Welcome to the (not at all) spooky Fused Halloween mixtape. Shiver to the sounds of The Make Up, Daniel Johnston and The Cramps, Quake in your boots to the spine chilling sounds of The Birthday Party, The Specials and Thee Oh Sees. Keep on Destroying all monsters and keep on fighting satan kids!

If you are stuck for ideas on what to do this Halloween Weekend then here are our picks…

Celebrate Halloween with killer style this year at The Flapper in Birmingham, in all it’s ghoulish glory!

The Halloween party on Saturday 31st starts from 7pm until 3am giving you plenty of time to get your claws into free vodka jellies, sweets and cupcakes which will be available all night!

Get your costumes sorted in time, as the photographer will be snapping the best looks. There’ll be music from the resident DJ, as well as live music from Just Like Jimmy, LYU and Morgue Orgy in the dungeon. Entry to The Flapper, which is on Kingston Row and five minutes from Broad Street is free, with entry to the gig at £5.

The House of Fairy Tales ‘Travelling Art Circus’ comes to Gallery Square, Walsall on Halloween from 11am – 11pm.

Founded by artists Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis the launch event will take place over the Halloween weekend around the square outside and throughout the New Art Gallery Walsall building. There will be over 60 artists and performers from all over the country taking part in this celebration of all things dark and ghoulish.

Join in the feast of spit roasts and miniature toffee apples served from the Witches Gingerbread House as a series of characters welcome you to the past. Visit the haunted fairground with its sideshow booths and games. There are lots more things taking place including a lantern parade at 6pm. Visit thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk and www.houseofairytales.org for more information.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Primal Scream at the Cedar Courtyard

SXSW REVIEW THURSDAY: SXSW is no walk in the park let me to you – it’s more a walk down lots of streets but by-the-by it is really hard work. Endless standing around in the sun watching bands drinking free beer and eating fine BBQ food – phew! Someone has to do it right?

So Thursday started with us heading down to the Convention Centre to hand out CD’s and Flyers to the good and the great of the music industry – and it was all going fine until we passed the Smoking Lounge (heavily sponsored by a US tobacco brand who give away umpteen packets of fags) where Entertainment Magazine were having a littles soiree. “Come inside for free food and drink” said the girl on the door and who is going to turn that down? Not Fused! It may have only been noon but the drinks were flowing and we managed to catch a little bit of the Annuals and Laura Marling which was very pleasant indeed.

So we tore ourselves away and headed to meet our buddy Mikey from Dance Your Face Off at Buffalo Billiards. Now we were in for a treat – LA hair band Steel Panther were being interviewed by a local radio station. Imagine Motley Cru, Poison and 80’s Cher tossed in a blender and regurgitated out of a dog and you should have a good idea of what we are talking about. They did a little ‘turn’ of a song about something rude and we knew it was time to leave.

Next it was over to The Wave for Kerrrang Magazine’s party where we caught an excellent and lively set by The Bronx. All the action made us peckish so it was on to see what the Spanish have to offer – it was Paella and Sangria and some not so Spanish bands apparently.

NASA at Emo's Annex

The afternoon continued in to the evening with more bar hopping and a visit to EMO’s annex to catch the NASA boys doing their up-beat techno best to get everyone moving. $5 lap dancers painted green and a few aliens in the mix made for an eye-catching stage presence that really woke us up.

Finally it was over to the Cedar Courtyard to catch The Black Lips and the mighty Primal Scream. We managed to wiggle our way to near the front of the stage and were awarded with an amazing set from Bobby and the boys. Crowd surfing ensued and security got a little angry but a cracking set left the audience shouting for more a good 10 minutes after the band had departed stage right.

Our favourite rockers RTX (Jennifer Herrema from Royal Trux) are back with a great new album ‘JJ Got Live RaTX’. The band will also be on tour throughout the UK at the invitation of Primal Scream with some headlines of there own.

RTX UK Tour Schedule
20 Nov UK Oxford – Academy *
21 Nov UK Cardiff – University22 Nov UK Bristol – The Croft
23 Nov UK Bristol – Academy *
24 Nov UK Southampton – Guildhall *
25 Nov UK Reading – Hexagon *
27 Nov UK London – Cargo
28 Nov UK London – Hammersmith Appolo *
30 Nov UK Norwich – UEA *
01 Dec UK Sheffield – Academy *
02 Dec UK Brighton – Dome *
03 Dec UK Manchester – Star and Garter
04 Dec UK Birmingham – Academy *
05 Dec UK Cambridge – Corn Exchange *
07 Dec UK Edinburgh – Cabaret Voltaire
08 Dec UK Leeds – Academy *
09 Dec UK Newcastle – Academy *
11 Dec UK Liverpool – Academy *
12 Dec UK Manchester – Apollo *
13 Dec UK Glasgow – SECC *
14 Dec UK Glasgow – Captain’s Rest

* with Primal Scream