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By AMY KENNY
Staff Writer

The website claims their upcoming Halloween show "will make you shit your pants and then eat those pants that you just shat in."

Then again, it also claims all three members of London's rockabilly outfit The Matadors, were given their respective musical prowess (prowesses? Prowi?) by way of a deal with a division of the Devil's minions called the Lucifarian Brotherhood of Baphomet.

Riiiiiiight.

So I'm sitting on the back deck at London's Call the Office, waiting for a Matadors show to start, when I see the first one. He's leaning against a wall near the entrance to the bar, dressed entirely in black; heavy black boots, black trousers, thin black cape-like overcoat, and a shiny, jaggedly cut purple hood framing the black nothing that is his face. He lifts a hand to his hole of face and takes a drag of his cigarette (how? I don't know -creepy). Smoke curls around his shoulders and cloak giving him the appearance of a ring wraith.

I move inside the bar to scan the merch table (well ok ... partly to get away from the ghoul. Like I said -creepy), but another one is manning the merch. At least, I think it's another one. Could be the same one that was just outside. They look identical ... at least ... as identical as faceless people can look.

Anywhooo, this wraith hands out t-shirts, buttons, and stickers. He collects money, makes change. Sips his beer (again -I don't know how). He doesn't speak. He might not even be looking at anyone.

I slink away and hang out by the stage where the second opening band is finishing up and clearing off.

A few minutes later three ghouls (and again -all identical to the first) appear onstage and tune drums, an electric-blue guitar and a stand-up bass. One holds a 40's style radio mic out to the crowd and shakes it, urging fans to check it before grunting into it himself. Once. Twice. Three times.

A smoke machine starts somewhere near the front and the musty wet smell of fog masks the stench of sweaty concert BO that permeates stage right. Red lights pass, muted, through the mist.

The ghouls leave the stage. They re-take the stage. They disappear and they're back again, standing opposite each other in three separate corners. I wonder if these three are the Matadors -and I start to think that if they are, this could be cheese- when a seriously blinding bit of pyrotechnics sparks a crowd excitement that lures the actual Matadors to the stage.

At first the fog is so thick it's hard to tell they're there. Someone seems to be standing beside the bass. And I think there's a guy behind the mic. Slowly, the mist clears in patches to uncover a Gothic Elvis in lead singer Joel Perkins. He wears a black suit with ornate black velvet patterns burnt onto it. His dark hair is gelled back and he's holding an impossibly Hound Dog stance. His red shirt and black dress pants match those of bassist Jeff Sheppard and drummer Jay Westman.

To see them, they could be lounge singers. To hear Perkins' voice, he could be an Elvis or Orbison impersonator. To listen to the crazed instrumentals, this is rock-a-fucking-billy. And to pay attention to the lyrics, they could be a horror movie script.

"Are you ready to rock?" Perkins yells. "Areyoureadytorockareyoureadytohaveagoodtimeareyoureadytodrinklots?!" he runs it all together and breaks straight into the first song in what will be an hour-long fiesta of spectacle, the likes of which this lady has never seen.

By the second song, Sheppard has his upright bass tipped on its side and is standing on it, gravity-defyingly balanced, arms flailing like a lunatic on the neck. This draws a huge reaction.

Almost as huge as the reaction when one of the ghouls (whom I now assume is one of "the Brotherhood") steps up from his spot behind Sheppard with a huge skeleton-encased gun and waves it menacingly over the audience's heads. The odd scream rings from the front of the stage. Cheers from the middle. Laughter from the back. The crowd goes wild. The gun's sudden and powerful deployment sprays the entire room, front to back, with clouds of cotton/plastic fuzz. The crowd goes wilder.

Sheppard jumps down from the stage and winds his way through the audience, lugging his instrument along, visible only because of the skull atop the neck of his bass, which bobs above heads like a goblin from Labyrinth.

He leaps back onstage where Westman lays down a steady beat despite looking as calm and laid back as Sheppard does a demon possessed.

In between songs about killing ex-girlfriends and battling zombies ("How many of you have had dead zombies under your house trying to suck your brains out through your nose?"), the Brotherhood wipe sweat from the musicians foreheads and pour drinks down their throats, while Perkins explains how he found the metallic blue guitar he's playing. His hands pass over the three dice that cover the knobs of the instrument (all with outward facing sixes of course) and he dives into a convoluted tale involving Lhasa Apso's and maps drawn with dog crap on kitchen floors.

Riiiiiiiight.

That taken care of, he introduces Dead Bride, a song brought to life by one of the Brotherhood. He steps forward holding a life-sized, wedding dress-clad skeleton (where do they keep pulling this shit from?) and brandishes her like a trophy while red liquid squirts from her eyes into the audience.

The entire show is a festival of props, surprises, red light glow, smoke machine blow and stellar, stellar tunes. It ends with a song called Bush Party that has everyone -from the cowboy at the back to the skinheads at the front, to the underagers with the X's on their hands- dancing and screaming out a back-and-forth ("When I say ‘rock' you say ‘hand job'! That's right -I OWN you now!) with Perkins.

As soon as it ends, much to the disappointment of the rowdied-up crowd, one of the Brotherhood wraps a spent Perkins in a black cape and leads him offstage. Sheppard and Westman follow. They don't return. There is no more. Something that's notable and respectable in an age of all-too-easy-to-come-by-encores. So impressed? I was. Entertained? For sure. Rocked? Hell yes.

Definitely worth the $5.

Actually, worth more than the $5.

Maybe not worth more than my pants though if you know what I mean.