Karen Ponzio Photos
Klein watches her video premiere.
Volume Two and a crew of three local acts amped up their audience for Halloween on Sunday night with a spooky video release celebration and a selection of songs that got everyone in the holiday spirit.
Musician Laura Klein started working on the video for “Faux Départ” while recovering from surgery. She happened upon unreleased tracks from her band Western Estates, deciding “this song deserves more than just an internet blast.” After working on the video for over two years, she gave it its premiere in front of an enthusiastic crowd, some dressed in apropos Halloween attire, and all surrounded in the appropriate art of the most recent Volume Two art exhibition, titled “Volume Boo!”
Lys Guillorn began the night solo, but also flanked by a festive rat skeleton and a few flickering candles. They mentioned that they put together a set of “thematically spooky songs” from their catalogue. Those included “M.K.” with its haunting lines: “I wasn’t happy as a child / when on Halloween a neighbor saw me smiling / It was the mask that freed me / If you get my meaning.”
Equally as haunting were songs such as “Ghost Child,” “Synesthesia,” and a song that Guillorn said they wrote only two weeks ago called “An Un-haunted House,” which they noted was inspired by “scuttling” heard in the ceiling. The lyrics postulated “invisible cats and phantom basketballs” but also reiterated the fact “there’s no such thing as an un-haunted house.” Every note from beginning to end was received with warmth and gratitude, and Guillorn themselves was also grateful and eager to pass the stage along to Klein and her video release.
“Be frightened, be terrified, be amazed,” said Guillorn.
Lys Guillorn rocks.
Klein came to the stage in dress and makeup similar to one of her looks in the video. She spoke of how the video came about, and how thrilled she was to finally have a finished piece to share — and to be there at all.
“I want to say how privileged I feel to be able to pursue such fanciful endeavors, and thank you for sharing it with me in person rather than in an internet drop,” she said with a smile.
Faux Départ (which translates to “false start”) is all Klein but in four forms: first playing cello, then riding a bike, then being pushed in a wheelchair, then on the beach and in the water. The mood of both the song and the video gets increasingly intense in its exploration of birth and death. By the end, there is a sense of catharsis and peace. It was received with rousing applause and cheers, and was followed by Klein’s “first real performance” as Mara and the Dead Batteries, which found her up on the stage performing with, at different moments, an e‑cello, bass guitar, and pedal/sound board.
An eclectic four-song set, including the originals “Liar” and “Toy,” were bookended by covers of Korn and Angel Olsen, but through them all was the thread of Klein’s penchant for humor, grace, and passion. She joked during one of the breaks that someone told her she didn’t do any stage banter, so she decided to play with it a bit, offering such lines as “hey how Halloween‑y is it out there? If you like Halloween say ‘hell yeah!’” The audience laughed and obliged.
The final act of the evening, Brain Ember, joined Klein on flugelhorn during “Toy” and also brought both Klein and Guillorn back to the stage for the first song of his set, a cover of the “Over at the Frankenstein Place/There’s a Light” from Rocky Horror Picture Show. All three vocalized while Ember played Volume Two’s electric organ and Guillorn added guitar. Many in the audience were heard to be singing along, of course.
Ember then picked up his guitar and shared three songs that he explained were written as part of a Best Video fundraising effort, in which those who donated a certain amount would receive a custom written song about any movie of their choosing. Those three songs/movies included the zombie-driven “Dead Alive,” the subterranean monster-mad “C.H.U.D.,” and the over the top but not in a good way “Caligula,” each presented with an explanation of why Ember chose to go the particular way he did with each set of lyrics. Ember married the amusing with the poignant as he sang “she loves you like no other, pull that dog off your mother,” as part of the “Dead Alive” song, and even got the crowd singing along at the end to “set it down, let it go.”
Ember offered a new song as the last of his set, called “The One,” which he called “a love song, but it does involve skeleton fingers.” Before that, however, he took over the shop’s piano and covered Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” sans the radio edits. There were a few singing along to that one too (guilty as charged!) and more than a few smiling.
That performance and the night as a whole were yet another testament to what Halloween has become: a time for all of us who like to dress up and try out new roles for a little while, and who are not afraid to attempt something new — especially if it’s with a bunch of friends who thrive on doing the same and make it all seem much less scary.
