Hey everybody,

I’m back in the city, currently sitting over at Fuel Coffeeshop (wall outlets are scarce if you need power, but internet is available and I’m pretty sure I saw Neal making sandwiches if you’re hungry).

Anyway, I’m starting to get some updates from venues and Friday night’s Theresa Andersson album release show at Republic is back on after being canceled yesterday.

No word yet on the Zydepunks release show tomorrow night at One Eyed Jacks. I’d expect it to be on, though.

Also no word on the Rock Art Circus, scheduled for Saturday night at the Big Top.

I’ll let you know if I hear anything else, though.

We were able to get out about 1,100 copies of the September AG before we evacuated, and hopefully our printer in Belle Chasse will reopen soon and we can get out the remaining 9,000–in the meantime, download it here.

Hey everyone–we know everyone’s monitoring the news and waiting for word that we can return home. If you’re looking for a distraction, download our September issue–it’s our Record Store issue, where we talk about all the great places to buy music in New Orleans, plus interviews with Steve Williams about the Rock Art Circus, the Zydepunks about their new record and the Silver Jews about their show in NOLA. Plus the debut of a new medical column by Glorybee’s Nancy Kang and the Homefield Advantage, which covers sports and has an interview with Supa Saint.

Let’s keep up hope–we’ll see you back home in a few days.

SAINTS TRADE FOR TE JEREMY SHOCKEY

We talked about the possibility of this happening when we covered the 2008 draft, and how on the draft’s first day the Saints offered the Giants our 2nd and 5th round picks in one last effort so snag TE Jeremy Shockey, the Pro Bowl player who’d become expendable after he broke his leg late in the season and New York won the Super Bowl without him. The Giants finally accepted the same deal on July 21st, and Shockey became a Saint.

To be as blunt as possible, I love this trade. Coach Sean Payton was the Giants’ offensive coordinator when New York drafted Shockey in 2002’s first round, so he knows what he’s getting with the embattled TE. Payton was also with the Dallas Cowboys when they selected another Pro Bowler in Jason Witten.

The day after the Saints acquired Shockey, Times-Picayune columnist Peter Finney wrote an article that basically blasted the trade, questioning how much better Shockey could make the Saints’ offense, which was already clearly near the top of the league, and stating that the team made the trade at the cost of defense (the title of the column was “Saints Bolster Offense at Defense’s Expense,” after all). He noted the Saints’ deficiencies at cornerback (already covered here and everywhere else), a soft rush defense and how the Saints’ defense “cannot get enough help across the board.”

Well, I’ll tell you why Jeremy Shockey will make the Saints defense better. (more…)

Interview by Jason Songe

The evolution of an artist is a mysterious thing. For an established artist, an open mind and an emancipation from expectation and previous limitation help the process, but what’s the real X factor? Did God touch the head of Thom Yorke during the recording of Ok Computer; did Wilco just work harder than they ever had during the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? Maybe it’s a little bit of both, but one thing’s for sure: no one saw those two albums coming. Even more unexpected is local singer-songwriter Theresa Andersson’s new album, Hummingbird, Go!. She’s been known more for her vocal and violin ability than her songwriting prowess, which is a fair characteristic, considering her 2004 LP Shine was a middle-of-the-road effort for which Andersson shared songwriting credits.

With Hummingbird, Andersson did a 180. She wrote all the songs, except for one cover, and besides a Smokey Johnson loop on “Birds Fly Away,” the occasional drumming from husband Arthur Mintz and Rhodes from Tobias Froberg, Andersson played all the instruments (On Shine, she employed a bevy of musicians). As a result, she turns out a more emotionally honest and overall much better effort. It’s a pastoral album—a relaxed, patient, sexually sun-exhausted record that unassumingly mixes pop and soul to form something new. Besides this jump in quality, Andersson also displays an unforseen experimental passion. The vibraphone on “The Waltz” is actually soda pop bottles filled with varying amounts of liquid, while the seemingly slide guitar textures on “Hi-Low” were coaxed from her violin. Mouth percussion doubled for drums and a classical guitar, tuned down, stood in for conventional bass. 

Three album standouts are “Na Na Na,” “Hi Low,” and “Innan du Gar.” “Na Na Na” has sing-songy music but desperate lyrics and also features Andersson’s best-recorded vocal performance during the climax. She really went for it, and just when you think her voice is going to trail off, it stretches on and on for a jaw-dropping listen. “Hi Low” is a sand-in-your-toes island love song that is notable for its cute, high-pitched vocals and shimmering orchestral string arrangements. “Innan du Gar” is a duet sung in Swedish by Andersson and Ane Brun, a lament that uses sparse vibraphone and minor chord guitar. Like the rest of the album, the song is sharp and efficient rather than showy.

Andersson grew up on a farm on the island of Gotland in Sweden, in the Baltic Sea. She’s been singing since she was four and toured with the prestigious World Youth Choir as a teen. After becoming his violinist Andersson began a relationship with Swedish roots musician Anders Osborne. They moved to New Orleans and played together for eight years until their break-up. Since her arrival she’s appeared on albums by The Radiators, Marva Wright, Cowboy Mouth and Galactic, won Offbeat’s Best of the Beat award for violin six consecutive years and released four solo albums and two EPs. Her self-titled 2006 EP was a stripped-down, elegiac outing that foreshadowed Hummingbird’s candid emotion and included a heartbreaking cover of “Jackson,” a Lucinda Williams song.

For Hummingbird, Andersson enlisted Swedish singer-songwriter Froberg as producer, a role he’s played for Brun and Peter Moren (of Peter, Bjorn and John fame). Andersson and Froberg recorded in her kitchen, with Froberg offering arranging tips and lyrics for five songs. The words for five other tracks come from local poet Jessica Faust. When it came time to tour, Andersson extended the ambitious spirit that prompted her to play every instrument to her one-woman tour. Live, she fused vocals, violin, drums, dulcimer and guitar with looping and effects pedals to form full songs. In early June, Andersson filmed a solo demonstration of “Na Na Na” in her kitchen, uploading it to YouTube and creating a fireball of buzz in the process. As a result she’s been turning up on blogs and selling out recent shows in Sweden. That’s where she graciously used thirty of her calling card minutes to talk with ANTIGRAVITY about recreating her songwriting technique, walking from Algiers Point to Westwego and how to be a one-woman band.  (more…)

A City of Thousands Can’t Hold The White Bitch Back

Interview by Dan Fox

Since arriving in New Orleans a little over seven years ago, Michael Patrick Welch and his host of personas have overtaken New Orleans like so much kudzu racing through virgin Southern soil. His first appearance, largely metaphysical, was in The Donkey Show, Welch’s semi-autobiographical novel about his initiation into the city by way of two of its most entrenched institutions: the cutthroat underbelly of a fine dining establishment and the Orleans Parish Public School System, where as a teacher he earned his stage name, the White Bitch. The loudest and most urgent of Welch’s alter egos, the White Bitch has slowly become a staple of the New Orleans music scene. What started out as a sampler-enhanced solo performance has expanded over the years, with the White Bitch incorporating live musicians into his act as well as early noise pioneer and all-around fun-time guy Ray Bong (of the Bongoloids). It might come as a surprise that his first album The White Bitch’s Prey Drive, released this month, is mostly guitar-oriented, like Santana over a beat machine. Another surprise is how polished Welch’s voice sounds as he expertly wails over pop tunes that infect and echo in your brain long after the song has ended. ANTIGRAVITY caught up with Welch and accomplice Ray Bong one sweltering July night to discuss, among so many of the possibilities, his new album, helming the late Keith Moore’s Noizefest and what exactly it means to be called “The White Bitch.” Special thanks to Chauncey, Welch’s pygmy goat, who head-butted me towards the end of the interview.

ANTIGRAVITY: This is the White Bitch’s first album?

Michael Patrick Welch: Of my whole life.

AG: What took so long?

MW: Well, actually Ray loaned me a thousand dollars! Maybe at two other points in my life I would’ve put out an album but I didn’t have the money at the time.

Ray Bong: You had done up a series of songs about three years ago, which were almost good enough.

MW: I’ve been playing shows almost once a month since I was fifteen, since my dad was driving me to the club with my equipment. One time, somebody in the crowd had to get on stage and tune my guitar. It was in Florida in this little town where there’d never been a local band.

AG: What did you bill yourself as? (more…)

Our August ‘08 issue is our biggest non-Voodoo issue ever, with The White Bitch and Ray Bong on the cover to headline our “Uncovered” section, where we cover six bands we never have before. Also featuring Theresa Andersson, the Lucky You! Candy Company, all the columns and reviews you’ve come to expect, the second edition of the Firesquito comic strip and more!

Look for it on the streets of NOLA today or read it now by clicking here!