Everyone is looking forward to January in New Orleans, because we’re tying our hopes to the idea that in January everything is going to improve. The federal government has just approved (a paltry, but nonetheless needed) $3.1-billion to help repair our levees. We’re waiting for people with kids to come back when the new school year starts. We’re waiting for people to acquire confidence to return a city whose levee protection failed.
The amount of devastation in New Orleans and the surrounding areas is beyond words. Almost daily I get emails and calls from people who remark that things must be getting back to “normal” in New Orleans, four months after Katrina. All they see are TV feeds from the French Quarter or Uptown, or maybe a Habitat For Humanity house giveaway that’s been completed (the major networks love that one), or maybe a quick shot of some of the shards of lives that are what remains in the Lower Ninth, Lakeview, St. Bernard Parish or East New Orleans. But it’s just a quick shot. Being here is a different story altogether.
Just imagine if your city was flooded with filthy water that sat in all the houses for two weeks; if 75 percent of your population left town, leaving no one to work or rebuild; that 25 percent of the city didn’t have power a third of year after the storm. Think about if your family, friends and business acquaintances could no longer live in your city and were scattered to the winds, or even worse—were dead. Imagine how you would feel if your hometown culture and the things you love about your city are being sucked away because there’s no leadership or money to get citizens back. We’re heartbroken and shattered, but we’re slowly trying to pick up the pieces to move on. New Orleans has a long, successful history of doing just that. We will survive!
I hope everyone who reads OffBeat read the December 11 editorial in the New York Times, which pretty much sums it up. I would also recommend perusing Chris Rose’s columns in the New Orleans Times-Picayune at nola.com. They are some of the most poignant pieces I’ve read that articulate how a lot of us feel down here.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Nevertheless, we are here and functioning, working harder and trying to work smarter to rebuild the city and its culture. Every year we plan the Best Of The Beat Music and Business Awards to celebrate the music of our beloved city. In previous (and normal) years, ballots would have been mailed to about 5,000 musicians and music industry professionals so that they could nominate their peers for an award. This year, because so many of our colleagues and friends are not living in the city and are at temporary addresses where they can’t be located in a timely way, we decided to eliminate the massive awards process and to award only Lifetime Achievement Awards. So yes, we are going to have the Best Of The Beat Awards: January 21, 2006 from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. at House of Blues, with the help of our major sponsors, House of Blues and Hibernia National Bank. We’ll have lots of great local music and food and we’ll network and it’ll be a great event and a “love fest.” If you are a Louisiana musician or have a local music business that’s listed in OffBeat’s 2005 Louisiana Music Directory, we will offer you a complimentary pass to the Awards (see page 9 for list of the bands who’ve agreed to play this event). If you don’t qualify for a free pass (after all this is a musicians’ party), or if you feel so inclined if you’re a musician, please pay for your ticket so that we can donate the proceeds to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic. Paying for music will keep our musicians alive and kicking.
By the time you read this, tickets for the 2005 Best of The Beat Awards will be available at Ticketmaster or through the House of Blues. Buy a ticket, love a musician!
POST-KATRINA AFTER EFFECTS
OffBeat is the city’s music and culture magazine; we try to sift through the massive amounts of recorded and live talent, and showcase the best; that’s what we do every year in our “Critics’ Choice” for 2005. Read, enjoy and please buy these CDs from your local music retailer or from the musicians themselves. You’ll be supporting and reviving our local culture if you do.
A very distressing post-Katrina effect is the loss of so many dear people who have played such an important part in our musical heritage, maybe more than usual—perhaps as a result of the stress we’ve all endured for the past four months. So we’ve included more than our usual share of obituaries in this issue. As we went to press, Brian O’Neill, an accomplished trombonist, member of Bonerama and a wonderful man, passed away of a heart attack on a gig. He was only 50. Thank you, Brian, for the pleasure you’ve given us all over the years.
ANOTHER VIEW
OffBeat writer Geraldine Wyckoff interviews Branford Marsalis in this issue about a plan devised by Habitat For Humanity to create a Musicians’ Village in New Orleans, which would include housing, music schooling, an elder center and facilities geared to the music community. I love the idea of helping musicians, of course, but might it not be better to for Habitat to rehab some of the thousands of blighted homes in New Orleans in a neighborhood rather than to rebuild from scratch? I live in Central City and I can attest that there’s plenty of vacant property and plenty of old houses that could use a major helping hand. I’d rather rehab a neighborhood than start from scratch: it’s better to preserve than to build new; we’ve already lost enough.
LINDELL’S RECORD DEAL
OffBeat cover boy Eric Lindell (December 2003) and multi-time performer at our Best Of The Beat Awards recently signed with Chicago-based Alligator Records, and has a new CD in the works that should be released this March.
“I’m planning on moving back to New Orleans in a year or so and I’d really like to buy a house. My girlfriend is from Alexandria, Louisiana, but I was on the road when Katrina hit. I managed to find an astounding place—it’s an old renovated barn—in a little fishing village in northern California. It’s called Bodega and believe it or not, it’s the place where the movie The Birds was filmed. It’s right around the area where I’m from originally. We’re living in a huge barn, converted to a house. We were actually getting ready to leave but looked at space and decided to stay there for a while. All my stuff was in storage on River Road, so I made out okay, but lost a car that was parked near Bayou St. John. My family is okay, and that’s what matters.”
“My heart is in New Orleans,” said Lindell. “My little girl Mercy is there, and so is inspiration.” Lindell, who was known around town for some “substance abuse” problems has been clean and sober for six months. “After Katrina, we’ve gone back and forth to the city but I thought I needed to get away for awhile to get myself together. Katrina sort of gave me an opportunity to get myself back on track and—I know it sounds corny—get sober and get some clarity back into my life and my music.” Lindell’s band has temporarily relocated to the San Francisco area as well after the storm. “It’s been good, in a way,” he says, “people have been knocking themselves out to help us after Katrina.”
“Everybody at Alligator has been just awesome; we see such enthusiasm from them,” he said. Alligator is releasing a 14-song CD of tracks culled from Lindell’s previous CDs, none of which had national exposure. “We had also done a great recording in just three days over at Piety Street during last year’s Jazz Fest, and those songs will be on it too.”
Lindell is getting ready to hit the road again—his band is playing with Mofro on a gig in Jacksonville for New Year’s Eve, and he’ll be back in New Orleans soon after the New Year. “I know New Orleans is where I need to be, it’s my heart and soul and my family. I just turned 36, and I just can’t party all night anymore like I used to. My life was a mess, but I feel good and healthy and great since I’ve been sober. I’ll be back in New Orleans soon.”
CHANGES
Hurricane Katrina has clearly demonstrated that our readers throughout the world place a high value on what we do. This has been confirmed by hundreds of subscribers who sent us donations, some well above the $200 / $300 lifetime subscription amounts, and hundreds more who purchased new subscriptions and renewals. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts not only for the financial support, but for the moral strength it gave us—and continues to give us—to carry on and to be bigger and better than ever.
Our readers will notice some changes in upcoming issues. Since OffBeat’s very first issue, Bunny Matthews’ cartoons and writing have been a part of OffBeat. While we all struggle to resurrect our lives after Katrina, Bunny Matthews is moving to Gambit Weekly, a New Orleans weekly publication. Bunny will be missed, as will Ian McNulty, our food writer, who was recruited from our editorial staff by Gambit post-Katrina.
Although OffBeat has subscribers all over the globe, Gambit prohibits its contributors from writing for other “local” publications, thus depriving OffBeat of the talent we not only nurtured, but for whom OffBeat provided national and international exposure. While we understand Gambit’s desire for exclusivity in the New Orleans market, we believe OffBeat should be exempt as it also serves a national and international market. OffBeat has been the incubator for many acclaimed writers who now write for other newspapers and publications, and we are proud of our ability to find, develop and expose editorial talent. We are fortunate in that we can and will continue to acquire fresh viewpoints in our editorial choices. We believe that OffBeat will continue to be a benchmark publication for New Orleans culture, and will continue to grow, prosper, and celebrate our music, cuisine and culture to both local and readers worldwide.
