About
Doctor Gasp in Salem, MA photo by Doug Cross
Do you distaste the flavor of wax lips? Throat sore from cackling like a phantom? Well... don't lose your head! Haunting can be daunting... and to be Frank; a pain in the neck! This season leave all the ghoulishness to that maniacal minstrel... Doctor Gasp! Beneath the mask of this phantom is a New England folk musician Dan Blakeslee with his unique bag of all original songs of Halloween oozing with vampires and ghastly creeps. Blakeslee's songs are a throwback to old-time cult horror themes, giving nods to Bobby Pickett (Monster Mash), Alfred Hitchcock, John Zacherle and the cavernous voice of Paul Frees. Each October the unexpected spectacle Doctor Gasp rises from the shadows delivering an earful of eerie for the young, old and immortal!
Doctor Gasp by Rich Beauchesne
This photo was taken in 2002 by Rich Beauchesne in a Portsmouth, NH cemetery the first year Dan Blakeslee (aka Doctor Gasp) began his madcap, Halloween themed eerie folk creepshow. Blakeslee "The Foreman of Fright" rises every October when the leaves began to change and howls his twisted songs of vampires, banshees and other haunted creeps. GASP!
Doctor Gasp and The Eeks photo by Michael Winters
Doctor Gasp and the Eeks formed in a basement in Dover, NH in 2008. Here they are many years later recording "Vampire Fish For Two" in a barn / speakeasy in Durham, NH. Pictured are "Nailbiter" Nick Phaneuf (bass), Doctor Gasp (Dan Blakeslee - guitar and vocals), "Maniacal" Mike Effenberger (accordion) and "Long Gone" Jim Rudolf (drums)!
Doctor Gasp and The Eeks with The Soggy Po' Boys and "Pingree The Prowler" at The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH filmed by Reid Simpson
The above video taken from The Press Room was where Doctor Gasp's Halloween hijynx began back in 2002. It was a couple nights before Halloween and he was asked to be a part of a friends haunted house. Blakeslee went dressed as a ghost cowboy and as he sat in his rocking chair covered in cobwebs playing disjointed cowboy chords something began brewing in his head. After three hours of playing these chords over and over ( and over, and over) Blakeslee wrote a song called "Witchtrot Road" ( a road in his hometown ) and performed it the following night at The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH. After Blakeslee played the haunted song he apologized to the audience stating he will never do that again when suddenly a voice shouted from the back of the room "I want to put that out on vinyl next year"! And so as fate would have it the following year Dan Blakeslee (Doctor Gasp) released his first vinyl record on Spiderbite Records and has been touring every October playing his eerie songs of Halloween.
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