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VOODOO: THE MORNING (+1) AFTER by Alex Rawls
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Saturday: Hurray for the Riff Raff making me care about Americana by connecting to the lyrics’ emo...
Saturday: Hurray for the Riff Raff making me care about Americana by connecting to the lyrics’ emotions instead of their historical roots (download their version of “My Sweet Lord”); the Revivalists opening the main stage with “Concrete (Fish Out of Water),” Boots Electric perplexing everybody at the main stage with a show that was as much gesture as music; Mastodon being ridiculously heavy; Lost Bayou Ramblers owning the crowd and their increasingly interesting rock/Cajun synthesis before Gordon Gano walked onstage; Katey Red‘s voice having so much reverb on it that she created her own polyrhythms rolling on the consonants on “Ugly Buggin’ Me”; Z-Trip working the theme to Halloween into his mix, then breaking up Vincent Price’s opening narration for “Thriller” until it’s actually disturbing; X being as punk as ever, but with better musicianship that made their songs’ odd starts and stops even more dynamic; and Girl Talk tailoring his mix to the occasion, also using “Halloween” and “Thriller,” as well as “Ghostbusters” and “Monster Mash.” In the latter case, he juxtaposed Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s backing vocalists singing, “He did the mash” with the Three 6 Mafia singing, “but I’d rather get some head.”
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Lost Bayou Ramblers' upcoming album explores studio frontiers new to the band by Alison Fensterstock
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The making of "Mammoth Waltz, " due out early next year, was a rambling process full of such strange...The making of "Mammoth Waltz, " due out early next year, was a rambling process full of such strange encounters and serendipitous partnerships. "Reveil de la Louisiane, " from "Mammoth Waltz, " features piano tracks from Dr. John, whom the band met while working on a benefit.
While recording at Dockside Studios in Maurice, the band made another surprising acquaintance: actress Scarlett Johansson, who was there mixing her own new album with "TV on the Radio" producer Dave Sitek. The Ramblers apparently are pretty easy to make friends with -- Johansson also wound up contributing vocals to "Mammoth Waltz."
All in all, "Mammoth Waltz, " with its audible effects, is a significant departure in the studio for the band, which normally records live and analog.
"We've always recorded out albums in the style of, we go into a room, play what we know, press go, press stop, and it's finished, " Michot said. Not on the "Mammoth Waltz" sessions. "Vermilionaire, " which was produced by Chris "Frenchie" Smith (who had worked with Motorhead's Lemmy and Jet, among others) was already "further than we'd ever gone, " Michot said. "Mammoth Waltz" takes it a step (or a two-step) further, layering on studio effects.
Cynthia Gayneau's "Bastille, " with Gano playing fiddle and singing (in French), is all bayou-punk bluster, shifting from a shuffling two-step beat to one to which you can pogo and headbang. One new song ends with a fading guitar-buzz coda that sounds like The Who. "Reveil de la Louisiane, " with its layered echo, brings to mind Dr. John's own "Sipiana Hericane" EP. "Coteau Guidry, " which has Johansson's vocals (also in French), is enveloped in a light cloud of fuzz that paradoxically makes the song, even as it takes advantage of contemporary gear, sound as if it's broadcasting on a staticky radio tuned to the past.
The band has gone through some other changes. Longtime bassist Alan LaFleur, whose rock 'n' roll antics (he crowd-surfed with his bass at Jazz Fest this past year) has left the band; Andrew Austin-Petersen now handles the low end. The band also is making its feature film debut in the new Sylvester Stallone flick filmed in New Orleans this year. With the Lost Bayou Ramblers picking up such creative steam, you would think they'd be bummed out that the Grammy award for Cajun and zydeco music has been taken off the table. (They were nominated for the award in its first year, 2008, for "Live a la Blue Moon; " Terence Simien took the honors that year.) But according to Michot, ca ne fait rien.
"I basically feel the same as I did before they created it, " he said. "It was good for all of us while it was there, and we almost all got a nomination before it was over. But you get wrapped up into this box of a category, Cajun/zydeco, and it's really hard to get out of."
After "Mammoth Waltz" drops, critics will be hard-pressed to put the Lost Bayou Ramblers in any box.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers play Tipitina's Free Friday series tonight; they'll preview tracks from "Mammoth Waltz" as well as play favorites from their decade-old catalog.
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Voodoo Fest in New Orleans: Celebrating its lucky 13th by Jeremy Burgess
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Beyond the headliners, the Voodoo 2011 line-up was as diverse as the city where it takes place.
On ...Beyond the headliners, the Voodoo 2011 line-up was as diverse as the city where it takes place.
On the Red Bulletin Stage, fans of electronic music were given a powerhouse line-up featuring the likes of Fatboy Slim, Girl Talk and Major Lazer, while just across the lawn an ongoing showcase of blues, jazz and bluegrass took place on the Preservation Hall Stage, which hosted most notably the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with The Del McCoury Band and Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes with Lost Bayou Ramblers.
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Gordon Gano goes native with the Lost Bayou Ramblers at Voodoo Fest by Alison Fensterstock
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The youthful sweethearts of the Lost Bayou Ramblers have spent 2011 evolving in leaps and bounds. Th...The youthful sweethearts of the Lost Bayou Ramblers have spent 2011 evolving in leaps and bounds. The band’s high-energy, no-quarter live performances have always revealed the punk-rock possibilities of traditional Cajun stomps. With their most recent recordings, they’ve veered from their regular, old-school strategy of bare-bones live recording into adding more contemporary rock 'n’ roll studio effects – to great effect.
It wasn’t the case at all; more fans were dancing at Preservation Hall than at the Le Plur raver’s stage across the way. Gano, far from being a "celebrity guest," fit in easily, like a fifth band member.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers released a new vinyl LP today (Oct. 29) split with the band Givers.
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Gordon Gano of the Violet Femmes and The Lost Bayou Ramblers an unlikely pairing at Voodoo by Roger Hahn
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Among the collaborations at the Voodoo Experience is what may seem like an unlikely pairing of forme...Among the collaborations at the Voodoo Experience is what may seem like an unlikely pairing of former Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano — a pioneering figure of the post-punk era — and The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Louisiana natives who began playing Cajun music and are modernizing and evolving it. But it's not an off-the-wall experiment. Listen and you'll hear a genuine affinity between the godfather of post-punk adolescent angst and a pioneering Cajun band playing a leading role in a developing music scene centered in Lafayette, La., where a handful of ground-breaking bands born into the local traditions also have been raised on progressive rock flavored with dub and techno.
The Saturday appearance at Voodoo will serve as the official release of the Ramblers' "Bastille," a 12-inch vinyl single featuring contributions by Gano. "Bastille" is one of the genre-busting tracks on The Lost Bayou Ramblers' forthcoming album Mammoth Waltz, which also features performances by actress/singer Scarlett Johansson and Dr. John. The B-side offers a total-makeover remix of "Bastille" by indie-rockers GIVERS.
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MerleFest Thursday: Randy Travis, Lost Bayou Ramblers by Caine O'Rear
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We capped Thursday night at the Dance Tent, where we sashayed and two-stepped to the tunes of the Lo...We capped Thursday night at the Dance Tent, where we sashayed and two-stepped to the tunes of the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a spunky Cajun band that springs from the swamps of south Lousiana. The group is driven by brothers Louis (fiddle) and Andre Michot (accordion), who learned to play Cajun from their fathers and uncles.
I’d crossed paths with the Ramblers six years ago, in Richmond, Virginia. Since that time the band has added a more rock and roll edge to their sound, while still maintaining their roots. Thursday night they delivered a cover of Old 97s’ “Four Leaf Clover.”
The band closed the night with a Cajun lament, dedicated to the people who lost their lives in Wednesday’s tornadoes. The Ramblers had eaten lunch in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, getting out of town just before the storms touched down.
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Jazz Fest Day 6 Report and Photos by Geoffrey Himes
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The new wave of young Cajun bands coming out of Lafayette, La. was well represented at the festival ...The new wave of young Cajun bands coming out of Lafayette, La. was well represented at the festival by the Pine Leaf Boys, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Feufollet, the Red Stick Ramblers and Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy and the Country Cajun Revival, who all delivered fine sets. But the best showing from this movement was the Sunday set by the Lost Bayou Ramblers, who demonstrated how Cajun music and punk rock could be fused without violating the spirit of either.
They did it by sticking mostly with acoustic instruments (fiddle, button accordion, upright bass and drums were joined by an electric guitar) and by putting real Cajun and real punk side-by-side rather than watering each down. So the fiddle and squeezebox might play the original melody and syncopation of “Pine Grove Blues,” while the guitar struck up a drone and the drums hammered out a staccato stomp. It shouldn’t have worked but it did.
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Lost Bayou Ramblers find enthusiastic crowd at New Orleans Jazz Fest by Laura McKnight
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The Lost Bayou Ramblers walked onto the Fais-Do-Do Stage at the New Orleans Jazz Fest looking like a...The Lost Bayou Ramblers walked onto the Fais-Do-Do Stage at the New Orleans Jazz Fest looking like an indie rock band: a bunch of young guys sporting hipster Mohawks, electric-blue pants, large tattoos and giant sunglasses with thick turquoise frames.
But as soon as the Lafayette band started warming up, their fiddles and accordions began producing the unmistakable sounds of classic Cajun music, the kind of sounds some bayou dwellers associate with only the oldest generations.
Yet the band infuses these "old" sounds with fresh, rock-influenced life. The Lost Bayou Ramblers specialize in a high-energy, raucous brand of traditional Cajun music that combines electric guitars and heavy drums with fast-playing fiddles, accordions and lyrics in Cajun French.
In other words, these guys ripped through a series of hardcore Cajun songs like bayou rock stars.
If a fiddle can be shredded, front man and lead vocalist Louis Michot was seriously shredding one. Bassist Alan LaFleur kept his bass everything but upright. He spent the show manhandling the instrument, dipping it to the side, tipping it near horizontal, twirling it as he slapped and plucked its strings at a furious pace, while head-banging to his beat.
The catchy sounds had people dancing within seconds of the opening chords. The show included a range of Cajun sounds: a blues song with a hard-rock feel, an upbeat tune dedicated to Texans, a waltz off the band's CD "Vermillionaire."
"These guys aren't lost," a Jazz Fest staffer told the crowd. "They find their way back to the Fais-Do-Do Stage every year, and we're grateful for it."
The audience did not seem lost either. Crowd members arrived with purpose, wearing Lost Bayou Ramblers T-shirts and talking about previous shows by the band. The group performs at various clubs and festivals throughout Louisiana, including One Eyed Jacks in New Orleans and Festival International in Lafayette. The Lost Bayou Ramblers also perform in spots across the country.
Near the end of one song, Michot climbed atop the standup bass and continued working his fiddle as LaFleur kept plucking. LaFleur then tipped the bass to the side, allowing Michot to lounge across the side of the bass for the song's finale.
"If you ever get a chance to take a nap on a standup bass, it works pretty well," Michot told the crowd.
"I wonder how many of those he goes through a year," one crowd member thought aloud.
That number could be growing, as the Lost Bayou Ramblers continue exposing more audiences to their high-voltage brand of Cajun rock.
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Lost Bayou Ramblers Find New Home at Merlefest by Adam Hajnos
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The Grammy nominated group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, were the talk of the festival at this year’s Merlef...The Grammy nominated group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, were the talk of the festival at this year’s Merlefest. The Louisiana band drew large crowds on both Thursday and Friday of this years festival. While listed as a cajun band, the Lost Bayou Ramblers draw influences from traditional cajun, western swing, rockabilly and even punk rock. In previous years of Merlefest, you may have seen cajun influenced bands such as the Duhks or The Red Stick Ramblers. But the LBR bring something unique to their shows. Energy. Ever see a guy stand on his upright bass while playing it on a table?
The Lost Bayou Ramblers were one of the best finds of this year’s festival. They will continue their tour through Texas and back home to Louisiana. With such a great response this year, we can only hope that they will be included on the 25th Merlefest lineup for 2012.
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BLISTER IN LE SOLEIL: THE LOST BAYOU RAMBLERS AND GORDON GANO by Alex V. Cook
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I still wasn’t convinced Gordon Gano, singer of my favorite band of my youth, Violent Femmes, was re...I still wasn’t convinced Gordon Gano, singer of my favorite band of my youth, Violent Femmes, was really going to play with my favorite Cajun group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, until the fiddles started playing the “Blister in the Sun” riff right there before me at the Blue Moon in Lafayette. Those quarter-century-old folk-punk tunes mix surprisingly well with the even deeper antiquity of Cajun music when filtered through the Lost Bayou Ramblers, now in their 12th year of rattling the preconceptions of how Cajun music can sound. Louis (fiddle) and Andre Michot (accordion) started the Lost Bayou Ramblers in 1999 after years of playing in their father and uncle’s group Les Freres Michot. “It was a thing we did, playing with the family band,” says Louis Michot. “I didn’t really know what Cajun music was or what kind of place it has until I was a teenager.”
A prevalent notion is that Cajun music is a continuum that chugs along defiant to the times, but like anything else, it goes in and out of style. Michot explains, “We all played and knew Cajun music, but we didn’t necessarily like it or not like it. We all liked Metallica and Guns N’ Roses and that’s what we played when we played music. The Cajun music was a thing we did with the family and saw it as old people music. We’d kinda make fun of it.”
An epiphany occurred when one of his rock drummer friends sat in with the band on triangle and then on the kit. “We saw how much rhythm it had and how it would make people dance,” he says. “We started to realize how powerful it was. “
That experience sent Michot into Cajun music’s past to find its feral side, citing a late-in-life recording of Joe Falcon, who recorded the first Cajun single “Allons a Lafayette” in 1928. Cajun Music Pioneer (Arhoolie) captures Falcon live in 1963 at the Triangle Club in Scott, Louisiana. “It’s one of the most nasty, awesome things you’ll ever hear,” offers Michot. “When we started listening to those old recordings, we wondered why no one was covering that old, raw, throwdown music where you can tell they don’t give a shit about anything; they just throw it down. It’s not so clean or pretty. It doesn’t have that ‘folk music’ quality. It’s more like punk rock or rock ‘n’ roll.”
Michot recalls, “We were at d.b.a. one night about three years ago, we had been doing ‘O Bye’ from our first album (Pilette Breakdown). When we’d get to the breakdown part we’d do different songs, like this one White Stripes song and sometimes ‘Blister in the Sun’. We were doin’ that, and suddenly this guy climbs up on stage and he’s like, ‘You mind?’ and I said, ‘I guess not.’” Enter Gordon Gano.
“I was in town and had played a show with the Ryans at Tipitina’s and I kept extending my stay,” says Gano.
“I definitely recognized his voice,” Michot says. “We did the first part and then we were lost. We’d never tried to play the whole song, and he goes ‘Okay, first thing, you’re in the wrong key. You gotta get in G.’ So we do that and he tells us the chords and we work through the whole song, right there, live. That’s how we met Gordon.”
When Gano joined them at the Blue Moon Saloon, the packed house knew the numbered list in “Add it Up” as innately as they did the two-step. The rattling hormonal longing of the Violent Femmes’ early songs and the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ rambunctious take on their fathers’ music both have that same nervous joy.
The thing that stuck out the most that night at the Blue Moon was how well Gano hung in there on the fiddle. An orchestra student in high school, Gano’s fiddle made the occasional appearance throughout the Violent Femmes catalog. “Usually it was very specific to a couple of songs,” he says. “And then, through the years I was a member of an amateur chamber music group in NYC. I’d always hope I’d get that second violin part because I pretty much couldn’t really do the first violin part.”
Michot has nothing but praise for his accidental band mate. “He’s one of my favorite fiddle players to play with because I don’t do much of the Cajun twin fiddle thing with all the harmonics and counterpoint and all that. He plays it so raw and plays exactly what he wants to play, which works great with me. It’s what I do.”
Michot also waves off any suggestion of cultural dissonance in this phase of the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ development. “I’m a firm believer that Cajun music is not so much a manifestation of a bunch of people isolated out in the country but something that comes from a worldly people that are tapped into the times and are always renewing what they do to match what the rest of the world does. A lot of people want to romanticize and say that it’s some guy who can’t read and write up on his porch, which is nice and romantic, but the reality is much more interesting. It is American music, and when we play ‘American Music’ with Gordon, it hits the nail on the head.“
Michot does, however, point out concession to his heritage. “You know Gano is a French name,” he says. Gano’s family changed the spelling when they came to America, though his sister Cynthia Gayneau has reverted to the old spelling on her recordings. Gano says, “I was told if I just put an X on the end, it’d be perfect.”
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Modern World Two-Step:Alex Rawls , June 2008
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The Lost Bayou Ramblers can't help it if they have one foot in tradition and one in rock 'n' roll.
...The Lost Bayou Ramblers can't help it if they have one foot in tradition and one in rock 'n' roll.
After the Shop Boyz recorded "Party Like a Rock Star," doing so became a bit of a cliche (if Motley Crue, Aerosmith and Def Leopard hadn't already made it so.) That didn't stop the Lost Bayou Ramblers from giving it their good-natured shot on the rooftop bar atop Los Angeles' Standard Hotel, but by hair metal standards, they were rank amateurs.
They were hanging out with their wives and girlfriends, and only one member got to the point where he had to know the waitress' name, then had to use every time she came around. Staff dressed in 1970's high school pep squad attire kept bringing them beer. At the same time, other members of the Louisiana contingent in L.A. for the presentation of the first Cajun-Zydeco Grammy were visiting a guitar maker. Productive, maybe, but hardly living it up.
The afternoon was emblematic of the Lost Bayou Ramblers' place in Cajun music. They're traditional in many ways, but not dogmatically so. They explore their South Lousiana roots, but in addition to Cajun music, they include elements of western swing that the Hackberry Ramblers touched on.
Instead of treating the music as recovered remnants from the past, they're showmen, presenting it as something vital enough to make drummer Chris Courville stomp out the introduction to songs, something that animates guitarist Cavan Carruth and bassist Alan LaFleur to jump and swimg like they were playing rock 'n' roll, and something that prompts fiddle player Louis Michot to climb LaFleur's upright bass and play while standing on it.
"We're singing in French," Carruth says practically. "We've got to help people get into it."
But in the middle of the motion and post-modern looks onstage - LaFleru's rockabilly haircut and armful of tats, Michot's Beau Chene 4-H baseball undershirt - Andre Michot wears a clean white guayabera and sits still on a chair onstage as he plays accordion and lap steel, just as it was done a hundred years ago. "I play better that way," he says, but the juxtaposition with the rock 'n' roll feel marks the band as one with one foot in the past and one in the present.
Louis Michot acknowledges that today, it would be weird if not impossible for young men to make music untouched by rock 'n' roll, and it's as much a part of his background as Cajun music is. He, brother Andre and Courville have all played triangle with Les Freres Michot, but he also played in a rock band in high school with Courville.
"Everyone is traditional, but you can't keep out your influences unless you practice it. They come through naturally," Michot says. "That's the great thing about Cajun music - it changes with the time."
Besides the presentation, the modern world shows up in the rhythm. "We can never say enough about how important the triangle is," he says. "That has set the rhythm. We don't progress the melodies, but we believe in the rhythm. That's where we can be innovative and give dancers something new. It's all about what we call the 'chock,' the one-drop - chockin' on the one. From there, we can expand."
The Lost Bayou Ramblers, like the Pine Leaf Boys and many contemporary Cajun and Creole artists, are part of a new generation exploring their cultural heritage. Beausoleil, Zachary Richard and others undertook a similar project in the 1970s, but with some significant differences.
"People were scared the culture was going to start fading out so they made a conscious effort to play Cajun music," Michot says. "Now, it's alive and well, so people are taking more liberties and expanding on it. In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, there was all kind of different stuff going on. Cleoma Falcon, I don't thin she was thinking, 'I've got to preserve this music.' I think she was being totally radical and making a new statement and trying to be more worldly. She played jazz standards in Cajun French. Now it seems traditional, but back then it was probably punk rock."
The Ramblers' Live a la Blue Moon is traditional but worldly, and it was nominated for the Grammy. "When I heard them say, 'And the winner is, Live,'" Courville says, "I thought for a moment we'd won."
"We all skipped abreath," Michot says, but Terrance Simien's Grammy-nominated album was titled Live! Worldwide, and it was his album title they called. For Michot, though, the experience was worth it.
"It was amazing, and it's going to help Cajun and Zydeco musicians of today be a lot more confident of their abilities to be professional musicians and take care of themselves through music. All of a sudden, you're legit, no matter how much money you make."
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CD REVIEW: Patrick Strange, May 2006
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Lost Bayou Ramblers present the Mello Joy Boys - Une Tasse Cafe
Not often does a Cajun swing albu...Lost Bayou Ramblers present the Mello Joy Boys - Une Tasse Cafe
Not often does a Cajun swing album appear in these here pages. In fact, one never has. However, the contents of the Lost Bayou Ramblers' third album are such that I just can't help myself - and oh my, don't it feel good. Donning the personas of the "Mello Joy Boys", the Ramblers traverse the rocked up, jazzz rag sounds of Cajun swing, the dominant form of Cajun music during the 1930s and 40swhich served as one of the first national exports of the Cajun genre. Departing from the material on their first two albums which kept to the traditional form - bare acoustic playing, accordian dance tunes, lyrics a la Francais - the latest tracks are full-bodied piano-banjo-steel guitar numbers that are sometimes bilingual but always retain the distress of the Cajun voice. The tracksThe tracks include both Cajun swing standards and original material, making this album an exercise in musical preservation as well as development. Although the music is very "old" in a sense, there is something very novel about what the "Mello Joy Boys" are doing. In all meanings of the word, this is foremost a concept album...and a Cajun swing concept album at that. Acting as purveyors of the Lafayette-based coffee company (Mello Joy), the Boys seem to make clear the commercial history of the music that they are playing and the (healty/unhealthy?) cultural exportation of the genre. These are not a bunch of unwieldy twenty-somethings we're dealing with here, but a band that is very much aware of its musical past. Sure, some of the conceptual components are a bit kitschy, such as the "Mello Joy Boys are on the air!" announcement at the begining (and the scratchy sound of needle-meets-record that precedes it), but the purpose of the album stays true throughout. Also, listening to these Great Depression-era melodies that are so filled with raucousness, anticipation and an underlying sorrow, it's as if these tunes are expressively tailored for present day southern Louisiana and all its loss and anger and anxiety. Some songs will especially strike a chord with those who feel ddeply and feel often, like the renditions of "Blues D'Hiver" and "Louisiana Breakdown," and the last track of the album which offers guest Wilson Savoy on piano and vocals is simply heartbreaking - no matter if you understand the language or not. The Ramblers' enthusiasm for playing both traditional and original tunes, combined with an immediate place and audience that seems ripe for reconnecting with its cultural and historical past, makes Une Tasse Cafe mofe than just pertinent, it makes it very new.
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CD REVIEW: Tom Petersen , February 2006
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Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu - Swallow Records
Purists are going to grumble when they hear the...Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu - Swallow Records
Purists are going to grumble when they hear the lap steel and maybe begrudge the precedent for a dobro in a Cajun ensemble, but they'll get over it quick once they spin this platter. The young men of the Lost Bayou are very much part of the tradition and this album actually gets in a plug for a side project of theirs, backing Ethel Mae Bourque, a 72 year old denizen of remote Vermilion parish who sings the songs her granpere taught her! How deep can you get? LBR is headed up by the Michot brothers, who have their own, very deep roots and a commitment to keeping the old sound and spirit alive. Louis sings that high, screechy sound to match his delightfully rude fiddling, while Andre makes the sound move and flow, alternating between the more traditional accordian and the aforementioned lap steel. This new effort marks the LBR's concern that the music stay close to its original purpose as dance and party music, hence the addition of drummer Oscar "The Train" Courville and wild man bassist Alan LaFleur, who not only keeps things chuggin' but astonishes the crowd with his acrobatics. Plays it under his chin - got the pictures to prove it! This is a very fine record by a maturing and increasingly important band, taking Cajun music into the new century without comprimises.
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CD REVIEW: Arsenio Orteza, January 2006
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Lost Bayou Ramblers: Bayou Perdu (Swallow) Garage-rockers, eat your hearts out: This album of 14 Caj...Lost Bayou Ramblers: Bayou Perdu (Swallow) Garage-rockers, eat your hearts out: This album of 14 Cajun songs (some old, some new, some borrowed, some blues) has the loudest, dirtiest drum sound I've heard all year. Better yet, instead of overwhelming the surrounding rough-hewn francophone racket, the big bam boom focuses it and gives it that rarest of qualities where contemporary Cajun CDs are concerned -- an identity. Rating: Four well-rattled woofers out of five.
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Claudia La Rocco, Associated Press Writer, October 2005
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Chile Pepper Fiesta celebrates cultures of spice, including hurricane-ravaged southwestern Louisiana...Chile Pepper Fiesta celebrates cultures of spice, including hurricane-ravaged southwestern Louisiana
NEW YORK -- Louisiana musician Chris "Oscar" Courville lost just about everything when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. His house will likely be bulldozed. His drums, submerged in the trunk of his car, were covered in a vile mix of mud and sewage _ and that's the good news.
The gunk added a "new depth of funk" to his band's sound, fellow musician Louis Michot said. New Yorkers can hear for themselves this Sunday, when the Lost Bayou Ramblers perform their irresistible Cajun music at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 12th annual Chile Pepper Fiesta.
The festival celebrates spicy cultures from Mexico to Thailand, with cooking demonstrations and tastings, drumming and dance performances and activities for children. Several of the participants hail from southwestern Louisiana, where a vibrant culture is struggling to adjust to a landscape transformed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"Southern Louisiana is one of the most complex cultural landscapes in North America, if not the world," anthropologist Ryan A. Brasseaux said from his home in Lafayette, La. "I think (the hurricanes) will have some serious cultural implications, as folks are displaced across the country. It's a natural disaster, obviously, but it's just as importantly a cultural disaster."
Brasseaux and his father, who together co-wrote "Stir the Pot: The History of Cajun Cuisine" with cookbook author Marcelle Bienvenu, will discuss the cultural fallout from the hurricanes at the festival on Sunday.
Of course, a discussion of Cajun culture is, on some level, a discussion about food.
"The first complaint I hear from people who are displaced is, 'Boy, the food's bad,"' Ryan Brousseaux said. "I think that cuisine is going to play an enormous role. It may have a Creolizing effect on America.
"Food is how we celebrate each other," he added. "If anything gets us through this it will be at the dinner table."
Music is also playing a role, say members of the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Besides Courville and Michot, who is the band's lead singer and fiddler, the troupe consists of Michot's brother, accordionist Andre Michot; guitarist Jon Bertrand; and Alan LaFleur on upright bass. Their third album has just been released; ironically, its title is "Bayou Perdu," or "Lost Bayou."
The reaction to their music has been better than ever from people "who are just glad to be alive," Louis Michot said. The band, which is donating 10 percent of merchandise sales to the Red Cross, jokes that its current tour is for the "Oscar Relief Fund."
Also performing at the festival will be Ashlee Wilson, who will demonstrating waltz, two-step and zydeco dance steps with Ryan Brasseaux, Andrew Suire and Frederique Lamy.
Lamy is a Quebec native, but the others grew up in and around Lafayette, a city bursting at the seams with Katrina evacuees. Some have relished having loved ones closer to them. But deadlocked traffic, emptied grocery aisles and overwhelmed schools are taking a toll, said Wilson, a teacher from Ville Platte. "There's no city that's been untouched" in Louisiana, she said.
"I think we're all kind of stunned," she said. "We just have to keep truckin."'
With flights rerouted and phone service disconnected, just getting the band and dancers to New York has been challenging, said Anita Jacobs, director of public programs for the garden.
Judging by the passers-by who stopped to clap and dance Friday when the Lost Bayou Ramblers offered a short preview, it was worth the effort. Members of a local wedding party sashayed down the garden paths, smiling and nodding their heads to the lively rhythms. Wilson kicked off her shoes as Courville twirled her around, and several other members of the band hopped onto LaFleur's bass after he propped it on its side.
"It's not about impressing people or making something fancy," Louis Michot said afterward.
LaFleur smiled, agreeing.
"If it doesn't feel like you're at our house, having a good time, it's not working."
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SHOW REVIEW: April 2005 Jazz and Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA
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April 2005 Jazz and Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA
The Lost Bayou Ramblers had a sparkle in th...April 2005 Jazz and Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA
The Lost Bayou Ramblers had a sparkle in their eyes as they played Jazzfest Thursday afternoon. It was the sparkle of youthful exuberance and tomfoolery. The quintet of twenty-somethings from Lafayette played with a passionate fire that one doesn't normally find in traditional Cajun bands.
That's why they're one of the best around. They're not jaded, yet. They approached Cajun-inflected swing from the '20's and 30's with the bravado of rock stars. They didn't take themselves too seriously, though. They smiled, made fun of each other, and made up names for two-steps on the spot. The name depended on whom the song was dedicated to. When a song got particularly hot, drummer Chris Courville breathed an affirmation into the mic.
They fit in one accordion-driven waltz, but the rest of their one hour set consisted of fast-paced dancing music propelled by bass and drums. Alan Lafleur used black gloves to pick fat notes out of his upright bass, while Chris Courville played an amazing variety of syncopated rhythms with snare brushes and a kick drum.
Jon Bertrand lifted the neck of his acoustic guitar into the air vertically, but unfortunately he was too low in the mix. Fiddler and lead vocalist Louis Michot was rightfully high in the mix. His fiddle solos were impressive, and his French lyrics and Cajun yoddle added an authentic spice to the concert.
The crowd was diggin' on the music big time. People were dancing and responding with their bodies to the band's energy.
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CD REVIEW: Yvieboy, November 2005
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Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu
After an independent recorded CD (“Un Tit Gout”) and a great fi...Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu
After an independent recorded CD (“Un Tit Gout”) and a great first nationally distributed CD (“Pilette Breakdown”) another one couldn't stay out long for the Lost Bayou Ramblers. The name of this brand new jewel (on 'Swallow Records') is “Bayou Perdu”, which means “Lost Bayou”. The Ramblers again bring a fantastic combination of good ol' Cajun and Western Swing to keep the music style of Harry Choates and early Hackberry Ramblers alive.
Opener is the great “Pine Island” from J.B. Fusilier & Miller's Merrymakers. This beauty is pretty much alike Shirley Bergeron's “Quel Etoille”. “Hot Shoes” is a short instrumental where the brothers Louis and André Michot play the pure Cajun sound from Octa Clark and Hector Duhon. Hackberry Ramblers' joyful Cajun Swing is perfectly honored with “Faut Pas Tu Brailles” and “Une Piastre Ici, Une Piastre Là-Bas”. It's real hard not to dance on the fantastic David & Louis Michot original “Bayou Perdu”. No doubt this will be a real Cajun dancefloor hit! Louis Michot also put his creative pen on “Mexico One Step” (another very danceable highlight), “Chers Yeux Bruns” (an up-tempo waltz), “Le Blues de la Ville Platte” (a Cajun waltz) “North Louisiana Blues”, “Papa Lou Hop” (2 great instrumental Cajun Two-Steps) and “Blue Moon Special” (based on Austin Pitre's “Flammes D'Enfer”). Lost Bayou Ramblers demonstrate their Western Swing and Cajun Swing influences on “Pilette High Society” and “Tite Fille de Lafayette”. “Les Temps Après Fini” could be a perfect background track for a documentary about South West Louisiana…
A wonderful CD by a wonderful band!
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Joshua Clegg Caffery, December 2004
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LOST AND FOUND
Young Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers is winning over fans from Acadiana to New York ...LOST AND FOUND
Young Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers is winning over fans from Acadiana to New York City
When the Lost Bayou Ramblers stepped onstage at a bar high in Colorodo's Rocky Mountains earlier this summer, singer/fiddler Louis Michot looked out at a stone-faced audience.
“The place was full of these hard-looking Colorado cowboys,” says Michot. “They didn't know if they were going to like us or not.” According to Michot, he could barely sing that night because of the altitude, but nonetheless he and his bandmates proceeded to belt out their set of unforgiving traditional Cajun music. A Denver Broncos win that night may have had something to do with it, but the leery crowd soon warmed to the band.
“This guy went from straight-faced and hard one second, then the next thing I knew he was sitting by my side,” says Michot. “And it sounded like he knew the words. His buddy came up and said, ‘I don't know what you guys are singing about, but he sings like this every day at work, and he finally found someone he can sing with.'”
As a young ban trying to make a living playing Cajun music in the 21 st century, the Lost Bayou Ramblers often find themselves in this scenario. Singing in a foreign language about places nobody has ever heard of, playing fiddles, accordions, and lap steel guitars and driving around the country in vehicles of questionable reliability, there are a lot of gazes to turn away from the TV screens at the other end of the bar.
The Ramblers have proved capable of overcoming those challenges. In a way quite different from their contemporaries, they've managed to puncture the veil of language an culture, attracting an enthusiastic following that includes city dwellers, zydeholics, New Orleans hipsters, and a growing pack of music journalists. While attracting the interest of local fans of Cajun music, they've also become an attraction in Austin, parts of California, French Canada, and the East coast. They're even making inroads in New York City, where they've earned press raves in the New Yorker magazine and an unexpected and devout following in the Bronx.
In the words of folklorist Ryan Brasseaux, the Ramblers' friend and sometime triangle player, “They're so old-timey, they're avant-garde.”
Andre Michot, 29, is a soft-spoken, dark-haired young man whose restrained on-stage demeanor belies an intense musicality. A sought-after musician known for his rock-solid rhythm guitar playing, Andre primarily plays accordion with the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Shying away from the onstage gymnastics and posturing employed by some Cajun accordionists, Andre sits down when he plays and bears down on his instrument with calm focus, like most older Cajun musicians.
Louis, his 26-year-old younger brother, is a different story. Attacking his fiddle with long, furious bow strokes, and singing in a high, raspy cry, he seems perpetually infused with kinetic energy. When he sings, the sinews in his neck leap out in sharp relief, and the veins balloon like an oxbow river. Louis is an old soul in a young, wiry frame.
The two brothers – sons of research biologist Thomas Michot – form the core of the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Both grew up exposed to Cajun music, as their father and uncles Mike and Rick Michot make up Les Freres Michot, one of the mainstays of the local French music scene.
Louis first started on the fiddle after receiving his grandfather's instrument as a gift, and he started building a small repertoire of Cajun tunes while roaming around the country in his early 20s. A summer trip to Nova Scotia to study French at St. Annes University furthered his desire to become a Cajun fiddler.
“Going to Acadie and learning French kind of gave me a boost,” says Louis. “When I started speaking French, I started singing. From that point on the fiddle kind of helped me get around.” Armed with about 12 Cajun French songs an his grandfather's fiddle, Louis stayed in French Canada for another three months, busking the street corners of his ancestors' homeland.
Louis returned home to find that Andre had been playing the accordion, and the two brothers started playing together for fun. Before long, they started jamming with other friends, including Matthew Doucet (Beausoleil fiddler Michael Doucet's son). The loose configuration of musicians played its first gig at the former Café Rue Vermillion in downtown Lafayette to a small crowd of friends.
They began to refer to themselves as the Lost Bayou Ramblers at the suggestion of a friend, the late enigmatic Ryan Domingue. According to Ryan Brasseaux, Domingue was a scientific genius who spent his days listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs and counting dolphin brain cells at the New Iberia Research Center.
The rotating cast of characters who backed up the brothers in these days includes clarinetist Gary Hernandez, Matthew Doucet, and various Michot cousins an uncles. The band's first professional gig as the Lost Bayou Ramblers was for a wedding at a plantation house in Baldwin, La., a job arranged for them by Brasseaux. Like Dr. Barry Ancelet, who provided an academic foil for young Cajun musicians like Michael Doucet and Zachary Richard during the Cajun music renaissance of the 1970s and early ‘80s, Brasseaux soon came on board to lend a folklorist's perspective to the proceedings.
“So I walk in, an here are these young guys playing Cajun music,” says Brasseaux, remembering the band's debut gig at Café Rue Vermillion. “And then they start promenading around downtown, playing the Mari Gras Song. And so I thought to myself: what is this?'”
From this point on, the motley crew of musicians began playing local clubs, its initial audience made up of friends and peers. In early 2002, the group started playing double bills with local honky-tonk musician Cavan “Lil' Enos” Carruth. For half of the show, it would play as the Lost Bayou Ramblers and then back up Carruth as the Bayou Bandits. In exchange, Carruth would play guitar for the Ramblers, and he soon became the band's steady guitarist. Around the same time, percussionist Chris “Oscar” Courville joined the band.
Courville, who originally met the Ramblers while doing computer work for Tommy Michot, usually stands when he plays, stomping on a bass drum and playing a snare or a washboard. His nickname Oscar derives from Courville's trashy, bare bones style. With Courville's addition, the band coalesced and began traveling around the state and to out-of-state jobs as far-flung as New York City. Around the same time, the Blue Moon Saloon opened, and local enthusiasm for Cajun music enjoyed an upswing. As the group's popularity continued to grow, its bandmembers made Lost Bayou Ramblers their primary focus – not to mention their primary source of income.
With the exception of Courville, who has managed to stay employed with various computer design firms in New Orleans despite his increasingly demanding musical obligations, the Ramblers' steady touring schedule has become the central component of their livelihood. Getting rich, though, is apparently not why the Ramblers are in the Cajun music business.
“For the money,” says Louis Michot, “I'd rather be a janitor than a musician.” But that hasn't stopped him and his bandmates from pursuing their dream.
“I love music, and I love playing music,” he says. “I'm not really into the whole deal of going out all the time and playing all the time. I'm more of a homebody. But I feel, like, how could I not? …It's like you were chosen.”
Courville, who often drives from New Orleans a few times a week for Lost Bayou Ramblers gigs, echoes the sentiment that there's a higher purpose motivating the choice to play Cajun music. “I guess the main reason I give much more of my time to the Lost Bayou Ramblers than any band here in New Orleans or elsewhere is because I genuinely enjoy playing the music,” he says. “I get to play with great musicians, it's a part of my culture and upbringing, and I feel that the way in which we are playing it serves to remind people these songs are just as infectious – the waltzes just as powerful and moving, the two steps just as energetic and driving if, not more so – when played simply without excessive polish and production. It's not necessarily a new idea, but it's one I like to think has some importance.”
It's this philosophy, perhaps more so than any other factor, which has established the band as one of Acadiana's most exciting young groups of any genre. While other groups playing Acadiana's traditional music have had success by making Cajun music more modern and palatable to outsiders, the Lost Bayou Ramblers take almost the opposite tack, distilling the music to its clear, exhilarating core. Brasseaux refers to this aesthetic as “emotional honesty.”
This year has found the Ramblers continuing to grow as performers and musicians, while refusing to compromise their almost punk-rock simplicity. It's a powerful balance that continues to bring them more fans and more acclaim, not to mention the interest of local festival promoters.
“Their style of playing is very rustic an very rough, very much like a lot of the old Cajun musicians used to play, and you don't find that much,” says Pat Mould, who programs the Heritage Stage at Festival Acadiens, where the Lost Bayou Ramblers played for the first time this year. “A lot of young musicians coming up, they kind of want to add this polish, try to put something new on it, where I think these guys have a tendency to try to keep themselves in the past musically, and that's what comes across when you hear them play.”
The Lost Bayou Ramblers are reminiscent of a growth stock. In a time when the music industry in general is in the tank, when pop icons seem more and more ridiculous and irrelevant, when the very infrastructure of popular music and the music business seems to be crumbling, the Lost Bayou Ramblers are doing better than ever. They're making a decent living playing music and having a hell of a time doing it, all while gaining fans, respect, and stature. In financial terms, they're defying the market.
There have been rough spots, of course, but the goodwill the band has created has kept it afloat when things have gone awry. When the van containing all their instruments was stolen from a parking lot in Colorado this summer, people came out of the woodwork with donations of money and even instruments. And although the van was eventually found with instruments intact, the cost of flying back and forth from Colorado and meeting their musical obligations with rented equipment exhausted all of the donations.
“Something about these guys,” says Mould, “just makes you want to help them out.”
The Lost Bayou Ramblers' fanbase hasn't reached the national following that groups like BeauSoleil and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys have built, but the Ramblers seem to be in a unique position to become leading standard bearers for the music in years to come. “They're poised,” says Chas Justus, guitarist for the Red Stick Ramblers.
After months of steady playing, a number of broken-down and stolen vehicles and exhausting tour, the Ramblers are now taking some time off the road. With a newly bolstered line-up that includes ace Gin and Tonics bassist Alan LaFleur and firebrand Elton guitarist Jon Bertrand, they plan to start recording in the coming weeks.
The upcoming album will be recorded live at the Michots' camp in the countryside near Milton. According to Louis Michot, they hope to have it out sometime in March, before festival season. They insist on keeping mum about further specifics of the album's release, but odds are they won't be straying far from the hard-hitting, no-frills sound found on Pilette Breakdown , their 2003 album on Swallow Records.
“I think the most traditional thing we do is that we don't practice, and we don't make arrangements,” says Louis. “We don't want to practice. We don't want to be refined. We tried to practice for the album, and we were like, ‘Man, what are we doing? What do we have to practice?'”
That approach might not necessarily work for other bands, but it's paying off for the Lost Bayou Ramblers.
“The feeling is what will get you with this band,” says Festival International Programming Director Lisa Stafford, who booked the Lost Bayou Ramblers for the festival this year. “They make you feel like they're bringing you back home. Kind of like if you are out of town for a long time, getting homesick and then you hear a song from Louisiana, it makes you homesick. That's how their band makes me feel when I hear them at home: homesick.”
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Herman Fusieler, March 2004
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Lost Bayou Ramblers find their way in the old-time sound
Cecil Doyle of KRVS Radio said the Lost Ba...Lost Bayou Ramblers find their way in the old-time sound
Cecil Doyle of KRVS Radio said the Lost Bayou Ramblers “play like they have dentures.” Such words are a bouquet of compliments for MTV-era musicians trying to capture an FDR sound.
But “Pilette Breakdown,” a CD of the young Ramblers playing the western swing Cajun music of the 1930s and ‘40s, is working. Through a public poll, Offbeat Magazine of New Orleans named the CD one of Louisiana’s Top 50 CDs of 2003.
Reviewer Dan Wilging places it in his top 10. The Ramblers were even nominated as Best Emerging Cajun Band in Offbeat’s annual Best of the Beat awards.
Brothers Louie and Andre Michot of Lafayette say they’re only doing what they know best. Their father, Tommy, and uncles, Les Frères Michot, have traveled the world playing unplugged, traditional Cajun music for almost 20 years.
“We just do what we’ve been brought up with,” said Louie, the band’s fiddler and vocalist. “It’s all French music, but we definitely pull on the bluesy aspects of it. We do some of that stuff from the ’40s with no accordion.
“Andre picked up the lap steel and we do a lot of Cajun swing standards. That aspect is nice because some people just don’t like the accordion.
“When we can play some swinging Cajun stuff, we can reach people that might have never listened to it before.”
The newfound fans are hearing the Ramblers resurrect gems like “La Valse Criminelle,” first recorded by Leo Soileau and Moise Robin in 1928 and later redone by Octa Clark and Dewey Balfa. They put their own spin on Lawrence Walker’s “Happy Hop” and “Les Bon Temps Rouler,” which they call “Holly Beach.”
It’s appropriate that the CD includes two tunes, “O Bye/Bluerunner” and “Louisiana Boogie Woogie,” recorded live in Brooklyn, N.Y. at the Botanic Gardens. The band has done two tours of New York, including one trip to Brooklyn and Manhattan in which they played seven gigs in nine days.
A trip to the Bay area of California yielded 11 shows. The Ramblers are currently on a return trip to New York, Maryland and Virginia where they are playing restaurants, night clubs, schools and theaters.
“In New York, they kind of look at us like, ‘Where are you from?’ but they like it,” said Louie. “We end up getting our own gigs, so we end up playing at places that are not your normal Cajun venue. We expose the music to a lot of people that didn’t know about it.
“We end up playing a lot of punk clubs and stuff.”
“We play a lot on the street and all of a sudden, there’s a big crowd and people start dancing,” added Andre.
The Ramblers hope to have them dancing in Nashville when they play during the keynote address at the International Country Music Conference. The educational experience follows a similar workshop they did last year at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
In a session titled “From Country to Cajun and Back,” the Ramblers played songs showing the roots of Cajun music, from its European origins to modern, country-influenced sounds and zydecajun. Folklorist Ryan Brasseaux of UL Lafayette was the keynote speaker and will perform the same duties in Nashville.
“He’s been a good friend for a long time and he’s been helping us out a lot,” said Louie. “Hopefully, the country music people will take a liking to us. They like to think of Cajun as subcategory of country music. It could be. I’ll go for it.”
(Listen to Herman Fuselier’s radio show at 10 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday on KRVS 88.7 FM. His TV show airs at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KDCG-TV 22.)
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Jennifer Romolini, May 2003
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It's not every day you see the Brooklyn Federation of Black Cowboys dismount their horses en masse, ...It's not every day you see the Brooklyn Federation of Black Cowboys dismount their horses en masse, tie them up and head into a bar to jam. But that's what happened one night in August, when the troupe descended on the Dumbo spot Superfine. They were there to catch the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a high-energy Louisiana French band that was playing that night to a full house. The group is back in town this week to toast its new self-released debut CD, Un 'Tit Gout (A Little Taste), with a heap of shows.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers, who formed in 1999, are "roots Cajun" musicians: They play a swampy, foot-stomping, traditional Deep South style with a rhythmic blues flavor. Headed by a magnetic lead singer, Louis Michot, the band often gets compared to '30s Cajun musical pioneers such as Dennis McGee and Amédé Ardoin.
In concert, the band is high-spirited and soulful, and its moves, closer to Devo than to Hee Haw, encourage dancing—dorky, spirited, jumpy, partnered dancing. The whole experience is somewhere between country and cool, a postdork evening (or afternoon) to remember.
supersonic
