Be There Or Be Scared! Halloween Rocks the Westside

By Tomm Carroll

Friday, October 26-Thursday, November 1—Rocktober rolls to a close this week, and that means one thing – it’s time for tricks and treats. Halloween is always a big night in clubland, no matter what day of the week it falls on. And this year, fright night is a smack-dab-in-the-middle–of-the-week Wednesday – but you’d never know it from the activities planned at Westside venues.

The highlight of October 31 has got to be music matchmaker Hal Willner’s Halloween show, Closed on Account of Rabies, a live tribute to the work of America’s master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe, at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus in Westwood. Willner, who put together the astounding tribute concerts to folk music icon Harry Smith at this same venue six months ago, has amassed an eclectic line-up of actors, musicians and writers to channel the gothic genius of Poe.

	Planned participants include musicians Wayne Kramer (of MC5), Syd Straw, Elysian Fields and Anthony and the Johnsons; actors Bud Cort, Catherine O’Hara, Amanda Plummer, Eric Roberts and Chloe Webb; author Hubert Selby, Jr.; satirist Harry Shearer; and the voice of word jazz artist Ken Nordine, to name a few. Be there or be scared. Santa Monica’s 14 Below dispenses with the tricks and provides a great treat: The Negro Problem with Stew in a rare, mid-week, big-name gig. Opening is Radiohead tribute band Lazy Eye. Over at Temple Bar in Santa Monica, Halloween finds a grab-bag of a show featuring soul/hip-hop from The Montezuma Project – featuring Taboo from The Black Eyed Peas – as well as funk-ska outfit Warsaw and acid-jazz cabaret act The Toledo Show. Usually a one-band-a-night club, Harvelle’s in Santa Monica goes all-out this Halloween with the triple bill of The Lovesick Lunatics, Pico Train and Dublika. Santa Monica’s The West End’s regular Wednesday night band, reggae group Mongoose, puts the ska in skare, while over at Rusty’s Surf Ranch on the Santa Monica Pier, it’s "Skaroake Night "(as if karoake isn’t scary enough every other night), complete with a costume contest.
Bud Cort
Harry Shearer
Syd Straw

Other shows of note this week:

A folk storyteller with a passion for pop, Eliza Gilkyson performs at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica.

Rick Sheldon, Dark Sunday and Louden Swain team up for a triple bill at Rusty’s.

Blues drops the big one with Sherry Pruitt and the Bomb Squad at Harvelle’s.

Boulevard Music in Culver City heads west with (Band Name of the Week) Ray Doyle and the Pay to Playboys, along with yodellin’ fools Wylie and the Wild West Show.

At Temple Bar, it’s Los Angelitos, Dubscenities and DJ and the Jummers rockin’ the Rhythm Room.

Tuesday
Undisputed piano master Ahmad Jamal returns to the Jazz Bakery in Culver City for a six-night-stand.

Thursday
More jazz at Lunaria in Century City with Anthony Field and his trio.

LAURENCE JUBER McCABE’S GUITAR SHOP SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27

Frets don’t fail me now! Englishman Laurence Juber is back and every other guitarist in town may just as well take the night off – and come down and see him live. An incredible fingerstylist and fan of alternate tunings, Juber is truly the guitarist’s guitarist.

Making those six strings sing for over 35 years now, Juber (or LJ as he’s known to his legions of fret-head fans) fuses pop, jazz, folk and classical styles. He’s played on film and television scores, in West End musicals and with everyone from Lou Rawls to the Monkees, but is perhaps best remembered for his three-year stint as lead guitarist with Paul McCartney’s Wings in the late ’70s and early ‘80s, with whom he won a Best Rock Instrumental Grammy Award for "Rockestra." He also played with both George Harrison and Ringo Starr.