Of all the days of the week for Halloween to fall on, Wednesday is the most awkward. Do you celebrate the weekend before or wait till the weekend after? Or do you throw caution to the winds, risk the workday hangover and party on the exact day? Fortunately for Toronto’s music fans, the answer is all of the above.
On Friday (October 26), the Garrison plays up Halloween nostalgia by throwing a someone-spiked-the-punch school-auditorium-style video dance party with DJ Shit la Merde, Scott Cudmore and Finkelstein, while the always popular Goin’ Steady retro 50s series takes over Lee’s Palace for its annual Monster Mash dance party. Meanwhile, at the only time of the year when the horrorbilly genre seems truly fresh, Hard Luck Bar hosts the Matadors and Hellcat & the Prowl.
Death To T.O. takes place Saturday (October 27) at the Silver Dollar and Comfort Zone. Only in its second year, the show has already become the ideal replacement for the now-defunct Fucked Up Fest. Twelve local outfits dress up as their favourite bands – Ell V Gore as the Damned, Rituals as Nirvana and Hellaluyah as Nine Inch Nails, etc – for 20-minute cover sets. If electronic music is more your speed, Sound Academy’s Freakout party has some big, bassy names: Rusko, Designer Drugs and Dillon Francis.
On Sunday (October 28) local stoner rockers Quest for Fire and garage-folkers Deloro descend into the depths of Parts & Labour’s Shop for a show dubbed Mattyfest Halloween after head chef Matty Matheson.
Though the weekends before and after Halloween give adults an excuse to get drunk as naughty nuns and sexy lobsters, Halloween itself (Wednesday, October 31) remains a relatively innocent night. Toronto’s only Balkan-klezmer-Gypsy-party-punk-super-band, Lemon Bucket Orkestra, will employ the childlike enthusiasm inherent to the holiday (but often overlooked) by taking a crowd of children trick-or-treating through the Annex, horns and accordions in hand, before stopping at Lee’s Palace to release their new Lume, Lume album. That same night, old-school hard rock fans dress up like they did in their glory days (as if they ever stopped) when the Slayer Party takes over Hard Luck, with local sleaze-rockers Diemonds, thrashers Shotgun Curse and Axxion.
Sheezer’s gimmick means it’s essentially always Halloween for the all-female Weezer tribute band, but they take it a step further on November 2 at Lee’s Palace. Last year they dressed as the Spice Girls, and we’d be surprised if they haven’t thought of something to top that this time around.
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