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Midnight Syndicate

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Midnight Syndicate
Musical artist

Midnight Syndicate is an American musical group that has been working mainly in the genre of gothic music since 1998. A 1997 self-titled release covered multiple mainstream genres. The band is based out of Chardon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Their music is commonly used to provide atmosphere during the Halloween season, in haunted attractions and in the role-playing game industry.

Formation

Composer/filmmaker Edward Douglas founded Midnight Syndicate in 1996. In 1997, their self-titled debut was released. A majority of music on the album was written, arranged, and performed by Edward Douglas. Contributors included Scott Angus, Mark Rakocy, Dennis Carleton, Jamie Barbour, Ray Portler, the rap act Dark Side, and Christopher Robichaud. Douglas coined the term "cine-fusion" to describe the album. Cine-fusion is described in the album's liner notes as

"a blending of movie soundtrack music and pop music... a compilation of soundtracks to movies that do not exist. The goal of the music is to stimulate the imaginations of listeners so that they are able to transport themselves to worlds or movies of their own creation."

Musically, the album contained an eclectic blend of styles including everything from dark instrumental music (of which three tracks appeared on future releases), rock, rock-a-billy, techno, rap, new age, humor-pop, jazz, and space. Movie-style sound effects were employed in some tracks. In March 1998, a multimedia show was produced by Douglas and his company, Entity Productions, to support the album. The show included a blending of original short films, live music, animation and stage performers.

In 1998, Douglas teamed up with gothic fantasy artist Joseph Vargo, and the two decided to create an exclusively dark-themed instrumental Midnight Syndicate album. Vargo developed the storyline and concept of a musical journey through a haunted castle, with the music reflecting his gothic artwork. Composer Gavin Goszka, formerly a solo-artist in a project called Lore, also joined Douglas and Vargo in the new Midnight Syndicate line-up. Together, they created Born of the Night, a groundbreaking album that appealed to fans of gothic music, the horror genre, and haunted attractions. Douglas and Goszka wrote and performed the music on the album while Vargo served as executive producer and creative director of the project, as well as writing and performing the vocals and narrations, and designing the cover art and packaging. The album and songs were also titled after several of Vargo's most popular paintings. Born of the Night was independently released in September 1998 through Vargo's Monolith Graphics and Douglas' Entity Productions, hitting the horror market just in time for the Halloween season. It was Midnight Syndicate's first critically acclaimed gothic-horror soundtrack and proved to be an instant success, establishing Midnight Syndicate's trademark sound.

In March 2000, Realm of Shadows followed suit with the same flavor of dark instrumental music and another gothic setting. Douglas and Goszka wrote all of the music for this album while Vargo wrote and performed the opening narration and theme story. Again, the songs were titled after Vargo's artworks. Both albums were featured as official soundtracks for Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights, and used in several other major theme parks during Halloween, such as Busch Gardens, Cedar Point and Thorpe Park's Fright Nights event. The heavy metal band King Diamond also featured tracks from Born of the Night as opening music for their 2000 US tour. Afterwards, Vargo and Midnight Syndicate chose to work separately of one another on future projects.

Midnight Syndicate's third gothic horror soundtrack,Gates of Delirium, was released in 2001. This time Douglas and Goszka teamed up with two members who worked on the first Midnight Syndicate CD, Mark Rakocy (graphic design) and Christopher Robichaud (vocals).

During the 2001 Halloween weekend, six of the band's mp3 singles were in the Top 20 for all of MP3.com (#1, #2, #7, #10, #12, and #19) registering over 100,000 listens in three days. The title track from Born of the Night remained at #1 for over a week with two tracks from Gates of Delirium maintaining their positions in the Top 40 as well.

Midnight Syndicate called on artist Keith Parkinson to design the packaging for their fourth gothic soundtrack, Vampyre, released in 2002. The following year, the band released an album named Dungeons & Dragons, which was the first officially-licensed soundtrack to the classic roleplaying game of the same name. Some of the tracks were later used in computer games Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance II and Shadowbane expansions Rise of Chaos and Throne of Oblivion.

In 2005, they released their seventh CD, The 13th Hour. It featured vocal effects by Lily Lane of the horror-rock band, Lazy Lane, and another cover by Keith Parkinson.

Out of the Darkness - Retrospective: 1994-1999 was released in 2006 and featured re-recorded versions of tracks from Midnight Syndicate, Born of the Night, and Realm of Shadows, along with some of Edward Douglas’ early horror film scores. Fantasy artist Rob Alexander designed the cover for this release, as well as a new cover for Gates of Delirium.

Over time Midnight Syndicate has become the standard with the Halloween and haunted attraction industries. In addition to haunted attractions and amusement parks worldwide that license their music during the Halloween season, Midnight Syndicate's music has appeared in mainstream television programs like Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People of 2002, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Monday Night Football. Parks like Universal Studio's Halloween Horror Nights use Midnight Syndicate's music prominently on their websites and in their events. When looking for a main title theme and additional music for their horror films, several production companies have turned to the Midnight Syndicate catalog. Films that have used Midnight Syndicate’s music include Demons at the Door, Dead & Rotting, Witchouse 3: Demon Fire and Song of the Vampire (AKA Vampire Resurrection).

Midnight Syndicate has also had an impact in the hobby gaming industry. In 2006, The 13th Hour won the Origins Award for Best Gaming Accessory presented by the Academy of Adventure Game Art & Design, marking the first time a role-playing soundtrack or music CD has won the award.

Midnight Syndicate's CDs are self-distributed to thousands of retailers worldwide by Entity Productions, Inc. and its partners, making them one of the largest distributors of Halloween-themed music in 2006.

Future projects

Midnight Syndicate has recently completed the score to Robert Kurtzman's film, The Rage. The Rage will be released on February 26, 2008. The score will also be released in February. Additionally, Edward Douglas is in post-production on the horror suspense film The Dead Matter, which he directed in August of 2007. The Dead Matter is a remake of a 1996 movie by the same name that was filmed on a very small budget and was co-written (with Tony Demci), directed, and scored by Edward Douglas. Demci and Douglas also wrote the script for the remake. It stars Andrew Divoff, Jason Carter, and Tom Savini. Midnight Syndicate will release a The Dead Matter soundtrack, which will include the score to the movie as well as music inspired by the film, later this year.

Discography

See also

References

  1. Interview with Gavin Goszka, Federico Marongiu, "Midnight Syndicate", Music Extreme (Argentina), 2001.
  2. Radio Interview with Joseph Vargo, Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka Station WERE 1300, (Cleveland, OH.), October 1998.
  3. Interview with Edward Douglas, Paragon Magazine, October 2003.
  4. ^ Cover story on Midnight Syndicate Leonard Pickel, "Midnight Syndicate: Setting the Mood for an Industry", Haunted Attraction Magazine (Charlotte, NC), June 2006, Pg. 24-28, 38-41
  5. John Soeder, "Gothic Horror Rock Featured This Weekend", The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH.), March 2, 2000.
  6. Interview with Edward Douglas at Krepuskulum
  7. Jeff Niesel, "Soundbites", Scene Magazine (Cleveland, OH), October 14, 1999.
  8. Interview with Midnight Syndicate Peter Iorillo, "Something Wicked This Way Comes", Dark Realms Magazine (Cleveland, OH.), Issue 1, January 2001, Pg. 20-23.]
  9. Midnight Syndicate News
  10. Halloween Horror Nights website using Midnight Syndicate music
  11. IMDB.com listing for Midnight Syndicate
  12. The Origins Awards
  13. Carl E. Feather, "A little night music", Star Beacon (Ashtabula, OH), October 30, 2006, Sec. B, Pg. B1.

External links

Interviews/other references

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