NOLA - Voodoo Fest - Shenanigans
Outstanding trip - not a lot of sleep - much great music and such a solid good time with S and D in the French Quarter. D got a spot to perform on the bill a the Voodoo Fest in City Park - E and I made the trip to see him in his festival debut. I felt really lucky to be there. Other close friends really wanted to come and could not and that was sad for everyone - but I'm glad E still wanted to go - I think it meant a lot to D and I know I appreciated having someone to share the sense of awe I was experiencing the whole time we were there.
E and I flew in on Thursday and, after a, um, memorable cab ride to the quarter (check brake light on the whole time, screeching through traffic, the driver chanting some kind of religious rite as she cruised through red lights and stop signs (looking back, we should have just joined in). We made it to the general neighborhood and after some ground kissing and haberdashery admiring met up with D and S and ate meat loaf and cabbage (awesome home cooked cuisine from S all weekend - thank you darling girl!). I was granted the honor of playing photographer for D's gig and the rest of that day at the festival (with mixed results) but I gave it the college try (or something like it). Took over 200 photographs of everything around me - felt special and phony and in the moment all at once. Having the camera made it sort of like I wasn't there as me - gave me permission to talk to people and ask them if I could take their picture (or not ask them as I stole their souls). I experienced the whole festival differently - something I'd definitely like to do again.
The gig was on Saturday at noon - we rose relatively early to make sure D was set up and everything was cool. D didn't seem to nervous (I think I was more nervous for him). S's friend S was the stage manager and another friend J was there with his son to assist with the camera, loan his tri-pod and be generally supportive. I think there are some very cool people in their circle and in their lives - I was glad to meet them and see a little bit what the day to day is like for S and D in the quarter.
Lower Decatur Street was home base, from there we first walked 2 minutes to Frenchman Street (which was what we ended up doing almost every night - awesome mess of bars and clubs and peoples - easy to make friends and get invited to parties and feel welcome and a part of the scene). Being that we were only there for four days, it was a unique and lovely to have people engage with you as if they would see you again next week. Perhaps it was because of the finite nature of our time in NOLA (and not despite it) that everything seemed so easy and lovely. Over the next few days we ventured into the Treme for a house party (invited by my home town buddy S, in town for Halloween - thanks S!) in a burnt out mansion (just past rampart St.) decorated to the hilt for Halloween and filled with goth kids and costumed mysterians, made a surreptitious repossession in broad daylight, ate beignets, ran down the street laughing (more than once), heard lots of interesting and accomplished musicians (sometimes both) and gawked (cool like, of course) at the costumes (however small and creative) and of course, at the endless tourists (however goofy) - us among them of course, but feeling like locals with no right to do so.
Wrote a song, met a boy from Holland (an illusionist's assistant with 4 houses in Antwerp, righhhht), lit my hair on fire, got kissed in public, got a shot from a bartender for free and did my best to take it all in with my mouth closed and my sense of wonder intact. A gallery owner we befriended over a Bill Murray vs. Chevy Chase debate (Murray, btw, of course), T, told me that everyone from NOLA "had a little bit of huckster in them" and although at the time I didn't really know what he meant, I think I do now. It's not a negative comment, at least I don't take it that way. I don't know how to describe it - but it's a different place than I have ever been to and I want to go back and learn about it, be there, be in it. I'm frightened to play out there - but maybe next year I'll have more confidence about myself and the tunes and the band and I'll feel differently. Wow - just writing that made my heart start beating rapidly. Yikes.
I want to go back and hear more Jazz. There was only one club on Frenchman that had a real jazz group (with charts and everything) but it was a zoo and we didn't actually go in. I desperately want to watch more female singers and watch what they do ("how they do") - I need inspiration and I think it might be just the place.
That's all for now lovies.
Katya
Outstanding trip - not a lot of sleep - much great music and such a solid good time with S and D in the French Quarter. D got a spot to perform on the bill a the Voodoo Fest in City Park - E and I made the trip to see him in his festival debut. I felt really lucky to be there. Other close friends really wanted to come and could not and that was sad for everyone - but I'm glad E still wanted to go - I think it meant a lot to D and I know I appreciated having someone to share the sense of awe I was experiencing the whole time we were there.
E and I flew in on Thursday and, after a, um, memorable cab ride to the quarter (check brake light on the whole time, screeching through traffic, the driver chanting some kind of religious rite as she cruised through red lights and stop signs (looking back, we should have just joined in). We made it to the general neighborhood and after some ground kissing and haberdashery admiring met up with D and S and ate meat loaf and cabbage (awesome home cooked cuisine from S all weekend - thank you darling girl!). I was granted the honor of playing photographer for D's gig and the rest of that day at the festival (with mixed results) but I gave it the college try (or something like it). Took over 200 photographs of everything around me - felt special and phony and in the moment all at once. Having the camera made it sort of like I wasn't there as me - gave me permission to talk to people and ask them if I could take their picture (or not ask them as I stole their souls). I experienced the whole festival differently - something I'd definitely like to do again.
The gig was on Saturday at noon - we rose relatively early to make sure D was set up and everything was cool. D didn't seem to nervous (I think I was more nervous for him). S's friend S was the stage manager and another friend J was there with his son to assist with the camera, loan his tri-pod and be generally supportive. I think there are some very cool people in their circle and in their lives - I was glad to meet them and see a little bit what the day to day is like for S and D in the quarter.
Lower Decatur Street was home base, from there we first walked 2 minutes to Frenchman Street (which was what we ended up doing almost every night - awesome mess of bars and clubs and peoples - easy to make friends and get invited to parties and feel welcome and a part of the scene). Being that we were only there for four days, it was a unique and lovely to have people engage with you as if they would see you again next week. Perhaps it was because of the finite nature of our time in NOLA (and not despite it) that everything seemed so easy and lovely. Over the next few days we ventured into the Treme for a house party (invited by my home town buddy S, in town for Halloween - thanks S!) in a burnt out mansion (just past rampart St.) decorated to the hilt for Halloween and filled with goth kids and costumed mysterians, made a surreptitious repossession in broad daylight, ate beignets, ran down the street laughing (more than once), heard lots of interesting and accomplished musicians (sometimes both) and gawked (cool like, of course) at the costumes (however small and creative) and of course, at the endless tourists (however goofy) - us among them of course, but feeling like locals with no right to do so.
Wrote a song, met a boy from Holland (an illusionist's assistant with 4 houses in Antwerp, righhhht), lit my hair on fire, got kissed in public, got a shot from a bartender for free and did my best to take it all in with my mouth closed and my sense of wonder intact. A gallery owner we befriended over a Bill Murray vs. Chevy Chase debate (Murray, btw, of course), T, told me that everyone from NOLA "had a little bit of huckster in them" and although at the time I didn't really know what he meant, I think I do now. It's not a negative comment, at least I don't take it that way. I don't know how to describe it - but it's a different place than I have ever been to and I want to go back and learn about it, be there, be in it. I'm frightened to play out there - but maybe next year I'll have more confidence about myself and the tunes and the band and I'll feel differently. Wow - just writing that made my heart start beating rapidly. Yikes.
I want to go back and hear more Jazz. There was only one club on Frenchman that had a real jazz group (with charts and everything) but it was a zoo and we didn't actually go in. I desperately want to watch more female singers and watch what they do ("how they do") - I need inspiration and I think it might be just the place.
That's all for now lovies.
Katya
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home