Problem was, first we had to endure the aural wallpaper of the excrutiating dull and faux-dreary of this band called She Want Revenge. A band, I am told, that THE KIDS™ love. Not sure why, ‘cos lead singer Justin Warfield used to be a hip-hop dude and now literally sings stuff like “Kicking is hard when you need a fix” and what it’s like to feel like a woman. Or something. Anyway, ugh.

After they were granted an astounding full hour on stage – for indeed this was meant to be a co-headlining tour (Godflesh-knows-why) – it was time for…a 20 minute delay to the start of Peter Murphy’s set. Not much in theory, but in reality would actually cost us an encore.

Techs fiddled and faffed with sound – thereby eating into the precious time before curfew. Yeah, it was one of those nights where Murphy had to be offstage at the stroke of 10:15pm in order to make way for the club’s later, err, club night. HATE HATE HATE those. Either start on time, venues called Venue, or let the twinkies in the queue outside freeze for a few minutes longer.

But there he was, eventually- the Fairy Gothmother – all high-camp and slight ridiculous posing, BUT WITH THAT VOICE! Those songs I have known and loved since I was kneehigh to a pair of 8-hole Doc Martens and painting spiderwebs on my face!  In fact, I think I was knee-high when I last met Peter Murphy, back in 1990, and the last time I saw him live was in London about 6 years ago, when he sang half a song with this hand on my head. “OH GODS IS SHE TELLING THAT STORY AGAIN?”, my photog friend Darko (that’s his real name, not his goth one) joked at the club as I told that story again.

But  to hear Murphy start with “All Night Long” then admirably fly (no, really, he was flapping his wings) through new one “Velocity Bird” and then go into other tracks from Ninth (“Peace to Each” “Memory Go, ” I Spit Roses” etc), was stunning.

He preened and strutted, sticking his older man belly and his baldspot out as if he was still a fierce, lithe vampire. And the devotees in the front rows ATE IT. They pawed as his feet, climbed hands up his legs, reached out to touch the Hand of Goth.

And it was brilliant stuff – Peter Murphy owned the boards he stomped. Did you think he wouldn’t? Of course not.

And even though I didn’t know where to look when he stood there with his crotch pretty much right in my face for a full song (woo! Upgraded from a hand on my head!), it was all so bloody beautiful. To hear “Deep Ocean”, “Subway” and an acoustic “Strange Kind of Love” (which segued deliciously into a snippet from Bauhaus classic “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”) as well as three others from Bauhaus “Silent Hedges”, “In the Flat Field” “Dark Entries” plus the almost-better-than-Bowie “Ziggy Stardust”…was…worth the wait. And then, just as soon as he arrived, he claimed he had “many more songs he wanted to sing” but that he had to leave because of the curfew. No encore. See ya.

An unkindness of goths turned and looked at each other and mouthed: “BUT WHAT ABOUT ‘CUTS YOU UP’”? No, there was no “Cuts You Up”. There was no encore. We were robbed. But there was the feeling that for a moment or 55 minutes, it was amazing to have Peter Murphy back in black. \m/

This year, I’m going as Siouxsie Sioux circa this era – and I must be the only person on the planet who is getting tips on her costume from a member of the actual Banshees. [2011 Update: This year, I'm going as a kick-ass gothic Valkyrie. Made the helmet, cape, sword, leg guards and all! Gotta represent my Viking bloodline!]

My best friend Martin was in Siouxsie and the Banshees for eight years. He asked me if I wanted him to send over her broom, and recommended lots of black eyeliner “and a sharp tongue”. Which isn’t a problem for me – I used to draw spiderwebs on my face when I was 15 and my Gene Simmons-long tongue is pretty slicey.

One of the first record reviews I did was when I was 15. It was for Skinny Puppy. My nom-de-plume? Vampira. Check out the pic of me in 2008 rocking the Morticia Addams look. This pic actually so delighted Duncan Jones (director of the Sam Rockwell film Moon, and David Bowie’s son) in a comp that he sent me an enormous autographed Moon poster. Yeah, pretty goth I’d say.

And while it’d be amazingly PREDICTABLE for me to recommend a bunch of goth tracks like “Everyday is Halloween” by Ministry, “Grimly Fiendish” by the Damned or “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (my signed poster of Peter Murphy watches over me as a I type. At a gig in London, once, he performed half a song with his hand resting on top of my head) and do a Halloween playlist featuring “Thriller“, everybody and his Frankenstein monster is doing that.

(Although I do love this version of Oingo Boingo/Danny Elfman doing “Dead Man’s Party” from Weird Science, and this clip is synched to Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, which makes it doubly spooktastic. I also adore Mike Doughty’s cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Casper The Friendly Ghost“. Hated Casper though – such a wimp.

But Hallowe’en is about having fun. Dressing up. Overdosing on chemicals and sugars. Drinking Witch’s Brew and remembering what it was like to be a kid. So, in true Backstage Rider-y spirit (see what I did there?), let’s harken back to MY childhood, shall we? I was a weird kid.

WELCOME TO MIKALA’S HALLOWE’EN PICKS:

1. …and welcome to my nightmare. Alice Cooper doing “Welcome to My Nightmare” on the Muppet Show is probably one of my favourite childhood memories. And when I met Alice Cooper in the ’90s, I shook his gloved hand and told him so. “Awww, that was a gas,” Cooper said, “Kermit was so great to work with.”  Alice Cooper on The Muppet Show

2. My favourite kids book – I shit ye not – was a horrible, creepy, existentialist book by Raymond Briggs called “Fungus the Bogeyman”. It involved the plight of a Bogeyman who ate Grape Nits for breakfast, debated his entire existence in the dreariest underground world and who crawled above ground with the sole purpose – which caused him quite a bit of angst, because he was bored – of giving humans boils. It is an AMAZING book. And they adapted it into some CG kids thing. It’s not nearly as dreary as the book, but have a watch: Fungus the Bogeyman

3. In Toronto in the 70s there was an amazing lower-than-low budget “kid’s” show called Hilarious House of Frightenstein. Its opening was voiced by Vincent Price and I can still do the whole monologue verbatim. I ADORED THIS SHOW. It was by a guy called Billy Van and he starred as almost ALL the characters in short sketches. One of my faves was The Wolfman – based on the actual amazing US DJ Wolfman Jack. The Wolfman would take requests, introduce a song and then dance to some crazy psychedelic wall of graphics. Check it: here’s “Momma Told Me Not to Come” - The Wolfman on Hilarious House of Frightenstein

4. The best and in my opinion – ONLY –  Hallowe’en song needed around this time o’ year is Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kicker Five’s “Monster Mash”. This version screams “Mikala’s Childhood” because it’s a cartoon version of the Groovy Goolies set to the song. It’s pure jack o’ lantern genius: Groovy Goolies doing Monster Mash

5. You guys had The Grinch at Christmas, I had Witch’s Night Out at Hallowe’en. This 1978 show made by a US company and recorded in Toronto and featuring the voices of Gilda Radner and Catherine O’Hara was a bizarre kid’s Hallowe’en special about two kids – Small and Tender – who have their wishes to become monsters granted by a Witch. It also features an amazingly named babysitter called “Bazooey” and the MOST INCREDIBLE DISCO-CREEPY SYNTH OPENING SONG ON PLANET EARTH.  I still sing this walking down the street. It used to be impossible to find online so I was chuffed to dig it up.  Enjoy and happy Hallowe’en kids. \m/

Watch Witch’s Night Out in Family |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

PS! Send in your Costumed Rockhands for the Rockhands Gallery! If you can’t do the Devil’s Horns on Hallowe’en, when can you do ‘em?

No, Martin McCarrick is what they call a “really fucking cool musician”.

(He’s also an artist and a music teacher. As an aside, can you imagine saying: “Yeah, my instructor was in Siouxsie & The Banshees“? Well, okay, the YOOF OF TODAY probably don’t give a toss, but it would blow my tiny Existential-angst mind if I were learning to play.)

But anyway. How’s this for a goth/rock CV?  London-based McCarrick was in Siouxsie & The Banshees for eight years (around Rapture, Peepshow and Superstition), Irish noisenik band Therapy? doing time on guitar and electric cello for seven, played cello on Robert Smith and Steve Severin’s The Glove album, and has played, toured with or collaborated with Kristin Hersh, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, Skunk Anansie, Sinead O’Connor, Gary Numan, Marianne Faithful and more.

Today, Martin comprises 50% of a wonderful thing: The McCarricks. Along with his exceedingly sexy and classically trained violinist wife, Kimberlee, the McCarricks’ musical soundscapes blend violin, cello, piano, keys and otherworldly sounds and perform in front of short films created by international filmmakers and friends.

Hanging out with the McCarricks (the BSR’s best friends in London) will often include some sort of debauchery, some cool blue-haired friends, and you may end up getting drunk next to Jon Klein from The Banshees or puke all night after a visit to the underground crypt bar Garlic & Shots (see left). In other words, they are not only musicians extraordinaire, they are a bloody good laugh too.

As for their latest project, it is also one for the BIG BLACK BOOK OF GOTH.

The McCarricks were recently commissioned to rescore  F.W. Murnau’s Der Letzte Mann. Murnau, if you’re not up on your German expressionist filmmakers, made the original 1922 silent vampire film Nosferatu. This is exceptionally exciting news: it means that Martin & Kim will hopefully tour and bring the film overseas to those of us not currently living in Londonium. Have a look/hear:

For more insanely beautiful and eerie music, go to MySpace or check out their latest videos on YouTube, including “Drifter”. Visit www.houseofmccarrick.com to buy a reissue of their first disc ‘3′ and for other news.

PS, Happy birthday, brother.