Music this Halloweekend

LOX ROX: As if you needed a reminder, it’s that time of year again, when the ghosts run amok and terrors from the underworld return to Earth to claim their annual sacrifice of human blood, and we, fancifully, wear costumes and seek out the best parties. The days leading up to All Hallows’ Eve from this publication date offer multiple opportunities for mask testing, should you be overflowing with costume ideas or, in my case, struggling to think of one.

The tricks and treats start tonight, Thursday, October 27, at M8RX Nightclub, with Ghost in the Machine, a Halloween-themed event put on by Sound & Society and the UCSB DJ Club, featuring Lox Chatterbox, A Boy & A Girl, Sir. Roscoe, and deejays from the UCSB DJ Club (9pm, 409 State St.).

Even if you don’t yet know Lox Chatterbox by name, it’s likely you’ve heard him before. Whether it’s in a Snoop Dogg collaboration or a beat that’s landed a licensing spot with the NBA or TNT, the San Luis Obispo–based rapper and hip-hop and EDM producer has touched on all kinds of projects and productions, stretching beyond the seclusion of the S.L.O. coast to ears worldwide. “It’s hard to come out of the Central Coast; it’s a little tucked away from the rest of the world,” said Lox, who has diligently and dedicatedly worked at his craft since he was 15 years old. Staying humble and keeping expectations realistic, he said, has kept him in the game for so long. “It keeps you from having those crashing moments or feeling hopeless; you don’t get your bubble popped.”

Lox grew up in Bakersfield before moving to S.L.O. as a teenager, and he was struck by the picturesque postcard town he found himself in. “I moved from a really shitty part of town to this beautiful dream town where everything was out of a movie, you know?” he said. Yet he felt alienated, so he turned to music in his private hours, wherein his output took on a shining and positive attitude from his new climes.

The gradual climb to recognition has come with its costs, soul-taxes that Lox has artfully addressed in his new work, How to Sell Your Soul. Any endeavor, he lamented, seems to come with some kind of compromise of self. “We think from the purest beginnings; we all get into what we want to do, thinking from the purest viewpoint” until the complications of everyday reality show us how little we feel able to actualize. “You wanted to be a doctor to help people; 10 years later you’re just prescribing shit people are paying you to give samples out — little things that you compromise your morals on in order to just pay the bills.”

But through music comes liberation; even at a cost, a sense of joy and optimism comes through. With patience and persistence, it’s paying off. Hear Lox tonight, and let your spirits rise from their routine deadness.

CALLING ALL DANCING SKELETONS: There’s plenty more musical candy to grab from the outstretched bowl of the beckoning weekend. If Friday night’s all right for a drive up the 154, wear your best costume to Cold Spring Tavern, where area indie rockers The Agreeables showcase their more than agreeably great rock (7pm, 5995 Stagecoach Rd.). It might rain, so what a charming place to cozy up!

Saturday’s got plenty more goodies. Area nerd-rocker masterminds Nerf Herder will be joined by The Mormons with a costume contest at Velvet Jones (8pm, 423 State St.). If you were planning on dressing ’80s style, the Molly Ringwald Project will host a decade-themed dance party at SOhO Restaurant & Music Club (9:30 pm, 1221 State St.). And on Halloween itself, dance sensation Nghtmre takes on the Earl Warren Showgrounds (6pm, 3400 Calle Real) — hope you’re not scared of dancing!