Beer and Loathing in New Orleans. Today, I woke up in the van. I did not go to sleep in the van, however. Hmmmmmm, curious. I remember going to bed at my new friend John's house on the living room couch amidst the rest of my sleeping crew who were littered about the floor. I fell asleep instantly, fully clothed - shoes and all. The sun had already come up during our walk from the kegger to John's house and I knew, drunk as I was, that I had to be up and awake and ready to travel to New Orleans in a couple hours.

The show last night ended at about 2:00 am and while Logan, Judah and Lauren went to John's (Common Grounds' Sound Engineer) house to sleep, I decided to stay and hang with him, Nigel (Owner), and their friends. It was reported that there was a party nearby and I was playing some Frogger and Ms. Pac Man when John returned. The three of us climbed into Nigel's gas-scented SUV and began to cruise around the local neighborhood to find the party. We returned to Common Grounds 30 minutes after the wild goose chase that left us partyless and me with a great understanding of how Gainesville's downtown residential district is laid out to drink some and play some pool. We got a phone call there a while later giving us the exact address of the party and we headed off, once again - this time with Matt, the bartender.

Upon arriving at the party, we were greeted by an already drunk crowd of thirty or more locals who directed us to the garage where the kegs were. More drinking commenced, and I talked for hours with a bunch of really nice people, including a long, drunken heart-to-heart with Matt regarding the power of girls who look like kitty cats. I wasn't fall-over drunk by any means, but had been drinking steadily since about 9:00pm and by the looks of the rising sun, that's a good eight hours. John and I walked to his house which was close by and I promptly passed out. Logan informed me later that he woke me at 7:30 telling me "we have a long drive today, Josh", to which I responded, "Not me."

When I finally came into consciousness at 11:00 am, It was very apparent that I drank too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. For you who've been reading this regularly who will say here "You drink too much every day, you pile", I mean it. I drank WAY too much. I was experiencing a bit of alcohol poisoning that was intensified by the baking of my head in the sun for the last few hours of the drive. I had cooked myself a fresh-roasted headache accompanied by shooting pains through my veins and bones if I tried to move. This day is gonna rule already. I contemplated visiting a hospital for a few minutes but, I've felt worse in the past and survived. I just went back to sleep. Unfortunately, I slept through a scheduled visit with my friend Dan in Pensacola, which I regret, but I needed to heal.

A long, long drive it was to New Orleans. We stopped in Mississippi for lunch where I overheard somebody ask his friend if he was still "a-pickin-and-a-grinnin". Logan tells me that this is 'old-timey' for playing guitar. We were in the deep south, kids. When we finally got to New Orleans, it was only 5:00 and our load-in time at The Mermaid Lounge was at 9:00. We parked at the aforementioned venue and decided to walk around downtown New Orleans for awhile. I wanted to get to the 'old-timey' part, like the French Quarter, Bourbon Street and all that. We took the long way around but finally got there as the sun set.

Bourbon Street was pretty nuckin' futs. There were kids tap-dancing in the street for change, nudie-bars, casinos, seafood bars, booty-bass and Zydeco music blasting from storefronts, and absinthe bars galore. It was a mix between a street faire in a third-world country and a posh tourist resort. We passed through many foul and exciting smells as we tried to find someplace to eat. I have always sworn that if I ever find myself in New Orleans for dinner, I would sample of their crawdad. I intended to keep this promise, even though I was still feeling pretty awful from the toxins still in my system. We found a restaurant on Bourbon Street and settled in for dinner. I ordered the crawdad platter, Logan ordered the crawdad pie and Judah and Lauren ordered salads and fries. When my plate of crawdad arrived, they were stranger than I imagined. What part am I supposed to eat? How do you get through the shells? What are they looking at? These are the questions that riddled me at first. I figured I'd dive in and disassemble one of the little buggers and figure it out on my own, only to be revolted by the gray insect that hid under the bright red shell. Oh, Jebus what did I get myself into? Logan acted as restaurant dad and asked the waitress what the proper way to eat a crawdad was. She informed us that to eat a crawdad, you hold the head in one hand and the tail in the other. You then twist the poor thing in half, suck the juice out of its head and strip the meat from its tail for consumption. I looked at her in horror. Head juice? No way. She then asked if I would like a demonstration and I said yes. Taking one of my crawdads off my plate, she ripped its head and arms off and gave the opening a good slurp. She said they were very spicy and good today. She then pulled apart the tail and ate the rest, repeating her instructions all the while. So now I knew, and the lesson only cost me one crawdad. It became second nature after the first couple crawdads and I envisioned myself as a hero, ridding the earth of these deep sea invaders. I was still pretty out of it. I was quite pleased with my sea-scorpion platter and the New Orleans experience was complete when Manny and the Mullettones took the stage, knocking out the Cajun jams complete with washboard player. Everyone else's dinner was crappy and overpriced, though. We left and walked back to The Mermaid Lounge to load in.

The Mermaid is a dank and dark place and was nearly vacant when we arrived at 9:00pm. We hung out for a while before loading in and met the staff. Helena, the bartender was really nice. She used to live in San Francisco and doesn't seem like she would work behind the bar of a seedy New Orleans nightclub. She was in her mid-to-late thirties and seemed more like she would work as a host for public radio. She flowed me free sodas all night long.

Judah and Lauren returned from the bar to our table with free cans of Schaeffer's (I haven't seen Schaeffer's for ten years) and I began to tell them the tale of how I actually knew the drummer of The Hurricane Lamps, the band we were about to play with. I met him about a year ago when I was on tour with The Wunder Years in New York. We didn't play together or anything, he came to The Wunder Years' Brooklyn show with a friend of ours from Philadelphia whom he had met on the internet. Sue (our Philly friend) invited him up from D.C. because they were chatting and kind of hitting it off, I guess. He was supposed to stay with her for the weekend and they ended up spending two days with us in Brooklyn and Long Island. We all met this guy and - not that there was anything wrong with him, really - he just didn't seem like her type. He was pretty clean-cut and kind of knobby. She felt the same way when they met, she later confided to us, but he drove all the way from D.C. and she didn't want to be rude and ditch his ass. We later referred to him as "Dude" even though we were told his name many times. We weren't too owtwardly rude to him, but by the end of the weekend, Sue had forgotten Dude's actual name and she sent him packing when we all got to D.C.. Sorry, Dude.

I was at the part in the story when he showed up at the Brooklyn show last year when he walked in the door. I got up and reintroduced myself to him. He remembered me - we hung out for two plus days last year and was surprised that I was in one of the bands. This was day one of two in a row with The Hurricane Lamps and finally I found out his real name. It's Jason. I still call him Dude, though.

We were all super tired from the hours of walking around The French Quarter so we just relaxed for a while. Logan and Lauren took a nap in the van while Judah and I chilled at the bar. A large, strangely-dressed older man was on stage with an electric piano making terrible noises with various preset sounds. Dogs barking, funky drums, traffic noises. He was there when we first arrived and we figured he owned the place or something. It wasn't until another guy showed up with a drum kit and began setting up on stage that we realized that maybe this was the opening band. The drummer began playing and he was actually amazing. Seriously, he was an amazing jazz drummer. Big, funny-looking guy started ripping shit up on the keyboard as well. A few songs in, a Tuba player showed up to complete the trio and it was a real treat. We're in New Orleans, my belly's full of crawdad, and we're being treated to some pretty awesome and frantic jazz. It turns out that these guys weren't the scheduled opening band, just some guys who got together for the first time to play for an hour.

The first band, Secret Annexx from Baton Rouge, showed up earlier and borrowed some of Logan's drum hardware. They set up and played about eight songs ranging from really good Nick Cave-esque dark Americana Rock with bowed guitar to Nirvana influenced alternative stuff. They were pretty good and very nice folks as well. Then The Hurricane Lamps were on. Dude was a pretty good drummer and the band reminded me of early Smoking Popes, who I love. There was something a bit strange about them, though that I can't figure out. Maybe they were just too straightforward or maybe it's cuz they forgot the names to their own songs. By the time we played, Logan had overslept in the van and Judah was in a slump. Just generally melancholy, as he will sometimes get, the poor guy. We set up and got ready to play and our energy level was a bit low. The room was practically empty, save for a couple cool girls from Baton Rouge who drove especially to see us, a bench full of patrons and the other bands. Maybe we were spoiled from all the last weeks great shows, but we were all kinda bummed. We began playing at 1:00am and ended at about 1:25, skipping most of the more upbeat songs on the list. Judah dedicated 'Death' to his dead soul and we ended on that somber note. I chased the Baton Rouge girls down in the parking lot to give them a CD cuz they drove so far and we played so short.

We loaded out slowly and said goodbye to The Hurricane Lamps before leaving for Baton Rouge. Nobody in New Orleans had a place we could stay and we decided to get a motel room after driving a while.

Josh