December 2005
Alt NO
- Enjoying Depression
While here in purgatory, a.k.a. Houston, Texas, sleeping on strange futons, waiting to be let back into New Orleans, I’ve had…
BackTalk
- John Blancher Rocks Back
Since so many of New Orleans’ finest scattered after Katrina’s hell-bent wrath and destruction, sometimes the easiest way to locate a…
Bayou Boogie
- The Little Easy
The arrival of thier New Orleans neighbors (in Lafayette) has sparked a number of ventures to help displaced entertainers remain healthy…
Cover Story
- Katrina Blues
It is more than a little strange to be back in New Orleans on the first cool-ish night of autumn after…
Letters
- Letters December 2005
STILL TICKINGI took time to read the magazine [WeeklyBeat] this morning. I see where a lot of the locals are playing…
Live Wire
- Voodoo Fest: Exuding Faith in New Orleans
I remember asking my friends and family a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, “So, what are we doing… - James Burton Guitar Festival, Shreveport
I used to be a guitar player. There was a time when I even thought I was pretty good, but these… - The Ultimate Test, Snug Harbor
The first show at Snug Harbor since Katrina had that sense of reunion for so many old friends that came. The… - Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Maple Leaf
It was Saturday night and Frenchmen Street was still dark and quiet. Bourbon Street was lit up and the bands in…
Mojo Mouth
- Make Levees, Not War
It’s strange to be perched again in my window overlooking Frenchmen Street. We just moved back into OffBeat’s office less than…
Reviews
- Various Artists, Voo Doo (Mambito Records)
Though voodoo’s loaded with tradition, folklore and dogma, the New Orleans variant, as opposed to its African and Haitian counterparts, is… - Creole Zydeco Farmers, My Big Foot Woman (Sound of New Orleans)
Fifteen years after their seed had been planted, the Creole Zydeco Farmers continue to burrow deep within the furrows of zydeco… - Seth Guidry & Louisiana Nights, Les Larmes Dans Tes Yeux-The Tears in Your Eyes (Acadiana Records)
It’s not often that a record label concurrently releases two discs from debuting Cajun squadrons, David Fontenot & Cajun Express and… - Ronnie Mathews and Throwdown, Just Me and the Bottle (Acadiana Records)
Initially, Ronnie Mathews and Throwdown sound like the next posers to the worshipped throne of zydecajun king Wayne Toups. Peppy, poppin’… - The Susie Arioli Ban feat. Jordan Officer, That's for Me (Justin Time)
In the last few years, no one has captured the romantic swing style more convincingly than Canadian drummer/vocalist Susie Arioli. Her… - Various Artists, The !!!Beat; Volumes 1-6 (Bear Family Records DVD)
It lasted for only 26 episodes but it was very possibly the hippest show to ever grace a television screen. It’s… - Various Artists, Louisiana Blues DVD, A Musical Film by Jean-Pierre Bruneau and Jose Reynes
Now available to American audiences for the first time, Louisiana Blues is an expansively rich documentary of a diaspora culture seen… - Lafayette Rhythm Devils, Runnin' (Z'Affaire Records)
Since the Lafayette Rhythm Devils’ laudable debut of 2003, things have changed in the lair. The departure of bassist George Toups… - Kevin Danzig, Kevin Danzig (KEDA Records)
No longer partnered with musical collaborator/wife Cat Woolley, Danzig still leads the nomadic troubadour’s life where stories are indelibly etched within… - Blind Arvella Gray, The Singing Drifter (Conuroo Records)
The Singing Drifter, indeed. Unless you hung out on Chicago’s Maxwell Street sometime after World War II and sometime before the… - Bobby Purify, Better To Have It (Proper American)
Caveat emptor: this is not the Bobby Purify of James and Bobby Purify, the mid-’60s soul duo best known for the… - Mingus Big Band, I Am Three (Confluences/Sunnyside)
There are those that leave a legacy so gigantic that not only is it nearly impossible to fill their shoes, but,… - Davis Rogan, The Once and Future DJ (Independent)
Now that everyone’s all of a sudden an expert on New Orleans music, violent distortions of the city’s sonic history are… - Casey Hayes, The Iron Year (Perennial Records)
- Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall (Blue Note Records)
- Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker, Town Hall, New York City, June 22 1945 (Uptown Records)
- Bob French's Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, Live at New Orleans Jazz Fest 2004 (Tuxedo Records)
I’ve been going to the New Orleans Jazz Fest since the very beginning, when I heard Bob French’s dad leading this… - Mari Watanabe, Old Friends (Independent)
Mari Watanabe is a Japanese transplant celebrating her twentieth year in New Orleans. In that time she seems to have caught… - Delbert McClinton, Cost of Living (New West Records)
You have to admire a man who scatters his old drivers’ licenses—not blurred out, either, just strategically placed—all over the inside… - Vince Anthony, Just Because I Care (Midnight Gold Music)
Gotta hand it to Vince Anthony. When every other swamp pop papa regurgitates classic fodder from every crossover genre imaginable into… - Magic Slim & the Teardrops, Anything Can Happen (Blind Pig)
Magic Slim live. For fans of electric Chicago blues—South, not West, although the difference is, these days, largely academic—those three words… - David Fontenot & Cajun Express, La Couleur de Notre Song (Acadiana Records)
A cover shot of a Cajun quartet playing underneath a tree screams symbolism if you remember Dewey Balfa’s quote about the… - Jive Train, Jonesin' (Independent)
Despite all the groove and soul that is packed into this short, 20-minute EP of five songs, Baton Rouge’s Jive Train… - Frederick Sheppard, Blessed (Independent)
When Frederick Sheppard, better know as Shep, is on a second line parade with the Tremé Brass Band, the spot to… - Smoky Greenwell, Smokin' Classics (Greenwell Records)
Usually all-instrumental Christmas and cover tune albums reek ’60s kitsch but somehow harmonica hellion Smoky Greenwell redesigns ’em with a 21st… - Charivari, A Trip to the Holiday Lounge (Rounder Records)
A lot can happen in five years, especially if you’re a nationally touring band sandwiched between an auspicious debut and a… - Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Dominos (Rounder)
Maybe folklorist Barry Ancelet spoke too soon when he scribed in a 1993 festival guide regarding how Steve Riley and the… - Maria Muldaur, Sweet Lovin' Of Soul (Stony Plain Music)
This former “Midnight At The Oasis” singer continues her roots renaissance of the last decade with this, the second in a… - Jesse Moore, More Than Life Itself (Heartfelt Music)
On his second solo release, guitarist Jesse Moore enlists the help of a few heavy hitters in the New Orleans music… - Kenny Neal, A Tribute to Slim Harpo and Raful Neal (True Life Entertainment)
Poetry, Wordsworth once famously noted, “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” The kind of swamp-blues poetry practiced by Baton… - Various Artists, A Celebration of New Orleans Music (Rounder)
The cultural bloodlines of New Orleans have nearly been severed, its social fabric dangles by a thread and a new form…
