I knew immediately that Big Business was in good humor when I caught Jared Warren wandering to the play space in a tie-dyed Fleetwood Mac t-shirt and matching trucker cap. We waited for Big Business to get up and do their thing, chatting among ourselves and planning our next course of action following the conclusion of the show. I wandered outside and found my Fraggle along with a few other friends that had gathered around a looping projection of old horror movies. Their sound might have been more appealing about 10 years ago when they first came on the scene, but it struck me now as derivative and lacking innovation. I guess when you name your outfit after a French film exploring a familiar theme of misspent youth, you kind of set yourself up for a bit of boredom. Regrettably, I couldn’t say the same for the following supporting band, 400 Blows. Their nicely echoed vocals and impressive energy output with such limited instrumentation colored me impressed. The majority of us freaks, monsters, and general partygoers crowded in the gallery space and rooted on the very loud drum and bass duo as they buzzed through loosely-structured tempo shifts and drawn-out rhythmic explosions. The first band, Tweak Bird, got things moving. Note to partygoers: you’re only truly committed to Halloween when your costume requires you to shuffle sideways through a doorway. Two oversized pieces of bread, one backed by a girl dressed in purple (representing jelly) and the other supported by a dude dressed all in brown (representing peanut butter) awkwardly entered the gallery space hand-in-hand. A priest stood nearby chatting with a guy sporting a Devo getup, topped with that weird Lego-like cap they wore in the “Whip It” video. Inside, there were groups of white-faced ghouls huddled by a pit fire, laughing loudly and eating popcorn. Keith Richards probably never took such dutiful notes at a rock show. The girls wandered ahead as I retreated back to my car to retrieve a pen and yellow pad of paper on which I planned to take notes for this piece. We were out to have fun, dog shit be damned. We successfully parked, but it was disconcerting stepping out of my car dressed as Keith Richards, escorting a Fraggle and a flapper girl, in a questionable, poorly lit Los Angeles neighborhood only to get hit square in the olfactory zone with the overpowering smell of dog shit. The Big Business show, which happened to be in a gallery located on the same street where I purchased my wonderful piece of crap Hyundai about a year and a half ago. Emboldened by our appearance and general determination to celebrate, we met up with a gaggle of my girl’s closest buddies at their nearby apartment. If you don’t know what Red Fraggle is, you probably don’t know who Keith Richards is, so I won’t bother you with anything in the way of an explanation. Regardless, the two of us standing side by side looked admittedly outstanding. What did my lovely girl dress up as? A Fraggle. I studied Keith’s weird speech patterns via YouTube clips and listed to “Main Offender” from the time I rolled out of bed. I dressed as Keith Richards, complete with ’70s area accessories, a truly ridiculous wig held on my head with a long black bandana, and the requisite chest-barring dress shirt. What could be better than attending a costume-compulsive affair bolstered by a ballsy band like Big Business? Halloween, a day that offers up way more fun time than your modern day consumer Christmas, couldn’t disappoint.
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