Mondo Monday Mixtape: Vol. 2 Playlist

Curated by Parisa Eshrati

Mondo Monday Mixtape is a mix CD and mini-fanzine showcasing B-movie soundtracks from films featured at the Mondo Monday series at The Loft Cinema in Tucson.  It's a mixtape for those with good taste in bad music!  This second installment shares '50s horror surf bops, '80s killer aerobic pump-up jams, plus the first ever original Mondo remixes!

​This blog shares the tracklist to the mix in order of appearance. Click here to see the companion zine. If you'd like a physical copy of the mix (available now both as a CD or cassette), you can find them while supplies last after the Mondo Monday screenings at The Loft Cinema or send us a message to have one shipped anywhere in the country.

​“Fight to Survive” - Paul Hertzog & Stan Bush 
+ Original Bloodsport Remix
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Bloodsport (1988)
Bloodsport follows Frank Dux, an American martial artist serving in the military, who decides to leave the army to compete in a martial arts tournament in Hong Kong where fights to the death can occur.

What would this movie be without this song? This must be one of the most iconic songs in an action/martial arts film, obviously due to the “Kumite! Kumite! Kumite!” chant. Not much else to say because if you know, ya know. 

Starting off the mix is first ever original Mondo Mixtape REMIX! I created this track by recording the program director, Jeff Yanc, on a tiny handheld Sony voice recorder during his pre-film speech. I took the audio and spliced up all the phrases that I think best encapsulates both the movie and the general themes of Mondo, and set it in front of the Bloodsport original theme composed by Paul Hertzog. In the same way that B-movie directors aren’t really great directors, I too am definitely no music producer, but I had a lot of fun making these songs! 
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​“Cheerleader Roll Call” 
+ Original Bloody Pom Poms Remix
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Bloody Pom Poms (1988)
A group of cheerleaders become the targets of an unknown killer at a remote summer camp.

A really terrible snippet from the 1988 slasher flick Bloody Pom Poms, aka Cheerleader Camp, in which two of the leading jock bros perform a rap about the cheerleaders. This might be the highlight of the whole film, which is really saying a lot. I do enjoy the fact that there is zero rhythm or hardly any rhyme in this rap. As Jeff Yanc stated in his introduction speech, “they don’t kill people with their rap, but instead kill rap itself.”
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Here is another original Mondo Mixtape track - it’s the “Bloody Pom Poms Remix”! This recording is of Jeff Yanc’s introduction speech backed by the opening sequence on the Bloody Pom Poms original motion picture soundtrack, composed by Joel Hamilton. Similar to the other original tracks, I pulled clips that I felt best mirrored the best aspects of the film. Jeff brings up a lot of solid points and hard-hitting questions in this intro, like “What are we here for, if not for gratuitous nudity?” 
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“Samurai Copy Main Title” - Alen Dermarderossian 
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Samurai Cop (1991)
Joe Marshall and Frank Washington are two tenacious police detectives who seek at all costs to stop the Katana, a renegade Yakuza gang composed of violent and sadistic killers who want to lead the drug trade in Los Angeles.

A fantastic recommendation from Mondo Monday devotee, Stephen Sharpton! The soundtrack to this film features some really grainy 8-bit early Nintendo sounding music, which is funny because by ‘91 even video game music was more sophisticated than this. The music beautifully mimics the dialogue in this movie - choppy, awkward, and flat. This can be exhibited in the clip belown that I included in the mixtape:
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​​“Hard Ticket” - Gary Stockdale feat. Bob Moore
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Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)
In Hawaii, an undercover DEA agent and her civilian friend stumble upon a drug trafficking operation, and have to enlist the help of all their colleagues/friends to go after the vicious drug kingpin.

Another fantastic recommendation from Mondo fantatic, Stephen! As he said so aptly in his email, “Besides the fact a guy got blown up by a rocket, this is the best part of the movie.” Another over-the-top, bombastically cheesy action movie soundtrack. It’s basically got all the makings for a Mondo Mixtape banger. I’d also like to mention that this movie may potentially have the fastest T-to-T ratio. T-to-T is a scientific formula created by fellow Mondo fanatic Sean that stands for “time ‘til tits”. You can basically rate a B-movie by how long until they start with the gratuitous nudity. If I remember correctly, the opening credits sequence had a lot of fake boobs with really bad tan lines, so you know it’s gonna be pretty quality stuff. 

I included an abbreviated version of the clip below in the mixtape. This dialogue in this scene is *chefs kiss*

​​“Mutiny of Love” - RiffTrax 
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Space Mutiny (1988)
A pilot is the only hope to stop the mutiny of a spacecraft by its security crew, who plot to sell the crew of the ship into slavery.

This is a unique song on this mix as it’s not an original from the film, but rather a tribute. RiffTrax is made up of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 members Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. They’re continuing their legacy of creating commentary for B-movie oddities, and even make theme songs such as this one here, “Mutiny of Love”. This is exactly the kind of thing that inspires the Mondo Mixtape series. It’s the community of B-movie lovers that want to make stupid fun things with their passion for garbage! 
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“Aerobi-Cide” - Mary Hylan 
& Original Killer Workout Remix
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Killer Workout (1987)
Two years ago, a young woman named Valerie was burned after entering a tanning salon. Now, her twin sister, Rhonda, runs a local gym where, all of a sudden, people are being murdered.
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It was hard to pick which song from Killer Workout to feature on this release; it was between this or “Only You Tonight” by Donna DeLory, which is featured in the opening workout sequence and if I’m not mistaken, in several other monotonous crotch-shot montage sequences in the film. However, this song takes the cake solely due to the “working out…until you die!” tagline. This movie was also originally titled Aerobicide, hence the name of this track, and they definitely should have stuck with it! Anyway, this song is pretty much it when it comes to ‘80s B-movie slasher themes - cheesy production, anthemic sing-a-long quality, and not-so-clever puns. It’s pretty terrible, but is great if you’re wanting to dance and stretch along with footage from the movie - lots of lunges, dry humping, spandex, etc. 
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Also made a short remix of the introduction speech for this movie! The ironic thing is that for this recording, I brought my super fancy H6 Zoom Recorder and somehow the audio quality turned out worse than any other recording I've done. I guess that's what I get for trying to bring quality into this project ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but I included it anyway because I really like the clip saying "the aerobics...must go on." The end features the audience cheering and yelling as Jeff displayed his Shake Weight skills as he walked off the stage.

The background music is from the opening title sequence song by Todd Haden, and created into an extended cut by some YouTuber nerd named Giles Nuytens. 

​“Whatcha Lookin’ At” - The Barbarian Brothers ​

The Barbarian Brothers (1987)
Two twin barbarians seek revenge from the warlord who massacred their tribe and captured them when they were small children.

You may remember the New Jersey beefcake twin brother duo, The Barbarian Brothers, from the Sword and Sorcery Month film The Barbarians. Unfortunately for you, they had an attempted rap career after their last movie in ‘94 that, to no one’s surprise, was very short lived. They found very brief success doing live shows in Hawaii, but beyond that couldn’t find much of an audience. While this song wasn’t in The Barbarians, it felt important to include in the mix just so everyone is aware that somehow their career got worse after that god awful movie. 

In the mixtape, I included a shortened version of the The Barbarians trailer, and mixed in some sound bites from this clip:
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I guess that weird donkey noise they keep doing throughout the movie was like a signature thing they were known for? Maybe that was the prototype for the Home Improvement “aUuGhH” sound? Who knows...
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“Maniac Cop 2 Rap” - Yeshwua Barnes and Brian "B.Dub" Woods

Maniac Cop 2 (1990)
A supernatural, maniac killer cop teams up with a Times Square serial killer.

One of my favorite recurring themes in Mondo films is when directors try and copy a popular trend and instead create a total flop. This horrific and meticulously literal rap song is an imitation of sorts of “A Nightmare on My Street” by  DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (which in an of itself, was not incredibly popular seeing as how it wasn’t even officially included in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise). I tried looking up these two rappers only to realize that they weren’t actually professionals but I think just two guys that happened to be in the studio. Take a look at one of the verses if you want to be inspired by the lyrical poetry of the song so cleverly titled, “Maniac Cop 2 Rap”:

Set him on fire, I shoot him with an uzi,
but he'll show up in your jacuzzi
You can run him over, you can feed him poison
Push him out of a window and it only annoys him
You better believe me, if you think I'm lying
When he show up people start dying
He's out for vengeance and he can't be stopped
That's why they call him the maniac cop
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“The Stuff Commercial”

The Stuff (1985)
A delicious, mysterious goo that oozes from the earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation, but the tasty treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers who only want to consume more of the strange substance at any cost begin infesting the world.

Since the Mondo Mixtape zine featured an original poem by fellow Mondo fanatic, 
Gabriel Dozal, wanted to include a soundbite of the commercial in the audio! 

“Zombie Stomp” - The Del-Aires ​

The Horror of Party Beach (1964) 
While the hot-rodders and motorcyclists are having a rock-and-roll beach party, a barrel of radioactive material is unloaded from a passing ship, plunges to the bottom, and splits against a jagged rock. A black liquid oozes out and covers a shapeless mass on the ocean floor, which suddenly moves and becomes an encrusted vicious monster. Local scientist Dr. Gavin finds an arm lost by one of the monsters and discovers that only sodium will destroy the monsters, whose composition is mostly water. Can they gather enough salt in southern California to put an end to this horror?

This is one of those rare Mondo Mixtape moments where the song is genuinely great. The Del-Aires were a rock band from Paterson, New Jersey that released a handful of 7”s in the early ‘60s. They were best known for their cameo in this black-and-white beach party horror flick that author Stephen King once called "an abysmal little wet fart of a film." It’s got the quintessential makings of an early ‘60s B-movie - big floppy monster costumes, modest one piece swimsuits -   but the star is really this fabulous surf bop. 
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“Super Snooper” - The Oceans
+ Original Super Fuzz Remix 
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Super Fuzz (1980)
Red powder from a nuclear explosion gives a police officer super powers as long as he doesn't see anything red. He is eventually framed for murder and is unsuccessfully executed by many different methods.

What's most remarkable about this movie, despite the fact that it's about a cop who can talk to fish, is how they really exploit the idea of a "theme song" to the absolute fullest. Without exaggeration, this song plays throughout 95% of the movie. It doesn't matter if it's an action scene, a romance scene, a scene where literally nothing is happening - the instrumental to this disco tune is there backing it up. I can't tell if I love this song in a genuine way, or if because I've heard it now maybe three thousand times and there's a Stockholm Syndrome thing going on.

The soundtrack, consisting of three songs, only two of which I actually remembering being in the movie, is by the Italian disco trio The Oceans. They only put out one  other full length release after this score, one being a soundtrack to Chi Trova Un Amico Trova Un Tesoro in '81, and a few other 7" singles here and there. 

​And one final remix to round out Volume 2! The background is from another track on the soundtrack called "Bad Guy, Good Guy" that features for about a solid 45 seconds before it switches back to the main theme song. 

"Everybody But You" - Joe Turano

Night Train to Terror (1985)
A horror anthology movie where God and Satan are on a train discussing the fate of three individuals.

A fantastic request from Mondo Monday fantatic, Tim Milner! This was a featured Mondo Monday film a few years back, and unfortunately I haven't seen it myself, but after watching this clip I can tell it is a must-see! 

Here is a wonderfully written blurb by Tim about this song:

Night Train to Terror opens with a scream and a shot of a train. The chugging of the train gradually transitions into the opening beat of Joe Turano’s “Everybody But You.” Our first peak inside this foreboding train (remember, we heard a scream! And it’s very foggy!) exposes a bright world of spandex and scarves, leg warmers and perms.
It’s 1985, and the eighties are alive and well and living inside of a train cascading through a gothic countryside. Eventually, we’re going to find out that this film is a pretty messy and fun horror anthology, but for the first six (yes, six!) minutes, Joe Turano is going to repeatedly tell us that “everybody’s got something to do, everybody but you.”
Yes, there’s a sax solo. It’s interrupted when someone asks the night porter when we’ll get to Las Vegas. The train traversing this dark atmosphere of gloom and terror is apparently headed to Vegas? Okay! As the conversation that took us away from the sax solo continues, the night porter lets us know that there’s no food on the train and, depending on who you ask, it’s called The Heavenly Express or Satan’s Cannonball—they guarantee every passenger will get to their “right destination.” One of our dancers/concert goers/band entourage members expresses that it’s a bummer that the bus broke down, and they ended up on this train. But, Joe Turano is ready to interrupt this conversation to tell the band to take it from the top. 
That’s right, first verse, same as the first—they head back to the beginning of the song! Kind of. We do hear parts that we didn’t hear before in the second run through. By the time he’s finished, Turano will have sang the phrase “dance with me” 32 times. 
It’s hard to express how much I love Mr. Turano’s band, which consists of a guitar player (she shreds), a bass player (there is absolutely not an electric bass guitar on this track), a drummer whose kit consists of exactly a bass drum, a snare drum, a single rack tom, and a hi-hat (there is absolutely not a live kit on this track, just drum machines), and a sax player who mostly sits in a window while snapping his fingers. When you google “Joe Turano,” the first hit is for the first vice chair of the American Bakers Association if that gives you a sense of the level of musical fame Turano achieved. 
I first saw Night Train to Terror at one of my first Mondo Mondays, upstairs in screen two. I will always think of it as one of the first films that inspired a love of digging deep into the weird, wild, and wonderful side of the silver screen. I can still feel myself practically jumping out of my seat when Joe Turano’s band returned to the screen to sing “Everybody But You” again after the first episode of the anthology. And, in a wonderful feat of run time padding, again after the next. Whether we’re destined for The Heavenly Express or Satan’s Cannonball, everybody’s got something to do when we go to Mondo Monday to discover another hidden gem.

"Friend" - Dragon Sound

Miami Connection (1987)
A martial arts rock band goes up against a band of motorcycle ninjas who have tightened their grip on Florida's narcotics trade.

Lastly, since this Mondo Mixtape Volume 2 will be premiering after the screening Miami Connection, I naturally had to end this CD off with this monster of a hit! I have yet to see this film at the time of posting it, but the trailers were enough to make me realize that this is a mega jam and deserves to be included. 

There is also a full upload of this movie with RiffTrax commentary (as mentioned above) that you can watch here. 

BONUS TRACKS
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Night of the Demons (1988)
Ten teenagers party at an abandoned funeral parlor on Halloween night. When an evil force awakens, demonic spirits keep them from leaving and turn their gathering into a living Hell.

Unlike the last Mondo mixtape where there were a handful of genuinely good tracks, I couldn’t bring myself to put Bauhaus on this mix because it would just honestly be insulting to their legacy lol. However, one of the best Mondo music moments as of late was this phenomenal dance sequence in Night of the Demons, where freaky cool goth girl Angela does her possessed demon dance to “Dark Entries”. Wanted to add this clip to the blog so you can watch and dance along. 

​The Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship (1987)

One of the highlights of “Freaky Fitness Month” at Mondo Mondays was that before each film, Jeff Yanc decided to throw in a clip from the Crystal Light National Aerobic Championships. A great way to get hyped for the film and the theme, and really just a great way to get HYPED! The video above is the full championship recording, but the main highlight is the San Francisco Bay Club Bad Boys at 26:45 in. They really should be credited as the OG inventors of the human centipede. 

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​All movie synopsis are pulled from IMDB. 
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