The Halloween Weekender: Your Guide to a Killer Weekend
Frighteningly good recommendations for your Halloween weekend.
Welcome to The Wax Museum’s monthly exhibit The Weekender, your curated dose of must-hear records, must-watch gems, and must-read pieces to give your weekend a sensory upgrade. I got a lot to recommend, so let’s get right into it.
What to Listen to This Weekend
feeo - Goodness (2025)
Get Vinyl: Black
For a debut that fits Halloween like a velvet glove, look no further than Goodness from London experimentalist feeo (Theodora Laird). This is a hauntingly beautiful record and definitive headphone music — the kind that pulls you under to whisper secrets from the static.
Its core theme is laid bare by the opening line from her father, veteran actor Trevor Laird: “Awful things happen every day to people who don’t deserve it.” Later, that same phrase returns flipped — “Good things happen every day to people who don’t deserve it.” That uneasy balance between despair and grace defines the album’s shadowy meditation on duality.
With frequent collaborator Caius Williams (bass, guitar, baritone) grounding her spectral vocals, feeo builds a world of drone, ambient, and minimalist electronics that will appeal to fans of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons (more on her later). So press play, disappear, and remember: even in the dark, there’s Goodness.
Broken Record - Routine (2025)
Get Vinyl: Clear Red
Here’s another October gem you may have missed: Routine, the third album from Denver’s Broken Record, out via Power Goth Recordings (run by frontwoman Lauren Beecher and her husband, bassist Corey Fruin).
If feeo’s Goodness is a haunted whisper, then Routine is a roar against the machine. The Denver rockers deliver a blistering 30-minute indictment of late-stage capitalism and the anxiety of modern life. Co-produced by Justin Pizzoferrato (Pixies, Sonic Youth), the band’s self-proclaimed “stadium emo” has leveled up into something heavier and harder, stuffed with turbulent guitars and massive choruses. Channeling the power pop of Jimmy Eat World in their heyday, Routine is a potent dose of DIY ethos and pure, pissed-off energy.
Minus the Bear - Menos el Oso (2005)
Get Vinyl: Hand Pour | Silver | Signed Test Pressing
Happy 20th Anniversary to Menos el Oso, one of the all-time great math rock albums from Seattle’s Minus the Bear. Nearly two decades later, it still hits that sweet spot — technical without being cold, catchy without dumbing down. To mark the milestone, the band has dropped a fresh batch of vinyl variants and is touring the album in full this month, giving fans a chance to experience one of indie rock’s most quietly influential records the way it was meant to be heard.
It’s aged like wine: meticulously built, effortlessly cool, and still the blueprint for bands trying to make complexity sound this smooth. For a deeper retrospective, I really enjoyed this piece at Woodhouse.
Violence Fog - Violence Fog (1971)
Get Vinyl: Cosmic Dust | Black
Here’s one for the diggers: Violence Fog, the long-lost 1971 debut from a short-lived psychedelic rock group out of Germany finally sees the light thanks to one of my new favorite reissue labels, Ancient Grease Records. This is pure kick-ass, fuzz-laden psych, oscillating between energetic rock riffage and hypnotic jams. The band’s interplay, headlined by dizzying dual-lead guitars, more than lives up to their cult status. Now on vinyl for the first time, the mirrorboard cover was created by Robert Beatty, the man behind the iconic Tame Impala Currents art.
Monthly Mixtape: Patio Grooves 🍂 Fall 2025
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music
For those that missed it, I refreshed the Patio Grooves Playlist for the fall season, stuffed with 13 of my favorites from this year blended with classics stretching across the last five decades.
Just a quick intermission as I shake the donation jar at you. A $5 contribution unlocks full archive access and gets you a $10 coupon to our Gift Shop — just the sign you needed to grab one of our sweet Weekender bags. Thanks for the support!
What to Watch This Weekend
Beth Gibbons | Live at Sydney Opera House
Stream: YouTube
If there were ever a voice made for Halloween, it’s Beth Gibbons’. The Portishead frontwoman recently returned to the stage at the Sydney Opera House for her first Australian performance in nearly 15 years, and the full show is now streaming on YouTube. Performing songs from her haunting new solo album Lives Outgrown alongside Portishead classics, Gibbons reminded everyone why her voice remains one of the most chilling in modern music. Backed by a small chamber ensemble, she moves between trip-hop noir and eerie folk with hypnotic grace. Dim the lights, press play, and let Beth possess the room.
The World Series Game 6 (and Game 7?)
Hopefully on Saturday, we hear the best two words in sports: Game Seven. If not, it means the Toronto Blue Jays have claimed their first World Series crown since 1993. Either way, these playoffs have delivered everything you could ask for — Shohei Ohtani continuing to prove he’s not just the best baseball player alive, but likely the best athlete in sports history, and that 18-inning fever dream in Game 3 already etched itself into postseason legend. Here’s to one more dose of chaos, drama, and greatness this weekend.
Targets (dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
Stream: YouTube
Get Blu-ray
It’s Halloween, and I wanted to recommend a horror film — but instead, I’m going with Targets (1968), a movie far scarier than any monster flick. The plot centers on Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff in his last great role), a washed-up horror icon who announces his retirement, claiming the real world has grown too terrifying for his old-school spooks. “What’s the point?” he says. “People aren’t afraid of my movies — they’re afraid of the news.” Ain’t that the truth.
Targets is a horrifyingly accurate prediction of where society was headed, told with eerie intelligence and bitter cynicism. Part character study, part real-world nightmare, it weaves two storylines: one of a fading Hollywood legend, the other of a clean-cut young man back from Vietnam stockpiling guns for a killing spree. It’s a disturbingly prescient portrait of mass violence in America, and an unsparing look at how horror in the entertainment industry pales in comparison to the horror we manufacture in real life. It would make the perfect double feature with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
If you’re looking for more movie recs, I loved this list of 100 Films from the 1960’s to Watch Today from , where Targets landed at #13. For a more traditional horror pick from the same list, #23 Rosemary’s Baby has lost none of its sinister power — no one portrays insurmountable evil like Roman Polanski.
What to Read This Weekend
Gen Z’s College Radio Revival by
Let’s end with some wholesome content courtesy of Emily White’s great Substack, where she shines a light on something refreshing in 2025’s bleak music landscape. Amid headlines of AI musicians and major label fuckery, White uncovers a growing movement of young listeners rejecting algorithms and rediscovering the joy of community-driven music. As she writes:
“Stations that once struggled to fill airtime are now turning people away, shortening shows, alternating time slots, and running training programs just to keep up with the demand from aspiring student DJs.”
This is what music culture still gets right: passion, discovery, belonging, and that connection to sound that streaming just can’t replicate.
It’s easy to feel cynical about the industry these days, but this story is a good reminder that the next generation of tastemakers is already out there, spinning vinyl, scribbling playlists in notebooks, and keeping the spirit of discovery alive.
Hey, thanks for stopping by The Wax Museum! If you enjoyed your stay, pass this along to a friend whose weekend could use a little upgrade.
Plenty more exhibits are on the way — the calendar’s stacked with so much goodness the rest of the year. Until then, drop a comment card on your way out, and I’ll see you back here next week for another tour.