These are happenings of Halloween-type activities past:

— Call this the Halloween haunt of a Houlton hottie. She was doing a photo shoot in a river in upstate Minnesota last Halloween on what was a very cold day, but that wasn’t the worst of it. When posing, she came across a big hole in the bank and surmised it might house a big animal, like a badger. Whatever it was, it apparently didn’t like being disturbed from its lair and gave chase.
— After an Ozzfest show in Somerset, it was time for breakfast before hitting the road in a tour bus. Heavy metal icons Ronnie James Dio and Slayer stopped at the truck stop in the town of Hudson, not long before dawn. I’ll bet their eggs weren’t made sunny side up.
— After other Ozzfests, Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister and his band pulled through Hudson and the musicians jammed with the house band at Dibbo’s, while Snyder slept it off on the tour bus. He isn’t always a party pooper when in the Hudson area, however, having eaten dinner at San Pedro. A worker, Matt, said that Snyder enjoyed the food so much that whenever he’s in the area on a gig, he calls from the coast to make dinner reservations. I wonder if San Pedro has his number on caller ID?
— Speaking of Dio, and as a Black Sabbath frontman virtually a spokesperson for Halloween, does anyone remember when his songs were frequently covered by Decibel, one of the hardest rocking bands to play regularly at Dibbo’s? Decibel also did lots of Queensryche and other old school metal, perhaps the most seen on the scene except for the former Lasher, which dared to try — and pull off — covers of Iron Maiden.
— Did I invoke Maiden? I love singing all that old stuff, and apparently others feel the same, as one guy spotted me $20 to sing all the Judas Priest on the karaoke playlist at the Corner Bar in River Falls on Wednesdays — one of the things that gained me the nickname The Count. (OK, I don’t really understand that one either). A similar request I received at an open mike session at Dibbo’s was to shout out Mother by Danzig — and gain a $5 bill and a free drink. The literally big and scary guys of Ultra Mega hosted the open mike, as they have now done at the Blue Fox in the Cities for quite some time. But not all goes that well. Again, at the Corner Bar, a regular patron and I discussed getting the two of us on stage to sing Living After Midnight. I said I didn’t know it, but my new-to-be bandmate was insistent and corrected my every (wrong) word in a make-do rehearsal done at the bar rail. Needless to say, once I actually got up on stage with the band, it was a train wreck.
— What’s this, death metal in Hudson? Yep, a while back some of the leading practitioners from the active New York scene joined those of the burgeoning local scene for a gig at Dibbo’s. They were joined by locals Devitalize, whose frontman was known for whipping himself into a frenzy by wrapping up in barbed wire, and performing better because of the fervor. It was a night of fast-running slam dancing done by dozens of people, and surprisingly clear instrumental and lyrics. Some of these were surprising for being silly in a sappy way. Similar events have been held periodically at the Corner Bar.