So yes, I put my sister in the hospital on my first night in Austin, where she and her husband recently bought a house, and I’ve come to job hunt. She rang-in the new year at St Joseph’s. Man.My crazy electronic rock band was invited to play a big show at famous Austin rock club Emo’s for New Year’s Eve, opening for a badass 11-piece soul band called T-Bird and the Breaks. After eight years busting my telecaster playing shows in New Orleans, no one there asked us to play a New Years’ show. We got the show through our new booking agent, who also lives in Austin, because none of the hundreds of good booking agents in New Orleans ever stepped up (did y’all get that joke?).

And while I have no real desire to be a famous touring musician, I can’t say I don’t mind my art being as appreciated as it is here in Austin.I also can’t say I love Austin’s glut of indy rock music. For instance, the popular Austin band White Denim? You couldn’t be trendier if you named yourself The iPod Kids, The Thick-Rimmed Eyeglasses, or The Urban Outfitters. Still, Austin is definitely more of a music town than New Orleans. I do respect OffBeat magazine, the purveyors of JazzFest, and other such musical institutions, but many of New Orleans’ more original musicians are offended by the way those institutions push a wildly skewed/false picture of the scene in which we participate. I mean, Lil Wayne himself is very rarely credited by the local press as being a representative of New Orleans culture, though in reality he’s probably sold more records in his short career than Louis Armstrong did in all of the last century. And the reason Wayne isn’t given this credit is because those powers-that-be haven’t yet devised a way to attract tourists based on New Orleans’ rap music legacy. For now, modern day credit is given almost exclusively to artists who are as interested in attracting and extracting money from people who don’t live in the city, as they are being creative. Which is a totally unhealthy environment in which to make art. Read the rest of this entry »

I told the owner of the New Orleans-themed restaurant I ate at today with my sister who just bought a house here in Austin, Texas, “New Orleans has made many of my dreams come true — so long as those dream had nothing to do with money.” Not that I am money-obsessed. I drive a $500, 20-year-old Honda Civic. Cool. Fine. I have thusfar been willing to accept New Orleans’ abundant good vibes etc., in trade for stability. But I turn 35-years-old this Mardi Gras, and honestly would like to have a child soon, somehow. So I saved enough money to fix the upper control arms in my Honda (one of the wheels fell off on Royal last month; not the tire, but the entire wheel; thank god I wasn’t on the highway!) and I drove the dangerous distance to Austin to hunt jobs for the next two or so weeks.

I do not want to move away from New Orleans.  Read the rest of this entry »