Winging It - Day 3: New Orleans

It's blog-hour here in New Orleans, so I won't delay giving you the straight story.

Ethan and I are currently sitting at a coffee shop in New Orleans, a little ways from Bourbon Street. Our brother-in-arms Eddie had to drop out of the first leg of tour at the last minute, so we're rolling in style as a compact two-piece reggae roadshow.

In addition to losing Eddie, the unofficial fourth member of the touring line-up has dropped out as well. Monkey, our three-foot tall inflatable monkey, has a hole somewhere in one of his seams. We intend to patch him up in Tallahassee. This task is considered a higher priority than finding replacement strings for the electric guitar.

But in the face of adversity, Spiked Punch does not hide our face. New Orleans brought the party last night. The Allways Lounge, our host, was a quaint one-room bar with a burlesque theatre-vibe. Drawn red velvet curtains hid the entirety of our tour-supplies. Which for the record is a ton of shit. How we're gonna fit Eddie in this car is a mystery to me but I digress. Here's the nights highlight reel-

We opened up the show by littering the bar, The Allways Lounge, with leis and inflatable beach volleyballs. The drummer from local blues band Toast Beards sat in and we powered through a relatively tight set considering this was only our second show without Eddie. Ethan hopped on the house piano for "The Part I Like".

I DJed a bit in between bands, playing some soul, funk, and of course reggae. There were cheers for the reggae music which made us feel right at home (praise Jah). Someone started playing "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" on a piano at one point and I cued up the acapella and everyone sang along. Never underestimate the power of canonized hip-hop.

Our gracious host Lauren aka Never Ever played a great set of acoustic folk songs and invited us to stay at her parents' mansion. Toast Beards played a roaring set of rock n' roll and blues. People were generally going nuts on the dance floor, but Ethan and I were the only people to take advantage of the stripper pole located adjacent to the stage. This was my first experience "on the pole" and let me tell you, it is a ton of fun. The pole rotates with you as you spin, so with a little bit of a running start you can make four or five rotations round that pole easily.

We accidentally invited the whole bar to go swimming at our host Lauren's house. From now on we've gotta remember that not everyone's pool is like Alex's pool where everyone is welcome. Turns out Lauren's house was an old-fashioned New Orleans mansion. We met her father, a legendary New Orleans DJ from the 70's, then quickly made our way to the pool. We had a great swim, then hit the sack listening to Sergent Pepper on Lauren's record player.