Plymouth can have Thanksgiving and Bethlehem can have Christmas, but Halloween belongs to San Francisco. As you can see from these historic photos (taken in 1921 and 1946, respectively), San Franciscans can't help but parade in costume every October 31st. It's as natural an instinct as rooting for the Giants or complaining about Muni.

Amoeba San Francisco upholds this civic tradition every year with our annual Halloween employee costume contest. If you thought last year's costumes were good, wait till you get a load of this year's collection!

The festivities began with the dynamic DJing duo of Jamie Lee Roth and The Ancient Mariner spinning truly spooky tunes, such as the vocal track to "Running with the Devil" (see the end of this post for that special trick/treat). As customers in a variety of different stages of disguise browsed the aisles, a team of official costume contest judges was assembled (Tarin, Kathy, Suzanne, and Derrick) and Marketing and Promotions rep Tarin Muir took the stage to introduce the staff contestants. 

First up, check the YouTube clip below video-taped and uploaded Tuesday afternoon by the NY MTA (New York's Mass Transit Authority). It shows the devastation caused to two of the downtown Manhattan subway stations (Ferry Plaza and Whitehall Street - two of the seven subway stations with severe flooding) and will give you an idea of the intensity of the flooding caused by Sandy. While the NYC buses are back in service today, the subway system remains down and may not be back and running in full service for several days due to the damage caused by the salt water to the electrical system on the tracks. Additionally,  all the water has to be pumped out of flooded stations like the ones in the video. However the MTA did announce that limited subway service would resume on November 1st at 6am but not below 34th Street or from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

"What you should be scared of is Romney's plan for those of us in the working class!"

It’s been just long enough since last year’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup hangover to allow me to look forward to another Halloween. Assuming I will have learned nothing from previous celebrations, I’ll undoubtedly be purchasing an extra big bag of candy under the pretence of preparing for trick-or-treaters, knowing full well that, in the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve gotten exactly one caller.

Let me tell you though – that one trick-or-treater made me so excited I gave him three huge handfuls of candy; enough that both he and his mother looked a little concerned; there was almost certainly an after-hours comb-through to search for pins and poison in the hoard I’d bestowed.

I’m digressing here, but why hasn’t anyone invented candy pins? Am I alone in thinking that would be neat?

Still better than Necco Wafers!

Every year I assemble folks to watch horror films and eat candy. I don’t yet know what we’ll be watching (last year it was Susperia) but I am ready with a playlist of atmospheric Halloween music, some of which I’ll share with you…

First, nothing fills out a Halloween playlist better than a hearty dose of organ music by the baddest mutterficker of baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach.

One of the many reasons I look forward to Halloween each year is that it truly is the holiday what inspires the best mix tapes. Also they're usually the most fun sort of mix to compile as the novelty encourages limitless experimentation. For the last thirteen years I have made and exchanged Halloween mix tapes with a dear friend and kindred spirit thus becoming a Halloween tradition that means as much to me as pumpkin carving, inventing the best costume for the day, and impaling candy corn on my canines.

Naturally, we here at Amoeba Music make the most of live-mixing music for our Halloween festivities (see DJ Teen Wolf, pictured right) and this year shall surely be no different so, by all means, do come out and join us! Remember to dress to distress, bring your little dogs too and, since we close early at 7pm so that we may all celebrate Halloween right frightfully, feel free to consider ours a warm up to your Halloween party plans -- I know i do! In fact, I'll be manning the decks this year!

Now, if you're into making a Halloween mix but as yet haven't attempted your own here follows some seasonably solid Halloween mixtape advice from some reasonably seasoned compilation enthusiasts, highlighting some of the content that made the cut for my own mixer this year. What the heck, let's call it seven hot tips for Halloween mixtape success -- it's been a while since I've listed anything.


Halloween mixtape hot tip #1: When culling content for a Halloween mix never discount an entire genre as seasonally inappropriate as fear knows no formal bounds. I'm talking about Country, y'all. Famed Country and Western convoy outlaw C.W. McCall's "Night Rider" from the recently reissued Wolf Creek Pass (on Omni) is some great C&W for Halloween what with its odd moog-a-delic reverberations and badass Rap-esque delivery droning on and on about driving at night and stuff. While not as frightening and perfectly Halloweeny as, say, Porter Wagoner's "The Rubber Room" it is an entirely appropriate track for a diverse, genre-spanning Halloween compilation in that it provides a departure from the more standard, obvious fare. That, and the fact that most songs about driving at night are cool.