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STATIC WAX, “The Lobometer”
Published 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Description
All songs are eventually released to major streaming platforms and music apps such as Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, and most other services worldwide. Songs always appear here first before distribution elsewhere.
Based on the story, “Interface To Terror” from the April 21, 2026 Weird Darkness #RetroRadio marathon, “Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook: The Crucifix Was Just a Warning!” https://weirddarkness.com/wdrr0636/
A quiet inventor, a bullying brother, and a homemade computer helmet that reaches a little deeper into the skull than advertised."The Lobometer" is a bluegrass murder ballad inspired by "Interface To Terror," an episode of Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue. A quiet inventor, a bullying brother, and a homemade computer helmet that reaches a little deeper into the skull than advertised. Static Wax takes the stories told on vintage radio broadcasts and reimagines them as era-appropriate songs — the way they might have sounded if they'd been written for the jukebox instead of the airwaves. Two brothers. One helmet. One second-story window.
ABOUT THE SONG: "The Lobometer" sits in the fratricide branch of the American murder ballad tradition, a lineage that runs from "Banks of the Ohio" through "Pretty Polly" and on into the dark-comic corners of bluegrass storytelling. Clawhammer banjo leads, upright bass walks, mandolin chops the off-beats, and a lone fiddle takes the break. The narrator reports the grisly particulars the way bluegrass narrators always have — plainly, with a slight grin, letting the listener decide how horrified to be. The final verse pulls back into minor key as the quiet brother closes the door on the loan shark's men.
ABOUT THE SOURCE EPISODE: "Interface To Terror" is a Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue installment in which an amateur inventor perfects the Lobometer — a helmet wired to a computer that transmits floppy-disk information directly into the human brain. His mob-adjacent brother sees the invention for what it is worth on the black market, and the two begin working their way through credit bureaus and card numbers. The partnership does not last.
ABOUT CHET CHEDDER'S TALES FROM THE MORGUE: Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue was a syndicated horror anthology produced by M&J Audio Theatre in the early 1990s, hosted by a morgue attendant whose stories were pulled from the case files of his more unusual residents. Each episode dropped a listener into a self-contained tale of the strange, the violent, and the darkly comic, delivered with the classic host-narrator framing device that reaches back through Vincent Price, The Mysterious Traveler, and Lights Out.
ABOUT STATIC WAX: Static Wax takes the stories told on vintage radio broadcasts and reimagines them as era-appropriate songs — the way they might have sounded if they'd been written for the jukebox instead of the airwaves. Each release is paired with its source episode on the Weird Darkness RetroRadio podcast and explored further on the Static Wax podcast and blog. All Static Wax releases eventually reach streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and most other major services under Weird Darkness Records.
Based on the story, “Interface To Terror” from the April 21, 2026 Weird Darkness #RetroRadio marathon, “Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook: The Crucifix Was Just a Warning!” https://weirddarkness.com/wdrr0636/
A quiet inventor, a bullying brother, and a homemade computer helmet that reaches a little deeper into the skull than advertised."The Lobometer" is a bluegrass murder ballad inspired by "Interface To Terror," an episode of Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue. A quiet inventor, a bullying brother, and a homemade computer helmet that reaches a little deeper into the skull than advertised. Static Wax takes the stories told on vintage radio broadcasts and reimagines them as era-appropriate songs — the way they might have sounded if they'd been written for the jukebox instead of the airwaves. Two brothers. One helmet. One second-story window.
ABOUT THE SONG: "The Lobometer" sits in the fratricide branch of the American murder ballad tradition, a lineage that runs from "Banks of the Ohio" through "Pretty Polly" and on into the dark-comic corners of bluegrass storytelling. Clawhammer banjo leads, upright bass walks, mandolin chops the off-beats, and a lone fiddle takes the break. The narrator reports the grisly particulars the way bluegrass narrators always have — plainly, with a slight grin, letting the listener decide how horrified to be. The final verse pulls back into minor key as the quiet brother closes the door on the loan shark's men.
ABOUT THE SOURCE EPISODE: "Interface To Terror" is a Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue installment in which an amateur inventor perfects the Lobometer — a helmet wired to a computer that transmits floppy-disk information directly into the human brain. His mob-adjacent brother sees the invention for what it is worth on the black market, and the two begin working their way through credit bureaus and card numbers. The partnership does not last.
ABOUT CHET CHEDDER'S TALES FROM THE MORGUE: Chet Chedder's Tales From The Morgue was a syndicated horror anthology produced by M&J Audio Theatre in the early 1990s, hosted by a morgue attendant whose stories were pulled from the case files of his more unusual residents. Each episode dropped a listener into a self-contained tale of the strange, the violent, and the darkly comic, delivered with the classic host-narrator framing device that reaches back through Vincent Price, The Mysterious Traveler, and Lights Out.
ABOUT STATIC WAX: Static Wax takes the stories told on vintage radio broadcasts and reimagines them as era-appropriate songs — the way they might have sounded if they'd been written for the jukebox instead of the airwaves. Each release is paired with its source episode on the Weird Darkness RetroRadio podcast and explored further on the Static Wax podcast and blog. All Static Wax releases eventually reach streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and most other major services under Weird Darkness Records.