A&E
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Who would make the best big screen Ignatius J. Reilly?
Posted by Alex Woodward on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:52 PM
The trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby adaptation and the news that Zach Galifianakis may be cast as the hero of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces broke almost at the same time — confirming many people in my Facebook feed haven't read much after high school.
Dunces has never, ever successfully made the big screen leap. Harold Ramis and, more recently (and infamously unplugged), David Gordon Green, tried and failed to adapt Toole's landmark mess. Terry Gilliam said it couldn't be filmed. (Read Kevin Allman's piece on Toole's latest biography in Gambit.)
Last night, Vulture reported that comedian and actor Galifianakis (who starts in the New Orleans-shot The Campaign) has been cast in an adaptation by Flight of the Conchords co-creator and The Muppets director James Bobin for Paramount Pictures. Vulture also says the script is helmed by Phil Johnston, who wrote 2011's Cedar Rapids and the forthcoming Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, The Descendants) film Nebraska.
OMG: Justin Bieber is coming to New Orleans
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Beliebers rejoice: the pop star stops in New Orleans on Jan. 15 for a concert at the New Orleans Arena. Tickets go on sale June 2 at 10 a.m., and I'm pretty sure they will sell out quickly.
Fellow Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, who is responsible for quite possibly the best pop song of 2012, "Call Me Maybe," opens.
Discovered on YouTube, Bieber gained legions of screaming, Twitter-using teenage fans (take caution before clicking on any Bieber-related Twitter hashtag) through his 2009 debut single "One Time" and the follow-up "Baby." His new album Believe, featuring the decidedly more grown-up single "Boyfriend" that's reminiscent of former teen idol Justin Timberlake's solo music, comes out June 19. He's also ditched the swoop-bang hairdo that became an Internet meme.
Check out the video for "Boyfriend" below.
Via MTV
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Air Sex preliminary rounds begin Wednesday night
Posted by Alex Woodward on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 4:30 PM
- CHERYL GERBER
- Air Sex host Chris Trew
Now in its fourth installation, the world championship of humping air kicks off Wednesday with a preliminary round at Republic, one of a select locations in U.S. cities where the city's finest can show how it's done, on stage.
Think air guitar, but with doin' it.
Air Sex, founded in 2009 by New Orleans comic Chris Trew, hosts preliminary rounds from New York to San Francisco in search of the nation's finest air doers, but it kicks off in New Orleans. (Watch Trew introduce the event to Oxygen's Bad Girls Club.)
The rules are simple: you get two minutes to perform your Air Sex routine, which can be straight-forward or may include the date, the opening to the boudoir, etc. Participants should email an MP3 of a selected track (or bring a CD), and you also may include an up to 30-second prelude. Wear costumes, use a stage name, don't be a big creep, and props and teams are OK, too — visit Air Sex's YouTube for an idea of what to expect, or do.
The three selected finalists will compete at the regional championships and may go on to compete in the national championships in Austin, Texas.
Air Sex preliminary rounds being 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 23 at Republic (828 S. Peters St.).
Friday, May 18, 2012
Three important facts about American Idol's Joshua Ledet
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 4:08 PM
After making it to the top three in the singing competition, Westlake, La. native Joshua Ledet was eliminated from last night's American Idol. The 20-year-old throwback crooner must have been a popular contestant, because now teenagers on the Internet are yelling about how the elimination process is clearly rigged (controversy among viewers about the show's viewer controlled voting process has existed since the beginning).
Let us pay tribute to Ledet with the scholarly journal Us Weekly, who earlier this week sent over a press release including 25 facts about the remaining Idol contestants. Here are three important things to know about Ledet:
“I’m terrified of feathers.”
“I just recently found out that unicorns weren’t real.”
“I once fell asleep on a roller coaster.”
Good thing he chose singing, and not unicorn biology or pillow-making, as a vocation.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Interview: Troy Landry from History's Swamp People
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:37 PM
- History
How has life been since Swamp People started airing?
It’s been very different.
How so?
It’s hard to get work done. There’s always visitors looking, tourists coming through the town looking for us from all over the country, and now all over the world. We got people from other countries now showing up looking for us. It’s hard to get work done now.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Green Day to headline 2012 Voodoo Fest
Posted by Alex Woodward on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:35 PM
- JULIE GARDNER
Festival organizers announced the 2012 Voodoo Experience preliminary lineup today. Heading the bill is Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Green Day. Other additions include Skrillex, Justice, Tomahawk, Say Anything, Bootsy Collins, Gary Clark Jr., Awolnation and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Neil Young last appeared in New Orleans at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, with a showstopping performance that ended with The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" and a deluge of rain. Young will perform with Crazy Horse, and the band is releasing Americana on June 5, their first album together in nine years, which revisits classic American folk music. Preview the album here.
Green Day last performed in New Orleans in 2009 during its 21st Century Breakdown tour and was also at the 2004 Voodoo, which featured a killer lineup of Beastie Boys, The Pixies and Sonic Youth.
Voodoo also announced on-site camping at City Park for the fest, a la Bonnaroo. A press release says "the inaugural camping experience will offer festival goers the chance to sleep under the stars amidst two hundred year old oak trees, picturesque lagoons and waterways of New Orleans’ historic City Park and located just steps away from the entrance to the annual Halloween weekend music celebration."
Campers can use general camping amenities or upgrade to a "luxurious, all-encompassing camping experience" with safari tents, cots, pillows, bedding and VIP access.
Voodoo is Oct. 26-28 at City Park. Tickets to the festival are available online; a three-day general admission pass is $175 and the Loa VIP pass is $500.
Watch: Galactic with Mystikal and Mannie Fresh "Move Fast"
Posted by Alex Woodward on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:15 AM
New Orleans funk outfit Galactic released Carnivale Electricos on Mardi Gras — an album idea the band has been sitting on a couple years but finally arranged, merging Carnival and regional music from its global traditions, this year. When I talked with keyboardist Rich Vogel before its release, I wrote that "the band looked to the Carnival world — from the baile funk of Rio de Janeiro to bounce beats blasting from local parking lots, and the places in between — to weave new elements into Galactic's frequently altered fabric — updated as New Orleans' music and cultural landscape adjusts its palate."
"What we didn't want to do was 'Galactic plays Latin.' ... We knew that was absolutely not the way we wanted to go," Vogel said. "It was more about, 'Let's try and bring some of these artists into our world and what we do, and see if them doing what they do and us doing what we do makes an interesting result.'"
Bounce music and hip-hop can't be ignored. They band has messed around with it, bringing artists like Big Freedia into their stage ensemble, but it committed two tracks on their latest LP to distinctly New Orleans hip-hop and bounce. "Move Fast," with legendary MC Mystikal and producer Mannie Fresh, is the album's latest single. You'll hear some familiar beats in the mix with the band's decidedly low-key funk and fat brass.
Video below the jump.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Interview: Willie Robertson of A&E's Duck Dynasty
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Fri, May 11, 2012 at 4:53 PM
- A&E
How has life changed since the show?
I’m a lot more recognized in West Monroe, Louisiana, I can tell you that for sure.
Listen: Gambit's free music Friday
Posted by Alex Woodward on Fri, May 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM
Above, watch the Stooges Brass Band perform "We Make 'Em Say Ooo" live in the studio (courtesy of Red Bull). From the same session, here's "Why," featuring Mannie Fresh.
The Chinquapin Records family has many branches, twisting and contorting from one band to the next, and at the end or beginning of one (or several) is Habitat, which released an EP available for free download, here. The trio's sunny, sometimes frantic guitars do battle over washes of pummeling drums in offbeat pop songs.
Also under the Chinquapin umbrella is Choi Wolf, who resurrect, and obliterate, irreverent hardcore punk in brief spurts (live, the band clocks in its sets at around 10 minutes, going through the arc of silly, urgent speed freaks to sweaty, defeated casualties of their own doing). The band's Fluffy is available here. (The band also performs 7 p.m. tonight at The Maze rehearsal space at Thalia and South Rendon streets.)
Louisiana's reigning warlords Eyehategod perform 10 p.m. tonight at One Eyed Jacks. Here's what that will probably look like.
Watch the latest video (for "Fast Cars," a slow song with no cars) from New Orleans MC Curren$y. His The Stoned Immaculate is out June 5. Stream that track and "What It Look Like" (featuring Wale) here.
More music under the jump.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Watch the trailer for the New Orleans shot comedy The Campaign
Posted by Alex Woodward on Mon, May 7, 2012 at 5:36 PM
In this summer's The Campaign, Will Ferrell is Cam Brady, a shell-haired, profoundly stupid congressional candidate who must out-America his mustached opponent Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis). The teasers (above) preview the candidates' (fake) TV spots and respective Facebook pages: here and here. While shooting in New Orleans, its working title was Dog Fight.
The frequently terrible Jay Roach directs with a script by brilliant Eastbound & Down's writer and producer team Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy. Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis also joins the cast, with John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd and Brian Cox. The film hits theaters August 10.
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