Interview By Jason Songe

Photo by Zack Smith

I’m intrigued by the Bad Off because they seem like an anachronism, especially in New Orleans: a hard rock band of sex, glitter and sleek clothes who feature a lead singer that could’ve been the speed freak love child of Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler, plus a guitarist who not only knows every Jimmy Page riff but also writes solos like him. Of course, there’s more to them than that, or else I wouldn’t be writing this. Singer and leader Erik Corriveaux has the best and most expressive rock voice this side of James Hall, and the songs are head-bangingly catchy, hooky but also sensual, mystical, and full of wonder. The band’s an efficient live machine, a sculpture of razor sharp bends and breaks.

That’s also a good way to describe Lady Day, their first full-length record, which blasts into overdrive with opener “Bombdrop” and doesn’t let up through the next lean string of eight songs. Three or four years ago, the Bad Off was known more for their Led Zeppelin tribute than their originals, but with Lady Day they arrive with a soulful, stunning, and filler-less debut that energizes thanks to the positive lyrics (imagine a motivated hunter of experience).

Corriveaux started tracking Jody Smith’s drums at his Gentilly home the week before August 29, 2005 and didn’t pick up the record again until April of 2006, at which point Smith was gone permanently to New York City (and since replaced by former Rock City Morgue drummer Keith Hajjar). Bassist Dan Lauricella tracked his parts at Piety Sreet Studio with engineer Wesley Fontenot and was, as Corriveaux put it during our interview, “up Jody’s ass” with his playing, which sounded better then than it does written out. If you listen close to the bass guitar, you’ll notice Lauricella is right on top of Jody’s kick drum, which creates an awesome airtight power throughout the album. Next up was the rhythm and lead guitar of Brian Berthiaume, which, along with the vocals, was recorded at Misha Kachkachishvili’s Axis Studios in Metairie.

Corriveaux was more than gracious through the interview process. First, I broke my recorder at Pravda, so we went to his house and recorded the interview on ProTools. He gave me a CD, which didn’t work, so he gave me his iPod with the interview on it. After I frantically called him, believing I’d broken his iPod, he said, “Did you push the button hard enough?” Sure enough, I hadn’t.

ANTIGRAVITY: Talk about the difficulty of singing lyrics that come from a place you’re no longer at.

Erik Corriveaux: First, I can say that I don’t have much difficulty with that. Although a new set of emotions might be correlated to the topic of a song, at that point, as a songwriter and a performer, you have to take on the role of telling a story.

AG: Take on that character even though that character is in the past?

EC: Yeah. Just because one is not in love anymore doesn’t mean that they can’t sing about love. I am one who gives a lot to the song because it came from a place (of feeling). It’s the songwriter’s responsibility to express that character. There are certain songs that definitely have different emphasis on them. (more…)

Since it’s anniversary month here at AG, here’s another June blast from the past: our Keith Knight interview from June 2006. As I said in the post about this month’s cover, I felt like that issue was really worth celebrating since it was our first anniversary after Katrina and we asked Keith Knight to draw me and editors Noah Bonaparte and Patrick Strange into the mix, which he did brilliantly. Keith happened to be in New Orleans that month to promote The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts to the librarian’s conference, so we put together a slideshow for him at Handsome Willy’s.

Here it is:

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We’re in an era of unparalleled awareness for the art of cartooning. Between George Bush’s uncanny ability to stimulate political cartoonists, the now-infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons, animated series based on strips like Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, and–while much tamer to audiences, for sure–the domination of the box office by comic icons Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, more people are aware comics exist than ever before. One comic strip that can run the gamut of emotions all the above can inflict is Keith Knight’s The K Chronicles, a unique foray into politics, pop culture and human emotions. Knight is just as likely to reference Star Wars as he is to mention his mother, and in any given strip you may be treated to the lighthearted optimism of “Life’s Little Victories,” a theme that celebrates when the simple things in life go your way, or an unabashed send-up of Dick Cheney’s latest hunting misadventure. When you may least expect it, though, Knight can deliver a heartwrenching or heartwarming slice of life, whether it’s his wife’s cancer-scare (she’s okay), the death of an influential person (like comic great Will Eisner) or a tribute to the people of the Gulf Coast.

Knight’s not a Johnny-come-lately, some hanger-on to McGruder’s faux-provacativeness–he’s been a professional for over twelve years. He started out as a caricature artist in his hometown Boston and, once he moved to indie-comic Mecca San Francisco, worked his way from ‘zine artist to full-fledged newspaper comics page contributor. Since the K Chronicles became entrenched in publications nation(and world)wide, he’s started a second strip, (th)ink, a comic done in single panel style (a la a serious Far Side) meant to take on race and political issues. He’s also illustrated a book called The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts, a book that tells the stories of several activists who use art to make their communities around the country better.

The man’s got legs, as they say, and one method he’s used to accumulate fans is his slideshow, an indie-comics convention favorite. Knight hosts the show like a comedian, moving through pics of his strips and elaborating on their history like the college professor you always wished you had. ANTIGRAVITY has been on the Keith Knight train since its beginning–The K Chronicles was the first strip we decided to run, and when an opportunity to host a slideshow presented itself we pounced on it. AG presents the Keith Knight slideshow in the latter part of June, and we spoke with Knight about his growing up in Boston, working for ESPN and MAD, and some of his more controversial strips, like the one where he smoked crack with God. (more…)

Interview by Leo McGovern.

One of my early interviews for ANTIGRAVITY was with Susannah Breslin. I’d heard she’d recently moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles, and was anxious to interview her and help promote the New Orleans Bookfair, which she had a scheduled reading at in late-October 2004. We sat in the back courtyard at the old Z’otz in the French Quarter. Her short story collection, You’re A Bad Man, Aren’t You, had recently been released.

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ANTIGRAVITY: When did you move to New Orleans?

Susannah Breslin: September 2003. My intention was to stay here for a year, but now my guess is I’ll stay for two years. The weather here is unbearable. I can’t live here permanently, but it’ll be longer than a year.

AG: What made you decide to move to New Orleans?

SB: I was tired of being in Los Angeles. I’d never been to the south before. I knew it was warm and cheap. It had a seedy reputation. When I figured out the abbreviation was “No L.A.” it seemed like it was divine. [Laughs] It was a way to get away from the competitiveness that was L.A. and just try and focus on writing the book instead, rather than keeping my head above water as a freelancer.

AG: You’ve said that instead of “feel good” movies, you prefer “feel bad” ones. What exactly are “feel bad” movies?

(more…)

June is ANTIGRAVITY anniversary month, so to help celebrate we’re blogging some more classic AG pieces. This one is our first ever cover story, an interview with Glorybee from June 2004. Glorybee was the perfect choice for our first cover, as they were well-known around New Orleans and certainly visually interesting. A side note is that they were my first choice to be the musical headliner for the first Alternative Media Expo (in June ‘03) but had an out-of-town show on that day. The first year or so of AG isn’t available in .pdf format, as I lost the computer they were stored on in Katrina (and stupidly hadn’t uploaded them to our website), so we’re having notable pieces like this re-transcribed. Which is nice because they can also be re-edited—keep it a secret, but I don’t think I knew as much as I think I did when this whole thing started.

Anyway, where the magic began…

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Glorybee is a trio of musicians based in New Orleans and own a sound best described as “rap/electronic/sonic death on helium.” Their live show is a unique spectacle, one where the unthinkable not only can happen but usually does. Be careful if you see one of them, even on the street, as their soldering banter can easily suck you in, after which you’re stuck like a fly in the proverbial web of Glorybee. Featuring three main members (Nasty Burga’ Kang [Bass/vocals/percussion], Lord Hoffa [vocals/keyboards], and Masta Boink [keyboards/programming/drums]), Glorybee is one of the truly unique bands in New Orleans, relying not on horns and someone else’s name to carry them, but on their own ideas and techniques. Their new CD, GYB: The First Power, is set to hit the streets June 1st, with the GYB CD release parties on June 25th at Dragon’s Den and June 26th at Chelsea’s in Baton Rouge. (more…)

This story originally appeared in ANTIGRAVITY Vol.5 Issue 2 (December 2007).

The Baddest Brush in Town, Part II:

Who is Winning the Color Wars in New Orleans?

by Sara Pic, with Dan Fox

In last month’s issue we attempted to describe the situation between taggers, graffiti writers, street artists and anyone who’s taken to New Orleans’ public visual space to express themselves, and their collective headache known as Fred Radtke, dubbed the “Gray Ghost” for his ubiquitous blocks of paint throughout the city (also known as “buffs” and “ghosts”). Radtke has made eradicating others’ graffiti by imposing his own a personal crusade, regardless of the law, the wishes of the community and visual aesthetics in general. In Part I we talked to a few artists who have organized efforts against Radtke, notably ReX of NoLa Rising and the Krewe of Krabkakes. These artists and the many others who take to the streets opposite Radtke seem to end up in a zero-sum, eternal battle with Radtke: they paint, he covers it; they take to the gray as if it were a fresh canvas, he returns, etcetera, ad nauseam. The result, as can be seen by anyone with two eyes, is a huge quilt of spray paint and primer that covers the city. But what about the more “ordinary” citizens who are equally frustrated by Radtke but don’t feel the need to go out in the middle of the night to stencil their thoughts on one of his fresh stretches of gray? In this second installment, ANTIGRAVITY attempts to understand more fully whether Radtke is a martyr or a criminal, as we speak with the Vieux Carre Commission, one local business owner and a New Orleans police officer, while also exploring allegations of violent acts by the Gray Ghost. (more…)

This interview first appeared in the October 2004 issue of ANTIGRAVITY and was conducted by former AG writer Miles Britton (who’s now an editor at MAGNET!).

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Singularity, Ratty Scurvics’ one man music project, has for the past two years been building a loyal and ever growing fan base thanks to his darkly hypnotic songwriting and intense stage presence. Dressed up in his signature clown costume, his face painted stark white, stabbing simultaneously at the keyboard, drums and microphone with a glowing cigarette clamped between his teeth, Scurvics gives us a glimpse of what Brian Eno might have sounded like if he had run away to join the circus. ANTIGRAVITY sat with Ratty and chatted with him about rock operas, the Know Nothing Zircus, and trying not to bleed at the Hi-Ho. (more…)

This interview originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of ANTIGRAVITY.

To celebrate After The Deluge getting picked up by Pantheon, I thought I’d post our original talk with artist Josh Neufeld, which coincided with A.D.’s debut over at SMITH. Interested parties may want to know that the current issue of DC/Vertigo’s American Splendor mini-series features some of Josh’s work.

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Josh Neufeld has become adept at telling graphic stories of a personal nature — his comic series The Vagabonds chronicles his and wife Sari’s travels around the world, his artwork frequently tells Harvey Pekar’s unique slice-of-life stories in American Splendor, and his 2004 graphic novel A Few Perfect Hours (and Other Stories From Southeast Asia & Central Europe) won him a prestigious grant from the Xeric Foundation. Neufeld’s latest projects feature both personal and, for the first time, communal stories. In early ’06 Neufeld released Katrina Came Calling, a chapbook-style collection of prose journal entries written in late ’05 during a three-week tour of duty with the Red Cross in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. In January ’07 the prologue of Neufeld’s new sequential art project, New Orleans: After The Deluge, premiered on SMITH, an upstart website that celebrates personal storytelling and, in 2006, published Shooting War, a highly acclaimed webcomic about the war in Iraq. After The Deluge features several real-life people affected by Katrina (including AG editor Leo McGovern), and Neufeld intends to weave those people’s stories together in an attempt to show readers that New Orleans isn’t a city full of statistics; that the populace of the Gulf Coast isn’t simply full of people either with or without the means and/or desire to leave, return and rebuild; that our region, even a year and a half after Katrina, is brimming with grey area.

ANTIGRAVITY spoke with Neufeld about the reasons he created A.D., what he hopes readers take away from these stories, and how this project is different from anything he’s done before. (more…)

This interview first appeared in the February ‘07 edition of ANTIGRAVITY. I interviewed Mr. Quintron in the back of the Spellcaster Lodge on January 23rd, 2007 and the day after I returned to take some photos of him in his Marching Band uniform. Quintron rarely does local press, and this interview happened because of a New York writer’s poorly-informed opinion on the Marching Band’s Mardi Gras ‘06 appearances. Quintron wanted to set the record straight, and he was very honest as we talked about the Marching Band in general, post-K New Orleans and the 9th Ward.

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To say that Quintron is unlike most New Orleans-based artists would be a grand understatement. His live shows draw quite a crowd, yet he doesn’t overbook himself, which makes his few shows (generally with partner and puppeteer Miss Pussycat) extra special. He’s the odd N.O.-based alt artist who tours successfully, but he maintains an air of credibility in the local scene. (more…)