By Benjamin Leatherman
The brothers Calabrese have a rather vampish video they wanna show you.
After weeks upon weeks of seemingly endless hype, the wait is paractically over. The big day is almost here, and no longer will we have to endure scary tales of doom and gloom that are currently clogging the airwaves.
Wait a minute, you might ask, you’re talking about Election Day this coming Tuesday, right? Nope.
Although this year’s race for the White House has been pretty damn horrific at times *and John McCain occaisonally reminds me of a walking corpse), I’m referencing the annual celebration of scary known as Halloween. For some folks (like myself) it’s a bigger holiday than Christmas, and I’ve been spending the past few weeks watching spooky and kooky clips on YouTube. A few choices on my playlist are ghastly music video from several local bands.
For instance, no one embodies the eerie spirit of All Hallows Eve more than local horrorpunks of Calabrese. Made up of three leather jacket-clad brothers from Phoenix, the terrifying trio blasts out thundering three-chord rock filled with the damned and the dead. They also put on a killer party each and every Halloween at downtown Phoenix's PHiX Gallery (check out Up On the Sun’s review of last year’s event). One of my all-time favorite videos from Calabrese is “Voices of the Dead,” which is populated with screaming women, slick camera work, and graveyards. Take a peek:
But Calabrese doesn’t have the local market cornered on horrific psychobilly, as the devilish dudes comprising Creepsville 666 also put on a pretty scary show. The fearsome foursome just released a new self-titled EP with probably the coolest cover art I’ve ever seen (a naked goth chick covered in blood) and also have a Halloween show tomorrow night at Stray Cat Bar & Grill in Tempe. Here’s a video of the band performing their song “My Baby’s A Psycho”:
And since it wouldn’t be a proper Halloween without hordes of zombies stumbling about in search of brains, check out this rather humorous vid from the industrial rockers of Ikonoklast for their tune “Dead Inside.” It’s shot in black and white (a la George Romero’s landmark horror flick Night of the Living Dead) and features zombies singing along with the song:
Lastly, I wanted to include a clip from Gilbert post-hardcore outfit Scary Kids Scaring Kids, if for no other reason than their fitting name. The slick-ass sextet’s been busy for the past few yeas touring the world with the likes of Anberlin and Straylight Run, but they put together a sepia-toned Blair Witch Project-like video for their song “The Only Medicine” that also reminds me a little bit of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
