From Pitchfork:

Alex Chilton, the legendary singer, songwriter, and performer who created music with the Box Tops, Big Star, and as a solo artist, died today. Chilton was in New Orleans and was scheduled to play in Austin this weekend with the reunited Big Star as part of SXSW. According to the paper, he complained of feeling ill and was taken by paramedic to the hospital. Cause of death has not been confirmed, but the Commercial Appeal reports that it is believed to be a heart attack. Chilton was 59.

First, The New York Times Sunday Magazine has posted this weekend’s upcoming feature on the show — it’s a long read.

Second: HBO has released a second trailer, which is a bit more jaunty and conventional than the first trailer (this one is set to “Do Whatcha Wanna” by the Rebirth Brass Band), and seems designed to appeal to what outsiders “know” about New Orleans: the food, the music, etc. etc. It also has extended scenes with John Goodman playing a Professor Ashley Morris-ish character, and glimpses of Allen Touissant, Coco Robicheaux and Dr. John, as well as Kermit Ruffins smoking weed outside Vaughan’s … so you know it’s totally fictional.

As we get ready for the premiere of Tremé (Sun. Apr. 11, 9 pm, HBO), we’ll probably have more and more to write about the show, so we’ll make a fresh new “Tremé” tag for the Blog of New Orleans. Some news on the show today:

1. Here’s the official synopsis from HBO:

TREME begins in fall 2005, three months after Hurricane Katrina and the massive engineering failure in which flood control failed throughout New Orleans, flooding 80 percent of the city and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents. Fictional events depicted in the series will honor the actual chronology of political, economic and cultural events following the storm.

The drama unfolds with Antoine Batiste, a smooth-talking trombonist who is struggling to make ends meet, earning cash with any gig he can get, including playing in funeral processions for his former neighbors. His ex-wife, LaDonna Batiste-Williams, owns a bar in the Central City neighborhood and splits her time between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where her children and new husband have relocated. Concerned over the disappearance of her younger brother David, or Daymo, unseen since the storm, LaDonna has turned to a local civil rights attorney, the overburdened and underpaid Toni Bernette, for help. The government’s inconsistent and ineffectual response to the devastation has spurred Bernette’s husband Creighton, a university professor of English literature and an expert on local history, to become an increasingly outspoken critic of the institutional response.

Tremé resident Davis McAlary, a rebellious radio disc jockey, itinerant musician and general gadfly, is both chronicler of and participant in the city’s vibrant and varied musical culture, which simply refuses to be silent, even in the early months after the storm. His occasional partner, popular chef Janette Desautel, hopes to regain momentum for her small, newly re-opened neighborhood restaurant. Elsewhere in the city, displaced Mardi Gras Indian chief Albert Lambreaux returns to find his home destroyed and his tribe, the Guardians of the Flame, scattered, but Lambreaux is determined to rebuild. His son Delmond, an exile in New York playing modern jazz and looking beyond New Orleans for his future, is less sure of his native city’s future, while violinist Annie and her boyfriend Sonny, young street musicians living hand-to-mouth, seem wholly committed to the battered city.

The ensemble cast of TREME includes Wendell Pierce (”The Wire,” HBO’s documentary “When the Levees Broke”) as Antoine Batiste; Khandi Alexander (”CSI: Miami,” HBO’s Emmy®-winning “The Corner”) as LaDonna Batiste-Williams; Clarke Peters (”Damages,” HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Corner”) as Albert Lambreaux; Rob Brown (”Stop-Loss,” “Finding Forrester”) as Delmond Lambreaux; Steve Zahn (”A Perfect Getaway,” “Sunshine Cleaning”) as Davis McAlary; Kim Dickens (HBO’s “Deadwood”) as Janette Desautel; Melissa Leo (”Homicide: Life on the Street”; Oscar® nominee for “Frozen River”) as Toni Bernette; John Goodman (”The Big Lebowski,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) as Creighton Bernette; Michiel Huisman (”The Young Victoria”) as Sonny; and classical violinist Lucia Micarelli as Annie.

HBO publicity shot of Khandi Alexander, photographed by the great Skip Bolen.

2. Maitri Erwin — passionate Krewe du Vieux member and blogger — has set up a new blog called Back of Town, where fans (and, I suppose, detractors) of the show can hash it out on a weekly or daily basis:

When good television, often the only modern link to other human intelligence, gives us the opportunity to think, discuss, debate and cry, it’s foolish not to take it, especially when this technology equally as fast as, if not faster than, television exists. (And, New Orleanians are nothing if not opinionated, especially if you’re making a teevee show about their town.)

Check it out, and contribute if you like…

…and, finally, 3. Since this is the Internet, and since we are talking about New Orleans, there are going to be people who HATE Tremé before they see a single frame of film. Exhibit A is right here, and it’s a gallimaufry, a ragout, a virtual “Where’s Waldo?” word salad of D-U-M-B:

People really don’t want these depressing shows about New Orleans. We get it, there was a hurricane, a lot of people died because of political incompetence and their own personal ignorance but do we need a hundred shows on television to talk about it? Not at all.

There is no city I hate more than New Orleans. Its police department is corrupt, the people there are rude and racist, the major “tourism” it gets is from a bunch of alcohol fueled frat boys and sorority girls looking for a few nights of exhibitionism and stupidity, and to be honest…the food isn’t great either (I’ll give that there were a few nice restaurants there but most serve substandard Cajun cuisine).

For the love of God, cancel this series and put money into television that actually entertains and provokes thinking (i.e. “Rome”, “Deadwood”, the future “A Game of Thrones”) instead of these “Sex in the City” wannabes.

CAJUN cuisine in New Orleans??? Those are fighting words, SIR.

I said GOOD DAY.

For our next issue, we’re compiling a list of services and groups that provide low- and no-cost services for pet owners in the New Orleans area. Some of the categories include adoption; spaying and neutering (for both pets and ferals); vaccinations; general veterinary services; and breed rescue. We want to make it easy and cost-effective for New Orleanians to be responsible pet owners.

Our list is getting pretty long, but that’s where you come in, Gambiteers: do you know of any special services we may have missed? (You can trust we’ve got all the local SPCAs, etc.) If you can contribute, please leave your tips in the comments below and help out your fellow citizens — both the two- and four-legged variety. Thanks.

(And if you know of any pet food banks….)

Tomorrow Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu will be announcing the co-chairs of 14 task forces he’s setting up for his Transition New Orleans team. The teams:

1. Blight
2. City Contracting
3. City Finances
4. Criminal Justice
5. Cultural Economy
6. Customer Service
7. Health Care
8. Housing
9. Flood Protection & Coastal Restoration
10. Neighborhood Development
11. Recreation
12. Social Innovation
13. Sustainable Energy & Environmental
14. Youth & Families

A not-so-surprising list of civic concerns, perhaps, with the exception of Social Innovation (will the city be Facebooking and Twittering and Foursquaring?) and Customer Service, which may have some relation to all those “City Hall needs to realize that the citizens are its customers!” references we heard on the mayoral campaign trail.

If you want to see who’s been tasked to be on the task forces, the announcement will be made Wed., Mar. 17 at 10:30 a.m. at the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau (2020 St. Charles Ave.).

Stewart Juneau, owner of the Baton Rouge-based development company LeTriomphe Property Group, was selected last November by Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to redevelop the Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park. At the time, the proposed professional services agreement drew controversy, due to Juneau’s relationship with Nagin (he had hosted the mayor’s much-mocked “Excellence in Recovery Award” gala back in August 2008), as well as for the fact that LeTriomphe was the sole bidder on the project. In December, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux slammed the deal, urging the New Orleans City Council not to approve it. In January, city attorney Penya Moses-Fields slammed right back, saying the IG’s recommendation was premature and that there was “no existing contract.”

This morning, Juneau announced that LeTriomphe was requesting a “temporary suspension of negotiations” on the Municipal Auditorium deal:

LeTriomphe Property Group, LLC (LTPG) announced today that it has requested a temporary suspension of negotiations on a professional services agreement for the redevelopment of the Morris X. F. [sic] Jeff, Sr. Municipal Auditorium.

LTPG remains confident that providing a landmark home for the cultural arts and creative industry in New Orleans in the damaged and unused auditorium is one of the most important projects that will be undertaken in the city in the near future.

The letter gave no reason for requesting a suspension of negotiations, but concluded on an optimistic note:

We look forward to working closely with all segments of our great community on making the mission of providing a landmark home for the cultural arts in New Orleans a reality.

Some quick housekeeping: Someone wrote wondering what the music is behind the trailer for Tremé. It’s called “Ring Shout — Peace of Mind,” and it’s the opening cut from the 2007 album Congo Square, featuring Wynton Marsalis, Yacub Addy, Odadaa! and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. There’s a DVD of the whole performance on Amazon, but for the CD itself you may have to go to the iTunes Music Store (where the individual song can also be downloaded for 99 cents). Also: WWL-TV has the list of St. Joseph’s altars that will be open on Mar. 19, and if you’re new in town and have never experienced a St. Joseph’s altar, feel free to drop in on any of these and get a little bit of history.

Anyway. In this week’s Gambit:

• The Louisiana Public Service Commission and sustainable-energy advocates have been at sixes and sevens over the state’s master plan for setting alternative energy goals — and the LPSC punted on voting on those goals this week. Will we remain behind the rest of the country when it comes to establishing 21st century energy policies? Alex Woodward talks to both sides and spells out the arguments ….

• Clancy DuBos charts the Winnas, the Loozas, and the draws in the most recent round of elections, and analyzes what the results mean in the chutes-and-ladders of New Orleans politics …

• Chris Rose looks at the latest dustup between the NOPD and the Mardi Gras Indians …

• The Idea Village is sponsoring its Entrepreneur Week beginning Mar. 20. Brandon Meginley previews …

• The great documentarian Les Blank comes to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art this week, and Ken Korman talked to the filmmaker in advance of his visit …

• … and Ian McNulty chows down, World War II-style, at John Besh’s American Sector restaurant.

There’s more, of course. Check it out on the newsstand beginning Sunday afternoon, or check back on the main Gambit site Monday afternoon. Later.

Last month, HBO released a “teaser” for its highly anticipated series Tremé. Today brought the first official trailer for the show, which premieres on the cable network Apr. 11. Like the earlier teaser, it looks pretty damn spectacular; see if you recognize some faces you know from around town. (If the trailer gets yanked off YouTube and the embed below doesn’t work, check it out on the HBO site.)

You know a phenomenon has gone mainstream when it’s written up in Vanity Fair, the coffee-table bible of trends and tastes from high to low. And so it goes with “sissy rap,” which was the subject of an award-winning Gambit cover story by Alison Fensterstock in 2008 — and is now immortalized in VF under the headline “New Orleans Sissy Bounce: Rap Goes Drag.” The article, by Brett Berk, begins:

You do not need to spend much time in New Orleans to realize that it occupies a unique position within the pantheon of American cities. As different from similar-sized towns like Pittsburgh as a coyote is from a mound of cottage cheese, the Big Easy is wholly it’s own scrappy, disheveled self (and I mean that as a compliment).

Berk goes on to profile the biggest New Orleans sissy rappers, including Katey Red (who tells him “It’s not sissy bounce. It’s Bounce music. It’s just sissies doing it”), Sissy Nobby, Big Freedia and Vockah Redu.

Whatever you (or Katey) want to call it, this seems to be the season of the sissy. Vockah is also on the cover of this month’s Antigravity magazine, and a clutch of New Orleans rappers (sissy and otherwise) will be appearing at the New Orleans Bounce Showcase at South by Southwest Mar. 20. Then, on April 22, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art will present Where They At: New Orleans Bounce and Hip-Hop in Words and Pictures, an exhibit curated by Fensterstock and Aubrey Edwards, which will go on for most of the summer and have a satellite exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

In the meantime, don’t miss the Vanity Fair story, which reveals something truly interesting: Katey Red is starting her own marching band, which we hope is rehearsed and ready for next Mardi Gras.

Those of us who have become used to the local comings and goings of the crews for Tremé might be surprised to know that even New Orleans can’t play New Orleans on film all the time. Courtesy of the blog NewYorkShitty comes this image of a flyer posted in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, advising residents that their neighborhood will be doubling as the Crescent City for some night shooting this Saturday evening.

This from the flyer, however, is cause for pause:

It is the heartwarming story of the residents of New Orleans Ninth Ward attempting to rebuild their lives after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Heartwarming? That’s Touched by an Angel stuff. We can hope that’s shorthand for “gritty drama, leavened with the weary, knowing sophistication and bawdy humor that so characterizes the Jewel of the South.”

But what of Greenpoint? Looking it up on a map, it’s scarily adjacent to Williamsburg, that district of Brooklyn where Hasidim and hipsters have been on a collision course lately. The Web site Not for Tourists characterizes Greenpoint as a Polish enclave being inevitably hipsterized, and adds:

One exciting aspect of Greenpoint (though not for locals with cars) is the frequent number of movie and television productions being filmed here at any given time. Again, because of its proximity to Manhattan and Long Island City (where a number of studios are based), Greenpoint serves as an ideal location for a production that is looking for a green, industrial, or cozy neighborhood setting.

Green? Industrial? Cozy? Our L9W???

We’ll see — obviously we have a lot of trust in David Simon, but some of us remember the disastrous results the last time a foreign location was used to represent the Big Easy.