It was Saturday, August 31, 1996, Labor Day weekend. The Clintons were doing dirty things in the White House, and America was enjoying boom-times. My surf-instro band, The Derangers, had just begun a three band, 23 city van tour to support “Tube: Atlantic Surf Essentials”, which had been released in May on Boston’s CherryDisc label. We had already had a couple raging record-release gigs over the summer. One was at The Rat in May, one at the Wellfleet Beachcomber in July –that one was a total rave—and the tour kick-off show downstairs at The Middle East. That was the one where the Diva Belly Dancer of them all, Sahar, performed on stage with us. Unforgettable. Anyway, the three bands, Derangers, Speed Devils and Bald Guys, each with a van, had opened the tour on Friday night in Louisville. It was poorly attended, and pretty weird in its own right. We were up until four in the morning. Then, we had to get up early to set-out on the long drive to NOLA, which as it turned out looked a LOT closer on the map than it was in reality. We left at about seven am. It took us all freakin’ day, drivin’ and drivin’, literally through bayou country. Fourteen hours later, we arrived at the infamous Mermaid Lounge, the diviest, nitty-grittiest, greatest little juke-joint you’d ever want to play. Well, we didn’t actually arrive like you’d imagine. This place was hidden like The Bridge to Terabithia. It was under a highway overpass in this run-down old warehouse district, and you literally had to drive the wrong way on a one-way street to get to it. I’m serious. All roads seemed to lead AWAY from The Mermaid. So after navigating the underworld-like maze of streets, in the dark, in a bad part of town, we found the dumpy old shack. Our contracts with the clubs always had us arriving between like, five pm and seven to load-in, do sound-check, etc. So seeing as it was now nine, and only our van had found the joint, I was in a panic that we were very very late.
I should have known better. This was N’awlin’s honey! We pulled up and I walked up to the shuttered door. No one there yet. Just a few minutes later, the bartender arrives and unlocks the club. He tells me the sound guy will be there between ten and eleven. “What time do we play?” I ask. “First band at midnight,” he replies. Midnight? Wow. OK, well that’s a load off. Plenty of time, but where are the others?
Soon enough the Speed Devils showed up, but with bad news. Bald Guys van had broken down and was stranded in a very very bad part of The Big Easy. I won’t sidetrack the story with all the details, but I went to their aid, and while we waited under another highway overpass for Triple A, a very nice old black man by the name of Charlie (not his real name) stood with us, to help keep the wolves at bay, so to speak. He was a character: Deck of Kools in the shirt pocket, gold tooth, and kept saying stuff like, “These kids nowadays are real scary. They’ll kill you for your sneakers.” Good thing he was there.
So we got the BG van started and back to the club we went. The “stage” wasn’t. We were to play in a corner of the room under a single hanging red light bulb. Yeah. OK. The “sound guy” set up, um, one mic? Maybe two? I don’t remember who played first but we were to go in second, at one am. In the meantime, we were responsible to collect our own door, of which we got 100%. So with a metal cigar-box, Bern set out to do the door, and we’d all take turns. The cover was five bucks. I’m sure we also found another spit of real-estate to set up the merch table, because really, that was the only thing that put gas in the vans and kept us truckin’ from gig to gig.
It was after eleven, and things were quiet. Too quiet. Deathly quiet! There wasn’t a soul in the joint except for the bands the bartender, a waitress, and the so-called “sound guy”, who had finished “setting up” in about eight minutes. He wasn’t very friendly. In fact, they all had this world-weary, we’ve done this way too many times before sort of attitude. You could say they were zombie-like in their enthusiasm.
Speaking of zombies, right at the stroke of midnight, the strangest thing happened: Bern and I were standing outside the shack, smoking and bemoaning the zero attendance, when from every direction; vampire-like silhouettes came converging our way. The streets between the old warehouses were slick with New Orleans mist (indeed the air itself was tropically soupy), and therefore had a silvery sheen. The people walking on them were jet-black shadows, moving slowly towards the club. Totally surreal. I was reminded of the novels of Ann Rice, whose house was in the nearby Garden District.
Within a couple of minutes, as if a switch had been flipped, the place was full. Bizarre. I mean, I knew The Big Easy was a late-night town, but this was ridiculous. I don’t think these ghouls even rose from their beds before 11:45pm. Needless to say, we were relieved and re-energized. We’d make it to the next town (Austin) after-all.
One of the many odd-ball things about The Mermaid was that it had an outdoor part to it, sort of a little beer garden with tables and a string of carnival lights hung across it like a laundry wire. The thing was, you could sit out there WITHOUT paying cover and listen to the music, which was plenty loud out there. This didn’t sit too well with me, but then I learned that in order to come inside and get a beer from the bar (there was no wait-service out there), well, you then DID have to pay cover. So you could be out there for free, but with no alcohol. This made for some very contentious moments during the night. “C’mon dude, just let me in to get a beer. C’mon man! I ain’t payin’ the cover”. I handled these bums with an absolutely zero-tolerance policy. You pay the cover or you don’t get in and go to the bar, period; no exceptions. This pissed a couple kids off. But then we found out that not only was there literally a hole in the wall where you could sneak in, but some people on the inside were letting the outsiders in through a side-door, or at least bringing them drinks. I even went out there at one point, saw that most had beers, and attempted to collect. Fuckers! I still get mad when I think about that. They obviously didn’t have the first clue about the hardships of the touring indie band. This shit ain’t free, slacker!
On the upside, our set itself was maybe my favorite ever. I wish it had been recorded. We played flawlessly, and I got that adrenaline rush that feels like a cool wind blowing through my hair. When I feel that, things are perfect. And to give perspective, I’ve only had the “coolerator wind” feeling maybe four times total over 20 years. The other notable time was when we played the BCN Rock and Roll Rumble (another story for another day). This night in NOLA, we took it up to the next level. Because we were right there on the floor with the audience, and it was packed, we were literally surrounded by people who were right up in our faces. People were shot-gunning weed right in to my snout. Really! Turning the joint around in their mouths and jet-streaming the smoke straight in to my nostrils! Sweet! Only in NOLA! (Well, actually, that happened to us in Santa Fe too, much later in the tour). There was a guy standing in front of me that was so close he kept obliviously stepping on my foot-pedals, randomly changing my guitar-tone. But it was all good. Real good.
Real New Orleans.
And really, really weird…
Drew enjoying water o' the Mermaid, 1996
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