Your Halloween Style Is: Maintain a Constant Rush
Then Head To: Big Freedia
Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave., nr. N. 11th St.; 718-963-3369, October 31, $15–$20
Eat your fill of mini-Snickers (or your, er, candy of choice), then head down to Brooklyn Bowl, where the gender-bending “queen of bounce” comes up from NOLA to help you shake your azz. The genre’s relentless beats mean you need to come prepared to dance, and the songs’ call-and-response parts make the audience as much the star of the show as the diva herself.
Your Halloween Style Is: Fashionista Goth
Then Head To: Grimes
Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., nr. Bowery; 212-533-2111, October 26 and 27, $20
Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. Sixth St., nr. Wythe Ave.; 718-486-5400, October 28, $20
Claire Boucher’s ethereal and emotive goth-pop is as dark as it is danceable, which makes it perfect for Halloween. She (and her rotating cast of backup dancers) put on a string of packed and atmospheric NYC shows this summer and will be haunting the Music Hall of Williamsburg and the Bowery Ballroom around the one night each year when she won’t be the only one with colored hair and eye makeup, for a change.
Note: Advance tickets are sold out, but try your damnedest to conjure a ticket from the Internet. Her set will be worth all the magic you can muster.
Your Halloween Style Is: Throw on a Flannel Shirt and Call Yourself a “Dude From the Nineties”
Then Head To: Smashing Pumpkins
Barclays Center, 620 Atlantic Ave., nr. Flatbush Ave.; 877-77BKTIX, October 31, $50–$399
These iconic Gen-Xers have more than just their name to qualify them for a Halloween concert at New York’s most talked-about venue. The Smashing Pumpkins never shy away from dark themes—melancholy, cynicism, despair, irony—so you’ll surely be in for an epic and frightening ride.
Your Halloween Style Is: Naughty, Yet Refined
Then Head To: Dita Von Teese
Gramercy Theatre, 127 E. 23rd St., nr. Lexington Ave.; 212-614-6932, October 31, $40–$75
So, it’s not a concert per se, but it’s hard not to include the woman who brought burlesque back to the mainstream (and was once married to scary dude Marilyn Manson). Expect elaborate props and cinematic characters from the dancer who “put ‘tease’ back into ‘striptease.’”
Your Halloween Style Is: Insane in the Membrane
Then Head To: Haunted Hill
Best Buy Theater, 1515 Broadway, at 44th St.; 212-930-1950, October 30, $37
Hip-hop legends Cypress Hill’s annual Halloween concert is reportedly as hazy as a chintzy neighborhood haunted house, but countless times more fun. This year, Queens native, former chef, and newly signed Warner Bros. artist Action Bronson opens.
Your Halloween Style Is: Nostalgic
Then Head To: Death by Audio’s Halloween Cover Show
Death by Audio, 49 S. 2nd St., nr. Wythe Ave.; October 31, $5 with costume, $7 without costume
The pioneering Williamsburg tastemakers that run this effects-pedal-factory-cum-venue present a monster mash-up of hip bands donning costumes and covering legends. This year’s lineup includes Sleepies as the Pixies, Acid Problem as the Ramones, and Heavens Gate as Joy Division.
Your Halloween Style Is: A Creature of Habit
Then Head To: Hallowmas 2012
Warsaw, 261 Driggs Ave., at Eckford St.; October 31, $22
No strangers to this guide, the World/Inferno Friendship Society faithfully presents its annual Halloween concert, which draws fans from across the country. The circus punk collective, whose central figure is the charismatic and appropriately wan Jack Terricloth, holds nothing back from this annual spectacle of music and production.
Your Halloween Style Is: Black Neoprene
Then Head To: Nightmare on 90th
Rockaway Beach, Beach 90th St. at the Boardwalk.; October 27, $10
In a costume-contest-meets-surfing-contest that rises above the rest, participants in Nightmare on 90th will have to find a killer costume that they can wear while riding a killer wave. Plus, there’s an after-party at THE SPOT (302 Beach 87th St.) featuring a performance by “garage punk delta slide” rockers the Dead Exs, a screening of the surf-film short Kook Paradise, and, of course, beer and burgers.
Petrifying Parties
Clubs are more your style? Commune with kindred spirits at the spots below.
• Fright Night at Electric Beach
Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette St., nr. Walker St.; 212-584-5492 October 27, $15-$2005
This Paper-worthy downtown club is all fun and games—and 15,000 watts of sound. • This N That
108 N. 6th St., nr. Berry St., Williamsburg; 718-599-5959, October 31, free
Dance—and dance and dance—under low ceilings at this rollicking gay-friendly bar. DJ Haruka Salt mixes club bangers with indie hits.
• Reapers and Ravens Halloween Bash
(Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., nr. Thompson St., 212-505-3474, October 31, $10-$1745
Showing some skin this Halloween? LPR welcomes you.• Webster Hell
Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St., nr. Third Ave; 212-353-1600; October 31, $40
The official NYC Halloween parade afterparty may be a perfect hot mess.
• The Fourth Annual HallowMEME Costume Party
The Bell House, 149 7th St., nr. Second Ave., 718-643-6510, October 25, free
Meme-savvy? Prove it with a killer costume and then head to the dance floor at this Gowanus warehouse venue.• CRAZY $INCE DA 90$: HALLOWEEN EDITION
Union Hall, 702 Union St., at Fifth Ave., 718-638-4400, October 27, $5 advance, $8 at the door
The Halloween edition of Union Hall’s 90s dance party should be all that and a bag of chips. Come in costume and please, please somebody request Savage Garden for the slow dance. • Midnight Circus
Providence, 311 W. 57th St., nr. Eighth Ave.; 212-307-0062 October 25 $30,
What was once a church, and then a club, but is now a restaurant hosts a masquerade with cirque-style performers and (yes!) smoking absinthe cocktails. • Joonbug.com presents: NYC’s 2nd Annual Haunted Mansion Party
Bowlmor Lanes Times Square, 222 W. 44th St., nr. Eighth Ave., 718-638-4400, October 27, $15-$4480
A party at this bowling-lanes-turned-club with a vodka open bar from 9pm until 10pm and a “pumping” stereo system—all hosted by Playboy playmates from the mid-aughts. Not for the faint of heart.