YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Halloween night will bring a three-part rock ’n’ roll treat to West Side Bowl.
The evening will feature an album release show by Munnycat and a concert by The Zou – its first in eight years. It will culminate with The Zou reprising its famed “Rocky Horror Picture Show” concert.
Tickets will go on sale Friday at WestSideBowl.com/tickets/.
It’s a gobsmacker of a show that heralds the return of one of the area’s top rock bands, as well as being a rare chance to catch the L.A.-based Munnycat.
Both acts share the same roots.
The Zou is led by Khaled Tabbara but hasn’t played a show since 2017. That’s when he and Katianne Timko formed Munnycat and left Youngstown for Los Angeles.
Munnycat released its first full-length vinyl album, “Til Death We Do Art,” in August.
The avant-garde electro-indie pop duo has also become known for its ear-candy music samples, which have been used in national commercials, films and television. It also brings an eye-catching stage show with dancers.
Tabbara and Timko were planning a fall Munnycat album release show in Youngstown when they got the idea to combine it with a Zou concert and a “Rocky Horror” set.
The Zou was known for its complex but fun – and occasionally ghoulish – songs that had a theatrical flair. During its Youngstown heyday, the band would do a Halloween show every year that mixed songs from the “Rocky Horror” soundtrack with some spooky covers.
Tabbara said the time just felt right to get The Zou back together and do it again.
“It’s not like we broke up,” he said in a phone interview. “We just stopped making records for a little bit, and now we’re going to make some more. We’re going to do another show and maybe make another record sometime in the future. But the Halloween show seems like a fun way to [get it started].”
The evening will most likely begin with a Munnycat set, followed by The Zou, and ending with the “Rocky Horror” concert, but the order hasn’t been finalized yet.
“What we always used to do for our Halloween show was a set of originals [by The Zou], then we’d leave the stage, then come back and cover music from ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show.’” Tabbara said. “In later years, we’d add some spooky cover songs. But we haven’t really decided anything yet [for the upcoming show].”
The Zou had generations of members who cycled in and out of the band during its long lifespan. Tabbara said he “was blessed to have this amazing roster of players.”
The lineup for the Halloween show will consist of some of the most stalwart members.
In addition to Tabbara and Timko, it will include Robbie Thorndike on guitar; Bernadette Lim on keyboards, guitar and vocals; Dean Anshutz on drums; and Adam DeAscentis on bass.
Tabbara’s artistic output has several facets – including Munnycat, acoustic performances and live theater.
But The Zou is his most personal project. “It’s the most authentically Khaled version of all the different things I get to do,” he said.
The idea of bringing the band back arose while Timko was filming a docuseries to accompany the Munnycat album release.
The first two segments of the four-part series are in-depth interviews with Tabbara and Timko in which they look back on their artistic pasts.
“That just kind of got us going,” Tabbara said. “We were digging through all this Zou footage and finding all these old photos. And she’s asking all these questions, and we’re bringing up songs and it was just like, man, we gotta do this. It’s been long enough. I’m totally ready.”
While Timko was not an original member of The Zou, she did perform with the band in its latter years, including at its 2015 performance at the famed Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado.
Anshutz was part of the earliest iterations of the band before he left to become the drummer for Red Wanting Blue, but he never stopped collaborating with Tabbara.
“We’ve always been just really good friends,” Tabbara said of Anshutz. “On the ‘The Zou Kills 2’ album, which is the last LP we made, he co-wrote songs and played drums on a lot of it [even though he was no longer in the band]. He’s always been kind of a creative collaborator brother to me. Every now and then he’ll send me something, and I’ll be like, ‘Hey, this could be a Zou idea!”
Tabbara and his Zou bandmates will relearn the band’s songs on their own and then gather for live rehearsals a week or so before the West Side Bowl show.
“I want to make sure that we all get back in the same room and get to run through it a couple times and get the vibe going,” he said. “Because this is a lot of material. It’s not just throwing some songs together for an open mic night. This is a lot of challenging material for me. I gotta get my keyboard sounds dialed in.”
Pictured at top: Khaled Tabbara performs during a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” concert by The Zou close to a decade ago.