Terry’s Halloween Party

Terry Fleischer called me in early October looking for a DJ for her Halloween party at home in Reno. She was expecting 50 to 60 guests, mostly an older crowd, and she knew what she wanted: Halloween music and older dance music, like Brick House by the Commodores. The nights were getting colder, so the party moved inside, and the furniture came out of the living room to make the dance floor.

Terry went all in. The front yard was a graveyard with its own fog machines, and inside the house had cobwebs across the ceiling, a wall of haunted portraits and Sabrina the Soothsayer waiting in her fortune teller booth. Terry planned to come as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I set up before anyone arrived, so nobody had to watch me carry gear through dinner.

Guests came in at 7:00 and ate until about 8:00 while I played the classics: Monster Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett, Terry’s own request It Must Be Halloween by Andrew Gold, This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman, The Addams Family by Andrew Gold, The Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley and The Munsters Theme, then Spooky by Classics IV, Black Magic Woman by Santana and Don’t Fear The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult.

Then the costumes took over the living room. Top hats, a long beard, a crown and wide brimmed hats moved through the fog in front of my decks.

Witchy Woman by the Eagles, Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo, Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I Put a Spell on You from Hocus Pocus kept the Halloween going, and I kept the lasers and the fog rolling over the floor.

Later in the night came She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby, Witch Doctor by David Seville and Get Busy by Sean Paul, and 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton was the last song of the night.