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Midnight Syndicate

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Midnight Syndicate
Musical artist

Midnight Syndicate is a Cleveland-based musical group that has been working mainly in the genre of gothic horror music since 1998. A 1997 self-titled release covered multiple mainstream genres. Their music is commonly used to provide atmosphere in both Halloween haunted houses and the gaming 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."

The album contained an eclectic blend of musical styles which included everything from dark instrumental music (three tracks which appeared on later releases) to techno, horrorbilly, rap, new age, swing, humor-pop, and space. Movie-style sound effects were employed and a multimedia show was produced to support the album.

File:Realm of shadows cd cover.jpg
Realm of Shadows album cover.

In October of 1997, Douglas teamed up with gothic fantasy artist and publisher Joseph Vargo, who filled multiple roles of executive producer, creative director, lyricist, vocalist, and cover art designer for the new line up. Vargo was responsible for sharpening the band's focus on an exclusively darker sound as well as financing, publishing and promoting the next two albums through his company, Monolith Graphics. Composer Gavin Goszka joined in early 1998, and later that same year Born of the Night was released. It was Midnight Syndicate's first critically acclaimed gothic/horror soundtrack and proved to be a successful formula for the rest of their albums. Realm of Shadows followed suit in 2000. All of the songs on Born of the Night and Realm of Shadows even take their titles from Joseph Vargo's previously published art prints. Although Vargo's gothic imagery and concepts inspired many of the compositions, the convention of naming the songs after his works was a way of gaining recognition for the new band with Vargo's established gothic audience. 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 featured tracks from Born of the Night as opening music for their 2000 US tour. After Realm of Shadows, the band announced a line up change once again; Joseph Vargo turned his attentions to his other publishing projects, while Douglas and Goszka continued to write music as Midnight Syndicate.

Encouraged by overwhelming sales, Edward Douglas' company Entity Productions, Inc. began distributing the CDs full-time in 2001 to retailers worldwide. The company now claims to be "one of the largest distributors of Halloween-themed music."

In 2001, Midnight Syndicate released a third gothic horror soundtrack entitled Gates of Delirium. 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). This particular album was successful on MP3.com, where it held six spots in their Top 20 positions during Halloween that year. In 2002, Midnight Syndicate called on artist Keith Parkinson to design the packaging for their fourth gothic soundtrack Vampyre. In 2003, the band released the first official soundtrack to the classic roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. This was another auspicious occasion for the band that helped to promote them to the gaming industry. Some of the tracks were later used in computer games Shadowbane and Baldur's Gate II.

File:13th hour cd cover.jpg
The 13th Hour album cover.

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. 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 music cd won the award.

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 the course of time Midnight Syndicate has become popular with the Halloween and haunted attraction industries. In addition to having the music playing in many major theme parks during Halloween, it also appeared in mainstream television programs like Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People of 2002, The Ellen Degeneres Show and Monday Night Football, and was used in horror films such as Demons at the Door and Dead and Rotting.

Future projects

Midnight Syndicate has teamed up with Snap Kick Productions to score the upcoming horror film, Sin-Jin Smyth. Additionally they recently signed on to score Robert Kurtzman's film, The Rage. In 2006, Edward Douglas will begin pre-production on the horror suspense film he will be directing, The Dead Matter. Previously filmed in 1996 with a very small budget, The Dead Matter was co-written (with Tony Demci), directed, and scored by Edward Douglas. Demci and Douglas have rewritten the script for the new film.

Ongoing dispute

In 2003, the year that Midnight Syndicate was celebrating it's release of its album for Dungeons and Dragons, Joseph Vargo formed a new band, Nox Arcana, and released a cd entitled "Darklore Manor." The album was described as "a musical journey throughout the haunted halls of a Victorian mansion with a dark and sinister history." In an article in Dark Realms Magazine published January 2004, Nox Arcana announced that it's next cd would be Necronomicon, "a dark symphony based on H.P. Lovecraft's legendary book of shadows." (Necronomicon was released in October that year). In February 2004, Midnight Syndicate announced in a press release that it too was releasing a cd in 2005, and described it as a "turn-of-the-century house with a dark history..." ( or "a Victorian mansion with a sinister history" depending on the version of the press release one reads) and claimed it would "mark a return to their trademark horror stylings." Edward Douglas further stated that "In particular, the Cthulu mythos has been a good source of inspiration thus far."

Ever since, a dispute has been brewing between the parties. Joseph Vargo attests that Edward Douglas has been falsly denying credit for work done by Vargo on the early Born of the Night and Realm of Shadows cds as well as plagarising portions of Darklore Manor. Edward Douglas claims Vargo had no input on the the two earlier albums except for some art and voices. Early interviews (1998-2003) conducted with Midnight Syndicate and a few that included Vargo, when compared with more recent interviews, show a subtle yet different version of history-earlier press articles and even cd liner notes credit Vargo with the concept, inspiration, writing, and financing/publishing, while later interviews conducted with Douglas and Goszka appear to contradict earlier statements. Vargo is credited with the entire concept of creating a Halloween-themed cd in a 1998 radio interview on Cleveland's WERE 1300, yet was discredited by Edward Douglas in a 2006 interview with Haunted Attraction Magazine in which he credits someone else for the concept. It has been remarked upon by Vargo that Midnight Syndicate is attempting to alter history by using the Press to propagate a different version of the facts, and by doing so they hope to lend credence to their denial of Vargo's work.

Indeed, the history of this very Misplaced Pages article shows a marked effort by some editors to hide these facts and alter the public's perception in terms of the formation and history of this band. Likewise, a forum on the Amazon.com listing band's contains several complaints that censorship of cd reviews is taking place.

In addition, Midnight Syndicate listed Born of the Night and Realm of Shadows as being "out of print" prior to releasing some of the tracks on the 2006 album Out of the Darkness. It has been stated that their reason for doing so was to avoid paying royalties to Vargo for the earlier albums. In an interview published in The Perch Vargo reveals that he intends to file a lawsuit against Midnight Syndicate.

Discography

Midnight Syndicate Discography:

  • 1997: Midnight Syndicate
  • 1998: Born of the Night
  • 2000: Realm of Shadows
  • 2001: Gates of Delirium
  • 2002: Vampyre: Symphonies from the Crypt
  • 2003: Dungeons & Dragons
  • 2005: The 13th Hour
  • 2006: Out of the Darkness (Retrospective: 1994-1999)

References

  1. 1998 Radio Interview with Douglas, Vargo and Goszka Cleveland's WERE 1300
  2. Larry Aylward, "Music To Chill By", The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), October 22, 1998, interview with Joseph Vargo and Edward Douglas.
  3. Quoting Edward Douglas from an Interview at Krepuskulum: "It was the “Born of the Night” album that really established Midnight Syndicate’s trademark sound."
  4. Promotional materials for Born of the Night and Realm of Shadows.
  5. Jeff Niesel, "Soundbites", Scene Magazine (Cleveland, OH), October 14, 1999.
  6. Peter Iorillo, "Something Wicked This Way Comes", Interview at Dark Realms Magazine (Cleveland, OH), Issue 1, January 2001, Pg. 20-23.]
  7. Carl E. Feather, "A little night music", Star Beacon (Ashtabula, OH), October 30, 2006, Sec. B, Pg. B1.
  8. Songs from the 1997 debut Midnight Syndicate album that reappear on later albums: The album Born of the Night(1998) contains "Theme to the Dead Matter" (from the 1996 film of the same name) remixed and retitled "Vampire's Kiss," "Enchanted Nursery" remixed and retitled "Haunted Nursery" and "Dark Folk" remixed and retitled "Shadows." The album Out of the Darkness (2006) also contains these same three songs (listing both titles), as well as several more songs from both the Born of the Night and Realm of Shadows albums and one sound effect track from a 1994/1996 short film, Journey Into Dementia by Edward Douglas.

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