 The
Worley Gig
Special Halloween Edition 1999
By Gail Worley
Those
Fabulous Halloween Memories
As a child, I
lived in a huge suburban neighborhood of tract
homes, where Halloween Trick or Treating
excursions invariably meant swarms of kids
flocking to every house within blocks and huge
bags of candy scored personally by me and my
brother. In my 20's, however, I developed a
full-on appreciation for the Fall of
Rome-level decadent Halloween party ritual.
My core group of friends were all serious music
fanatics I'd met in college while working at the
radio stations and taking massive amounts of
recreational drugs. And when great rock music and
great drugs get together, needless to say, some
memorable Halloween parties are thrown.
Our annual
Halloween extravaganza was held at the home of
Ken, the only one in the gang who owned his own
home and didn't have to worry about neighbors
calling the police complaining of noise or
crowds. Ken also had the best stereo system of
anyone and was such a total completist record
collector that outrageous mix tapes were
guaranteed.
Creating a
unique and visually daring costume was something
I took pride in every year, and I came up with
some good ones, like a Punk Rock Martian, a
Dominatrix and Nikki Sixx. But my favorite
Halloween was the year I threw financial caution
to the wind and spent a whopping $40 on an
authentic Elvira costume. I studied Elvira’s
costume down to the minutest detail and
replicated her make-up, shoes, jewelry, even the
dagger in her belt. Everything had to be perfect.
I mean, I had spent $40 on the dress and I was
going to make sure I did it right. But one thing
I just couldn't get down with was that wig. I
tried on several black wigs but they looked more
like hair hats, plus they made my head itch. I
already had long hair so I decided to just dye my
own hair black, in case there was ever any doubt
as to my dedication to perfecting the Elvira
look. By the time I was tucked in, tricked-out,
painted up and teased, I looked amazing.
My date for the
party that year was a guy I was seeing kind of
casually; a pill-popping sociopath named Ross,
who was dressed as an Executioner. Visually, we
made a stunning couple, but I was inches away
from dumping his freaky ass and I ditched him in
the crowd shortly after arriving at the party.
After about an hour, the door opened and in
walked a guy dressed as one of the Residents,
wearing a tuxedo with a papier-mâché eyeball
over his head. Everyone wondered who the
mysterious stranger in the eyeball head was, but
I knew instinctively he was an ex boyfriend of
mine who I hadn't seen in about three years. Our
break up was one of those trauma-inducing
horrorshows that inspire people to write maudlin
songs like "The Words Get in the Way"
and "Love Will Lead You Back" about. So
of course, once I realized he was at the party,
and so very incognito at that, I became obsessed
with confronting him. The funny thing was that,
while he refused to speak to me, he followed me
around the party for hours and the night ended
with us making-out on the hood of his car, at
which point, he took the eyeball head off. It
ended up being a pretty wild party!
All these years
later, he owns a recording studio and small
record label, and sometimes I write about bands
he works with. You just never know how these
things will turn out.
Now that you've
suffered happily through my favorite Halloween
memory, here's what some of your favorite
musicians have to say about their own most
indelible experiences of goblins, ghouls, and
gigs gone horribly awry.
******
My favorite
Halloween thus far has been dressing up as a 60's
prom chick while playing Brownie's in NY. I'll
never forget looking up and seeing Mike and
Howie's hairy chests and armpits popping out of
their bras. 10 years of estrogen treatment
wouldn't have saved us."
-- Dave Berk,
Drummer for New York City's Thin Lizard Dawn
Back when I was
still in college, the opportunity arose for my
band at the time (Babelbox) to do a big-time
PAYING gig for a frat at Philadelphia's Temple
University. The deal was for the band to perform
for about two hours, in costume, and get paid
$500 plus free drinks and all the drunken
sorority girls we could handle. Not too shabby,
right? About a week before pumpkin-day arrived,
the guy who booked us came up to me somewhere on
campus and asked if we were ready to do the gig.
"Of course
we're ready!! We are psyched up and prepared to
rock!" I replied.
"Cool. What
covers are you playing? I hope you guys do some
Metallica," said Mr. Frat. "Ummm...It's
a surprise," I stammered.
With that, he
left me to marinate in the horror of the truth:
We didn't know we were supposed to be doing 2
hours of covers. Quickly, the band threw together
the WORST 40 songs ever written. We're talking
"Born To Be Wild," "Afternoon
Delight," "Cars," "Juke Box
Hero" -- the worst. We had the material. We
had the gig. We were ready.
We get to the
frat, and the pledges are bringing us beer, food,
whatever we wanted. We set up and get ready to
play. We're totally costumed -- I'm dressed as an
Arab terrorist (turban and everything), our
drummer is a giant condom, the bassist is some
kind of fucked-up-looking green elf and the
singer is totally set as a full-on version of Dressed
To Kill-era Gene Simmons. We got off about four
songs (I think we did "I Wanna Be
Sedated," Born To Be Wild,"
"Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band" and "Sonic Reducer." We
trashed each of 'em, but The Beatles jam was
particularly offensive.) Four songs, and guess
what?
"Hello
officer."
Yep, we got
busted. We had to stop playing and leave. The
frat was evacuated. The party was over. We DID
get paid, though. 500 bucks for four songs. Not
bad at all.
-- Erik Caplan,
Guitarist, Cottonmouth
The best
Halloween story I have is the year I went as
Forrest Gump. I had the red shrimpin' hat and the
box of chocolates, you know. But after many
cocktails and all kinds of people asking me to do
scenes with "Jenny," I couldn't perform
the character any longer except to just run as
fast as could up and down Water Street in
Oneonta, NY while tons of Beavis and Buttheads
and Playboy Bunnies yelled "Run Forrest
run!!!!" It was very tiring.
-Jim Divine,
Bassist, The Sheila Divine
My weirdest
Halloween memory was when I dressed up as Zorro
and my friend Scott dressed as JR Ewing from
Dallas. We gallivanted around the streets of
Thousand Oaks like we ran the place. I was very
pumped about my bad-ass costume until some kid
yelled, "Hey Zorro, gonna whip out your gay
blade!? My ego was deflated and my costume was
shelved forever.
My other strange
Halloween episode, now that I think about it,
happened just a couple of months ago when I shot
Insane Clown Posse for the Halloween issue of POPsmear.
They turned out to be nice guys, but there was
something very surreal about being in a room with
two angry gansta clowns, porn star Raylene, Beat
Angels singer Brian Smith, and a slew of
costumes, weapons and various instruments of
destruction. Yes, my 9 to 5 is a dirty job, but
someone's got to do it!
-- Frank Meyer,
Vocalist, Streetwalkin' Cheetahs (and features
editor POPsmear Magazine)
River Phoenix
died a couple of days before Halloween in 1993.
We were in the middle of a two-week nightmare,
that started with our Winnebago's engine blowing
up, that landed us in a squat in the projects
with two crazy girls because we didn't have any
friends or money. Anyway, we managed to get
invited to a Halloween party and my costume
consisted of white make-up on my face, fake blood
trickling from my mouth and a sticker that read
"Hello, my name is River." It was
easily the most topical costume of the party, but
I got very mixed reviews.
-- Mike Starkey
of Stanford Prison Experiment
One year when I
was in The Lovedolls, we played a show at club
Lingerie (in LA). I dressed as Lemmy Killmister
from Motorhead. I wore no make up; a bullet belt;
warts and carbuncles on my face; a Motorhead
T-shirt; wrote "Rickenbacher" on my
P-bass; and had those big long side burns. What
are they called? "something chops"
[Mutton chops - G]. I yelled at the audience in a
bad Scottish accent and had the microphone 6
inches over my head and a fan blowing on me. I
was very proud of my whole out fit. After the
show, one of the guys in Pigmy Lovecircus, who
were also on the bill, said: "You look
great! What are you? One of the guys in 38
Special?" I was really bummed. I could have
been a cute bunny or something instead.
Another year I
was on tour with Elastica. I guess Halloween
isn't much of a big deal in England. They asked
me what they vibe was and if we should get
dressed up for our show. I assured them that
Halloween is a much-celebrated holiday in the
U.S., particularly in Chicago, where we were that
day. I suggested every one go out and get
costumes and participate. Of course when we hit
the stage that night in our nurse, Droog, French
maid, sailor and devil costumes we looked out
into the audience and there were 2 people who had
also gotten dressed up. I guess all the people
committed to Halloween went to see GWAR, who were
playing across town that night. Needless to say
my role as Interpreter of American Culture for
the band was diminished after that evening."
-- A couple of
Halloween anecdotes from Abby Travis of KMFDM and
Botanica
I was ten years
old and living in New York City. I had what I
thought was the coolest knight in shining armor
costume. I went trick-or-treating with a girl I
had a big crush on, and about 15 minutes into the
evening, these kids, older than I was, pelted me
with about a dozen rotten eggs. I had to go home,
the night was over. I was crushed."
--Ali Dee,
singer from pop/ska band, Mister Jones
Halloween always
sucked for me. Aside from having to dress up as a
bee (and play a gig - how embarrassing - my ex
wife's idea), the worst Halloween ever has to be
when I was in the fourth grade. I went out that
night with a group of older guys from the
neighborhood, none of whom were too enthralled by
the presence of a snotty juvenile. To garner some
payback, they sent me to the door of one Mr.
Moore -- you know the type, every neighborhood
has one -- the senile, dangerous, loner senior
citizen. After he swung the door open and
appeared before me with (I'm not making this up)
a 2x4 with nails through it, I ran as fast as my
legs would take me, back to the lit road,
seemingly out of harms way. It was then I
realized that my group had jumped into Rick
Quimby's car (yeah, a 16 year old trick or
treater, pathetic), leaving me to fend for
myself. Then a slimy orange pumpkin splattered
the back of my head, knocking me over in the
grass. Give me Thanksgiving any day.
-- AJ Dunning,
Guitarist, The Verve Pipe
A few years ago,
we played an October gig at a club in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. We were crashing on our friend Lisa's
floor that night, and returned to her apartment
after the show to discover she was having a big
party. We couldn't go to sleep so we all got
wicked drunk instead. Towards the end of the
night, we were rummaging through the kitchen for
snacks and Adam spotted a plastic Jack-O-Lantern
on top of the fridge. You know, the kind that has
the black handle and is usually filled with Jolly
Ranchers or Kit Kats or something. Well, drunk
Adam thought it would be funny to grab the
Jack-O-Lantern, flip it upside-down, and let all
the candy spill over his face. So he did it,
except the Jack-O-Lantern was full of cigarette
butts, which were flowing into his open mouth.
There were about 30 people watching him as he
spit them out, repeating "Cigarette butts...
cigarette butts...cigarette butts..."
What a great
Halloween that was!
-- Brian
Rosenworcel, legendary conguero for the rock band
Guster
Favorite
Halloween memory - 1988. Senior year. Fox Lane
High School's Inaugural Halloween Scavenger Hunt.
The pivotal moment of my youth. I was finally in.
I was down with the bad boys. Poor Mom - she had
done so well up to that point. But, in the spirit
of Molly Hatchet, Samuel Von Freshmaka was
officially "Flirtin' With Disaster"!
One of those rarified nights that's never
properly depicted in Teen Angst films. A night of
deceit, treachery, theft, violence, and
all-around Freshmaka sexual goodness. I'm still
recovering from the sweetest acid-wash hangover
and I don't wanna get over it, mama!" [But
WHAT happened, exactly? - G]
-- Samuel Von
Freshmaka, whose delightful new album I Am The
Freshmaka
is out now on Moonshine Music.
I was playing a
show with the band Fearless Leader, Halloween,
1997, at Al's Bar in Downtown LA. The show ran
late and we were informed as we took the stage,
that it was 1:45 AM and we had ten minutes to
play. We had prepared a lot of kooky antics for
that show so we were not pleased. We decided to
break out the big guns during the second song,
"God Bless The Devil." Guitarist, Alien
Rock, had built a cross, wrapped it in gauze,
soaked it in alcohol, placed it inside the bass
drum and lit it up. Now, we'd lit that drum set
on fire with alcohol before and not much had
happened, except for cool-looking flames shooting
everywhere, but that cross went up like a wad of
newspaper and, within seconds, the entire bass
drum was on fire, flames shooting over my head.
The band didn't
take much notice and played on. Smoke started
suffocating me, and as no one would come anywhere
near the stage, I had to stop for a moment and
pour beer on it till it almost went out, then
kick the cinders over towards the exit door. Even
after the fire went out, no one wanted to come
anywhere near the stage, so we just kept playing
(me with only a floor tom and snare drum by then)
for nearly 40 more minutes, without playing
another song. Instead, we played endless chaotic
noise while Alien Rock would yell "This
one's called 'KISS MY FUCKING AAAASS!!!'"
and pull his pants down, standing in front of the
smoke machine, giant sparkler in hand. Space
limits prevent me from telling more, but watching
my bass drum go completely up in smoke in twenty
seconds was the coolest thing I ever have seen.
(P.S. I hope no one will draw racist innuendo
from the "burning cross." We just
thought it looked cool and fit the God/Satan
duality inherent in the lyrics)."
- Bob Lee,
Drummer
Fearless Leader,
Claw Hammer, Backbiter, Mike Watt, et al.
I was never too
successful with my Halloween costumes. My mother
nearly suffocated me while she wrapped me up like
the Mummy. Once I wore all black pretending to be
a shadow and was hit by a guy on a bike. Another
time my father dressed in a giant chicken
costume. While we were trick or treating, he
tripped over his giant chicken feet and crushed
my tin-man costume and I went home. But you've
got to love those Almond Joys.
- Chris Kennedy
of Ruth Ruth
My favorite
Halloween memory is from 1995. My bass Player,
Randy Jordan (formerly of The Front) and I were
invited to a party at the loft of this famous
producer in New York City. (The party was
supposed to be a real big deal...) We arrived at
this building in the 30's between 7th and 8th Ave
and saw this huge line to get into the building.
See, there was only one elevator and it was very
small. After a wait of about 15 minutes we got
into the elevator with roughly 20 other costumed
people and started the ascent to the 15th floor.
Around the 10th floor the elevator stopped. The
doors wouldn't open and we couldn't get the
damned thing to budge! We tried to use the
elevator phone, but the box was empty. After
being stuck there for 20 minutes some of the
revelers were beginning to get freaked out. Most
of them were stoned out of their minds and the
drugs were making them paranoid. "Marie
Antoinette" began screaming and another
"zombie" began to cry. A headless
horseman kept asking if anyone had any
coke...needless to say, I wanted out!
Randy and I
stepped-up and decided to try to save the
evening. If no one had any drugs or booze, we
certainly weren't going to spend the whole night
in that damned elevator; besides the other
captives were assholes. Randy and I pried the
doors apart and discovered that we were stuck in
between floors. Randy and some guy dressed as a
drag queen held the doors while I crawled up to
the nearest doors and got out. Then, one by one
people were hoisted up to us and set them free.
About 10 seconds after the last person was lifted
out of the elevator, the cable attaching the
elevator snapped and the whole thing went
crashing to the bottom!
An added bonus
was that one of the people stuck in the elevator
was from the newspaper and Randy and I were
written up as heroes! We never did actually make
it to the party that night, but that didn't seem
to matter. As I said, most of the people stuck in
the elevator seemed like assholes.
-- Paxton,
singer/songwriter/guitarist
We were playing
a Halloween party in Dalton, GA. to one of the
sickest back woods crowds possible! They were
going nuts when the cops came in and shut the
party down. It seems that a few of the guests got
a little too much of the Halloween spirit. They
dug up a corpse and got caught bringing it in to
the party!! Later that night, I was hassled by
the cops for trying to buy razor blades and
apples as a joke.
- The
Independents (submitted by Joey Ramone)
One year, the
best part of Halloween in my household wasn't
trick or treating or parties, it was making a
haunted house in the basement with my brother,
Steve. I was about 10 years old. We did our first
haunted house, actually, in July, for my crazy
friend Alan (a hyper kid who would turn out to
need lithium to calm down when he hit his teens).
I would lead Alan around our darkened basement
through a maze created by our ping pong table,
sheets, a complete skeleton my dad owned and some
of his more grotesque photos taken in Vietnam.
The big finale was my brother popping out from
behind the furnace and dumping a big bucket of
natural peanut butter on the ground to make a
loud SMACK. We led Alan through this house of
horrors every time we couldn't think of anything
else to do, with no variation, and it scared the
shit out of him every time -especially on
Halloween.
-- David Weiss,
Drummer, Uvula
The worst
Halloween I ever had was last Halloween. This was
right before I went into rehab. We were playing a
Halloween show, so we hired a professional make
up artist to put latex masks on the band. It took
an hour and a half to get the masks on, and then
we had to wear them for another three hours
before going on stage. That night I tried mixing
heroin and cocaine together; it was my first time
speedballing, and I was terrified by the time we
finally went on stage. I was a mess. After the
show, they took the mask off and my face was
covered in hives. To make things worse, I had to
hang out back stage and shake people's hands.
-- Kenny Hickey,
Guitarist for Type O Negative
One Halloween
when I was in high school, this guy named Tom --
a quasi-intellectual and very pretentious art
student type -- came to school clad in a hat that
was a perfect scale model of the Parthenon. He
had obviously put a lot of thought and time into
this thing and was quite proud of himself. Just
then, this other guy, Simon, appalled and dressed
up as Gene Simmons, walked up to him and said
"That's stupid" and smacked it off his
head! It fell to the ground in pieces.
Not sure how to
feel about this, a group of us looked on with a
mixture of disbelief and glee. Just then, Simon
was stung in the lip by a wasp that was camping
out in his papaya drink. He spit out his drink
and dropped the carton on the floor screaming
"I got itten iya ee!" His lip ballooned
to like 10 times its normal size. Now everyone
was dying laughing!! While he was suffering, Tom
picked up the rest of the papaya and tossed its
remaining contents on Simon. While he was doing
that, he got stung on the neck by what we were
pretty sure was the same wasp. They started
fighting. Gene Simmons soaked in papaya juice
versus the Parthenon Hat Guy. Needless to
say,"Gene" was kicking his ass. Luckily
it was broken up by a box of Kotex and the
letters "C" and "S" from the
Crest Team! Nevertheless, it was more than a guy
in a Catholic school girl outfit could ask for on
Halloween.
-- Rob Lupie,
Guitarist, Hansel Und Gretyl
When I was
growing up, I was so greedy for candy, that I
used to go trick or treating dressed as a ghost -
a sheet over my head with two holes for eyes. I
cased out the entire neighborhood to see who had
the cool treats - full-sized candy bars - and who
had the crap – stale cookies, single-wrapped
individual Chuckles - [while] hiding under my
sheet. When I was done -- and had reviewed the
contents of my bag and made my mental notes of
the good houses -- I took off the sheet to reveal
another costume underneath and went back to the
good houses!
Best Score: A
real, metal, full-size Slinky from Mr. Marx's
house (the dude who made Big Wheels, not the
communist).
Worst Score:
Neighbor dressed ghoulishly who popped out of his
bushes and chased me screaming all the way down
the driveway. I was so scared, I peed in my pants
and they had to call my mom to get me to stop
crying! I couldn't even breathe to talk to my
mom. It was so traumatic, that the guy was still
apologizing for this 20 years later at his
daughter's wedding!
Or there was the
time where I almost got crushed to death in the
parade trying to get to a Cheap Trick show.
- Kitty
Kowalski, singer/guitarist, The Kowalskis
Two years ago, I
was Edward Scissor Hands. The clothing part of
the costume took about 20 minutes to prepare, but
I spent hours making the scissor hands. They were
complete with hinged fingers and formed sheet
metal for the actual scissors. Much time was
involved because when it comes to details, I'm a
little compulsive. It came time for the night on
the town and the clubs were hopping!! Well, once
inside the bar I found myself with only half the
costume because I was considered to be carrying
"dangerous weapons." All that time was
spent on gloves, which the bouncer wore all
night. I was stuck playing the role of a half
mime, half Gimp. Bummer!! In 1994, Janice was
Gene Simmons. Yes, the tongue is real!! [A
picture of Janice and her tongue was included
with this memory. Yes, her tongue rivals that of
Gene Simmons. - G] No one at the parties could
believe it was real and took turns trying to pull
it out. OUCH !! Also, since Jan never does
anything in a normal fashion, rather than carving
our Halloween pumpkin with a knife, she carved
the Jack-O- Lantern with a power drill.
-- Greg Wells
and Janice Hertel of Outrageous Dream
Last Halloween,
my gal and I went as one of those "Just
Married" couples you see in pictures from
the 50's, where the guy looks really square and
looks about 40 years old even though he's
probably 23. My gal went as the square
"wife" who was knocked up. We were
together, but kept our distance, even when
holding hands, because we were one of those
couples that got married because she was knocked
up, and because you're "supposed to"
but who really don't like each other that much.
Anyway, a couple funny things happened there. One
was that she was drinking and smoking, as all
pregnant moms did back then, and actually had
people telling her she shouldn't be doing that
while pregnant. Later, we went to a house party
where somehow it came out that I was playing a
show soon and somebody said "Oh, are you a
musician?" which was really funny because
I've never heard that in my life. But then I
realized that because of my "costume"
there was no indication whatsoever that I might
be one. It was a bit surreal to me because
usually it's just so obvious what I do.
Anyway, that was
last year... [But] the funniest one I remember
was when I was DJing years ago at a nightclub on
Halloween and I went as a deaf and blind person
with dark glasses, a white cane, and printed
cards asking for donations. I stayed in perfect
character all night, refusing to acknowledge
people's existence and, of course, "not
hearing" any requests – the perfect
excuse to completely ignore people! It became
quite popular for the ladies to try and
"break" my character trying all sorts
of fun ways.
--- Coyote
Shivers
Wow, was that
big fun or what? Thanks so much to all the
musicians who sent in their memories, all the
publicists who helped me pimp this idea and extra
scary thanks to Nikki for getting Kenny Hickey's
unique contribution for me.
We Have A
Wiener!
Last Worley
Gig's Name Those Song Lyrics Contest was
won within 24 of the column's posting by Travis
Christensen of Hyattsville, MD. Travis scored
himself a shiny new rock and roll CD by correctly
identifying the lyrics "Take a step into my
world" as coming from the Hurricane One song
"Take a Step into My World." In case
you're sitting there saying "But that's so
EASY!" allow me to point out that Travis was
the ONLY correct entry I received. Travis has
some kind of an art website thing that he asked
me to plug for him, so here's the link:
http://www.thegibson.net/phux/
(That's PHUX,
get it?)
Anyway, Travis,
thanks for proving that People Really Do Win when
they read The Worley Gig!
Rock Star
Quote of the Month
"All music
is the same, but Glam Rock has the prettiest
girls."
- Ice T
The Worley
Gig: Different from the Rest
(Identify the
song lyrics above and win a free CD! Send
educated guesses to pandomag@rocketmail.com)
Coming in
November: Gail gets her knuckles bloodied as she
takes on Trent
Reznor's Lame-Ass
Whine-a-Thon, The Fragile!
Visit The
Worley Gig Archives
Also in Pandemonium
Online:
Live,
The Distance to Here
"Ed
[Kowalcyzk] is like a pop star version of Jesus,
holding his audience in thrall, as they feel
compelled to compete for his affection,"
says Gail Worley in this CD Review
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