I’m sitting in the Gospel Tent, where Sister Naomi Washington and her group just finished — hallelujah!! I also just finished my traditional Creole’s Stuffed Bread to start my festival day, as I’ve done for nearly 25 years.

Seeing Mrs. Merlene Herbert, who makes and sells these from her Lafayette restaurant Creole’s Lunch House, is a gem of a human being — I adore her and I love her food! The lines for her stuffed bread (still the most underrated food item at Jazzfest yet one of it’s very best) should be at least as log as for the Crawfish Monica right next door. Go get one every day if you’re going to the Fair Grounds this or next weekend.

(No more strawberry lemonade for me though, sadly — they changed vendors last year and now it sucks.)

Don’t get used to me weblogging from the Fair Grounds, though! It’s seriously draining my battery. Better to follow my Twitter feed – I’ll be updating that frequently.

Happy Jazzfest!!

I grew up hearing those words on radio ads for concerts, coming out of my tinny car speakers via WNOE and WRNO … “Coming to A Warehouse.” They referred to a big, dank, cavernous music venue on Tchoupitoulas Street that was just that — an old warehouse that had been converted (relatively minimally) into a music venue that hosted some of the biggest rock bands all through the Seventies.

I sighed whenever I heard those words. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing any of those shows because I was too young and wouldn’t be allowed to go. (For a variety of reasons my mom was horrified by the very idea of that venue.) By the time I was old enough to go to the Warehouse the venue started seeing hard times, and by that time I tended to go to see bands that played in smaller clubs Uptown for the most part.

People who frequented the Warehouse (always referred to as “A Warehouse” in the ads, as I remember) have memories fond and not-so-fond (it apparently got really, really hot in there), and there was an excellent article in the Gambit a year and a half or so ago about the good old days of the Warehouse.

For those of you who yearn to relive those days (and those of us who never quite got to live them in the first place), documentarian Jessy Cale Williamson is about to release his film A Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas, featuring interviews from the former owners and other people in the local music scene at the time, and what looks to be a great soundtrack. I can’t wait for this one.

Here’s a 16-minute preview:

Keep an eye on the filmmakers’ blog for more details and news. Now I’m off for Jazzfest, and I hope not to be completely absent the whole time. We’ll see!

Glen David Andrews covers Dr. John’s “I Walk On Guilded Splinters” (originally on the album Gris Gris, from the early days of his Night Tripper era), featuring Paul Sanchez on electric guitar, and it is made of awesome.

I’m way behind on posting, as you can undoubtedly tell, but I’m going to try to feature some music posts up through the beginning of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival next Friday. I’ll be home for Fest so posting likely won’t be happening, but I’ll try to get at least something quick up as often as I can. Please stay tuned!

Oh, and please visit trumpetsnotguns.com to support Glen’s music education initiative.

One more excellent cocktail instructional video by Shlomo M. Godder, produced for the bar Dutch Kills in New York.

It’s a lovely-looking highball, a gin fizz amplified with a bit of Cognac — very refreshing. I like the technique used by the bartender here. Rather than straining the shaken ingredients directly into the ice-filled Collins glass and then topping with soda (as many people would do, and which would require additional swizzling to avoid having a layer of plain soda water sitting on top) he adds the soda to the other half of the shaker, giving it a gentle swirl to combine and then pouring into the ice-filled glass — already mixed! Nice.

STAY UP LATE
(from The Stork Club Bar Book, by Lucius Beebe, 1946)

1-1/2 ounces Plymouth gin.
1/2 ounce Cognac.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.
3/4 ounce simple syrup.
3 ounces soda water.

Combine in a cocktail shaker with one piece of ice and shake for 10 seconds. Strain into the smaller half of the mixing tin and add the soda.

However, today you might want to celebrate Tax Day (we’re hoping you got refunds) with an Income Tax Cocktail, which is easy-peasy — basically it’s a Bronx cocktail with aromatic bitters added. In fact, I think you should have every cocktail mentioned in this post this evening.

One of the fruits of a recent burst of eBay purchasing:

I love how the last step before DEATH is … absinthe. P’shaw, load up the fountain with ice water and get out the Marteau! I shall cheat death right this minute!

(P.S. — Always drink responsibly.)