August 1, 2006
By Alex V. Cook
Friday afternoon I got a last minute email that 225 favorite Harlan was playing a hastily scheduled tour kick-off show at the Red Star. I think Harlan has grown a lot as a band, making the transition from an intricate one-man studio project into a flesh and blood band that involves other people. That is always a tricky transition, since recorded music and live music often have nothing but the songs themselves in common. But, I think having guitarist Britt King and keyboardist Casey McAllister there to beef up Harlan principle player John Norris’ songs does wonders. What I consider his signature tune “Computer Games Under the Sun” has finally become the power pop sunshine youth anthem it wants to be. John told me he’s never been on tour before, but I think this jaunt through the New York City club scene and a couple shows in his old stomping ground of Kentucky will bring this excellent band to new place.
John’s deeper voice and looser renditions were not the only surprise of the night. A -mysterious woman in a headband, sequined wristbands and a cloak of some sort was smoking, waiting for something over at the bar. At the right moment, during one of the bands’ slower moments, she removed the cloak to reveal a skimpy belly-dancing outfit and took over the scant dance floor with her gyrations. She stayed out there for a couple of songs, but by the time I got back from the bar, someone told me she threw on a different robe and vanished. I love that stuff. I have long told people that Baton Rouge, under its veneer of sober business and bourgeoisie, is a very weird town and that there is an inordinately high quotient of strange people woven into the fabric of our lives.
Does anyone remember Hank from Chimes Street? In any other city he would have been an anonymous nuisance, but almost everyone I know over the age of 25 has a Hank story. My favorite is during one of his brief moments of sobriety - I was playing pool with him at the dearly departed Bayou, when I looked out the window and saw a guy on horseback on the hill behind the LSU Music School. “Look, Hank, a horse,” I said.
He looked up, cursed loudly and took off running toward the horse with his pool cue in hand. The horse had a speed advantage so disaster was averted, but still, I wonder if Hank usually saw horses in his substance-addled delirium and a real horse was just too much to bear.
What I’m getting at is - Baton Rouge is a weird place and like many little pockets across the country we are losing touch with our uniqueness, our singularity and exchanging it for some manufactured cosmopolitanism that really doesn’t exist. I say we have room for both here, but while we are planting all these cultural gardens, let’s remember to not choke out the indigenous wildlife. All it takes a couple itinerant belly dancers to keep things interesting.
TAKE A WALK ON THE WEIRD SIDE
Wednesday, August 2: Chelsea’s Café inaugurates an ongoing Wine and Jazz night. Sleep Terror, My Doppelganger’s Casket and others tear it up at The Darkroom.
Thursday, August 3: Mile High School and Rosematter rock it up at The North Gate Tavern. Big Sam’s Funky Nation gets big and funky at Chelsea’s Café.
Friday, August 4: Always The Runner with The Early Day Miners and My Education is at the Red Star. Birdfinger, Barisal Guns and Big Blue Marble are at North Gate Tavern. The Taylor Grocery Band plays at Chelsea’s Cafe. The Varsity hosts a charity event "Louisiana Friday Night," an Aneurysm Outreach Inc. fund-raising event – with the V-Tones, David St. Romain and The Long Neck Society.
Saturday, August 5: Audio Files is advertising a “Big Show” at the North Gate Tavern. Scarlet Speedster is the star of the Indie Rock Dance Party at the Red Star. The Southern Backtones bring it to Chelsea’s Café.
Monday August 7: TJ Black and the Black Sound Parade continue their residence at Chelsea’s Café.
Tuesday, August 8: New beginnings and fond farewells when His Nerdy Clothes Etc has their CD release party and Warwick plays their final show at The Darkroom.
Want more suggestions for live music this weekend? Click here.
Comments
Posted by LeeB on August 2 at 6:56 p.m.
The "marketing" slogan used in Austin is "Keep Austin Weird!" They're trying to insure the Roky Eriksons and Daniel Johnsons and characters who inspire Linklater movies aren't crowded out by the Gap and people flocking there to "cash in" on the city's rep as a hub of art and music rather than genuinely express themselves through those mediums. "Art" is precisely that which is devinely weird and unselfconsciously full of truth. Everything else is just advertising.
Without trying to sound nostalgic (something I loathe), the Baton Rouge I grew up in - with foreign film festivals at the Varsity Theatre, frequent weekend concerts put on by KLSU, interesting local businesses like Recycled Sounds, Leisure Landing and Counterpoint Books tore - was a lot hipper and more inspiring than what's here at the present. I realize I'm one of those people who looks at the choices offered and then tries to find something else that's off the menu, and that's precisely why I bother to make music or book and promote bands, etc., in the first place. The viability of that was demonstrated to me as a kid by a community of people who were doing it, and giving me sources to find things that fired my imagination.
The great drive towards "cosmopolitanism" is actually an effort to regain what Baton Rouge once was, somewhat, before it was diluted by poorly-planned suburbanism and its resulting "big box mart" mindsets. No one flocks to people who define themselves solely by having what everyone else has, without any strong personality of their own, and the same is true of cities.
So, yes, keep Baton Rouge weird!
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