Music: Henry's downloaded it like 50 times already.

Now you to can sing along with Glenn! Download yourself "On a Wicked Night," a free Danzig tune and howl away.

Music: Swing, you sinners.

Just in time to save your Halloween mix from being subsumed in a flood of ill-constructed novelty tunes about Frankenstein's pajama party or the Mummy's beach blanket hootenany, the Free Music Archive features the Diablo Swing Orchestra's album The Butcher's Ballroom.

Here's the description from Marvin Vernon, web master of Free Albums Galore:

This Swedish ensemble has one of the freshest and most exciting sounds I've heard in a long time and they manage it through an insane combination of heavy metal, swing jazz, a traditional European music smorgabord, and a classical soprano voice that probably broke wine glasses in the studio. By the time I got through the first two tracks, I considered going to the emergency ward for the possibility of impending head explosion. There is an operatic feel throughout the tracks and an intensity that hold up marvelously through every musical twist. There are actually two vocalists, male and female, and these two work to good effect on "Rag Doll Physics", a weird cross between Wagner and Ozzy Osbourne. Just about when I thought my head might explode, soprano and guitar make love on the gorgeous ballad "D'Angelo". However if you really want to get the sense of this album start at the first track with "Balrog Boogie", a full-assault barrage of swing and metal that has to be heard to believe.

Best part? The whole damn album's free. Seriously. All treat, no trick.

Music: Gone to seed.

Regular visitors will recall that we've been tracking the music blog Aquarium Drunkard's series on the first four albums of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The last of these posts ends the Cave-a-polooza with a bang. First, we get an excellent reassessment of Cave and Co.'s fourth long-player: Your Funeral . . . My Trial:

Any great artist, from the Beatles to Jean Cocteau, will tell you that the best art begins the moment the artist slackens his grip and allows his creation to breathe on its own—this great mystery of any human creation that Cocteau went so far as to call l’Ange Heurtebise, knowing that “angel” was the only word that could begin to capture the nature of the big indescribable. Some artists think that all art comes from suffering, and that’s exactly half true; what births our greatest sounds is the pains of an artist relinquishing control.

Don’t think Nick Cave didn’t know it in the summer of 1986. Though he humorously titled Kicking Against the Pricks as a finger-flip to rock journalists, it’s not much of a stretch to hear him thrashing about at his own windmills on those early records. Put simply, Your Funeral…My Trial is the sound of one man dropping his sword. It’s a chronicle of giving up—not in the sense of walking away, but the giving up that comes with seeing that he could never control himself, much less his art. And so he stands naked, skinny, head slightly down. But his lips still move. This is a record full of mystery, of unanswered questions, of gazes. This is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ first genuinely Great Record.

But wait, there's more! The review comes with an mp3 of the title track: "Your Funeral . . . My Trial." Now how much would you expect to pay?

Don't answer yet, because there's even more!

Maybe you're new to the whole Cave and Bad Seeds phenom and these articles have got you stoked. Maybe you're and long-time fan of NC&tBS and you're looking for something you haven't already played to death. Whatever you Cave needs, AD has got you covered. Friends, the fine folks at AD also have mp3s of Nick Cave and the Bad Seed live. That's right, their entire October 9, 1986 show: 12 big tracks, including their cover of the Velvet Undergrounds "All Tomorrow's Parties!"

Now how much would expect to pay. For, special friends of ANTSS, we're giving it away. That's right: cheap as free.

Just leave the folks at AD a nice thank you note to let them know you appreciate their good work. It's the right thing to do, and the right way to do it.

Free Stuff: It's my party and I'll burst out of your chest if I want to.

This coming May 1st will not only be Free Comic Book Day, it will also mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Alien, the Scott helmed sci-fi/horror flick that launched the long-running franchise and, along with Scott's later Blade Runner, carved out a delightfully inky vision that very nearly put paid to the utopian-strain that dominated pop sciffy since its pulp days.

Never one to miss a cross-marketing opportunity, Dark Horse Comics will be re-launching their licensed Aliens series, kicking off with a free Aliens/Predator one-shot for Free Comic Book Day. BPRD scribe John Arcudi will be taking on writing duties while Sean of the Dead adapter Zach Howard and cape-and-cowl set stalwart Mark Irwin hold down the art end of things.

Some stores will be giving out special "Alien Anniversary" covers. Still free. Isn't that nice?

Free Stuff: Zombies! Zombies! Yawn! Zombies!

Personally, I'm ready to bench the corpses for another decade or two. Horror lit needs to rotate the crops.

But, as I seem to be in the minority on this, I point you to a spiffy little contest being held by the fine folks at the Largehearted Boy blog. For just naming a book that scared you, you could win three free zombie books, including World War Z, Breathers, and, um, something else that complete escapes me at the moment.

So, right on, free stuff. Don't say I never did nothin' for yah.

Link proliferation: They really are a scree-um.

Their house is a museum . . .

Artist Mark Bennett has made a name for himself producing floor plans and maps for locations that only existed inside the magical world of TV land. Above is his layout for the Addam's Family mansion. He's also done the home of the Munsters, the charted whole of Gilligan's Island, the specs for the Lost in Space ship-turned-space-age-cabin, and mapped out the travels of Richard Kimble.

Your life is a song, but not this one.

Johnny Foreigner, "Eyes Wide Terrified." Pac-Man style ghosties. You watch. It's good.



Real Link proliferation.

Kelly Link's short story collection, Magic for Beginners, home of such brilliant stories as "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Award winning "The Faery Handbag," is now available to you for absolutely nothing.

That's right, Screamers and Screamettes: Nothing!

You can download the mammer-jammer for free.

That's why you should read this blog regularly. You never know what sort of free shiznos is going to be thrown around!

I don't remember Ken Burns discussing that particular incident.

In 1863, in Virginia, scientists discovered a valley containing living dinosaurs. Union military leaders believed that the destructive power these massive monsters from before recorded history could be harnessed somehow and used as weapons against the Confederates. They sent a group of Union soldiers to the valley to capture the beasts.

The result was a complete disaster.

Now, finally, a historic park recognizes the sacrifice of these brave and forgotten American heroes.

Suddenly, I've lost my appetite.

Before you link through, this one is not particularly pleasant.

Armin Meiwes [pictured above - CRwM] is a cannibal. In March 2001, he killed a man and ate him with a glass of fine red wine. A crime so bizarre, it horrified and mystified the world. You see, Meiwes' victim was a willing accomplice, he actually wanted to be eaten. A rare case of what they call "love cannibalism". Now you're going to meet this quiet, unassuming man who became a monster. For the first time, he'll tell his chilling story. And at times I should warn that it is quite graphic and could Armin Meiwes is 46. A quiet, polite man who grew up in a loving family in a small town in Germany. But make no mistake. He is also a modern-day monster. His crime so horrific, there were no laws to cover it, no words in medical journals to describe his mental state.

For some grim true-crime style horror you can see video and read the transcript of the 60 Minutes interview with German cannibal Armin Meiwes.

The cannibal's crime is seeing renewed interest in light of the release of reporter Gunter Stampf's new book on the case, based on more than thirty in-depth interviews he had with Meiwes.

Today I know that what I did was wrong. That this can never be the right way. The wishes, the fantasies you have, that these can never ever be fulfilled. And everything that you dream about will only ever remain a dream. What I did, even after I'd done it, I always thought it could be more than just a dream. Today I know that it can never be.

D.I.Y. Jaws

For a famously complicated effects flick, Jaws continues to inspire kit-bashed, low-fi homages. Here's the Aussie band Pivot's gory, puppet-filled Jaws tribute: "In the Blood."

Music: Two Jersey legends, together at last!

The Boss! Cheap as free! Jersey Devil!

Bruce Springsteen is offering fans a free downloadable tune titled "A Night with the Jersey Devil." How's that for service?

If you're in, get to stepping and make with the clicky-clicky with the quickness. Springsteen posted it up for Halloween, so I don't know how long the link will work.