WSLC hosts “Halloween Sock Hop”
Amelia Kugeman ‘27
On Oct. 24, WSLC—Sarah Lawrence College’s student-run radio station—hosted one of the first Halloween parties of the season in the MacCracken Dance Studio. The event, billed as a “Halloween Sock Hop and Costume Contest,” featured live performances from musical artists Percbuddy, Exum, and Lucy.
The doors opened at 7 p.m. and the music started at 8 p.m. Halloween costumes were required for entry, but in case any attendee came unprepared, a face painter was on standby near the entrance to provide them with the appropriate cat whiskers. Of the party-goers who came in costume, some noteworthy choices included Keith Richards, Ripley from Alien, Penny Lane from Almost Famous, the album cover of Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Disk, Charlie Brown and Lucy, and one person who said they were simply dressed as “a modern woman.”
As for the music itself, it was basically everything you could want from a college party. Percbuddy opened the night’s show at 8 p.m. with an energetic club set—all the while dressed as Garfield. Half an hour later, Exum took the stage and presented party-goers with genuinely exhilarating vocals and instrumentation that showed the influences of rock, soul, and, at least to my ears, classic ’90s hip-hop. During his hour-long set, he came into the audience to sing, whipped off his shirt, tried on one party-goer’s cowboy hat, and splashed bottled water on the people in the front. As stated above, it was basically everything you could want from a college party.
The final billed artist of the night to perform, LUCY (a.k.a Cooper B Handy), was also the only artist I had a brief chance to talk to before the music started. When I asked him what kind of music he played, he said, bluntly, “pop.” His sources for musical inspiration are evidently diverse, though. The samples he sang over during his set ranged from Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” to Celine Dion's “My Heart Will Go On.” And, unquestionably, the most transcendent moment of his performance came when he took a short break from singing to play a harmonica solo into his microphone.
It is a massive credit to the hard work and precise scheduling of the party organizers at WSLC that there was never a long lull in between the different performers’ sets. The only exception came after Exum’s set, around 10 p.m., when the organizers gathered everyone at the front of the dance studio for the costume contest promised on the party flyers. After a few minutes of careful deliberation, the winners were announced: Percbuddy as Garfield in third place, Cora Gilbert as the Imaginal Disk album cover in second place, and Sadie Currier as Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony in first.
Shortly after the costume contest prizes were handed out, Gilbert, the second-place winner, said that she wanted to be quoted in any review of the event as saying that “Halloween is the best holiday.” And until someone throws a better live music event on Sarah Lawrence campus for Thanksgiving or Arbor Day, that is undoubtedly true.