Mike Darby on Checkpoint’s, hookers, and $20 glasses of water

[Photo by Reya Hart]

MD: I played every Wednesday night at Checkpoint’s for five years [in the ’90s]. It was crazy. That was when Checkpoint’s was kickin’. Best gig in town. That was with Irene and the Mikes. We’d play until daybreak. We’d play a couple hours then go on break for maybe an hour, two hours, go out, party, get high, then come back and play. No set schedule.

LJD: But you said Frenchmen in general wasn’t really like that, was it?

MD: That was just Checkpoint’s, and that was just Irene and the Mike’s. Frenchmen really never kicked that much. There were mostly longshoremen and river workers that hung out there. A lot of hookers, a lot of dope. No tourists. They were all on Bourbon.

Café Brasil was pretty wild though. It was a coffeehouse for a long while, then Adé [Salgado] got his liquor license. They started doing African music, which was great because they didn’t have a lot of that around. That probably started up in the ’80s. And there was the Dream Palace, which was really cool but would only open every once in awhile.

LJD: What were you saying before about the $20 glasses of water?

MD: You’d go and put 20 dollars on the bar and say, “I want a glass of water,” and then they’d take one cup and put a napkin in it with a bag of coke, and put the other cup on top of it. Buying coke over the bar. Crazy.

LJD: Which bars?

MD: All over. That was more Decatur than Frenchmen though. Some places on Frenchmen.

LJD: That will have to be the next project. Too bad Dave Ferrato already took “Later, On Decatur.”