Three Bands Who've Got The Halloween Spirit

As noted All-Hallows-Eve expert Jello Biafra once, uh, noted "Remember what I did / Remember what I was / Back on Halloween." While Biafra was being derisive on "Halloween," there's something to be said for dressing up and letting loose... something the following three bands understand:

The Damned-as-Nazz-Nomad-and-the-Nightmares

Released a scant 12 years after Lenny Kaye's initial Nuggets compilation (and who was using the Hammond organ in 1984 besides Jeff "Monoman" Conolly?), the Damned paid homage to the blink-and-you'll-miss-'em classic garage bands of the 1960s with this charming one-off, billed as the soundtrack to the (unfortunately) non-existent exploitation film, Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy. The already-nicknamed band members picked up new identities for the project -- Raymond Burns is Captain Sensible as Sphinx Svenson! -- and contributed two originals ("Do You Know (I Know)" and "Just Call Me Sky") that fit snugly next to classics like the Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)" and the Litter's "Action Woman."

The Damned never revisited their retro alter egos, and were barely themselves by 1985, which saw the release of the Sensible-less Phantasmagoria. Still, there's no denying the joyous rock 'n' roll that informs Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy... and here's hoping Green Day-as-Foxboro-Hot-Tubs have the good sense to offer a tip of the cap of their recent garage sidetrip, Stop Drop and Roll!!

XTC-as-Dukes-of-Stratosphear

By 1985, post-punk pioneers XTC had sanded down their spikier edges and had found peace as studio-bound purveyors of intelligent British pop (compare 1980's Black Sea to 1984's The Big Express). '85 saw the unexplained appearance of something called The 25 O'Clock EP, credited to the "lost" '60s Britpsychers the Dukes of Stratosphear, and a convincing era-appropriate album cover. Rumors swirled that XTC were the Dukes, but they denied any affiliation. Still, an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary prevailed: "Sir John Johns" sounded suspiciously like XTC frontman Andy Partridge and "Dukes of Stratosphear" just happened to be XTC's original name. (The record dropped on April Fool's Day, 1985, for what it's worth, too.) The band eventually fessed up -- they needed the publicity, as this unassuming EP outsold XTC's two previous records (Mummer and The Big Express) -- and returned in 1987 to record Psonic Psunspot, which was less psychedelic than it's predecessor -- despite the preponderance of "ps"'s in the title, but is still an amazing batch of tunes seemingly gamma-rayed directly from the heart of 1967. Furthermore, it boasts one of XTC's greatest singles, the peerless "Vanishing Girl"; it's reason enough to justify the entire project.

25 O'Clock and Psonic Psunspot were released together as Chips Off The Chocolate Fireball later in 1987; it's well worth tracking down.

"You're A Good Man, Albert Brown," Dukes of Stratosphear

Paul-Westerberg-as-Grandpaboy

Adventurous souls who picked up the Grandpaboy EP in 1997 only found the scant description of our eponymous guitarslinger in the liner notes: Grandpaboy was born somewhere He plays guitar Do not try to be his friend He will not like you. Of course, one spin of the disc revealed Grandpaboy to be Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg retreating/retrenching to the power pop garage where he earned his fame in the mid-1980s. And really, who else could've been operating under the name "Grandpaboy" but the man who put both "Gary's Got A Boner" and "Answering Machine" on the Replacements' Let it Be? After the 'Mats' dissolution, Westerberg's solo output had been solid if undistinguished -- Grandpaboy, by comparison, was a righteous blast of snotty rock 'n' roll. Certainly nothing on 1996's Eventually matches the joie de vivre of "Hot Un," with it's tongue-wagging command to "check out that girl on that bellybutton."

Westerberg's gone back to the Grandpaboy well a few times in the last decade, most notably on 2002's Stereo/Mono, and the Grandpaboy aesthetic has bled into Westerberg's proper releases -- how else to interpret this past July's 49:00, single-track, $0.49-cent Amazon download, with it's untitled songs overlapping each other like 10 radios all tuned to 1968?

"Hot Un," Grandpaboy