AUTUMN
Based in Minneapolis, Autumn was founded as a collaborative effort between bassist Jeff Leyda and guitarist Neil McKay in the Fall of 1993. Joined in February 1994 by vocalist Julie Plante, the trio shared a vision that rapidly expanded over the following months and years. To describe their sound is a complex task. One song may be a swirling, icy wash of ethereal and gothic beauty, while the next may be a darkened combination of anger and pure emotional collapse. Influences range from the early eighties new wave and gothic scene to today's darker industrial music. Their debut album, The Hating Tree, was released in 1996 on Tess Records, and their follow-up effort came out in late 1999.
Autumn website

ARIEL
Formed in Ottawa in late 1994 by Ali Jafri (vocals, guitar) and Peter Emmett (bass), Ariel has since evolved into a five-piece, including Mark Totti (keyboards, programming), Laird Hurley (keyboards, percussion), and Dan Gamble (drums). Now based in Toronto, Ariel combines classic sounding dark-pop (reminescent of The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen) with ethereal washes and the exotic sounds of India and the middle east. Their two albums - 1997's Withdrawn and 1999's Big To The Sky - are available via the Plan Eleven label.
Ariel website

TRANSLUCIA
Translucia is a dark ethereal pop trio arising out of the relative isolation of northern New York state. Consisting of Erick Scheid (guitars, treatments, electronics), Cavalier Romagnolo (bass, electronics), and Lisa Anne Grey (voice), the band's sound features swirling, ghostly guitars, heavenly vocals, looming basslines, and sparse electronic rhythms that take the listener on an emotional journey. Translucia's eponymous debut EP (on cassette and limited edition CD), was released by Plan Eleven in August, 1998, and they are currently working on their first full-length album.

Main Room DJ

Lady Bathory
Lady Bathory is a peppy old fossil from Boston, MA, with a peculiar fondness for single-malt Scotch whisky & very large shoes. She is currently one-half of the production team that provides Boston with its only 18+ goth night, Ceremony, and she spins weekly at Death Rattle at ManRay. Lady B's previous transgressions include a stint as touring keyboardist for Cleopatra's electro-satan disco-daddies, Electric Hellfire Club, and resident DJ for the original Death Rattle, GothPat's monthly gloom-n-glam grog-fest in Chicago. Hardcore nomadic festgoers may fuzzily recall that she was a featured DJ at Convergence IV and the 1997 Danse Macabre Festival in Boston.

Side Room DJs

ASI
DJ ASI has been presenting and DJing at electronic and experimental events throughout Toronto since the early 90s under his own IAO Productions imprint and as part of the Soundsphere collective. His sets have featured everything from deep dub experimentation to thick ambience to tribal world rhythms. For his Hallowmas set, the focus was on the darker edges of ambient sound.

Fross
"Hell"
noise
distortion
power electronics
subsonic drones
live experimentation
aural assault
rhythmic bombardment
aggression and catatonia

Leslie
A veteran DJ from Ottawa whose began playing roughly 12 years ago, she is one of the few female DJs playing heavy, dark music in the Ottawa area. Her tastes range from full on industrial, to dark techno, experimental and everything in between. She's played multiple years at Carleton University's "Kosmic" all night rave-style event, and has also played a variety of dark raves and industrial events in cities on both North American coasts in guest spots for the industrial, rave and arts community. Her weekly night (Tuesdays) at Zaphod Beeblebrox have been running for almost 7 years and is the longest running industrial night in Ottawa. She refuses to choose a favourite band, but counted among them are Coil, Haujobb, Esplendor Geometrico, Rapoon, Numb, Test Department, and Muslimgauze. While she can usually be heard spinning industrial, she also loves the opportunity to play deep, dark narcotic electronic, ranging from ambient/experimental to trip-hop and tribal, which was her focus at Hallowmas.

MY SCARLET LIFE
A Chicago based band with five members, including two female vocalists, My Scarlet Life write and perform trippy/dancy/hypnotic music, full of samples & sensuality. According to one critic, MSL weave "an irresistable, intoxicating aural spell... if the Dali Lama and the Marquis de Sade met for dinner at The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, or Timothy Leary and Morticia Adams vacationed at the Pleasure Dome Xanadu, MSL would be the live soundtrack of choice." Their appearance at Convergence 4 was the surprise highlight of the festival, and they performed two outstanding sets at Hallowmas.
My Scarlet Life website

PARADE
Originally formed in February, 1988, Toronto pop deconstructionists Parade have explored a wide range of experimental sounds and atmospheric pop during their eleven-plus years together, and have approached their live performances as multi-media events, incorporating visuals (such as slides and films), costuming, and unique stage design into their live presentation. Following many lineup changes over the years, Parade currently consists of the original trio of David S. Faris (keyboards, rhythms, electronics), Stephen Seto (guitars, programming), and Julie S. Faris (vocals, lyrics). Their latest album, Floating Here, was released just in time for Hallowmas..
Parade website

Main Room DJ

Fross
"Everyday is Halloween"
Lose those heels and get down and shake your stuff to top sounds from all your favourite cliches... between-band boogieing from Fross, featuring everything from stompy goth to swirly industrial, or something like that. Oh, and definitely no cheesy 80s. At all. Honest.

Side Room DJs

Mars
A respected veteran of Toronto's dark DJ scene, Mars has spun the sounds at too many clubs and events to mention, and throws down a variety of sounds from new and classic goth & industrial to cutting edge techno and trip-hop grooves. His current residencies include Fridays at Savage Garden and his long-running Evol Mondays at Velvet Underground.

Salo
Born 7.7.77 and DJ'ing since 1995, Michael Salo has involved himself with WRCT, Ceremony at Club Laga, Haven zine, and operates the experimental and gothic mail order company Strange Fortune. Currently based in Pittsburgh PA, Salo brought the yinzer flavor to unsuspecting Hallowmas attendees, culminating in a special four hour set of all Allman Brothers favorites. (No, not really.) Originally from the Minneapolis area, he is also likely to manage a way of slipping Prince or the Replacements into a goth set. DJing at Hallowmas was just an excuse to smuggle out more Canadian edition Kit Kat's...

THE BRICKBATS
NYC's Brickbats have built their sound on a solid foundation influenced by the early punk/gothic style. The music is held together by the straight-forward drumming of D.W. Friend, the distorted early rock'n'roll influenced bass work of Paul Morden, and the crooning vocal and biting guitar style of Corey Gorey. Despising all the pretensions of their mass-marketed contemporaries, The Brickbats thrift-store horror-rock is makeshift and fun, blood-soaked and sweaty. Their live shows are blasts of gooey Halloween party soundtrack from beyond the grave - drunken and dead-set on having a good time. So unwrap a jack-o’lantern shaped chocolate, put in some plastic fangs, and "let the good times rot."
The Brickbats website

THE VAMPIRE BEACH BABES
The inevitable blend of The Ventures and Bauhaus could only have been taken to fruition by the ex-members of that notorious band The New World Disorder. And so it has… with a vengeance! Based around the one and (thankfully) only Ricky Las Vegas on guitar, and the tall leather-clad bleach-blonde vocalist they call Baron Marcus, the Babes appeared out of nowhere in early 1999 to assault this world (and the next) with a truly unique blend of Gothic-Surf rock. Their fun-tastic sets include the instant classics 'Got Myself A Woody', 'Vampires On The Beach', 'Gothic Hangover' and many more. The Vampire Beach Babes have arrived - indeed, our world has much to fear.
The Vampire Beach Babes website

Main Room DJs

Greg Clow
A cranky and jaded former goth/industrial DJ, Greg Clow is now better known for spinning electronic & experimental sounds on his weekly radio show, Feedback Monitor (CIUT 89.5 FM, Toronto). He is also half of Stained Productions, a multimedia partnership that partakes in zine publishing, web design, live concert promotion (including this Hallowmas thing) and more. For his set, Greg blew the dust off of his crackly vinyl to present the best in old skool gawth, cheezy EZ-listening favorites, sleazy glam, 80s anti-hits and more.

Lord Pale
(Due to a broken foot, Lord Pale had to cancel his appearance at Hallowmas - but here's his bio, anyway...)
It all started one dark and stormy night in 1986. Imagine a small dank dry ice filled club in Soho, London, and an 18 year old gothling determined to play good music. Having no idea how to DJ and with a $500 rental fee to cover he progressively got more and more drunk whilst madly spinning music. As the night came to a close the now exhausted Lord Pale played his last song only to discover that he'd broken even on the rental and people were coming back next week. Thus it was written. 13 years and many a club gig later, he now owns Toronto's Savage Garden, a nightclub dedicated to playing goth and industrial, where he also spins every Saturday. More of a graver than he was in '86 but still dedicated to getting pie eyed on a regular basis.

Side Room DJs

Antithesis
DJ Antithesis is the host of the only dedicated industrial/electronic/gothic radio show in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Storming The Base of the Alien Foe on CKMS 100.3. He also DJs the only club nights dedicated to this music, "HAMMERH.E.D." at Sharky's and "Electric Mayhem" every Wednesday at Club Renaissance, where he has also started to promote live shows for a genre sadly lacking in performances around his city. Publishing a zine, Effigy, and establishing a mailorder distribution company, Storming The Mailorder Distribution Company Of The Alien Foe, rounds off what he pretends to eventually call a career. Helping to further that facade, he DJed at Convergence IV, and the Gothic Beach Party for Stained Productions, gaining a notoriety that reaches far beyond our current satellite technology and even has people in nearby cities saying, "DJ Who?" After completing the entire Robotech series, and getting all hepped up on James Bond films, Peter Sellers movies, Jet Li and The Matrix, he brought the darker, edgier synthpop sound to Hallowmas, from smooth and seductive to heavy and gripping.

The "In Perpetual Motion" DJ Crew

(A run-in with Canada Customs & Immigration led to the I.P.M. DJs being turned away at the border, but here's what they're all about...)

When Mac isn't trying to arrange rides and hotels, he's playing the latest and greatest music from new and independent musicians in and around the goth/industrial/electronic scenes, online and off. Mac currently lives in Lansing, MI and hosts IPM on a weekly basis as well as an occasional live event at The Labyrinth in Detroit, with his tag team partners in crime DJ ChrisZ and Disc Mistress Carah.

DJ ChrisZ is IPM's mysterious monster brain of obscure and eclectic music from days gone by. A good guy to have in a trivia contest and an even better guy to have as a DJ partner. Chris specializes in gothic, industrial and electronic from the past and present to make you get up and dance, or at the very least, relive your first taste of clove cigerettes and the smell of the paint drying on your new leather.

Disc Mistress Carah is IPM's purveyor of swirly girly goth pop, 80's dance and early industrial, as well as providing the super sultry voice behind the IPM/Legends Magazine band of the week.