For most of my adult life I haven’t dug on Halloween much, largely because my dad’s funeral was on Halloween when I was 18 and I always get kinda down and feel unlucky around this time of year. But in recent years I’ve been jumping on the Halloween bandwagon and have embraced the wonderous weirdness and anything-goesness of the most hellacious of holidays. This was my 3rd year in a row being involved with Halloween-themed musical performances, and this year I performed three Halloween shows, in addition to three other regular-ass performances over the last 13 days, playing five different sets, totaling around 50 songs.
The Walking Beat at PJ’s Lager House w/ Steel Cranes, All The Wild Children
Wednesday 10.16.13
All The Wild Children are one of my favorite local bands, and they played a kick ass new song that went “I Will Destroy You.” We played first and everyone was in the other room watching the Tigers.
The Walking Beat as “Bob Dylan & The Band” at PJ’s Lager House Halloween Bash
Friday 10.18.13
This whole night was awesomely fun and we kinda killed it.
set:
Odds And Ends
Nothing Was Delivered
This Wheel’s On Fire
Quinn The Eskimo
I Shall Be Released
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
The Counter Elites as “The Ramones” at the Phoenix Cafe Hallow Art IV
Saturday 10.19.13
Shaun and I had a ton of fun, and though we don’t have pictures our Ramones costumes, they were pretty fantastic. I tried to alternate between Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee-type stances and faces at appropriate times in the set (as I was embodying all of them at once). We were whipped by the time of the show as we had already played the set twice that day, and screwed up a few of ’em, but we had a blast and just about everyone who stuck around danced and sang along.
set:
Blitzkrieg Bop
Beat On The Brat
Judy Is A Punk
I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement
Loudmouth
Glad To See You Go
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Oh Oh I Love Her So
Pinhead
Cretin Hop
Rockaway Beach
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Teenage Lobotomy
Do You Wanna Dance?
Rock ‘n” Roll High School
I Wanna Be Sedated
The Walking Beat as “Bob Dylan & The Band” at The Crofoot Creepy Cheapy Halloween Bash VI
10.25.13
Robby Robertson (James Anthony) had some of his gear accidentally ganked from the kitchen off the Vernor’s Room right before we went on, so his tone was non-existant. Additionally the floor-stage steeped in gallons of sludge, blood and alcohol, with hundreds of bottles and cans and assorted Halloween accoutrements floating around only had enough power for one of my keyboards, so I unfortunately had to go Farfisa-less. Also I couldn’t hear the piano at all. I made up for it in falsettos.
Grounding issues at this show forced me to only play through one of my two amps, so the hugeness of the black-licorice-meat-bass was comparatively lackluster to what it usually is. I made up for it in obnoxious showmanship.
Additionally, last night in my performance art class with ML Liebler at Wayne State, I performed an audio-collage-theatrical-poetic thing called “The Poetry Of Neighbors”, and afterward hit up open mic night at the Phoenix to blow the dust off a few solo tunes, “If I Could I Would Annex Other Planets”, “Yours” and “Your Holy Ghost”.
Now I’m ready for a nap.
jonfromthemoon 