Night of the Rhodes

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get my friends to stay on Frenchman and get their groove on with me. Saturday was one of those nights, likely for the better. Naturally, I squeezed my way to the front of the room at d.b.a., right in front of the Rhodes speaker for Good Enough for Good Times. I’ve always thought this was a good band name, considering it is a side project, but could totally work as Good Enough for Great Times they are so stellar! It is Jeff Raines (guitar) and Rob Mercurio (bass) of Galactic, Joe Ashlar (rockstar of keys) of Bonerama and Simon Lott who plays with everyone in NOLA and makes sweet love to his drums. I’ve seen this band countless times, but as usual, not to be missed. I danced and grooved and watched these guys play this passionate funky set. The band was started by Mercurio who keeps the bass lines super-funky, and is complimented by Lott’s rhythmic tapping (see above re: lovemaking) and Ashlar’s hardcore organ/piano frenzy that seems to continually amaze his bandmates and the crowd. Raines seems to be on autopilot, but there is not much room in this funktasticness for a “lead guitar”. I planned to leave at setbreak, and couldn’t control my feet that danced me right back inside for set 2.

During set break, I danced over to Blue Nile for some of the New Orleans Indie Rock Collective showcase. Admittedly, I’m very new to the NOIRC scene, but incredibly impressed with the quality of bands, organization and promotion of the events. I’m slowly adding local Indie Rock to my live music repertoire and could not be more excited. There are SO MANY GREAT BANDS. So the band I saw Saturday is called Giant Cloud - who just moved to NOLA from Ruston, LA. They rocked so much harder than their myspace gives them credit for, warranting a second checkout at the Circle Bar next week. And they had a chick playing Rhodes! I took this to be a magical sign as it was the second Rhodes I was directly in front of for the night. Their pleasant melodic grooves combined with an energetic drummer had me bouncin’ around the Nile. It was a very short set- so I bounced back over to dba.

Of course ended up at Mimi’s late night style for @djsoulsister – If you’re in NOLA and don’t know who she is, you must be living under a box and need to go check her out.

Overall 11/21 was full of funktasticness!!

Garage A Trois All Over Your Face

Last night, I had the honor of catching the second set of Garage a Trois' CD release at d.b.a. This band has been on the must-see list for quite some time, although over the past few years they dropped Charlie Hunter for Marco Bennevento. Good Call, guys. The band is comprised of Bennevento, Stanton Moore, Mike Dillon and Skerik.
The intimacy of a packed d.b.a. on Thursday night was magical, and the vibe was enhanced by the fact that it was Skerik's birthday. My friend @mberde could not have described the show he missed any better "sexy, dirty, funky, groovy." The tunes were so powerful, the band was really tight (for Jazz), everyone's hips were shakin' to the sexy and funktastic grooves.
The night was animated with a foam "Rock On" hand from a G.A.T. show in '03 that my friend David let me borrow. The proverbial rock-on pumping was in full effect- and Skerik was donned the hand as a birthday gift.

I'm new to writing, but the best way to describe this show is Stellarlicious- be sure to check them out at a show near you!!

thanks!

Many thanks to the following people for encouraging and helping with Rock Sauce: @zackteibloom, @mberde, @nrothstein, @laurafish1 and of course my girl Juliana! Ya'll the sauciest!!