Comments | bugsinamber: Knowing what it means...

bugsinamber

Knowing what it means...

Feb 24, 2009 12:10

...to miss New Orleans.

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!!

I've been listening to WWOZ all morning and, amidst alternating smiles and tears, am aching to be home right now. I live my life entrenched in music of all kinds. But listening to "OZ" right now is reminding me how infrequently I hear New Orleans music outside of New Orleans. These are sounds that ( Read more... )

Comments 11

cindymonkey February 24 2009, 21:56:25 UTC

you just made my day
i heard OZ all the time when i was there in sept and forgot the name when i got back
this is now my new favorite thing ever

bugsinamber February 24 2009, 23:00:20 UTC

OZ is the best! One summer in the mid-90's I worked at a traveling Smithsonian exhibit about Duke Ellington that was set up in Louis Armstrong Park which is where WWOZ's little yellow shack of a station is housed. There were loudspeakers mounted on the outside of their place that pumped their broadcast out into the air of the shared courtyard. It was always really nice to go outside for lunch and listen to the tunes.

(The comment has been removed)

bugsinamber February 24 2009, 23:06:16 UTC

You know, I've spent the last half hour or so wondering if saying that I would "brave" beads and titties makes me sound titty-phobic which I'm most certainly not. It was more a comment about how Mardi Gras seems to have been reduced to those two things to such an obnoxious degree. At any rate, I'm going to edit.

I love yr gay pot bellied pig story.

I'm trying really hard not to go spend money I don't have on tix to fly home for Jazz Fest.

(The comment has been removed)

bugsinamber February 24 2009, 23:29:12 UTC

A couple of weeks ago I dug up this NOLA bounce mix that I'd made way back when and have been in the throes of it ever since. I looked at the Wikipedia entry on bounce and found the link to the website for "Ya Heard Me?" which I'd read about in URB last year but totally forgot to follow up on. On the artist bios page there were profiles on Big Freedia and Katey Red, both of whom I'd never heard of before. For that matter I was clueless about anything "sissy" in the bounce scene beyond DJ Jubilee calling out do the "Sissy Shannon" on "Stop, Pause (Do The Jubilee All)" which is a classic bounce cut. Instantly intrigued for obvious reasons, I located that Gambit article on the sissy scene and found it fascinating. I definitely recommend reading the entire article. Needless to say, I want to go home to check it out. Given my experiences with bounce, that is something I just have to see to believe.

Thanks for the links!

bugsinamber February 24 2009, 23:46:51 UTC

One of the things that is such a trip about it to me is that there's always been that homo element to bounce, especially in the dancing. We would go to school dances and guys would twerk exactly like the girls would. Of course, when the guys were doing these dances with girls it wasn't necessarily considered gay. How much you wanna bet my pubescent homo mind didn't see it that way? In that Gambit article, they talked about how women like to go to the sissy shows to dance, presumably because it was safer. You can see some of the dances on the video for that DJ Jubilee song I mentioned before:

The 9 minute version of that song was always good for getting folks out on the floor to do all of the dances he called out.

Oh, man, I'm falling down the bounce rabbit hole again. Wheeeeeee!!!!

(The comment has been removed)

Thread 7

Thank you for WWOZ link..... pauliebearsf February 24 2009, 23:12:31 UTC

Great way to celebrate Fat Tuesday....Thanks xoxoxooox

Re: Thank you for WWOZ link..... bugsinamber February 24 2009, 23:48:25 UTC

My pleasure! Glad you like it.

chrisomatic February 25 2009, 07:38:40 UTC

If I could play drums like the drummer in that song I would walk down the street every day shouting "I AM SO FUCKING AMAZING AND YOU WANT TO KNOW ME BECAUSE I CAN PLAY THE DRUMS LIKE THIS!!!!!!"

bugsinamber February 25 2009, 09:14:25 UTC

Seriously, if I could play anything like that, no one would be able to tell me a goddamn thing.

During WWOZ's broadcast today, they aired an awesome short segment on the making of "Big Chief" including interviews with the folks who played on it that are still alive. One of the coolest parts by far was hearing Joseph "Smokey" Johnson talk about his drumming on the track. Apparently, at one point in the recording he took a bunch of Coca-Cola bottle caps, flattened them out, thread them through nails, and nailed them to two broomsticks he then used to drum with.

WTF?!

Wardell Quezergue, the arranger of the song, said that Johnson played the drums so hard during recording that his hands bled.

I've been looking for bios and more info on Johnson all day and it's like putting a fuckin' puzzle together with spare and disparate pieces. Some things don't even mention he played on "Big Chief." I wish you could have heard that segment.

Have you ever listened to The Meters? You'd dig Zigaboo Modeliste's drumming.