Hip-hop genres flare up and become passé in the blink of an eye, but no style ever truly dies in New Orleans.
Late last year, six people were arrested in New Orleans for tagging the graffiti message “Free Lil Wayne” in the French Quarter. It was an odd message of support given [...]
Helen Gillet steeled herself against the January chill as she stood on a bright Marigny street corner right down Dauphine Street from Hubig’s bakery. Despite the cold, Helen was having too much fun trying out various costumes for a photo shoot to complain. “I really love dressing up,” says Gillet in a faux French outfit, [...]
At some point this year, Deacon John Moore will celebrate his 50th anniversary as the bandleader of Deacon John and the Ivories. Over the years, Deacon John established himself as the most sought-after performer for private parties in the city; built a shadow career as a session guitarist on a series of recordings that reads [...]
The Threadhead Records phenomenon has reshaped the profile of the local recording industry, allowing veteran musicians to make albums that might otherwise not have happened, giving deserving new artists a jump start on their careers and even producing such delightful one shots as this year’s Christmas release. No musician has benefited from this breakthrough more [...]
Radiators guitarist Camile Baudoin is revisiting his musical childhood in preparation for a show he’ll put on at Snug Harbor December 10. Baudoin has been working on a solo album based on the music his uncle Alton Dufrene played as a member of the popular Cajun country band the Dufrene Brothers along with his brother [...]
Before you dismiss this as “Just another traditional brass band album,” understand that the Onward Brass Band was performing at functions in New Orleans 30 years before jazz in any form was recorded (obviously, not with this lineup). So let’s not go comparing this album with the latest Thom Yorke release. That said, the point [...]
On Thanksgiving night, the Mardi Gras Indian Orchestra will return to the site of its memorable debut at the Hi Ho Lounge this past Fat Tuesday. Anyone who witnessed that spectacular show, or its sequel at Chickie Wah Wah during Jazz Fest, knows that this is not just another case of Mardi Gras Indians chanting [...]
Photo by Jerry Moran
More than four years after the federal flood, Cyril Neville still can’t shake the nightmares. The ordinary ones are bad enough—images of his home and neighborhood before Katrina, happy memories lost over and over again in the recurrent dreams. But it’s the other nightmares that really give him the creeps, images not [...]
After the straightforward verisimilitude of its CD/DVD release Live at the Ram’s Head, the new subdudes album, Flower Petals, is a mannered, carefully wrought set piece that takes a dramatic step away from the grim reality of life in the new millennium. In fact it’s a rock band version of a historical novel, with the [...]
Pianist Mike Hood knows how to please a crowd during his regular gigs at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, as long as the patrons are blues fans. “I take requests, but I don’t play Elton John and I don’t play Billy Joel,” Hood notes.
Hocus Pocus, Hood’s solid debut, sticks to that script. He opens with “Black Cat [...]
