For some music fans in Chicago, tradition calls for spending a Halloween weekend with bands such as Hall & Oates, the Kinks, Smashing Pumpkins and Bob Seger.
Or at least local bands playing those parts at the Empty Bottle’s Jukebox of the Damned show on Saturday and the Double Door’s Halloween bash on Sunday.
“An hour-and-a-half of contemporary and soft rock hits retooled for a funeral setting,” said Jim Cooper, guitarist/singer of the band Detholz!, about the annual Jukebox event that his band hosts.
Songs by Phil Collins, Cher and Don Henley are reimagined by local rockers during the show, now in its sixth year. Cooper said that his band was inspired by the album “The King and I,” where the Residents recorded Elvis tunes in its own bizarre style.
“Originally we tried to imagine what these songs would sound like if they were being played by a bunch of zombies in the afterlife,” Cooper said. “We’ve broken from that a bit now and are cutting and pasting to create Frankensteins out of the [songs].”
The Halloween show holds a special place for Cooper, whose religious background heavily influenced his experiences trick-or-treating as a child.
“My mother would dress me as biblical characters,” he said. “One year, she made this elaborate Moses costume for me and paraded me around the neighborhood and used me as an excuse to proselytize neighborhood families.
“I still managed to have a good time, and I never really lost my interest in wearing costumes of all kinds.”
The Double Door Halloween show didn’t come about from such childhood experiences. It was initially hatched from a night of drinking at the Liar’s Club by DD general manager Lorri Francis, Scott Lucas of Local H and members of Triple Fast Action and Fig Dish. The show, in its ninth year, has grown into a guaranteed sellout that Francis calls her “favorite night of the year.”
“We just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if bands dressed up and did other bands’ songs for Halloween?’ ” Francis said. “I ran with it, and next thing I know, we’re doing our first Halloween show.”
This years scheduled lineup is Local H (Hall & Oates), Giant Step (the Kinks), Ness (the Smiths), the Last Vegas (Jane’s Addiction), the 8th Grade (Bob Seger), San Tropez (Fleetwood Mac) and Blackbox (Smashing Pumpkins).
Geoff Sabin, whose band Giant Step has tackled Van Halen, David Bowie and Elvis Costello in the past, still gets excited about taking on a different persona.
“It’s one night where you get to be somebody else,” Sabin said. “And in this particular case you get to live that dream out in front of an entire audience.”
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Edited by Curt Wagner (cwwagner@tribune.com) and Ben Delery (bdelery@tribune.com)
