After a rather miserable day Friday, Saturday at Voodoo Fest proved to be a hellaciously awesome experience – lots of loud music, mud, and Halloween hijinks. Typically held on the week before All Hallows’ Eve, this year’s Voodoo marks the eleven-year-old festival’s first to take place on Halloween. To mark this occasion the New Orleans Bingo! Show staged a late night zombie gathering with the hope of breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest zombie congregation. I’m not sure if they were successful, but I suspect that there are very few of us who managed to escape the grounds with our brains in tact. As for the music, upon arriving, I set out for the Voodoo Stage to catch K’naan, who due to something or other canceled. His replacement was Austin singer-songwriter Dan Dyer. So I stuck around for Dyer’s first few numbers and dug into his rootsy, soulful rasp before making my way to the Bingo! Parlor for the riotous, local, gypsy brigade the The Zydepunks. Due to the previous evening's storms, the entire festival grounds had turned into a boggy mudpit. Navigating the trenches and furrows without completely sinking in the sludge became the day’s mission.

Yesterday (April 17th, 2009), marked the kickoff of the 26th annual French Quarter Fest. As the workweek wound down, I listed along with WWOZ’s live broadcast, anxiously racing down to the French Quarter, hoping to catch the tail end of the Honey Island Swamp Band’s set. That unfortunately didn’t happen, but I did arrive in time to hear the powerhouse wail of Irene Sage rip through a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On." It’s always a treat to see Sage, whose presence in the scene has declined over the years. Her husky, unhinged vocals always bring about a good time. She’s the closest thing the Big Easy has to Ann Wilson, and her thunderous closer at FQF, “Soul to Soul,” certainly solidified that comparison.

January was another solid month for music in NOLA.  Here’s a photoblog that recaps many of January’s highlights.  Some of the pics were included in our articles, but this photoblog will allow you to get the full visual experience of the shows covered on Groovescapes.  Featured in this post are Walter “Wolfman” Washington & the Roadmasters, Jimmy Carpenter, Big Chief Alfred Doucette, the Joe Krown Trio, Brint Anderson, Camile Baudoin, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Zachary Quinn, Nik Richard, Starfish h.q., Enharmonic Souls, Head Trip Conception, The Tomatoes, Jonathan Tyler & the Northern Lights, and JJ Grey & Mofro.

There’s no better way to kick off the first official weekend of Mardi Gras 2009 than with a ball.  And there definitely isn’t a better place to have a ball than at Mardi Gras World in Algiers Point.  A cross between a fantastical carnival and a spooky wax museum, on Friday, January 16th, the large warehouse, which also serves as the home of the Big Easy Rollergirls formerly home to the Big Easy Roller Girls, hosted The Pussyfooters’ Blush Ball.  With a portion of the proceeds going to benefit the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children and the king of the second-line, Big Sam and his Funky Nation on hand providing the entertainment, the corset-clad marching ensemble who lead the all female Krewe of Muses parade brought in the season with swinging, sultry good time.

How goes it Voodoo People? Groovescapes is up and going this morning, ready to get into another incredible day of music here at the 10^th Ritual. I'll start by running through a quick recap of yesterday's events.

Now it's time to get into some serious content. After a morning filled with technological glitches, security hang-ups, and muggy, Louisiana skies, its actually shaped into a beautiful day here at City Park. Voodoo Fest is up and kicking! The sun is shining, the crowds are dancing, and I'm just getting into the groove.