While here in purgatory, a.k.a. Houston, Texas, sleeping on strange futons, waiting to be let back into New Orleans, I’ve had the chance to really enjoy depression. And depression sometimes triggers my strip club reflex. “Oh hell no, man. You kidding?” asked my driver and fellow evacuee, Ray Bong, a New Orleans musician I’ve previously [...]
Crystallizing Jhelisa
While this “alternative music” exists mainly to expose fops to truly original music—as opposed to New Orleans’ glut of blueprint-reading throwbacks—there are also cases where progressive-minded fans might need to be pointed in musical directions they might not go voluntarily. And surely, more alt music aficionados would attend the Hookah Café’s weekly Nina Simone tribute [...]
No-Man-Band
One-man-bands have always really impressed me. Until I met a man with no band: IMAGINE “the” BAND. The name perfectly describes the concept: wearing a too-tight wetsuit and headphones with “special education” printed across the top, Eric William Pierson (known as Egos Personos on stage, and just E.P. on planet Earth) hyper-earnestly performs original songs [...]
Acid & Other Drugs
I am now officially in cahoots. The Noizefest I wrote about for the Jazz Fest issue ended up taking place in my backyard in the Bywater, after Jay “MC Trachiotomy” Poggi and Keith “Deacon Johnson” Moore got in a pissing match over the original location. We left our goat with a neighbor so the freaks [...]
Cum On Feel the Noise
I’ve always jokingly typed “Jazz(zzz)fest.” But as my girlfriend commented while reading this year’s line-up, “Dave Matthews and Nelly? They should just go ahead and call it DouchebagFest.” Or Clear Channel’s DouchebagFest. Give me free tickets and I will wipe myself with them. Or I’ll give them to Keith Moore—a.k.a. Deacon Johnson, the noise-addicted son [...]
Passing Grades
A while ago I wrote a book about my bad experience teaching in a New Orleans public school. I taught for only one semester and it was just too much, too hard. So I was apprehensive about doing it again. But the 5th and 6th graders I now teach Music Writing to, as part of [...]
