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As Mardi Gras Rages, New Orleans' Music Scene Struggles to Recover
Diminishing gigs, rising costs still threaten city's signature sounds.
ALEX RAWLS
One of the great anxieties in New Orleans is that the world doesn't know what's going on there, a fear that Hank Shocklee appreciates. "I didn't understand the severity of things," he says. "We have flooding, but nothing like that. When I went down there, I saw how devastated it was." Alec Ounsworth has been coming to New Orleans since he was 10, and had visited twice since the storm. "I didn't realize that the rebuilding process takes so long," he says. "Somehow, from an outsider's perspective, you don't realize that the devastation was so great that it may take my lifetime before things return back to normal."
But conditions have improved. The city is back to almost 74 percent of its pre-Katrina population. There are few blue tarps still on roofs, and many of the devastated houses have been demolished or renovated. But, due to a number of factors including the cost and bureaucratic nightmare posed by the Road Home Recovery Program, many homeowners are still unable to rebuild or repair their houses and lives.
The city's musician population is similarly back to nearly 75 percent of its former self, and it still shows the damage of Katrina's floodwaters. The heavy metal scene has largely gone underground since its clubhouse, the Dixie Tavern in Mid-City, was flooded and lost. The Rebirth Brass Band and the Hot 8 Brass Band suffered Katrina-related tragedies. Terrell Batiste of the Hot 8 was crippled during the evacuation when his car broke down on an Atlanta freeway and he was hit while trying to change the flat. Drummer Dinerral Shavers was killed by a bullet intended for someone else. Rebirth's Kerwin James suffered a stroke that friends and family attributed to the stress of evacuation, and he passed away earlier this year. In a sign of creeping gentrification, neighbors new to the traditionally music-friendly Treme neighborhood called in a noise complaint and had Glen David Andrews and Derrick Tabb arrested when they led an impromptu second line to memorialize James on the night of his death.
Still, progress has been made for musicians as well. Habitat for Humanity's Musicians' Village now houses many displaced musicians. ATC spearheaded efforts to raise money for Al "Carnival Time" Johnson to get a home in the Musicians' Village, and after it raised $60,000 for the project, Johnson was able to take possession of his home this month. He had spent much of the last three years in Houston because his home in the Lower Ninth Ward was irreparably damaged when the Industrial Canal wall breached just three blocks away.
A number of relief efforts emerged to help New Orleans musicians after the storm, while some refocused their missions to deal with the crisis. The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic started a gig fund to help create gigs and get musicians back to work, and the Tipitina's Foundation initially helped musicians get instruments and get home. As the immediate crisis passed, it refocused its efforts on getting musical instruments to schools for the next generation of musicians.
read di rest here http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/2...es_to_recover/2
Diminishing gigs, rising costs still threaten city's signature sounds.
ALEX RAWLS
One of the great anxieties in New Orleans is that the world doesn't know what's going on there, a fear that Hank Shocklee appreciates. "I didn't understand the severity of things," he says. "We have flooding, but nothing like that. When I went down there, I saw how devastated it was." Alec Ounsworth has been coming to New Orleans since he was 10, and had visited twice since the storm. "I didn't realize that the rebuilding process takes so long," he says. "Somehow, from an outsider's perspective, you don't realize that the devastation was so great that it may take my lifetime before things return back to normal."
But conditions have improved. The city is back to almost 74 percent of its pre-Katrina population. There are few blue tarps still on roofs, and many of the devastated houses have been demolished or renovated. But, due to a number of factors including the cost and bureaucratic nightmare posed by the Road Home Recovery Program, many homeowners are still unable to rebuild or repair their houses and lives.
The city's musician population is similarly back to nearly 75 percent of its former self, and it still shows the damage of Katrina's floodwaters. The heavy metal scene has largely gone underground since its clubhouse, the Dixie Tavern in Mid-City, was flooded and lost. The Rebirth Brass Band and the Hot 8 Brass Band suffered Katrina-related tragedies. Terrell Batiste of the Hot 8 was crippled during the evacuation when his car broke down on an Atlanta freeway and he was hit while trying to change the flat. Drummer Dinerral Shavers was killed by a bullet intended for someone else. Rebirth's Kerwin James suffered a stroke that friends and family attributed to the stress of evacuation, and he passed away earlier this year. In a sign of creeping gentrification, neighbors new to the traditionally music-friendly Treme neighborhood called in a noise complaint and had Glen David Andrews and Derrick Tabb arrested when they led an impromptu second line to memorialize James on the night of his death.
Still, progress has been made for musicians as well. Habitat for Humanity's Musicians' Village now houses many displaced musicians. ATC spearheaded efforts to raise money for Al "Carnival Time" Johnson to get a home in the Musicians' Village, and after it raised $60,000 for the project, Johnson was able to take possession of his home this month. He had spent much of the last three years in Houston because his home in the Lower Ninth Ward was irreparably damaged when the Industrial Canal wall breached just three blocks away.
A number of relief efforts emerged to help New Orleans musicians after the storm, while some refocused their missions to deal with the crisis. The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic started a gig fund to help create gigs and get musicians back to work, and the Tipitina's Foundation initially helped musicians get instruments and get home. As the immediate crisis passed, it refocused its efforts on getting musical instruments to schools for the next generation of musicians.
read di rest here http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/2...es_to_recover/2
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