The Barryfest Chronicles

I used to subscribe to a pretty antiquated school of thought when it came to the common practice of untagging yourself in pictures that show up on Facebook.  If you got caught from an unflattering angle or in one of those drunken “one big eye, one small eye” smiles that very few of us can pull off, I was cool with knocking yourself out of the caption.  I mean, no one should have to deal with the pitfalls of amateur photography.  But I was patently against people untagging their mug solely because the picture showed them engaged in behavior that they, under sober examination the next morning, found embarrassing or incriminating.

Untag all you want, I reasoned, but that shit still happened.  Just because there is no longer a blue box around your head in the shot of you cavorting with a group of ladies of ill repute – one hand holding a 32 oz plastic cup that says “Big Ass Beers,” the other throwing up “the shocker” – doesn’t erase that episode from the annals of history.  And just because there are no pictures of you smoking heaters directly above a link to your full profile doesn’t change the fact that your efforts to cut back on tobacco after college were flushed down the shitter once you got to the international waters of New Orleans.  You can hide your flaws and missteps from all your friends and networks, but you can never hide them from yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a pretty big Girl Talk fan since this girl I knew in Minneapolis pulled a copy of Night Ripper out of her purse at a dinner party and handed it to me.  She claimed that her discovery of Girl Talk about 6 months prior to our encounter had changed her life, and as such she always carried around a few burned copies of his latest CD just in case she sensed an opening during a conversation that she could use as a springboard to spread the Gospel According to Greg Gillis.  She was something of a Girl Talk missionary, you could say.

On Friday night I caught his show at the House of Blues in the French Quarter.  It was great.  Much like at a Rebirth Brass Band show, words (and even pictures, really) do no justice, so here is some footage:

Dear Scott Van Pelt,

I only became a regular listener to sports radio since I have come down here to New Orleans, as my morning commute changed from the six block walk I had in Minneapolis (a trip just long enough to expose you to the extremes of Minnesota weather but too short to help you fully shake off a hangover from the night before) to my current 15-20 minute drive to the office.

The only other time in my life that I regularly listened to any radio at all was back in high school, which was the last time I regularly drove before the invention of iPods.  And for a variety of reasons, I did not listen to sports radio back then.  In a major sports city like Chicago, the radio waves are full of local sports talk shows hosted by fat, obnoxious, bigoted homers hailing from the South Side.  You even find these fucking mopes for a few hours here and there on the ESPN affiliate, so there is really nowhere on the AM waves to hide from these shitbirds.  And besides, I was perfectly happy rocking out to The Drive, probably the best radio station on the planet (although WWOZ here in New Orleans gives it a serious run for it’s money). Read the rest of this entry »

Hmmm.  How do I explain the Rebirth Brass Band to someone who has never been to one of their performances?

Or, better still:  How do I explain the Rebirth Brass Band to someone who has never even been to New Orleans?

At the heart of it, to understand Rebirth is to understand the effect one of their live shows has on your face.  It’s pretty straight forward and extremely predictable:  That shit gets melted right off your fucking head.  You’ll probably shit your pants, too.  And orgasm harder than Rob Schneider at the mention of Denver’s no-huddle offense.

I have never been able to come up with a description of their music that I find satisfactory, and I have had a lot of chances to try.  Rebirth Brass Band are one the first things I mention when anyone asks me “How are you liking it down in New Orleans?”

Their mix of traditional brass band sounds, jazz elements like call and response and virtuoso solos, hip hop beats, and serious cow funk grooves is unlike anything I have ever heard in my life.  Everyone in the crowd – black, white, old, young – cuts a goddamn rug the entire time.  And whether it is an afternoon set at Satchmo Summerfest, a late night blowout at Tipitina’s, or a second line march down Frenchman Street during the Krewe De Vieux parade, they are always on their game.

Enough with failing to describe something like Rebirth with words.  Here is a little clip from last night’s show at Howlin’ Wolf: