“… Uncle Lionel’s got the mic, holding onto his walking stick, and of course he’s singing gospel spirituals while raising his walking stick up between his leg like a boner, because he’s Uncle Lionel, because everything’s got to be dirty-sacred.”
-Christeen “Big Red” Aebi (writer, erstwhile musician)
BR: … When I started to hang out on Frenchmen Street, it was already totally late in the game. I didn’t get here till ’07 and I didn’t even hang out there till like 2011, when I started working there.
GUSTAV
BR: By 2012, I had been living in Bywater for a couple years, and Gustav hit. We were in a blackout for five days and everybody was suffocating from the heat, bored, and stir crazy. Then I got the word, pre-Facebook for me, that Doug Egger, the owner of The Spotted Cat, had brought in a generator, and the New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings were indeed playing that Friday night down at The Spotted Cat. I was like, “Hell yeah.”
Everybody was in the same boat, so I ride my bike through the blackout down to Frenchmen Street. I’m in the dark passing people on porches I can’t even see. They’re like, “Baby girl, you need some barbecue? You need a beer? You want a hamwich?” the whole way down.
I get to the Spotted Cat, one of the only two places lit up. Praline Connection also had their lights on; they had an independent generator. Doug had brought the generator to power the Spotted Cat, but all they could run was one beer cooler and the lights on the stage, and the P.A., I guess. The bathrooms were in the dark with hurricane lanterns. You went in there to pee and you realize how gross hot leftover pee smells.
A bunch of folks went and got all the cocktail tables and high bar stools out of Negril and set them up all on the street outside the Spotted Cat. The Cottonmouth Kings played, and we have basically an outside blackout cocktail hour. The police, of course, cruised up and down but they were too busy to bug us about smoking pot or anything.
PYRO’S SECOND-LINE
The first crews I met on Frenchmen Street are mostly gone now or don’t work in the bars they used to work at, but there was this young man, Lawrence, a beer back for Cafe Negril, and he died suddenly from complications of sickle-cell anemia. He was a young black man from the 7th Ward. Everybody was devastated.
I did not know when he passed that his nickname was Pyro. We had one of the first impromptu second-lines I ever went on. It started outside Negril and we went all the way down Frenchmen to the 7th Ward, where his family were beside themselves, standing on their porch with pictures of young Lawrence as people here do. I was honoring a tradition I wasn’t really educated in at the time, but his family was so moved by the second-line. We had just put together an ad hoc thing. Mario Abney was one of the musicians that led it.
After that happened, we went back to Negril. We were rolling blunts, smoking weed, doing shots in his memory. (I don’t even think he was of age.) We’re in the back alley of Negril. Again, I didn’t know that his nickname was Pyro, and we’re toasting and toasting. Then we come back in and somebody goes out and ducks back in from the alley, starts yelling,”FIRE!” …We go back into the alley behind Negril and the entire wooden fence is in flames.
Magically, it did not touch either building on either side. It was just this spontaneous-combustion thing that we actually got under control, and just the top of the fence was scorched. It was super weird, and as far as I’m concerned, that was just his spirit going up over there, announcing himself.
THE HOLINESS OF FRENCHMEN STREET
Frenchmen Street is super, super special and holy to me. I’m a latecomer, but I’m super grateful to have landed here. A whole lotta people I care about have found me again there, and just random fucking shit.
New Orleans to me acts like a magnifying glass, focusing everything to a pinpoint. You can’t escape anything you’ve ever done or been about in your whole life in New Orleans. I thought I was coming here to be anonymous, but that’s not how it works.
Basically the Spotted Cat was my living room for a number of years. This ol’ punk-rock chick never thought I’d be sitting around getting schooled in jazz by some of the masters of the genre. Now it’s overrun by tourists who don’t even care about music. They’re there because their phones told them to go, and that sucks.
UNCLE LIONEL’S SECOND-LINE
Uncle Lionel Batiste, the patriarch of Treme Brass Band, who passed in 2012, was one of my very first friends on Frenchmen Street. I have a picture of us together in the doorway of the Spotted Cat on Mardi Gras Day 2012, the first Mardi Gras I didn’t have to work and got to go out and play.
Uncle Lionel passed at Christopher Inn, on Royal and Frenchman, that summer. I was at work at the Marigny Brasserie that day. I get off my shift, and of course the first impromptu second-line is about to happen. People are gathering. Everybody’s waiting for Kenneth Terry before we proceed.
There’s a line from an old R&B song: “Don’t roll those bloodshot eyes at me because they look like two cherries in a bowl of buttermilk.” Every time I see Kenneth Terry, including last Monday at Tuba Fest Square, that’s exactly what he looks like, haha.
Everybody’s waiting for him and then somebody says, “He’s coming down from Decatur.” Me and Danny, a barback at the Spotted Cat, walk down Frenchmen to try and find him. Then we see him. He’s just staggering, wasted at this point. We’re like, “Kenneth, everybody’s gathering up outside Christopher Inn. We’re waiting on the second-line for Uncle Lionel.” He’s like, “All right. Bring me there.” Throws an arm around each one of our shoulders. We basically carry him down there. About halfway down Frenchmen Street, Kenneth Terry looks at back and forth at each of us, me and Danny, and goes, “I see white people.” Hilarious.
We got him there. We did the second line that evening, and for days and days ensuing, but Uncle Lionel seriously fucked with everybody when he passed. The day that his burial was supposed to happen, he sent torrential rains, which we’re experiencing all the time now. The day he was supposed to be sent home, his funeral was held at Mahalia Jackson Theater. I get on the bus from the Upper 9 all the way down to Rampart. I get off the bus opposite Congo Square. I land in water up to my knees. It was raining so hard. They’re like, “We’re canceling the jazz-funeral procession because we can’t get to the cemetery. It’s underwater. The carriage house with the horse-drawn hearse is underwater, so we’re gonna have to send Uncle Lionel home later.” It was like he did not want to be put to rest.
The whole gang there was like, “Fuck that.” Everybody’s like, “We’re going to do it anyway.” The brass band and everything but the hearse. Everybody’s already knee-deep in water in Tremé, in Armstrong Park. We blow up. We start rambling around. (I only recently broke the $12 umbrella I bought from Umbrella Man.)
We go from Mahalia Jackson through Tremé up to Frenchmen Street coming up Kerlerec to go back onto Royal to come up to Christopher Inn, where Uncle Lionel had lived. The rain is coming so fucking heavy again now, and by the time we get up there and we’re about to meet Royal again, just below Marigny Brasserie, it’s like up past our knees. Everybody on the second line that’s holding umbrellas throws them down and just starts rolling in the water. The rain is so percussive, and Uncle Lionel was the bass drummer of a Treme Brass Band, and as we approach Christopher Inn, the rain is hammering out a distinct beat. I was like, “Okay, Unc. We hear you. We hear you. We hear you, and we hear you.”
MORE ON UNC
Me and Uncle Lionel became friends on Frenchmen Street because he was living at Christopher Inn. Probably one of the greatest moments of my life—and I’m lucky enough to have had many—was one night when the New Orleans Jazz Vipers were playing. When Uncle Lionel was alive, he would end all of his nights at the Spotted Cat because he lived right around the corner. And he was always, ALWAYS, dressed to the nines. Dapper as fuck.
This one night, I went in there and it was a typical night: It was like, “Teedy,” “Big Red,” whatever. We none of us knew each other really well but everybody just recognizes who you throw down with if you’re a regular.
Anyway, Uncle Lionel showed up, as usual. Unc was in the front of the stage at the Spotted Cat with his walking stick like he always was, and the Jazz Vipers bust out into a traditional gospel medley New Orleans style, meaning “Down By the Riverside,” “I’ll Fly Away,” all that shit. I’m drunk standing over by the bleachers so I start singing along, as we do here. Uncle Lionel’s got the mic, holding onto his walking stick, and of course he’s singing gospel spirituals while raising his walking stick up between his leg like a boner, because he’s Uncle Lionel-because everything’s got to be dirty-sacred.
I started shouting out from the bleachers and Uncle Lionel shuffled over to me with the mic and just stuck it in my face. Basically, him and me proceeded to throw down for the entire gospel medley … I was so overcome I fell to my knees and bowed down before Uncle Lionel in praise …but I slammed myself down and I was like, “Oh shit, the floor is concrete.” And I’m no spring chicken myself, so I required an assist to get up offa that thang!
***
Frenchmen Street was a magical place. I’m super depressed that just twits and assholes have taken it over. I’m really grateful that you’re doing this documentation because I think it’s vital.
