A Wild Ride
And it ain't over yet
This image looks to be from the early 2000s. (I apologize that I cannot remember who gave it to me.) I say early 2000s because I got that set of drums around ‘01 and they were lost during Hurricane Katrina in ‘05. A buddy of mine kept them in his studio in St. Bernard Parish, an area that was completely devastated by the floods. After the hurricane, he told me that the drums were gone, but there was a random boat on the roof of his house. Crazy times. Good drums, though. Very solid, very tough.
I’m normally not a “look-back-at-the-past” kind of guy, but this image brings back a flood of memories. Obviously I was still wearing overalls then. Dressing for comfort onstage is one of my priorities. It used to be easy to find solid overalls in thrift shops for cheap. As they became less plentiful (and more expensive), I moved on to other stage attire.
I remember an unseasonably warm Mardi Gras many years back, walking down St. Charles Avenue wearing nothing but a pair of tattered overalls: No shoes, no shirt, nothing else. I liked them for Carnival because the many pockets were great for holding beers, sandwiches, chicken legs, and whatever else people gave me along the parade route. That day lots of folks yelled, “Hey Fred! Are you WITH me?!?” Our tour manager at the time mentioned that might be a good album title, and so it was.
Pictures like this remind me that it’s been a pretty wild ride. That’s putting it mildly. Well, it ain’t over yet!
Amen!