Delicious Departed

To a relatively select few, there is no better way to spend Halloween than at a bash hosted by The Dearly Departed.

A local band that most who know either love or hate, the gothic blues trio lets the freaks come out Sunday at 9 p.m. at Far West Billiards, 1001 W. First. No cover. The trio also opens a pre-Halloween party with Big John Bates on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. at The B-Side, 230 W. Riverside. The cover is $4.

The defining characteristic, or rather character, of DD is “the guy named Heidi,” or Hidde Hanen- burg, and his trademark from hat- to-toe Tom Waits-esque swagger.

Hanenburg, 43, has been a fixture in the local music scene for close to 10 years. But The Dearly Departed – guitarist and frontman Hanen- burg, bassist Jonathon Hawkins and drummer Jake McBurns – played its first live show at The Viking in 2002 and became a regular there until the crew made enough money to put out its first, self-titled album.

Since then the band has developed a staunch, albeit niche following, for its guitar-torching twangy songs full of four-letter words and allusions to Lucifer.

While the fans he does have love his darkly twisted sense of profanity-packed humor, Hanenburg has met and been confronted by many who have no sympathy for his devilish ditties and psycho-sex obsessions. Hanenburg is amused by the polar reactions he gets from songs such as “Jailhouse Bride” and “Hermaphrodite.”

“We can clear a house faster than anybody, and yet we have some fans that are really passionate about what we do,” Hawkins said.

Imagining himself as a modern- day Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads every chance he gets, Hanenburg makes reference to the devil in nearly every song, which doesn’t always go over well with the audience. He often jokes about the irony of him being an atheist and singing songs about a religious figure he doesn’t believe exists.

“This one woman was so mad that she flipped me off and left and came back just to flip me off again,” Hanenburg said.