fiddycentdraft

Louisiana underground music pages

2008-06-02T00:47:00.000-07:00

I did some reorganizing of the pages on this site due to the amount of stuff that's accumulating and also so that google can index it better. Mainly, I had to split the New Orleans band page in half because it got too large, I added flyer lists so that the flyer details will get indexed by search engines, and I added indexes for the clubs and venues in different towns. Here's a rundown of the main pages.

The band index pages have been updated and should be mostly functional. Getting the NOLA pages fixed was a bear. There are still some dead links on the NOLA and BR pages.
Lafayette Band Index
New Orleans Band Index A-M
New Orleans Band Index N-Z
Baton Rouge Band Index

Flyer galleries (the NOLA gallery is getting kind of large):
Lafayette Flyer Gallery
New Orleans Flyer Gallery
Baton Rouge Flyer Gallery

Flyers listed by date, giving the bands and venues (I used a calendar and made an educated guess at the years for the flyers, but I'm probably wrong on some):
Lafayette Flyer List
New Orleans Flyer List
Baton Rouge Flyer List

Indexes for clubs and venues:
Lafayette Club Index
New Orleans Club Index
Baton Rouge Club Index

For additional stuff, see the main index page.

Shout outs

2008-06-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been slacking again, but the site has been updated with a bunch of info that various folks have been kind enough to send in.

Ron from Disappointed Parents sent in their myspace page. They're currently looking for a drummer.

John V sent in info on Stephie and The White Sox, The Plague, Sx Tension, Voodoo Parade, and Graveyard Rodeo. Stephie and The White Sox are doing a reunion show June 21st at Hi Ho Lounge along with legendary singer Dave Turgen from The Sluts. He also sent a cool photo of Stephie and he from 2007.

Sean Morrogh sent in info on No More Fun and Master Sleestak and The Power Crystals. Master Sleestak opened for Alice Donut at The Bayou in Lafayette back in 1992. That was an awesome show. No More Fun featured Danny Hall's cousin and skateboard legend George Brown on drums.

Douglas D sent in info on The Backbeats, Apt. B, The Limit, and The Normals. The Backbeats and Apt. B featured Vance Degeneres of The Daily Show fame. The info has been added to the New Orleans band page. Actually, the New Orleans page got so large I had to split it in half. Now there is a page for New Orleans bands A-M and a page for New Orleans bands N-Z.

Danny Dickson sent in info on Star, Nova, The Models, and Human Drama. See the New Orleans pages for info on these bands.

Steve Kerin sent in an awesome photo of Havoc from 1987. That's Mitch Reed to the right, back before he was a local fiddle master. He was a hell of a bass player. He and I both used to take jazz lessons from a weird boat captain dude. Steve also played with Smaug, Megatron Jones, and Black Bayou Construktion, among others. Scott olivier now lives in Austin last I heard. Here is his site.

Skip Bolen sent in info on The Front. The Front featured Carlos Boll of The Skinnies. I also think he owned 'Lectric Eye Records, which was one of the original New Orleans punk labels. I'm not sure if The Front was before or after the Skinnies.

Troy sent in info on Gangster, Hoax, Latem Yvaeh, Paragon, Warlock, Tolerance, and Hostage. I remember seeing Gangster on the roof of The Keg at Mardi Gras. Aw what!

Thanks to Wes Whipp for the info on Strawboss, Jivin Sister Fanny, and Sid's Ride Home.

Mucho gracias to Tim Parrish for the info on Harry Dog and the Fleas, Human Rayz, Lower Chakras, The Irascibles, and several other Baton Rouge bands and clubs. Check out his article "Rockadoozy DIY".

Thanks to Sasha R for info on Sauced. Also, she may have some Zen Bastards photos. We have a few in this gallery.

Gary Attardo sent a ton of info on Star, Lynx, White Tiger, The Models, The Red Rockers, and many other bands. Thanks!

There is a lot more stuff to add,I just haven't gotten to it yet.

New Orleans and Baton Rouge pages are fixed (mostly)

2008-01-26T19:28:00.001-08:00

The New Orleans and Baton Rouge band index pages are fixed and the flyers and photos are back up. Some of the links to external sites are still dead and I'm working on weeding those out. Also, I've started adding the info that people have sent in by email. Again, I appreciate the info from everyone, and apologize for being such a slacker. Anyway, here are the updated pages:

New Orleans band index A-M
New Orleans band index N-Z
New Orleans flyers (I still have about 40 more to add)
New Orleans band photos

Baton Rouge band index
Baton Rouge flyers
Baton Rouge band photos

photos from the 1978 Sex Pistols show at The Kingfish in Baton Rouge
photos from a Psychedelic Furs show in New Orleans in 1982
Men In Black photo gallery
The Normals photo gallery
RZA photo gallery
Wayward Youth photo gallery

For flyers and photos, I definitely prefer the gallery pages over the old directory listing like at Ripway. I's nice to be able to flip through them. The Baton Rouge pages are pretty bare as far as info, flyers, or photos, so if anyone has anything to add, please shoot me an email. I have some stuff to add from old emails, but not that much. Quite a bit of stuff for Lafayette and New Orleans though.

Does anyone know if this flyer is for the RIP from Lafayette? The flyer is from New Orleans. The Dungeons and Dragons illustration is awesome. I love it.

Yes, I am a douche.

2008-01-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I admit it. I've been a douche and neglected this site for over a year and a half. In my defense, I've had a lot of stuff to take care of, but honestly a large part of it has been due to laziness. Several of the hosting accounts where stuff was stored have been cancelled or disappeared, so there are lots of dead links. Most notably, Ripway cancelled my account due to inactivity, and that killed all the flyer links. Also, the band photos sections have been screwed because the Image Cave account is disabled and Yahoo killed Yahoo Photos.

Anyway, I finally got off my ass and fixed at least the Lafayette section of the material. What I'm working on right now is getting the material organized so that I can load it all onto one account rather than spreading it all over the place. The Lafayette stuff is pretty much done. I've got about 2 years worth of emailed info to add to the archive once I get the files straightened out. Thanks to everyone who has been sending in info. I appreciate it.

I'm going to fix the New Orleans and Baton Rouge sections next, so that all of the current links work, and then I will add the new info that everyone sent in to all three sections. (New Orleans and Baton Rouge sections are still currently dead link central though.)

Here is some stuff to check out:
repaired Lafayette band page
gallery of Lafayette flyers
gallery of Lafayette band photos and stuff
promo photos of touring bands that played in Lafayette

Also, individual photo galleries for
August Spies
Bubba Daddy
Faith No More
Frigg-a-go-go
Hand Bob the Spoon
Otis
Reality On Trial
Snufflix
Toxin III
Urbosleeks
The Zen Bastards

Two tracks by Three

2006-04-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

I added two tracks of the soothing hippyfied sounds of Three to the old local band mp3 page. Three was Scotty Morris, Joe Whitaker, and Matt Gautreaux in his pre-Santeria/Jah One days. These songs are from their self-titled self-released cassette which features cover art by Aletha Jolivette. I know Scotty's doing carpentry, anybody know what Joe or Matt are up to?

There are now 23 mp3s of defunct Lafayette local bands on that page. There are also several other old bands up on the interwebnet:
August Spies
Bas Clas
Frigg-a-go-go
more Frigg-a-go-go
Full Hank
Hand Bob the Spoon
Hekatomic Cherries
Rare Avis
Sanpakus
Santeria
Three Guys Plumbing
Thunderpants
Toxin III
Urbosleeks

So Zen Bastards, Smaug, Gangster, Hostage, Figure Four, Yellow Dye #5, etc. etc. etc. quit slacking and put some of your old stuff up on the web. Don't force me to have to start posting about Spank the Monkey.

Map of Lafayette from the 1950's

2006-04-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

I scanned an old map of Lafayette from the 1950's and put it here. Click on a section of the map to see that quadrant in a larger view. There's also a 1.1 Meg version of the whole map.

It's interesting because it's from before most of the road improvements were made and you can see how the street layout used to be. You can also see a few things that aren't there anymore like the Southern Pacific yards and an airport on N. University. Plus you can see how modifications to other streets affected the importance of others. Simcoe, N Pierce, and St. John are just kind of relegated to being ghetto streets now, but they used to be major. Same thing with General Mouton. Anyway, it's pretty interesting to check out.

Brooklyn music scene

2006-03-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to check out as many bands as I can either online or live when they play here. Actually, I've been too broke to check out many of them live, but there are a couple of good weekly free shows I've been checking out, and a few are bands we've played with somewhere. Anyway, it's a complete pain in the ass to find the good bands here because there are so many shitty ones. It's kind of like the time your great dane swallowed your girlfriend's favorite earrings: you know there's something good in there somewhere, but you have to dig through a load of crap.

So with that in mind, here are 40 of the good ones that I've found. Mostly local stuff, but also some out-of-town bands that have played here. Of course, if your musical taste isn't ballpark of what mine is, you may think they all suck, but there's probably at least a few you will like. I always like hearing good new music, so hopefully you'll enjoy these. Maybe you peeps can keep me informed as to some of the good bands wherever you're at.

Anabolics: myspace (Brooklyn)
Angry Angles: myspace (Memphis)
The Assault: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Awesome Color: myspace (Brooklyn)
The Black Hollies: myspace (Jersey City)
Blue Rider: myspace (Brooklyn)
Broadband: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Buzz Buzz Tabernacle: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Call Me Lightning: website, myspace (Milwaukee)
Dansettes: website, myspace (NYC)
The Dead Betties: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
The Demands: website, myspace (NYC)
Department of Buildings: myspace (Brooklyn)
The Donkeys: myspace (San Diego)
El Jezel: website, myspace (Queens)
Federation X: website, myspace (Portland)
Fire in the Kitchen: website (NYC)
The Fools: myspace (NYC)
Fresh Kills: myspace (Brooklyn)
Goodnight Gunfight: myspace (Brooklyn)
Hundred Eyes: myspace (Brooklyn)
Edison Rocket Train: website (NYC)
Japanther: myspace (Brooklyn)
The King Khan BBQ Show: myspace (Montreal)
Leather Uppers: myspace (Toronto)
Life Partners: myspace (Boston)
Little Killers: myspace (Brooklyn) (that bass player could not be any more HOTTT, yes three T's)
Live Girls: website, myspace (NYC)
Lungs of a Giant: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Matt and Kim: myspace (Brooklyn)
Motico: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Oneida: myspace (Brooklyn)
Peelander-Z: myspace (NYC)
Pink Steel: website, myspace (Brooklyn)
Purple Organ: website (NYC)
Shellshag: myspace (NYC)
Sir Richard Bishop: mp3 (Chicago?)
Telenovela Star: myspace (NYC)
Trachtenberg Family Slideshow: myspace (NYC)
Velvet: myspace (Chapel Hill)

Pink Panther skatepark

2006-03-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

I found this Pigmy Skates page with some nice photos from the abandoned (and now destroyed) Pink Panther skatepark outside of Slidell. The Pink Panther was a 1970's era concrete skatepark located off of I-12 at the Pink Panther trailer park. I was lucky enough to go skate it once with Mike Smiley in the mid 90's. It was abandoned then, and we eventually got chased off by a sheriff. It has since been bulldozed. Anyway, it featured lots of banks, a snakerun that emptied into a bowl (that was full of water), a snakerun with a huge transitional wall, and some volcano / hip type things. Check out the Pigmy Skates page for a lot more photos of the park.

Here are a few shots of Mr. Smiling Michael at the Pink Panther. Hopefully, someday photos of the park when it was actually open in the 70's will surface.

Pigmy Skates also has a page on Houma's Paisley Fart Ditch, which was apparently the equivalent of Lafayette's Greenbriar Ditch. That is, a ditch that was fairly lame, but since it was the only one around, everyone still went there to skate it all the time.

I remember when we used to skate that little stupid Hub City Ford ditch or that one in between the two sides of the Thruway... then I took a roadtrip out to Albuquerque and skated the ditches out there. They were like works of art, perfectly transitional, hips, spines, roll-ins, you name it. Lafayette ditches were never the same again. Speaking of Greenbriar, here's a photo that I got from Beth Blackburn of Jerry Guillory standing in the middle of Greenbriar Ditch.

Also, here's one of somebody skating the Catfish Banks in Baton Rouge that I found somewhere. Damn, I miss that place.

Celebrity artists

2006-03-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, what the hell is up with celebrity artists. Although there were a few I looked at that were surprisingly good, the rest need to stick to whatever made them a celeb. Click the following artworks to see who was responsible.

Bobbo

2006-03-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

I found a couple of references to a Baton Rouge band called Bobbo. Apparently they were circa 1984ish. Anybody ever heard of them? One of the members was Tim Prudhomme, who is now on Smells Like Records, which is Steve Shelley's label (Sonic Youth's drummer.) Anyway, there's a brief mention in this interview and quite a bit of info in this Gambit article. They sound like they're worth checking out. I would have thought being from B.R. they would have mentioned The Zoomers, Shitdogs, US Times, etc. They sound like they were more new wave than punk maybe. I did find the reference about The Replacements playing in Lafayette interesting. Where and when was that? Jenkins, Chris, Mcbane, school me please.

There is also mention of several other B.R. bands on this Cap'n Ken post about Dash Rip Rock, namely The Times, Harry Dog and The Fleas, The Shitdogs, Bobbo, Scooter and The Mopeds, and The Human Rayz. Anybody ever heard of Scooter and the Mopeds or Harry Dog and the Fleas? I need to be more proactive trying to find this stuff out.

Andrew Duplantis and Scott Olivier

2006-03-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

Jon found this: andrewduplantis.com . Not much to the site, except for this order page which has some info and two sample tracks. Andrew Duplantis is from Lafayette and was in Stan Brundy Function, and I think maybe One Hand Clapping? He moved to Austin and ended up playing with a ton of big name musicians like Bob Mould, the Meat Puppets, Alejandro Escovedo, Richard Buckner, and Son Volt. Alas, if only he had stayed in town, he would be Lafayette's greatest band heaux. He's definitely Lafayette's most successful band heaux. I like both of the tracks.

I found this: casadistortion.com . It's Scott Olivier's site. He was in One Hand Clapping and Blind Cavefish. I guess he's recording and mastering these days. Again not much to the site, but he's apparently got an impressive collection of gear. He's also got this movie of all of his stuff. Yes, I realize that's pretty nerdy, but as a fellow amp aficianado, it looks like something dumb I would do. My favorite memory of Scott was when he sawed out the wall at his mom's house so he could put a plexiglass window between his bedroom and the closet, which was then made into the "control room."

I also remember him running with a guy we called "Shirtless." He was a fairly big dude with a mullet and a moustache who every day after school would pull off his shirt as soon as he got in the parking lot, get in his old Mustang and peel out. Anybody remember his name? I thought it was Scott Bordelon, but I just looked in the yearbook and I don't see him. I wonder what he's doing now. I'll have to ask Colby.

All this talk of Stan Brundy Function calls for bringing out the old trusty photo of fellow Brundian Andre Bienvenue. Huzzah!

Andre Bienvenipple.

Civil rights photos, and stuff from Lafayette's racist past

2006-03-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

I recently saw these newly unearthed civil rights era photos, and they are amazing. They're all from the Birmingham, AL area from the late 50's to about 1965.

This is Rev. Fred Shuttleworth being blocked from entering the whites-only room at the bus station. That dude is such a badass! They bombed his house, they bombed the bus he was on, beat him, arrested him, yet he never backed off.

Talk about not having the law on your side. This is the Alabama State Police in 1965. The white mobs in the photos look absolutely EVIL.

You should check out the rest of the photos on that site. They will make you realize how different things were back then and how little we, as young'uns born later, really understand the magnitude of the changes. They got me thinking about what Lafayette would have been like back then. I mean, I know it would have been segregated, but was this kind of crazy stuff going on in Lafayette back then too? It would be very interesting to see photos from then.

Anyway, here are a couple of things that I've been meaning to scan and post for a while. They're interesting for their racism. Nothing as crazy as those Birmingham photos, but still interesting because of the Lafayette connection.

This is a receipt from Buquor's Cleaners from 1943. At first glance, not too much out of the ordinary, except that the prices are really cheap. However, look closely at the bottom. I won't spoil it, just click on the photo to enlarge and check it out. What the fuck, we were in the middle of the largest war in history and black people were fighting for America just like white people. And the owners apparently felt it was important enough to print shit like this on their receipts. Fuck Buquor's. I wonder how many freshly cleaned white robes they had hanging up behind the counter.

I found this in my old house. It's a Valentine's card. It's crazy to think that this kind of bullshit was at one time considered perfectly acceptable.

These are from an old map of Lafayette. I can't find a date on it, but judging from the cars in the cover photo, I'm guessing either late 50's or early 60's. It's weird seeing all of these sites marked as "colored" on the map. Holy Rosary is on Carmel Ave. and is now abandoned. It's a cool place to explore if you're into that sort of thing. The colored park is Heymann Park off of Surrey by the airport.

I found it interesting that even the housing projects were segregated. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems strange. The colored project is the one that's on Simcoe between Louisiana and Pinhook. It's a real shithole these days. (If you ever need some ghetto drugs though, just drive down Simcoe past the entrance, go about a block, turn around in a driveway so the local dealers can see you, and head back to the entrance. Found that out while looking for my dog.) The white project is the one that's across from the post office on Moss Street by the tracks and the golf course.

Well, I think that's enough racism for today.

Badass bowl

2006-02-25T02:54:00.000-08:00

Mike Smiley sent me this photo. It's the new bowl that Dave Wattigny built at Skate Spot. Very impressive, it looks sweeeet!

The Pussycat Lounge

2006-02-24T23:57:00.000-08:00

I've been probably a little over-focused on the fate of the old Pussycat lately. (Especially considering that the fate of Grant Street is still not totally certain, and it's by far much more important musically to Lafayette.) It's just that it, along with Metropolis and the Loose Caboose, was one of my favorite Lafayette clubs. I loved the complete do-it-yourself primitive lawless pirate bar aspect of it. I was (at least in theory) Bernard's partner in it, so it kind of bums me out to see the old girl in such a sorry state. These blog entries are readily searchable on all the search engines, so consider this entry an attempt to write down some of the info about the club for posterity. From looking at it, I can't imagine that it will be around much longer.

Here's the future Pussycat seen in 1981 (from Lafayette LINC.) Even then, the building was looking past its prime. It probably dates from the early 1900's. I was told that it had at one time been a warehouse for Sears & Roebuck. From looking at the inside construction of the building, we could tell that the center part of the front facade (roughly the part directly below the raised part that says Broussard's in the above picture) had originally been open and was a loading dock that went back to two big old wooden doors that could be raised or lowered via large pullies up in the ceiling. Just across Jefferson at that time would have been the edge of the old Southern Pacific railyard, and directly behind the Pussycat there is still an old delivery track that was used to load and unload railroad cars into the building. That track then continued across the alley and then across 3rd Street. It eventually became part of Broussard's Feed and Seed, which also owned the elevators across the alley, the building directly behind the Pussycat (now torn down), and the building that Labor Ready was in. From the above photo, it's apparent that the building didn't change much from the 1950's until Hurricane Rita.

Here's the front of the building now (from Jon J.) Rita collapsed almost the entire front facade of the building. Really, the facade was one of the most important parts of the building's character. In the early 1980's, it had been used as a set for the movie Southern Comfort and had been transformed into a stripclub called The Pussycat Lounge. The front was adorned with that name plus some paintings of risque ladies. After the movie, the facade was painted over, but over time the old movie paintjob started to show through again, thus inspiring Bernard with the name.

After the demise of Metropolis, there was a period where there really wasn't any live music venue that was filling the void that it had left. Grant Street only did big acts, and most of the time it was stuff for an older crowd, and all of the other places only had bands occasionally. Bernard hooked up the Feed and Seed building for ridiculously cheap (I think it was $300 a month), and started trying to get it set up for shows. The space was only slightly smaller than Grant Street, although in very rough shape. Keep in mind that this was before downtown's renaissance, so the area around there was still a little shady.

Aided by prehistoric wiring and an unlocked disconnect box behind the old elevators, we were able to covertly reconnect the building's power and essentially got electricity courtesy of Labor Ready. The warehouse had also been equipped with an ancient sprinkler system from its fertilizer storage days. It was fed unmetered directly off of a city water main. Dana and I managed to disconnect the bathroom from the old metered water lines and connect it into the unmetered sprinkler system. If only the sewer line had been functional we would have had completely free utilities (as long as we didn't get busted by inspectors.) Alas, it had been severed when B's Lounge was built next door (in the 60's?) The Pussycat had a big huge open space in the back with a smaller lowered area in the front where the old loading dock had been, and a small room off to one side of that.

The above two photos were taken by the Poster Children when they played the place in 1999. See their tour log here, where Rose gives it a fairly high review. Some of the other acts that played there were Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Circus Ridickuless, arguably the best Frigg show ever, Urbosleeks, Santeria, and Roads to Space Travel.

Here's the same window from the Poster Children photo (courtesy of Kristie Cornell, notice that the sign originally said ENTAR). If I remember correctly, it was this wall that Bernard was tossing some smartass punk up against because he was punching dents in the tin sides of the building. B threw him around like he was a rag doll. Bernard's a big boy.

Here you're looking at the crumbled remains of the O and the U in "Broussard's" (courtesy of Kristie Cornell). Ah the memories of that place... drunken coonasses, Fruge eating a bunch of angel trumpet and turning into some sort of garden gnome creature, Bernard going on an acid induced freakout and not showing up for a show, undercover cops showing up and Bernard calling them out, etc. Basically it was like being a kid again, but on drugs and having the world's largest clubhouse.

There are still several old graffiti pieces inside (again from Kristie Cornell). I think at least one of them was done by Dana. A pretty funny story:

Dana and I were working on trying to rig the ancient bathroom in the building to work off of the equally ancient sprinkler system. There was a sprinkler nozzle in the bathroom, and we found where the main cutoff valve was for the entire building and turned it off. After considerable struggle, we finally got the rusty plug off below the sprinkler nozzle and rigged an adapter and some pvc to run water down into the old bathroom pipes. We turned the main valve back on and got nothing. We checked the entire system out and couldn't find anywhere where it had been disconnected.

So here's the picture: I'm standing on a ladder looking up into the open sprinkler pipe trying to figure out why we're not getting any water, and Dana is standing on the ground between the ladder and the door. I ask him to hand me something to stick into it to make sure it's not clogged. Unbeknownst to us, it is, and we've left the main valve on, which leads directly into city mains, so we've got muy mucho pressure on the other side. He hands me a tube of lipstick that had been left behind in the bathroom at the previous show and I start shoving it into the pipe. Of course, I stick it through the clog, the water releases like a shotgun, the lipstick shoots off never to be found again, fifty years of sediment and built up muck comes shooting out of the pipe at mach 10 coating my face and most of my body in sludge, I fall off the ladder, and Smith does this headfirst aerial leap thing through the door and cuts his shoulder open on the door jamb. Anyway, we got the water turned off and eventually got the bathroom to run off of the sprinklers, but only after learning a valuable lesson: we're idiots.

This is the wall that separated the lowered area where Frigg and Poster Children played from the side room where the equipment and miscellaneous junk was kept (photo from Jon J.) Another story: we changed out the old toilet and set it out back temporarily. The next day we came back and bums had not only filled the toilet with shit (in direct view of Jefferson Street), but had wiped their asses with a pair of pants and left them next to it. Thanks, bums!

This is the design from some Pussycat tshirts we printed. It's an old masonic drawing, and I just removed the masonic compass from the sun and replaced it with a cat. Yeah, I know, not real creative on my part, but it was such a weird cool drawing.

You remember the good old alley (courtesy of Kristie Cornell and Poster Children). It smelled like piss and death. Drunk girls peeing all over the place. Drunk people climbing up the old elevator scaffolding. Somebody told me some chick peed on him from above while he was trying to climb up it once. How many clubs can claim that kind of street cred? It's glorious. Remember that big mysterious tank thing (at the left in the second photo) that always stunk? Bernard said he opened up the side door of the Pussycat one day, and there was a hooker standing next to the tank smoking a cigarette with one leg hiked up on the control box thing while some bum was sliding her the salami, and there were like five more bums lined up waiting their turn. It was apparently payday at Labor Ready.

Well, all I can say is that those were really fun days, and I will be sad to see this building go, if it does indeed go. Viva Pussycat!

The Transmission video on myspace

2006-02-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

Check out their video: http://www.myspace.com/thetransmission

This just confirms my theory that there are robots scoring with the ladies at The Bulldog.

Cheers,
sCoTt

August Spies photos

2006-02-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

Check out some of these photos from August Spies' myspace site. The first one is awesome. I think bands should use it as a model for their promo shots, as in various members walking around randomly on stage, some in their whitey tighties, some in scrubbing bubble shorts, etc.

Also, here is young republican Chadwick:

And Lil Mikey M whose parents were really going through a George Harrison phase:

Steve Perry owes me money

2006-02-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

I came to a horrifying realization the other day: I know all of the lyrics to "Faithfully" by Journey. I've spent the last several days trying to figure out how this could have happened, and have come to the conclusion that it can only be the result of a sinister conspiracy between Steve Perry, shadowy government figures, and Halliburton.

"Lovin' a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be..."

I never even really pay attention to lyrics, and certainly never went out of my way to learn these. I do admit to owning the record in 7th grade, but in my defense I WAS retarded, and under the corrupting influence of D&D. Why do I have trouble remembering the words to the American anthem or the pledge of allegiance, yet whenever I least expect it, the words to this horrid song come bubbling up out of some dark corner in the back of my brain?

"Restless hearts...sleep alone tonight...."

AHHHH!!! See??? I was coming out of some store the other day and found myself humming the tune. I was trying to figure out why, when it dawned on me that the store had it playing in the background and I didn't even notice. I mean, think about it, how many times has that crap been subliminally pushed into your head against your will by some mega-corporation or stupid commercial. I think it's high time I receive some compensation for the cumulative damage done to my ears and soul by Steve Perry and his shitty music.

"I get the joy of rediscovering you..."

Ughh. That line alone ought to be worth about $10K in pain and suffering. So if anyone wants to join me in this class-action lawsuit (conducted by the law firm of Denny & Denny) let me know. All we'll have to do is present exhibit A in court, which will be their entire discography. By the time we get to "Escape", the judge, jury, and everyone else in the courtroom will be begging for mercy. As an aside, I think plaintiffs born after 1983 should probably be entitled to a larger share of the damages because there's a good chance that they were actually conceived to the song. (Ugh, I would kill myself.)

"I'm forever yours............FAITHFULLY."

People, we have to stop this trend now before it's too late. If we wait, the only recourse for the human race may be for our descendents to send back a cybernetic robo-roadie to rub out Steve Perry. Let us not let it come to that, sirs.

P.S. Don't even get me started on "Oh, Sherry".

personal photos

2006-02-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

I uploaded a lot of old and new personal photos here. It's a big set though, about 165 photos. You can also view them as a slideshow, but you won't see the captions. I think I like Flickr's slideshow interface better than Yahoo's. Anyway, photos of me, Fly, Dana, Jon, Scott, Bob, Donny, T'so, etc.

Not related, but best album cover ever:

various links

2006-02-04T00:53:00.000-08:00

You may have seen this Grant Street article from The Ind already, but if not, it's good reading. They really nail the most recent owner Kight. I didn't realize he started cutting out signatures from the backstage area two days after he owned the place. The article is coming from a markedly different perspective than the previous articles about the pending closure.

Check out Nick Pittman's site. He's got a lot of articles on Lafayette bands and whatnot. He's also got a collection of his old articles here. Mostly stuff from The Times, but also some other magazines and papers.

Mean Streek is my new favorite Lafayette band. Why? This picture:
I can't even begin to tell you how awesome that photo is. I do suspect however, that they are blissfully unaware that streek is misspelled in their name, but I forgive them. After all, they have a respectable 10% originals to covers ratio. Also be sure to check out their bios and see if you can figure out which member is the odd man out.

Dale Dolese from One Hand Clapping is now in a band called Grape Ape. I thought he moved to Austin, but I guess he's back in New Orleans now.

I also saw that Carl added a bunch more songs to his Hand Bob The Spoon page on Soundclick. I keep forgetting to post it.

Kristie Cornell's photo page has a lot of cool photos of the Lafayette area. This folder has photos of the old Pussycat right after Hurricane Rita.

Does anybody know what happened to Lafayette Local Entertainment? I know the domain expired, but is it dead for good?

estradaganza!

2006-02-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

I uploaded these Eric Estrada photos a while back: Estradaganza. I used to have all of these arranged up on the wall at our 8th Street house, but my roommates made me take them down because everyone thought I was gay. Which, I totally don't understand. For example:

Nothing gay here.

Here either.

There's a party in Eric's pants, and you're invited.

After a hard day on the hog, Eric, like most law enforcement officers, likes to max and relax in a little faux fur.

I still have yet to scan or photograph successfully my ultimate weapon, but suffice it to say that when I do, it will most likely permanently burn itself into your retinas, forcing you to gouge your eyes out. You have been warned.

Punk / metal karaoke is dead

2006-01-31T01:29:00.000-08:00

It's Monday night, and traditionally, at least from my perspective, the only thing usually worth checking out has been punk/metal karaoke at Arlene's Grocery. I know to anyone outside of town, you're thinking, "that sounds fucking retarded." Well, honestly yes, it is, but it goes above and beyond that and actually achieves the status of retardedly awesome. They had a live band that would play your favorite punk or metal hits, the crowd was huge to the point that you could hardly move, and most of the people who got up were die hards who went every week, and frankly were surprisingly good. Ok, I know that karaoke has the stigma of being the most annoying shit on earth, but the scene there was rabid and it made it a pretty exciting event to go see. Plus, it was free, which is a definite perk in NYC. Anyway, the band was great (they're a bunch of band nerds with no attitudes) and the MC was this dude Owen from the UK who was funny as hell. There is actually a documentary about the scene where supposedly you can see footage of Renee's roommate Heather on stage and see the rest of us in the crowd. I've still never seen it.

So my brother was visiting a couple of weeks ago, and I'm relatively broke, so I was trying to find free stuff for us to do and decided that we should go check out punk metal karaoke. About a year or so ago, apparently some drama went down at Arlene's, and the band and Owen, who someone told me was also Arlene's manager, left and went to the Continental. There is now a new band at Arlene's on Mondays. So our plan was to check out the old band at Continental and then go see what the new scene at Arlene's was like. I assumed that the crowd would follow the old band, since it was hard to imagine it being amusing without them or Owen. And I always respected that they had managed to create a scene around something as unlikely as punk karaoke.

On the way, I jokingly said that if nobody was there at Continental we should get the hell out of there before we got attacked by someone trying to get us to sign up on the list to do a song. Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite for bitching about the decline of the scene even though I've never gotten up to sing, but basically I'm a big pussy and everyone who used to get up was really impressive. I was a watcher. We show up, and alas, the club maybe had 25 people in it, half of which were members of the bands that played before and hadn't hauled their equipment out yet. Plus the beers were frigging expensive and the cocktail waitress told me some anal crap about keeping the aisle clear (even though nobody was even there) because I had angled my chair slightly. Overall, a really lame experience.

So we get the hell out of there just as we see someone coming over to accost us to sign up, and head over to Arlene's to check it out. I was thinking that the crowd must have stayed there after the Arlene-Owen breakup, since no one was at the Continental. We walked into what was essentially a frat party. Granted, it had been a long time since I went to go check it out, but apparently punk/metal karaoke turned into freedom rock karaoke. And believe me, one of the greatest things about NYC is the absence of fratboys. If you avoid a few areas around NYU, you can live a completely frat-free existence. Anyway, there is nothing even remotely pleasurable about watching some future family-owned company heir sing a song by Free, Pearl Jam, or McTallica. And even the band is lame. The MC simply yells the equivalent of "WOOOO! Do you guys like to rock?? If you're ready to rock, let me hear you yell WOOOO!!!" (not even Ric Flair style, which would be cool), and the band reminds me of a bunch of roadies finally having their day. "I am so rocking the fuck out of this Alice in Chains song. I am SO getting laid tonight." And sadly, they were probably right, but Jesus F-ing C, who wants to watch SERIOUS karaoke musicians.

So anyway, the point of this ramble is that the era of punk/metal karaoke is sadly over. I saw on the website for the old band that their Feb. 20th show at the Continental will be their last one there. Hopefully, they will be able to establish themselves better at a different club, but I have a feeling that those days are done. Peeps, tip a 40 for punk/metal karaoke.

Torture Time!!!

2006-01-30T01:57:00.000-08:00

If you live outside of Louisiana, that is.

Admittedly, plate lunch #6 looks a little scary. Also, I think #5 may be from that shitty grocery on Surrey. These are all from Jiro's site.

Japanese dude's zydeco pages

2006-01-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Here's some stuff from Jiro's site. He's a Japanese guy who plays the accordion and visits Lafayette every year to take photos of plate lunches. I admit, I have no idea what he's saying on his site, but he sure packs a lot into his visits. He hits zydeco clubs almost every night and during the day they drive around to all the restaurants and hit the sights. He's got photos from tons of clubs, some of which I've never even heard of. I have to admit, I respect the dude's passion. He comes over from another country, hits all the good clubs, munches all the good food, documents all the stuff I miss about the place now that I'm gone, most of which I never even looked into while I was there. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.

Chris Ardoin and Jiro at Slim's Y-Ki-Ki

Nu Step at Wranglers

El Sido's

Hamilton's Place

Geno Delafose at Hamilton's

Country!!

Best Stop boudin and cracklin central

Captured By Robots

2006-01-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

I just got these developed. They're from the Captured By Robots show at Tribeca Rock Club on November 18. If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend checking this out. It's a band composed of one guy and a bunch of robots that he built, and that actually play this weird punk/metal Ministry sounding stuff. They were all dressed as Star Trek characters and would insult him and the audience between songs. The big robot (Riker) had levers that would fret the strings, and then some kind of hammer type thing that would strum them. I guess if you passed through a black hole, and came out on the other side in an alternate universe, and went to a suburban alternate universe Chuck E. Cheese, this might be what you would expect to find. Anyway, it was awesome.

How to convert your mom into a hipster

2006-01-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be a photo essay on how to convert your mom into a hipster in six easy steps, but as you can see, the experiment was not succesful. I actually converted her into the retarded/ADD kid whose mom drops him off at the skatepark so that she doesn't have to deal with him for the rest of the day. Alas, fashion conversion is not an exact science.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

If you want to check out a slideshow of the process, it's here.

Here's a photo of a previous attempt to gangsta-fy her a little. As you can see, my mom has more street cred than yours.

And here's what she did to the cajun sausage I sent from Cajun Grocer. Sauerkraut!!!