EVERYTHING BUT BOINGO : Even Without Danny Elfman and Company, This Halloween Will Still Have Rhythm and Rhyme

Well, the thousands of Southlanders who have made Oingo Boingo a Halloween tradition for seven years will have to find someplace else to do their celebrating this time.

“I don’t like to be a trained monkey on stage,” band leader Danny Elfman told The Times recently, explaining the band’s decision to end its Halloween shows. “It was starting to feel like a Fourth of July Beach Boys’ show, and the concept of that really makes me nauseous.”

Oingo Boingo took a light approach to the macabre, with such bouncy-happy ditties as “Dead Man’s Party.”

Any wayward Boingo fans who haven’t heard the news and mistakenly wander into Irvine Meadows will be in for a rude surprise this Halloween: Gothic, hail-Satan metal band Danzig, whose logo is a horned skull, is the headliner.

Danzig (whose current album is titled “How the Gods Kill”) might be a good match for Halloween, but if it isn’t your idea of a good time, there are other entertainment choices this year, with the holiday falling conveniently on a Saturday. Some events start late in the evening, while other Halloween-themed events are scheduled for Friday, leaving plenty of time for tricks and treats.

(The Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Scary Farm, the area’s biggest Halloween blowout, has long been sold out for Friday and Saturday.)

Orange County’s prime musical ticket has to be Los Lobos at the new Rhythm Cafe, a 600-seat club that takes over the Santa Ana location of the short-lived Hamptons concert club (before that, it was the Harlequin Dinner Theatre for years).

“We don’t get an opportunity to play in Orange County that often. Usually, we do just one big show in Los Angeles at the Greek or something,” said Louis Perez of the Whittier-based band. “Also, it’s not that often that we get to play a small, intimate club.”

Perez, the drummer and co-writer (with David Hidalgo) of most of the group’s music, said Los Lobos may take one of two musical approaches at the Rhythm Cafe. One is a rock-oriented show, which draws heavily from its most recent album, “Kiko.” “Kiko,” released in May, might be the most acclaimed record of the band’s career (see story, Page 8).

Another format the group has been experimenting with is a sort of survey of Los Lobos’ musical history, starting with mostly acoustic instruments and segueing into a more electric show, including material from the new album. “It’s Lobos Lite--that’s a term our road manager uses,” Perez said. “We start out with the folkloric stuff and end up where we are now.”

The group tried out the approach in small theaters in September, and “it went over real big,” Perez said. “As far as Halloween goes, who knows? We might do something unusual.”

Los Lobos will perform twice Saturday, at 7:30 and 10:45 p.m., at the Rhythm Cafe, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., four blocks north of the San Diego (405) Freeway. Tickets are $29.50 to $31. The club offers a full dinner menu. Information: (714) 556-2233.

Speaking of unusual-- really unusual--Gary Tesch is back with one of his psychedelic Funhouse shows, although he has moved it this year from Old World in Huntington Beach to the Santa Ana Elks Lodge. Tesch started Funhouse as a weekly event five years ago, but it’s getting more and more sporadic. From here on out, he says, it will only be offered on Halloween.

With mazes, games, gory slide shows and even a sideshow of “pickled pets” in jars, Tesch describes the event as a ‘90s version of a ‘40s carnival: “It has a throwback feel to it. It’s like a twisted kind of psychedelic carnival.”

The event’s trademark look includes giant paintings of carnival freaks, lots of strobe lights and mannequins and a big dance floor (the, um, distinctive paintings are by Kurt Benbenek). The entertainment includes costume contests, “PG- or R-rated” carnival games along with lots of recorded music (Tesch promises only the “cool” stuff) along with a performance by Tesch’s “acid jazz” band, Sol. “It’s the closest thing to an eighth-grade kind of cheesy Halloween party you can imagine,” Tesch said. “This just offers the feel of Halloween as much as possible.” The event drew about 1,500 people last Halloween, and Tesch describes a typical crowd as college-age and “artsy.”

Funhouse will be Friday, beginning at 8:30 p.m., at the Santa Ana Elks Lodge, 212 Elk Lane, Santa Ana (near the Santa Ana Zoo). Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door. Information: (310) 433-0966.

Among the numerous Halloween offerings at local nightclubs, hotels and concert venues, one of the biggest is Richard Moriarity’s Gala Halloween Costume Ball on Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Irvine, 17900 Jamboree Road.

Rock group the Busboys are the featured entertainment this year. The doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance, $30 on the day of the event. For information, call (714) 966-5152.

For those of you who do want to check out Danzig, along with White Zombie and Kyuss, they play Saturday at 8 p.m. at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive in Irvine. The only remaining tickets are general admission lawn seating at $12.80. Information: (714) 740-2000.

As for kids’ events, the Discovery Museum in Santa Ana will hold a Victorian-style Halloween party Saturday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Children will listen to ghost stories, make their own party favors and trick-or-treat through the museum’s historic Kellogg House and “haunted” orange grove.

The Kellogg House, built in 1898, will be decorated as it might have been at the turn of the century, with jack-o’-lanterns, apples, squash, autumn leaves and flowers. Children will take part in old-fashioned “tests of fate and fortune,” including the witch’s hat toss and the apple seed test, and will be entertained by magician Michael Rovno.

Admission to the event is $10 ($8.50 for museum members) and includes crafts and refreshments. Reservations are recommended. The museum is at 3101 W. Harvard St. in Santa Ana. Information: (714) 540-0404.

In Fountain Valley, children 9 and under are invited to a free bash, the 11th annual Halloween Costume Contest and Monster Mash. Activities include a costume parade, a jack-o’-lantern contest (pre-carved pumpkins only) and carnival games.

The event will be at the Fountain Valley Recreation Center, 16400 Brookhurst Ave. (at Heil Street). Information: (714) 839-8611.

Halloween can even be a cultural event for the young’uns--witness the children’s offering by Ballet Pacifica on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to standard kiddie fare “Peter and the Wolf” (choreographed by Lili Zali to Prokofiev’s orchestral primer), the program includes “Ghouls and Goblins.”

Choreographed by Corinne Calamaro to music by Mussorgsky and Saint-Saens, “Ghouls and Goblins” is a balletic look at the doings of skeletons, ghosts, bats, a headless ghoul and a witch. Show times are 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. both days at the Festival Forum Theatre, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tickets are $6 to $8. Information: (714) 642-9275.

Finally, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, the Irvine Youth Symphony will perform at 11 a.m. on Saturday in a children’s Halloween concert. Admission to the concert is $5 to $10 but will be free to children in costume. Irvine Barclay Theatre is at 4242 Campus Drive in Irvine. Information: (714) 854-4646.

Poets are getting into the act, too, with two Halloween-themed readings on Friday. The North Orange County Poetry Society will present an “Unearthly” open poetry reading at 7:30 p.m. at the Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave. Readers are asked to bring their scariest poems. Admission is $3. Information: (714) 520-0132.

The Laguna Poets will hold an open poetry reading and Halloween seance at 8 p.m. at Upchurch-Brown Booksellers, 384 Forest Ave. in Laguna Beach. Admission is free. Information: (714) 494-6649.

One more stage event: A theatrical production of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”--Washington Irving’s classic of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman--opens Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Actor’s Playbox at Golden West College, 15744 Golden West St., Huntington Beach. Performances continue through Nov. 8. Tickets are $3 to $5. Information: (714) 895-8378.