Wicked Lives

I didn't go for scary, I went to increase my literacy. And dance a little.

FilmRoasters, the crew who shows bad movies and comments all the way through a la "Mystery Science Theater" was showing the 1978 horror classic "Halloween" tonight. Needless to say, I'd never seen it.

Which is not to say I'd never been to a FilmRoasters' event because I had. Three times. I knew the drill.

The bludgeoning of the cheesy film was taking place at Bottoms Up so I arrived in time to order a monstrous slice of their famous "Karen combo" pizza (no, it really is named that), featuring all kinds of my favorite things: Italian sausage, onions, spinach and Ricotta.

I don't know what Karen it's named for, but she had great taste.

While I ate, the Roasters got warmed up with a bad '80s TV show called "The Master" about a ninja and his pupil, notable mainly for big '80s hair, a Trump-less Las Vegas and a soundtrack by Bill Conti of "Rocky" fame.

By the time that corniness ended, there were eight people in the audience and five of them were gabbing loudly because they hadn't come to see the movie.

After more than a few pointed barbs in their direction, they got the hint and moved out on the patio so that the remaining three of us could hear the movie's bad dialog and the roasters' pithy improvisation.

They asked how recently the audience had seen the movie (um, never) and said, "If the last time you saw "Halloween" it was scary, it's been too long." The event invitation had warned that, "Only really old people still think it's scary."

The only thing I already knew about "Halloween" was its soundtrack and that's because local musician Scott Burton was a huge fan of director John Carpenter's soundtrack and had transposed it from piano to guitar and I'd heard him play it on several occasions near Halloween.

The first thing I learned about "Halloween" tonight was that the virginal Laurie character was Jamie Lee Curtis' first film (the credits "introduce" her).

Then the Roasters set about mocking it at every turn.

When the first babysitter has her nude scene, someone cracked, "Seventies boobs were different." You mean high and firm without being fake? Yea, they sure were.

They made fun of the nurse in her cap and cape. The turned the murder's voice into Darth Vader imitations and said things such as, "I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor" about one of the teen-aged victims.

And like with previous screenings, the Roasters were profoundly impatient with the '70s style of film making, making frequent comments about long shots, extended takes and showing the viewer everything.

"Film it all, film her walking up the whole street!" one guy shouted when she took five steps on camera.

Call me old school, but I found it refreshing to see a film that allowed scenes to unfold and wasn't just a non-stop montage of quick cuts for the ADD set.

But the '70s details were on point: Laurie doesn't date because all the guys think she's too smart. Don't feel bad, Laurie, I didn't get asked to prom, either.

When she and her girlfriend take off in the enormous '70s car (not wearing seat belts, natch) for their babysitting jobs, they share a joint in the car on the way, her friend saying,"Come on, we have just enough time" and the Roasters retorting, "There's always time for marijuana!"

At her babysitting job, Laurie dons a full apron to make popcorn for her charges and carve a jack-o-lantern ("Remember when we used to say jack-o-lantern?"). Really, an apron?

As the murderer stalks them in his car, someone quipped, "Is anyone concerned that the killer is driving a station wagon?"

Not in the '70s, baby.

When a character says he thinks the murderer's former house is haunted, the Roasters said, "Haunted by eight bad sequels! And number three made no sense!" I wouldn't know.

Once all the sexually active babysitters have been murdered and Laurie thinks she's killed the killer, she sits sobbing on the floor in relief and post-terror. "She's sobbing because there's going to be a sequel."

So now, ladies and gentlemen, I can say I've seen "Halloween," the film credited with beginning a long line of slasher films based on Hitchcock's "Psycho" and a reminder that boobs were better in the '70s.

Or something.

Having upped my cultural literacy over a slice, I opted to finish out the night at Balliceaux to see Red Light Rodeo.

Walking up the alley, I saw a small crowd near the door and just as I came up behind them, one guy reared back with his leg and kicked my hand with his shoe. When he realized what had happened, he joked, "Don't sneak up on a brother like that, girl!" and then apologized. I chalked it up to my quiet shoes on the cobblestones.

Inside, I found a small but exuberant crowd in the back room, many of the women dancing already to Red Light Rodeo's take on bluegrass honky tonk, including two who finished "Sitting on Top of the World" by falling on the beer-slicked floor laughing their faces off.

The band was bigger than I expected with drums/percussion, acoustic guitar, upright bass, mandolin/electric fiddle and electric guitar/pedal steel and all dapperly dressed in bolo ties, western style shirts and a couple with cowboy hats on.

When the band took a break, a woman decided to talk to me, commenting on how I'd been observing the room as I sipped my tequila. I found out she left Richmond for the West Coast only to return and wonder why she'd ever left. In other words, a familiar tale.

The band scored big with a country version of "Louie, Louie" that got just about everyone in the room dancing before it was over. From there, they sang about about liquor and whores, wicked lives and mentioned how their favorite song subject was whiskey ("You and me and whiskey makes three").

Only really old people wouldn't appreciate that kind of music.

I Got My Flower, I Got My Power

Life kept me so busy I almost didn't make Halloween.

But once I got started on the rest of my life, I was off to eat for a living and then find some music.

If it's All Hallow's Eve in Richmond, it must mean there's a cover band show.

Tonight's was at the Camel and featured a David Bowie cover band (rumored to be The Men Who Sold the World) and my favorite guys in wigs, Zep Replica.

I'm no fool. I knew that the audience would be predominantly guys.

It was.

I had missed The Men and arrived to Zep just starting "Black Dog," a fitting first song for me since I distinctly recall it being my favorite song on the jukebox in my high school cafeteria.

No, seriously.

Costumes abounded and with a supposed $100 prize for the best, some were quite clever.

A bowl of spaghetti. An Hassidic Jew. Freddie Mercury. A priest.

Next to me in the second row was a girl with the best literary costume, at least in my opinion.

She was Ms. Frizzzle, you know, the Ms. Frizzle who had the magic school bus and was always taking her class on mad adventures.

We got talking somehow and she told me how much she was enjoying seeing the band for the first time.

I told her I'd seen them several times.

"Which one is your favorite?" she asked, reminding me of a game I play with certain girlfriends at the Listening Room.

I turned the tables and asked who her fave was. "The bass player!" she said.

It just so happens that the bass player is a good friend and a big part of the reason I was there, so her answer pleased me no end.

Meanwhile, the lead singer was inciting the crowd, saying, "So, yea, y'all are not giving me what I want."

I'd like to think we got better at giving him what he wanted because we definitely got into the one-two punch of "Dancing Days" followed by "Kashmir."

For the most part, I stayed put, meaning I saw a favorite former bartender when he bumped into me, the scientist showed up in gory costume and only later when I went for a tequila refill, did I happen on man-about-town Prabir.

When he heard I'd come to get some tequila, he pointed to a nearby glass of tequila.

"I got that for Treesa, but you can take it and I'll get her another one."

First rule of bar etiquette at a show: never turn down the gift of tequila.

I returned to the front in time for "Whole Lotta Love" and "Immigrant Song" before the costume contest judging began.

And judging is a loose term because owner Rand basically left it to the band to decide.

Shots were being passed from band member to band member so they may not have been the best judges.

Like I said, it was loose. And then back to the music.

"Heartbreaker" came off seamlessly, but it took three stabs to segue into "Living Loving Maid," to great hilarity.

There were lots of guys especially singing every word.

They were just as thrilled when Zep broke from the ubiquitous "Stairway to Heaven" into AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

Don't get me started.

"Ramble On" had the crowd whipped into a frenzy and the singer said wearily, "Alright we'll play one more song."

When they had finished, he had,too. "Alright, I'm through," he said taking off into the crowd.

But the Halloween crowd wasn't ready to stop.

An audience member jumped onstage to replace the departing singer and did vocals on "Nobody's Fault But Mine."

The singer returned for one last song, maybe to re-establish himself as the superior Robert Plant imitator.

Dancing madly, the standing cans of  PBR onstage were kicked over and went bubbling all over the stage.

Like anyone cared.

Song over, it was time to acknowledge the truth: it was no longer Halloween.

It was All Saints Day.

I don't foresee any cover band shows to celebrate that. On with my life.

Richmond's Dark Side: Music and Books

With creepy season in full swing, there's no shortage of ways to indulge an All Hallows' Eve urge.

Tonight's was Chop Suey's Halloween celebration, "The Dark Side of Richmond" at (where else?) the site of the former Richmond Gallows, none other than G5.

The evening began with one of my favorite Halloween traditions, local band Glows in the Dark, performing music inspired by and taken from John Carpenter movies.

Yes, The Fog, The Thing and of course Halloween came to life with a lot of improvisation in between at the hands of these free jazz masters.

And as you may recall (I didn't and had to be told), Carpenter's movie music was written mainly for keyboards, necessitating a lot of work to bring it around to guitar, upright bass, sax, trombone and drums, but once gain GitD pulled it off in the eeriest possible way.

I first saw them do this music a couple of years ago at Commercial Taphouse and tonight's audience was even more into it.

Word must have gotten around about what an audio treat it was.

A seasonably-suitable reading followed, featuring two of the writers from Richmond Noir, the short story collection where each features a different Richmond neighborhood.

Nothing says Halloween season quite like death, so Tom de Haven read the "money scene" from his story based in Manchester (three-way sex and shots fired on southside) and Dennis Danvers read his tale of Texas Beach (a dead dog and a dead illegal immigrant).

Beth Brown, author of Wicked Richmond, a book about RVA's dark underbelly, read the chapter on old Richmond's boy gangs, apparently quite a force from the time of the Civil War and for some 50 years afterwards.

Rocks, slingshots and eventually pistols were the weapons of choice for boys (some as young as four!) to stake out their territory in this town.

Thumbing through Brown's book, it looks to be a catalog of the debauchery that defined our fair city's history; clearly it wasn't all moonlight and magnolias.

Billed as the spookiest reading of the season (and I know of no other Halloween readings, so it undoubtedly was), the audience of music and book lovers geeked out afterwards talking about the intricacies of the music and the macabre nature of the stories.

Before long, conversation moved on to clever costumes and upcoming parties.

And just for the record, I've never seen a John Carpenter movie.

There, I said it.

Still enjoyed the hell out of it.

This Is It?

My friend and I were looking for an appropriately scary way to kick off the Halloween weekend, when it hit us like a ton of bricks; we should see the new Michael Jackson documentary, "This Is It."

What could be more disturbing than a film about a dead pop star, showcasing his 50-year old emaciated body being put through its paces in rehearsal for the Big Comeback?

Sure, "The Exorcist" was playing at the Byrd, but that's so cliched.

To prepare for this night of horror, we started at my place with a bottle of the 2006 Domaine de Berane Cotes de Ventoux "Les Blaques," a big, peppery wine perfect for fortifying us for what lay ahead.

Since I never go to the movies on a Friday night, I had no idea how many people did.

But that's okay, we were armed with buttered popcorn and fear in our hearts; we were ready.

And then unexpectedly, it turned out to be far less horrifying than anticipated.

Oh, yes, MJ is very scary looking up close (that nose! those lips! that pallor!), but then he was 50 years old and had had as many cosmetic surgeries as Cher.

And given that the camera adds 20 pounds, he must have disappeared when he turned sideways in real life.

Someone should have given the guy a sandwich.

But the documentary showcased more of his talent than his scariness and turned out to be quite entertaining to watch.

I have to give the man credit; he knew his music backwards and forwards and how he expected it to sound.

And his voice was still surprisingly supple.

Since every song was intended to be a major production, there were a lot of shiny, moving things to amuse us for the duration.

Apparently I'll have to get my fright on elsewhere this Halloween weekend.