According to reports, Alex Chilton was located and is now out of New Orleans. The Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper quotes studio owner/musician Ron Easley as confirming this. Chilton , 54, apparently weathered the storm in his home near the French Quarter which only had flooded up to his porch, he had supplies, but told Easley he was afraid of roving gangs.
No need to go over the basics, but Chilton is the former singer for both the Boxtops & Big Star. He has produced records for The Cramps & The Replacements and continues to tour and record, preferring to pepper sets with old soul tunes like this take on Brenton Woods biggest hit "Oogum Boogum"
Alex Chilton - Oogum Boogum
bonus track - Paul Westerberg - Alex Chilton (live in Louisville KY 5/17/04)
THE NEW ORLEANS MUSICIANS HURRICANE RELIEF FUND : This fund is established by Preservation Hall to provide musicians with financial support during this tragic time. 100% of money raised through this fund will go directly to helping New Orleans musicians. http://www.preservationhall.com/2.0/donate.php
With New Orleans now having turned into a prime Zombie movie scenario, today's lead story in the Times Picayune continues the theme. "Officials have yet to formulate a plan for recovering the dead." » Full Story in Times Picayune
Mayor Nagin, who estimates at least 10,000 dead in the tepid murky bowl that once was New Orleans was interviewed on WWL radio and blamed addictions to drugs in the community for the actions of horrific mobs that hounded their fellow citizens and surrounded hospitals, looted & threatened emergency workers at the peak of the crisis.
Turbonegro - All My Friends Are Dead
track from their new album Party Animals
Amid the tragedy, about two dozen people gathered on Labor Day weekend in the French Quarter for the Decadence Parade, an annual gay celebration. Matt Menold, 23, a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung over his back, said: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."
Meanwhile Aaron Broussard, president of New Orlean's neighborhood Jefferson Parish, dropped his head and cried this weekend on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home, and every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, `And yeah, Momma, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday' - and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday night," Broussard said.
Two New Orlean's officers are known to have taken their own lives, including the department spokesman, Paul Accardo, who died Saturday, according to W.J. Riley, police superintendent. Both shot themselves in the head, Riley said.In New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street - a business area with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plastic.
By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around the body, holding down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and the words, "Here lies Vera. God help us."
This disaster will surely see some bureaucratic shifts, as heads roll, but the process began awhile back.
The head of the Army Corps of Engineers was forced to resign in 2002
because members of the Bush administration decided he had not vigorously
defended their proposed budget cuts for key flood control and dredging
projects... Head over to remote post & see the article from Times-Picayune 7 March 2002
http://rempost.blogspot.com
As nasty flood waters still cover about 60 percent of the city, this song seems relevant.
Jay Johnson - New Orleans 1927
a 1990 recording of Randy Newman's 1974 composistion by a Dallas singer who won the best vocalist kudo at the 2005 Texas Music Awards. Randy Newman, himself has joined the scheduled performers for Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast, the live one-hour special/fundraiser airing 8 p.m. Friday on the six major broadcast networks.
What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain
Well it rained real hard for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear on down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
CHORUS
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame - what the river has done
To this poor crackers land.
There are signs that "big media" was awakened by Katrina, and even jolted out of it's complacency, from Kanye's outburts to frustration with the government's response leading CNN's Anderson Cooper to snap at a Louisiana senator. The now-homeless New Orleans Times-Picayune has now published an open letter: "We're angry, Mr. President." Read about it via the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214516.stm
Tommorrow we'll offer some more tunes, but first the audio of some of Barbara Bush's comments on how for "already underprivileged" survivors "this is working very well for them" with their free ride & cot at The Astrodome ...
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