Click to watch

Petra Haden performs "Thriller"

Soundlab puts an aural spin on the traditional costume party this Saturday with its “Pop-Art Halloween Bash” featuring Petra Haden and the Sell Outs, performing a note-for-note a cappella rendition of the entire The Who Sell Out album—and not just the vocals, the instrumentation too! Released in 1967, Sell Out represents the Who’s first stab at composing a unified concept record and evidences Pete Townshend’s ambition to see rock “progress as art.” Conceived to mimic and celebrate the off-shore pirate radio stations that played the radical pop music banned by the BBC at the time, Sell Out is remembered fondly for the faux radio jingles, commercial ditties and bizarre rock narratives about pop products (like deodorant and acne cream) that preoccupied Britain’s angst-ridden 1960s “mods.” In 2005, the album’s unfolding history took a surprising turn when legendary bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) made an intriguing proposition to his friend Petra Haden, a member of alt-rock faves the Rentals, the Decemberists, and that.dog and contributor to records by Beck, the Foo Fighters, Green Day and Weezer. Presenting her with an eight-track recorder and a copy of Sell Out, Watt suggested that she recreate the record’s boundless sonic landscapes using only her voice. The resulting document became a critical hit and a postmodern delicacy that reveals the true melodic range hidden inside the Who’s rough exterior. It also charmingly re-cast the songs of an avowed “guy’s band” in a different context. Haden subsequently formed The Sell Outs, a nine-woman a cappella choir, to realize her vocal experiments live. How wonderful and strange to hear so many female voices extolling the virtues of “Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands.” The bill also includes performances by The Old Sweethearts with DJs, theme giveaways, pop-art Halloween projections and more.

Saturday, October 28 at 9pm. Soundlab. 110 Pearl St. (440-5907);$12-$15.