Must-see
Vegoose act?
"Tom Petty, because that voice and all his great tunes seem to always turn up in my life." (Yonder Mountain String Band's Dave Johnston)
"Cat Power & The Memphis Rhythm Band. I've heard they sound incredible, and she isn't freaking out like she used to. Not that I'd be disappointed to see a nice rock 'n' roll onstage meltdown." (Guster's Brian Rosenworcel)
"The Mars Volta, because I like their new album." (Phil Lesh)
"Jurassic 5. They are always a great band to see live." (Galactic's Robert Mercurio)
"Fiona Apple. I think she is a wonderful artist with a very unique vision." (G. Love)
"Ben Folds. I'm a huge fan of his songwriting and have never had the chance to see him play." (Yonder Mountain String Band's Ben Kaufmann)
"The Mars Volta, because I hear they ROCK!" (String Cheese Incident's Michael Kang)
"Jamie Lidell, 'cause I haven't seen him yet and I hear his live show is off the hook. The boy got soul." (Sound Tribe Sector 9's Zach Velmer)
"Mars Volta. I hear they have an energetic show." (Jurassic 5's DJ Nu-Mark)
"Tom Petty. He's a legend, and I like to watch the legends and learn something." (Robert Randolph)
"Phil and Trey. I don't really want to play. I would just want to listen to the show while standing on stage with earphones." (Keller Williams) "The Mars Volta. These guys are the real deal. You never know what to expect from show to show. I think if you want to see some of the best musicians in the world right now, go see their show." (The Killers' Mark Stoermer)
Vegoose act you'd like to play with?
"I think it would be cool if [Widespread Panic's] Dave Schools joined us for some exploratory and mind-demolishing double-bass action. He's a real groovy cat." (Johnston)
"The Roots. I like their pocket." (The Meters' George Porter Jr.)
"Ben Folds. We did a drum solo together every night in the summer of 2004, and I haven't seen him since. I miss you Ben!" (Rosenworcel)
"Tom Petty. It would be a dream come true to do anything with him." (Stoermer)
"I would sit in with Praxis if I could, although I doubt I could keep up!" (Widespread Panic's Dave Schools)
"MMW with Maceo ... a great group of musicians." (Mercurio)
"I'd have to say Fiona Apple, simply because she's one of the only women performing at the festival ... and she's not too tough on the eyes either!" (Kang)
"Panic, of course. They're kicking major ass with [new guitarist] Jimmy Herring. It's out of control." (Randolph)
"I'd be happy to be by Cat Power's side." (Jamie Lidell)
"The Roots or Galactic. Both groups got crazy chops." (Nu-Mark)
LASTING Halloween experience?
"I was trick-or-treating with my kids in the middle of suburbia; I knocked on a door and it was opened by Jerry Garcia, complete with guitar, two years after his death." (Lesh)
"Phish at Madison Square Garden, when they did the Talking Heads' Remain in Light. Also, opening for String Cheese Incident in Atlanta in the late '90s. It was the one and only time that I saw the audience turn into a large sink basin and swirl down the drain." (Williams)
"We did a Halloween show in Boston in 1999 where we pretended it was New Year's Eve, wore tuxes, counted down to midnight, faked a Y2K power outage, etc." (Rosenworcel)
"When I was, like, 15 and trashed some of my neighbors' pumpkins and threw eggs at cars, 'cause it was fun back then." (Velmer)
"The day I dressed up as Eddie Munster. I went to a big party and met Elvira, took her home and took photos of her doing special things." (Dr. Octagon)
"One year when I was a kid, my dad took an old vacuum cleaner that only blew air out and put a ghost costume on it. Then he plugged it into an outlet that we could control with a light switch and put in on the porch. When the kids came up to get candy we'd turn it on. The ghost inflated with a terrifying sound and the children ran for their lives." (Kauffman)
"When my mother finally bought me the ‘Monster Mash' album when I was 7. I went around my neighborhood as Frankenstein and I was allowed to play the record four times after trick-or-treating. Simple Halloween fun." (Nu-Mark) "Several years ago at a gig in Athens, I ingested some kind of hallucinogenic South American root called awaska (I think). It was something that natives would use to induce telepathic abilities. It worked! And very well, I might add." (Schools)
Most creative Halloween costume?
"Two years ago I went out as ‘Mr. Met'—the baseball-headed mascot for the New York Mets. My wife and I spent days putting it together with papier mache and wire, only to discover that drunk people on the subway think it's okay to randomly punch mascots. My head was more of an egg than a baseball at the end of the night." (Rosenworcel)
"I was a chubby Chippendales guy in college." (Williams)
"I was the chick in The Exorcist one year when we played in Portland." (Johnston)
"Third grade—Superman. I was laughed out of the room." (Lesh)
"I'm partial to my Monty Python's Lumberjack costume (union suit, coonskin hat, etc.), complete with my ‘I never wanted to be in a bluegrass band' spoken-word intro transitioning into ‘The Lumberjack Song.'" (Kaufmann)
"Judge Lance Ito, the '90s. He was in fashion at the time and I wanted to be fashionable." (The Killers' Ronnie Vannucci)
"The funniest was when we all dressed up in diapers à la P-Funk and played our first show in Charlotte, North Carolina. People didn't know what the hell to think of us." (Kang)
"I'm not real big on costumes at all. Although last year I switched from wearing solid black to some minor color on Halloween." (Schools)
"Tony Clifton." (Velmer)
"Two years ago in Chicago we all dressed up mind, body and soul as the character Tony Clifton." (G. Love)
"There was this commercial where a lady gets wrapped up in an enormous amount of Saran Wrap and miscellaneous vegetables and fruits. My dumb ass decided to wrap myself in this hot Saran Wrap suit and proceeded to sweat profusely. The saddest part was that I went to school in this wack costume. People laughed." (Nu-Mark)
"None. I go as Myself." (Porter)
"Once, as a kid, me and two of my brothers were ballerinas, and I never understood why. I never understood what the hell my mother was thinking." (Randolph)
"I'd like to go trick-or-treating in my leopard underwear with a huge gold chain full of diamonds and a German helmet riding my BMX bike." (Dr. Octagon)
Favorite Halloween candy?
"I can tell you what I wasn't excited to find in my bag—goddamn Jujubes. And Mrs. Kozel, the health freak on Hathaway Drive, always gave us pencils. Peanut M&Ms, Junior Mints, and Twizzlers are welcome in my Halloween bag anytime, though. You West Coast people prefer Red Vines, though. Ew." (Rosenworcel)
"I loved anything chocolate except Tootsie Rolls. I hate those." (Mercurio)
"I always liked the Everlasting Gobstopper, and I'm sure that was fine with my dentist." (Kaufmann)
"It was the early '70s ... any kind of candy was cool! Anything other than candy corn, that is." (Schools)
"The big wax lips." (Vannucci)
"Never ate the fruit or dried fruit—dangerous and nasty." (Nu-Mark)
"I liked getting apples and then throwing them off the project roof, 'cause people were putting razor blades in them." (Dr. Octagon)
"It's all good ..." (Lesh)