Forget costume shopping and candy stocking. UCLA Live has bookended this weekend with enough idiosyncrasy for both body and soul to set the stage for this Halloween.

Pere Ubu are draftsmen of hard-edged, experimental garage rock, which the band refers to as “avant-garage.” Diamanda Galas reigns as arguably the queen of goth rock. And they’re both part of UCLA Live’s “Far Out Halloweekend,” with performances by both artists, including a screening of the classic Roger Corman B-movie “X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes” with a live underscore by Pere Ubu.

Since its formation in the 1970s, Pere Ubu has influenced the likes of Joy Division, REM, the Pixies and Bauhaus with music that is simultaneously angst-ridden, moody and founded on a textural and almost suspenseful use of the synthesizer.

The underscore to “X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes” provides a skeletal frame of basic melodies and movement. Within this frame, however, the band will create their own interpretation of the music from the film, relying greatly on an improvisational aspect that guides much of their own music.

“There’s no continuity in these things – that’s the great thing about B-movies,” said David Thomas, the lead singer and guitar player of Pere Ubu, as well as the only remaining original member.

“It’s one person’s weird vision which has slipped past all the editorial because the budget is so low that no one in the studio pays any attention to it. ... You get personalized visions, and those are always the most interesting things” Thomas said.

Pere Ubu originally formed in Cleveland, taking from influences such as The Stooges, MC5 and Sun Ra. They were founded upon a set of rules that included “don’t ever audition,” “don’t seek success,” and “put unique people together. Unique people will play uniquely whether or not they know how to play.”

The band has gone through numerous lineup changes since its creation in 1975. Along the way it has established a reputation just as much for its dark and contemplative music as its unwillingness to concede to popular trends.

“We’re very difficult. We’re a totally uncompromising group. We do exactly what we want to do and we create difficult music,” Thomas said. “It’s not some intellectual difficulty and it’s not weird – it’s all based on a very hard groove and Midwestern approaches. ... (The music) has a visionary visual approach. At times it’s pretty dark or obsessive or personalized.”

As a result, their music has earned itself praise from critics but little attention from the greater public. Nevertheless, Pere Ubu retains its edge.

“Now we’re just a bunch of old codgers and still addicted to brutal rock,” Thomas said. “(It’s not exactly commercial), but we can rock the socks off any 20-year-old punk rocker.”

Galas, a classically trained pianist with a 3 1/2 octave vocal range, begins the event on Friday night with works from her two upcoming releases, “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty” and “You’re My Thrill.” Both albums showcase Galas’ ornate and fierce renditions of songs by classic singers like Edith Piaf, Johnny Cash and Judy Garland.

“I started to cover these songs by (Marlene) Dietrich and Piaf and Peggy Lee and it started this whole chase of complete mania,” Galas said.

Galas performed blues and ’30s standards when she was younger, both solo and as part of her father’s New Orleans jazz band. But her recent return to those genres signals a shift from her previous albums, which were largely motivated by the atrocity of the AIDS pandemic and the Armenian, Assyrian and Anatolian Greek genocides.

Having recently witnessed her parents being hospitalized and their struggle together through what she described as tremendous anguish, Galas saw the importance these songs held for her parents.

“A lot of (songwriters for Hollywood films) came out of classical fields and a lot of different fields of music so they wrote incredible chord changes,” Galas said.

“They wrote chord changes that alone tell you the story – you don’t even have to hear the words. But at the same time their lyrics were impeccable.”

Although the songs themselves are more familiar, Galas puts her own spin on them, permeating the melodies with an almost animalistic intensity and her individual caterwauling style.

While neither of the acts performing this weekend are household names, Galas feels that the college atmosphere may be well suited for these types of performances.

“College students are often searching for something new and interesting or new interpretations of things and they’re a lot less jaded than others,” Galas said. “A lot of times college students aren’t (in school) just to drink – they’re actually going there to see something interesting.”