Chikpiks (Halloween is overrated, who's with me? Edition)

In honor of the day, I bring you the 20 Worst Vampire Costumes, no doubt inspired by all of the quality vampire literature in bookstores these days. Since I couldn't find any Jane Austen/Mr. Darcy costumes on the webs, feel free to submit any you spot while you're out in the Halloween trenches tomorrow night.

Oh, and here are some scary Halloween events/parties, some of which I may actually appear at (no costume guaranteed).:


And at Mercury Lounge, featuring the insane live show of garage rockers Black Taxi (keeping ska alive in the best possible way), and awesome electro-glam duo Hank and Cupcakes, both of whom I've covered here:


Are you missing the Vivian Girls? Seems like they've fallen off from their previous 5 shows a week schedule since their sophomore album came out. Well here's your chance. I'm sure they'll be doing something scary.


SACRED BONES RECORDS HALLOWEEN

Wooden Ships
Vivian Girls
Crystal Stilts
Religious Knives

:: dj Keegan Cooke

| 171 LOMBARDY ST @ VARICK AVE |
171 Lombardy St @ Varick Ave | Greenpoint, Brooklyn
| 8pm | all ages | $12

| curated by Caleb Braaten |

And yeah, this is 20 bucks, but the description makes it sound pretty impressive. Plus, it's "secret." Yeah right.


The Last Masquerade

From the site: "Three vast spaces in the dark heart of Brooklyn have been re-imagined for
this all-night adventure. Over three dozen artists and performers will
infuse these forgotten structures with a pre-apocalyptic fairy-tale built
on music, mischief and a heavy dose of the unexpected."

260 Meserole St., Bushwick Brooklyn
and continues at two indoor loft spaces steps away...

7pm through 7am : Saturday October 31st.
$20 : Costumes will be rewarded : 21+
Arrive before 8:59pm and you pay only $10.

And for those who have far, far more endurance than I for looking at more bad vampire costumes:


Afterparty at Market Hotel

Starts at 1:30 a.m., immediately following the Mt Eerie/Liturgy show.

Djs include Veronica Vasicka (founding member of East Village Radio and electronic label Minimal Wave, lover of new wave, italo-disco, and house music) & Steve Summers (whose Back From The Future mix is below):

80% chance of smoke machine, $5 at the door (free for Mt Eerie/Liturgy showgoers).

Mp3 - Steve Summers - Back from the Future


And finally, Bobby "Boris" Pickett is sadly no longer playing in New York or anywhere else on earth, but the sole act of hearing "Monster Mash" once is enough to call my Halloween a success. So, via Audio Muffin, I present to you:

Mp3 - Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers - Monster Mash

May he rise as a zombie in peace.

Brooklyn hip, New Yorker-style (2009 New Yorker Festival)

There are thousands of bands in Brooklyn, but if The New Yorker swoops in one night a year to choose a handful of them to spotlight, it's more of a career boost than being gushed about on Brooklyn Vegan and Pop Tarts combined. And that's just how it is, my friend.

A.H. Walker / Getty Images

It's easy to describe the The New Yorker's showcase at the The Bell House on Friday your standard attempt to expose the New Yorker's middle-aged readership base to what "those crazy Brooklyn youngsters are listening to these days," but Sasha Frere-Jones and Kelefa Sanneh (above) are no dilletante slouches, and showed some serious cred in curating "Brooklyn Playlist: A Special Concert Featuring Bands from the County of Kings." (Especially if you ask Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, but I'll get to that in a later post). Granted the Dave Longstreth-led Dirty Projectors are hardly unknowns, having already collaborated with David Byrne and Bjork, and having released their fourth full-length studio album, Bitte Orca, to gushy reviews in the usual online media, as well as an EP, Temecula Sunrise.

A.H. Walker / Getty Images

(FYI: The Bell House, while a cavernous and lovely place to hear music, has just about the most aggravating location of any venue I know. Note: if you take the G train to Smith-9th Sts. in order to get there, after you exit DO NOT TURN RIGHT. For the love of God, do not turn right.)

I was surprised to hear, live how much their sound resembled that of the most recent incarnation of Animal Collective; being it's one of those few handfuls of bands with sounds that manage to be both un-melodic and pleasantly beautiful. Their live show relies heavily on acoustics (in every sense of the word); the tight harmonies of singers Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, whose voices, like Gabriel's trumpet, tend to explode out from heaven at all the right moments.
A.H. Walker / Getty Images

I didn't get to catch much of black-metal band Liturgy or House of Ladosha, described as a "dark-crunk collective," but I had to post about them anyway because their "glam-terror" posturing is unironically weird. (Or maybe it is ironic. It's hard to tell).

A.H. Walker / Getty Images

In any case, we spoiled hothouse flowers living in Brooklyn tend to believe that as we go, so goes the nation. But when you think about the circulation of the The New Yorker (which even includes lonely, pretentious 7th grade girls in Stillwater, Minnesota, which I know from a long time ago in another life), it all starts to become clear. Frere-Jones and Sanneh's blog post about their selections is on the New Yorker site, and even includes Mp3s from each act (I'll start you off below).

Mp3 - The Dirty Projectors - Temecula Sunrise