Years ago, I had an idea of doing an awards show to honor local musicians. I tried to push it through my staff, which at the time included Keith Spera, our editor (now the new music writer at the New Orleans Advocate). Keith was reluctant to do anything like this because the local weekly already did an awards show… but I wanted OffBeat’s to be different.
Jan Ramsey
Every year, we’d had a big Christmas party for our advertisers, subscribers and the local music community. We offered free booze (ah, the good old days—can you imagine?) and food and music. One of our first performers was a band then known as Galactic Prophylactic (they’ve gotten rid of the Prophylactic over the years). Everyone had a blast. The second year we did it, the party was crashed by innumerable people who drank the musicians’ booze, got wasted and passed out on the floor in front of the bathroom (we didn’t have tickets, you see; we were a lot more trusting then). While planning the party the next year, we had an incident that included an OffBeat staffer embezzling money, which brought the party to a halt.
But closer to Christmas, I decided that it was time that OffBeat took a stance and do the awards show anyway. We were the city’s music magazine, right? So, I got the House of Blues involved as a sponsor, called in some favors, and started planning the first official OffBeat music awards. We called it “Best of the Best” first (well, duh… Best of the Beat seemed a natural, so we used that after the first year). HOB was kind enough to host the event for the next six years as a sponsor. We moved to Generations Hall; one year we had it at the old TwiRoPa Mills building when Gen Hall couldn’t accommodate us. I think we had 23 bands that year and it was so freaking cold that night that icicles were hanging from the rafters. It didn’t matter much because everyone had a fantastic time. We moved back to Gen Hall, then back to HOB, and now we’re back at Generations Hall once again, and this year, we have planned a lively show honoring our Best of the Beat Lifetime in Music recipients, the Radiators. We also have Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes paying homage to the Radiators, Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars, ROAR!, Young Fellaz Brass Band and DJ Quickie Mart plus Klutch and C-LaB and a special tribute to Allen Toussaint featuring Tony Hall, Cyril Neville, Davell Crawford and David Torkanowsky.
The food has become an important part of the event, and we have about 30 restaurants confirmed this year so far. So we’d be most pleased and happy if you could join us on January 21 to honor our local musicians. You can vote for your favorite band, musician and album through January 5, 2016. Don’t hesitate. Show ’em you love ’em
