The Halloween Season fast approaches. In honor of Samhain, we will be talking about ICP, Hallowicked, and whatever rattles out. Come on in, the show is about to begin…

Welcome back to the ROX-TV website. As always, we thank the returning readers and welcome anyone who might be joining us for the first time. This is a cool zone, so relax. Nothing but good vibrations and frequencies are present. The air is getting colder at night, the skies reveal themselves, and the stars look on in approval. The chilly nights mean that the turn is coming soon. The leaves will slowly change colors, leaving the Emerald Green and transforming into brilliant flashes of Orange, Red, and Yellow. This is my favorite time of year. The beginning of the end…at least in terms of the cycle has begun. The ancient traditions of harvest and our Gods will soon be carried out once again. If you’ve never seen a Michigan Fall in the flesh, you better get moving. There is nothing like it my friends. By Samhain, the fire pits will be burning, and the celebrations will continue. On top of living in a state that bleeds the essential fall experience, I’m blessed a second time. Why? Because one of my favorite groups (historically and present) does a real special performance to mark the Season of the Witch. If you’ve lived in Michigan for more than five years, I’m sure you will know the artists regardless of whether you’ve ever heard their music. That is true. The Clowns have written their names in the walls of Detroit and Michigan history with their never ending march to glory. For me, it’s a great thing because I went all in with the Insane Clown Posse when I was a kid in the early 1990’s and to see the scene, the music, and the culture not only endure…but thrive. Well…that brings a big fucking grin to my face. I laugh out loud for all the shit heads who trashed my shit. Where are they now? Who fucking cares. Where are the bands they listened to? Now I really don’t care, except for this one simple fact: My team is still in the game and theirs are not. As a fan, nothing can be cooler than being proven right musically, so I thank ICP for enduring for the last three decades and allowing me that moment as a Juggalo. Anyways, time marches on and that is what it always does. I know I was being a little naughty there and harboring old feelings about the music. Carrying old baggage around isn’t good for anyone and my new mantra is “letting go”. As a younger person, I was not an easy bag of groceries to carry. You know the deal, being young, passionate, and blind to the future. That was me. I did that. I paid for that. What can you do? Well, there I go again. It’s not even 1pm yet and the smoke has pushed me to the edge of the forest in under a paragraph. I really have to watch that. One day the forest will open its mouth and swallow me for good if I don’t watch my step.

The shadows of the forest get hungry from time to time. Better to stay on the path. It is nearly the Halloween Season (Samhain) after all. Why tempt the devils? So, the 30th Anniversary Hallowicked show has been announced for 2023. This year’s ritual will be going down at The Masonic Temple in Detroit City. I couldn’t think of a cooler location or a better show to see. And not just for one reason. These Hallowicked shows are what I would refer to as…at this point…like a seasonal art form of musical expression. I know that sounds fucking wordy and what not but hear me out. How many other annual shows happen that are so closely related to a particular season? Now before any shed dwellers get excited and shout out “The Mariah Carey Christmas Special”…I am thinking along the lines of a progression of some kind…not the same song every year. Like when I talk about a seasonal art form in terms of music…it even goes a step further for me. Here’s how it appears in my mind in regard to the artist and the definition:

Seasonal Art Form (Musical)

1. An artist or group performs every year at a specific time, not mincing any words or actions. A “summer” type of jam that could hit five months out of the year would be disqualified if we were going by my made-up term and definition.

2. The artist or group performs AND adds another chapter in their continuation of the statement of expression. Like in terms of “annual”. The new addition or re-birth is essential in the process. At least in my mind.

3. The season/holiday coincides with the musical content in some shape or manner. It has to be a specific and deliberate statement.

4. Beyond the first three items, entertainment or the expression is successful at either capturing the vibe of the season or pays homage in a wonderful way, which incorporates these four made up tenets.

 

So, with that definition (which I created just now…I hope there isn’t already an existing word for it, I didn’t look first) and expectation…I sit here and try to think of anything else on earth that operates like the Hallowicked shows. This event would be the sample that I would include to the dictionary submission. Since no one else does it better, I guess I will just stay in the groove and talk about their seasonal art form expression and memories of yesterday (If you are a reader who has been around for awhile, I have covered the 1998 Hallowicked show in other articles, so feel free to skip ahead to part two which will cover Hallowicked 2022 commentary). Did I mention that the Insane Clown Posse has a great eye for introducing themes that really drive the nail home. It’s not just a dunk…it’s a slam dunk. The kind of dunk that used to break backboards in the NBA. Anyone old enough to remember Shaq’s epic hoop destruction is headed in the right direction. It’s like that. Not only is the annual show a fucking dunk…it’s a slam dunk. I remember going to Hallowicked in 1998. The show was going down at the Legendary Detroit venue called Harpos and ICP was sharing the bill with GWAR. At the time, I thought that seeing ICP on Devil’s Night in Detroit was as good as it could get. I remember thinking to myself “this looks like a rough stretch of area” as I pulled off I-94. It most certainly was every bit as dangerous as it looked. The bums today, which I see sometimes on my way to Harpos…look just as tired, hungry, and nervous as they did in the 1990’s. I bet every bum on the Eastside of Detroit has PTSD and that’s no shit. When the bums look nervous, I’m nervous.

Hallowicked 2022 Pictures vs. Hallowicked 1998 Memories

Part 1

Event: Hallowicked 1998

Artists: Insane Clown Posse and Gwar

Location: Harpos

Ticket Price: $21 dollars (Ticketmaster sneak grab fee of $3.75 added as well, never did find out what it was for though)

Date: Devil’s Night

(author recalls his perspective and individual memories from that night and time. Just a guy and his thoughts, nothing more)

Ten Cent Memory Tour: So I remember earlier in the day…it was Devil’s Night (October 30th in Michigan) and I was trying to get a few friends to go to the Hallowicked concert at Harpos. I had purchased three or four tickets together because some people had expressed some interest in going to Detroit with me. Although, when I showed up at the Knob Hill Gang’s hideout…those cats were already a few hours into the beers, and no one wanted to go. I said, “fuck it, I’m going anyway” and jumped in the family Geo Prizm (at that time, it still had features that worked somewhat. Although the windows were held up with door stops, the AC didn’t work, the vents were missing the covers after getting destroyed during a nitrous incident, the radio antenna was fucked up and only picked up NPR…and it had 230,500 Miles at the time. It looked like a clown car without the room. The tires were basically bike tires and the whole bitch only weighed about 800 pounds. We used to call these cars “go-carts” because that’s what it felt like driving them). I had never been to Harpos before, but I had been hearing about it for years in the Juggalo scene. Harpos, St. Andrews, The Capitol Theatre in Flint, The Ritz, those types of places captivated my mind. This was where the history happened. It was where I needed to be. I hit the exit on I-94, which had been somewhat confusing coming from Flint highway familiarity only…but I made it regardless. The parking was iffy and there was a huge line outside the place. I remember parking out front and hoping for the best. The area was tough and it was cold out. The Juggalos were lined up and shit was fucking rowdy. Hallowicked was living up to its already infamous reputation. I remember the Detroit Police Department had a heavy presence in the area and after the show, an even more impressive showing to keep the Juggalos moving “left or right” without more than a second or two to decide. DPD was not fucking around and I wouldn’t recommend fucking with them today either. Detroit runs the way it does. Don’t go looking for trouble, you will find it.

I remember getting into Harpos and being taken back by the epic building. It seemed Majestic, even in her slightly used condition. Those initial impressions never left me and remained vivid for all these years. The crowd was a fucking bizarre mix of GWAR fans and ICP fans. At the time, at least in my portion of the 810…I associated GWAR with the Skater tribe. I used to hang out with a few guys at S.C. who were die hard skaters and they loved GWAR. I had sampled their shit from a cassette tape and it sounded far out. At the time I wasn’t into that type of sound though. I wanted ICP and that was it. But for as different as the Skaters and the ICP people were, they really weren’t that much different. We got push back from the country and yuppy scenes, so there was that common threat. Back in the 1990’s, ICP had a wide reaching net when it came to fans, before Juggalo terms had been entered into the gospel universally and accepted overall. What I mean by that is even though there weren’t many of us in the beginning, the music was probably the most common thing in our lives that brought us together. There were all kinds of “different” types of ICP fans back then, at least where I was at…it seemed to be that way. Today it’s a little more uniform, with an actual term “Juggalo” which has had three decades to harden up. The Juggalos today are more exclusive with their musical tastes than say those first or second wave Juggalos (but that is just a commentary opinion…from one person…half stoned). Is it because of a rash of conservative values? No. I say that because there were some old school Juggalos that were alive before the Insane Clown Posse existed, and when they became fans of ICP, they already had a pre-existing library of work to fuck with outside of Detroit. Today it’s not possible to have that experience. For Juggalos born in the late 1990’s and 2000’s, they have only known a time when ICP existed. The OG’s that became that first wave of fans came from a time before the gospel had been formulated, souls drifting into the Carnival by word of mouth, and most likely having come from somewhere else. It was a conscious choice to follow the group and to be a fan. It provided its own set of harrowing circumstances and risks. But shit, that was part of the fun of it all, I guess. That pushback only made us want to do it even more…and we did because we were little bastards.

The GWAR portion of the night was pretty crazy. I had never seen their stage show before and they did not let me down. It was like a Hollywood special effects company took tons of Acid and then snorted some blow…before playing this rough and rugged sounding theatre. I thought they were great, I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but I got a story out of it. During the last song, I had made it down onto the floor, in preparation of ICP taking the stage. I was like “I will mix it up in the pit and then have an interesting story”. At least that was my thinking at the time. In reality, I was almost crushed to death. As I stood there cheering the lead singer of GWAR yelled “kill everyone in the crowd, destroy the person to the left and right” or something like that. I heard something that I interrupted as a warning and it was time to move. As I turned around, I witnessed hundreds of fans storming the section of floor I was standing in. The crowd surged and in a quick second I made the decision to worm my way to the back. Once I got there, I climbed over the wall and rails to safety. The space I had been standing in vanished as I left it. Fucking crazy.

END of Part one

Signing Off,

T.R.I.K.O.L.

Liminal Vagrants

Ghost Ship 3