The Beast Beneath Mac: Halloweekend with the Z
by Kate Kemp ‘24
The doors opened at Witching Hour: 7 pm on a Thursday. Carney 203 had previously been deserted, a bare white room casted in shadows. To enter the gallery, you walked through an eerie fluorescent hallway. The walls were lined with purposless padlocked lockers, some opening only to a wall. Except for a ballet class next door, the floor was abandoned. It was perfect.
Students cautiously followed hastily-written glittering signs advertising “Tie-Dye, DJs, and Death” to the upstairs gallery. They were greeted with pounding Halloween rap music from DJ ™ and the blood-curdling set-up of a giant green tarp, multi-colored electric candles, and over 30 different colors of dye to destroy, transform, elevate a simple white shirt. Students trickled, then flooded into the room to attack white WZBC t-shirts with multi-colored fervor.
WZBC is Boston College’s undergraduate-run radio station that has been broadcasting to the greater Boston area since 1973. Normally DJs at the Z play sets in the farthest corner of the MacElroy Commons basement. Past the Bookstore, past the Heights office, you follow the noise, you get to the home of the Z. Entering the studio, your senses are attacked by wall-to-floor posters from decades of past DJs. Other walls are covered with murals depicting aliens and skeletons, or hosting looming shelves filled with 90s rock records.
Normally, DJs are alone in the studio. They are streaming to hundreds of people in Boston and online, but are solitary in the dimly lit broadcasting space. Other times, DJs have co-hosts or interning DJs, a few other souls to keep watch over the precious stream. In contrast, 'Tie-Dye, DJs, and Death' brought together a live audience for DJ sets with the same careful curation as their live radio shows. The normally solitary music-lovers gathered together to add color to the black-and-white WZBC merch.
By 7:30, bleeding white t-shirts were starting to pile up, and a new DJ had ascended to play house and techno. Circles of students formed, their heads bowed over intricately twisted white clothes, enthusiastically squirting rainbow colors on shirts, socks, and hands. At 8, a hyperpop thriller DJ played the closing music as t-shirts were wrapped up, the giant–now mysteriously stained–tarp was folded up, and candles were blown out. With no live audience left, e-board DJs queued growly metal tracks, China Anne McClain’s “Calling All the Monsters,” and most horrifying of all: country music. The yodeling tunes spurred the e-board to erase all evidence of their existence in 203—boxes were packed up, the sound board rolled out, and the lights flickered off. The only thing left behind was a sparkly sign and the echoing tunes from scare-loving students.
To get a taste of the midnight thrillers from 'Tie-Dye, DJs, and Death', turn on the Z all Halloweekend for more spooky scary songs.
Edited by: Sindey Amar 24’