It’s strange to be perched again in my window overlooking Frenchmen Street. We just moved back into OffBeat’s office less than a week ago, as I write this. Katrina blew out my window and messed up my office pretty nicely.
We managed to get a wireless internet connection, so we have internet, but only recently got a landline phone. We’ve one line working now plus internet, so there’s a semblance of normality. Our staff has either evacuated from New Orleans permanently or is working from home. So there’s no one here, except for Joseph and me, and our one phone line.
Almost every day we go through emotional highs and lows—pretty normal for most people who were impacted by Katrina and are now returned to New Orleans. Sometimes I am so optimistic that we’ll build New Orleans back better than it has ever been. I feel that love for the city will bring back all the musicians and artists and others who fled—but then we drive down Esplanade Avenue from Claiborne, piled high with garbage, trash, sheetrock, junked furniture and appliances. I look at the beautiful old homes whose facades are now falling off; all the homes with blue tarps instead of roofs. There are brightly colored spray painted X’s on most of the houses in the city, where rescuers noted who was inside each house, if there were any abandoned pets, or if there were any dead bodies. There are Mardi Gras Indian costumes nailed on the front of a few of the homes, that may mark the possible end of a unique cultural tradition. I’ve heard about looting all over the city, during and after the storm.
We drive down Carrollton Avenue through Mid-City, where you can easily see the floodwater lines on all the houses, and thousands of flooded cars are everywhere. There are very few people there still. But at least it’s still there. Lakeview, New Orleans East, St. Bernard Parish, the Lower Ninth Ward are gone. The people who used to live in the Ninth Ward won’t be able to even get to their homes until December 1. And then they can’t move back.
By the time you read this, it will have been over three months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged us. Only about 40 percent of New Orleans has electricity. Most of the city is filled with so much debris and abandoned cars that we wonder how it will all be removed in a year or even longer. Maybe only 50 percent of local restaurants are open because they don’t have enough people to work here.
So that’s the low part.
On the other hand, people are coming back to the city. Restaurants, bars and music clubs are starting to open. The abysmal school system has been converted to charter schools, with the remainder being taken over by the state of Louisiana. People who have come back to the city are really trying to make a positive difference in New Orleans.
The music community organized to try to get our musicians back. At a series of meetings at Tipitina’s 75 members of the local community came together to form the New Orleans Music Coalition. They include OffBeat, Tipitina’s Foundation, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, WWOZ, WWNO, club and bar owners, musicians, writers, non-profit organizations, record label owners, attorneys, recording studios, non-profits, festival promoters and many, many more.
We decided that communication was key, so the first order of business was to make it easy for musicians and other music businesses to get in touch with each other. Every year OffBeat has published the Louisiana Music Directory. We’re putting it online, free, so that everyone can access it at www.louisianamusicdirectory.com.
We’re very concerned with getting our musicians and artists back to the city, so that means adequate housing, jobs and gigs, decent health care and education for kids. Everyone is taking the attitude that we have to put our destinies into our own hands; so far the reaction of governmental agencies has been slow to non-existent. We see this as an opportunity to make it better, using our creativity and work to build a better New Orleans.
But we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future relative to some crucial issues that the Coalition just can’t touch: what will the government do to make New Orleans safe from another monster storm? It’s been discovered that the levees that broke and destroyed about half the city were poorly designed and constructed. As I write this, there’s absolutely no guarantee that our levees and storm protection has any priority at the federal level. None.
So how can we rebuild our city, when we can’t even tell citizens that they are safe living here? How can the U.S. government’s priority be fighting in and trying to rebuild Iraq? I’m being really simplistic here, but if you’re reading this magazine and you live outside New Orleans (and I’m assume you love the city if you’re reading OffBeat), then get off your butt and contact the appropriate public officials and demand that New Orleans and southern Louisiana be protected! We cannot wait another minute. My and your favorite city in the world is depending on you.
MUSICAL POLITICS
If you’ve paid attention to what’s going on in New Orleans, you know that the city laid off 3,000 plus employees. One of those was Scott Aiges, who ran the city’s Music Business Development office. Unfortunately, music has never been at the top of the city’s economic development list, and Aiges told OffBeat that Mayor Nagin had never met with him—not even once—to discuss what Aiges’ office had been doing over the years to improve the climate for the city’s music and musicians. Aiges has created a company to help Louisiana musicians get themselves—and their CDs—out to the world: the Louisiana Export Office. To get in touch with Scott Aiges to learn more, email him [email protected].
At the state level, the Louisiana Music Commission’s presence has been reduced to one person. Johnny Palazzotto, Baton Rouge producer and concert promoter, was incensed at what’s going on at the state level: “Why has nothing been done by the Music Commission to help Louisiana musicians through this?” Palazzotto fumed. “Cities all over the country—and particularly in Texas—have been welcoming our musicians with open arms. If we don’t do something, they won’t come back!” Palazzotto says he has been working on a reissue of the song “My Dawlin’ New Orleans,” a Leigh “Lil Queenie” Harris classic, with Harris, Randy Newman, Dr. John and others at Dockside Studio, with a release scheduled through Nonesuch Records.
NEW MUSIC AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
One thing that we can say for certain: Katrina’s going to produce some great songs. Producer, musician and Rabadash Records label owner John Autin was stranded in Dallas during the storm (his house in Mid City was flooded) and will release a benefit CD called From The Lone Star To the Gulf Coast that features songs from Autin and another Texas evacuee, Rockin’ Jake. The CD should be available in December at the Louisiana Music Factory. The Music Factory reopened its doors on October 31, and is just now starting to catch up on internet and mail order sales.
Ironically, Katrina also opened up a myriad of opportunities for musicians from New Orleans: they’re traveling; they’ve gotten gigs all over the world. The federal government has put some our musicians on tour. Make It Funky, Michael Murphy’s paean to New Orleans music was shown right after the hurricane to a worldwide audience (the DVD is out now). Benefits featuring New Orleans musicians for New Orleans residents have been happening since the storm hit, and they continue to pop up weekly.
FESTIVALS—IN SPADES
It’s been announced that both French Quarter Festival (April 21-23) and Jazz Fest (April 28-May 7) will both happen—in spades. Festival Production’s deep-pocketed partner, AEG Entertainment, has committed seriously to this year’s festival, being described by Jazz & Heritage Foundation officials and FPI as the “biggest ever.” The general consensus is that we’ll get big-name talent who’ll either want to come to see the “changed” New Orleans and who will want to play to help get people back to the city (U2? Elton John? Simon & Garfunkel?). Another unexpected (financial) benefit of Katrina!
Kudos have to be awarded to Steve Rehage and his crew who managed to pull off a day of the 2005 Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans, despite their plans to move the two-day event to Memphis. From reports, Voodoo in New Orleans out-attendanced the event in Memphis.
Right after the storm, the Ponderosa Stomp’s organizer Ira Padnos announced that the 2006 event would be moved to Memphis—at least for one year—during the “Memphis In May” festival there. Hurry back next year?
MY HEART BREAKS
My poor mother lost her house. She’s living with her kids. The sweetest musician I know, Irma Thomas, lost everything—her houses, cars and business. She’s living in Gonzales, Louisiana temporarily, but says her heart—and her faith—is in New Orleans and she’ll be back. Ditto Wanda Rouzan (Florida), and Allen Toussaint (New York). Lolet Boutté (mother of Sista Teedy, sister of John Boutté and Lillian Boutté) and her sister were two of the evacuees who had to walk through neck-deep water to wait for rescue for three days on the interstate overpass. Lolet ended up in Houston, and is now traveling with Teedy on a Scandinavian tour. The ReBirth Brass Band is scattered from New Orleans, to New York, to Houston, to California. “Big Sam” Williams and his fiancée Shanekah Peterson are living in a hotel in San Antonio. Right before the storm hit, Sammy and Shanekah were planning a move for the Funky Butt to Frenchmen Street, on the ground floor of the same building of OffBeat’s offices. Gary Edwards, owner of Sound of New Orleans Records lost his studio and recordings of many years and is now on the road with local bands. Parker Dinkins’ Master Digital Studios on N. Carrollton Avenue is no more. Ditto the venerable Ultrasonic Studios on Washington Avenue. “Gatemouth” Brown’s house in Slidell was washed away. All that’s left are the skeletons of two rusty Cadillacs. Fats Domino’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward was destroyed. Singer Ingrid Lucia and her husband, photographer Dwight Marshall, had a flooded house in Mid-City. Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield’s father has gone missing and still has not been found. There are so many, many more. So many thousands of people have left the city.
But I hope that a lot of them will come back. You just can’t get New Orleans out of your mind, and your blood. Besides, said Deacon John, if they don’t come back, “More gigs for us!”
They’ve got to return to New Orleans. Right now, it’s estimated that only 25 percent of Orleans Parish’s population pre-Katrina is living here. I say, if you love this city and its culture, get yourself back to New Orleans and make it a better place. Now. If you love the city, be here to rebuild what you love; don’t wait for everyone else to do it, and then complain. We have something worth saving and fighting for. Be a part of New Orleans’ rebirth… come home!
CHANGES
At times I thought OffBeat might be finished. When I saw the devastation in the city, I cried for New Orleans, not thinking it through that the business I’d devoted almost 20 years to might be toast (that thought came to me a little later). But anyone who knows me understands that I don’t give up easily. With the help of my spouse and magazine partner, Joseph Irrera, we decided to keep the musical flame alive, and to bring back OffBeat in a slightly different format. The magazine you see here is due for a radical change, and we’re planning that for the January 2006 issue of OffBeat. We’re also planning our annual Best of The Beat Awards for January 21, 2006 at the House of Blues. Because so many hotels, restaurants, universities and other distribution points have closed, OffBeat’s free distribution will be adjusted downward slightly. We suggest that if you really like reading OffBeat, and you’ve been picking it up free, that you consider subscribing to the magazine to make sure you receive it every month (subscribe in this issue or at offbeat.com, anytime).
After Katrina, we have gained a lot of moral and financial support from old subscribers and new ones, who have encouraged us to continue our efforts to promote New Orleans and Louisiana music and culture by buying lifetime subscriptions to OffBeat. We are also so thankful to our advertisers who are supporting us by putting their messages in the magazine. Please show them your support by dining in their restaurants, going to their bars and clubs, buying CDs and in general, supporting their businesses. They have helped to keep us alive. We are also grateful from the bottom of hearts to MusiCares, the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund, the Idea Village and to Hibernia National Bank for the financial resources they’ve provided to help keep OffBeat going. Thank you, thank you!!
