Cool New Marshmallow Ghosts LP, and Other Graveface News

Savannah’s Graveface Records caught the Halloween spirit, as usual, and they’re spreading the bad news gospel through new music and a planned museum devoted to true crime, sideshow oddities and all things bizarre.

First up, the Marshmallow Ghosts’ 11th annual Halloween album, The Old Witch’s Cavern, teams label boss Ryan Graveface with Casket Girls, Kid Dakota, Dreamend and other members of his wonderfully weird menagerie for a collection of songs with quite the backstory.

Samples from the album come from the Old Witch’s Cavern, a Halloween-themed attraction said to have operated out of Port Wentworth, Ga. from May 1972 to October 1973. Per the new LP’s press release, a hippie named “Freaky” Fred Crimpens built the elaborate haunted house, complete with a psychedelic neon Frankenstein laboratory, werewolf family picnic, and final descent into a red-hot, hell-themed dungeon filled with horned mannequins and ear-piercing screams. Local churches stirred up a Satanic panic in opposition to an attraction that mysteriously burnt to the ground. After Crimpens’ insurance claim was denied, he drowned in the Savannah River from an apparent suicide. Or so the story goes. Can’t say we’ve ever heard any of this lore, but then, we’re not Savannah old-timers. Anyhoo, the daughter of a local DJ apparently inherited the recordings that played throughout the tour, and Graveface purchased them in 2018. Or so the story goes. In any event, the album’s eerie and fun, especially the Casket Girls-featuring cut “S.O.S.,” for which they made a cool video.

Ryan Graveface’s collection of morbid historical artifacts, horror sci-fi pinball machines and death row artwork from infamous criminals will highlight a planned museum for Savannah. To make the dream of a scary-ass museum located in ghost tour central a reality, the label began fundraising efforts in October with a GoFundMe campaign. They’ve also cobbled together a nifty compilation album benefitting the establishment of the museum, featuring an array of Savannah acts including Casket Girls, Black Tusk, Rude Dude and the Creek Freaks, Dame Darcy, smalltalk, Valley Gals, Basically Nancy, Hotplate and many others. It’s supposed to be out sometime in November.

Finally, Ryan’s retail store, Graveface Records & Curiosities, will be celebrating its eighth year of survival with a block party on Saturday, Nov. 9 from 5 p.m. ‘til 10 p.m., featuring live music from Big Spill, Shouldies and Valley Gals, the latter of whom will also be celebrating the release of their own new album. The Graveface store is located at 5 W. 40th Street in Savannah, and is certainly worth a visit any old time you’re in the area.