by diverse instrumental music from King’s brother, Chris M. King, that perfectly sets the mood. Consummate professionals, the two hosts continue broadcasting and announcing the next tracks even as Jasyn (or maybe it was Jason) clings on to the edge of a cliff.

The structure of the radio broadcast helps King when he’s sequencing the album and deciding where to put each song.

“I was thinking in the mind of a real radio DJ, if they were going through something, they probably wouldn’t care what song goes next, so it makes sense that they’re throwing it to weird electronic instrumentals or really brazen punk and metal stuff,” King said.

Each album feels like Halloween, from the lyrics to the sound effects like a bubbling cauldron, whistling wind, a howling wolf, thunderclaps, and creaking doors. 

King describes Volume 3 as the heaviest album so far, a lot of punk, metal, and hardcore, which he says is reflective of the growth of those genres in the local music scene.

The album also features a huge array of genres, alternative rock, desert rock, instrumental, electronic, reggae, acoustic, and soft rock. 

“That’s another beautiful thing about this project, you can find a song you like,” he said. “Any music fan could find something they really like in this album and give the artist a new fan.”

Beyond just recording Halloween songs for the fun of it, King has a hidden motive that he hopes will help support the local music scene. 

“I was hoping that this can kind of be an impetus for bands to light a fire under their butt and get recording,” King said. “So many local bands come and go, and it’s like, I loved those songs so much, and I can never hear them ever again because they’re not playing or they never recorded [them].”

Two release shows are planned to celebrate the third volume. On Oct. 10, 15 bands will perform at Coachella Valley Brewing Co. in Thousand Palms. Think of this show as a Monster Mosh, it will feature some of the heavier punk, metal and hardcore acts mixed with acoustic and rap artists.

On Oct. 11, a more family-friendly show will take place at Center Stage in downtown Indio, featuring alternative rock bands, including Mushroom People, a band that only ever covers the band System of a Down but wrote an original song for the compilation. 

Even though the music on the record is scary, King said the process of recording music doesn’t have to be, “It’s not super out of reach,” he said. “Every year I tell all the bands to ask me if they need studios that do stuff for free or cheap.”

For some bands, the Halloween compilation represents their only recorded work, with others now using it as a gateway to future projects.

“I print all the CDs myself, it’s all out of pocket,” King said. “It’s a labor of love for all the bands that participate and I want to get people to tune into these bands.”

---

Details: Check out “It Came From the Desert!, Vol. 3” on Bandcamp here.

---