Love It To Death & Other Sweet Things

I am, no doubt, dating myself but as far as personal creeps for the harrowing holiday go,
I would place Alice Cooper's “Killer” and “Love it to Death” albums at the top of heap for
All Hallows Eve.

Even as they date back a quarter-century (maybe more?) little seems to match the sheer
fun the Coop delivered once upon a time, belting out lyrics to “I’m Eighteen” or
“School’s Out” or “Public Animal No. 9" while a snake slithered and coiled 'round his torso
and the backdrop of the stage was fitted with head-hacking guillotines, inflatable monsters,
and fiery explosions of the most bombastic kind.

For sheer terror, there were the instrumental rampages of “Black JuJu”
and “Halo of Flies.” For creepy content, “You Drive Me Nervous,” accompanied by
the mid-70s tunes “Sick Things,” “I Love the Dead,” and the particularly disturbing “Unfinished Sweet,” which roared to a catchy pop beat even as a sonic drill wheedled and zoomed with the sounds of dental surgery in the song's background.

Favorite unintentional costume: Tom Waits, whose dark-speckled five-o'clock-shadow,
rumpled jacket, hat, and gloves with fingers cut out of them were a fitting fashion for the man
who sang things like: "It's raining hammers, It's raining nails...'

Fondest musical memories LIVE:
Screaming Jay Hawkins performing “I Put a Spell on You” at the big gymnasium-looking, turned concert hall, Irving Plaza, one Halloween night in the late 1970s.

Same era: One especially demented Manhattan marathon, Holloween-time,
that included The Dead Boys performing on stage at CBGB’s, David Bowie filming
his “Scary Monsters” video at an uptown disco called Hurrah’s, and an afterhours gathering
in a decrepit, 1940s-era movie house on 14th Street that was attended by black-clad
Burroughsian mugwump characters, glitter-rock goblins, and one particularly memorable character who went by the name of Dave and claimed to be a friend of Jimmy Page
and a disciple of Aleister Crowley.

- Thomas