inky ink, inc. | Matador Playlist(s) 4/26/18 – 5/17/18

03 Jun Matador Playlist(s) 4/26/18 – 5/17/18 – 5/31/18

Posted at 18:40h in Uncategorized by inkyinkinc

Welcome, Gentle Reader(s), to yet another installment of Ye Olde Matador Playliste, this one clocking in only scant weeks after the last! Extraordinary, you say? Unprecedented? Trend setting, what? Not at all, actually, but it certainly bucks the trend of the last six months. Despite the calendar tally of Thursdays only three playlistes have been generated as Your Humble Narrator has been resident once again in the town of his origin, down pon the Big Muddy in Louisiana. The Mississippi River actually shares that nickname with the Missouri River and while the Missouri is some 20 miles longer than the Mississippi, I can hardly imagine that it could be any muddier and still manage to flow. Anyway, the Missouri flows into the Mississippi while the Mississippi flows into the sea, or the Gulf of Mexico at least, and that, in MHO gives the Mississippi the upper hand. So there.

Whilst ensconced in New Orleans a trek was undertaken, in company of esteemed friends and colleagues, to the hamlet of Bayou Goula on the West Bank of the Mississippi about an hour and 20 minutes northwest of the city. This is where my father was born and spent his early life, although he often deferred to the nearby town of Donaldsonville as his childhood home. St. Paul’s Church in Bayou Goula has since been deconsecrated but the good people of the community have determined not to allow this charming edifice to run to wrack and ruin. They have set themselves to refurbishing and maintaining St. Paul’s and are doing a fine job of it. They offered up a party to all comers on Sunday, May 6, apparently simply for the fun of it. A tempting and toothsome offering of snacks and libations were on hand along with a sextet of classical music students from LSU, a short distance upriver in Baton Rouge. Before the musical portion of the afternoon commenced a small bird of unknown species found its way into the church and agitatedly flew back and forth the length of the nave before finally finding a perch high on the altar where it remained for the rest of the afternoon. It seemed to portend the presence of a Divine Presence in the house, and a photograph suggesting as much was subsequently added to the Digital page of this site. The photograph at the top of this post is of the back of St. Paul’s with the river road and the levee just beyond.

Not a bird, not a plane, not even a meteorite!

My usual bike riding tendencies were indulged, through Audubon Park and up onto the levee trail as per usual, interspersed with visits with assorted friends and associates. While riding my bike through the park one day I decided to stop and give closer investigation to the monolithic object near the downtown edge of the golf course which, as local lore and legend has it, is an actual meteorite—the kind that fall out of space every now and then. One of those. I had often wondered about the veracity of this legend and lore, but it sure as hell looks like one might expect a meteorite to look. But the thing is HUGE! If this massive chunk of cosmic detritus fell out of the sky in one piece it would have to be giving the Hoba meteorite in Namibia a run for its money as the largest such intact device. And unless it deployed a parachute during landing it would have left a crater at least the size of Audubon Park. I had my doubts so, for better or worse, a brief consult of the intrawebs revealed that the object in question is in fact a lowly chunk of iron ore left over from the 1884 Centennial exhibition that gave birth to the park as we know it. Apparently some folks from Alabama installed the massive thing and then couldn’t be bothered to pack it up and take it back home with them. Fine with me. After all, who knew they had iron ore in Alabama? And while examining the not-quite-meteorite up close I made the acquaintance of this turtle.

The day before my departure I got together with Sister Denise for lunch and an overdue bit of catch-up chin wag. Our outing included a visit to Harry’s Ace Hardware on Magazine Street—an institution what looms large in the mythology of my early years. Harry’s has evolved over the decades but in many ways it remains much as it was lo those many years ago. It offers a dizzying array of home improvement notions and lotions, tools, and the ever-helpful hardware codgers in their regulation Ace Hardware vests. Old School, I tell ye. Sis Denise located the items she was in search of, I invested in some wooden closet hangers, and I delivered her back to her home in the snug of deepest Carroltonian Uptown. Finding Sis Denise’s house is never a problem as all one need do is to tell the impending visitor ‘Just look for the house to the left of the place with all the crazy shit in the front yard.’ The photo included here was taken on the 11th of May. Easter was on April 1. This is what Sis Denise’s neighbor’s yard is like all year-round! Seriously. It may be Easter, it may be Christmas, it may be Mardi Gras, it may be the feast day of St. Zebediah, patron saint of garbanzo beans—whatever it is, this person has an array of oversized inflatables, banners, flags, statuary, cyborgs, laser projections, etc., suited to the occasion. Everybody needs a hobby, I know, but get a grip!!

Perpetual Easter

My various and sundry activities in the City That Forgot To Care included two days of attendance at JazzFest (May 3 & 4) in company of the Commodore and Brother Jose. As we wandered the infield at the Fairgrounds we enjoyed the diverse musical offerings of Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Beck, Susan Cowsill, Motel Radio, Tatiana Eva-Marie & the Avalon Jazz Band, Lyle Lovett & his Large Band, Brian Seeger’s Organic Trio and LL Cool J, among others. I had seen Jason Isbell at Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque just about a week prior to his JazzFest appearance and my co-attendees at that event had opined that he had seemed atypically subdued onstage. Perhaps it was the rather stuffy confines of Popejoy, but at JazzFest Isbell was feeling a bit more expansive. The Acura stage where he performed was close to one of the food courts from whence various alluring aromas were originating, prompting Isbell to comment that he had heard that Morrissey’s gig contracts stipulated that he could refuse to perform if the smell of meat cooking was detectable from the stage. Isbell said that his contracts specified the opposite.

We happened to catch a portion of Beck’s set as we were decamping from the JazzFest premises on Friday (by the way of the Exit to Mystery Street, nonetheless). We lingered for a while as Beck and his band hopped and bopped in a hipsterly/digitally enhanced manner but the notion that there were subliminal messages from Our Scientology Overlords imbedded in the music was hard to escape. I started feeling an uncontrollable urge to hook up to an e-meter and Go Clear or, alternatively, sign over all my worldly goods and take to sea in a tall ship. But perhaps it was just sun stroke messing with my haid.

We hung around on Thursday for Lyle Lovett’s end-of-day set at the Gentilly stage, the start of which was delayed by some 20-plus minutes. Oddly, throughout the delay the Large Band stood onstage in their regulation Large Band coats and ties while the boss got up to whatever bosses get up to backstage at JazzFest concerts. The temperature was hovering in the mid-80s and although the Large Band was in the shade I was feeling very sympathetic for their undoubted discomfort. A hair emergency of some sort, perhaps? Inappropriate color M&Ms in the star’s dressing room? Freakout at Quint Davis over lack of shiatsu foot massager? Lovett apologized for the delay when he finally appeared but offered no explanations. The Commodore and I lingered for the first few songs but I’ve never been particularly moved by Lovett’s starchy take on country music and we set ourselves homeward in advance of the mass exodus.

The Lagniappe stage, in the paddock courtyard inside the grandstand, is a great spot to catch some of the smaller acts at JazzFest and I’ve experienced some excellent music there in recent years. This was the venue for Susan Cowsill and Tatiana Eva-Marie and her band. Not only can you catch a break from the sun but seating is available and the oyster bar is close at hand. Susan Cowsill was in fine voice, as always, and she closed out her (too brief) set with a rather quirky choice of cover toonage: ‘Benny and the Jets’ ladies and gentlemen! Unusual, but fun nonetheless. Needless to say, all the crusties in attendance (YHN included) obliged Ms. Cowsill’s entreaties by singing lustily along on the chorus. Tatiana Eva-Marie is a songstress who styles herself in the manner of a Parisian chanteuse of the between-the-wars era. She is an engaging presence and her band was tighter than Quint Davis’s fist. The Commodore, possessed of a highly discriminating ear, gave them a rare two-thumbs-up endorsement.

On Friday morning our first stop was the Acura stage where Motel Radio was holding forth. This is a band of four (or five?) photogenic young chaps from Texas and Louisiana who are now based in New Orleans. They play an Americana-ish brand of tuneful rock & roll and seem to building a following in the city and beyond as they regularly tour around the lower 48 as aspiring musicians must do. I had encouraged the Commodore and Bro Jose to check the band out as the drummer, a lanky 27-year-old named Eric Guidry, has become an acquaintance by way of my visits to the Billy Reid store on Magazine Street a few blocks from Ink South. The competition is certainly fierce but don’t be surprised if Motel Radio pops up on your musical radar screen sometime in the not too distant future. I’m not sure how Eric manages to balance his time working for Billy Reid with touring but good on ya lad!

Thursday and Friday crowds at JazzFest are generally more manageable than Saturdays and Sundays when the biggest acts perform (this year’s selection including Rod Stewart, Jimmy Buffett, David Byrne, Aerosmith, Jack White, and the Steve Miller Band). There were essentially no lines at all for most amenities and the food was excellent and the weather warm but not oppressively so. Despite the high quality of the food offerings one significant shortcoming of the Fest is and has been the limited beer selection. Miller Brewing is one of the primary corporate sponsors of the event and the menu of suds was therefore restricted to their assorted watery offerings. With the Commodore’s prodding Brother Jose and I willingly went the alternate route of iced herbal teas, but by late afternoon my resolve had begun to weaken and I forked over my frog pelts for a Coors on Thursday and a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy on Friday. Leinenkugel has been a vassal of the Miller/Coors brewing empire since 1988 but finding anything other than a Coors Lite or a Miller Lite at JazzFest requires time and patience. Considering the rich assortment of local beers available in the Crescent City nowadays it seems downright criminal that JazzFest should be restricted to domination by the mega-brewery giants. Lawd save us all if KFC or Burger King should manage to bully their way into JazzFest sponsorship—Colonel Sanders’ Secret Recipe Boudin Balls anyone? No thank you, he said. Despite the profusion of regional hipster microbreweries I maintain a fondness for good old Dixie beer—the preferred swill of my misbegotten youth. Tom Benson’s most significant legacy, so far as YHN is concerned, might well be returning Dixie’s brewing operations to New Orleans by 2019. Bless you and rest you, Mr. Benson!

All good things must come to an end, or so it seems, and eventually it was time to Look Homeward, angelically or otherwise. I set out on the 12th of May, headed west on I-10 through the swamplands of southern Louisiana and into southeastern Texas before assuming a northwesterly trajectory round about Beaumont. These epic slogs back and forth from Santa Fe to New Orleans are not for the faint of heart but I have generally been able to summon forth the fortitude to make the trip in a single epic push. On the trek southeast this time my reserves of fortitude began to run dry around Alexandria. Not having the heart to face the brutal east-bound Baton Rouge morning rush hour traffic, I pulled over for a few hours respite before mounting the final assault. Bottom line is Texas ain’t getting any smaller and YHN ain’t getting any younger. Nonetheless, I made the return trip in one go, much bolstered by a Cubs/White Sox game and the BBC World Service, all delivered through the good graces of Sirius/XM radio, which came pre-installed in the new Prius. If there were any doubt that the mid-May springtime weather was still in a transitional phase, at Cubs game time it was 95 degrees in east central Texas while at Wrigley Field, some 900 miles to the northeast, the temperature was 43.

Rest stop in Texas

Rest stop in Louisiana

Thankfully, Texas highways are fairly generously populated with rest stops, picnic areas and other amenities so that one generally need not be overly concerned regarding the availability of bathrooms and such. Be that as it may, these areas are not without their hazards and I have provided here a selection of the signage intended to keep weary travelers on their toes. I’m not sure how many people get assaulted by snakes, gila monsters, alligators, scorpions, poisonous centipedes or what have you whilst traversing our nations highways and byways of this (once?) Great Nation, but I have yet join their unfortunate rank. Let us hope it remains that way.

Rest stop in New Mexico

As for playlistes, well, here they are in their abundance. Attendance has been trending upwards at Ye Olde Matador Lounge and hopefully it will stay that way as we proceed into the summer months. I once again missed the annual Matador anniversary party (May 5) but there was simply no way in hell that I was going to turn around and drive back to Santa Fe after being in New Orleans for only four days. It takes a good ten days to two weeks for YHN to build up the resolve to return to the road after one of these 17-plus hour marathon drives, and all indications are that my absence, or lack of presence, at the Matador celebration did not motivate anyone to open a vein in despair. The more likely response, if there was one at all, was probably something along the lines of, ‘Inky? You mean that old dude who DJs on Thursdays? What’s the deal with that shit anyway??’