Halloween 2011: Freaks Come Out at Night!

On Halloween They Even Bring Their Freaky Friends

Miami has long been known as the kinda place freaks are not only welcome to fly their flag, they’re encouraged to let it run up the tallest pole imaginable. In fact, in this Magic City a freak of nature isn’t very freaky at all — it’s simply the natural order of things. When Halloween roles around, that ultra vivid craziness gets wildly compounded, and our town’s legion of freaks become de facto Grand Marshalls for an onslaught of citywide parading.

This year All Hallow’s Eve promises to out-freak even previous Halloweens, be it via the serial killer conjuring atop the High Bar at Dream South Beach or the Sketchy collective’s colliding in Wynwood’s Awarehouse. There’s the veritable Nightmare slated to take place above Lincoln Road’s scary annual stroll, the array of suitably-spooky servings at some of our most delicious eateries, and the resounding Addams Family Musical running at the Arsht all Halloween week long. Together it’s enough mad action to make Tod Browning’s 1932 Freaks seem less like a classic tribute and more like a blueprint for one of the world’s most macabre weekends.

To help you get your freak on, SunPost has assembled a list of the most frighteningly promising events. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Addams Family Musical

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

Through October 30th

Rumor has it the show’s initial creators started with the delightful premise: “What would Uncle Fester do?” How far Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (book) and Andrew Lippa (score) followed the Improbable Theater’s compelling lead is anybody’s guess, but the raucous result would undoubtedly earn Uncle Fester’s coveted seal of approval. The first stage show based on Charles Addams’ creepy, kooky, mysterious and ooky characters — and the first time the cartoons have been used as source material — The Addams Family Musical puts to song what Americans have known all along: that is, it’s the crackpot family unit which makes our nation strong.

SATURDAY

Joey’s Italian Cafe

Wynwood Kitchen and Bar

Wynwood Walls

The Goldman Family’s block-long stretch of art and eats will be featuring a most apropos array of Halloween doings. Joey’s, which was unceremoniously robbed by three masked men a few months back, will make light of that frightening occasion by outfitting its staff as cops and robbers. We don’t know who gets to play which or why, but it’s a cinch everyone will be up for the fun no matter what side of the law they’re coming down on. Chef/Co-Owner and all-around swell Ivo Mazzon will be adding taste to the festivities by serving up a three-course Halloween special which consists of antipasti of burrata with pumpkin and balsamic onion, beef tenderloin with porcini and pumpkin sauce served with potato puree, and a pumpkin bavarese with strawberry sauce and pistachio ice cream. To make matters even more enticing, neo-folk wonder-duo Raffa & Rainer shall be singing for your supper (so to speak).

Next door at Wynwood Walls, where most of the murals are brand-spanking new, the tag team known as Lazerdisk Sex Party will be spinning the kinda sick and with-it mixes that can propel a party into a whole now dimension. How the dynamic DJs do what they do from behind Star Wars Stormtrooper masks is a mystery, but it’s the sorta mystery that’s best swung along to rather than solved.

Wynwood Kitchen and Bar, which serves as the very best seat to the Walls, will be honoring the artists on view by concocting cocktails in their names. The Clare Rojas, for example, mixes “hand-crafted tomato cilantro water, vodka, Tabasco and lemon” to make a Bloody Mary light enough to not bog down even P.V. Glob’s Bog People. While the Shepard Fairey keeps it sultry sweet with a “luscious blend of raspberry liquor and cranberry juice.”

Oh Jack

Dream Hotel High Bar

1111 Collins Ave; Miami Beach

(305) 534-8455

Supermarket Creative’s 5th annual Halloween blowout could be the Beach party of the weekend; at least if you consider the chatter that’s still taking place on account of last year’s Gatsby Gone Goth. Brought about in conjunction with Miracle Entertainment, Veni Vidi Vici, Sweat Records, Spinello Projects and Tara Ink, this is without a doubt where most of the cool kids will be swinging. When you add the fact that Oh Jack is premised upon a certain Victorian-era Ripper clashing with the steampunk phenom that period unleashed, and, well, you’ve got a mash-up for the ages.

Nightmare Above Lincoln Road

Little Lighthouse Foundation

1111 Lincoln Rd; Miami Beach

Only in Miami would a parking garage double as a spectacular event space; then again only in Miami would a firm like Herzog & de Meuron be hired to design a parking garage. Actually, 1111 Lincoln is a “parking sculpture,” and its use goes far beyond the housing of cars. For this Nightmare Above Lincoln, the structure will serve as both the Road’s VIP lounge and home of the night’s most exclusive to-do. Of course when you’re talkin’ about an organization as action-oriented as the Little Lighthouse Foundation, to do is just par for the course.

Moonshine Howloween

SoBe Arts

The Catalina Hotel and Cabana Club

1732 Collins Ave; Miami Beach

(305) 674-1160

We’re not entirely sure what a Swampwater Blueberry Mojito will do to a person, but we think the Brain Hemorrhaging Moonshine Shots that are also promised do provide some clue. That the folks behind the Original Moonshine decided to recruit the likes of Shameless Burlesque and occupy The Catalina, then give part of the proceeds to SoBe Arts Institute and the Community Blood Centers of South Florida means that whatever those concoctions do, they will in the end do some good — for everyone.

Sketchy Halloween Party

Awarehouse

550 NW 29th St; Wynwood

If Oh Jack is South Beach’s best bet for hippest and most happening, Sketchy Awarehouse definitely is its mainland equivalent. Better still, at Sketchy you get to come home with your own portrait. Featured artists include Olivier Casse, Jason Snyder, Jeiddy Lopez, Daniel Ortiz, and Brian Butler. Music will be provided by organicArma, Arboles Libres, and The State Of, as well as DJs Axiom) and Kirkjon. And GastroPod and Ms. Cheezious “will be serving up the goodness.” This is where Wynwood lives — and wins. For Halloween, it’ll also be where it goes ga-ga over the ghoulishly groovy. Then again, the ‘hood kinda does that automatically anyway.

Hellrotika: Seed of the Beast

Save Dade

Jungle Island

Save Dade’s annual Halloween spectacular is perhaps our town’s most outlandish Halloween event — and it has been for nearly two decades. Put together by an organization that moves mountains as a matter of course, it only makes sense that they’re capable of summoning something so immense. That it all takes place on its very own island beneath the sweep of Miami’s majestic skyline surely adds to the allure. But it’s the freaks who come out for this night that make this throwdown beyond the merely extraordinary — and propels into a realm truly out of this world.

H2P

Kiwanis Club Little Havana

The Stage

170 Northeast 38th St; Miami

(305) 576-9577

It’s being billed as a “Halloween House Party,” yet it’s being held in a place well known for staging the best and the brightest of Miami’s band scene. Consequently, H2P will be one big night of live. On the line-up: Conjunto Progreso, Spam Allstars and Suenalo, who’ll be joined by DJ Ethics. It’s being brought about by the same folks behind Carnaval Miami’s Calle Ocho, on behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana. In other words, it’s the kinda cross-cultural blowout which makes Miami what it is.

Carnaval Cavalera

PAX

337 S.W. 8 St; Miami

(305) 640-5847

The gang called Reset is behind this event, and as is their want, it’ll combine DJs and live art. On the spin side are Switchlift, C/B Radio and

Brandon Myles | RKTKT. Acting up will be The Amazing Kimberly, who both breathes and dances fire. And while we don’t think Cavalera has anything to do with the brothers Sepultura, we woudn’t be surprised in the least if things got to head-banging proportions before the night subsided.

SUNDAY

FUEGO

Havana Halloween

Bongos Cuban Cafe

601 Biscayne Boulevard; Miami

(786) 777-2100

Gay and Latin and on the Bay, Fuego should be steamy enough for all the boys — and their toys. On tap to help make it all hotly happen: DJs Lazar Leon and Bill Hallquist, in addition to “wicked divas” such as T.P. Lords, Ricardito Lalala and Adora  (among others). We get the feeling that whatever costumes anyone might be wearing to this shindig will be cast aside as soon as unsuitably possible.

Devil’s Night

Electric Pickle

2826 North Miami Ave; Miami

(305) 456-5613

Don’t let the fact that the Pickle people are calling this “An Obscure, Deep and Intimate Affair” lead you to believe this won’t above all be celebratory, not when the likes of Steve Lawler is the one on the decks. The Birmingham(UK)-born head-spinner, who cites Depeche Mode and The Doors as influences, usually booths up in European megaclubs (he’s not called “The King of Space” for nothing), which makes this appearance something of a rarity. That it promises to throb until the wee dark hours of the Mischief Night morning is a given.

MONDAY

Meat Market

Quattro

As everybody knows, Lincoln Road boasts a cavalcade of kooks and crazies each and every Halloween night, and for those seeking to be front and center for all the action, there’s no better place than one of the Road’s many eateries. Of the finest wine-and-dines, both Meat Market and Quattro are offering holiday fare fit for royally-inclined parade watchers. The former’s chef Sean Brasel’s three course prix fixe includes a pumpkin lobster bisque and a trio of pumpkin cupcakes, one of which is toppe with pumpkin cream cheese frosting, as well as a cocktail called the Witches Brew, which is concoction of Appleton rum, fresh lemon and agave nectar, all topped off with root beer. The highlight of Quattro’s four-course meal is unquestionably the pumpkin gnocchi with gorgonzola and walnut sauce, which is both seasonal and sensational. So too we think will be the pumpkin (and pecan) pies, whether you deserve it or not.

 

Category: BARS/CLUBS, FEATURE, TO DO, TOP PICKS