2019
MP: I started going to Frenchmen Street in 1998. I’d moved here to go to college and my roommate was like, “You’ve gotta go see Iris Mae Tango and Have Soul Will Travel.”
[To set the scene, by the way, it’s a lovely sunny morning somewhere in 2019 and Marc and I have bumped into eachother in the darkness of The Abbey. He is on a quest to find his phone from the night before, and I’ve gotten an early start on my daydrinking.]
MP: And … who else was playing? Shit, the Flavor Kings, and there was a band called Cosmic Ark, and one called New World Funk Ensemble with Sam Price in it; killer band. That was the Frenchmen scene—there was a lot of funk, but it was very eclectic. All these bands that don’t exist anymore …
I’d go to Café Brasil a lot. The first time I played on Frenchmen Street was Café Brasil for Halloween. There were people walking around the street, but it wasn’t packed like you see today. I’d say—we’ll be generous, let’s say, maybe 1000 people, the whole two blocks.
That’s not that many. There were people spitting fire outside, and I remember looking around and thinking, “Wow, this is the coolest intersection ever.” Because there were like 80 people sitting outside.
Nowadays, it’s just solid bodies. It’s not even comparable, you know? I love what I remember it being, but it’s gotten so … I mean, man. Hand grenades, and… chicken? Pizza? Come on. It’s all over.
[Ugh.]
Adé, who owned Café Brasil, is a great guy. He supported our band from day one. It was totally kooky playing there sometimes, though—for instance, he hired six bands to play that Halloween night and didn’t tell us what order to play in. We all showed up at the same time to Café Brasil—six bands!—and we’re like, “Okay, what’s the order?”
Well, Adé said—deliberately said to us—”You guys decide. It’s up to you.” And then he disappeared.
So we had to figure out between us who was going to play in what order. Naturally, every band wants to play the best slot, so how is that up to us? It was like Lord of the Flies.
We all ended up picking our slots eventually and doing our thing, but for a minute there I thought we were going to kill each other.
[At this point, I order a margarita and the transcript degrades into nonsense. Marc eventually found his phone at a different bar, and everyone lived happily ever after. THE END.]
