March 2011 (PDF) - Antigravity Magazine
March 2011 (PDF) - Antigravity Magazine
March 2011 (PDF) - Antigravity Magazine
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
STAFF<br />
Publisher/Editor in Chief:<br />
Leo McGovern<br />
leo@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Associate Editor:<br />
Dan Fox<br />
fox@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
REVIEWS EDITOR:<br />
Erin Hall<br />
erinhall@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
staff writerS:<br />
Michael Patrick Welch<br />
mpw@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Dan Mitchell<br />
danmitchell@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Contributing Writers:<br />
Michael Bateman<br />
crawstika@gmail.com<br />
Emily Elhaj<br />
alhaajj@gmail.com<br />
Laine Kaplan-Levenson<br />
lainekaplev@gmail.com<br />
Sara Pic<br />
sara.pic@gmail.com<br />
Ashley Robison<br />
ashe.mischief@gmail.com<br />
Mike Rodgers<br />
mike@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Brett Schwaner<br />
brett@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Derek Zimmer<br />
derek@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Ad Sales:<br />
ads@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
504-881-7508<br />
Cover design by Dan Fox; This<br />
page’s Vockah Redu photo by Bees<br />
Knees<br />
We like stuff! Send it to:<br />
4916 Freret St.<br />
New Orleans, La. 70115<br />
Have listings? Send them to:<br />
events@antigravitymagazine.com<br />
ANTIGRAVITY is a publication of<br />
ANTIGRAVITY, INC.<br />
Resources:<br />
Homepage:<br />
antigravitymagazine.com<br />
Twitter:<br />
twitter.com/antigravitymag<br />
VOCKAH REDU TAKES HIS SHOW ON<br />
THE ROAD_PG 15<br />
FEATURES:<br />
ANTI-News_page 4<br />
Foburg II_page 16<br />
Crowbar_page 18<br />
Pygmy Lush’s Mike<br />
Taylor_page 20<br />
Mike Watt_page 23<br />
INTRO<br />
COLUMNS:<br />
Hello, Nurse_page 8<br />
Medical advice from a local nurse!<br />
Guidance Counseling_page 9<br />
Advice from a local celebrity!<br />
Splash Zone_page 10<br />
This month in theatre.<br />
The Goods_page 11<br />
This month in fashion.<br />
Slingshots, Anyone?_page 12<br />
That sneaky Derek.<br />
Beats per Month_page 13<br />
This month in record spinning.<br />
Photo Review_page 38<br />
The month in photos.<br />
REVIEWS_pg. 27<br />
EVENTS_pg. 30<br />
<strong>March</strong> listings for the NOLA area...<br />
COMICS_pg. 37<br />
How To Be Happy, K Chronicles, Will<br />
Frank’s Monsterhead and Quarter<br />
Vomit by Otto Splotch!<br />
Greetings and general comments about all this weather<br />
we’re having! This month’s issue is a funny one; as I write<br />
this we are playing an intense game of chicken with the<br />
Mardi Gras holiday, which is fast closing in on the last remaining<br />
hours of productivity. You’ll be reading this, of course, long after<br />
the festivities are over and our collective holiday pains have eased<br />
a bit. I’m proud of this issue and all of the diverse talent that came<br />
our way in bringing it together, from long time zineketeer Ethan<br />
Clark contributing a Vockah Redu tour diary (we never get enough<br />
of those around here-- keep getting out there, artists!) to another<br />
solid piece on our friends in Pygmy Lush by Thou guitarist and<br />
all around solid dude Andy Gibbs. I even roped in my room-andband-mate<br />
Izzy to help me interview punk icon and twisted guru<br />
Mike Watt. That interview was a lot of fun. Throw in Dan Mitchell’s interview with Crowbar about their new album,<br />
a rundown of a couple of different music festivals happening around town and it’s quite the casserole we’ve baked up<br />
for you. Just add French-fried onions. Well, Izzy was nice enough to buy me a bottle of Maker’s Mark and I promised<br />
myself I wouldn’t crack it until this issue was finished, so let me wrap it up and wish everyone a happy Spring. Lots<br />
to do. Let’s get going! --Dan Fox, Associate Editor<br />
3
ANTI-NEWS<br />
ANTIGRAVITY PICKS FOR THE COMING MONTH<br />
BY ERIN HALL & DAN MITCHELL<br />
The Body/ Whitehorse/ Hull/ Battilus/ Mutilation Rites and more @ Siberia Monday, <strong>March</strong><br />
21st<br />
This upcoming show at Siberia will mark the third time the Arkansas via Rhode Island doom duo<br />
of the Body will tear through New Orleans in just one year. As far as doom metal acts in America<br />
go, the Body is the crème of the crop. Their show brings a certain viciousness to the stage that few<br />
other acts can even come close to replicating, and if you have missed their past shows with Thou,<br />
go to this one! Joining the Body will be Melbourne, Australia’s down-tempo greats Whitehorse,<br />
the Body’s Brooklyn label-mates, Hull, Vendetta Records’ crushers Battilus, also out of Brooklyn,<br />
and the absolutely brutal, blackened Brooklyn band Mutilation Rites, whose 2010 demo recording<br />
I just got a couple of weeks back and cannot stop listening to. The show is going to be serious—just<br />
bring your earplugs, because things will certainly get LOUD for this one. -DM<br />
Dom/ Parts & Labor/ Pterodactyl @ Circle Bar<br />
Tuesday, <strong>March</strong> 15th<br />
The show brings three bands together, two from Brooklyn, Parts & Labor and Pterodactyl, and<br />
one from the small town of Worcester, MA, Dom. The curious thing about this show is that Dom<br />
appears to be the headlining act here. Not to slight them, but Dom is the newest in formation out<br />
of all of the groups, the youngest in age and has the most to prove, especially after critics across<br />
the country praised the band for their brief debut EP, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods. While the effort<br />
is pretty solid and points perhaps towards potential future greatness, it is by no means a stroke of<br />
genius. Parts & Labor, on the other hand, are great and the band is set to release their fifth fulllength,<br />
on Jagjaguwar Records, on <strong>March</strong> 8, and they will be calling it Constant Future. From the<br />
sound of things thus far with this record, it will certainly be one to watch out for when it finally<br />
sees its release—put simply, it is solid as hell, knotted, yet exultant, and possesses a few songs<br />
that rock harder than anything they have done in recent years. Parts & Labor is one of the best<br />
‘straightforward’ rock bands in the country and we will have the opportunity to hear these new cuts<br />
just days after their official release. Bring it on Dom and rock on Parts & Labor and Pterodactyl—<br />
this show is going to be an interesting one. -DM<br />
Tennis @ House of Blues (Parish)<br />
Tuesday, <strong>March</strong> 15th @ 8:30pm<br />
This husband and wife duo just released their nautically themed debut Cape Dory (which I reviewed<br />
in last month’s issue) and will play the intimate Parish Room at the House of Blues this month.<br />
Having just seen Lissie there last month, I was reminded of how cool that space is. Altogether<br />
different than the overcrowded mess that can be the main room at HOB, the Parish is a warm, dimly<br />
lit room with a dive bar feel. If our recent warm weather has stirred you to thoughts of sundresses<br />
and white sand beaches, you’ll be right at home at this show. The band’s carefree, airy approach to<br />
beachy pop is the perfect way to spend a low-key weeknight out. -EH<br />
Queens of the Stone Age @ One Eyed Jacks<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 18th @ 9pm<br />
SOLD OUT<br />
So yeah, it sold out in about five minutes. If you’re one of the lucky few with tickets, you already<br />
know why I’m recommending this as one of the shows to see in <strong>March</strong>. If you weren’t lucky enough<br />
to score passes, maybe make friends with someone who did? Stand outside the venue weeping?<br />
The Queens will be performing their 1998 self-titled debut album in its entirety, including some<br />
rare B-sides and “more” (covers, perhaps?) I hate to list the show here as it feels like a taunt to folks<br />
who didn’t manage to get in on tickets soon enough, but I’d be remiss to leave it out since I’m sure<br />
it will be a show that’s talked about for a long time. -EH<br />
Agalloch/ Worm Ouroboros @ the Hanger<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 18th<br />
Last year saw the release of a great many extreme metal albums, but perhaps none more captivating,<br />
intense and daring as Agalloch’s Marrow of the Spirit, released on Profound Lore last fall. Over the<br />
past decade, Agalloch, from Portland, Oregon, has made a name for themselves because of their<br />
earthy, equally ethereal and excruciating take on Black Metal. No one sounds like these guys and<br />
that is coming from a genre where very few bands stand out from the pack. Speaking of standing<br />
out from the pack, Agalloch will be joined by the San Franciscan/ Oakland female-fronted epic<br />
metallers in Worm Ouroboros, also signees to the Profound Lore label. The Worm take a very<br />
restrained approach to metal, and will certainly complement the headlining act well. While we all<br />
know that the QOTSA will be performing a show on this very same night downtown, this show<br />
at the Hanger will not disappoint—Agalloch after all, are some of the best metal merchants in the<br />
world. -DM<br />
Weedeater/ Zoroaster/ Sons of Tonatiuh/ A Hanging @ Siberia<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 20th<br />
What really can be said about the great Wilmington, North Carolina band Weedeater that has not<br />
already been said?—well, nothing really. Any band that “Dixie” Dave Collins fronts or has a hand<br />
in is great, including Buzzoven (who just played a killer show at Siberia last month) and Bongzilla.<br />
It is a treat to be able to see Weedeater live, and this time is certainly not an exception. To add<br />
to this treat though, Weedeater will be bringing with them Atlanta’s brutal-sludge/ blues outfit<br />
Zoroaster with them. Last July saw the release of the superb Zoroaster full-length, Matador, which<br />
coincidentally saw its release on E1 Music, the same label to which Crowbar signed for their latest<br />
release, Sever the Wicked Hand. Matador, produced by the great Sanford Parker, is unforgiving,<br />
while strangely inviting all at once, and finds the band moving away from their doomy/ sludge/<br />
Eyehategod-y brand of metal in favor of a new realm that digs deep in each members’ musical<br />
influences—check it out if you have not. Also in tow is the Atlanta band Sons of Tonatiuh, who<br />
share a member with the awesome Withered, whose skuzzy, grime metal falls in line with not only<br />
those opening the show for them, but takes liberally from a few local heavyweights as well (just<br />
listen to their music and you will know what I am talking about). Rounding out the night is the local<br />
group A Hanging, who always kill it live with their brand of demented metal fuckery; so, basically,<br />
this show is going to rule. -DM<br />
Hugh Cornwell @ Republic<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> 21st @ 8pm<br />
After spending 16 years as guitarist and one of the chief songwriters for seminal early UK punk<br />
band The Stranglers, Hugh Cornwell embarked on a successful solo career that has seen him<br />
release seven albums and tour extensively. His current tour brings him through New Orleans with<br />
legendary punk drummer Clem Burke (of Blondie fame) on drums. The show will feature two<br />
sets, one of which will be a cover-to-cover performance of The Stranglers’ debut album Rattus<br />
Norvegicus. Cornwell is a consummate performer and great storyteller, so this show should be a<br />
fun, low-key evening. -EH<br />
The Civil Wars @ One Eyed Jacks<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> 21st @ 9pm<br />
Joy Williams was a solo singer-songwriter from California when she met John Paul White, a meek<br />
Alabama guitarist and singer, at a songwriting conference/camp of sorts. They were put together<br />
and tasked with writing a song as a duo. Something clicked and there’s been no looking back<br />
since. The pair trade mostly in folk and country-influenced tunes, matching their pure vocals and<br />
minimalist instrumentation. The inevitable comparisons have been drawn to The Swell Season (the<br />
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova duo that arose from the film Once) and for good reason. Their<br />
work is heartfelt, affecting and strikes a delicate balance between robust and achingly tender. -EH<br />
The Whigs @ House of Blues<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 27th @ 7pm<br />
$10.50 advance, $12.50 at door<br />
A simple three-piece garage band from musically rich Athens, Georgia, The Whigs blend grungy<br />
guitars and catchy choruses with great aplomb. Their first two albums were raw and driven, but the<br />
most recent release, In The Dark, was a bit more polished. Having toured extensively with Kings<br />
of Leon, I worry some of that poppy shine may be rubbing off on them. That fact aside, they are a<br />
good rock band. No frills or theatrics. Just strong chords and some good grooves. I suggest catching<br />
them now, just in case they go down that sparkly road towards fame and we end up with another<br />
“Sex on Fire” fiasco on our hands. -EH<br />
Tennis (Photo by Takesha Suga)<br />
The Black Angels @ One Eyed Jacks<br />
Thursday, <strong>March</strong> 31st @ 7pm<br />
$15<br />
A fantastically psychedelic outfit from Austin, The Black Angels are a smoking cool bunch. You’ll<br />
notice the Velvet Underground influence instantly (the band’s logo is a negative exposure image of<br />
Nico). Tripped out, heavy, heady shows are their specialty and Jacks is the perfect backdrop for them.<br />
There will be a lot of smoke in this room. And a lot of black clothing. Neither of which are bad (unless<br />
you have asthma I suppose; but then you should probably move to a city with stricter smoking laws).<br />
They were just in town last fall with fellow heavy hitters Black Mountain, but if you missed your<br />
chance then, don’t make the same mistake twice. These guys are well worth it. –EH<br />
4
ANTI-NEWS<br />
THE RESIDENTS (FORMERLY NORTH LA.’S PHENOMENAL<br />
POP COMBO -- AS RANDY, CHUCK & BOB)<br />
The Residents’ prehistory begins in Shreveport, Louisiana, where four or so LSU<br />
alumni with a shared enthusiasm for film-making and an apparent fascination<br />
with re-shaping what pop culture had given them to play with became fast<br />
friends and decided to migrate to the San Francisco area around 1966. They soon began<br />
accumulating and experimenting with cheap-o recording equipment and instrumentation,<br />
though having little to no music ability. Close attention was paid to the visual presentation<br />
early on, an important aspect of the group that Homer Flynn (alleged singer/The Talking<br />
Light’s Randy, perhaps), co-founder of the Cryptic Corporation (the band’s personal and<br />
business management), has predominantly been responsible for. Work on film projects<br />
to coincide with their music (or vice versa) started as early as ‘72. The early recordings<br />
owed a lot to heroes of the time Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa without sounding<br />
much like either of them. And there’s always been a very separate sense of humor and<br />
general creepiness, paired with a somewhat confused approach to ‘song’ composition,<br />
that was not comparable to anything, really.<br />
Official Residential output started in 1972, with a ‘band’ name and a vinyl document<br />
(the Santa Dog double-single; also the first release for their Ralph Records imprint).<br />
British guitarist Snakefinger was already collaborating with the group at this point,<br />
which would remain a long-lasting and mutually influential relationship up until<br />
his death. Interest in the group remained relatively low until 1978, when the more<br />
adventurous watchers of the New Wave clicked with the bizarre music-- most notably<br />
the ‘60s bubblegum-pop deconstructions found on the 1976 Third Reich ‘n’ Roll<br />
album-- and the equally strange performances disguised as mummies or as klansmen<br />
covered in newspaper (the eyeball look came a little later). Inhuman, anonymous,<br />
soulless and hilarious! The Duck Stab e.p. found acclaim with the press somehow<br />
and continued the evolution of a sound all their own. ‘Hits’ like “Constantinople,” a<br />
dizzying, modern sort of misanthropic psychedelia, found the lead manic country<br />
bumpkin ranting becoming a more prominent feature. Concept albums Eskimo and Mark of the Mole followed, with the group taking these ideas on the road in the early ‘80s. The Residents<br />
have continued to reinvent themselves and look for innovative ways to present their work (from records and tapes to floppy disks and CD-ROMs) with little rest. Apparently, two of the original<br />
minds behind the group have remained a constant through all this, with countless hired guns over the years adding to the madness.<br />
This time around the Residents seem to have a very human lesson to teach, through a series of ghost stories. There will be no top-hatted, unblinking eyes. We will be treated to two members<br />
wearing masks that look like a dreadlocked bug creature ala Slipknot (Ha!) and the singer/storyteller as a robed old man, “Randy.” The often nameless voice heard on the Residents’ recordings<br />
gets a little closer in teasing us with his “true” face... But wait, the fourth Resident figure is missing! Or is he? You can expect a bewildering, surreal, multimedia experience. The music will be<br />
performed live with current guitarist/collaborator Nolan Cook as “Bob.” I guess “Chuck” at the laptop/samplers might be original member Hardy W. Fox. Not that it matters too much who they<br />
are. It’s become a fun little game to speculate for many of us. Like many other Residents projects, The Talking Light, presented from a simulated comfy living room backdrop, may look harmless<br />
at first, but be prepared to be left-- at least a teency bit-- uneasy once it’s all over. This will be a not-groovy, harrowing experience for sure, as far as I can tell.<br />
This may be the Residents’ first ever live performance in New Orleans, or Louisiana for that matter. Evidence to the contrary is obscured and what few recollections there are are fuzzy at best.<br />
According to Mandeville Mike, the Residents may have secretly shared a bill with Snakefinger at Jimmy’s Music Club, uptown, in May of 1982 and my sleuthwork has dug up a tape of this show.<br />
The band is too musically able to be the Residents and are eventually introduced as Snakefinger’s own Vestal Virgins band. An email to the Cryptic Corporation, asking if they had in fact ever<br />
played here (and if they missed their home state!) resulted in a very quick reply: “I’ll go ask”; followed shortly with a “no.” --Michael Bateman<br />
THE RESIDENTS bring us The Talking Light on April 5th at Republic. Tickets are $17 from republicnola.com. Consortium of Genius opens the show. For more info, check out residents.com.<br />
BANDS AND ONE MAN ARE THE TOAST OF MEATLOAF ONE<br />
When Felix frontman and all-around rabble-rouser John Curry<br />
looks out over the landscape of New Orleans rock festivals,<br />
he does not like what he sees. But rather than complain on<br />
a barstool (or the internet), he has decided to take matters into his own<br />
hands and produce “Meatloaf One,” a two day event celebrating several<br />
select singer-songwriters and their bands from around the city. A pretty<br />
simple idea, one that Curry says he came up with to “be productive,<br />
not just mad” and also as a way to try his hand at some of the more<br />
procedural workings of the music world. Gathering together some of the<br />
most unique talent of New Orleans like Luke Allen, MC Tracheotomy,<br />
Steve Eck and Curry himself as Blind Texas Marlin, night one will<br />
spotlight the solo performances of these performers while night two will<br />
bring together the bands that back them. So Eck will be joined by his<br />
Midnight Still and Luke Allen will have his Happy Talk Band. Also<br />
performing over the two nights are Sneaky Pete (of the Fens) and Ben<br />
Arthur Ellis (of the Way). Equal parts ambition and gamble, Curry is<br />
ready for it to go either way, saying “These are my friends. If it blows<br />
up in my face, they’ll still be my friends.” And when asked if the fest is<br />
named in honor of that certain well-known performer, he is quick to say<br />
no. Meatloaf is the nickname given Felix drummer Adem Vant Hull’s<br />
dog, Lucille. —Dan Fox<br />
Meatloaf One takes place on Friday, April 1st at the AllWays Lounge,<br />
2240 St. Claude Avenue and Saturday, April 2nd at the Hi-Ho Lounge,<br />
2239 St. Claude Avenue.<br />
5
ANTI-NEWS<br />
NEW ORLEANS FRINGE WELCOMES HOUSTON FRINGE<br />
A<br />
new<br />
mini-Fringe Fest debuts this year but with a twist—a Texan twist.<br />
For two nights only, Interstate Fringe brings back two favorites<br />
from last year’s New Orleans Fringe Fest and pairs them with two<br />
hits from Houston’s Fringe Fest. Kristen Evans, Executive Director of New<br />
Orleans Fringe Fest (and one of Gambit’s 2010 40 under 40), says that this is<br />
hopefully the start of a regular exchange between the states, part of the Fringe<br />
Alternative Theater Incubator, “a sort of mad scientist’s lab in which we<br />
try out new ideas and opportunities, and hopefully everyone benefits, grows<br />
and has a great time in the process.” New Orleans Fringe will present Our<br />
Man by Goat in the Road Productions and The Divine Feminine by Chard<br />
Gonzalez Dance Theatre. In Our Man, two men in a small glass box narrate<br />
the life and accomplishments of one of the nation’s most controversial leaders,<br />
“The Gipper”—who has taken for the men the form of a tennis racket. The<br />
Divine Feminine is “a ride through conflict and mayhem due to the seduction<br />
of a goddess, the wrath of a bitter queen, the marvel of a heroine plus other<br />
divine women and their boy-toys.” Houston Fringe brings their best with Yes,<br />
Cassandra, a re-envisioning of Aeschylus’ Trojan War from the perspective of<br />
Cassandra, the doomed priestess, and Rogue Improv, a group improv show that<br />
takes spontaneous suggestions from the audience, using them as the inspiration<br />
to create a “completely improvised, unscripted, 30 minute continuous theatrical<br />
universe.” Evans says that, “Altogether it should be about two and a half hours<br />
of wildly different performance—dance, storytelling, improv and theater.” And<br />
if you have friends in Houston, let them know the same line-up will run the<br />
following weekend on the stages of FrenetiCore, the host of Houston Fringe.<br />
Interstate Fringe runs Friday and Saturday <strong>March</strong> 18th and 19th at 8 pm at<br />
Michalopoulos Studio, 527 Elysian Fields. Tickets are $15 and available at the<br />
door or online at nofringe.org. —Sara Pic<br />
6
COLUMN<br />
HELLO NURSE!<br />
BY NICHOLE BRINING, LPN<br />
ADVICE<br />
DRUG OF THE MONTH: MARIJUANA<br />
This will be the first in a series of articles I’m undertaking called “Drug of the Month.” This<br />
is not to glorify or demonize any form of plant, narcotic or chemical, but just to educate you<br />
fine readers of what you are putting in your body. Now let’s get high… on knowledge!<br />
Cannabis: this popular plant contains THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), which is classified as<br />
a psychoactive chemical compound. It is usually smoked or ingested. Wikipedia defines a<br />
psychoactive drug as “a chemical substance that crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts primarily<br />
upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception,<br />
mood, consciousness, cognition and behavior. These substances may be used recreationally,<br />
to purposefully alter one’s consciousness, as entheogens for ritual, spiritual, and/or shamanic<br />
purposes, as a tool for studying or augmenting the mind or therapeutically as medication.”<br />
PROs:<br />
* Marijuana can be used to ease pain. It has been so helpful in reducing pain in ailments ranging<br />
from mild arthritis to Multiple Sclerosis to AIDS that it can be obtained (in some states) from a<br />
Doctor’s prescription.<br />
* It promotes appetite. Casual pot smokers refer to this as the “munchies” and it is very beneficial<br />
to people whose medicine has made them nauseous or the elderly who have lost an interest in<br />
eating. Cancer patients benefit from marijuana’s hunger-inducing effects greatly because the THC<br />
doesn’t interfere with the absorption of other medications they need.<br />
* It has not been linked with any true drug addiction and no studies conducted have ever found a<br />
substantial link between cannabis use and escalating use of other substances (i.e.; smoking pot will<br />
lead to smoking crack).<br />
* There has been no hard evidence that sole marijuana use can lead to an overdose of marijuana. It<br />
would take roughly 800 marijuana cigarettes to kill a person, but the death would be from carbon<br />
monoxide poisoning. More people accidently overdose on aspirin than cannabis.<br />
* There is no known evidence that links marijuana use to permanent mental illness.<br />
* It has shown to relax the body, which promotes healing.<br />
* Decreases intraocular (eyeball) pressure, which is beneficial to Glaucoma patients.<br />
* Decreases the tics of Tourette’s syndrome sufferers.<br />
* Helps decrease the deposit of Alzheimer’s “plaque” in the brain.<br />
* A 2007 study showed a correlation between smoking pot and reducing breast cancer metastasis.<br />
In fact, here is a list with ailments that are said to benefit from medicinal marijuana use: alcohol<br />
abuse, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, collagen-induced arthritis, asthma, atherosclerosis, bipolar<br />
disorder, colorectal cancer, depression, dystonia, epilepsy, digestive diseases, gliomas, hepatitis<br />
C, Huntington’s disease, leukemia, skin tumors, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus<br />
(MRSA), Parkinson’s disease, pruritus, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sickle-cell disease,<br />
sleep apnea and anorexia nervosa.<br />
CONs:<br />
* If you smoke pot then you are still inhaling smoke, which is bad for your lungs. A marijuana<br />
cigarette is not nearly as harmful as a brand tobacco cigarette but it’s still doing damage. It would<br />
be healthier if the marijuana is ingested instead. There are some studies that conflict with this<br />
statement, but the overwhelming majority of them conclude that pot smoke is still mildly harmful<br />
to your lungs.<br />
* There needs to be more studies. Although pot has been used for centuries, the research of pot has<br />
been scant and inconsistent. Many dated studies had a bias-negative agenda and more long term<br />
marijuana studies are still in trials or in its infantile stages.<br />
* Although it has been reported that marijuana isn’t so addictive in a physiological sense, it can<br />
still be addictive in a psychological sense. Many pot smokers, like cigarette smokers, smoke during<br />
certain times or environments and get hooked on the routine, like making a habit of smoking after<br />
work, essentially making it ‘habit forming.’<br />
* Research shows little evidence of overdosing from marijuana but pot is linked to other actions<br />
that are harmful. Cannabis does impair motor functions which can lead to accidents, some poor<br />
decision making and behavior that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred. That’s where the danger lies<br />
more so than any of the effects of THC.<br />
* Just like any other substance in the world, some people can be allergic to marijuana. And an<br />
allergic reaction can have severe consequences.<br />
FUN POT FACTS<br />
* During the temperance movement of the 1890s, marijuana was commonly recommended as a<br />
substitute for alcohol, since use of marijuana did not lead to domestic violence, while alcohol abuse<br />
did.<br />
* Pot was used during World War II as a truth serum.<br />
* The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp.<br />
* To date, the world’s largest joint had 100 grams of marijuana in it.<br />
From a medical standpoint it seems as though marijuana’s benefits far outweigh its harm. It does<br />
affect people differently and not all marijuana users will experience positive reactions to the drug. I<br />
hope that more studies reveal the potential this plant has in aiding those in need. And for those who<br />
are just recreational users, I feel it should be available to them too. But keep in mind that in the state<br />
of Louisiana, possession of cannabis is illegal and carries fines, jail time, community service and a<br />
host of other penalties that’ll make your life suck. So be careful out there, friends!<br />
8
ADVICE<br />
COLUMN<br />
GUIDANCE COUNSELING<br />
THIS MONTH'S TRUSTED ADVISOR: KERI MCQUEEN<br />
TRAIN WRECKS, CHEATING & CHARLIE<br />
This isn’t the first time we’ve turned to a bartender for this month’s advice (we’ve<br />
sought out Luke Allen in the past) and it certainly won’t be the last. This being <strong>March</strong><br />
and the month of St. Patrick’s Day, we turned, naturally, to the Irish Channel’s most<br />
well-known Irish maiden, Keri McQueen. A longtime bartender at the old Parasol’s and<br />
now Tracey’s, Keri “De Geh” (as she’s sometimes known) is regarded as someone who will<br />
give it to you “straight,” with the gloves off. So don’t expect a pot of gold at the end of these<br />
rainbows, but a shot of reality instead. Tip her well!<br />
I can’t seem to get a girl that isn’t a drunk train-wreck of a human being. What’s the deal?<br />
My advice is to stop waiting until 3 am to “get” a girl! You need to grow some balls and<br />
make your move around 1 am. Most girls are still on track at this point. A drunk train-wreck<br />
is easy for most folks to spot... seriously.<br />
I’ve been reading on the internet a lot lately that human beings are not wired to be<br />
monogamous and from my own experiences in life, I agree. I’ve cheated on every partner<br />
I’ve ever had. What do you think? And, how can I explain this to my next potential mate?<br />
Well... you have cheated on everyone you have ever been with. It sounds like you aren’t<br />
ready to be in a real relationship. A monogamous relationship takes work!! Love, trust and<br />
respect are all things required. I don’t think you should be looking for a mate... you need a<br />
fuck buddy! PS- Go get tested.<br />
Everyone thinks Charlie Sheen is losing it but he has become my hero. Everything he says<br />
seems honest or at least from the heart and he’s speaking truth to power. Shouldn’t we all<br />
be more like “bitchin’ rock stars from planet Mars?” I know I want to be!<br />
Charlie Sheen is an asshole! Don’t waste my time asking about this hot mess. You can go<br />
right back to being “bitchin,” buddy. I’m going back to hanging with rock stars from the<br />
planet Earth. They are more fun... FACT!<br />
9
THEATRE<br />
COLUMN<br />
NOTES FROM<br />
THE SPLASH ZONE<br />
by SARA PIC<br />
SARA.PIC@GMAIL.COM<br />
MARCH MASHUPS<br />
<strong>March</strong> brings us Carnival, when borders are blurred and anything goes. <strong>March</strong>’s theatre and<br />
performance scene follows, with many boundary-breaking events. The biggest <strong>March</strong><br />
event is the 25th Annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. The<br />
festival has a diverse slate of lectures and sessions for writers but also presents events for everyone<br />
that are designed to “celebrate writing<br />
in its different forms,” as Marketing<br />
Director Laura Lane Miller explains.<br />
Two festival events accomplish that goal<br />
in unique ways: Literary Late Night<br />
on Thursday, <strong>March</strong> 24th and Bedtime<br />
Stories on Friday, <strong>March</strong> 25th, both<br />
open to the general public at One Eyed<br />
Jacks. Miller says, “People sometimes<br />
assume a literary event will be a very<br />
staid, academic, polite thing. We are<br />
challenging that notion and presenting<br />
literature as a bit edgier and showing<br />
that the written word can be very alive,<br />
visceral and exciting.” Late Night starts<br />
with an improv show from the National Comedy Company, getting everyone warmed up for the<br />
second half, a competitive poetry slam. Anyone can sign up for the slam and judges are chosen from<br />
the audience. Miller laughs that the rest of the audience never has a problem strongly expressing<br />
their disagreements with the judges’ decisions. Bedtime Stories is a night of erotica readings,<br />
featuring local actors Veronica Russell, Chris Lane and Lisa Picone and local writers Jarret<br />
Lofstead and Jeni Stewart, with more to be announced. The audience will be treated to a host of<br />
titillating tales by a variety of authors including Milan Kundera, Leopold van Sacher-Masoch,<br />
Anaїs Nin and, of course, Tennessee Williams, as well as some local authors. Additionally, local<br />
lovelies from burlesque troupe Fleur de Tease will provide stimulation between readings. More<br />
info on these and other events at tennesseewilliams.net.<br />
Southern Rep presents the regional premiere of Intríngulis, written and performed by comic<br />
actor Carlo Alban. This solo show was inspired by Alban’s own experiences as an undocumented<br />
Ecuadorian immigrant who became a regular cast member on the PBS television program Sesame<br />
Street (and later an actor in films including 21 Grams, Strangers with Candy and Whip It). In<br />
Intríngulis, which, in Spanish, means “a complex web or ulterior motive,” Alban blends acting and<br />
music to tell the story of his family who moved from Ecuador hoping to find, like so many, “a better<br />
life” in the States. They arrived when Alban was nine years old and immediately applied for green<br />
cards—but the process took twelve years, during which time Alban and his family had to survive<br />
without legal immigration status. For Alban, the show is about “coming-of-age while carrying<br />
a secret.” The dreams his formerly middle-class family had when coming to the U.S. proved to<br />
not be a reality here. Jobs were more difficult to find than they thought and were below their<br />
education and skill level. Options for college were restricted for Alban and his brother because<br />
they could not qualify for student loans without documented status. Alban relates that because of<br />
his undocumented status he felt like an “outsider” growing up. Using these experiences, he put<br />
together a show of character monologues along with music he performs on acoustic and electric<br />
guitar. Music is a way Alban feels he retained his Spanish language and Ecuadorian heritage<br />
while growing up in the States. In the show, he performs some of this music, focusing especially<br />
on political protest songs, which he describes as the “poetry” of the show. While the show tells<br />
Alban’s personal story, he feels that it is also a way to educate people about immigration and<br />
undocumented immigrants, who are used politically all the time though many people know very<br />
little about their actual lives and struggles. Marieke Gaboury, Managing Director at Southern<br />
Rep, relates, “What has always moved me has been the reaction of those who saw themselves in<br />
Carlo’s story – especially young people who feel disenfranchised or ignored for reasons of race,<br />
nationality, sexual orientation – anything.” Southern Rep is offering a special discount to AG<br />
readers: use code ANTIGRAVITY for $10 tickets (subject to availability and ticketing fees) at<br />
southernrep.com or call (504) 522-6545.<br />
<strong>March</strong> abounds with many more border-busting shows, including the venerable rock musical,<br />
Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with players from Skin Horse Theater (Curiouser: An Historical<br />
Inaccuracy, Port/ Architect) and musical back-up by Whom Do You Work For?, featuring Bradley<br />
Black, Kelsey Waite and Jonathan Hight. A cult favorite, Hedwig is the story of a fourth-wall<br />
smashing East German rock’n’roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a botched sexchange<br />
operation leaving her with an “angry inch.” Hedwig is at the Backyard Ballroom <strong>March</strong><br />
24th-26th, <strong>March</strong> 31st, April 1st and 2nd, and April 7th- 9th. Thursday and Friday shows at 8pm,<br />
Saturday shows at midnight. Skinhorsetheater.org for more info.<br />
The Contemporary Arts Center also presents Women of Calypso on April 1st and 2nd,<br />
celebrating women’s contributions to the classic Caribbean art form of Calypso, a musical world<br />
traditionally dominated by men. Three prominent award-winning women of the genre, Singing<br />
Sandra, Queen Fayola and Princess Kizzie will perform an evening of music, theater, social<br />
commentary and autobiographical musings, complemented with “singing narratives” which will<br />
take the audience on a musical and spiritual journey. Cacno.org for more info.<br />
10<br />
Send me press releases, vague info on shows, or theatre/performance art news or gossip! Holla at<br />
sara.pic@gmail.com.
BY ASHLEY ROBISON<br />
FASHION<br />
THE GOODS<br />
FASHION WEEK <strong>2011</strong><br />
While <strong>March</strong> is one of New<br />
Orleans’ most beautiful months,<br />
with clear and bright days<br />
and warm sunshine, it can also be a quick<br />
reminder of the weather ahead. Before we<br />
know it, we’ll settle in to months of thick<br />
humidity and unending, oppressive heat.<br />
Some nights it leaves me feeling like the<br />
heroine in a Tennessee Williams’ play,<br />
but most nights I just want to peel off my<br />
clothes.<br />
This month we get to chat with Alison<br />
Albright of Circular Accessories. Circular<br />
Accessories, based out of Baton Rouge,<br />
provides bold, graphic cotton tees and other<br />
screen-printed objects.<br />
You can find Circular Accessories online<br />
at etsy.com/shop/circularaccessories.<br />
Describe the guy, girl, and child that<br />
wear Circular Accessories:<br />
My wonderful customers are unique and like<br />
to wear fun pieces of art that are not massproduced.<br />
They are eco-conscious people,<br />
interested in supporting independent artists<br />
that produce products in a sustainable<br />
manner.<br />
How does Southern culture play a part in your designs?<br />
Many of my designs are inspired by the natural landscape of the south as well as cultural icons.<br />
You can find animals, plants and symbols that are very recognizable throughout Louisiana.<br />
Do you think the South has a different relationship to cotton clothing & casual clothing than<br />
other regions?<br />
I think Southerners have adapted their wardrobe to accommodate the warmer climate, and this<br />
includes lightweight, breathable cotton fabric. Personally, I do not own many wool or polyester<br />
items but my dresser is full of cotton tops.<br />
If you could expand your current collection, what would you like to include?<br />
I started using water-based ink last year to make my line more sustainable and will continue<br />
production in this manner. I have begun sewing linens for household accessories and hope to<br />
include more designs in this category this year. Sewing individual items takes time but I would<br />
love to sew bedding, linens, aprons, etc.<br />
You mention using water-based ink for sustainability. If you had all available means, what<br />
other resources would you use for sustainability?<br />
I would love to use all organic cotton, hemp and bamboo for my apparel and accessories, especially<br />
the hemp. It is much more sustainable to grow and convert to wearable fiber than any other plant.<br />
I have a hard time finding manufacturers using the fabrics in a stylish and affordable blank that I<br />
can print on. I also try to get most of my blanks from companies made in the USA, but I will use<br />
other brands that have really nice styles.<br />
Do you think the South is more or less embracing of eco-friendly and sustainable work?<br />
I think the south has a growing sustainable movement, not a big as some urban areas in the west<br />
and northeast, but there is definitely a growing market for uniquely handmade, sustainable items<br />
here. I sell at the farmer’s market once a month in BR and the customer base is growing for local<br />
produce and handmade art.<br />
What’s in store for Circular Accessories in <strong>2011</strong>?<br />
New designs of course, but I plan to dabble in more abstract patterns and incorporate those into my<br />
designs. I will continue printing apparel as well as linens and more paper goods.<br />
NOLA Fashion Week: LA is the New LA<br />
COLUMN<br />
ashe.mischief@gmail.com<br />
Running <strong>March</strong> 20th through 26th, NOLA Fashion Week will take place around our fair city,<br />
incorporating boutiques, art galleries, and event venues. This fashion week isn’t just for the<br />
frivolous: featuring educational workshops, networking events, two full days of runway shows,<br />
and a philanthropic heart, NOLA Fashion Week is sure to make an impact on the city’s fashionable<br />
and fun.<br />
The schedule for NOLA Fashion Week is:<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 20: Kids Fashion Day, Louisiana Children’s Museum, 420 Julia St.<br />
Benefiting Louisiana Children’s Museum<br />
Monday, <strong>March</strong> 21: NOLAFW Industry Engaged Party, Benefiting Friends of City Park through<br />
JT AWEAR.<br />
Tuesday, <strong>March</strong> 22: NOLAFW’s Night on the Town: The best of New Orlean’s Boutiques,<br />
Shops, Restaurants, & Lounges open their doors to celebrate the fashion industry.<br />
Wednesday, <strong>March</strong> 23: Production, Marketing, and Styling Workshops<br />
Evening: NOLAFW Fashion Connection<br />
Benefitting Covenant House through JT AWEAR<br />
Thursday, <strong>March</strong> 24: Production, Marketing, and Styling Workshops<br />
Evening: Fashion Meets Art: Runway Kick-Off Party<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 25: 5 Runway Shows<br />
Evening: Amelie G <strong>Magazine</strong> Spring Issue Launch Party: NOLAFW Tri-Coastal Fashion.<br />
Benefiting Coastal Restoration through JT Aware<br />
Saturday, <strong>March</strong> 26: 7 Runway Shows<br />
Evening: Scene <strong>Magazine</strong> presents NOLAFW Wrap Party. Benefiting NOLAFW Fall <strong>2011</strong><br />
The following designers will be featured at NOLA Fashion Week: Sophomore by Madeleine<br />
Von Froomer and Chrissie Miller, Jolie & Elizabeth by Jolie Bensen and Sarah Elizabeth<br />
Dewey, Coco Bourgeois by Courtney Plauch, Amanda de Leon Clothing by Amanda de Leon,<br />
Ottilie Brodman by Elsa Brodman, Leah Milana by Leah Bauer, Varella + Brooks by Isabel<br />
Varela and Ashlee Brooks Patton, Nire Collection by Erin Tufts and Cassie Conrad, and<br />
Matthew Arthur Apparel Architecture by Matthew Arthur.<br />
More information about NOLA Fashion Week can be found at nola-fashionweek.com.<br />
11
COLUMN<br />
SLINGSHOTS, ANYONE?<br />
BY DEREK ZIMMER<br />
SCENE RAPPORT<br />
This month for my ANTIGRAVITY contribution I was<br />
considering conjuring the music journalist within, composing<br />
a substance-less write-up of some already wildly popular<br />
band and dubbing it “alternative” media. But then my conscience<br />
got the better of me and sent me swirling into the vortex of creative<br />
straining.<br />
A few columns ago, in the throes of despair, I wrote about how<br />
everywhere I turned I found trauma. Developers destroying poor<br />
residents’ housing and neighbors abusing their dogs. Cops prowling<br />
every street and gunshots down the block. But New Orleans has<br />
some great things going for it, which I’d like to highlight. There’s<br />
the Iron Rail Book Collective, without which I would have<br />
strung the noose long ago. Even if I don’t always treat it with the<br />
reverence it deserves, it has been incredibly vital to me as a radical<br />
and as an individual. I’ve spent hours pouring through the extensive<br />
Aboveground Zine Library and regularly attend radical events<br />
like the Tuesday movie nights, presentations or guest lectures. Hey<br />
Cafe, Iron Rail’s Uptown annex, is co-run by my good friend Greg<br />
Rodrigue, who along with the wonderful D-Ray, operates the ultra-<br />
DIY punk label Community Records. There’s a small crew of<br />
anarchists taking action around the city and publishing the magazine<br />
The Raging Pelican. Even putting up guerilla bus schedules at bus<br />
stops is a step forward for citizens still abandoned by their “leaders,”<br />
and a new Food Not Bombs group has begun meeting to discuss<br />
weekly servings. I cannot articulate my love for the all-ages shows<br />
put on by Bryan, Osa, Candice, Greg and others—and all these<br />
folks’ respective bands. There’s the Community Printshop that<br />
does hands-on screen printing workshop nights, and Plan B next to<br />
Iron Rail that helps folks build their own bikes. I am infectiously in<br />
love with the graffiti all over the streets, the READ pieces and the<br />
still-remaining Banksy murals (Fred Ratke, I wish you the worst).<br />
Although I gave up skateboarding long ago, I am in complete awe<br />
of the DIY skatepark in Gentilly, built from the ground up by a few<br />
comrades. And even though I don’t buy many records, I appreciate<br />
that Domino Sound is right down Broad Street. I’m inspired not<br />
only by projects like Critical Resistance and Books 2 Prisoners,<br />
but also by courageous individuals like Sharon Jasper and those at<br />
the Fight Back Center resisting the genocidal developers at HANO<br />
and the thuggish police who protect these private interests over<br />
peoples’ rights.<br />
In the spirit of celebrating these little joys around New Orleans,<br />
I want to segue into a larger discussion. A month or so ago, on<br />
a drive up to Baton Rouge for a show, I had a conversation with<br />
a friend about the nature of our radical ideologies. We constantly<br />
define ourselves, he said, in terms of what we’re against rather<br />
than what we’re for. Such critique-based anarchism, he explained,<br />
is a dangerous position to take: for if we’re only reacting against<br />
what we hate and not actively struggling to create the alternative,<br />
remaking our surroundings in the likeness of our wildest dreams,<br />
then we’re forever doomed to live under systems that oppress us.<br />
Like the heathen who curses god for the world of misfortune around<br />
him, we validate our rulers’ power rather than actualizing the<br />
potential in ourselves to offer something better.<br />
I wholeheartedly agree, with a few addendums. Sometimes I<br />
do feel our purest poetry should be written with gasoline, that the<br />
greatest creation we could muster is the destruction of this entire<br />
goddamn system. But at least part of this destructive impulse,<br />
one could argue, feeds into a cultural urge of violence—and thus<br />
must be questioned if not totally undermined. This reminds me of<br />
a picture I saw recently of two masked black bloc figures—both<br />
distinguishably male—high-fiving in front of a burning cop car at<br />
Toronto’s G20 summit. Although this picture is incredibly moving<br />
for me on a visceral level, after hearing a story of a group of men<br />
elsewhere commandeering a ladies’ Take Back The Night march to<br />
smash windows, I can unfortunately discern an air of bro-riotness<br />
in it as well. Of course, I agree with Antiproduct (in a song about<br />
12<br />
LOCAL CULTURE<br />
JUDGEPEREZREVENGE@YAHOO.COM<br />
“We constantly define ourselves in<br />
terms of what we’re against rather than<br />
what we’re for. If we’re only reacting<br />
against what we hate and not actively<br />
struggling to create the alternative,<br />
remaking our surroundings in the<br />
likeness of our wildest dreams, then<br />
we’re forever doomed to live under<br />
systems that oppress us.”<br />
feminism, ironically enough) when they said, “Anger is just an inherent reaction to the pain we have suffered”;<br />
and I believe no matter what your gender socialization, anger can at times act as a healthy guide. Experiencing<br />
it is part of the wide emotional repertoire we command as whole human persons. But allowing anger to be<br />
our primary guide and constantly reacting to it is not always conducive to the healthiest resistance. Not to<br />
mention—just bad for the qi!<br />
My friend had offered that instead of deliberately participating in an anarchist mobilization where one will,<br />
with certainty, provoke altercation with police—a violence which might necessitate responding in kind—we<br />
should work on building this beautiful new world that will make capitalism pale in comparison. I thought<br />
about the South Central Farm, an urban community garden in LA which fed 400 families before being raided<br />
by police in 2006. I thought about the Native Americans slaughtered at the hands of white colonialists. I saw<br />
the Paris Commune and its deadly siege. “But any space we create that runs counter to capitalism cannot be<br />
allowed to exist,” I said to him. “So what do we do when they break in and destroy our spaces?”<br />
“Well, then we should defend it.”<br />
More recently, at a house show, I found myself engrossed in discussion with another friend. The conversation<br />
went along similar lines. We focus all our energy, she said, on overthrowing the system but wouldn’t have<br />
anything to replace it with if we actually succeeded. She cited the recent insurrection in Egypt as another<br />
revolution that will ultimately turn into a system that will stifle peoples’ autonomy. Cynical though this sentiment<br />
may be, it’s noteworthy to point out that without a clear populist understanding of how government is inherently<br />
oppressive, the people of Egypt are susceptible to being co-opted by the farce of liberal “democracy.” But that<br />
doesn’t stop me from supporting their self-determination with every fiber of my being. I mean, c’mon—they just<br />
overthrew their totalitarian regime and ousted their former dictator from power! Better, in my opinion, than our<br />
predicament; at least they’re in the streets fighting their enemies, while us Westerners are holding theoretical<br />
debates about when it is or is not appropriate to throw a rock! Like a job with a degrading boss or extreme<br />
working conditions, one might not know what they would like to be doing for 8 hours a day instead, or have a<br />
fully formed analysis of the alienation of labor and wage slavery; but they quit the job anyway because they know<br />
they don’t want to be degraded any longer. I think there is something to be said for that.<br />
But there’s more to it than simply wishing to end abuse. Our social systems (and this includes both jobs<br />
and governments) limit our realities to such a degree that we cannot imagine our lives not beholden to them.<br />
Such structures blind us from vast possibilities, and bind us into narrow ways of existing—ways ultimately<br />
dependent upon the systems exploiting us. Those who have been abused by their partners know this dynamic<br />
well. In this context it makes sense why the notion of resisting police is so foreign to many Westerners; they<br />
literally cannot envision a society built upon mutual aid, and not competition and wealth divisions! I’ll tell you<br />
a theory I’ve been working on: I think the reason why we cannot imagine these other ways of being is because<br />
our rulers actively disallow us from building this more just world, as it would render their power and control<br />
(to use the domestic violence terminology) obsolete. Hence, laws and police.<br />
With regards to this dichotomy of confrontation-versus-infrastructure, my thought is—like most—the<br />
dichotomy is false. We cannot birth the world we want without provoking street warfare from the old world’s<br />
foot-soldiers and we cannot initiate these street confrontations without infrastructure to foster a vibrant<br />
community worth fighting for. We cannot create viable spaces based on anarchist ideals without battling<br />
the colonizers who would take them away from us; and until we wipe the chessboard clean of our enemies’<br />
pawns—nay, until we destroy the entire fucking chessboard!—we will only be trying to beat them at their own<br />
game, based on their rules. So forget the dichotomy. We need it all—every gesture, big and small.<br />
With that, I’m going to leave y’all ninjas on shit like this: “I want the revolution to take place now and<br />
fucking every second of my life. I want it to be the most revolutionary thing that ever happened. I want every<br />
song, every lyric ever penned down, to be like the epitome of rebellion—of revolution. Every time.” —Dennis<br />
Lyxzen, Refused
SPINNING RECORDS<br />
BEATS PER MONTH<br />
BY graham greenleaf<br />
MADDIE DREADS<br />
COLUMN<br />
GREENLEAF@ANTIGRAVITYMAGAZINE.COM<br />
As I’m sure most of you can tell by now, the temperature in our fair city has started to<br />
rise and it would seem we’re continuing the old New Orleans tradition of skipping<br />
Spring and jumping headlong into Summer. Much the same can be said about our<br />
neighbors to the south in the Caribbean, and the influence of this tropical region’s people<br />
and culture has been evident in the Crescent City for hundreds of years. You can taste it in<br />
the food and hear it in the music, and one of the biggest contributors musically has been<br />
Jamaica. For such a small island, a lot of people would be shocked to learn of the influence<br />
Jamaica has had not only in the States but worldwide. One of the biggest proponents of the<br />
traditional Jamaican sound in the Big Easy is none other than Maddie Ruthless.<br />
Immersing herself in the punk scene early on, Maddie found music as a perfect outlet<br />
for creativity. Family vacations to London introduced her to the sounds of ska, rocksteady<br />
and dancehall and upon returning to New Orleans for college, she met Prince Pauper, who<br />
encouraged her to start DJing. Cutting her teeth on 45’s from Domino Sound, she still swears<br />
by vinyl and makes regular trips to New York for the freshest dubplates and acetates. Apart<br />
from Prince Pauper, her list of influences include the likes of David Rodigan, Deadly<br />
Dragon (NYC) and Boss Harmony (LA), as proven by her selections. Her sets often span a<br />
wide array of roots, early dancehall and ska from the early 60’s through the 80’s. Her focus<br />
on conscious vibes and the “punky reggae party” is what makes her nights alongside her<br />
partner in crime, DJ Karo, stand out. At 22, her knowledge of old school Reggae is quite<br />
astounding and she keeps up to par with tradition as well. Expect to see sound boxes full of<br />
sirens, blips and plenty of delay next to the turntables at any of her monthly Babylon Yah<br />
Dun parties which, for the time being, split between the Maison Penthouse and the Saint.<br />
Johnny Osbourne, Slim Smith, Ranking Judy and a wide array of versions all make<br />
regular appearances in her sets. Complete with chatting and toasting (“rapping” in Reggaespeak),<br />
The Ruthless/Karo combination is more a live performance than strict DJ set.<br />
Apart from selecting the finest Reggae classics, Ms. Ruthless also sings regularly with<br />
Brooklyn’s the Forthrights and works on and off at Studio in the Country. Upcoming<br />
from Maddie is her newest mixtape with Karo entitled, “Jaguar Sound #1,” which includes<br />
some exclusive new material. She’ll also be DJing April 16th for Community Records’<br />
annual block party, a gig that she describes as one of her favorites. With loads of upcoming<br />
gigs, big plans for Jazzfest and dubplates by the pound, Maddie assures that big tings<br />
agwaan in New Orleans for <strong>2011</strong>. In other words, “de gyal bring it dutty an mek de people<br />
dem bubble an wine seen.”<br />
For all things Ruthless, visit maddieruthless.com.<br />
JIM RUSSELL'S RECORDS<br />
1837 MAGAZINE ST. NEW ORLEANS, LA 70130 (504) 522-2602<br />
NEW ORLEANS #1 RECORD STORE<br />
LARGEST SELECTION OF<br />
USED VINYL LP's, 45's, CD's, CASSETTES, VHS & DVD's<br />
VIDEO GAMES, LASER DISCS, 8-TRACKS<br />
CLASSIC rock, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, COUNTRY<br />
OPEN MONDAY thru SATURDAY 11am-5pm<br />
WE SHIP WORLDWIDE<br />
Find us on MySpace and Facebook<br />
www.jimrussellrecords.com<br />
13
MUSIC<br />
PUSH UP THE FADER: ON THE ROAD WITH DJ BEES KNEES<br />
AND VOCKAH REDU<br />
02/03/11. When we first started planning this tour, I’d hoped to break even. After our first show<br />
tonight I hope to start a revolution. Vockah took the stage with dancers and back-up singers Tater,<br />
Shorty Whop and Eergyzah. I was on the floor behind the turntables, in the middle of the crowd.<br />
These people were ready for this: Asheville, North Carolina’s first live contact with New Orleans<br />
bounce music. After years of the same old hardcore, punk and metal shows, Asheville’s booties<br />
were ready to pop. And if you’ve ever seen Vockah and the Cru, you know it’s about a lot more<br />
than popping booties. Vockah appeared in a vinyl trench coat looking like Darth Vader, blessing<br />
the stage in his customary fashion with a stick of burning incense. Soon the get-up was shed and<br />
V was bouncing around the stage like Iggy Pop, spitting out rapid-fire call-and-response bounce<br />
party hype mixed with spoken word acapellas, free-styles, throwback hip-hop lines and samples<br />
a la Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool. We were at a punk club called the Get Down, a former<br />
roadhouse called the Cowboy’s Nightlife that was a lot like the cowboy bar in the movie The Blues<br />
Brothers. It was a sold out show (plus all the folks who snuck in through the fire escape) and the<br />
crowd, a large portion of whom were queer or transgendered, were going BANANAS. It was like<br />
a friendlier version of the old school mosh pit, with none of the testosterone-driven aggression.<br />
At points I had to pick up my DJ mixer and hold it at a safe distance from all the booties popping<br />
into my DJ gear. Popping and weaving through the crazy dance-floor were the other two members<br />
of our caravan (literally, we were all traveling piled into a rented Dodge Caravan), photographercum-navigator/driver/tour<br />
mom Nicola Krebill (who would end up taking over 8,000 photos<br />
on tour) and University of Texas student Alix Chapman, who is writing his dissertation for his<br />
Anthropology PhD on New Orleans bounce music. After the show the crowd was so transfixed by<br />
Vockah’s performance that when DJ Champale (a former New Orleans resident who had set up the<br />
show for us) took the Cru to Denny’s, half the crowd followed along, taking over the restaurant.<br />
02/10/11. After two shows in Baltimore and partying to a bunch of Baltimore club music, we took<br />
a few days off in New York before diving into the bulk of the tour, four shows in the Northeast<br />
on something called the Church of Love and Ruin Tour. The Church was the brainchild of a<br />
political rapper named B. Dolan of Strange Famous Records, the record label run by indie-rap<br />
guru Sage Francis. The shows were Vockah Redu, B. Dolan headlining, an MC who played sexcentric<br />
games with the audience, a drag queen and dancer named Nicholle Pride and 16-person<br />
Providence-based marching band the What Cheer? Brigade. B. Dolan had sampled What Cheer?<br />
in a song called “Border Crossing,” then asked them to go on tour with him. They’re buddies of<br />
mine and I’ve done shows with them-- even remixed one of their songs-- and our tour had just<br />
happened to coincide with theirs, so we were lucky and got on board. The shows were awesome;<br />
B. Dolan is a true M.C. in complete control of the mic and his audience. The What Cheer? Brigade<br />
was amazing as always and Nicholle Pride was totally charming. I, of course, ruled and Vockah...<br />
well, he stole the damn show. It was incredible. New York was lukewarm (as New York always is)<br />
despite the efforts of some die-hard fans who knew every word to every B. Dolan song. The next<br />
night was Boston, which was fun but the smallest of the four shows, then...<br />
02/12/11: We played in Providence, stomping ground of B. Dolan and What Cheer?. There must<br />
have been 300 people in this place, a big club in Pawtuckett. There’s been a ton of Providence/N.O.<br />
cross-over in the past couple years, between What Cheer? coming down and this arty-weirdo PVD<br />
dance troupe that’s been down a few times. They have been listening to bounce music and, like<br />
Asheville, they were ready, with butts shaking all over the place. The last show was in Portland,<br />
Maine, at an art space named, cleverly enough, Space. Once again, everyone went bananas. Out<br />
of the seven of us on tour, only photographer Nico had ever been to Maine. Energyzah, the twenty<br />
year-old back up dancer, had never left Louisiana or Texas. Now we’re in Maine in freezing cold<br />
February, about to try and bring the colloquial New Orleans sound to a bunch of Mainers? Crazy.<br />
And it worked. The show was great, the crowd was stoked and B. Dolan closed the tour by saying<br />
that Vockah and Cru had been the unexpected stars of the tour. He even had them come out after<br />
his performance and do an encore. Then we pulled everyone up on stage and I jumped on the mic,<br />
wished everyone a happy Mardi Gras and DJ’ed bounce music while everyone got sweaty. In<br />
MAINE.<br />
02/13/11: After the Maine show it was like, “Yo Thanks B., see you Nicholle, good show, hey<br />
What Cheer? See you in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.” Then we all piled into our cramped, smelly<br />
rental van and hauled ass toward home, with a quick stop in Richmond, Virginia (actually we<br />
stopped in a Burger King parking lot and slept, then went to Richmond) to play a show with my<br />
old pal and longtime Vockah and bounce supporter DJ Dirty Finger. We’d hopped on a party of his<br />
in New York, too, after our Maine show and he was in Richmond DJing a few parties that week.<br />
The show was definitely the lowest energy of the tour but that’s still pretty amped, and Richmond<br />
went nuts. I was so exhausted I felt like I might literally collapse behind the turntables. Luckily,<br />
Dirty Finger was more than happy to kick some N.O. bounce for the butts of Virginia. We crashed<br />
at the house of Shanae, the very, very nice show promoter, then we climbed in the van one last<br />
time for a 12-hour haul home, just in time to hurl ourselves into carnival. Victory! Were there<br />
bad moments? Sure. We were all a bunch of divas in a packed minivan, New Orleanians taking<br />
a crazy show on tour in the North East in winter. Attitudes flared up. People got sick. We had an<br />
argument in Boston over how to get the Cru from Boston to Providence that was a damn-near<br />
meltdown. But I’ve been going on tours since I was 18, from the crazy punk-circus-clown tours of<br />
yesteryear to rock band tours. Of all of them, I think this was the most well-attended, the most well<br />
put-together and hands down the most fun. Boo-yah. Go team Redu. Love y’all! -Ethan Clark, aka<br />
DJ Beesknees<br />
Help pay for Vockah and Cru’s parking tickets at an event showcasing the photographs of<br />
Nicola Krebill as well as drawings and a new mixtape by Beesknees at Byrdie’s Gallery, 2422<br />
St. Claude Avenue, Thursday, <strong>March</strong> 31st. For more information, check out vockahredu.com<br />
and stingingcaterpillar.com.<br />
15
MUSIC<br />
FOBURG BACK FOR ROUND TWO<br />
BY DAN MITCHELL AND ERIN HALL<br />
In 2009, the brain trust behind the New<br />
Orleans Indie Rock Collective (known as<br />
the noirCollective) developed the idea for an<br />
alternative music festival that would highlight<br />
local indie bands while also giving national bands<br />
on their way to Austin’s famed South by Southwest<br />
(SXSW) an additional place to stop and play for a new<br />
audience. The noirCollective is composed of young<br />
men and women who are all involved with the local<br />
music industry in some way and who aim to create a<br />
legitimate and thriving community for the indie bands<br />
around town. They release sampler albums multiple<br />
times a year featuring up and comers and established<br />
acts alike, as well as hosting showcases and other<br />
smaller shows year-round. Their focus is on “raising<br />
awareness of and building an infrastructure for the<br />
New Orleans Indie Rock scene.”<br />
Foburg 2010 was the group’s largest undertaking<br />
to date. And it was, by all accounts, a great success,<br />
featuring over 100 bands and drawing a crowd of<br />
nearly 10,000. This year’s festival, which takes place<br />
<strong>March</strong> 11th – 13th, boasts a beefed up lineup with<br />
more venues and a few larger names. Like last year,<br />
it will take place mostly in venues located on or<br />
around Frenchmen Street in the Marigny. The spot<br />
was chosen because the noirCollective felt the area<br />
could benefit greatly from expanding their typical,<br />
more traditional musical offerings to more offbeat<br />
and alternative bands, thereby opening up their clubs<br />
to a whole new audience.<br />
While the bands on the bill mostly fall under the<br />
“indie” label, there is a lot of style variety among<br />
them, including everything from electronic/<br />
dj acts to bounce and rap, country, folk and<br />
psychedelic. There are established national acts<br />
(Ra Ra Riot), regional darlings (Lafayette’s<br />
rapidly exploding Givers), much-buzzed-about<br />
national newcomers (Das Racist), some of local<br />
label Park The Van’s newest gems (Brass Bed,<br />
Empress Hotel) and beloved locals (Hurray For the<br />
Riff Raff, Caddywhompus, Katey Red). Venues<br />
on Frenchmen include The Maison, Dragon’s Den<br />
and The Blue Nile. Just a few blocks away are the<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge, Saturn Bar and Allways Lounge.<br />
Further down St. Claude is one of the city’s newest<br />
and most interesting venues, Siberia. The only<br />
venue outside of the Marigny is One Eyed Jacks<br />
on Toulouse.<br />
There are currently three options for purchasing<br />
tickets. For $40, you can get an advanced weekend<br />
pass that grants you access to every show except Ra<br />
Ra Riot + Givers + The Luyas at One Eyed Jacks<br />
on Friday the 11th. For an extra $10, you can add<br />
that show and score a $50 “advanced Weekend<br />
Pass PLUS.” On Friday the 11th, a box office/will–<br />
call will be set up on the corner of Frenchmen and<br />
Chartres, where walk-up weekend passes may be<br />
purchased for $50 and tickets previously purchased<br />
online can be picked up (with receipt and photo ID).<br />
Day passes will also be available the day-of at the<br />
box office, but there is currently no price information<br />
available for these tickets.<br />
There are plenty of shows going on in this city<br />
every night, so we know your time is precious. Allow<br />
us to recommend a few of the Foburg shows we think<br />
you should swing by and check out.<br />
Ra Ra Riot + Givers + The Luyas<br />
One Eyed Jacks<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 11 th<br />
The most established band on the bill, Ra Ra Riot is just a few years into its career. But thus far they’ve put out two albums of<br />
thoroughly enjoyable indie rock/pop melding dark themes with jubilant instrumentation. Givers is the biggest thing to come<br />
out of Lafayette in…well, a while. They’re popping up on the radars of scores of publications and blogs nationwide. Their<br />
style is a mix of trippy pop and a touch of barefoot jam band – positively joyous fun. The Luyas are a Canadian indie pop<br />
band with a personnel connection to Arcade Fire and a similar style of integrating orchestral arrangements into their music.<br />
Debauche + The Lisps + Hurray for the Riff Raff + Luke Winslow King<br />
The Blue Nile (upstairs)<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 11 th<br />
Debauche bills itself as a Russian Mafia Band and can most closely be compared to gypsy punk ringleaders Gogol Bordello.<br />
I dare you to go to this show and not move your feet. If you can, congratulations – you are dead. The Lisps are an “indie rock<br />
vaudeville” group from New York – one part Magnetic Fields and one part circus band. Hurray for the Riff Raff put out one<br />
of the best albums of any local band last year in Young Blood Blues. Alynda Lee Segarra’s rich and luxurious vocals meet with<br />
earthy banjo, accordion and percussion to create a truly unique sound that is not to be missed. Luke Winslow King breathes<br />
life into traditional New Orleans music by folding strutting, robust horns in with smoky, cool vocals.<br />
The Other Planets + Caddywhompus + Fights<br />
Allways Lounge<br />
Friday, <strong>March</strong> 11 th<br />
The Other Planets are a spacey, experimental group with sparks of ‘60s pop and jazz. Caddywhompus is a local favorite<br />
whose explosive live shows have livened up many a New Orleans night. Their blend of fuzzed out vocals, driving percussion<br />
and feverish guitar create a rather insane aural space to run around in. Fights is a relatively new group, so there’s not much<br />
out there on them yet, but if they’re paired with these two, you can expect it to be two things: 1) crazy and 2) LOUD.<br />
Ra Ra Riot<br />
16
Brass Bed + Vagabond Swing + Hart<br />
The Blue Nile (upstairs)<br />
Saturday, <strong>March</strong> 12 th<br />
This showcase is home to all Lafayette bands, so obviously<br />
something is brewin’ over in Cajun country. Another<br />
quickly rising Lafayette band, Brass Bed follows in the<br />
footsteps of the biggest band their label (Park the Van)<br />
has ever hosted – Dr. Dog. They possess the same spirit<br />
of sunny ‘60s instrumentation and sharp-tongued lyricism<br />
and are just as much fun to see live. Vagabond Swing<br />
steps away from the indie feel and boasts an infectious<br />
brand of hot jazz-rock mixed with the exotic rhythms of<br />
New Orleans and south Louisiana’s cultural melting pot.<br />
Hart is a Lafayette legend, a wooly bearded godfather of<br />
roots rock. That’s pretty much all you need to know about<br />
him.<br />
Das Racist + Katey Red + Shanook + 8188 + PYMP<br />
The Maison (downstairs)<br />
Saturday, <strong>March</strong> 12 th<br />
Das Racist @ Maison (downstairs) on 3/12<br />
2010 was a big year for hip-hop, specifically with the<br />
emergence of two groups/ collectives, one from L.A.,<br />
the insane Odd Future collective helmed by Tyler, the<br />
Creator, and one from NYC, the trio of Das Racist, who<br />
we are concerned with here. This Das Racist show, set<br />
for the evening of 3/12 at the Maison, will mark the very<br />
first time the city of New Orleans will have the pleasure<br />
of experiencing this group, made up of lyricists Heems<br />
and Kool A.D., and hype-man Dap. Last year, Das Racist<br />
released two phenomenal mixtapes, the first being Shut<br />
Up, Dude, which featured the hilarious song we all now<br />
know perhaps too well, “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco<br />
Bell,” and the second being their insanely wide-ranging<br />
collaborative effort called Sit Down, Man. Their singular<br />
brand of hip-hop was a game changer last year and<br />
introduced the world to a group that can at once by ironic<br />
and comical, while countering that silly side with some<br />
serious verbal skills and unique insights into the strange<br />
society we live in nowadays. Das Racist, in New Orleans<br />
finally—rejoice!<br />
Big Freedia + Lil’ Dee + Plane Jane + KLC (DJ set)<br />
The Maison (upstairs)<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 13 th<br />
Big Freedia is one of the cornerstones of the bounce<br />
scene in New Orleans. Her live shows are always wild<br />
and audience participation is mandatory. I mean, one her<br />
songs is called “Azz Everywhere!” for God’s sake. Just<br />
shake your booty please. Lil’ Dee refers to himself as<br />
God’s Gift to Rap Music, so this showcase should be a<br />
good chance to test that claim. Plane Jane is a bit of a<br />
rarity– a female rap duo. Garnering some comparisons<br />
to Salt-n-Peppa, the ladies mix energetic rap flows with<br />
electronic music and unique beats. KLC has worked as<br />
a producer with some of the south’s most prominent<br />
rappers, so his dj set should be chock full of swagger and<br />
dirty south flavor.<br />
Toro y Moi + Small Black + Cults + Sun Airway +<br />
Cloud Nothings<br />
Saturn Bar<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 13 th<br />
The night of 3/13 will see another great show, this time<br />
at the Saturn Bar on St. Claude, featuring two of Carpark<br />
Records best talents, Columbia, South Carolina’s Toro y<br />
Moi and Cleveland, Ohio’s Cloud Nothings. Both bands<br />
have just released new music in the past couple of months,<br />
with Toro y Moi just dropping his solid and spacey<br />
Underneath the Pine, the first since the 2010 breakthrough<br />
debut, Causers of This, and the Cloud Nothings releasing<br />
their propulsive, pop-infused, self-titled, Carpark debut.<br />
The venue is intimate and the songs ever more so--- this<br />
show will be the perfect destination for anyone looking to<br />
escape the downtown crowds in favor of a more laid-back<br />
evening, maybe. After all, it is the Saturn Bar and things<br />
are known to get rowdy there. Regardless, this show is<br />
going to be a good one.<br />
Jeff The Brotherhood + King Tuff + Dead Gaze +<br />
X-Ray Eyeballs + Holly Tamale’s Variety Show<br />
Siberia<br />
Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 13 th<br />
Hailing from Brattleboro, Vermont, the prolific and allaround,<br />
super-talented King Tuff (a.k.a. Kyle Thomas)<br />
MUSIC<br />
will be gracing New Orleans with his presence on <strong>March</strong><br />
13 th , at Siberia. Aside from releasing solo material under<br />
the moniker King Tuff, the King is a member of the<br />
Sub-Pop garage/ power-pop group Happy Birthday, who<br />
released a great, but largely unappreciated, eponymous<br />
debut one year ago on the venerable West Coast label.<br />
Tuff’s solo material is a bit more sunny, druggy and<br />
free flowing than his work with Happy Birthday and if<br />
you have not yet checked him, get his solo album Was<br />
Dead, immediately. Tuff will be joined this night by<br />
the Nashville tour-aholics Jeff the Brotherhood and the<br />
Brooklyn garage-punk weirdoes, the X-ray Eyeballs, as<br />
well as a number of other acts. It is going to be a busy<br />
weekend for music in town, but this show needs to be on<br />
everyone’s list.<br />
Das Racist<br />
17
MUSIC<br />
CROWBAR’S FINALLY GETTING THEIR RIGHTFUL DUES<br />
BY DAN MITCHELL PHOTO BY GARY LOVERDE<br />
Over the past 20-plus years, Kirk Windstein has been making music under the moniker<br />
Crowbar. It has been a long road (with numerous line-up changes along the way) that<br />
has yielded nine full-length records, including Sever the Wicked Hand, which came<br />
out on February 8, <strong>2011</strong>, standing as the newest addition to their catalog. Coming out<br />
exactly six years to the day after their prior album, Lifesblood for the Downtrodden, Sever is huge<br />
in scope, strangely uplifting and wickedly rewarding from beginning to end. Over the course of the<br />
twelve songs held within, fans can once again celebrate one of America’s seminal metal bands, who<br />
are back once again and stronger than ever. On the verge of taking off to join the Metalliance Tour,<br />
which kicks off in Texas in a few weeks, and also features legendary acts like St. Vitus and Helmet,<br />
we thought it best to chat with Windstein before they hit the road. After trading calls over the past<br />
few weeks--the guy is busy--<strong>Antigravity</strong> finally got a few moments to speak with the founding<br />
member (also member of local heavyweights Down and Kingdom of Sorrow) about the experience<br />
of signing to a new label, where their varied and unclassifiable sound came from and what music<br />
influenced Windstein from an early age.<br />
ANTIGRAVITY: I wanted to start with your singing to E1 music in the past year or so to<br />
release this new album [Sever the Wicked Hand]. The label itself has focused on hip-hop and<br />
rap music in the past when it was Koch Records. How did you link up with these guys and sign<br />
the deal with them? Are they going in a new direction?<br />
Kirk Windstein: Yeah basically it is a really good label. They have had a lot of successful artists. They<br />
started in the last year-and-a-half, two years, doing a lot with metal and heavy music. Ya know, they signed<br />
High on Fire, they signed Black Label Society, they recently signed Overkill, Crowbar obviously, and<br />
they put out a Hatebreed cover song record [and] put out a Hatebreed DVD. So, they have been dealing<br />
with all genres of music, but really been getting into the heavier stuff [recently] and doing a really good<br />
job with the bands that they [have] had. For us, it was a no-brainer really. Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed<br />
co-manages us with Steve Ross, who is Hatebreed’s manager, and they had ties and connections and kind<br />
of shopped it, and the label bit on it. Lucky for us, we were able to sign a really good deal with them and<br />
they’ve done a really great job promoting us. We are really happy with everything.<br />
I remember the release of the video for “The Cemetery Angels” came out back in December.<br />
[Did] they have a hand in getting that together?<br />
Yeah, absolutely. It was filmed in New York City, in Manhattan, and we had played in New Jersey<br />
the night before. The morning it was filmed, we had a show that night in Manhattan. It was still dark<br />
out and I got up, hauled ass down to the Hudson River, and started filming. It came out really good,<br />
ya know, we were lucky.<br />
You released this last album earlier in the month, on February 8 th , which was exactly six years<br />
to the day from the last album, Lifesblood for the Downtrodden. Was there any significance to<br />
it coming right down to the day, six years later, for releasing Sever the Wicked Hand?<br />
It was definitely nothing intentional. They always release them on Tuesday and it has been six<br />
years, and it just fell on the same day. It was totally just ironic that it did. It just came out six years<br />
to the day, which is crazy that it did.<br />
On the new album, songs like the title cut and “Cemetery Angels” and “Cleanse Me, Heal<br />
Me” definitely have a hardcore vibe and feel to them, whereas a track like “Liquid Sky and<br />
Cold Black Earth” or “Echo an Eternity” were more on the doom side. There is a lot of<br />
variation on the new record--is that the way you do things?<br />
Pretty much, that is just kind of what Crowbar is. On Sever the Wicked Hand we pretty much<br />
touched upon every element that has ever been a part of the sound. Really, what we are is a mixture<br />
of the hardcore, fast, aggressive stuff with slow, doomy, melodic, depressing-type stuff. It is a<br />
combination of both. It is not all about being super-slow and drop-tuned and it’s not all about being<br />
upbeat, it is both. [There are] a lot of fast songs, break downs--we always thought it was funny<br />
because the break-down at the end of “Cemetery Angels,” [people were saying] that it almost<br />
sounded modern, like a lot of these [newer] metal-core bands. I was laughing because I was like,<br />
‘all it is, is just like anything else I have written over the past 20 years.’ It has just happened that<br />
things have come full circle. For us, we feel very fortunate to be considered an influence on a lot of<br />
bands. It is cool that a lot of bands are into us, but I thought it was funny [that people] were hinting<br />
that maybe I was taking something from some of these newer bands. Ya know, no disrespect, but<br />
no I didn’t, I just wrote the same thing that I always do.<br />
The Metalliance Tour that you are going to be doing, [is] one of the coolest tours I have seen<br />
put together in recent years, with you, Helmet and [St.] Vitus. But, there is this newer crop<br />
of bands that are also on the bill. Are you familiar with a band like Kylesa?<br />
A little bit. What I have heard form them I really like. I have heard nothing but great things about<br />
all of these bands. Ya know, I’ll be 46 years-old [this year], I have a daughter from a previous<br />
marriage, I’ve got a house and a wife now--when I’m at home, I’m kind of out of the scene, out of<br />
the loop as far as what is really going on with the newer bands. Obviously, I am familiar with St.<br />
Vitus, I am friends with the guys, and I am a big Helmet fan, so I think in general it is going to be<br />
fuckin’ great. It is a great mixture of three older bands, that really have three completely different<br />
styles, but all three styles go well together--it’s odd. Then you have a newer crop of bands coming<br />
up that are killer, so it should really be an awesome bill, we are looking forward to it.<br />
18
MUSIC<br />
With the record itself, the title, Sever the Wicked Hand, is that at all a reference to your<br />
sobriety over the past six months?<br />
Yeah it is about that, but it is really just a metaphor about getting rid of anything negative in your<br />
life. By no means am I the poster board for sobriety, I am never going to be, but for me, it just got<br />
out of control. It was like, ‘shit man, you need to get a new direction in life, turn yourself around.’<br />
For me, it was just alcohol spinning out of control. Whether it is a bad relationship, or alcohol or<br />
drug problems, anything, it [the title] is just a metaphor for that and moving forward in a positive<br />
light--finding a light at the end of the tunnel, finding something positive in life, just getting rid<br />
of the bad shit and moving forward. All I know is that when I am inebriated and spiraling out of<br />
control, it is not very fun, and when I am sober and being productive, my life is a helluva lot better.<br />
That’s where I am at today, man.<br />
I know that a lot of very productive work can come out of the morning hours, is that how you<br />
have been writing recently?<br />
Lyrically, yes. All of the lyrics were pretty much written [when] the sun would barely be up. Ya<br />
know, I’d go downstairs and have a jam box next to me on the couch, really low, and just feel the<br />
vibe and just write down my thoughts and there you go, there’s the lyrics and a new song. It has<br />
always been that way--whenever I worked a regular job, I always liked to get up, get it done and then<br />
relax later on in the day. If I get up and it is 6 o’clock in the morning, even if I am tired, I’ve got too<br />
much going on and I can’t, with a good conscience, lay back down and fall back asleep for a couple<br />
of hours. [Now] this [Crowbar thing] is a 24-hour-a-day, seven day a week, 365 day a year job. I am<br />
always on call; the phone can ring at any time, day or night. I feel bad for my lady Cait because it<br />
just doesn’t stop. Now that the record is out, it has slowed down, thankfully, but for a while, it was<br />
maniacal--just non-stop, hours a day at the computer and [always] on the phone. Now it is kind of a<br />
sense of accomplishment, ya know, ‘wow, we have done it, the record is out and it is doing well, we<br />
are looking forward to touring’--I kind of get to be a little bit more normal. It is a good thing.<br />
What you have said in the past as far as influences go, from Thin Lizzy to the Melvins, to<br />
bands like the Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front--are there any others that really speak to you as<br />
far as the founding days go, what inspired you to make music?<br />
In the beginning, for me, it was growing up on music, early rock n’ roll, early ‘70s music--music<br />
for me struck a chord, no pun intended. When I was really young, my dad was a big music and<br />
rock n’ roll fan. He was a Rolling Stones fan, that was probably my first introduction to rock n’<br />
roll. When I was a kid, I worked a summer job with my father, who was actually a wholesale milk<br />
distributor, so we’d be riding all around New Orleans listening to WRNO, or whatever it might<br />
be, and that is what I grew up on--‘70s rock. It just went from there. I found bands that I liked;<br />
early Kiss was a huge influence on me and from there it just snowballed. After the Kiss, Zeppelin,<br />
and Aerosmith American rock n’ roll, ‘70s thing, I started [getting into] bands like Thin Lizzy and<br />
UFO and in the very late ‘70s Motorhead, and going into the ‘80s, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and<br />
Saxon. Then I found my hardcore bands, I found the Agnostic Front, Sick of it All, the Cro-Mags<br />
and whatnot. It is all part of me, part of my love for music--all of it is important with what I sound<br />
like today with Crowbar, and Down and Kingdom of Sorrow.<br />
I feel like that is one of the very cool elements to music--you can almost always find something<br />
new. I find personally, I listen to a lot of new music and they introduce me to a lot of the older<br />
music I might have never heard.<br />
Yeah that kind of happened to me. For me personally, I didn’t originally flip on bands like Zeppelin,<br />
I went through cycles. As I got older, I would go back and rediscover a band like Uriah Heep or<br />
Wishbone Ash, ya know, a band that was never super-big--I like to do the same thing. A lot of<br />
people would look at bands like Cream or Led Zeppelin, and then realize, oh the early Rolling<br />
Stones, and then realize oh, Muddy Waters and the blues guys. I think it is a common thing to do<br />
and a good thing to do, to go back and find them. I think that is what is happening, to be honest,<br />
a little bit, with this interest and resurgence in interest in Crowbar. So many of these bands that<br />
are up-and-coming are kind of mentioning Crowbar as an influence, which is very flattering and a<br />
great thing--I’m glad that we could influence somebody. What’s happening is, I think, a lot of these<br />
[younger] people are mentioning it, ya know, Crowbar, and [others] find out that they have never<br />
really heard of us. The band was always just an underground thing, and it still is to some degree,<br />
but it is really starting to get some of the respect and recognition I think that we deserve, and that<br />
is great, ya know.<br />
I guess you got to put in your dues, not that being bigger is necessarily a good thing, but it<br />
does afford you the opportunity to reach new fans that maybe you wouldn’t have reached<br />
otherwise.<br />
Absolutely. It is important to us, and it is not necessarily about the money, but [some] sure helps. I<br />
mean, these days nobody is selling records and getting stupidly rich, but to me, getting to the next<br />
level is an important thing. Ya know, I have been doing Crowbar for 20 years, plus, and it is my<br />
heart and soul, its my passion and my vision, and I just want to see us get to the level of recognition<br />
that I think that we deserve.<br />
Crowbar plays One Eyed Jacks on Saturday, <strong>March</strong> 19th Revolver as part of the Metal Alliance<br />
Tour w/ Helmet, St. Vitus, Crowbar, Intronaut, the Atlas Moth, Howl and Naam. For more info,<br />
go to crowbarmusic.com.<br />
19
MUSIC<br />
WHISPERING WARRIOR: CATCHING UP WITH MIKE<br />
TAYLOR OF PYGMY LUSH<br />
BY ANDY GIBBS<br />
PHOTOS BY DAN FOX<br />
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in <strong>March</strong> a few years back, and we were gathered<br />
on a porch in Baton Rouge as five mostly bearded gentlemen quietly set up some<br />
amps, drums and an old organ. Soon enough, notes coalesced into a wash of<br />
soothing, ethereal melody and the gray clouds above us began to let forth a handful<br />
of unassuming droplets. No one seemed to mind the light rain that day and in fact it fit<br />
the ambience perfectly. Most of us would’ve been happy to post up in a hammock and<br />
drift off while the band whisked our cares away.<br />
It’s hard to believe that, only two hours later, the same band--a band called Pygmy Lush,<br />
who many of you are surely acquainted with by now given their longstanding penchant<br />
for making New Orleans a mandatory tour stop-- was ripping through grunge-inflected<br />
hardcore jams in a living room while a throng of weirdos let loose their animalistic urges.<br />
I don’t mean “animalistic” as a metaphor, either: one young man ripped his shirt off, beat<br />
on his chest and imparted a deafening shriek mid-song.<br />
Despite the incongruity of these two scenarios, the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Pygmy<br />
Lush doesn’t seem odd to me. For one, I don’t find it strange that someone could enjoy,<br />
say, the easygoing grit of Neil Young and the caterwauling bombast of a band like the<br />
Jesus Lizard. Additionally, I rather like the way they have unapologetically cast these<br />
dual natures side-by-side on some of their records. And besides, if you lived in a nice<br />
old home in the woods of Virginia, could you really resist your inner urge to wax folksy<br />
with some of your best friends, who just happen to write beautiful, melancholic lyrics<br />
and melodies?<br />
Listening to that side of the band, the “quiet” side to use their term, feels to me like<br />
putting on my favorite old shirt that’s perfectly broken in. When I first heard “Asphalt”,<br />
the opener on their second LP Mount Hope, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was<br />
some badass song I swore I knew, some wonderfully depressing lullaby that was sung to<br />
me as a child. This is what draws you into Pygmy Lush as they begin to spin their yarn.<br />
The members of the band are no strangers to the road, having toured for over a decade<br />
in amazing bands like Pg.99, Mannequin, Malady, and Hissing Choir. I was fortunate<br />
enough to coax guitarist Mike Taylor into answering a few questions about life and<br />
music as they prepare to hit the road once again.<br />
ANTIGRAVITY: How do you typically describe Pygmy Lush to someone who has<br />
never heard the band?<br />
Mike Taylor: Hmmm, that’s always a tough one. Sometimes it will depend on who I’m<br />
talking to. If I’m referring to the loud stuff I can easily say it’s noise rock/grunge-influenced<br />
punk rock. The quieter stuff, which keeps getting less quiet, is hard for me to describe. A<br />
lot of influence from all over go into that sound. I can say the songs start simple, like a<br />
singer/songwriter-type song with a guitar and vocals and we usually build from there.<br />
20
After all the traveling and touring you’ve done with<br />
this band and previous bands, what inspires you to hit<br />
the road every year?<br />
The great unknown my friend, the great unknown! Nah,<br />
I don’t know. That’s just what you need to do if you’re a<br />
band making music and recording albums. A band needs<br />
to get out there and make a connection with people and<br />
find its crowd. If a band did nothing but played their<br />
hometown for five years they would probably grow<br />
stagnant and uninteresting. People present a healthy<br />
challenge for musicians to be great. I also rather enjoy the<br />
traveling. It’s good to step away from routine to hit the<br />
road! A peace of mind, if you will.<br />
Having been active musicians for a long time now, how<br />
does one successfully balance band life with personal<br />
responsibilities like day jobs or relationships?<br />
That’s a good question and I’m sure the answer will<br />
change depending on one’s time and place. I am a firm<br />
believer that if there’s a will to play music then one will<br />
always find a way to make it work. I have married friends<br />
who make it work and friends with children who do the<br />
same. It will always be a labor of love in a lot of ways<br />
for people but that just comes with music. For us, we just<br />
try to be considerate of everyone’s needs and make sure<br />
we’re all on the same page-- which needs to be affirmed<br />
from time to time, but that’s all a part of being in a band<br />
that works.<br />
How does growing up affect one’s decision to be<br />
involved or not be involved in a DIY punk scene?<br />
I’m not really sure age or growing older has much to do<br />
with our involvement in the DIY scene. I don’t even think<br />
we make an effort to say we’re staying a part of any scene<br />
in particular. It’s very limiting to shelter your music with<br />
any one belief or way of doing something, especially when<br />
“DIY punk” is such a broad term these days, anyhow. We<br />
feel comfortable doing what we’ve been doing so far, I’ll<br />
say that.<br />
MUSIC<br />
“It’s very limiting to shelter your<br />
music with any one belief or way of<br />
doing something”<br />
would sooner just stay home than to have too much in<br />
their face at all times. I don’t know... tough question. Too<br />
many awful bands are out there touring, though. That’s<br />
just me.<br />
Where is the band headed from a stylistic point of<br />
view? Is the heavy side of the band being phased out?<br />
I feel like this band could kinda go anywhere from here.<br />
A lot has to do with the fact that we’ve switched a few<br />
members over the years, which has lent itself to the<br />
changing sound. Our new record is more upbeat and a<br />
bit louder than Mount Hope. I think we wanted to do less<br />
droning on this record. I’m sure we’ll still drone out but<br />
the music on [soon to be released] Old Friends just kinda<br />
came out the way it did very organically and naturally.<br />
We’re not done with the louder stuff. I couldn’t live<br />
without the loud Lush!!!<br />
Your house is burning down. Which classic Nirvana<br />
album do you run and grab before flames engulf them all?<br />
Ha! Well, Chris [Taylor, Mike’s brother and bandmate]<br />
says In Utero. [Mike] Widman says he wouldn’t save the<br />
Nirvana records because you could buy ‘em anywhere,<br />
but says he’d go Nevermind. I’d have to save the split with<br />
Jesus Lizard or the Hormoaning 12 inch picture disc!!<br />
How about you?<br />
Me? I’m with Chris. In Utero all the way. How has<br />
living away from a big city affected the way you write<br />
music?<br />
We talk about traffic a lot! We’ve been practicing at our<br />
farmhouse for the past five years, so that’s kept us at<br />
peace and more relaxed when we write, allowing us to<br />
get into more of a zone. We play into the wee hours of the<br />
morning some nights. I guess that might be hard in a city<br />
or a shared practice spot.<br />
What is your favorite memory of New Orleans?<br />
There’s way too many to recall! For Widman it might be<br />
when he turned 21. I turned 30 in New Orleans! Jamming<br />
at ol’ Dixie Tavern, Verti Mart, Molly’s’ Bloody Marys,<br />
eating at Rita’s Olde French Quarter, Bryan Funck’s<br />
jambalaya, Eric [Martinez] cooking us rabbit, the first<br />
Pg.99 show at Movie Pitchers and definitely St. Patty’s<br />
Day parade were all amazing!!!!<br />
One of the young girls who was on the cover of the<br />
Smashing Pumpkins’ album Siamese Dream is now<br />
rumored to be in the band. Does this mean we are<br />
about to enter a new Grunge Revolution?<br />
Hahaha, hopefully! And maybe Pygmy Lush will tour<br />
with them! I heard that the baby on the cover of Nevermind<br />
played music too!? We’ll see.<br />
Pygmy Lush plays a matinee show with Des Ark, Thou<br />
and Screaming Females at Euclid Records, 3400<br />
Chartres Street, on Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 20th, 2pm. For<br />
more information, check out noladiy.org or pygmylush.<br />
wordpress.com.<br />
How has the way you handle band<br />
business changed now that more<br />
people rely on the internet? Is it<br />
easier? Harder?<br />
In a lot of ways it’s made people<br />
a lot more lazy with setting up<br />
shows. I don’t see fliers nearly as<br />
much as I did ten years ago. On the<br />
other hand, email, cellphones and<br />
GPS are a touring band’s dream!<br />
Booking tours before email was<br />
tough. We’d just look in band’s<br />
records for an address or phone<br />
number. Phone bills were always<br />
a tour expense that you’d have to<br />
take into account. Our last tour<br />
was booked pretty much through<br />
text!!<br />
Is the fact that there are more<br />
bands touring the country now<br />
than ever before a positive thing or<br />
a negative thing?<br />
I guess I don’t think it’s the best thing<br />
that so many bands are touring. Who<br />
am I, though, to say people should<br />
stay out of the way and off the road?<br />
I just know that promoters and showgoers<br />
tend to get overwhelmed and<br />
21
MUSIC<br />
MIKE WATT<br />
IS OUR CO-PILOT<br />
BY DAN FOX WITH ISIDORE GRISOLI<br />
PHOTO BY EIKO KOBAYASHI<br />
23
MUSIC<br />
Now that Johnny Cash is no longer with<br />
us, I’d like to submit Mike Watt for<br />
consideration as the new American<br />
grandfather, someone to lead the way for<br />
the wayward youth (i.e. the punks, man!) and show<br />
us how it’s done. While so many musicians his age<br />
(and he is only a paltry 53, we should point out) are<br />
gasping and clinging on for dear life to shells of their<br />
careers, mailing in weird reunion performances and<br />
cannibalizing their own work, Mike Watt is still<br />
turning out fresh music and firing on all cylinders,<br />
in this case literally as he embarks on yet another<br />
tour-- though he still pays homage to his past and<br />
fellow Minuteman D. Boon, who was killed in a van<br />
accident in 1985, an event that sends deep echoes<br />
into today.<br />
As the bass player for the Minutemen (one of the<br />
most influential punk bands to come out of the early<br />
’80s), Mike Watt was part of the movement that<br />
spread punk rock around America and established a<br />
DIY culture and community that we’ve sadly come<br />
to take for granted. Since D. Boon’s death, Watt has<br />
continued on, helming such bands as fIREHOSE and<br />
taking the bass duties on for the reformed Stooges.<br />
But then you probably knew all that already. Mike<br />
Watt gets around.<br />
When his latest solo album, Hyphenated-Man,<br />
arrived at AG headquarters, I picked it up with great<br />
amusement. What I heard was a surprising burst<br />
of energy, a thirty-song sprint that evoked a range<br />
of emotion from humor to sadness, bewilderment<br />
and sometimes just straight awe. “Be brave, Watt.<br />
Stop never reflecting” he coos at the beginning of<br />
“Pinned-to-the-Table-Man,” and that’s just one of<br />
many lines that will twist inside you the way only a<br />
zen riddle penned by a master can.<br />
For this interview I asked my friend and band<br />
mate Isidore Grisoli to join me, as he’s a longtime<br />
Minutemen/Mike Watt fan and also a bitchin’ bass<br />
player. It was a thrill for both of us to speak with him<br />
and get a good dose of Wattspeak, but it was Izzy<br />
who was greeted with “Hi, bass brother” a moment<br />
I’m sure he’ll not soon forget (You’ll also have to<br />
ask him about how his conversation went about a<br />
certain three-piece blues band from Houston). He<br />
spoke to us from his home in San Pedro, California<br />
(pronounced PEE-dro so you know) at an hour not<br />
usually hospitable to musicians. Of course, we came<br />
to find out he had already been up for hours.<br />
ANTIGRAVITY: Do you normally keep these<br />
kinds of hours?<br />
Mike Watts: I wake up usually around four-thirty,<br />
five. I only stay up late for gigs so it’s a little tough<br />
sometimes. I’m a crack-a-dawn person. I conk early,<br />
maybe eight, nine o’clock at the latest. I like the early<br />
mornings. I do the bicycle and the kayak. Tuesdays,<br />
Thursdays, Saturdays. Wednesday was a pedal day.<br />
You just ride around Pedro?<br />
Yeah, well, Pedro’s a harbor, so I’m right by the<br />
cliffs and the docks.<br />
New Orleans is a port, too. Have you been to New<br />
Orleans much?<br />
I haven’t played there in six, seven years. Yeah, with<br />
my Secondmen... House of Bourg. Blah. Last time<br />
I was in Louisiana was at Baton Rouge, almost two<br />
years ago. But I didn’t make it to New Orleans. I will<br />
this time, though. I’m playing Baton Rouge and New<br />
24<br />
“Some of this rock and<br />
roll stuff has got too<br />
much royalty: built in<br />
pampered, tiara-wearing<br />
bullshit...”<br />
Orleans. You know, Minutemen played there. There<br />
was a club called Jimmy’s there in the old days...<br />
That’s where we played in 1984. There used to be a<br />
good band from there called the Sluts. Dave Slut the<br />
singer…<br />
The Sluts, yeah! He’s got a band now called<br />
O.L.D.<br />
Oh he’s still playing? Great.<br />
He even does a Sluts reunion once in a while.<br />
They were good. You know, he almost ended up a<br />
Black Flag singer! It was between him and Hank.<br />
With the really long mic cable, he’d run all over the<br />
fuckin’ place. [He’s] a climber.<br />
We’re really excited for you to come down this<br />
time; we’ve been enjoying your latest album.<br />
Kinda trippy, kind of insane! Big song in thirty parts,<br />
which is weird. They all fit together to make one. It’s<br />
kinda semi... You know, it wasn’t a Minutemen idea.<br />
We got it from this band called Wire, in England.<br />
They had an album called Pink Flag. That’s where we<br />
got the idea for tiny songs. There was a documentary<br />
on the Minutemen called We Jam Econo. Well, those<br />
guys asked me to help them do spiel in it. And so I had<br />
to listen to Minutemen again because I didn’t really<br />
listen to it a lot after D. Boon got killed. It kind of<br />
brought me down. But then checking it out again, it<br />
was like “Man, this is... I like this.” No filler. So I said<br />
I want to do this again, this kind of style. And I was<br />
on tour with the Stooges at the same time in Spain and<br />
I was in Madrid. There’s a museum there called El<br />
Prado. There were paintings there by this guy I used<br />
to trip on as a young man named Hieronymus Bosch.<br />
And I got to see them in person, not just pictures<br />
in a book and it was like, whoa. I was thinking, he<br />
makes the one painting out of all these little things.<br />
This is kind of like Minutemen. I thought I would<br />
kind of use these little creatures combined with the<br />
little song format to talk about myself, this 53-yearold<br />
punk rocker. So it’s different than the other two<br />
operas [1997‘s Contemplating the Engine Room and<br />
2000’s The Secondman’s Middle Stand] where they<br />
had beginnings, middle and ends where I was talking<br />
about the older days, something that happened before.<br />
First one was about the Minutemen, second one was<br />
about the sickness that almost killed me. This one’s<br />
more about me right now.<br />
How did you write all these songs?<br />
I wrote ‘em all on D. Boon’s guitar. Now, ninetyfive,<br />
ninety-seven percent of the time I write on bass,<br />
but I wrote the whole thing on guitar. I wanted to<br />
write the bass second this time. Usually I write with<br />
the bass first because I like to give the other cats<br />
room to express themselves. And I can’t play guitar<br />
very well. I only know stuff that D. Boon showed<br />
me. I’m pretty feeble but much respect to [guitarist]<br />
Tom Watson for following my palsy demos and<br />
then I taught it to Raul [Morales, drums]. One thing<br />
about the Minutemen connection was I was kind of<br />
paranoid about respect to Georgie [Hurley, drummer<br />
for the Minutemen] and D. Boon because I shouldn’t<br />
be ripping off my own band. I had Tom and Raul<br />
learn this stuff without ever hearing the bass. I<br />
thought, just get rid of the only Minuteman and<br />
maybe it won’t be too Minutemen-y sounding. So<br />
they learned it and recorded it in Brooklyn in three<br />
days without ever hearing the bass. A year later I<br />
went back and put the bass on and spiel. So it was<br />
made kind of strange. You can’t really do that at a<br />
gig: here, wait a year I’ll bring you the bass. And it<br />
wasn’t too influenced by the Minutemen guy, Watt.<br />
So even though I wrote it, I thought if they got a<br />
rapport together, if they had a good conversation<br />
between the drum and the guitar, it would be good<br />
for that, it wouldn’t be too bum-rushed by me on my<br />
bass. I wrote the bass parts as soon as I wrote the<br />
guitar parts; I just didn’t let them see it.<br />
Even trying to take out the Minutemen influence,<br />
it’s still there.<br />
I know, you’re right. A little different, but you can<br />
tell that this guy was in the Minutemen that wrote the<br />
shit. [Laughs]<br />
You can tell that he loves them, too.<br />
He’s pretty into them. [Laughs]<br />
How often do you practice?<br />
We practiced yesterday; we’re going to practice<br />
again today. I gotta tell you, this piece is fuckin’<br />
hard to do. I did a tour of it in Japan in October<br />
and November. That’s the first time I played it<br />
for people. And it’s got a lot of shit to remember,<br />
man. A lot of words, a lot of parts. Raul and Tom’s<br />
got it pretty good but I’m still struggling a little<br />
bit... So we have to do a lot of practice. [Laughs]<br />
That’s okay. You know, one of the main messages<br />
I wanted to get through the piece about where I am<br />
in my life is that I think everybody’s got something<br />
to teach me. Life is for learning. I got fifty-one<br />
gigs in fifty-two days on this tour so I should get a<br />
little bit of practice there, for sure.
MUSIC<br />
“In the old days, the scene<br />
was so small and most<br />
people hated punk. You<br />
had to be into it or it was<br />
going away.”<br />
What’s a day in the life of touring for Mike Watt?<br />
The U.S. is big, man. There’s some fucking driving<br />
involved. No New Orleans to Baton Rouge rides,<br />
okay? Ninety miles?<br />
Yeah, but that’s the longest 90 miles of your life.<br />
[Laughs] It’s about a hundred miles from here<br />
to Santa Barbara. Phoenix is like 400 miles, San<br />
Francisco four hundred miles-- out west here you<br />
got some hell rides. What you’re doing is you’re<br />
getting to the gig, okay? Then you get there, you<br />
do the sound check, right? I’m doing all the driving<br />
unless it’s too whuppin’, then I conk in the boat so<br />
I can be ready for the gig and not be totally wore<br />
out... My sound check’s the Blue Oyster Cult song<br />
and that’s it. “Red and the Black.” We play that and<br />
that’s done. I hate long sound checks but you gotta<br />
do something. I don’t bring my own sound man. I<br />
believe in the house man and I want him to see a<br />
little bit of what we’re doing.<br />
It sounds like the way you tour now really isn’t<br />
that much different from the way you’ve always<br />
been doing it.<br />
Exactly right. Because it worked then, why shouldn’t<br />
it work now? When you ain’t playing, you’re paying.<br />
Someone wanted me to ask you: when’s the last<br />
time you’ve slept on a floor?<br />
That’s all I do; I don’t own a bed. I’m a deck man. I<br />
don’t know why but when I conk I’m fuckin’ rolling<br />
all over the place so I used to always fall out of those<br />
things as a boy and hurt my face. I said fuck this shit!<br />
Let’s start off down here.<br />
Is there anything you have to do different now?<br />
Tour is so grueling when you’re young, but when<br />
you get older…<br />
Not older, less young.<br />
Of course, I’m sorry!<br />
[Laughs] Some dudes like to say rehearse. I say<br />
actors rehearse; we practice, okay? Anyway, you’re<br />
right. The body ain’t as resilient. I gotta pace myself<br />
a little better. Whiskey after the gig. [Laughs] It ain’t<br />
like the other days with the body. But my spirit is still<br />
fired up. And I got great guys who help me; Tom and<br />
Raul, they’re really there for me. We come together<br />
as a team. That’s why I like trios. But when you talk<br />
about grueling, just think about working in the salt<br />
mine and having five starving kids. You gotta keep<br />
perspective. It is a little tough but there’s some other<br />
tough stuff. Some of this rock and roll stuff has got<br />
too much royalty: built in pampered, tiara-wearing<br />
bullshit anyway, so doing a little work’s not too bad.<br />
We heard about that tiara. Can you explain that?<br />
I had to put one on the dash! [Laughs] Luckily, I’ve<br />
never been with whiners and bellyachers who can<br />
feel the pea under twenty-five mattresses. I don’t<br />
come from that tradition and it’s nothing I want to<br />
graduate or work up to. Those folks that like whining<br />
and needing assistant hair techs and whatever the<br />
fuck; let ‘em have it. Not in this boat. I’m lucky I<br />
got guys who have the same philosophy. Actually,<br />
in the old days, you couldn’t do it because the scene<br />
was so small and most people hated punk. You had<br />
to be into it or it was going away. That’s where I<br />
come from. There’s no kink in my character. It’s<br />
all right. Honest wage for an honest living, honest<br />
work. It’s cool with me. Also, when you’re doing<br />
a big tour, the thing that people don’t talk about<br />
but it’s a big reality besides the physical things is<br />
the morale. You got to keep the spirits up. You got<br />
motherfuckers bellyaching, man, it’s like anchors<br />
dragging behind.<br />
What’s one way you’ve learned to avoid that?<br />
What happens is, little things start getting on you.<br />
One thing I do that might seem kind of weird is<br />
I don’t really chow with my guys on tour. You<br />
need a little space, I think. Because all of a sudden<br />
the smacking of the lips is getting on your nerves<br />
or you’re smacking your lips... things like that.<br />
It gets the little short and curlies. You stay away<br />
from those and you keep the eyes set on the big<br />
target, which is playing this piece for the people.<br />
They work all week to get the bones up to come<br />
to your gig and so you want to do good for them.<br />
I want to get my guys home safe. That’s the first<br />
promise I make myself when I start a tour. We’re<br />
going to try and work this piece for the folks as best<br />
we can so we keep that in mind. Also, lots of jokes!<br />
Remember the Wipers? I met the first drummer<br />
man, Sam Henry and I was asking about the Wipers<br />
and he said “Yeah there were some trippy things.”<br />
He said-- you know the main man was Greg Sage,<br />
right?-- Greg said “Number one rule for tour: no<br />
laughing in the van!” [Laughs]<br />
What? That sounds terrible!<br />
I mean, every band does it different but on a Watt<br />
tour there’s lots of laughing. Lots of jokes, lots of<br />
funny voices. Just keep the spirits up; if you’ve<br />
got the spirits up, all that other stuff that can grind<br />
on you, you can kind of keep it in check. Once the<br />
spirits get down, oh man! It’s hard... You keep the<br />
spirits up: you look forward to the next gig, you<br />
don’t drag. The “o” word: opportunity, not the “b”<br />
word: burden.<br />
One thing you said a minute ago struck me. You<br />
said your priority in touring is to get your guys<br />
back safe and obviously for you that’s a special<br />
mission because you lost D. Boon when he was<br />
killed in a van accident. I also noticed that you<br />
dedicate this latest album to him. How much is he<br />
with you today?<br />
He’s with me all the time. I’m always asking him<br />
things but he don’t like to answer me; he wants<br />
me to think about it. I ask him about everything.<br />
Something happens like this Qaddafi is about to<br />
tumble: “Hey, what do you think, D. Boon?” I saw<br />
a fishing boat coming out and it had a dinghy. They<br />
were towing it. “What do you think about that, D.<br />
Boon? Who’s in the big boat, who’s in the dinghy?<br />
How do they work that out?” I’m always asking<br />
him stuff because that’s how it was in life. Always<br />
asking him, always interested in his opinion. D.<br />
Boon had righteous perspective. If it wasn’t for D.<br />
Boon I wouldn’t be doing music. His mom put me<br />
on bass at 13. I got to acknowledge that. But then<br />
I think he wants me to be my own man, so I don’t<br />
want to lean on him too hard... What do you do, you<br />
know? It was an accident. He jumped out a tree on<br />
me. I can’t be sad forever, I gotta keep pushing. But<br />
that don’t mean I’m going to stop thinking about<br />
him.<br />
Any new stuff you’ve been jamming to?<br />
Oh shit, I got like ten or twelve things in the pot.<br />
That’s why I’ve had to start my own label again.<br />
The fourth Dos album’s coming out in a couple<br />
of months, my longest running band, twenty-five<br />
years with K [Kira Roessler, Watt’s ex-wife and<br />
former Black Flag bassist]. I got an album I did<br />
with two Italian guys in Italy last year; it’s coming<br />
out in a couple months after that and then one I<br />
did with two Tokyo musicians backing up Richard<br />
Meltzer’s spoken word, called “Spiel Gusher.”<br />
I got a lot of things coming. Clenched Wrench,<br />
that’s my new label, it’s only a couple of weeks<br />
old. I just started it. But I want to get this stuff out.<br />
These recorded works, they’re like my children. I<br />
gotta get them out there. I don’t have children so<br />
this is the closest thing to it. And it’s mainly for<br />
Mike Watt stuff. Remember, I started one thirty<br />
years ago with D. Boon so I got a little experience.<br />
I just don’t want any filter, you know? I don’t<br />
want to have to “shop” the thing “Hey do you like<br />
it? Please like this!” No, it’s getting pushed out<br />
there no matter what because Watt says. [Laughs]<br />
I want it out there. When I’m gone, that’s what’s<br />
left. That’s one thing especially thinking about D.<br />
Boon and middle age. One day I gotta leave, get<br />
off the stage, get out the boat. I’ll be kicking and<br />
clawing but it’s gonna happen so I want some stuff<br />
here after me.<br />
Mike Watt and the Missingmen play One Eyed<br />
Jack’s in support of his new album, Hyphenated-<br />
Man, on Sunday, <strong>March</strong> 20th. For more<br />
information, go to mikewatt.com.<br />
25
ADELE<br />
21<br />
(xl)<br />
Initially lumped in with the wave of<br />
young, British, female soul singers<br />
of the early 2000s (Amy Winehouse,<br />
Duffy, Joss Stone, Leona Lewis etc.)<br />
Adele is making fantastic strides to<br />
set herself apart with her new album, 21. Her debut, 19, was,<br />
like much soul music, powerful, melancholy and wrapped up in<br />
the trappings of love. But 21 sees her maturing at a rapid level,<br />
delivering crushing emotion with a mere quiver of her voice.<br />
A breakup album from cover to cover, 21 takes the listener<br />
through every stage of grief. There is denial (“Don’t You<br />
Remember”), anger (“Rolling in the Deep”), bargaining (“I’ll<br />
Be Waiting”), depression (“Take It All”) and finally, acceptance<br />
(“Someone Like You”). The single and album opener, “Rolling<br />
in the Deep” is already seeing amazing chart success with its<br />
propulsive blues-driven melody and massive vocals. “Rumour<br />
Has It” is a deep, punchy groove with a vintage girl group vibe<br />
and a deliciously dramatic breakdown. “He Won’t Go” is a<br />
subdued tune that utilizes a more traditional R&B sound while<br />
“Set Fire to the Rain” is more pop-tinged and wouldn’t be out<br />
of place on Top 40 radio. More than just her impeccable style,<br />
Adele has a way with those most vulnerable of universal human<br />
emotions. When she sings “Take it all with you/Don’t look back<br />
at this crumbling fool” I doubt there are many people who can’t<br />
relate. The album is a deeply personal account of the end of<br />
a relationship that began before her first album debuted. The<br />
album closer, “Someone Like You” is a pitch-perfect endnote<br />
and it sees Adele running into her ex years down the road,<br />
finding him happily married. Her acceptance of the reality of the<br />
situation paired with her deep heartache makes for an absolutely<br />
stunning song. Vocally, Adele deserves a place alongside the<br />
best divas in soul music. Her talent for truly capturing the human<br />
experience in song is what artistry is all about. Expect to hear<br />
much more from this phenomenal young woman. –Erin Hall<br />
BLACK JOE LEWIS AND THE<br />
HONEYBEARS<br />
SCANDALOUS<br />
(LOST HIGHWAY)<br />
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears’<br />
sophomore LP Scandalous is not so<br />
much a record as it is a tour through<br />
every seedy juke joint and roadhouse<br />
from North Mississippi to East Texas. It is dirty and chunky, and<br />
above all, thick. There are obvious and warranted comparisons<br />
to 1960s soul legends (Otis Redding, James Brown - no, really)<br />
and contemporary “neo-soul” practitioners (Sharon Jones & the<br />
Dap-Kings, the Heavy - there is a horn section after all), but<br />
Lewis & the ‘Bears get their shake and swagger and smoke not<br />
from Muscle Shoals or Memphis, but from the Mississippi hill<br />
country. They’re not a true soul band or a straight blues band,<br />
but they are sweaty and brash, and they’re what you’re hoping<br />
to hear if you pull off Highway 61 in Tate County around 1 a.m.<br />
on a Saturday night. If Animal House were filmed today, these<br />
guys would be in the basement playing “Shout.” The most apt<br />
label that gets stamped on this vital outfit is “garage soul,” and<br />
while that captures a lot of the d.i.y., punk-influenced, first-take<br />
ethos of the band, it misses out on one essential driving factor<br />
behind these dudes: that they’re playing for an audience. Music<br />
this Funky, infectious, and conversational is wasted in a garage.<br />
There are funky romps (opening track “Livin’ in the Jungle”),<br />
delta-style breakdowns (“Messin’”), and talking blues in the<br />
most “Hey man, you won’t believe what happened last night”<br />
groove (“Mustang Ranch,” about a visit to a brothel that Lewis<br />
claims to be “a true story, pretty much”). The honesty and<br />
carelessness with which these guys play and sing is undeniable,<br />
and it’s also addictive. This is not a headphones record for<br />
intellectuals; it is a party record for much booty shakin’. –The<br />
Rev. Dr. Daniel P. Jackson<br />
BRIGHT EYES<br />
THE PEOPLE’S KEY<br />
(SADDLE CREEK)<br />
Conor Oberst announced a hiatus from<br />
Bright Eyes three years ago to focus<br />
on side projects like his country-pop<br />
Mystic Valley Band and a funky, folky<br />
collaboration with M. Ward and Jim<br />
James of My Morning Jacket (Monsters of Folk). And while<br />
he has returned to Bright Eyes, he also has stated this will be<br />
the last album released under the moniker. If that is so, it’s a<br />
fitting swan song. Known mostly for their early albums full of<br />
angsty, often whiny, indie wallowing, Bright Eyes has opened<br />
up a whole new mature universe on The People’s Key. Oberst’s<br />
lyrics are still pregnant with meaning and brimming with fire,<br />
but the delivery is diversified and intriguing. Throughout the<br />
disc there are scattered bits of spoken word ruminations on<br />
God, the cosmos and yes, half-reptile/half-human babies that<br />
can move between dimensions. Also, pomegranates. Bizarre as<br />
it is, it works. The opener “Firewall” is moody, detached and<br />
psychedelic with a recessed groovy organ and ample religious<br />
and cosmic subtext. “Shell Games” and “Haile Selassie” are<br />
upbeat and catchy with staccato vocal pacing and an intuitive<br />
swing. “Jejune Stars” sounds, at least in the instrumentation,<br />
like a track The Strokes might have penned for their upcoming<br />
release. It’s all severe shredding guitars crashing into synthy<br />
pop keys – something virtually unheard of on any of the band’s<br />
previous outings. “Approximate Sunlight” is a sparse song<br />
with layered echoes and vocal samples that conjure a desert<br />
wasteland while “Ladder Song” is a beautifully tender ballad<br />
with dreamy ebb and flow. It is, overall, a marvelously paced<br />
album with the perfect balance of light and dark. Its lyrical focus<br />
on the interconnectedness of humanity is stirring and relevant.<br />
The album shows maturity, invention and conviction and if this<br />
is the note Bright Eyes chooses to go out on, it will definitely be<br />
one of their highest. –Erin Hall<br />
REVIEWS<br />
CUT COPY<br />
ZONOSCOPE<br />
(MODULAR)<br />
Cut Copy’s second record, 2008’s<br />
great In Ghost Colors, tipped the<br />
world off to a new force in the dancerock<br />
realm (an ‘80s-referencing genre<br />
still on the rise at the time). A lot has<br />
happened in music over the past three years, with the dance-rock<br />
trope seemingly running its course, yet the announcement of Cut<br />
Copy’s long-awaited third album still sounded like cause for<br />
celebration. And, just a few months after the pronouncement of<br />
the new album, we have Zonoscope. And it is absolutely a cause<br />
for celebration. The album begins with the lead single “Need<br />
You Now,” a slow-growing and ecstatic cut that buoys itself on<br />
the impossibly suave vocal restraint exhibited by frontman Dan<br />
Whitford. After opening an album on such a masterful note,<br />
it is almost as if the rest of the album doesn’t even matter, as<br />
we, the listener, are hooked. The rest of the album does matter<br />
though, as Cut Copy explores textures and emotional states<br />
that stand as new ground for the group over the next ten tracks.<br />
For instance, “Pharaohs & Pyramids,” the fourth cut, channels,<br />
somewhat vaguely, Brian Eno and David Byrne’s work together<br />
in the intro, and also falls in line with Yeasayer’s brilliant effort<br />
from last year in the middle section--- it is a new direction<br />
for the band entirely. The fifth cut, “Blink and You’ll Miss<br />
a Revolution,” is another example, with an intro reminiscent<br />
again of Yeasayer and vocal stylings and slant akin to Byrne<br />
or Bryan Ferry, yet also possessing undercurrents of post-punk<br />
percussion mixed with Trinidadian steel drum tonality. The<br />
brief, woozy and abstract “Strange Nostalgia for the Future”<br />
blends an Animal Collective atmosphere with an Erik Satie ear<br />
for note placement, and showcases yet again a new direction<br />
for the band. All said, even without a single as brilliant and<br />
exuberant as 2008’s “Lights and Music,” Zonoscope is a strong<br />
and studied statement from a band that has lost none of their<br />
relevance since their last outing. –Dan Mitchell<br />
DAVID LYNCH<br />
GOOD DAY TODAY / I KNOW<br />
(SUNDAY BEST)<br />
David Lynch is a visual genius. His<br />
work opened up possibilities for<br />
intense visual surrealism in American<br />
filmmaking. What’s not quite as<br />
apparent is the amount of sonic<br />
design Lynch has done: from staging a live musical theater<br />
presentation, to hand crafting the sonic profiles of his films,<br />
to working on musical collaborations like Thought Gang and<br />
BlueBob. How do these two tracks fit into the David Lynch<br />
oeuvre? Opener” Good Day Today” is a retro sounding electro<br />
track reminiscent of Chemical Brothers or Underworld at their<br />
chilliest. The song is simplicity personified, building off a deep<br />
bass bump with stuttered organs and Lynch’s heavily distorted<br />
vocals floating angelically in the ether. It’s pretty and easy to<br />
drift away on, but it’s not the most Lynch-like song you could<br />
imagine and its repetitiveness isn’t alleviated by its less than<br />
27
REVIEWS<br />
complicated structure. More representative of Lynch’s usual<br />
modus operandi is “I Know.” It’s a slow bleeding, spook show<br />
blues dirge, using sparse, slow paced bursts of percussion,<br />
sudden trebly guitar wails and the hollow space lurking between<br />
each note to generate mountains of shadowy atmosphere. Once<br />
again Lynch’s voice hovers above the clank in a fog of pitchshifted<br />
distortion. The package here is also fairly retro, looking<br />
not unlike one of those old maxi-singles people were so fond<br />
of collecting. There’s a nice handful of remixes here ranging<br />
from Underworld’s decidedly ‘90s reworking of “Good Day<br />
Today” to the wider, echo and bass-laden creepy crawl of the<br />
“I Know (Jon Hopkins Remix).” The atmosphere and creativity<br />
are here, but let’s hope Lynch pushes his musical structures a<br />
little further if this project turns into another facet of his work.<br />
–Mike Rodgers<br />
Maybe it’s the most obvious<br />
comparison, and sure it’s not a<br />
complete fit, but Deerhoof reminds me<br />
of Can. In both cases we have a band<br />
that can’t be contained to one genre,<br />
even within the usually safe confines of a four-minute pop<br />
song, a band that pushes the limits of melody and form creating<br />
dizzying musical hybrids yet adds an element of humor and<br />
inclusion by way of a non-classical Japanese singer resulting in a<br />
distinctive sound that’s both easily recognizable and impossible<br />
to pin down. The songs are mostly shaped from chopped bits of<br />
instrumentation, a plucked guitar here, a wall of feedback there.<br />
The album is schizophrenic in its seemingly disjointed nature,<br />
but like all schizophrenics there’s a strong framework to the<br />
disparity. Haunting melodies bubble up from beneath mounds<br />
of scattershot sounds. Within each song the trick is to bend a riff<br />
or phrase into a hook through sheer repetition, but as a whole the<br />
record seems more interested in keeping its listeners off guard<br />
rather than cohering to a unified plan. There’s a lot of good to be<br />
found in this Ritalin-free methodology: the increasing presence<br />
of massive waves of heavy rock like the downright groovy<br />
“Secret Mobilization,” or the glossy art pop of “Super Duper<br />
Rescue Heads!” Deerhoof Vs. Evil is all of that and more, but at<br />
key moments it’s less. Skipping through the screeching, battered<br />
madness is a song like “No One Asked to Dance,” as simple and<br />
sweet as a jangly guitar ballad can be, its only flourishes gentle<br />
analog keyboard and flamenco acoustic arpeggios. There are<br />
enough moments of bliss, interesting diversions or instances of<br />
strong song craft to make up for what Deerhoof might be losing<br />
in thematic solidarity. So while Deerhoof Vs. Evil isn’t their<br />
strongest record, and a bit of a loose cannon at that, its more<br />
intriguing aspects outweigh its misfire. –Mike Rodgers<br />
After the lukewarm reception to their<br />
last release, The Big To Do, the Drive-<br />
By Truckers were probably hoping<br />
to knock it out of the park with their<br />
soul-influenced Go-Go Boots. And<br />
while it’s certainly not a complete miss, it’s not quite a hit<br />
either. The album suffers from strange pacing and a general lack<br />
of the snarling attitude they’re so famous for. Perhaps we’re<br />
hearing the sound of aging/maturity, but something tells me<br />
these guys (and lady) still have plenty of fire in their bellies.<br />
There are not one, but two, songs about preachers having their<br />
wives murdered on the album (the title track and the grisly,<br />
all-too-descriptive “Fireplace Poker”). Both are soul-filled<br />
slow burners. Written by de-facto lead singer Patterson Hood,<br />
the tracks perfectly encapsulate his talent for honing in on the<br />
macabre details of the southern gothic tale. At the climax of<br />
“Go-Go Boots” he rattles off “Stained glass windows, Jesus<br />
looking down/Organ playing music to the middle aged crowd/<br />
His wife’s in the ground, the devil’s in his head/Them go-go<br />
boots are underneath the bed” before hissing “It’s a small town<br />
and the word gets around.” The soulful R&B boogie is also<br />
present in “Used To Be A Cop,” a dark tale of a man whose<br />
temper and the shakes cost him everything. The album is host to<br />
28<br />
DEERHOOF<br />
DEERHOOF VS. EVIL<br />
(POLYVINYL)<br />
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS<br />
GO-GO BOOTS<br />
(ATO)<br />
two covers of songs originally done by Eddie Hinton, a pretty<br />
obscure member of the Muscle Shoals studio musician’s crew<br />
that worked with Hood’s father and played backup on a number<br />
of seminal recordings in the late ‘60s. “Everybody Needs Love”<br />
is rousing, familiar and jovial whereas “Where’s Eddie” is<br />
melancholy and haunting (especially considering it was written<br />
by Hinton himself as he imagined a woman searching for him<br />
to declare her secret love). Guitarist and co-songwriter Mike<br />
Cooley is sadly somewhat absent on this album, as he was on<br />
The Big To Do. And something really is missing without a<br />
more significant contribution from him. His tracks (“Cartoon<br />
Gold,” “The Weakest Man” and “Pulaski) are charming as<br />
usual; the man surely knows his way around a turn of phrase.<br />
An interesting note is that Cooley’s songs have a very distinct<br />
country feel this time around. “The Weakest Man” is especially<br />
rooted and could have easily been sung by Waylon Jennings or<br />
Hank Williams. Bassist Shonna Tucker contributed one original<br />
song, “Dancin’ Ricky,” which is a delightful mix of twangy<br />
guitars and soul organs but her vocals on “Where’s Eddie” are<br />
the true revelation (and further proof that her skills are rapidly<br />
evolving behind the mic). Given some time, the album will grow<br />
on you. At first, however, it may leave you longing for the piss<br />
and vinegar of Decoration Day or The Dirty South. While not<br />
their most memorable outing, the Truckers have put together a<br />
solid album deeply rooted in the music of their Muscle Shoals<br />
upbringing. –Erin Hall<br />
JAMES BLAKE<br />
JAMES BLAKE<br />
(A&M)<br />
An artist like James Blake does not<br />
come around every day, month, year<br />
or even decade. In fact, the last artist<br />
of this integrity, range and worth as a<br />
vocalist may just be Antony Hegarty,<br />
who made her debut way back in 2000, with the Antony & the<br />
Johnsons full-length. So perhaps it is fitting that James Blake<br />
broke, with a slew of EPs in 2010, exactly one decade after<br />
the world was first introduced to Hegarty. Blake’s EPs, The<br />
Bells Sketch, CMYK and Klavierwerke, were all released in the<br />
past year and only acted as teasers to the impending debut fulllength<br />
from this young British prodigy. The EPs exhibited his<br />
mastery of the keyboard/ piano and sampling and fell in line<br />
with contemporaneous dubstep artists working in England at the<br />
time, but this eponymous debut is another story altogether. His<br />
previous work had focused on his musicianship and ability to<br />
craft soundscapes based off a knack for the emotive. This time<br />
around, his voice is the centerpiece and this 21 year-old not only<br />
has a voice, but also possesses the musical restraint to allow it<br />
to shine. The debut kicks off with the track “Unluck,” a dusty,<br />
worn, crooner cut that exhibits his range perfectly, despite<br />
his use of auto-tuning. In fact, this track, and many others<br />
on Blake’s debut, confirms, much as Bon Iver proved on his<br />
Blood Bank EP, that the auto-tune can be used tastefully as an<br />
accompaniment and layering tool. The difference between Bon<br />
Iver and Blake’s implementation of this vocal manipulation is<br />
that Blake’s usage remains intimate and aching, while Iver’s<br />
came off as being chilly and disconnected. Put simply, Blake’s<br />
vocals on this album stand as the best execution of the device I<br />
have ever heard. With the album centering around a number of<br />
cuts, the single “The Wilhelm Scream,” the cut “I Never Learnt<br />
to Share,” an aching and introspective piece on childhood<br />
guilt, my personal favorite love song in recent memory, a Feist<br />
cover called “Limit to Your Love” and “To Care (Like You),”<br />
it is very hard to deny the brilliance in this brief yet affecting<br />
twelve-song debut. Much like Antony’s heart and soul that she<br />
pours into her music, Blake moves you in ways that you never<br />
thought possible. –Dan Mitchell<br />
LIGHT ASYLUM<br />
IN TENSION EP<br />
(INDEPENDENT)<br />
When I first saw the Grant Worthdirected<br />
video for the Light Asylum<br />
single “Dark Allies” a few weeks ago,<br />
I was blown away completely. Not<br />
only was it stylistic--- dark, sexual,<br />
violent and mysterious--- but the song was the best dance song<br />
I had heard in years, perhaps since Cut Copy’s “Lights and<br />
Music,” from a couple of years back. Unlike Cut Copy however,<br />
Light Asylum sounded, and looked, dangerous, razor-edged<br />
and menacing, due in large part to vocalist Shannon Funchess’<br />
impossibly fantastic voice. I was intrigued, if not utterly<br />
enthused, as this is my kind of music and I wanted more. I then<br />
took to the internet (as they are unsigned and only have four<br />
official tracks in circulation on the interweb) to find a copy of<br />
their EP, aptly named, I would come to find, In Tension. While<br />
“Dark Allies” was a great cut, I was skeptical that the other<br />
tracks I had heard about would live up to this behemoth of darkwave.<br />
As it turns out, the other three tracks are solid as well.<br />
From the glistening, pony-naying, stutter-chill of the opening<br />
track “A Certain Someone,” to the feedback-laden, KMFDM<br />
of “Knights and Weekends” and on through the compressed,<br />
witch-house propulsion of “Skull Fuct,” I found myself<br />
enraptured and wanting nothing but MORE. Alas, I (and you)<br />
will have to wait for more, but this four-song, teaser offering is<br />
certainly enough, both in its variety and its force, to tide us over<br />
until the next batch surfaces. Comprised of Shannon Funchess<br />
(who has worked with TVOTR), handling Vox/ percussion gun<br />
drums, and Bruno Coviello, dealing in synths/ drum machine<br />
Italo crush, this duo is the most exciting dance group this new<br />
year has to offer thus far. –Dan Mitchell<br />
MOTORHEAD<br />
THE WORLD IS YOURS<br />
(MOTORHEAD MUSIC)<br />
Motorhead is elemental. Motorhead is<br />
a force of nature. Motorhead simply<br />
is. Here we are in <strong>2011</strong>, somewhere<br />
around four million years into their<br />
career Lemmy and the whole gang of<br />
filthy rockers are still eating Jack bottles like candy and slaying<br />
crowds of longhairs. Motorhead’s sound has evolved at a<br />
Paleolithic pace. The band still preaches their dirty speed, fuck<br />
’em all punk-metal; The World is Yours is no reinvention. On<br />
tracks like “I Know What You Need,” when the band clicks into<br />
a sweaty, snaking boogie riff and Lemmy’s voice is grinding<br />
over everything like a strained shout, it’s a white-knuckly thrill.<br />
The only departure on the record is the brooding and black<br />
“Brotherhood of Man,” wallowing as it does in a mid tempo,<br />
hypnotic sludge riff with Lemmy playing the snarling tyrant<br />
at its center. The World is Yours does raise a few questions,<br />
most importantly is there any reason for Motorhead to grow as a<br />
band, especially this late in their game? Motorhead has attacked<br />
their particular piece of the heavy metal landscape for decades,<br />
perfecting what they do to, if not to a fine surgical point then<br />
at least a rusty bludgeon. If you know anything about Lemmy<br />
and the band members then you’ll see this is the only kind of<br />
music they could make; a nervy, drunken mutation of punk,<br />
a metal monster that only wants to fight or screw. How many<br />
other legends of heavy metal can put out a record as powerful,<br />
as soaked in rock and roll madness, as badass as Motorhead can<br />
so far into their careers? If records like The World is Yours is the<br />
result then pray that the whiskey keeps them going for another<br />
album or two. –Mike Rodgers<br />
PJ HARVEY<br />
LET ENGLAND SHAKE<br />
(VAGRANT)<br />
Polly Jean Harvey wastes no time<br />
getting to the point on her new album<br />
Let England Shake, with the opening<br />
title track proclaiming “England’s<br />
dancing days are done.” The album,<br />
which took a year and a half to make, is a concept record of sorts,<br />
with Harvey analyzing her homeland (and Western society as a<br />
whole) circa WWI and thereafter with a brashness that is both<br />
striking and uplifting. When PJ Harvey’s career began in the<br />
early ‘90s, with the seminal releases Rid of Me and Dry, no one<br />
at that time could possibly predict that PJ would go political.<br />
20 years into her career, Harvey has not only done just that,<br />
but has also crafted an album that could be argued as being the<br />
pinnacle of her storied career. Let England Shake is unforgiving<br />
and richly historical lyrically, with songs like the great “The<br />
Last Living Rose,” the sampled “The Glorious Land” and “The<br />
Words That Maketh Murder” exhibiting this completely, but is
also musically the most attention-grabbing set of songs in her<br />
catalogue. The album was recorded in an abandoned English<br />
church with the help of John Parish, Mick Harvey, Jean-Marc<br />
Butty, Sammy Hurden and producer Flood, amongst a few<br />
others, and is well worth the wait of its lengthy crafting period.<br />
Her words can be viewed as hauntingly pertinent throughout the<br />
album, but especially when she sings, “Death was everywhere/In<br />
the air and in the sound,” on “All & Everyone.” While she could<br />
not possibly foresee the political landscape unfolding before<br />
us at present during the time of the song’s writing, it gives her<br />
problematic take on affairs an even more grave and profound<br />
quality. PJ Harvey has always pushed the envelope, but here, her<br />
haunting and accusatory tone is as scary as it is beautiful. This<br />
album might be the best she has ever put out. –Dan Mitchell<br />
the parting gifts<br />
strychnine dandelions<br />
(in the red)<br />
The Parting Gifts are a new band<br />
consisting of front-people Greg<br />
Cartwright (Oblivians, Compulisive<br />
Gamblers, Reigning Sound) and Coco<br />
Hames (Ettes) alongside a half dozen<br />
musicians from the more rocking end of recent music. As the<br />
band’s name suggests, the songs on their debut primarily deal<br />
with break up. But these songs are not pitiable, downtrodden,<br />
or down-tempo. Instead, Cartwright and Hames deliver their<br />
laments with energetic conviction against the strong beat<br />
of drums, guitars and organ. Both singers sound equally at<br />
home trying to get a handle on an implacable special someone<br />
(“Strange Disposition”) as they do gleefully walking away from<br />
a relationship gone sour (“My Mind’s Made Up”). The resulting<br />
play between form and content makes for music that is good for<br />
listening to carefully at home or during a night on the town. Since<br />
an enormous amount of great rock and roll is about breaking up,<br />
it could come as a surprise that The Parting Gifts get a lot of<br />
mileage out of their subject matter without sounding tiresome.<br />
The band makes this traditional song topic sound fresh and<br />
natural. Cartwright, who contributed 70% of the songwriting,<br />
succinctly describes his despairing characters in commonplace<br />
situations. The instantly memorable vocal melodies and guitar<br />
hooks add to these heartfelt vignettes, making Strychnine<br />
Dandelion a record with immense pop value. The majority of<br />
these songs sound as if they definitely could have had a top<br />
position on rock stations back in the day. The band cycles through<br />
stomping country, garage rock, and girl group pop and weaves<br />
them into there own cohesive style. The Parting Gifts carry<br />
themselves through this album as an impressive balancing act.<br />
In less capable hands, this music would turn out cliché or overtly<br />
retro. The musicianship and songwriting align themselves into<br />
honest expression. Even the production style carefully mixes<br />
the band with crisp clarity without sacrificing any of the raw<br />
intensity the performers display. The band’s overall strength lies<br />
in this balanced approach, making them essential for listeners<br />
seeking quality contemporary rock. –Brian Campbell<br />
the SKULL DEFEKTS<br />
peer amid<br />
(thrill jockey)<br />
The Skull Defeckts, a four-piece<br />
post-punk/ minimalist group from<br />
Gothenburg, Sweden, have released<br />
twelve albums in just six years. Their<br />
sound has a certain quality to it that can<br />
best be described as being cyclic and mesmeric skull-fuckery.<br />
Their guitars fly tangentially, often meeting in unexpected ways,<br />
while their drums and bass plod and lock (for a modern reference,<br />
think a more concise and better Oneida). Now on their thirteenth<br />
release, things have changed a bit. Daniel Higgs, the exceptional<br />
and mercurial frontman of Lugfish, is a full-time member, lending<br />
vocals, and whatever else he does, to the mix throughout this<br />
the great new LP, entitled Peer Amid. Apparently, the cover art<br />
(comprised of interlocking, multi-colored stone-shapes within an<br />
Ouroboros) defines the record’s sound, which makes sense after<br />
a few listens. On the surface, Peer Amid sounds loose and busy,<br />
but give it time, because the album begins to take shape the more<br />
you ingest it. This is in large part due to Higgs’ contributions<br />
in the vocal department, which work to tie the music together<br />
perfectly--- just add a bit of Higgs, and everything gets better,<br />
this is my philosophy. The album kicks off with the nine-minute<br />
title track, which pushes and pulls musically, with Higgs acting<br />
as séance ringleader, calling out directives amidst the madness.<br />
This first cut spills beautifully into the spacey punk/ hardcore of<br />
“No More Always,” which takes a new direction in sound, but<br />
still finds Higgs at his most orderly. “Gospel of the Skull” is the<br />
next track up, with Higgs warbling, “Do you hear that sound…<br />
in your skull,” repeatedly--- the track is the minimalist manifesto<br />
of both the group and the record and sets up the rest of the album,<br />
including the highlight track “Fragrant Nimbus” and the closing<br />
folk recapitulation of “Hidden Hymn.” The nine tracks found<br />
within Peer Amid are strange, circuitous and moving, resulting<br />
in a superb listen, from beginning to end. –Dan Mitchell<br />
TRIUMPH OF LETHARGY<br />
SKINNED ALIVE TO DEATH<br />
SOME OF US ARE IN THIS<br />
TOGETHER<br />
(DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’)<br />
Aside from having the best name in<br />
music right now, the ironic/ challenging<br />
title of the sixth record from this<br />
Pacific Northwest collective, made up of members of Pretty<br />
Girls Make Graves and the Murder City Devils, is the perfect<br />
descriptor of the sounds held within this new full-length release.<br />
The Some in the title refers to the very few that may find this<br />
group infatuating. It is the few that call David Tibet a god and the<br />
few that understood what Slint, Fugazi and Unwound stood for/<br />
against back in the 90s--- rejection, dejection, disillusionment,<br />
conformity. The sounds held within are harsh, brooding and<br />
cantankerous, yet ultimately uplifting and cathartic; a Slint or<br />
Fugazi really, to the proper listener. “As I kneel before you…<br />
one mile up, one mile down… Don’t lust after other women…”<br />
goes the opening track, which finds Spencer Moody, vocalist/<br />
exorcist, bearing your soul, on the opener “Don’t Lust After<br />
Other Women.” Delivered with immediacy, accompanied by<br />
sparse musical destruction, you cannot help but feel arrested<br />
within the spiraling decrees. From here forth, the album’s guitars<br />
encircle, the bass pulverizes and the cymbals crash without limit.<br />
“Hey asshole, hey asshole” cries Moody on “Hey Asshole,” a<br />
highlight cut which finds the band ripping into those that have<br />
“never worked a day in their lives.” “Greedy Man” follows, a<br />
patchwork of punk-in-the-clouds, leading into the propulsive,<br />
industrial, down-tuned slink of “Let’s Leave the Elephant in the<br />
Room;” if you are not hooked yet, you have already abandoned<br />
the album and group altogether and should not even attempt the<br />
second side. Triumph of Lethargy makes difficult and grating<br />
music, but for those in tune, this group channels the heavens and<br />
more importantly, hits you straight in the gut. —Dan Mitchell<br />
WANDA JACKSON<br />
THE PARTY AIN’T OVER<br />
(THIRD MAN)<br />
It was just a matter of time before<br />
Jack White ended The White<br />
Stripes so he could pursue his true<br />
calling: resurrecting the careers of<br />
septuagenarian shit-kicking female<br />
musicians. All kidding aside though, what is it about these kinds<br />
of artists that makes such an alluring pairing for both parties<br />
involved? Loretta Lynn’s White-produced Van Leer Rose was a<br />
stripped back piece of country greatness, but The Party Ain’t Over<br />
heads in the opposite direction. Forget minimalism, Jack White<br />
piles on crunchy rockabilly riffs, slide twang, organ, honkytonk<br />
piano and balls out horn section until Jackson’s piercing vocals<br />
are cocooned in sound. The end result is something that holds<br />
certain charms, but falls under its own weight. There’s just too<br />
much going on here, layer after layer, until it sounds less like<br />
take-no-shit rockabilly and more like a Branson revue. The<br />
interplay should be between a fuzz-busted Les Paul and Wanda<br />
Jackson’s road-toughened snarl, instead of drowning her voice<br />
in various hokey arrangements. Hearing her casually moan, “Dig<br />
it mon, Dig it,” on the goofball “Rum and Coca-Cola” is one<br />
of the more painful moments. There’s just something artificial<br />
about the record, coming off as more of an experiment in<br />
camp than a revitalization of a rock and roll legend. When the<br />
pairing does work out it makes the missed opportunities of the<br />
record more galling; album closer “Blue Yodel #6” is a simple<br />
acoustic number with more blue soul than the rest of the album<br />
REVIEWS<br />
combined, while the record’s slap-bang opener “Shakin’ All<br />
Over” lets Jackson’s snarl and a surf rock riff give the added<br />
instrumentation a sturdy backbone to hang from. The Party<br />
Ain’t Over tries far too hard to link up Wanda Jackson with her<br />
early days as the Queen of Rockabilly, but there’s no excuse for<br />
her to be pushed aside on almost every track by goofy, obtuse<br />
and overbearing affectations. –Mike Rodgers<br />
YUCK<br />
YUCK<br />
(FAT POSSUM)<br />
There are bands that write music<br />
steeped in nostalgia and drown in their<br />
influences’ wake, and then there are<br />
bands like Yuck, the young, five-piece<br />
British indie/alt-rock group whose debut<br />
album was just released on Fat Possum a couple of weeks back.<br />
In listening to this eponymous debut, it is easy to hear Dinosaur<br />
Jr., Pavement, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, but their ability<br />
to breathe new life into yesteryears’ greatest sounds is what sets<br />
this group apart from the pack. It also helps that these kids know<br />
how to write a catchy tune, and on this offering, they have written<br />
twelve of them. To say that these aforementioned heavyweights<br />
influenced Yuck, at least in their early, teenage years may not be<br />
entirely fair, since these musicians were not even ten years old by<br />
the time the ‘90s came to a close, but the touchstone sound is there,<br />
and it is undeniable. Over the course of the album, Yuck breeze<br />
through one fetching hook and chorus after another and subsequent<br />
to consuming the entire album, the listener is left with the desire for<br />
nothing more than another spin. Singling out cuts as highlights here<br />
is difficult, as every track is strong, but if you are looking for a few<br />
good examples of their talent, look no further than the Pavement<br />
slacker-swank of “Shook Down, the touching and earnest “Suicide<br />
Policeman,” the swaying haze of “The Wall” or the Sonic Youthindebted,<br />
riff-heavy “Operation.” Just as the weather has begun to<br />
turn toward spring, think of this debut record from Yuck as your<br />
windows-down, radiance record for a new season. While it is<br />
exciting to think of the potential of this young group down the line,<br />
for now, Yuck is more than enough to tide us over for months to<br />
come. –Dan Mitchell<br />
BORIS<br />
LIVE IN JAPAN DVD<br />
(SOUTHERN LORD)<br />
Boris, that Japanese anomaly of godlike<br />
proportions: From monolithic doom<br />
epics soaked in gallons of feedback<br />
to psychedelic explorations of the<br />
eardrums with amplifiers to boogiedown<br />
rockers embracing the heavy<br />
metal foundations of blues, Iommi, Page<br />
and ultra-magnified riffing, I have maintained and will continue in<br />
the future to insist they are the best rock and roll band in the world.<br />
No other group can shift so effortlessly from head scratchingly<br />
dense to straight up crowd mauling rock like Boris. I have had the<br />
extreme pleasure of witnessing this band crush minds live twice<br />
now and with all due respect to Spinal Tap, they are the loudest<br />
band I’ve ever experienced. Boris’ Live in Japan is as close to<br />
a show as is possible on DVD. There’s nothing flashy about the<br />
camera work; close ups, multi-angle mediums and wide shots rule<br />
the day, but there’s nothing particularly extravagant about Boris’<br />
stage show either. The music is bombastic enough and its sheer<br />
hurricane force would overcome any dragons leaping out of the<br />
p.a. or inflatable monsters dancing onstage. When the band edges<br />
towards the inevitable nuclear impact at the heart of “My Neighbor<br />
Satan,” the lights drop, snares rattle off like AR-15 fire and an<br />
unholy plume of smoke pours into the crowd as the mighty doom<br />
riff plasters hair to scalp, jaw to floor. Boris cut a strange figure<br />
onstage; relatively restrained, drummer Atsuo acts as the hype<br />
man, rising up from his pedestal to send off a manic, “whoooo”<br />
while guitarist Wata stands solemnly, almost dwarfed by her guitar<br />
and Takeshi hides behind a mop of hair and double necked bass/6<br />
string. Cuts like “Farewell” and “Buzz-In” lose nothing from the<br />
transition to a live venue, a testament to Boris’ live chops, and in<br />
fact their slightly looser skeleton adds new wrinkles to the already<br />
amazing sound. Boris is the true successor to the legacy of the<br />
great heavy rock bands. They wield riffs like powerful weapons,<br />
Mjolnir, the Hammer of the Gods. –Mike Rodgers<br />
29
EVENTS<br />
N.O. VENUES<br />
All-Ways Lounge/Marigny Theatre, 2240 St. Claude Ave., (504) 218-5778, marignytheatre.org<br />
Banks St. Bar And Grill, 4401 Banks St., (504) 486-0258, www.banksstreetbar.com<br />
Barrister’s Art Gallery, 2331 St. Claude Ave.<br />
Bayou Park Bar, 542 S. Jeff. Davis Pkwy.<br />
The Big Top, 1638 Clio St., (504) 569-2700, www.3ringcircusproductions.com<br />
The Blue Nile, 534 Frenchmen St., (504) 948-2583<br />
Broadmoor House, 4127 Walmsley, (504) 821-2434<br />
Carrollton Station, 8140 Willow St., (504) 865-9190, www.carrolltonstation.com<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s, 501 Esplanade Ave., (504) 947-0979<br />
Chickie Wah Wah, 2828 Canal Street (504) 304-4714, www.chickiewahwah.com<br />
Circle Bar, 1032 St. Charles Ave., (504) 588-2616, www.circlebar.net<br />
Club 300, 300 Decatur Street, www.neworleansjazzbistro.com<br />
The Country Club, 634 Louisa St., (504) 945-0742, www.countryclubneworleans.com<br />
d.b.a., 618 Frenchmen St., (504) 942-373, www.drinkgoodstuff.com/no<br />
Der Rathskeller (Tulane’s Campus), McAlister Dr., http://wtul.fm<br />
Desperados, 801 Frenchmen St., (504) 943-9900, desperadospizza@yahoo.com<br />
Dragon’s Den, 435 Esplanade Ave., http://myspace.com/dragonsdennola<br />
Eldon’s House, 3055 Royal Street, arlovanderbel@hotmail.com<br />
Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge, 1500 N. Claiborne Ave.<br />
Fair Grinds Coffee House, 3133 Ponce de Leon, (504) 913-9072, www.fairgrinds.com<br />
Fuel Coffee House, 4807 <strong>Magazine</strong> St. (504) 895-5757<br />
Goldmine Saloon, 701 Dauphine St., (504) 586-0745, www.goldminesaloon.net<br />
The Green Space, 2831 Marais Street (504) 945-0240, www.thegreenproject.org<br />
Handsome Willy’s, 218 S. Robertson St., (504) 525-0377, http://handsomewillys.com<br />
The Hangar, 1511 S. Rendon. (504) 827-7419<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge, 2239 St. Claude Ave. (504) 945-4446, www.myspace.com/hiholounge<br />
The Hookah, 309 Decatur St. (504-943-1101), hookah-club.com<br />
Hot Iron Press Plant, 1420 Kentucky Ave., hotironpress@hotmail.com<br />
House Of Blues / The Parish, 225 Decatur, (504)310-4999, www.hob.com/neworleans<br />
The Howlin’ Wolf, 907 S. Peters, (504) 522-WOLF, www.thehowlinwolf.com<br />
Kajun’s Pub, 2256 St. Claude Avenue (504) 947-3735, www.myspace.com/kajunspub<br />
Kim’s 940, 940 Elysian Fields, (504) 844-4888<br />
The Kingpin, 1307 Lyons St., (504) 891-2373<br />
Le Bon Temps Roule, 4801 <strong>Magazine</strong> St., (504) 895-8117<br />
Le Chat Noir, 715 St. Charles Ave., (504) 581-5812, www.cabaretlechatnoir.com<br />
Lyceum Central, 618 City Park Ave., (410) 523-4182, http://lyceumproject.com<br />
Lyon’s Club, 2920 Arlington St.<br />
The Maison, 508 Frenchmen St., maisonfrenchmen.com<br />
Mama’s Blues, 616 N. Rampart St., (504) 453-9290<br />
Maple Leaf, 8316 Oak St., (504) 866-9359<br />
Marlene’s Place, 3715 Tchoupitoulas, (504) 897-3415, www.myspace.com/marlenesplace<br />
McKeown’s Books, 4737 Tchoupitoulas, (504) 895-1954, http://mckeownsbooks.net<br />
Melvin’s, 2112 St. Claude Ave.<br />
MVC, 9800 Westbank Expressway, (504) 234-2331, www.themvc.net<br />
Neutral Ground Coffee House, 5110 Danneel St., (504) 891-3381, www.neutralground.org<br />
Nowe Miasto, 223 Jane Pl., (504) 821-6721<br />
Ogden Museum, 925 Camp St., (504) 539-9600<br />
One Eyed Jacks, 615 Toulouse St., (504) 569-8361, www.oneeyedjacks.net<br />
Outer Banks, 2401 Palmyra (at S. Tonti), (504) 628-5976, www.myspace.com/outerbanksmidcity<br />
Republic, 828 S. Peters St., (504) 528-8282, www.republicnola.com<br />
Rusty Nail, 1100 Constance Street (504) 525-5515, www.therustynail.org/<br />
The Saturn Bar, 3067 St. Claude Ave., www.myspace.com/saturnbar<br />
Side Arm Gallery, 1122 St. Roch Ave., (504) 218-8379, www.sidearmgallery.org<br />
Southport Hall, 200 Monticello Ave., (504) 835-2903, www.newsouthport.com<br />
The Spellcaster Lodge, 3052 St. Claude Avenue, www.quintonandmisspussycat.com<br />
St. Roch Taverne, 1200 St. Roch Ave., (504) 945-0194<br />
Tipitina’s, (Uptown) 501 Napoleon Ave., (504) 895-8477 (Downtown) 233 N. Peters, www.tipitinas.com<br />
The Zeitgeist, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., (504) 827-5858, www.zeitgeistinc.net<br />
Vintage Uptown, 4523 <strong>Magazine</strong> St., askmexico@gmail.com<br />
METAIRIE VENUES<br />
The Bar, 3224 Edenborn, myspace.com/thebarrocks<br />
30<br />
WEDNESDAY 3/9<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Marco Solo Acoustic w/ Michael<br />
James and his Lonesome, Luke Allen, Big Country,<br />
Helen Gillet, Samuel Doors, Riley Downing,<br />
Kaioko & Squash, 10pm<br />
House Of Blues: Yes, 8pm<br />
THURSDAY 3/10<br />
d.b.a.: Lynn Drury Album Release, 10pm, $5<br />
House Of Blues: Innerpartysystem, Swiss Chriss,<br />
Midnight (The Parish)<br />
The Maison: Natalie Mae, 7pm; Déjà vu Brass<br />
Band, 10pm<br />
FRIDAY 3/11<br />
AllWays Lounge: Dirty Coast Presents the Other<br />
Planets, Caddywhompus, Fights<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: Shannon Powell Trio,<br />
9:30; 11pm<br />
Babylon: The Rivers Delta<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Soul Project, 10pm<br />
Blue Nile: Chckn & Egg Presents Flow Tribe, Blue<br />
Party, Mississippi Rail Co. (Downstairs); Powdered<br />
Sugar Presents Debauche, the Lisps, Hurray for the<br />
Riff Raff, Luke Winslow-King (Upstairs)<br />
d.b.a.: Meschiya Lake & Little Big Horns, 6pm;<br />
Good Enough for Good Times, 10pm, $5<br />
Dragon’s Den: Instrumental & Progressive<br />
Showcase w/ I, Octopus, Zorch, High in One Eye<br />
(Downstairs); the Revels Group Presents G-Eazy,<br />
D.P., DJ G-Cue (Upstairs)<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Live New Orleans Presents Vox &<br />
the Hound, Modern Skirts, the Beams @10pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Lagniappe Brass Band (Live in the<br />
Den)<br />
The Maison: B.O.M.B. Fest Presents Sun Hotel,<br />
the Yes Way, Native America, Booty Trove, Torgo;<br />
Kristina Morales, 7pm (Upstairs)<br />
One Eyed Jacks: SimplePlay & ActionPacker<br />
Present Ra Ra Riot, Givers, the Luyas<br />
Republic: 8 Bit Anatomy, Billsberry Flowboy<br />
Saturn Bar: the White Bitch Presents the White<br />
Bitch, R Scully’s Rough 7, the Green Demons<br />
Siberia: NOLA Party Presents Megafauna, Luke<br />
Starkiller, General Bye Bye, Enharmonic Souls<br />
SATURDAY 3/12<br />
AllWays Lounge: Dirty Coast Presents Simon<br />
Lott’s Very Cherry, Telegraph Canyon, Birds and<br />
Batteries<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: Leroy Jones Quartet, 9:30;<br />
11pm<br />
Babylon: The Green Mantles, Chris Rico, First<br />
Time<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: J Monque’D, 10pm<br />
Blue Nile: Chckn & Egg Presents the Revivalists,<br />
New Grass Country Club, Moon Taxi, Jon Hugo<br />
(Downstairs); Powdered Sugar Presents Brass Bed,<br />
Vagabond Swing, Hart (Upstairs)<br />
d.b.a.: John Mooney & Bluesiana w/ Chickasaw<br />
Mudd Puppies, 11pm, $10<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Live New Orleans Presents Big<br />
Rock Candy Mountain, Glasgow, Venice is Sinking<br />
@10pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Soundclash Beat Battle (Live in the<br />
Den)<br />
Louisiana Music Factory: John Sinclair, 2pm;<br />
Kipori Woods, 3pm; My Graveyard Jaw, 4pm<br />
The Maison: Hood Internet and Big History<br />
(Upstairs); BONES Dance Party w/ Das Racist,<br />
Katey Red, Shanook, 8188, PYMP (Downstairs)<br />
One Eyed Jacks: SimplePlay Presents Jean Eric,<br />
Royal Teeth, RYAT, the Botanist<br />
Saturn Bar: Open House Music Presents Los<br />
Po-Boy Citos, Backword and Little Maker, Sam<br />
Doores and the Tumbleweeds, Loren Murrell<br />
Siberia: NOLA Party Presents the Local Skank,<br />
the Unnaturals, Modoc, the Groovocrats<br />
SUNDAY 3/13<br />
AllWays Lounge: NOLA Party Presents Remedy<br />
Krewe, Syllable 7, Ugly Elephant, Jason Frilot<br />
Blue Nile: Powdered Sugar Present T-Bird and the<br />
Breaks, Headless Horsemen (Downstairs); Chckn<br />
& Egg Presents Coyotes, O’ Brother, Death on<br />
Two Wheels (Upstairs)<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: 2nd Annual Mardi Gras<br />
Recovery Party w/ the Pallbearers, Before I Hang,<br />
Dummy Dumpster, the Unnaturals, Terranova, the<br />
Split()Lips, the Green Mantles, the Rotten Cores,<br />
Fat Camp, 4pm<br />
d.b.a.: Jake Eckert Band, 10pm, $5<br />
Dragon’s Den: Conway Presents TBA (Upstairs);<br />
the Revels Group Presents Aquaforce, Team Robot,<br />
Lyriqs, Jim-E Stack<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Live New Orleans Presents Giant<br />
Cloud, Futurebirds, Lee Bains and the Gloryfires<br />
@10pm<br />
House Of Blues: SOJA, Mambo Sauce, Chris<br />
Boomer, Seedless, 8pm (The Parish)<br />
The Maison: WTUL Presents: Big Freedia, Lil<br />
Dee, Plane Jane, KLC (DJ set) (Upstairs)<br />
One Eyed Jacks: OpenHouse Music New Orleans<br />
Presents Janka Nabay, Empress Hotel, Monogold,<br />
Tiny Victories<br />
Saturn Bar: Deftjams Presents Toro y Moi, Small<br />
Black, Cults, Sun Airway, Cloud Nothings<br />
Siberia: Jeff the Brotherhood, King Tuff, Dead<br />
Gaze, X-Ray Eyeballs, Holly’s Tamales Variety<br />
Show<br />
MONDAY 3/14<br />
Circle Bar: Birds of Avalon<br />
House Of Blues: Rock 92.3 Presents Young the<br />
Giant, 8:30pm (The Parish)<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Caspian, Moving Mountains,<br />
Native, Into It, Over It, Chiaroscuro, Aiua,<br />
Marathan, 9pm<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Great Lake Swimmers, Sharon<br />
Van Etten w/ Ava Luna<br />
Republic: Class Actress, Millionyoung, Nicos Gun<br />
TUESDAY 3/15<br />
House Of Blues: Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings,<br />
Los Po Boy Citos, 8pm; Tennis, Callers, La Sera,<br />
9:30pm (The Parish)<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: LiveNewOrleans.com Presents<br />
Parts & Labor, DOM, Pterodactly (Live in the Den)<br />
Republic: Menomena, Megafaun<br />
WEDNESDAY 3/16<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Andrew Duhon and<br />
Tony Italiano, 9pm<br />
Frat House: Liquid Peace Revolution, Ozzy Cash, 9pm<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Soars, Arc in Round, Elephant<br />
Stone, 10pm<br />
House Of Blues: G. Love and Special Sauce,<br />
8:30pm; Fang Island, Maps and Atlases, 9:30pm<br />
(The Parish)<br />
THURSDAY 3/17<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Fat Stupid Ugly<br />
People, Comm. Of Theives, Orku Saki, 9pm<br />
d.b.a.: Paul Sanchez, 7pm; the Louisiana Cane<br />
Cutters, 10pm, $5
EVENTS<br />
THURSDAY 3/17 (Cont...)<br />
The Maison: Influencia de Jazz, Magnetic Ear,<br />
Robot Dance Party<br />
Tipitina’s: WTUL Presents St. Patty’s Day<br />
3-Band Blowout f/ Art/Official DJ All-Night<br />
Dance Party w/ Jean-Eric, Big History, Super<br />
Nice Bros., 9pm, $7<br />
FRIDAY 3/18<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: Shannon Powell Trio,<br />
9:30pm; 11pm<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Elliott Cohon’s<br />
New Cosmic Sweat Society, 10pm<br />
The Big Top: Dancing Room Only Presents<br />
Rhythm & Soul, 10pm, FREE<br />
d.b.a.: Hot Club of New Orleans, 6pm; Johnny<br />
Vidacovich Trio w/ Matt Perine and Keiko<br />
Komaki, 10pm, $5<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Steve Eck, Suitcase Junkies,<br />
10pm<br />
House Of Blues: BET Music Matters Tour<br />
Presents Marsha Ambrosius, Melanie Fiona,<br />
8pm; MashUp NOLA Presented by Jermaine<br />
Quiz, 10pm (The Parish)<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Lords of Acid, Angelspit,<br />
Radical G, Chant, 9pm<br />
The Maison: The Mumbles, Daria and the Hip<br />
Drops, Brass a Holics<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Queens of the Stone Age<br />
Republic: Bassik f/ BARE and Ana Sia<br />
Tipitina’s: Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, 10pm, $15<br />
SATURDAY 3/19<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: John Rankin Trio,<br />
9:30pm; 11pm<br />
Babylon: Black Primer, the Pests, Mad Dog<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Joystick,<br />
Reagabomb, Stereohype, 10pm<br />
d.b.a.: Cedric Burnside Project Album Release,<br />
11pm, $10<br />
House Of Blues: Raphael Saadiq, Quadron,<br />
8pm; Lost Bayou Ramblers, Brother Dege,<br />
10pm (The Parish)<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Filthy + Social Service +<br />
SimplePlay Present SXNO f/ Salva, B. Bravo,<br />
Epcot and Carmine P. Filthy<br />
Louisiana Music Factory: Washboard Chaz<br />
Blues Trio, 3pm; HG Breland, 4pm; Crowbar<br />
Album Signing, 5pm<br />
The Maison: Smoking Time Jazz Club, Ashton<br />
Hines Big Easy Brawlers, Captain Green<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Revolver, Brooklyn Vegan<br />
& Loudtrax Present Metal Alliance Tour f/<br />
Helmet, St. Vitus, Crowbar, Intronaut, the Atlas<br />
Moth, Howl, Naam<br />
Tipitina’s: An Evening with the North<br />
Mississippi All-Stars, 10pm, $15<br />
SUNDAY 3/20<br />
d.b.a.: The Louisiana Hellbenders, 10pm, $5<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Madison Square Gardeners,<br />
Cave Singers, Lia Ices, 10pm<br />
House Of Blues: Collie Buddz, New Kingston,<br />
Los Rakas, DJ T-Roy, 9pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Filthy + Social Service +<br />
SimplePlay Present SXNO f/ Daedalus,<br />
TOKiMONSTA, Shlomo, Rekanize, Ryan<br />
Pearce<br />
The Maison: Corporate America<br />
One Eyed Jacks: <strong>Antigravity</strong> Presents Mike<br />
Watt and the Missingmen, Lite, Narcissy<br />
Republic: Deep Dark Robot<br />
MONDAY 3/21<br />
Louisiana Music Factory: Tyne Darling, 6pm<br />
One Eyed Jacks: The Civil Wars, Grant Watts<br />
and the Old Family<br />
Republic: Hugh Cornwell<br />
The Saint: Moon Duo, 8pm<br />
TUESDAY 3/22<br />
The Big Top: Burstness w/ Xylos, Simon Lott<br />
and Justin Peake’s Beautiful Bells, 8pm, $10<br />
House Of Blues: Rebelution, Giant Panda<br />
Guerilla Dub Squad, Kris Royal, 8pm; Omar<br />
Rodriguez Lopez Group, 9:30pm (The Parish)<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Eddie Spaghetti<br />
Republic: Peter Murphy, Livan<br />
Tipitina’s: Ryan Bingham and the Dead<br />
Horses, Liam Gerner, 9pm, $20<br />
WEDNESDAY 3/23<br />
House Of Blues: Surfer Blood, 9pm (The Parish)<br />
THURSDAY 3/24<br />
House Of Blues: Apocalyptica, We are the<br />
Fallen, 8pm; Murs, Tabi Bonney and Jermaine<br />
Quiz, Simon Lott, 9:30pm (The Parish)<br />
The Maison: The Loose Marbles; the<br />
Tumbleweeds, Hurray for the Riff Raff;<br />
Doombalaya<br />
FRIDAY 3/25<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: Luke Winslow-King,<br />
9:30pm; 11pm<br />
Babylon: Harvester, Cauldron, Disfigure the<br />
Monuments<br />
33
EVENTS<br />
FRIDAY 3/25 (Cont...)<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Ritmo Calypso<br />
Beach Party, 10pm<br />
The Big Top: Friday Night Music Camp w/<br />
Susan Cowsill, 5pm; Seguenon Kone and<br />
Friends, Kossa Diomande, Martin D. Zagbo,<br />
Bruce Sunpie, Boubacar Cissoko, 9pm, $7<br />
d.b.a.: Linnzi Zaorski, 6pm; Lightning<br />
Malcolm Band, 10pm, $5<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Fresh Millions (Live in the<br />
Den)<br />
The Maison: Tuba Skinny; the Honey Pots; the<br />
Pinettes Brass Band<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Meschiya Lake and the Little<br />
Big Horns<br />
Republic: Ethical Fashion Show w/ Big<br />
History<br />
Tipitina’s: Soul Rebels Brass Band, Naughty<br />
Professor, 10pm, $10<br />
THURSDAY 3/31<br />
d.b.a.: Andrew Duhon, 7pm; Chris Thomas<br />
King, 10pm, $5<br />
The Maison: Influencia de Jazz<br />
One Eyed Jacks: The Black Angels, Suuns,<br />
8pm<br />
FRIDAY 4/1<br />
Babylon: Control Room, the Acadias<br />
House Of Blues: Senses Fail, the Ghost Inside,<br />
Man Overboard, Transit, 5:30pm; Reckless<br />
Kelly, 9:30pm (The Parish)<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: DMC NOLA<br />
SATURDAY 4/2<br />
Babylon: Overtime Coverband<br />
House Of Blues: Bustout Burlesque, 8pm,<br />
10:30pm; Honeyboy Carencro Album Release<br />
Party w/ Khris Royal and Dark Matter, 10pm<br />
(The Parish)<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Alexis Marceaux Album<br />
Release Show w/ Sun Hotel, Butter and Jelly<br />
WEEKLY EVENTS<br />
MONDAYS<br />
34<br />
SATURDAY 3/26<br />
Antoine’s Hermes Bar: Paul Sanchez, 9pm;<br />
11pm<br />
Babylon: No Room for Saints, Resurrection<br />
Man, Black Market Halos<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: P.Y.M.P., 10pm<br />
d.b.a.: OTRA, 11pm, $5<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Debauche, 10pm<br />
Louisiana Music Factory: JC & Company,<br />
2pm; Davis, 3pm<br />
The Maison: Arts Market Show; the Ramblin’<br />
Letters; Storyville Starlettes Burlesque; Jeremy<br />
Phipps n the Outsiders; Bones Dance Party;<br />
Yojimbo<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Dax Riggs<br />
Tipitina’s: The Real Davis Album Release<br />
Party f/ DJ Davis Rogan, All That Reunion and<br />
16th B-day Party, 10pm, $14<br />
SUNDAY 3/27<br />
d.b.a.: Margie Perez, 10pm, $5<br />
House Of Blues: The Whigs, 8pm; EOTO,<br />
9pm (The Parish)<br />
The Maison: Cristina Perez; Chegadao; DJ<br />
T-Roy<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Fleur de Tease<br />
MONDAY 3/28<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Spillway, 9pm<br />
d.b.a.: Panorama Jazz Band, 9pm, $5<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Exene Cervenka and Kevin<br />
Seconds Acoustic Tour<br />
TUESDAY 3/29<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Matthew Mayfield (Live in the<br />
Den)<br />
WEDNESDAY 3/30<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: FICUS, 10pm<br />
The Big Top: Seguenon Kone and Friends,<br />
Kossa Diomande, Martin D. Zagbo, Bruce<br />
Sunpie, Boubacar Cissoko, 9pm, $7<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: N’awlins Johnnys,<br />
9pm<br />
Bayou Park Bar: The Hooch Riders, 9pm<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: Mad Mike, 8pm<br />
Circle Bar: Kelly Carlyle, 6pm<br />
d.b.a.: Luke Winslow King, 6pm; Glen David<br />
Andrews, 9pm, $5<br />
Desperados: Kickball Disassociation After<br />
Party & Old Timey Music, 9pm<br />
Dragon’s Den: Domenic<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Blue Grass Pickin’ Party, 8pm<br />
Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson, 4pm; Dominick<br />
Grillo and the Frenchmen St. All-Stars, 6pm;<br />
The Jazz Vipers, 10pm<br />
TUESDAYS<br />
Bayou Park Bar: The Trouble Clefs, 10pm<br />
The Big Top: Brit Wit, 8pm<br />
Carrollton Station: Acoustic Open Mic, 9pm<br />
Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk, 7pm<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: Acoustic Open Mic w/<br />
Jim Smith, 10pm<br />
d.b.a.: New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings, 9pm<br />
[Dark 3/8]<br />
Desperados: Noxious Noize Tuesdays, 9pm<br />
Dragon’s Den: Climate Change Hip-Hop Nite;<br />
Goth Nite (Upstairs)<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Euclid Records Triva w/ DJ<br />
Lefty Parker, 8:30pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: The Big Busk, A Night of<br />
Burlesque and Live Music (Live in the Den)<br />
The Maison: Caroline Fourmy, the Sextet<br />
The Rusty Nail: Open Mic w/ Whiskey T.,<br />
8pm<br />
The Saint Tikioke, 9pm, FREE<br />
Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson, 4pm; Smokin’<br />
Time Jazz Club, 6pm; Meschiya Lake and the<br />
Little Big Horns, 10pm<br />
WEDNESDAYS<br />
AllWays Lounge: Marygoround & The Tiptoe<br />
Stampede<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Major Bacon, Free<br />
BLTs, 9pm<br />
The Bar: Musician Appreciation Night, 7pm<br />
Bayou Park Bar: Jazz Wednesdays w/ Grunge<br />
Jazz Trio, 9pm
EVENTS<br />
Blue Nile: United Postal Project, 8pm; Khris<br />
Royal and Dark Matter, 10pm<br />
The Box Office: Dan Wallace Quartet, 7pm<br />
Carrollton Station: Standup Comedy Open<br />
Mic, 9pm<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: Kenny Holiday and<br />
the Rolling Blackouts, 9pm<br />
Circle Bar: Jim O. and The No Shows w/<br />
Mama Go-Go, 6pm<br />
d.b.a.: Tin Men, 7pm; Walter Wolfman<br />
Washington and The Roadmasters, 10pm, $5<br />
Deckbar: Blues & Beyond Jam w/ John Lisi<br />
& Delta Funk, 8pm<br />
Dragon’s Den: DJ T-Roy Presents:<br />
Dancehall Classics, 10pm, $5<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Local Piano Night w/<br />
Various Musicians, 8pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Booty Trove Brass Band,<br />
FREE<br />
The Maison: Jerry Jumonville, Cats Pajamas<br />
The R Bar: DJ Lefty Parker<br />
Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson, 4pm; Free<br />
Swing Dance Lessons, 5pm, The Orleans,<br />
6pm; St. Louis Slim and the Frenchmen St.<br />
Jug Band, 10pm<br />
Yuki: Mojotoro Tango Trio, 8pm<br />
THURSDAYS<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Dave Jordan’s<br />
Neighborhood Improvement, 10pm<br />
Bayou Park Bar: Classic Country w/ Ron<br />
Hotstream, 10pm<br />
Blue Nile: DJ T-Roy, 10pm; Gravity A,<br />
10pm (Upstairs)<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: The Fens w/ Sneaky<br />
Pete, 10pm<br />
Circle Bar: Sam and Boone, 6pm<br />
Desperados: Loose Marbles, 9pm<br />
Dragon’s Den: Basebin Safari w/ DJ Proppa<br />
Bear, 10pm<br />
Hi-Ho Lounge: Stooges Brass Band, 9:30pm<br />
The Hookah: Exhale: A Ladies Night, 10pm<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Comedy Gumbeaux, 8pm<br />
(Live in the Den)<br />
La Nuit Comedy Theater: A.S.S.tronot,<br />
8:30pm<br />
Le Bon Temps Roule: Soul Rebels, 11pm<br />
The Maison: The Crescent City Ears<br />
One Eyed Jacks: Fast Times ’80s Dance Night<br />
Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson, 4pm; Miss<br />
Sophie Lee, 6pm; New Orleans Moonshiners,<br />
10pm<br />
Republic: LEGIT, 10pm, $7<br />
FRIDAYS<br />
Bayou Park Bar: R & B w/ Dragon<br />
Cushionberry, 9pm<br />
The Big Top: Friday Night Music Camp,<br />
5pm<br />
Blue Nile: Mykia Jovan and Jason Butler,<br />
8pm; DJ Real and Black Pearl, Midnight<br />
(Upstairs)<br />
Circle Bar: Jim O. and The Sporadic<br />
Fanatics, 6pm<br />
Desperados: Michael James and His<br />
Lonesome, 9pm; Bobby Bouzouki, 11pm<br />
The Hookah: The A-List Unplugged w/ EF<br />
Cuttin’, 10pm<br />
La Nuit Comedy Theater: God’s Been<br />
Drinking, 10pm, $10<br />
The Maison: Clarence and the Funky People,<br />
5pm; Buena Vista Social Latin Night<br />
Republic: Throwback, 11pm<br />
Spotted Cat: Brett Richardson, 4pm;<br />
Washboard Chaz Blues Trio, 6pm; New<br />
Orleans Cottonmouth Kings, 10pm<br />
Tipitina’s: Tipitina’s Foundation Free<br />
Friday!, 10pm<br />
SATURDAYS<br />
Blue Nile: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio, 7 pm<br />
Circle Bar: The Jazzholes, 6pm<br />
d.b.a.: John Boutte’, 8pm<br />
The Hangar: Ladies Night<br />
The Hookah: Hookah Hip-Hop w/ DJ EF<br />
Cuttin, 10pm<br />
House of Blues: Sabado, Fuego, DJ Juanes,<br />
DJ Q, Midnight (The Parish @ House Of<br />
Blues)<br />
La Nuit Comedy Theater: ComedySportz<br />
(1st/3rd Saturdays), 7pm<br />
LePhare: DJ Jive<br />
The Maison: Cristina Perez, 5pm<br />
Republic: DJ Damion Yancy, 11pm<br />
Spotted Cat: Luke Winslow King, 3pm;<br />
Panorama Jazz Band, 6pm<br />
SUNDAYS<br />
Banks Street Bar & Grill: Open Mic Jam w/<br />
Ron Hotstream and the F-Holes<br />
Bayou Park Bar: Swing w/ Johnny Angel,<br />
9pm<br />
Blue Nile: Mainline, 10pm<br />
Café Negril: John Lisi and Delta Funk, 7pm<br />
Checkpoint Charlie’s: Acoustic Open Mic<br />
w/ Jim Smith, 7pm<br />
Circle Bar: Drink N Draw, 3pm; Micah<br />
McKee and Friends, 6pm<br />
d.b.a.: The Palmetto Bug Stompers, 6pm<br />
Desperados: Stumps the Clown’s Variety<br />
Show Sundays f/ Jo Robbin, Stalebread<br />
Scotty & More, 9pm<br />
Dragon’s Den: Base Church, 10pm<br />
(Upstairs)<br />
The Hookah: Ear Candy w/ DJ Rik Ducci,<br />
10pm<br />
House of Blues: The Sunday Gospel Brunch<br />
Howlin’ Wolf: Brass Band Sundays w/ Hot 8<br />
Brass Band<br />
Spotted Cat: Rights of Swing, 3pm; Pat<br />
Casey, 10pm<br />
The Maison: Dave Easley, 5pm, the Rhythm<br />
Jesters, 7pm<br />
Tipitina’s: Music Workshop Series,<br />
12:30pm; Cajun Fais Do Do f/ Bruce<br />
Danigerpoint, 7pm<br />
W I N E • P A S T A S • S P E C I A LT Y P I E S<br />
PIZZA BY THE SLICE • ANTIPASTI • SALAD • CALZONES<br />
featured cocktail:<br />
BLUSHING LADY<br />
Pama Pomegranate Liqueur<br />
and Pink Grapefruit<br />
Featuring Sobieski Vodka<br />
Served Up with a Sugared Rim<br />
and a Lemon Wheel<br />
w w w . s l i c e p i z z e r i a . c o m<br />
1 5 1 3 S T. C H A R L E S A V E . 504.525.PIES (7437)<br />
5538 MAGAZINE ST. 504-897-4800<br />
PIZZA BY THE SLICE • ANTIPASTI • SALAD • CALZONES<br />
Come try our<br />
“Cucumber Margarita"<br />
— Made with Lunazul Blanco 100% Agave Tequila —<br />
It’s Refreshing and Clean!<br />
The Perfect End-of-Summer Cocktail.<br />
UPTOWN<br />
2018 magazine Street | New Orleans, Louisiana 70130<br />
(504) 569-0000<br />
MIDCITY<br />
4724 South Carrollton Avenue | New Orleans, Louisiana 70119<br />
(504) 486-9950<br />
www.juansflyingburrito.com<br />
35
Get the first issue of FEAST,<br />
published by ANTIGRAVITY!<br />
28 over-sized newsprint pages<br />
of new work by NOLA cartoonists<br />
(like Caesar Meadows, Happy<br />
Burbeck, and Jeff Pastorek)<br />
plus out-of-town artists like Josh<br />
Neufeld (A.D. New Orleans After<br />
the Deluge) and Josh Simmons<br />
(Happy)!<br />
Available in comic shops and other<br />
cool locations around New Orleans,<br />
and for three bucks out-oftowners<br />
can order online at:<br />
feastcomic.com<br />
36
COMICS<br />
37
PHOTOS<br />
38
PHOTOS<br />
39