The Skalloween Show @ For the Love Of… 10.29.2026

Got a hankering for slick, polished music that reeks of focus-group overengineering, eliminates the human touch and leaves an antiseptic aftertaste? Find an overpriced stadium show where you can see your dollars hard at work. Or better yet, sit on your ass and let the algorithms output “music” to the specifications of your dreams.

But if instead you want to open the aperture of your tastes, relish the honest, blistering sweat of hard work as guitar skills are still being formed, graciously champion an amateurism flush with passion and support journey over destination, then check out For the Love Of… in the Newgate Mall in Ogden. Yes, you read that right: the Newgate Mall. For it is here that Demeter — the goddess of the harvest — presides over her garden of local arts.

Or as she is known colloquially: Janika Byington. 

Unlike the overseers of other local venues, Byington flips the script for artists seeking to cultivate their talent and performance styles. The musical events she hosts — from female-powered solo acts to rowdy punk/ska/rock shows to bouncy K-pop and DJ artists — are, at all levels of the developmental continuum, welcome to breathe new life into a quiet mall space. “It has been joyful for me to watch [new artists] grow in their performance, their skills and confidence,” she shares. “Human development is my passion. There is more we are capable of when we stop letting other people dictate the ‘shoulds’ and when we allow ourselves to explore and create.”

I caught a front-row seat to this approach to talent development in action at the most soulful skank pit in town. The Skalloween show at For the Love Of… on Oct. 29, 2026 featured four ska bands that played for an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd.

First up was Shut Up Sam, the eight-piece ska band of youngsters repping Ogden High. Decked in Minion costumes with festive flair, they opened the night with playful fervor, matching the beat of a beach ball as it bounced through the crowd. From there, Oppenhammer, a four-piece with a single trombone — dressed in a hybrid of Mario/Luigi caps on top and pirate wear on the bottom — offered their faster ska-core take on post-apocalyptic frenzy. Next, a seven-piece band, The Makeways, took the stage adorned as a judge, lawyers in zoot suits and prisoners, mixing theatrics fitting for the night with a dreamy ska beat. Their smooth, deep grooves glided like butter and offered an elegant, old-style ska counterpoint to all the ecstatic thrashing. And finally, the Atypical Heroes, veterans in the local ska scene, incited the crowd to sweat their costumes all over again. No human was safe when their “Sexy Zombie” song blared and skanking zombies hunted each other, arms outstretched with mindless abandon. 

All four sets ended with musicians trading their place on stage for a spot in the crowd — sensing, blaring, bouncing and sweating along with everyone else.

All the while, our goddess of the harvest, donning the costume of “Janika Byington,” could be found either onstage — emceeing with a bad-ass enthusiasm of her own — or dancing along with all the chaos, savoring the produce from the soil she has so diligently tended. And why shouldn’t she? Demeter herself descended into the underworld to seek what is precious.

But whether at Skalloween or any other event at For the Love Of…, energy feeds off energy. This is a venue where everyone in the room gives and everyone receives. 

So forget therapy. Forget YouTube or Spotify. Forget the comfort of your couch. Instead, spend $12 to dance your way through the corn fields of the skank pit, absorbing the energy of passionate performers, letting them astral-project their own souls into your body. At For the Love Of… Halloween comes year-round. So come masked as “not-yourself,” trade yourself with others and leave sweaty as your true self once again. —Remy Stark

Read more about local music at local venues:
The Soakers, with The Glitter Bombs and Wasting Tuesday @ The International 10.07.2026
Pushing Up Daisies, Classic Trash, GLOSSA & NO HAND @ One Love Coffee Lounge 10.04.2026

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