Two-Day Halloween “Grand Re-Opening” at Holiday Music Motel

The recently renovated Holiday Music Motel will host 20 artists for a week of collaborative songwriting, recording, and nighttime performances on Friday, October 30 at Cherry Lanes and Saturday, October 31 at Ladder House, both Sturgeon Bay nightlife establishments. October 31 will also feature a Grand Re-Opening celebration at the Holiday Music Motel from 2 – 6 pm.

“Hosting and facilitating this type of event is why we exist,” says creative director pat mAcdonald, “All of our investors bought into this musical vision for the motel, and for Sturgeon Bay.” One such investor is famed singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, who will be performing a house concert at the motel on December 9.

Throughout the last week of October, the motel will be filled – half with invited songwriters, and half with paying guests. Songs written during the week will be recorded in the motel’s in-house studio by world-class engineer Billy Tripplet, and the first of the motel’s “Holiday Series” (Dark Songs For Halloween Vol.1) will be produced on-site and made available for sale next year.

A mixture of local and worldwide talent will fuel the event, including Door County’s Dorothy Scott, Rick Younglove, and Jeanne Kuhns, along with imports Geri X, Eric McFadden, Delaney Davidson, Kim Manning, and Wally Ingram. Each evening, the songwriters will form teams to collaboratively write songs, then document them in the Holiday Music Motel studio.

For this event, songwriters are challenges to write around a theme. For this event, the theme is “Dark Songs,” in celebration of what mAcdonald calls “the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s first Halloween.”

The shows will feature all invited artists presented in a neo-vaudeville style format. The first, “The Edgar Allan Polka and Other Dark Delights,” will occur Friday, October 31, at Cherry Lanes. Saturday, October 31 will feature an open house at the Holiday Music Motel. The event is open to the public and will feature food, live music, puppetry, and tours of the motel.

For the Halloween night finale, Saturday, October 31, The Ladder House in Sturgeon Bay will host “Ghost Writers in Disguise,” a costume party from 8 pm – midnight. The party will feature a mixed-media performance of music, visual art, film, puppetry, poetry and many other surprises.

There will be a cover charge of $5 at the door for each of the two nighttime events, with the Saturday afternoon open house being free to the public.

Members of the community are invited to contribute their talents to the event. Anyone interested in contributing a short performance or other art piece is encouraged to do so and should contact pat mAcdonald or melaniejane by emailing [email protected].

For more information, call 920.743.5571 or visit http://www.HolidayMusicMotel.com or http://www.EdgarAllanPolka.com.