Jazz Fest '93

​Fred: Jazz Fest 1993. That’s me riding the shoulders of a very dear friend of CM, the celebrated celluloid thespian Mr. Michael Conner Gainey (MC Gainey in professional circles). You’ve seen him in movies and TV over the years, trust me. 

MC was an old friend of Paul (Sanchez, ex-guitar player), and through that connection he found us, adopting us as the band du jour for he and his crew and becoming very close to each of us over the years. 

A CM show being what it is, one thing led to another, and I found myself on the back of this burly character being ridden around the Jazz Fest audience, verbally spreading the gospel of NOLA Rock n’ Rolla. After the show we had a good laugh over it and I didn’t really think anymore about it. 

The next morning I got an early morning phone call from someone (can’t remember who) saying excitedly that I was on the cover of the Times Picayune, the New Orleans newspaper at the time. (Remember newspapers?) I remember being annoyed that someone had called so early and then going straight back to sleep. I got some copies of the paper from the newsstand around the corner later that morning. 

This really did help the band gain more notoriety locally, any publicity being good publicity, and it turned out to be a little bit of a big deal for a couple of days. My parents were impressed, anyway. ‘Maybe, just maybe,’ I’m sure they thought, ‘there might be something to this music thing after all…’