Hometown: Small-town Ontario
Bio: Sigourney Beaver is known for her cult Steers & Queers Gay Ole Opry party, as well as Trash, Dancehall Queens and a number of other alt-queer events around Toronto. She will be happy to play your next party, especially if there is a costume theme. Sigourney plays fresh indie, dirty hip hop and bouncing dancehall with an electro twist, but she’s also known as one of the best/only country DJs in the city, with a deep love of trashy garage rock. For this chart, she’s prepared her best Halloween tracks.
1) Those Darlins – “Night Jogger“
Here’s a Halloween song that Church Street can relate to — the creepiness of the late-night jogger.
2) Shannon and the Clams – “The Cult Song“
A former backup singer for the queer punk band Hunx and His Punx, Shannon jams out with her clams out. This song references the classic 1932 horror movie Freaks, which makes it the only Critereon Collection–approved Halloween track on this list.
3) Peaches – “Tombstone, Baby“
Just Peaches and a Roland 808 drum machine. Bonus points for a great video that’s half lesbian strip tease, half reenactment of Death Becomes Her.
4) The Cramps – “I Was a Teenage Werewolf “
Classic psychobilly outfit The Cramps were no stranger to macabre song themes. I was lucky to grab this record from a bin emptied out from bike thief Igor Kenk’s shop on Queen Street after it was raided. That also means that it’s most certainly haunted, which is a plus.
5) Blondie – “Rip Her to Shreds”
On this track, Debbie Harry only wants to metaphorically rip a woman to shreds, but be honest: if Debbie Harry was talking trash about you, you’d be terrified.
6) David Bowie – “Beauty and the Beast“
This song is a B-side from Bowie’s 1977 album Heroes. It doesn’t get much play, which is a shame because it’s a menacing, pulsing track, with Bowie at his most bizarre and expressive.
7) The Sonics – “The Witch“
The Sonics were an American garage band from the early 1960s whose aggressive sound influenced punk and grunge. This 1964 track was cult hit in their hometown but didn’t get any airplay because of its bizarre subject.
8) The Revels – “Midnight Stroll“
This is a sexy 1959 novelty number about the walking dead that will make you want to take a romantic stroll in the graveyard. Apparently, Dick Clark objected to the original title, “Dead Man’s Stroll,” so the name was changed to “Midnight Stroll,” even though the word midnight is never uttered.
9) Quintron – “Waterfall“
Quintron is a one-man band from New Orleans. He’s also an inventor, nightclub owner and husband to a professional puppeteer. I saw him on a very strange double bill that opened with a Quintron puppet show and ended with a Big Freedia-led twerking contest. That I remembered this song after that experience says a lot about how damn catchy it is.
10) Grace Jones – “Warm Leatherette“
A song about sex after violent car crashes is morbid enough for Halloween, but the original track by The Normal is a little serious. Gay it up a bit with the Grace Jones version.
You can catch Sigourney Beaver at the Dakota Tavern on Thurs, Oct 31, for the Steers & Queers Gay Ole Opry Halloween Party, or at the inaugural Toronto Bent Beauty Supreme genderqueer beauty pageant at the Gladstone Hotel, on Fri, Nov 15. For more shows, visit facebook.com/groups/djjoeblow.
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