The air is chilly, the leaves are dropping and the darkness lingers longer at night. Yes, spooky season is here and that means the veil between worlds is thinning, allowing ghosts, goblins and ghouls to cross over on Halloween. So why not treat them to some new goth-rock straight out of the East Bay?
Enter Oakland’s Pretty Frankenstein, whose new album, Pagano Puki, Filipino for Pagan—or Witch—Pussy, is released into the wild Oct. 9, with a record-release show at Thee Stork Club Oct. 29. But what sets this album apart from previous Pretty Frankenstein releases is how deeply it draws on Grey Starr’s Filipino heritage.
“It’s kind of a love letter to taking back your mythical energy,” says Starr, Pretty Frankenstein’s singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Filipino transactivist. “It’s an ode to pre-colonial Philippines and the mythology we had.”
Before Spanish colonization and the spread of Christianity, many Filipino communities practiced Indigenous spiritual traditions and honored a range of deities and spiritual beings. Babaylans served as spiritual leaders and healers in some communities. As with many cultures under colonial rule, past generations of Filipinos moved away from their traditional beliefs and assimilated to a more Westernized lifestyle.
Starr is part of a growing generation exploring its ancestral roots that previous generations were pressured to leave behind.
“Our parents, or the generation before, were taught to assimilate to American standards, taught to hide our accents or not present as Filipino,” Starr says. “Through that—and things like religion or Westernized standards, practices and beliefs—we make ourselves smaller.”
But that’s not the only modern theme Pretty Frankenstein explores through the lens of cultural heritage.
“The thing that’s also great is the queer representation in our pre-colonial people,” says Starr, who transitioned in 2022. “A lot of the gods that we were praising were queer deities—neither man nor woman—or presented one way this minute then another the next.”
However, Starr doesn’t just use music to explore her roots. Last year she teamed up with friend and co-worker Bryan Massie and released a manga-inspired comic, Unggoy, which can be found around the Bay Area at shops like Dr. Comics & Mr. Games and Cape & Cowl. Unggoy—which is Tagalog for “monkey”—follows a family of simian vigilantes protecting their village from monsters of Filipino mythology. It’s one part Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and two shots of Dragon Ball Z, shaken with Lupin III and a dash of Cowboy Bebop.
“It’s Filipino folklore, but there’s also a lot of Bay Area references in there,” says Starr, who was born in Berkeley and raised in Richmond. She cut her punk-rock teeth at venues like Burnt Ramen and 924 Gilman along with underground variety shows like Tourettes Without Regrets—now known as Ruckus Revival.
She even wrote a soundtrack for the comic, a six-song banger as epic as any martial arts soundtrack from Hollywood, that can be found on Pretty Frankenstein’s Bandcamp. In true Pretty Frankenstein fashion, the show at Thee Stork Club isn’t a typical punk-rock show. It will be a full-fledged, bloodsucking extravaganza in a way only Pretty Frankenstein can do.
Known for their themed parties, this month the band is hosting “The Vampire Lestat” drag show, inspired by Anne Rice’s novel and its titular character. Along with live music, the show will also feature drag performances by queer artists including Starr, who often runs sound and handles several other jobs during performances to make sure everything goes smoothly. Pretty Frankenstein has put on shows like this for the past five or six years.
“People want to support live music and if they see a bill with several bands they like, they’ll probably come out,” Starr says about the idea for a multi-genre show. “But if it’s one band they don’t exactly know, and there’s down time between sets, it’s like, ‘Is it worth it?’ So we make a big event out of every show we do so people who might not know who Pretty Frankenstein is, but love Interview with the Vampire, might come out because it’s fun to be around people who are fans of what you’re a fan of.”
Pretty Frankenstein’s ‘Pagano Puki’ is out Oct. 9. The record-release show is Thursday, Oct. 29, at Thee Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. theestorkclub.com
