Addie Shrodes

Editor

ashrodes@wccnet.edu Eerie brick caverns, futuristic dance floor, Manhattan mood or the Ringling Brothers? This Halloween, you don’t have to choose at the Cavern Club complex in downtown Ann Arbor. Let the frights, fun and costume prizes begin. The Halloween party is centered in the basement Cavern Club where the live band plays, and decorations start weeks in advance. “This place is ideal for Halloween,” said Nick Easton, owner and manager of the building’s four clubs. “It’s got the underground cave-like features, and we decorate it up quite extensively with spider webbing, special lighting and sounds effects. Not too many bars have that going for them.” David Gondoly of the Killer Flamingos, the popular local band that plays the party each year, agrees. “One time I came in early before Nick turned the lights on, and it was pitch black trying to feel my way around for the light, and I’m like ‘Okay, I’m so scared right now,’” Gondoly said as he chuckled. “Even when you don’t believe in ghosts, when I walked in there, I instantly became a believer.” But all four clubs will open up to accommodate hundreds of costumed party-goers. And the clubs see a lot of costumes. With $300, $200 and $100 prizes for best costumes, about 50 percent of the 600 or so attendees dress up. “That’s a lot to look at,” Easton said. The Killer Flamingos dress up each year as part of their live Halloween show. “They’re the most fun,” Easton said. “It’s a group effort: one year they were all prisoners, another year they were all superheroes.” The band members plan to dress up as music icons this year, but they’re sticking with icons of their own gender. “I went one year in drag, and I will never do it again,” Gondoly said. “Because . . . I went as naked Barbie OK, and so I just had a pink leotard on and that was it . . . .” “Oh, you had a wig on too, come on,” lead vocalist Michelle Carravallah interrupted jokingly. “It was ridiculous,” Gondoly resumed. “The whole time I’m like ‘I can’t believe I’m wearing this up here.’” “Well, because it wasn’t just drag, it was naked drag,” Carravallah added. The band members don’t enter the costume contest, but they always have opinions on who should win. And they heavily favor creative costumes. “You always get the one guy who dresses as Jack Sparrow, and then Jean Simmons,” Gondoly said. “And then there’s the ten girls dressed up like lingerie models,” Carravallah said with joking contempt. “Naughty maid, naughty cheerleader, naughty this or naughty that. They get up in the costume contest, and it’s like what are you? ‘I’m just naughty.’” The prizes are awarded based on audience applause, but nobody brings enough people to sway the vote, so it ends up being fair, Carravallah said. The Halloween party has been an annual feature of the Cavern Club ever since it opened in 1998. When Easton, a former antique dealer, bought the building in 1994 for an antique store, opening a building full of bars was the furthest thing from his mind. But the 1853 building, originally home to the Ann Arbor City Brewery, seemed to have other plans. Easton started the Cavern Club as way to utilize the catacomb basement, which has low stone and brick arched corridors, one 70 feet long. It was a fantastic hit, and Easton decided to renovate the rest of the building, eventually opening up four distinct clubs. Easton’s early jobs at Disney Land and Disney World inspired him to create a different atmosphere in each club. “I got exposed to set decoration and design, and I was fascinated by that,” Easton said. The Millennium Club, strictly a dance club, opened in 2000, hence the name and futuristic theme. Easton opened Gotham City shortly after, basing its skyscraper decorations on his interest in New York City and Batman. Circus Bar and Billiards opened in 2003, and was inspired by Easton’s family relations. “I’m a distant relative of the Ringling Brothers,” he explained. “People like to go to the circus anyway . . . it’s a place where you have fun or you’re entertained. So it seemed to fit right in with the whole sort of escapism that people want when they go out at night.” Each club has it’s own vibe and music: Cavern Club is mostly pop rock; Millennium Club is hip-hop; and bluegrass is popular at Circus. “At Circus, Wednesday is bluegrass night and it’s consistently one of our busiest nights of the week,” Easton said. The bars’ prices certainly don’t scare customers away either. They have the cheapest drinks in town, Easton said. Domestic beers for $3.50, imports for $4, mixed drinks for $5-6. Plus they have specials such as long islands for $2 during the week. For Halloween, Easton plans to create icy cauldrons to pour shots of the “red-headed slut” — which he calls the “bloody slut” for Halloween.