Holey Moley

Another Mardi Gras has come and gone, as my boss put it I am no worse for the wear, except for the fact that I put like 30 miles on my legs and 5 years off my liver. Traditionally my response to “How was Mardi Gras” is “No Comment,” but for the sake of those readers unfortunate enough to have missed it (and posterity) I will recount the experience briefly.

Wednesday was a warm up, with two parades, venison sausage, some Jack and waters, and everyone in bed by 11.

Thursday’s parades were cancelled due to a supposed hellacious rainstorm (someone said it rained 3 inches in 20 minutes but I’m skeptical) that was brief but ominous enough to reschedule 2 parades and cancel Thursday’s third. I watched 30 Rock reruns until after the strom had passed, then went to Balcony Bar and met up with some folks I’d met in Chicago after the Saints game right before New Years. I convinced one of them to come with me to the Howlin’ Wolf, to meet up with a gaggle of Tulane sorority girls who suspiciously disappeared right after I started dancing. Having lost all my friends, I did what any rational person does in that situation and went to Ms Mae’s where I serendipitously ran into one of my favorite barflys, someone who’s been called in publications far more prestigious than this one: a “notable New Oreleans Socialite,” or something similar. We partied there until it got late and the staff decided I’d had too much to drink and was singing along too loudly to the jukebox. Obviously they didn’t know me well enough to know that I do that when I’m stone cold sober.

Friday was a glorious sunshiney day, that I'd already taken off, so I sat on my porch and got ready for the big game. Friday there were 4 parades, and they kept breaking down and it was probably 1am or later before the final float had passed. I’m having a little trouble piecing together what happened after the parades were over, but I know that I got ditched by my friends again and I ended the night around 4am when the band playing at Le Bon Temps finally finished up.

Saturday was Endymion, oh Endymion. Saturday was a shitshow that turned into an even bigger shitshow once the clock struck midnight and my buddy turned 24 (he took a lot of shit for being 17 when he got to college.) At some point, we got ditched, and after we had both gotten kicked out of Mae’s went to Le Bon Temps to play some terrible pool. I later found out that I had left my credit card there.

Sunday was quite a day, parades in the afternoon, superbowl, “superkrewe” Bacchus parade at night. After the afternoon parades, we (I’m too Sexy for this Porch) managed to stir up a batch of rock and roll on my buddies’ porch. At some point we were joined by a professional musician who happens to be one of my band mate’s ESL students who we happened to see play with Russel Batiste a few weeks ago, after Krewe de Vieux. With him in the band, the show went from being drunken fun to an awesome Rock! show pretty quickly. We ended up as the superbowl was starting, which finished up in time for the last 10 or so floats in Bacchus, after which it was time to go home. Basically, the wave of adrenaline I was riding crashed after the I’m too Sexy for this Porch show, and then came back a little, and then crashed even lower after Eli and Tyree’s little wunderplay.

Monday I woke up around noon and went scavenger hunting for my credit card which mercifully was at Le Bon Temps. I then sagely went back home and took a nap until about five. Monday --> Tuesday is the big finish, and you need to have as much strength as you can muster to make it all the way through Zulu and Rex. I spent most of the Monday night parades sitting on my buddies’ porch nursing jack and waters, touching my toes and twisting side to side at the waist and rolling my neck around and otherwise preparing for game 7. After everyone had cleared out, a friend and I set out to walk to Tipitina’s, making a pit stop on the way for drinks and to see my bartender friends at the Columns.

Somewhere around this time midnight and I chest bumped, and it officially became Mardi Gras (day.) Galactic played until sunrise, with some guest appearances by Chali 2na of Jurrasic 5, and the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, and some guest masked mystery guitar player who screwed up the words to Junco Partner. When the show had finished, which luckily was right before I ran out of awesome dance moves, Sav-A-Center, who shares its parking lot with Tips, mercifully opened, and I bought a 12pack of redbull and a bottle of vodka which I carried with me all the way to Zulu. Along the way I met some kindered spirits (lucky pun) who were making mimosas in the Sav-A-Center parking lot and we waddled towards Zulu until I got spotted by these two girls I had met all the way back on Thursday (how they recognized me in passing, I will never know) and whose charity I had promised a foosball table to, and had spent the night in a tent in the middle of St Charles Ave. When I finally got to my buddies’ house I got the bottle of absinthe I had stashed there to motivate myself to make it to Zulu, which is always a challenge, and twisted up a revolting Redbull-Vodka-Absinthe, which promptly got named “Licorice and Gasoline.” There wasn’t too much more debauchery, and I was in bed by 3pm, all the better to make it to work this morning, no worse for the wear (ugh.)

Music man

Did you know:

• There’s a new album with Robert Plant and Allison Krauss? (I’m listening to right now, so far it’s just ok)

• Like a year ago there was an album with Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris? (Fucking Awesome)

• Every time I hear the Nickelback song about wanting to be a rockstar, part of my soul dies?

• Every time I hear any song by Creed, Maroon 5, or Lincoln Park I want to shoot myself?

• First in the foot, then the knee, then the face?

• Kanye’s album beat 50’s because it has no Timberlake appearances?

• And because it’s good?

• Spell check recognizes “Timberlake”, but not “Kanye”?

• Yogurt has bacteria in it?

• That’s good for you?

Sorry, I got a little carried away at the end there. But seriously, yogurt bacteria = health, MRSA bacteria = kiss your sweet ass goodbye. And how about that flesh eating strep? Is that some nasty shit or what?

Anyways, where was I, oh yeah, Plant & Krauss, Knopfler & Harris, four people that are all kind of weird looking. Making collabo’s that come out of the blue and rock me gently to sleep. I forget where I was going with this, something about haw far the divide is between people like Allison Krauss and people like Timberlake. Unfortunately since few people over the age of 18 buy more than a few albums a year, (although this may be changing thanks to iTunes et al.) Timberlake could probably buy Allison Krauss several times over.

I went to Voodoo fest last Friday and saw some pretty solid acts, Galactic w/ Lyrics Born and Chali 2na, Lez Zepplin, Toots and the Maytals, Rage Against the Machine, but my favorite was a guy named Jason Isbell (Actually he was probably tied with Toots for best in show.) Jason Isbell is a weird looking dude. He is one of the three singer/songwriter guitar players from the Alabama born Drive-By Truckers. He is undoubtedly one of my top five favorite songwriters, to wit:

I used to go out in a mustang
A 308 Mach 1 in green
Till me and your mama made you in the back
And I sold it to buy her a ring

I don’t really have a point except to say that his second to last song was a cover of Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads, which was awesome, but his last song, called Hurricanes and Hand Grenades, and written about New Orleans, was somewhat soured because people where walking away to go see a band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club might be the best name for a shitty band ever. Seriously I was kind of interested to hear a band with a name that bad-ass, but they pretty much ate a fat cock.

Galactic played a pretty good set, but I only got to see a little bit of it. They teased Immigrant Song for a few bars of their closer, but then turned it over to the MC’s for a little off the top session. I have a constantly changing opinion of Galactic, back in the day when they had the Houseman, they were the shit, but he split and they went into a lull. I haven’t heard their new album, but lately I’ve been feeling pretty middle of the road about them, this will be the first year in a while that I haven’t seen them at Tips for New Years (although Kashmir at the Lundi Gras show was ridiculous.) Some of my favorite musical memories are of Raines, Mercurio, and Vogel playing at Le Bon Temps with Simon Lott and Anders Osborne, in the first few months after Katrina, that shit was so awesome.

Lez Zeppelin was fun, in a novelty sort of way. They’re an all female Led Zeppelin cover band, whose sexual orientation was debunked by Chuck Klosterman after interviewing them (for SPIN presumably, I read it in his anthology “IV”.) Anyway, they opened with Immigrant Song, which I think may be a requirement of any Zeppelin tribute act. Even if it is SOP, it’s a fucking badass song to walk out on any stage and rip in to (In case you haven’t noticed I’m a pretty big Zepp fan, I also enjoy a good parenthetical aside.) Jan Bonham and Jan Puala Jones were obviously having the most fun, while Jamie Page was undoubtedly the best musician. Roberta Plant wasn’t quite Robert Plant skinny, but who is? Zeppelin songs lend themselves to a female singer quite well, but I’m almost positive Robert Plant doesn’t have a Long Island/Brooklyn accent (think toned down Fran Drescher trying to casually do a british accent.)

Rage Against the Machine was the headliner, but I couldn’t stay for their entire set. Rage’s first album dropped when I was 9 years old, but they didn’t really hit the big time until ’96-’97, when Evil Empire hit #1 on our charts #4 across the pond, and they won a Grammy for a song celebrating the death of Richard Nixon. In between jumping around the stage and making a fortune, Rage is like the Sean Penn of the music world taking vocal stances on stuff like Mumia, Zapatistas, and I’m pretty sure it was front man Zach De La Rocha who made that ubiquitous Che Guevara t-shirt so popular. Anyways, they opened with their two most poular songs (lame) and the sound/view where we were standing was pretty bad, so I left and went home.

So on Wednesday (Halloween) night, I went down to Frenchman Street and saw a band called The Morning 40 Federation, who are awesome. One of the guys opens the show by greeting everybody, and asking who went to Voodoo Fest, and who everyone thought the best band was. Then he says: “Did anyone see Fallout Boy? I thought Fallout Boy was the best band at Voodoo, and anyone who disagrees with me is definitely a heterosexual!”