LES SANS CULOTTES, DAN DEACON, DETROIT COBRAS, CHROMEO & MORE
OCTOBER 31, 2007
NYC
WORDS & PHOTOS: FAITH-ANN YOUNG
Halloween week, New York’s extravagant hedonistic playground transformed into a Dante-esque journey filled with daring, devilish and salaciously deviant raves and plenty of sound.
Friday at Mercury Lounge, the Les Sans Culottes harkened back to the Serge Gainsbourg-esque happy go-lucky, tambourine-shaking 1950s-60s French froth. Translated as “The Without Underwears,”the Brooklyn band inspired Halloween costume ideas, with vintage flower-power frocked vocalists and Venetian gondola-style scarf tied around the keyboardist’s neck. It seemed so innocent until we realized they were singing in faux French about “schools of shit” and other pardon-my-French verbiage.
Afterwards, the Detroit Cobras evoked the Hades-underworld of late-night bar brawls and unapologetic cursing, revered by their cult-like black leather clad fans. Like their hometown, the Cobra’s are unabashedly dirty, aged, and gritty; drummer Vic Hill demolished a cigarette into ashes, and then into his finished beer bottle before Rachel Nagy unleashed her distinctive sexy rasp.
On Hallow’s eve, the historic Judson Church converted into an eccentric purgatory where an eerie cob-webbed dancehall oozed stripping bears, skimpy skivvie-clad girls, he-men, suspiciously free cocktails and one bright day-glo tentacled octopus. Though the crowd appeared too sober to appreciate the Nublu-mentored electronic hip-hop collaboration, Kudu, by the time Dan Deacon set up his labyrinth of wires and machinery, they were ready for his dizzying charade of electro dance-offs. As a sweaty Dan Deacon spit out indecipherable words and flicked obscure switches, unleashing electronic mayhem, scrawny hipsters mimicked epileptic seizures around an illuminated green skull. Purgatory indeed.
When the Montreal-New York duo Chromeo sauntered onstage, fake blood dripped off sweaty faces and costumes peeled off rapidly. Pee-Thugg manned the analog keyboard and Dave1 played electric guitar while sing-rapping through “Chro,” to which the crowd screamed “Meo.” Mid-way through, the boys changed into comedic costumes, dressed as one another while their catchy hooks (off their new album, Fancy Footwork) ricocheted around the church’s stained glass interior. The artists invited their fans onstage for the final song, initiating a swarming bout of debauched chaos that would send shivers down a Sunday school teacher’s spins.
By Halloween, we needed a taste of the divine. So we hightailed it to Flavorpill’s decadent bash at Hammerstein Ballroom, where disco-balls beamed crystal star-like flecks on the antique ceilings and the costume-mandatory crowd sashayed and caroused to music by The Rub, Japanther, Thunderheist, and Swayzak. From a platformed-David Bowie to day-glo fairies, from a gyrating bucking broncho to a furry llama, from drunken Jesus to a gold-painted speedo-clad Grecian warrior (roooar), the eye-candy was overwhelming. Flavorpill continuously let a vaudeville collection of day-glo hippie hula-hoopers and men on stilts loose onto the dance floor throughout the night.
Like a modern Divine Comedy with pages torn out, New York’s Halloween mystical raves allow one’s imagination to journey with abandon from the depths of hell to ethereal precipices sans commitment. The sacrifice? Weary eyes, sleep deprivation, and the ensuing dream-like comatose state. The reward? Pictures like these:
