New Orleans’ coolest new music venue, the Music Box Village, has announced a pair of show during Jazz Fest.
Located adjacent to the Industrial Canal in the Bywater, the open air space features an assortment of creative art installations that are also one-of-a-kind musical instruments. Performances usually incorporate these unique instruments and sometimes even include a theatrical component. The venue’s immersive shows also blur the line between artist and audience, as those in attendance are able to take in the experience from countless vantage points throughout the space.
The Music Box Village’s Jazz Fest programming will kick off on Thursday, May 4 with with a show from Mike Dillon’s New Orleans Punk Rock Percussion Consortium. This high energy show will find Dillon joined by a stacked lineup of talent as he plays his own compositions, plus the music of Rickie Lee Jones, Martin Denny and Elliot Smith. Assisting him will be Jason Marsalis, Brian Coogan, Stanton Moore, Jean-Paul Gaster (Clutch), Simon Lott, Weedie Braimah, Paul Thibodeaux, Otto Schrang, Daria Dzurik, Tiffany Lamson (Givers), Jesse Paige, Stephen Montalvo, Aaron Walker, Brendan Bull, Nathan Lambertson, Cliff Hines, Brian Haas and Mark Southerland, with special guests Rickie Lee Jones and Clint Maedgen.
If that isn’t one hell of a lineup then I don’t know what it is.
The Jazz Fest party will continue on Saturday, May 6 with “Dub Down Babylon,” a show from Dustan Louque. The St. James Parish native will make his directorial debut at the venue with a blend of folk, dub and noise music. Joining him will be guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco), bassist Josh Werner (Lee “Scratch” Perry), classical pianist Margaret Hebert, guitarist Rob Cambre, drummer Eric Heigle and more.
“The scene is set in post-apocalyptic New Orleans. After centuries of degrading the planet, humans destroyed nearly all life on earth and have fled to inhabit and deplete other planets,” Louque says of the production. “On this night in New Orleans, the survivors commune to regenerate through sound and movement.”
Advance tickets for both shows are now available online, though they can also be purchased at Euclid Records.
