Ok, So the universe sometimes talks to you and you’d better listen. I had 3 great bands in Wollongong Australia, Damn Fine Gentlemen (3 piece Jump Blues/Rockabilly), Chuparosa (8 piece Reggae, Funk) and Filthy Downtown (6 piece Dirty Gritty Funk), amongst other fun bands, musos and jams… but Filthy Downtown ended in beginning of 2016, so I decided to use the downtime to travel again, and this big musical trip was always on the cards at some point, so here I am in New Orleans USA, and intending to roadtrip around to Austin, Memphis, Nashville, Clarksdale, Muscle Shoals, St Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal and New York, then a stop over in Cuba and Jamaica.
 | So everything with visas went fairly well, once I got back from the Mad Hatter’s Funatorium Tour (theatre), and jumped on a plane and set off on my way, Friday 4th Aug… But if you were following the news, there was an ill fated QANTAS A380 that had trouble and had to dump all it’s fuel and return to Sydney! Guess what I was on that plane, anyway another night in sydney, early starts, more queues again, finally make it to Dallas TEXAS 15 hours later, and then get a connector to New Orleans, with a few hiccups, arrive in a drenched Nola with some flooding in some places, but its fine… |
| Saturday, Airbnb it in Carollton, and first night go to the infamous neighbourhood dive bar, Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge, which is dive-ee for sure, adorned with christmas lights, crazy folks, Pete the resident bar dog, and the friendliest bar staff you can imagine, and $2 Schlitz beers how can you go wrong. The crowd totally changes all night, great mix of down-home neighbourhood folks, trendies, uni-kids, weird straighto business people, the best first night I could have hoped for… hung out with the bar staff after hours, get back to my airbnb in the morning, why did I even hire that place ha ha! anyway moved to my new place just up the road, with a muso Taylor who runs his own studio, I’m staying with him for a week. |  |
 | Next day Sunday! Catch the Street Car named desire into New Orleans proper, ride that fantastic thing all the way thru the Garden District to the French Quarter, finally buy a new phone for a USA number (msg me on FB if you want it) walk down Royal St all the way to Frenchmen St, and check out the vibe and some brassy street music (see the video), and find a little arts market tucked onto a block yard just off the street, but don’t hang around as I have to get to a Swing Dance night at Allways Lounge & Theatre. Live swing/blues band and plenty of local dances, but I think for the first time I am reaping the effects of jet lag… definitely weird feeling of awake but not awake surreal mix of awesomeness. |
| Always music stops at midnight, but I start to get a second wind or my brain is waking up into muso mode, so head back down to Frenchmen St, and wander from venue to venue catching bits and pieces of about 5 bands and some more street music, and by now there are home BBQ griddles on every street corner filling the place with amazing smells… no kebabs here, just down-home cajun BBQ and party vibes all night… Catch a rockin’ blues band @ The Balcony Music Club, a down heavy funk band @ Vaso, and as bands work for tips - the band keeps playing their last groove for ages calling for more tips until the bucket is filled, ha ha awesome! (I chuck in some bucks as they are funky as!). Every place has so much music every night. |  |
 | I walk up to a change in street music to now hiphop, trap and RnB, and then here another band in a small bar, watch Vick and his band play surf infused rock n roll @ Apple Barrel which seems like an after midnight live hang. The place is virtually empty but there is a quality to the 3 musicians, so i decide to hang for one beer as a one or two others saunter out of the place… they definitely have something, but are loose. I chat to Vick in their break, he hooks me up with a Blues Jam @ D-Macs (which is tonight Monday, that’s where I am going in an hour or 2). A few more people rock in the door past the band (who are playing in the front doorway!), then some of their friends arrive, and are 3 hot gals, so of course gradually the venues fills up. They play some more old school 60s style stuff, and once there’s a crowd they strut their stuff, and are joined by a trumpeter friend who walks in the door. They prove what I thought before, this band definitely has the juice! |
| Finally walk out, of the joint at 2.30am, check on my new phone find that the street cars go all night, so decide to see how dodgey late night New Orleans is… walk all the way back from Frenchmen St down Royal St to Canal St and catch the St Charles Street Car all the way back along to home. Canal St definitely has a grungier feel to it, its more like the arse end of the Gold Coast/Coolangatta at its drunken end, but it’s fine. What a great introduction to the place, if this is what Nola has to offer in the first 48hours… I think I’m gonna love this place as much as I thought. More soon…bass in hand, I’m off to a blues jam :) |  |
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