This past weekend brought the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, although it turned out to be the ensuing days that were far more damaging than the storm itself. Many people regard what happened to New Orleans as a natural disaster. But that’s not correct; Katrina itself didn’t flood the city, but the failure of the [...]
Katrina: One Year Later
I wasn’t going to post anything on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Katrina, since I didn’t have anything particularly intelligent to say. But I thought of some things to offer today, so here we go. This American Life offered some amazing coverage in the aftermath of Katrina; it’s highly unusual for them to [...]
Mash-ups in the news
For all you mash-up fans (you know who you are), here are two examples of mash-ups in the news. Via Poplicks, here is a report on the ABC Evening News on mash-ups. I must take exception with one point made in the report. As is made clear in this previous post, mash-ups go back to [...]
Year One: Rising Tide
Wrapping up, here’s one last memory of my first year of blogging. Hurricane Katrina sticks deeply in my mind. I posted about it quite a lot. There were several posts that quoted from the classic Rising Tide, such as this one that gave a historical view and this one that looked at New Orleans’ racial [...]
“Y’all hear that Nolia Clap?”
You should read this article in today’s New York Times about how the attitude of musicians in New Orleans has changed since Katrina. It’s both sad and amazing about how many of the classics songs of New Orleans — music going back a hundred years — now have new meanings. It’s also stirring to watch [...]
“A bottle and my friends and me, New Orleans, I’ll be there…”
I shouldn’t keep harping on N.O., especially with Monster Rita scheduled to hit Galveston on Saturday, but I can’t help it. Efforts are underway to help displaced musicians from New Orleans, in places such as San Francisco, Arizona, Memphis, and Houston. Today, I’m featuring two bands, each with their share of brass. New Orleans has [...]
“Yeah, she’s a triflin’ friend indeed…”
Kanye West’s offhand remark about President’s Bush’s attitude towards African Americans continues to reverberate. First, there was the marvelous moment during NBC’s hurricane relief special with a frantic, shifty-eyed Michael Meyers looking desperately like he wanted to be anywhere else in the universe as Kanye blurted out, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Then, [...]
“I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day…”
If you’re not familiar with the minor brouhaha over the upcoming Fiona Apple album, I’ll catch you up. She recorded a complete set of tracks for Extraordinary Machine in 2002 with producer Jon Brion. Then, the album was reportedly being shelved indefinitely by executives at Apple’s label, Sony Music, who didn’t hear a potential single. [...]
“Some of y’all voted for that cat.”
Sometimes you need a dose of articulate outrage. Here comes Public Enemy with their response to Hurricane Katrina and its disastrous aftermath: “Hell No, We Ain’t Alright.” Chuck D reportedly wrote the song over Labor Day weekend (a time when a lot of us were working up a heavy steam of rage) and read the [...]
“I heard about the stunt you pulled down on Gravier Street…”
One more quote from Rising Tide and then I swear to God I’m going to stop. Editorial note: My justification for going back to this well again is this line from the Washington Post: In 2004, [New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin] told New Orleans magazine that his favorite book about the city was John Barry’s [...]