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Is it all right bayou?
It's more than all right — it's Mardi Gras all month as the VooDUDES throw a New Orleans-style party all over three states.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
The first Tuesday of March is coming up, and that means heaping
plates of jambalaya, plentiful drinks, colorful costumes, and endless dancing to
world-class party music by the VooDUDES, the classic Mardi Gras band from
. . . New Jersey?
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| THE VOODUDES |
Andy B. (vocals etc.)
Jim Beckerman (keyboards, accordion, vocals)
David Ambrosy (drums, vocals)
Gary Ambrosy (guitar)
Fred Saunders (bass).
Related links:
Official site
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| AUDIO |
| Fatty Brown (excerpt) | RA | | | |
| Marie Marie (excerpt) | RA | | | |
| Party When You're Gone (excerpt) | RA | | | |
| Stroke It (excerpt) | RA | | | |
| © The VooDUDES. Used by permission. |
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"What can I say?" offers pianist Jim Beckerman. "We have swamps in
New Jersey and they have swamps in New Orleans, so I guess there's a
connection."
New Orleans provided the original inspiration for the band 10
years ago, when it included an authentic Louisianan — bassist Ron Tullier — as one of its founding members, along with Beckerman,
a longtime New Orleans piano aficionado, and singer Andy B. (that's him with the musical washboard), an old pro from the local music circuit with a classic, booming soul voice. "Andy was in the New Brunswick rock scene approximately forever. He was in some of the bands I used to go see in college,"
Beckerman recalls.
Tullier
headed back home a few years ago, and the band has branched out into more
diverse varieties of roots-conscious rock 'n' roll — but always with
the Big Easy's signature rhythms and sense of licentious fun at their
core. And of course at this time of year, they're a band in demand with a dozen back-to-basics Mardi Gras gigs in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
"One of the highlights of our year is when we do these Mardi Gras
shows and we throw beads and people go crazy," Beckerman says. "And we do
all the old favorites — so you'll get your 'Iko Iko' and your
'Jambalaya.' "
Standouts among the band's original repertoire include: "Party
When You're Gone," a fitting addition to the classic New Orleans
funeral-music genre; "Fatty Brown Must Die," a character-centered yarn
which has the sound of early R&B; and "Stroke It," a crowd favorite that's
enshrined on a Dr. Demento compilation. And there are a few quirky
covers, too — like the Who's "Squeezebox," Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind
Cries Mary" and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" — all rendered with a
bayou beat and perhaps a tongue in cheek.
Beckerman is proud of the VooDUDES' success — in the region and around the country, including well-received gigs in New Orleans — as a group that delves into America's musical traditions and makes fresh, new music from it. The Backstreet Boys they ain't.
"What the radio industry and what MTV foists on us is only the tip of the iceberg, as far as what people are listening to at festivals and in clubs," he notes. And in clubs around New York and New Jersey, the VooDUDES have no trouble convincing a crowd what their music is all about.
"It's great to be doing something that causes people to totally
lose their inhibitions," says Beckerman, "and as long as it's not male
stripping, that's all right."
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FEBRUARY 29, 2000
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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