Monstrously Good Times for Chatsworth Couple

Every day is Halloween for writer and music producer David Schecter of Chatsworth.

He's he maestro behind Monstrous Movie Music. The New Jersey native came out to California to write for The Tonight Show and to make it big. Well, that was the plan. “I ended up eating my belt for breakfast. So I ended up going to Colorado, to write greeting cards.”

As a talented wordsmith, Schecter--translated as  “Chicken Plucker” in German, he quips--returned to Los Angeles, and now makes a living making music. And not alone. Wife and partner in crime, Kathleen “Katy” Mayne, is a music composer. The couple share their little corner of heaven with keyboards, computers, monster pictures, umpteen indoor plants, and two adorable, excitable Scottie dogs, one black, and one white said to be the record label’s mascots.

“We love Chatsworth!” confide the couple who moved from Burbank in 1998 accompanied by thousands of Monstrous Movie Music CDs with ‘Burbank’ imprinted.  “We knew we had to move within the same telephone number range.”

Mayne graduated from the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music, and later studied film composition and conducting with legendary composer Ernest Gold (think Exodus).  Playing piano, organ, and percussion, Kathleen has worked on projects for soundtrack companies, estates of film and concert composers, and provided supplementary music for documentaries about Universal's classic monster movies. Such as Phantom of the Opera and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Schecter, a self-confessed “film music nut” met Kathleen in a film music class. Always loving movies, monsters and sound effects, Schecter gravitated to writing, editing and more, such as licensing rights and remastering classics such as The Blob and other creepy sounds. The Los Angeles Times applauded Schecter CDs for “brilliant new digital re-recordings of classic sci-fi scores.”

Upcoming? Four more soundtrack CDs with actress Julie Creature of the Black Lagoon Adams. Also, Schecter is co-author of Tom Weaver’s Universal Terrors book, a sequel to Weaver’s Universal Horrors. Said Schecter, “It’s a bi-polar book,” with Weaver focusing on the genre’s movies and Schecter, the movies’ music.

As well as CDs for grown-ups, you can also listen to the label’s sounds for kids seven and older, titled, Your Imagination Presents.