Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies: The Big Stir Records Halloween Grimoire Part 1

BIG STIR Records wanted to celebrate Halloween in their own way and with the artists they love. The result was released on October 10 and is called “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks And Haunted Harmonies: The Big Stir Records Halloween Grimoire.” Rather than telling you about it in one of our usual columns, we thought it would be nice to have some of the artists who participated share their Halloween memories!

Thank you to those who agreed! Happy Halloween to you all!

THE ARTISTS, THEIR MEMORIES, AND THEIR COSTUMES


REX BROOME of The Armoires (and The Pepper’s Ghost Players, and co-producer of “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies”): I’ll always remember 2025 as “The Year It Was Halloween for 10 Months Straight,” since we (Christina Bulbenko, Michael Simmons and myself) started working on “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies” in January, and it’s been our focus ever since! But since Halloween has been the focus of many creative projects over my life, from costumes and carving pumpkins to designing and hosting haunted houses as a teenager to decades of assembling elaborate mixed-media Halloween mix tapes and discs and audio collages, creating one for vinyl that includes artists I’ve admired for decades is really an honor… and I’m really proud of everything about it. So I’m pretty sure my most memorable Halloween is yet to come, in a scant few weeks!

Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome of The Armoires as Jedi Knights, Halloween 2023

MICHAEL SIMMONS of sparkle*jets u.k. (and The Pepper’s Ghost Players) and co-producer of “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies”: When I was a teenager, one time on my street, we created a giant spider web that was like, I dunno, it spanned about 5 or 6 house lengths and was attached to houses and poles and trees. Right in the middle was a big f***ing black spider with red C9 xmas lights for eyes, I also had a smaller one on the same web right over the sidewalk in front of my house. That one had a PA horn in it, and it was attached to the web via a wire (which was also the speaker wire). It was hooked up to a 100w PA amp with a crappy Casio sampler of some horrifying screeches. Trick or treaters would be walking by and I'd drop this thing from high up in the web down to eye level and hit them with about 100DB of ear-piercing shriek. Lotsa kids spilled ALL THEIR CANDY in front of my house. It was pretty epic.

Michael Simmons of sparkle*jets u.k. on Halloween

MIKE CROOKER of Librarians With Hickeys: Halloween, 1992, somewhere near Oberlin, Ohio. Our band has been asked to play a Halloween gig as a favor to a radio station. We took the gig for two reasons, it paid well and we needed a no-pressure gig to break in our new drummer. The "venue" is located in a large, desolate cabin in a nature preserve, set back at least a mile from the main drag, and another ten miles in either direction from civilization. We come fully loaded with a massive sound system, strobe lights, smoke machines and a couple of old TVs that'll play horror movies on a loop.

The crowd also comes fully loaded (literally and figuratively), dressed to the nines for the occasion, ghouls to the left of me, goblins to the right. We set up as it gets dark, get a quick sound check and find the promised beers (part of our payment). Fully dark now, the opening band plows through their set as more and more bodies fill the cabin and it starts to heat up. They finish strong and we drop a mix tape into the system with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, The Dream Syndicate, The Misfits, Bauhaus and The Cure as the crowd continues to dance and drink (and drink).

We're just about ready to hit it when we realize we can't find the drummer. He's out in the parking lot, hiding in his car having a moment. He doesn't seem keen on coming back inside. Eventually with the promise of stronger alcohol beverages, we manage to get him on stage and we kick off our set and the place is just throbbing. I look over at him and he has that deer-in-the-headlights look, but manages to white knuckle it, and finally settles in. Crisis averted... sort of.

We finish the gig, flip the mix tape to keep the party going until midnight and start to break down the gear. The drummer almost immediately disappears. As the party winds down and out, the soundman and I take a break, and go out to the front door. It's almost midnight, full moon, the winds are howling, clouds are flying like monkeys and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees. We realize no one has seen the drummer for over an hour, but his car is still in the lot. There's no way we have room in the van for his kit. The soundman turns to me and chuckles, "There's no way they'll ever find the body."

We go back inside and finish the load out getting the drums to the front porch when a car comes screaming up the gravel road and skids into the lot with a pretty young ghoul behind the wheel. Out pops the drummer looking worse for wear, and he wobbles towards us. Without saying a word he grabs his gear, and shoves in it the trunk, and follows the ghoul’s car for parts unknown. We never see him again.

The hands of Mike Crooker of Librarians with Hickeys, in costume for the video for “Ghoul You Want” (the band’s contribution to “Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies”)

JOHN BORACK of The Armoires: My weirdest Halloween memory: playing a Halloween-themed gig with my Beatles cover band a few years back and all of us dressing like Beatle zombies.

John Borack of The Armoires in costume for a Halloween concert with his Beatles tribute band.

STEVE STOECKEL of The Spongetones (also appearing here as a solo artist): My first real Halloween was in St Thomas, Virigin Islands. in 1957. My older brother, younger sister, and I considered it paradise, save for the fact we got chocolate only once a week, and savored it. My older brother told us we'd get bags full on Halloween, we were giddy with anticipation. We set out at dusk, wearing homemade costumes, and the first house we knocked at down the sandy road was an island woman's. She opened the door, we yelled "trick or treat!" and she slammed it shut. The next house, an older couple answered our knocking. "Trick or treat!" we said again, and they looked confused, but politely invited us in. The woman commented on our "love-ly costumes" in an accent I know now was British and asked about Halloween. It occurred to us Halloween was not a St Thomas event. They had no candy, but gave us fruit, which we ate every day on that island. We held out our empty pillowcases, too polite to say no, and went home. Not the full bags of chocolate my brother had promised, but an amazing cross-cultural holiday nonetheless!

STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK: In the decades-long history of the psych-rock legends, it’s sometimes overlooked that a key player from the band’s ‘60s beginnings has been Steve Bartek. Steve, between his early and present-tense Alarm Clock days, was also a founding member of Oingo Boingo, the legendary LA new wave band with strong ties to Halloween (via hits like “Dead Man’s Party” and their famous, always-sold-out annual Los Angeles Halloween concerts. With Bartek permanently back in the Strawberry Alarm Clock lineup, it’s not surprising that the new single is themed for the spooky season… and you can see him here in a classic Halloween regalia.

Both sides of Strawberry Alarm Clock’s Steve Bartek in stage makeup for Halloween.