Tag Archives: William P. Tandy

SOUNDTRACK: 12 Days on the Road in the U.K.

Davida and I first traveled together in January 2000, when we took a road trip around the United Kingdom, which took us from London to Brighton; Hastings to Dover; Whitby to Edinburgh; and Glasgow to Cardiff. We stayed with friends and friends of friends, sleeping in guest rooms, a cold-water squat without any heat, and at least one night in the car upon returning to England on the last boat from Calais.

A mix-tape I had prepared for the trip accompanied our odyssey, which neither of us could rightly afford, although somehow we did. At the time I would never have guessed that it would be the start of a tradition of compiling a soundtrack for every major joint trip we have taken since. Lux Interior once said that he considered each Cramps album a postcard, of sorts, from a particular time and place. And while our playlists are now digital and capable of including far more music than was ever previously possible, many of them, for us, have likewise become postcards that by association evoke the nuance and feeling of an especially magical moment or place.

This is one of them…

The BellRays – “Good Behavior”

Demolition Doll Rods – “Hey You”

The Neanderthal Spongecake – “This Thing”

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts – “Fetish”

The BellRays – “King of the World”

Alien Sex Fiend – “My Brain is the Cupboard”

Demolition Doll Rods – “Lil Darlin”

The Velvet Underground – “Run Run Run”

The Gories – “Feral”

Guitar Wolf – “Refrigerator Zero”

Iggy Pop – “Nightclubbing”

The BellRays – “Black Honey”

The Stooges – “Gimme Danger”

The Velvet Underground – “White Light/White Heat”

Alien Sex Fiend – “I Think I”

Guitar Wolf – “Cosmic Space Girl”

The BellRays – “Get on Thru”

 

Napoleon House

Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana
Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana

Following their final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte on the plains of Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815, the British sent the former French Emperor into permanent exile on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena. But even a remotely imprisoned Napoleon remained the best bet going for many with a bone to pick with the Brits (and there were many).

Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana
Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana

Among these was one Nicholas Girod, a former New Orleans mayor whose cooperation with Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 had as much to do with his hatred of the British as any pro-American sentiment. In 1821, Girod went so far as to offer his house at 500 Chartres Street in the city’s French Quarter as a residence for Napoleon pending the success of an alleged plot to break the exiled emperor off the rock and bring him back to New Orleans.  However, Bonaparte died before any such effort could take place.

Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana
Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana

But his would-be association with the house at the corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets lived on; nearly a century later, in 1914, the Impastato family opened the Napoleon House Bar and Café in Girod’s former home. Today, Napoleon House remains a throwback to a twice-bygone era, where the white bust of the former French ruler that stands behind the bar holds court over the locals and tourists alike who are drawn to its decayed old-world ambiance.

Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana
Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana

The café serves Euro-Creole-inspired cuisine such as muffuletta, boudin, and a variety of salads. But the real draw, for me, is the bar’s house drink, the Pimm’s Cup. The concoction’s base ingredient is a gin-based, herb-infused liqueur that can be mixed with anything from lemonade and club soda to ginger ale or champagne, and typically served in a Collins glass garnished with a cucumber slice. It’s a most refreshing libation in the paint-warping heat and humidity of a New Orleans summer; to be sure, meted out, one might drink it all night long to maintain a pleasant buzz without ever feeling any adverse effect.

Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana
Napoleon House, New Orleans, Louisiana

If you’ve never had a Pimm’s Cup, Napoleon House is a great place to acquaint yourself. Indeed, over the years, it has become ritual for me, upon arriving in New Orleans, to drop my bags wherever I may be staying and head straight for Napoleon House to plot my next move over a Pimm’s (or three) within the peeling walls that once might have housed the man who first sold the city to America.

Napoleon House Bar and Café
Address: 500 Chartres Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Phone: (504) 524-9752
Email: info@napoleonhouse.com
Website: http://napoleonhouse.com/

Hours: Monday: 11:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday – Thursday: 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Friday – Saturday: 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Sunday: Closed
Bar Hours: Bar open till.

 

SOUNDTRACK: Southern Louisiana

The best music will evoke the most cinematic qualities from any landscape. The musical gumbo of southern Louisiana is infused with a variety of cultures, including French, Spanish, English, and Afro-Caribbean, to name just a few. Rock and roll, jazz, zydeco, New Orleans rhythm and blues – each speaks to the syncopated rhythm of life in a particular time and place.

And so it was that, still haunted by the first season of the HBO series TRUE DETECTIVE, we fled the Crescent City for the swamplands of Iberia Parish, the brassy strut of urban jazz soon yielding to dusty folk rhythms and the lonesome twang of a blues guitar…

The New Orleans Bingo! Show – “New Orleans”

 

Huey “Piano” Smith & His Clowns – “Little Chickee Wah Wah”

 

Ernie K-Doe – “T’aint It the Truth”

 

Earl King – “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights”

 

Ike & Tina Turner – “Too Many Tears in My Eyes”

 

The Handsome Family – “Far From Any Road”

 

Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks – “Southern Love”

 

Brian Tyler – “The King’s Highway” (BUBBA HO-TEP soundtrack)

 

Trailer Bride – “Porch Song”

 

Luna – “Bonnie & Clyde” (Serge Gainsbourg cover)

 

John Lee Hooker – “Unfriendly Woman”

 

Jo-El Sonnier – “Evangeline Special”

 

Boozoo Chavis – “Paper in My Shoe”

 

James McMurtry – “Hurricane Party”

 

Ray Wylie Hubbard – “Snake Farm”

 

The Rock*A*Teens – “Never Really Had It”

 

Kris Kristofferson – “Casey’s Last Ride”

 

Dr. C.J. Johnson – “You Better Run to the City of Refuge”

 

Gary U.S. Bonds – “New Orleans”

 

 

The Abita Mystery House

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

If, in the world of outsider art, Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) represents the hip urban neighborhood  where Chihuahuas sip their own six-dollar lattes, Louisiana’s Abita Mystery House is the somewhat sketchy part of town that still draws local creative-types for its cheap rents and lack of pretense.

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

Don’t get me wrong – I love AVAM; it’s a truly unique space in the art museum world that celebrates untrained artists whose work is generally born of very personal and singular obsessions, and a must-see for anyone visiting Baltimore.

But I can’t help saying it: in presentation and form, the Abita Mystery House is better than AVAM.

Abita Mystery House - click for larger image
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

Situated in the hamlet of Abita Springs, a few miles north of Lake Pontchartrain and about a 45-minute ride from New Orleans, the Mystery House is a rough-hewn, meandering compound of buildings that include a century-old Creole cottage and vintage filling station, all packed with (and covered in) the work of local artist John Preble, utilizing recycled ephemera and cultural detritus drawn from just about every facet of modern existence. Road signs. Circuit

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

boards. An Airstream trailer. Here, visitors will also find the likes of a Feejee Mermaid; a two-player piano; a 32-foot alligator; a crashed flying saucer; and sundry animated miniature scenes, including one that depicts a New Orleans jazz funeral. (TIP: Bring quarters for the fortune-telling and souvenir-token machines.)

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

Yet, for all of this strangeness, there is certain sincerity evident in everything on display; nothing feels like it’s trying too hard – not too shiny, not too “forced”. Even Preble himself is not the overtly misanthropic and slightly deranged hermit one might expect to find behind the curtain, but rather a genuine, quite affable fellow as quick to strike up friendly conversation with visitors as hand them a leech (really).

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

And the gift shop is no less engrossing than the museum itself, stocked with everything from very cool screen-printed AMH t-shirts to reasonably priced matted prints of Preble’s incredibly detailed woodcuts depicting various animals (including a nutria); select quotes (“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” – Charles Dickens); and blues legends like Slim Harpo and Bessie Smith.

Abita Mystery House
Abita Mystery House – click for larger image

Indeed, the Abita Mystery House is a lens through which visitors may vicariously view the world as seen by a most unique and talented artist, exemplifying wonderfully bizarre Americana in the tradition of such obsession-built roadside attractions as Rock City and Coral Castle. Like those places, AMH offers visitors an experience that will long outlive any chain restaurant meal or mass-produced trinket.

 

Abita Mystery House / UCM Museum
Address: 22275 Hwy 36, Abita Springs, LA 70420
Phone: 985-892-2624
Hours:  10 a.m. – 5 p.m. 7 days a week
Admission: $3
Website: http://ucmmuseum.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Abita-Mystery-House/181589857694

"Have your next wedding here"
“Have your next wedding here”