One midnight, with everyone in festive All Hallows’ Eve scary-sexy demon gear, thousands of joints—yes, weed cigarettes hand-rolled—fell from the sky onto the dance floor.
Everyone got real low so they could remain high for weeks on end. My housemate’s dealer, insert quotation fingers energy, at the time threw a Halloween party at the old Deco Club on Polk, one of the best hip-hop spots in the city.
I was pulling joints outta hats, socks, and Lou drawls up until New Year’s. That was the first Halloween I spent in San Francisco, and it taught me a lesson real quick:
Folks in the 415 treat Halloween like it’s a master tsunami of all holidays; Xmas, Turkey Day, NYE, and some unofficial ones form like Voltron into a super collider of celebration. The 31st of October, depending on the year, remains the ultimate get-down for all residing in Cloud City and its (once) chocolatey suburbs.
A decent to a good portion of the normies treat Halloween as a straightforward measure, that involves sipping gawd awful pumpkin lattes, assembling family members to dress in Halloween pajamas, trick-or-treating, and such.
But the Bay hits differently.
October’s 31 days operate as an unofficial license for people to dress freaky, whereas city-dwellers already present opposite personas on a mere Tuesday, find and bond with like-minded nonconformists, and just get buck. If you can’t deal with random nakedness—go sell insurance someplace else for a couple of months; Halloween turns up the crazy in SF to an enhanced 11.
That’s why everybody treats that Santa Pub crawl in December like the imposter sauce that it is.
So for the 2024 Halloween season, we’ve put together some activities that embrace the bizarre and routine autumnal traditions; adjust your freak meter where you see fit. Off we go.
KQED FEST 2024 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19
Down for a little day party action with a local selection of music on tap that you can bring the kids along to, dress in a costume, and still bump along to the coolest psychedelic pop meets jazz-house-disco-tropicalia combos? Welp, that’s what KQED FEST 2024 is bringing to the table a couple of weeks before the boo holiday.
You get to spend a Saturday with KQED, the Bay Area’s esteemed public media station, for a free and hearty block party and open house at their San Francisco Mission District headquarters. Oakland-rooted and now LA-based super cool groovemeisters Brijean headline the Noise Pop Homegrown stage featuring DJ Brown Angel, Aki Kumar, and more.
With Bacon Bacon and other food trucks; KQED, NPR, and PBS programs live on stage; fireside chats with reporters and personalities, and much more, this is all a bargain, because live music is expensive these days, a treat arriving weeks before the trick. 11am-6pm, 2601 Mariposa Street, SF. More info here.
SUPER NATURAL AT CAL ACADEMY, OCTOBER 26
Over at The California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, spooky late afternoon ghoulishness occurs on Saturday October 26. This Super Natural event involves a silent disco in the Steinhart Aquarium, trick-or-treat stations for kids of all ages, and live animal demonstrations with mad scientists conducting fiendish experiments. Upgrade to VIP for 5pm early entry; if not, the event is from 6:30pm to 9pm. You can access the VIP Garden and enjoy free food and a premium trick-or-treat open bar for all 21+ patrons all evening. Grab more info here.
WAG’S HAUNTED HOWL-O-WEEN PARTY FOR DOGS, OCTOBER 24
It just isn’t Halloween in The Bay if Mr. Pickles isn’t in costume, right? With the way Northern California peeps treat, spoil, and love the natural poop outta their canine fur babies, it’s just bizarre if the barking, tail-wagging ones aren’t dressed up as hotdogs, bats, bumblebees, or spiders for the Halloween.
I’d rather see my furry friends in costume than people. Period. Rottweilers don’t arrive at the dog park dressed as a stripper-hoe. Labrador Retrievers don’t come prancing back in the house after doing their business dressed like a pimp; if you get my gist.
The Haunted Howl-o-Ween Party at Wag Hotels gives one hundred percent of ticket sales and silent auction proceeds to the Frosted Faces Foundation that help at-risk senior dogs. Dress up Chewbacca for a photo op with Cruella de Vil, let Meatball take part, and enjoy dog-friendly activities. Cop a wag swag bag for Bark Twain and enter the costume contest. Leashes and up-to-date vaccinations are required. Tickets are $10 to $15. Don’t leave Taco in despair, reflecting on bad meal choices, chasing his tail, sign up! 6:30pm-8pm, Wag, SF. More info here.
SUNSET BOAT PARTY ON OCTOBER 27
For some who’ve been there since the dawn of rave, it may be terrifying that UK headliner A Guy Called Gerald released seminal underground tune “Voodoo Ray” 35 years ago, or that rave originators the Sunset crew have been throwing parties almost just as long. There’s no flagging of that energy flash, however, at the annual Sunset Halloween Boat Party aboard the classic San Francisco Belle Hornblower. (Even if the poor ol’ ship’s engines are being repaired and it might be one of those wild parties on the dock.)
Landlubbers in elaborate (or hastily improvised) costume will hardly notice, with a lineup that includes Roman Flügel (Berlin), Felix Dickinson (UK), Nick Moss b2b Carrieondisco, Sinéad, and Sunset party-meisters Galen and Solar on deck, for three floors of mayhem and mystery…. until the sweet sweet afterparty, of course. 5pm-10pm, Hornblower, SF. Grab tickets here.
KAYTRANADA AT GREEK THEATER, OCTOBER 31
It’s worth it.
You only want those epic-type artists performing in the foggy, mystical Greek Theater just a smidge past golden hour. It’s our Red Rocks situation, if you will. On his third album Timeless, from earlier this year, following 99.9% and the GRAMMY-winning BUBBA, Lewis Kevin Celestin, who produces under the moniker of Kaytranada, puts something new into the world, and that’s reason enough to be surrounded by warm frequencies outside the club.
I’m a sucker for that first record tho—99.9%, a 15-track, award-winning declaration that stupefied the world. It’s right there, from the jump, he established that he deserved to be thrust into the greatness pile by one cold fact: when you hear a Kaytranada beat, you know exactly who be knocking.
It’s like those first guitar chords from a Keith Richards riff, the horns from a Pete Rock remix, or the tone of a Thundercat bass solo; Kaytra was finite, immediately. His “Lite Spots,” a sample-based takeover of the classic “Pontos de Luz” by Gal Costa, took the vocal under a 4/4 tempo. It’s not exactly house or EDM, but a mash-up of all types of dance music, or as Celestin’s brother jokingly proclaimed in a Fader Magazine interview at the time, “it’s black tropical house.”
That’s what he do.
So, I don’t care if you show up in costume or not for this singular Halloween gig that Kaytranada will be perfecting for you, me, the heads, and those who also do not know. Just remember this: when he played Outside Lands a couple of years ago, he brought thousands to the Twin Peaks stage. Meaning, that he brought Outside Lands main stage attendance to a smaller performance area. Those are not just house heads running towards the bass-heavy, vocal-floating sorcery. Nope. Kaytranada talks to everybody through his music, being himself. That’s idyllic. This is the Halloween show you don’t mess around and get too drunk to miss. 7:30pm, score tickets here.
BONUS: GO DOWN A “BOB’S BURGER” HALLOWEEN EPISODE HOLE
Anybody who works in the service industry knows that sometimes, if you can afford it, it’s wise to stay in when everybody is making plans to go out. Rookie Night can be treacherous if you are not in the proper headspace to bartend, DJ, check IDs, or work security around the non-professionals. So for Halloween, plop your butt down and take part in a new-fangled tradition: “Bob’s Burgers” Halloween Episode binge.
Bob and Linda Belcher, who run a Burger joint with their children—Tina, Lousie and Gene—are the most stinky, grubby and loveable family holding down the cartoon space.
Oldest daughter Tina lusts after boys’ butts, father Bob talks to the food he cooks—big conversations between him and the turkey happen on the Thanksgiving episodes, wife Linda sips wine and sings every chance she gets, daughter Tina is the lovable bully-prankster of the lot in her silly pink rabbit ear hat she can’t live without, and the son Gene, a budding musician with active bodily functions, completes this abnormal nuclear family that remains funny, especially for adults.
So fire up the ole HULU and check in on all the past Halloween adventures. My fave? “Fort Night” from Season 4. The Belcher kids get trapped in their back alley cardboard fort on Halloween night by Louise’s newly introduced archenemy Millie Frock, voiced by the wonderful Molly Shannon. Never has a cartoon episode caught the exact feeling of being a kid, stuck in what you thought was a cool hideout that quickly turns into danger you never saw coming.
Make Bob’s Burgers your Halloween treat!
