Best Of New Orleans Blog

These past four years, I’ve taught a class where elementary-aged public school kids learn to program beats on drum machines and pen original lyrics, plus write hilariously mean reviews of albums by New Orleans artists, which Gambit Weekly has been kind enough to publish. This teaching job’s part time nature has allowed me to, in my abundant spare time, chase my dream of becoming a professional author and freelance journalist. But this week I dumped both vocations; after seven years as a New Orleans bohemian, I finally caved and took a full-time job as assistant editor of a Metairie-based trade magazine that details the coin-operated game industry: pinball machines, video poker, crane games, etc. (more…)

This year, Ash Wednesday happened to fall on my 34^th birthday, which was the only reason I agreed to play at Balcony Music Club (ex-El Matador) on what is traditionally and officially the most un-fun day of the year. The other three Bywater/Marigny bands and the scruffy 60-person crowd they conjured (miraculous for Ash Wednesday) are often called “Circus People,” though I’ve yet to see most of them do any tricks, outside of playing open chords on acoustic guitars. Others call this genre of person, “hobohemians”. If they begged for money (which they don’t; they play music for free drinks and beer money) they’d be called “gutterpunks”. A hilarious friend of mine refers to this clique (more…)

Photo By: Thom Henkel

Everyone knows Mardi Gras isn’t just about champagne with Rex and beads and boobies on Bourbon; one of the best parts of the greatest free show on Earth is catching up with the city’s Mardi Gras Indian tribes as they hit the streets, guerrilla-style, to show off the pretty they’ve been working on all year. Here’s a partial guide on how to meet the boys on the battlefront this weekend.From noon until 6 p.m. on Lundi Gras, the Mohawk Hunters present Indian practice and a showdown, with the Mohawk Hunters, the Black Eagles, the Creole Wild West and the Wild Magnolias, who’ll also throw down with a funky musical set led by Big Chief Bo Dollis. Located at the Canal Street Ferry landing on the Algiers side, the powwow will also feature a full Indian village with arts and crafts and food and beverage booths. On Mardi Gras morning, the Downtown tribe Young Guardians of the Flame take to the streets in honor of the late Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr., starting at 7 a.m. at 3632 N. Johnson St. in the Ninth Ward, and visiting local music royalty along a route that includes stops at the homes of jazz drummers Bob French and Smokey Johnson (in the Habitat for Humanity Musicians’ Village) and A.F.O. Records founding member Chuck Badie. They’ll also hit Congo Square and St. Louis Cemetery #3 before winding up at Bayou St. John at 9 a.m. (more…)

To hear original rap songs by my young ‘Music Writing’ students, watch videos of their live performances, and to read their hilariously mean album reviews of local artists (as published in Gambit Weekly) visit myspace.com/mrmichaelsclass.

This week, my brilliant 2^nd graders at Behrman Elementary on the West Bank completed their second song of the semester (the first being their Christmas rap, which you can read about HERE). Or, almost finished it… My fault, definitely. As I’ve stated before, these kids are the best, most with-it I’ve yet taught. Many New Orleans kids I’ve worked with, even if the activity is fun, they initially project skepticism, doubt and stubbornness. I have to fight them, drag them kicking and whining toward the fun. But these Behrman kids, when we’re sitting in the cafeteria before class completing homework, they ask me “what we doin in rap class today?” and by the time we line up to walk to my room, their new verses are already half written. So different. Truly amazing.

This new song is called “Our New Year”. Because the Christmas song went so well, every time I’ve since asked them to choose a new song topic, they’ve listed the next holiday: “A Mardi Gras song!” they cheer now. (more…)

Allright, y’all, this missive is from Captain Ann-Marie Coviello of the Box of Wine. The Box of Wine is the parade that marches down St. Charles to alert the revelers and Mardi Gras fans that the time of Bacchus is upon us. It is open to all and more fun than a barrel of Motley Crue and Lindsay Lohan. Come march or watch.

To those who don’t know, Bacchus is the reason behind Mardi Gras. It all goes back to Bachhus. And he must be worshipped and given tribute especially, according to Grand Marshall for Life Shelly Loughnane, “by those who lives the lives that we do.”

From Ann Marie:

It’s that time of year again, the time of year when a Bacchante’s mind turns away from the quotidian and toward the call of Dionysus’ drumming…. (more…)

by Sam Winston

Mardi Gras is not just too early for Crawfish, the season is supposed to be particularly bad according to this radio interview.

It’s funny. As the average/clueless consumer, I seem to remember over recent years having no middle ground for crawfish seasons. It was always either “sparse” around Mardi Gras time only to watch consumer prices sink to ridiculous levels by the end of spring as the Crawdads grew in size and quantity, or for the Crawfish to remain small all year with hefty 4 dollar a pound and up prices. Then a friend of the family usually comes in late spring every year from the Lafayette area and destroys our New Orleans impression of the season with steroid size Crawfish that seemed to never have anything to do with the up and down talk of the season.

Regardless, another good friend of mine, whose boiling claim to fame is oranges in addition to lemons, lamented recently that with the Gras so early this year, things just aren’t the same without plentiful Crawfish.

The crowds were five to six people deep in the French Quarter today, as hundreds of local dogs  paraded and sniffed the streets on the first sunny day of carnival.

This years theme: Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Bark

Humans tried to blend.

There is something very alien like about pugs…

If that big cat doesn’t work out… the “Fighting Chihuahuas” has a nice ring to it.

I am not sure if this method really works…

A parade attendee is creative with his beverage and bead transport “object” on the second day of parades. 

Tonight Oshun braved the horrible weather and down pour and started the Carnival season out all alone. The mob of Cotton Candy Vendors, the upbeat NOPD and umbrellaed krewe all made an appearance and the statement that despite the wet weather, Mardi Gras 2008 will go on.  Hopefully we will have better weather for Saturday. 

UPDATE- the cancelled parades have now been rescheduled:

Uptown

Pygmalion- Wednesday, Jan. 29 (will follow Druids)

Westbank

Cleopatra- Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 6:30 p.m. — route diverted through Terrytown

Metairie

Excalibur- Monday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m.

Atlas- rescheduled to follow Excalibur

Northshore

Eve- Monday, Jan. 27 at 7 p.m

To any Southerner, last Krewe De Vieux Saturday felt insanely cold. Inhuman. 60-degrees at least. Later someone told me 29-degrees. My god, where am I?

I felt cold on the inside as well, this being the first Mardi Gras event I’d ever attended solo, without Mizzy, my girlfriend of six-and-a-half years. We broke up finally, this New Year’s Eve. I’m unready for Mardi Gras like this. But assuming I would live, I forced myself onto my bike. Everything would be OK, I hoped. I would surely crash into some friends to distract from my woes. Pedaling past Marky Park from Bywater down to Mimi’s in the Marigny, I definitely noticed I’d forgotten my gloves, but a pint of $7.92 whiskey from Schiro’s would help combat the air, and everything else. (more…)

Each semester, after my students and I have written some rap songs (myspace.com/mrmichaelsclass), the second half of my ‘Music Writing’ class entails teaching them to write album reviews. Their writing is generally hilarious and mean — the kids mostly dismiss anything not fed to them via Clear Channel — but the reviews also boast some perfect snappy, laconic insights, descriptions and assertions that only kids could conjure. In a batch of reviews published by Gambit magazine in September of 2006, the kids critiqued a demo album by The BadOff, a modern yet almost imperceptibly retro, heavy guitar-rock band from New Orleans:

“They sound a hot mess to me. Their instrumentation sounds like biker boys driving down the road. I like the beat. Why? Because you can use it to make other songs. I don’t like that the beat is louder than the singer. Why? Because I would like to hear the singer’s words. The singer sounds like someone in a graveyard singing about a dead loved one. He sings like he knows how to sing, and he sings songs that you can dance to a lot. He sings like he’s been a singer for a while.”

Only now have The Bad Off finished the recordings my students mildly dogged. Their album Lady Day will be available for the first time this Sunday night, at One Eyed Jacks. (more…)

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