Set Your Goals' Halloween Adventure

What started out as a routine vehicle detour through an unholy valley quickly turned into a theatrical event of monstrous and vampirous proportions. Fair and elegant maidens were dead-alive by nightfall, and their immoral sights and evils were soon redirected on a band that thought that on this night (of all nights) it would maybe be ok if they showed up just a tad bit ‘late to the show’…

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Set Your Goals had not a single clue as to how they got here, nor a single bar of cell phone service had they wanted to find one. All transmissions had mysteriously failed on their trusty blue ox-car, and the moon was well in bloom, preventing any serious repairs from being made until morning. They were officially stuck in the mud and this time it wasn’t Dave’s fault. The only thing the band knew was that load-in for the show was over 2 hours ago and they probably shouldn’t have stopped every 20 minutes for snacks and shacks as they had done every time before. Confused as to what step to take next, the six Californians did the only thing they could do; argue and inadvertently destroy their only sense of direction: an old, coffee-stained road atlas that had stood the test of time and saved SYG from many a crisis and bind. “Mappy McMapperson! What have we done??” yelled Jordan, “Go find him, everyone! He is our last remaining hope.” With that, SYG split up to each retrieve a piece of their one and only road graph… or… Mappy (as they apparently called it now). Great planning was at the forefront of another outing for the San Francisco sextet…

Matthew Opre Wilson was the first to venture off in search of the missing atlas pieces. Distracted by the wonderful world of insects, as he often was, the tiniest of the two vocalists strayed from the beaten path only to be stealthily lurked by an alluring folkloric blood-consumer whom they called Sasqueela: Monarch of the ‘Last-Call Death-Kissers’. She was an unfaltering vampire queen, and Matthew Opre was to be her tender, placid meat king. Unaware of his new environment, Matthew continued to delight himself with several new glow-worm and firefly species, which he suspected might be native to the nearby marshland that his band had currently found themselves befoggled in. Sasqueela approached cautiously, yielding a potentially eternal doom. With one swift impulse, she raised open her darkness-endowing buccal cavity and went in for the kill. Matt’s adrenaline raced as her reddened cuspids clenched down on his trachea, tore through his spinal accessory nerve, and spilled open his right internal jugular. Startled and somewhat still excited from his unanticipated frolic with the local bug life, the only thought that crossed his mind was, “But dude, I’m in the band…”

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Audelio “Junior” Flores and Michael D. Ambrose were the next to run amok in this haunting tale of spooks and sprites. The pair would soon find themselves in a much similar, if not fiendishly worse, situation as their fellow band mate, Ope, was presently fighting to survive in. Heeding signs of caution in a rather notable abundance, a dimly lit cemetery would set the scene for the next of our tragic adversities. “Delio, come hither, mon frere. I have garnered us a leafing lamp with which we may tool bright radiance to read fine prints,” exclaimed Mike as he kneeled with a lantern he had stumbled upon two gravesites earlier. “Ay, and I a piece of Mappy’s endowing index reference sheet. It is a worthy inkling that will assuredly lead us to salvation. Together, we shall re-assemble the band and make the show yet!” replied Deli-Flo, hopeful and optimistic once again. “Googles and fluff!” burped Mike, “Let us, however, have a quick look around before we depart for the mighty liver-fluke sauce wok.” Though Audelio thought this might not be the best of ideas, he let Mike have his way, and the two of them began to cavort in the suffocating midnight hour. It didn’t take much grave biting or trespassing before the duo got just what they had asked for, or hadn’t asked for as the case may have been. Rising from the soils of the ghoulish ground on which they infringed, feminous, flesh-hungry succubi targeted the harlequins as prime candidates for dismemberment. The discord had been set and the games, on all accounts, had commenced…

Raymond Saucedo, or “Joe” as he would have introduced himself, had no business going off on his own in the first place. This shouldn’t even be a scene in this story. I don’t know why we’re even having to write this right now. It’s just frustrating. He should have just stayed in the van where he could have listened to his 30 gig shuffle pod safe from vampires, fish-net zombies, and any other splendid demons you might want to conjure up, and his lack of survival skills wouldn’t have even been an issue on this night. But no, Joe had to get all brave for a quick second there and plaster up his tuft in an attempt to prove that he would be, and was indeed, the band’s ultimate trouble-shooter. Well, surprisingly enough, Joe did manage to acquire the last piece of the band’s missing road map, but not before stepping a little too close to a water bank where he had discovered the graph page lying torn. “What’s that? Who’s there?” wheezed Joe as his eyes struggled to gain focus on the body of water that was now splashing lively in front of him. “I smell girls and fish,” but there was no trace of either. Not yet at least. Before he could mumble another run-on sentence, four vibrant mermaid nemeses sped their way wondrously out of the murky surface and latched tightly onto Joe’s brittle waist and shoulders. They were neither nymphs nor sirens, but certifiable aqua-loonz (modern day “swamp bitches” as they would later be coined) and they wanted blood. Joe didn’t care that they had gills or webbed feet, or that they were forest green. In fact, if it hadn’t been for them wanting to drain his hypothalamus through his cranial sweat pores, he would have considered hitting them up for their “contact info”. But contact info and swamp-bitch-dating was out of the question tonight. Joe, lamentably, had fallen in a hair-length too deep…

Meanwhile, back at the van, Jordan and Dave were working on some pre-show guitar riffing when they heard a rustling and painful groaning coming from outside. It was Junior. He had stumbled nearly 2 miles across a plain of blood and mud, his left foot twisting an inch or two around each time he took a step. It had been violently dislocated during his tussle w/the surprise-attack zombie girls back at the graveyard. Dizzy from the sickening smell of rotting flesh echoing through his nasal cavity and traumatized mind, Junior gripped tightly to the fragment of map, which he had recovered before the brutal fight. He approached the van door. Stunned at a site of what appeared to be their fellow band mate and friend, Jordan and Dave looked up in dismay from the guitar they had been rehearsing with. “They got Mikey……. I, I…. couldn’t save him….” Junior brokenly stammered. “What in the… Get in the van and lock the door!” demanded Jordan. “We will go for the others. Dave, call someone on a message board and tell them what’s up. We are cancelling tonight’s show.” Dave sent out a quick t-mail from his phone then reached back to grab his newly shape shifted guitar, now a weapon in the hands of vengeance and derangement. “Lets go get them, lets go get them all!” cried Dave. And with that, the two of them were off…

A trail of fallen neon dragonflies led them first to Matt. “Our Magnate has arrived,” pronounced Sasqueela to the Death-Kissers. “I am no King!” Matt carried on, “I am only a boy, a 25 year old boy. Spare me this life of ruin, which you so effortlessly wade in.” Sasqueela and her roaming cronies did not take kindly to this abusive invective. They began to tighten ropes, which they had used to bind the fragile to their sacrificial spruce tree, but as quick as they were tied, they had been cut free. A bellowing scream burst forth from the underbrush. Like a wild Yeti, Jordan charged into the midst of the sucubine circle, swinging the guitar in full arcs and chopping down bodies as if it were second nature. “Hear us now, wenches of the night! With this stringed incantator, your souls shall be damned twice and twice again!” Hot vampire claws slashed and gashed at Matt’s neck as Dave continued to free him from the ropes he had been positioned for drinking with. He carried him through the clawing crowd with all his might as Jordan pummelled heads and bodies with the soul crushing git-axe, a tool that would cover the trio’s narrow retreat…

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The next member to be accounted for was Joe. He had been splashing about with The Swamp Bitches for nearly 30 minutes now, and it’s a miracle he hadn’t gone under yet. No lifeguard had been on duty that evening, but fortunately a lifesaver float ring was in site. It was the first rational solution that the band could have used to save Joe’s drowning life, and they did. They then headed immediately to the cemetery where Mikey had been left to hold his own with the starving zombie army. Jordan and Dave both knew their other demonic pursuers couldn’t be far behind, so they steadily wound through rows of dilapidated headstones as they headed for the final recovery. Dave was the first to spot their percussionist, lying half conscience twitching and moaning for help. Hovering over him were those undead tomb-walkers, the half-rotten graveyard beezies of resurrection, and they were consuming Mikey’s flesh coat as if it were a frenzied thanksgiving feast. Jordan and Dave analyzed his life status from behind a massive sarcophagus. There may have been some missing fingers and a couple severed ribs, but he was still alive more or less. No more time to spare. Jordan grabbed Mikey’s arm and hoisted him over his shoulder while Dave brandished the guitar to keep the zombies at bay. Rescue #3: secured and confirmed…

With all six members in tact, or for the most part at least, SYG made their way back to the initial site where their vehicle had first broken down so abruptly that evening. Junior had somehow managed to revive the engine and was waiting anxiously for the others to return. Set Your Goals rejoiced at this glorious site for sore eyes. They all piled in, jumped the gas, and headed out of the hills, never to return to the valley again!

The End

PS: We, the band, are aware that this may not be the most climactic of endings. But keeping in mind that four of us were just bitten by a bunch of vampires, zombies, and fish-scaled vivid girls, we’ve left plenty of room open for a sequel, a Part 2 for a Set Your Ghouls! Muahahaha…. Purple arachnids everywhere!!!

Note from the Photographer:
The horror shoot in the making! I think it all started with Steve from Big D in the Kids Table passing on a message to someone who then passed it on to Jordan that I wanted to work with Set Your Goals. After a few emails back and forth it was pretty apparent that Jordan and I shared a vision, that of some campy horror fun. In the weeks leading up to the shoot we found a cast of over 40 people. Girls from Playboy, Maxim, and all the leading pin ups and found a crew that could assemble a cemetery, paint up all the girls, and pull off 13 different set ups all in the course of one evening. There were some worries the night before about rain but the day was going off without a hitch until about 7 or 8 pm when Jordan says, “Ama L! Today has turned out so great and I told you we’d be fine and it wouldn’t rain!” :::cue thunderclap and rapid downpour::: at this point we stop shooting and build impromptu tents for the make up artists and the girls, cover all the lighting equipment and everyone but myself, my crew, and the band brave the elements. After the generator started smoking and turned off (leaving everyone in complete darkness) I think I punched Jordan… or just thought about it, ha ha. But in the end everything worked out and it was a really fun project! Would I do it again?? In a heartbeat, SYG are some really stellar dudes : ) – Ama Lea

Cast and Crew
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Photographer: Ama Lea
Illustrator: Sean Kearney

Set Your Ghouls:
Jordan Brown – Vocals
Matt Wilson – Vocals
Mike Ambrose – Drums
Dave Yoha – Guitar
Audelio Flores – Guitar
Joseph Saucedo – Bass

Vampire Girls:
Shannon Marie
Kat Kartel
Victoria Vengeance
Reanna Rae
Cherry Martini
Jenny Chaos
Monique

Zombie Girls:
Vanessa Vixen
Hazmat
Ce Ce La Rue
Johanna
Glory
Bonnie Benzedrine

Swamp Bitches:
Nikki Rhodes
Kimmi Karma
Hayley Horvath
Jordan Davidson

Makeup Artists:
Martine
Shannon French
Morgan Jenks
P.J. Olay

Tech Crew:
Rob Soucy
Aaron Palmer
Jessica Boyer
Kevin