March 2016
Cover Story
- Earphunk: Pheeling Based
Earphunk is growing and evolving. So is their following. There are no bigger shoes for a New Orleans jam band…
Features
- Looking In the Score: Angela Hewitt finds what the composer has left us
World-renowned classical pianist Angela Hewitt was born in Canada. She began her piano studies at age 3 and went on to… - Feel Right: Mystikal’s fresh chapter at Buku
In June of 1995, Mystikal, whose self-titled debut for New Orleans’ Big Boy Records label was creeping its way up Billboard’s… - Givers: Straight from the heart
Modern and New Givers: Straight from the heart During their relatively short life as a band, Lafayette’s Givers have played… - Keeping the Blues Legacy Going: Jonathon “Boogie” Long at the T-Bois Blues Festival
Over the last few years, Jonathon “Boogie” Long has shredded with enthusiastic fervor from the Acura Stage and the Blues Tent… - Buzz Band: Dash Rip Rock’s Bill Davis talks about South By Southwest
As everyone who’s followed the Austin, Texas industry festival can attest, South by Southwest has changed a lot over the years.…
Fresh
- Bruskers, Who?
Late last summer, ace guitarist Jimmy Robinson played a memorable gig at an olive garden—not the chain restaurant, but an actual… - Trombone Shorty Foundation: Art as Life
"I don’t have the numbers in from when the awards were announced a month ago,” says Bill Taylor, executive director of… - The Spring Sex Playlist
Spring is here, and a young man’s or woman’s thoughts naturally turn to… well, sex. With that in mind, we present… - Wednesday at the Square: Prioritizing the Arts
Now that everyone has had a chance to take a post-Mardi Gras breath, it’s time to get out and enjoy Wednesday… - Five Questions with Doris Bastiansen, Owner of Kerry Irish Pub
Are you a New Orleans native and do you have any Irish blood in you? I am a New Orleans native… - My Music: DJ Soul Sister
"Krewe of King James is what makes Mardi Gras for me these days. When I was little, it was about parades…
Mojo Mouth
- Dumb, and Why Not?
Austin has South by Southwest, which has grown to ginormous proportions. It used to be a small music business gathering with…
In The Spirit
- Ashley Danella at Coquette & Meriam Benezra at Avenue Pub
"The cool thing about James Booker is that he mixed lowbrow and highbrow so well," says Meriam Benezra (MB). "He was…
Dining Out
- Seither’s Seafood
Seither’s Seafood is located on an industrial thoroughfare dotted with trucking lots and contractor yards, but the oyster shells strewn about…
Photo Op
- Celebrating Louisiana Music: Best of the Beat in Photos
Photography by Willow Haley The party celebrating the 21st Annual Best of the Beat Awards was memorable for the… - Photo Op: Like No One Is Touching
Join the harrassment-free neighborhood dance party. Heatwave is a bi-weekly all-vinyl dance party started by local DJ, author and…
Reviews
- Julian Primeaux: This Guilded, Swaying Heart (Independent)
A veteran of the Lafayette music scene and something of a journeyman who has spent time in bands as far flung… - Christian Winther, Refuge in Sound (Sound Perspective Music)
How one is perceived is a funny thing. In New Orleans, reedman Christian Winther is thought of by many as residing… - REWIND: Dash Rip Rock, Boiled Alive! (Mammoth)
Leader Bill Davis presses rewind on Dash Rip Rock’s classic live album from 1991. “This was a pretty important record… - Tonya Boyd-Cannon, Muzic Is Life (TBC Muzic Group)
Tonya Boyd-Cannon upped her recognition when she ranked in the top 20 of NBC’s popular singing competition program, The Voice. The… - Peter Guralnick, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll (Little, Brown)
A Tumultuous and Eccentric Life While this is a through and mostly enjoyable biography, some folks—especially in these parts—might take… - Tortue, Play It Loud (Latanier Music)
Who says old dudes can’t rock? As evidenced by its nine-track debut, Tortue certainly still can. The Lafayette roots rockers do… - The Ed Frank Quartet, The Ed Frank Quartet featuring Clarence Ford (504 Records)
This record features a type of music that is rarely played or recorded in this day and age. It’s the music… - Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Baby Ain’t That Love (Ace)
Unavoidably labeled by many listeners as merely a poor man’s Fats Domino, Clarence “Frogman” Henry was much more than that. While… - Mid-City Aces, Mid-City Aces (Mid-City Aces Records)
Thanks to Dewey Balfa’s profound analogy, Cajun music is often viewed as roots and branches, where a branch later becomes a… - Smoov Ras, Son of Calypso (Independent)
Reggae music is the product of a process that has been evolving—arguably a slow moving one—since the ’60s. Today’s reggae—or sub… - Eric Bibb and JJ Milteau, Lead Belly’s Gold: Live at the Sunset… And More (Stony Plain Records)
Lead Belly’s been gone for over 60 years, but his music still resonates throughout this fat nation on many different levels.… - Junko Beat, JamKronic (Indpendent)
What to label this? The rhythm section was once known as Junko Partners, but they’ve since split from that nucleus and… - Michael Torregano Jr., The M. Teezy Project (Independent)
The great New Orleans electric violin player Michael Ward preferred the term “contemporary instrumental music” to what has commonly been called… - Sweet Jones, Home Vol: 1 (Independent)
Couples Americana? Sure, why not? The husband-and-wife team of the DeOrazios, Melissa (vocals and guitar) and Matthew (guitar and everything else),… - Chris Ardoin & Nustep Zydeko, Zydeko Fever (Maison de Soul Records)
Since making his debut at Carnegie Hall at age four, Chris Ardoin has accomplished a lot. As a teenager in the… - Nolatet, Dogs (The Royal Potato Family)
What is the result of four eclectic music masters combining their talents? The answer is Nolatet’s brilliant debut album, Dogs. The…
BackTalk
- Regina Carter
More than a decade ago, jazz violinist Regina Carter became the first non-classical musician to play Niccolo Paganini’s highly guarded, handcrafted…
Letters
- March 2016 Letters to OffBeat Magazine
BUSINESS AWARDS I attended the OffBeat Business Awards last night at the Orpheum Theater. Thank you for putting on such a…
