Who doesn’t love The Stones? You've got Mick, prancing around like a crazy rooster and doing his thing, which gets annoying, but you forgive him because he co-wrote so many freaking great songs. You had Brian Jones – nutty, Mohair hipster who was rad, but a little too preened up for my tastes, but he made some valid contributions until he crapped out creatively and psychologically at the end of the 60s. Bummer. Lesson learned, dude. Note to self: don't do all the drugs, then go swimming. Charlie Watts = total class act. Period. Thumping it. Bill Wyman was like a freaky pokerfaced mannequin, playing those nutty bass lines that actually worked. Then you’ve got Keith Richards – a total mess, but the living embodiment of rock & roll at its most creative. Great rock & roll – and great art for that matter – isn’t made by bank tellers (unless they are TS Eliot - he’s the exception to the rule); they’re made by confused, sloppy nut jobs who have a lot of problems, occassionally do a lot of drugs, write a lot of riffs, find a song to put them in and then live to play them regardless of whether or not anyone is listening.
The amount of great Stones tunes out there is baffling – even their disco stuff in the 70s in great. What current band can bust moves like that? They haven’t released a great album since 1981’s Tattoo You, but who cares? They’re still great. The legend is already set in stone. If there’s one lesson to be gleaned from the Stones, it’s the necessity of writing exceptional songs. It’s not about the haircut. It ain’t about the jeans. It’s not about the distortion or the volume or how much it annoys parents. It’s about writing timeless songs. If you can do that, you don’t worry so much about the rest.
Musician Kevin Sekhani hosts a Rolling Stones Hoot Night at the Blue Moon Saloon on March 31. Expect every killer Stones song to be played in some form by hoot night participants like Dickey Landry, The Brian Marshall Band, Craig Futch, Kelly Keeling, Freetown Hounds, Ken Veron, Primo, Diego Martin- Perez & 80 Proof, Jake Stephens & Back Bone Stew, Julian Primeaux & band, Trouble With Lefty, Bret Vidrine and the host Kevin Sekani.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Subscribe to this comment's feed