Never a Dull Moment

Pictured: St. Patrick's day on 3rd st. The TBC Brass Band on a Tuesday night.

New Orleans is a town brimming with all sorts of important traditions. Until last week, I had little idea that St. Patrick's Day was one of them. On the day itself hundreds of people gather outside of the Uptown haunt Parasols. From 10am til dark, 3rd street is packed with people dressed in green who are eager to celebrate the Irish holiday and excercise their right to drink in the street. I was invited to a party called Don-a-palooza that day. The Don in question is a guitarist in the well known New Orleans reggae band the Revealers whose house is sits right in the midst of the St. Patricks/Parasols madness. On this day, Don's back yard had been transformed to an outdoor music venue which played host to 8 bands in 8 hours. There was an indie rock band from New England comprised of 14 year olds that were on their way to showcase at SXSW in Austin. There was a Pretenders cover band. There was an uber-tight soul band, and of course the "Nawlins style Reggae" of the Revealers. At one point as Don waited for one of the bands to show up, he asked if I could play for a bit. I sat in with an all female blues band for a few tunes, and then played for myself before being joined on the fly by a high-school age drummer who could hold it down.

As everyone else imbibed into the evening, I remained relatively sober. At around midnight I jumped in the car with my friend Max to drive through the night to Austin, TX. Max was going to Austin to help WWOZ (the greatest radio station on earth, www.wwoz.org) broadcast from the SXSW festival/conference. I was going to Texas for a little R&R with a special friend of mine in the Hill Country. After a few days we headed in to town and on Sunday morning, got to see the Lee Boys play a Gospel Brunch at Threadgills. The Lee Boys are a gospel/R&B outfit from Miami, FL (www.leeboys.com) that have a great take on the "Sacred Steel" style of music that until recently was only played in far away churches. My trip to Texas was very relaxing, save for the 600 mile drives-through-the-night in each direction.

Tonight my friend Rob took me to hear the Ragin' Cajun, James Carville speak at Dillard University. Carville, the democratic political strategist and cable news contributor, often lectures to students and currently teaches a class at Tulane. Mr. Carville spent most of the time talking about how to communicate effectively; be simple, repetitive and have a narrative. Not surprising coming from somebody who has honed his chops in a world of cable news soundbites and fleeting attention spans. During the question and answer period, I posed a question critical of the corporate-political-media machine in which he is entrenched. James was a good sport but my question did seem to have him a little hot under the collar and before long he was giving me a not-so-subtle brush-off. Afterword I thanked him for taking my question and we enjoyed free punch and cookies together.

Next, we headed over to the Candlelight to see the Treme Brass Band. The Candlelight is located in the Treme neighborhood - a neighborhood rich in African American culture and music. The TBB plays the Candlelight every Wednesday night and it is something to see! The horn players roll in at a leisurely pace and eventually when everyone is seated on or near the stage, a few drum hits signal the beginning of a great night of traditional New Orleans brass band music. The band is lead by snare drum player Benny Jones and bass drummer Uncle Lionel Batiste. Uncle Lionel is always dressed to impress and umistakable in look and presence. It's best to keep him away from your women. Tonight the band was joined by Roger Lewis of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on baritone sax and by Trombone Shorty, among others. All on a Wednesday night....

Down on the Bayou

Pictured: A Cypress swamp near New Iberia, LA. A 1930's era Dobro. Colin with the Theus Krewe in Alexandria.

Earlier this month, I played a house concert in Alexandria, LA, about a three hour drive west and north of New Orleans. The concert was hosted by Graves Theus who runs the Alexandria Music Project. Graves is a good friend of my friend in Portland, Fabio Apolito, which his how this gig came to be.

The show was a great success and I was introduced to all sorts of new people.

After the show, I was invited to head down to Bayou Teche, a bayou (slow moving river) near New Iberia, for an oyster feed and party the next day. So rather than heading back to New Orleans on Saturday, I headed south through Lafayette and onto a series of swampy, backwoods roads that eventually led to Bayou Teche. I was greeted by a great goup of folks and some of the best food I've experienced down here yet. After dinner I played for a while with a zydeco musician named Mojo who tours the world with his band, The Bayou Gypsies (http://www.redhotmojo.com/). Mojo was patient with me as I followed him through a couple of Cajun and Swamp Pop tunes that I was hearing for the first time.

My new friends were kind enough to put me up for the night and in the morning I was greeted in the kitchen with a glass of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice from grapefruits that had been cut down a few minutes earlier. I spent the rest of the morning playing on a 1930's era dobro that Joel, my host, had picked up at a pawn shop in northern Illinois many years ago.

This was quite a weekend and I look forward to my next trip to Alexandria and/or New Iberia... who knows what could happen.

Idaho again... Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Pictured: A daytime Mardi Gras Parade on St. Charles Blvd.

Papa grows funk at the Howlin' Wolf

The sign out front of Foresters Club in McCall, ID

The Idaho Hills in all their splendor.


Well, it hasn't taken me long to neglect my blog already. It's been over a month since I've posted anything and much has happened since.
In mid February, I flew home to Oregon where I reconvened with my band for a short tour of Idaho. The tour took shape a few weeks earlier when I was asked if we could open for JJ Grey and Mofro (mofro.net) at the Knitting Factory in Boise. After a few phone calls, it became apparent that we could make it work and soon after, my flight was booked. The tour also took us back to McCall, ID, where invariably we are treated like kings. (see photo above)

Upon my return to New Orleans, Mardi Gras was in full swing. Parades snaked around the city for a week straight and time began mean less and less to me. When it finally ended, I felt as though I had traveled to a different planet and back.