NaNoWriMo 2013 Days 16-18

So, back on Day 15, after I posted my update, I went to a fantastic concert at House of Blues’s Parish Room (which is also where I saw Lissie’s phenomenal show a few years ago). I was looking forward to Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes for *weeks*, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go till the day of the show. While waiting for my friends N. and M. outside, I saw a guy who looked vaguely familiar with a lady who didn’t look familiar at all. We had a pretty typical New Orleans conversation:

Me: “Hey, do you know where I know you from?”

Him: “No, but you sure do look familiar to me, too.”

Me (shrug): “Well, it’ll come up again some day, I’m sure.”

And then it took a turn for the surreal, which is still fairly typical of New Orleans conversations:

Her: “Hey, this guy just gave us two tickets to this show and we can’t stay for it. Do you want these tickets?”

Me: “Oh *hell* yeah!” (snatches tickets).

Still, no clue how I know him. Except now I know them both as concert ticket-bequeathing angels.

The Honorable South opened the show, which was exciting. I found out about them when my friends Adam Gambrel and Jax Baker directed and produced the music video for their song The Beast. Realized while grabbing links just now that more friends worked on it: Jil Szewski and Natalie Johnson. Adam’s just directed another video for their new song Saint Charles Parish.

Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes were everything I’d hope they’d be. N’s friend A. joined us and we totally danced a loopy awesome swing style dance in the midst of the packed crowd. It was probably totally obnoxious to everyone around us, but also totally awesome. It was just one of those nights. I hope you have one or two soon, yourself.

I worked on Day 16 and had another long, fantastic social evening. No words! Ditto with Day 17, except it (Sunday) included a performance of Waiting for Godot at Tulane, attending with a friend with friends in the cast. It was really funny and well-done. Afterwards, we had to sustain ourselves with steak. So, still no words.

So I broke my no-word streak today. After a long day of work, I had an hour-long word war with Sis. At first, I didn’t know what to write. I started reading the next chapter of my book, looking for sections that could use shoring up or extra scenes. And I got inspired. As I was writing the scene, I realized that I may completely discard it, but that it was telling me something about how I felt the story had to go. By the end of the scene, I was fairly sure I’d keep the scene and change the rest of the book. The magic of NaNoWriMo.

I wrote 1,215 words, which brings my total so far this year to 10,538 words. I need more than 3,000 daily in order to hit 50,000 words by the 30th, so it’s increasingly unlikely I’ll “win” this year. But what an educational adventure it’s been. And at least I creeped over the 10K hurdle. In my worst year, I only wrote 6,827 words. So, I’ve already done better than my worst. It’s all gravy after that!

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals at House of Blues

This is late in coming, but better late than never, right? After I reviewed Lissie at House of Blues and suggested everybody check out Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, I promised I would review the show, so here I am.

First of all, it was a sold out show at the main HOB stage, so it was crowded. That’s not my favorite way to enjoy live music and I was a bit grouchy, but also really excited to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals cause I’ve heard that they’re amazing live. And I noticed that most of their shows on this tour have been sold out, if that gives you any evidence.

I am here to tell you that GP&N (for brevity’s sake) are every ounce the phenomenal performers that I’ve heard. Positively electric. An easy comparison to Grace Potter is Janis Joplin, but I read someone compare her to Tina Turner and I think that may be even more apt. Or some kind of combination of Janis Joplin, Tina Turner and herself may be the most apt description.

I found a local music blog that has videos and a gallery of images from the show. You should definitely check it out and I’ll include some videos below so you can get an idea for yourself of what it’s like to see GP&N live. There’s a high-energy new-wave psychedelic funky/folky quality that is just utterly unique.

This one is a bit dark, but the audio is pretty good.

The lighting in this one is much better and it’s a great song.

This video is not from her recent New Orleans performance, but I’m including it because she did perform it in a special arrangement and after some discussion of Katrina and our recovery. This performance is close to what she performed here in New Orleans, without her commentary, of course.

If, after all this, you want to re-create the Nola concert for yourself, I found a setlist for the show and there should be videos for almost all of these songs available. Have fun!

P.S. Actually, I did it for you. Here is a playlist of the songs that GP&N played at House of Blues earlier this month. Enjoy!

Loving Lissie locally

Last year, I wrote about a musician named Lissie who’s become one of my favorites and I ended the post by saying:

“Lissie, when are you coming to New Orleans? Seriously.”

On Tuesday, Lissie performed at the House of Blues Parish Room and to demonstrate what a big fan I am, I was one of the first 30 people to buy my ticket, more than two months ago. I know, I’m a dork. But, I’d be a supreme dork again and buy tickets waaay early if she ever comes back to New Orleans, because she’s an awesome live performer.

It’s easy to see that from her many YouTube videos, but it’s nothing to actually being in the audience. There is something absolutely electric about her when she performs. Because my own taste in music is so eclectic, I think one of things I love best about her is that she can sing bluegrass, then pop, then rock, and always sound like herself. Her covers of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” and Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” are genius, but her own songs are clever and infectious as well.

Moll went with me to the show, which was cool because she’d never heard of Lissie and left a fan. I’ve found a video of Lissie’s encore performance of “Pursuit of Happiness” at the show and I’ll include it here:

I probably shouldn’t be so proud of the fact that all the Frenchmen talk happened because I yelled “Frenchmen” in response to her “ready for Bourbon” comment, and that you can hear me screaming in the video. As Moll Tweeted me later:

@emofalltrades I’m pretty sure that I can hear you hollerin’.

While there were a ton of young girls there (singing very loudly to her songs and calling out “You’re so pretty!” between songs), the audience was surprisingly age-diverse. Her opening act, Dylan LeBlanc, was excellent as well, though the feel of his set was very different from Lissie’s performance, of course. He’s worth checking out and I’ve embedded a video here for you:

Moll and I were taking a picture of ourselves on my cell phone when a woman walked by and offered to take our picture, breathlessly telling us afterward that she’d flown from New York, where she’d just seen Lissie and that Lissie was about to blow up in popularity. The woman predicted that Lissie will be performing at the Arena next time she’s in New Orleans. While she took our picture, a strange guy we didn’t know wandered by and posed behind us a few times. So almost all of the pictures that the woman took of us include this guy and us laughing. I’ll include one below and leave you with my wishlist for Lissie’s next New Orleans appearance, whether it’s at the Arena or not:

1. Lissie, come back to New Orleans

2. Perform “Pursuit of Happiness” with Kid Cudi (they could tour together, why not?!)

3. Support a new awesome cd.

Yeah, we don't know that guy, but he did tell us to tag him on Facebook. 🙂

 

P.S. I’ve started writing for NOLAFemmes and my second post for them was a write up of the show.

Listen to this – Lissie and Grace Potter

Tuesday at the House of Blues Parish Room brought singer Lissie to New Orleans. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time and have written about her on my own blog and for the So You Think You Can Dance fan site PureSYTYCD. So I was stoked when I saw that she was playing the House of Blues. I suspected from her YouTube videos that Lissie is an amazing live performer and I was not wrong.

In between songs, she told many little stories and cited Metallica, Led Zepplin and Janis Joplin as influences. Like Janis Joplin, she has a voice that sounds not just husky, but eternally on the edge of hoarse. She can do a stellar bluegrass, then turn around and sing what could be a pop hit on the radio, but through it all is a solid rock core. She’s a very pretty girl (several female audience members kept calling out, “You’re so pretty!”), but performs with an abandon and lack of concern for her appearance that is refreshing.

If she’s ever back in New Orleans, you should definitely check her out. In the meantime, read this excellent Gambit write-up and th audience-made video of Lissie’s encore performance of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” from Tuesday’s show that I found. I’ll also embed my favorite of her songs, “When I’m Alone.” While you’re looking, check out her cover performances of Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” and Lionel Richie’s “Hello.”

Planning ahead, if you haven’t heard of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals yet, start checking them out now. They’re phenomenal and will be at House of Blues February 20th.

In good company for charity

There are two great charity events coming up that everybody should know about.

First, my friend Maurice started an event called Legalpalooza, a music event to raise funds for legal aid for women and children who can’t afford it. The second annual Legalpalooza is at the House of Blues this Thursday, the 22nd at 6 p.m.

Legalpalooza July 22, 2010-1

Second, a film I worked on, LA 308, is having a premiere screening at the Mall of Louisiana Rave (Baton Rouge) August 5th at 7 p.m. to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana and its relief efforts for victims of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. Tickets can be purchased online for $15.00 each at ravemotionpictures.com.

Fess Up Friday (First)

So I decided I just couldn’t NOT post at all this month. I’m going through blog withdrawal and that’s a bad thing for me to focus on instead of the book. Therefore, I will do a Fess Up Friday edition through the month and let you know where I’m at with the book and with my promise to give things up in order to focus.

I’ve been doing very badly with the less t.v. and socializing, first off. As you will see below when I post pics from Bustout Burlesque last night (I’m updating on Saturday, though this post will be dated Friday). And I watched the season finale of Dollhouse, am completely wrapped up in that (Mr. Whedon, I understand everything and I’m STILL confused. Can’t wait for that DVD with the “Epitaph One” episode). Though, it will probably help that most shows are going to be on hiatus soon. And willpower, there is always that…

So for the first two days of the month, my intense period of work, I was insanely sick. A stomach virus or food poisoning, that was never officially determined. So, I didn’t get much writing done and that was pretty disappointing cause I’d been all geared up to attack. It lingered, even after I felt much better, for quite a few days.

However, I’m doing very well with the book. Have been writing the new scenes I needed, getting a handle on the new edits and I made a major breakthrough with a specific major character who’s been bugging me for a few years.

Also, I came up with a great answer for the, “So how close to finished are you?” question. Wanna hear it? Okay. Ahem. Ahem. “The writing process is not a linear one, so it’s difficult to say how close to the end I am.” I’m working every day and I still feel like I’m closer to done than I allow myself to believe on a day-to-day level. We’ll see what my answer is next Friday, if it will be a more linear-minded one.

And now your pictures. Bustout Burlesque is a regular show that will next be at House of Blues July 10th (though I didn’t see it on the calendar yet when I just looked). I definitely recommend going, it’s good old fashioned vaudeville. And yes, nudity. But also jokes and magic. And no matter your take on girls getting nekkid, it’s really hard not to appreciate their personalities and athleticism. I was lucky enough to sit practically on the stage at a reserved table and can I just say (i.e. rub it in) that backstage at House of Blues is pretty fun and interesting. So you see why I gave up working for the night to go. Forgiven? I forgive myself.

I’m pictured with Foxy Flambeaux and Praline DuPree in one picture, then with Athena.

Somehow, I missed my photo op with Kitty Twist, who also performed last night.

Last is the featured performer, Sugar from last season’s Survivor with Foxy and Praline. Enjoy.

Now, back to work.