Elementary School Kids Review Retro Jazz, Creole Punk, and Noise Music

Some of my former students on the cover of an album they made.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I’ve worked in an after-school and summer program teaching an English class I devised that utilizes music in various ways to help New Orleans’s elementary and middle school students practice their writing. Sometimes we write and record rap songs (150 so far!), and other times we write essays about our favorite artists. But the kids do their best stuff when I have them review albums by local musicians.

Usually, we pick records that can’t be explained away with a simple genre tag—weirder music is more challenging to describe. This semester we reviewed three genre-defying albums, but also two genre-specific titles—the first of those two being Fooler’s Gold, by popular retro jazz act Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns.

Hello! I will be describing some songs by Meschiya Lake! The first is called “Catch Em Young” and it sounds jazzy and reminds me of a rock concert with trumpets. On “Don’t Start With Me” she’s telling her boyfriend don’t start this again with me I’m tired of it! “My Man” is a classy song and she’s telling her friends that he’s her man, not theirs, and you can’t have him. She’s saying her life is difficult because her man is treating her like a punching bag and she doesn’t like it. “It’s the Rhythm in Me” is jazzy and she’s having the time of her life. She’s dancing around having a slumber party and this is a good song! “I’ll Wait For You” is a jazzy fun song but it sounds like she’s sitting on a bench saying, “I’ll wait for you as long as I can, till tomorrow, till the DAWN!”

“Midnight on the Bayou” sounds like she’s on a boat at starry night and she’s in a beautiful dress having fun and having the best day! “Fooler’s Gold” sounds like she’s on a treasure hunt and she’s acting out a mysterious jazzy song! “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down” was nice but it wasn’t the best and she had too much cracks in her voice. “Organ Grinder” was the worst on the album; she sounds like she’s teaching a bad tuba band. “Miss Otis Regrets” was really good but she sounds like a man cow that’s kicked out of a barnyard. “The Fragrance of Your Charms” was also a bad song, she sounds like she got rejected and stranded in the woods! “Do Right” was OK! Not perfection. She sounds like she’s queen of the swamp teaching fat kids. “Believe In Music” was good, like she’s giving a speech that she believes. And she’s in the Civil War.

I think this album deserves a 90 and a half percent! All of the songs were jazzy fun and energetic songs that anybody would want to hear on a happy day. This album is filled with fun.

-Destiny

The album Fooler’s Gold by Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns sounds jazzy and romantic. It’s very groovy and I think a lot of people would like this album. The first song called “Catch Em Young” is fun. It sounds like it’s in the French Quarter. “Don’t Start With Me” sounds like she’s singing in the movie Princess and the Frog. On “My Man” it seems like she really loves her man too much. In “It’s the Rhythm In Me” she likes the song’s rhythm so she’s having fun dancing with the rhythm. On “Midnight on the Bayou” she’s smooching at the bayou with her husband because it’s her honeymoon. “Fooler’s Gold” sounds like a pirate trying to find the gold and a fool steals the gold from her. “Young Woman Blues” finally proves that she’s a good singer. On “Organ Grinder” she’s angry at her boyfriend cheating so she wants to grind his organs. “Miss Otis Regrets” is about a woman that warns her man to never do something mean to her. In “Fragrance Of Your Charms” she puts the man under a spell with her amazing smell of perfume. In “Do Right” she’s telling her boyfriend to do right and not break her heart. On “I Believe In Music” she’s telling the kids to not say they don’t believe in music.

I like this album because the music makes sense. She has very good vocals and it’s positive.

-Veronica

The second traditional record we picked apart was the debut EP of original songs by King James and the Special Men, a local group best known for covering a huge catalogue of greasy tunes by the greats of downtown New Orleans R&B.

This EP called The Special Men has four songs and most of them are GREAT! The genre of most of these songs is jazz. The song “Special Men Boogie” has guitar, trumpet, piano, and drums. The beat sounds like something you would hear in the French Quarter. This song is really well recorded. The song “Love My Baby” has guitar, piano, drums, and trumpet. The beat sounds like a donkey snorting. The genre is blues. This song is NOT WELL RECORDED because the guitar sounds horrible and the song is jacked up. On “Guitar King” the beat sounds jazzy. “Guitar King” is well recorded. “BJ’s Bounce” has a piano, guitar, and trumpet. It sounds like a good jazz song but we didn’t get to hear all of it because there is a curseword.

I think you should get this EP because there is only one song that’s horrible and you can always skip it. I like it. Get it, get it, get it!

-Renee

They then moved on to the weird records. The kids tried to wrap their minds around the EP One Foot in Front of the Other by one-man band Lonesome Leash, a.k.a the brilliant and original Walt McClements, who also tours as multi-instrumentalist for the band Dark Dark Dark.

This EP by Lonesome Leash has a sad, slow vibe to it. It’s mainly rock ’n’ roll mixed with a few other genres. I find it impressive for a one-man band. It would be real good for mean people. “Maps” reminds me in an odd way of war. If I close my eyes I picture squiggly lines passing quickly. It’s very depressing. The vocals are swell but he tries too hard to make things rhyme. “Dead” is, once again, very depressing, like a person that is just simply overwhelmed by everything. I also picture being surrounded by everything in perfect order. The lyrics and vocals are very clear. “This Time,” once again, is sad. It is much slower than the others. Halfway through the song it changes pace. It has accordion and drums. It reminds me of a very large room with things falling and breaking. The music starts very rapidly with a large drumbeat. Once again, it is sad It reminds me of walking a bare road and never finding anything. The fifth song is instrumental in two ways (its title is also “Instrumental”). It feels like going around on a merry-go-round. It has a very quick accordion beat with short pauses.

Overall the album is very sad. I get many pictures from it. I would recommend it if you enjoy sad music or you like strong emotional songs.

-Austyn

Beginning song “Maps” is creepy because it feels like something bad is going to happen. The song “Dead” has the same creepy music. It feels like someone is going to capture me and kill me. The first part of “This Time” sounds like a spaceship with aliens. It doesn’t have creepy music like the last two. YAY! I think…

The song “Road” has the thing I hate most, feedback! It was probably recorded live because it doesn’t sound that good. The music sounds like two animals fighting over a trumpet. In the song “Instrumental” there’s accordion. That’s all I can hear. I picture myself in France and in Italy. This is the only song I like because it’s instrumental. That’s why it’s called “Instrumental,” obviously.

This album sucks, I hate the vocals, I hate the lyrics, I hate the feedback, I hate everything about this album. I think this album shouldn’t be sold because other people won’t like it either.

-Eliza

The students were a bit more open-minded about With Out Warning by One Man Machine, a loop-powered psychedelic Creole-punk act. A couple kids who said they did not like the record were later caught singing these songs on the playground.

On With Out Warning by One Man Machine, my favorite song is “You Can Have It,” because it includes animal sounds. My least favorite is “Seven” because it doesn’t have any lyrics and it repeats too much! However, I like the music. The song “With Out Warning” is so awesome because it sounds like ghosts, monsters, vampires, zombies, etc. are having a big party in the underworld. The song that I really hate and that sounds like poo is “The Sacred and the Profane,” because it doesn’t really have any beats and is SOOO endless. I’d rather eat garbage than listen to it. However I like that there is a lot of different mixes of instruments. The thing I don’t get at all is why they would name a song “Seven” when it has nothing to do with the number seven? They should have just named song number seven “Seven,” and since number seven is seven minutes long, the song “Seven” should have been number seven. It really makes more sense.

-Emily

One Man Machine’s new album With Out Warning sounds like one of those horrible British singers called Coldplay. Their songs are really repetitive with bad raspy singing. They sing scary songs with creak sounds and bells. Their voices turn high and then low which makes it sound really bad. They use drums a lot. Also they use a lot of electric guitar. The song “Seven” sounds like punk rock. They do not sing on this song. It has a cool beat. I admit it sounds a little weird. It repeats itself with guitar and drum machine. In the song “Icarus” the guitar sounds like yelling. “Holy Land” sounds like you are singing while you are dying because the singing is so weak. “All of Me” uses a scratchy voice but has cool music. “You Can Have It” sounds like a 90-year-old is saying, “You can have it!” “Robira Naps,” sounds creepy like horror movie music. “The Sacred and the Profane” is very long and boring and repeats itself. The title song “With Out Warning” has drums and what sounds like police sirens.

I don’t think you should buy this album unless you like raspy voices. Their singing is terrible. Also it is so repetitive and boring it could lull you to sleep!

-Claire

Lastly, the students tackled “Term Two” by abstract musical act Earl Long, featuring New Orleans’s psychedelic elder statesman Ray Bong.

Term Two is a very weird album. It has weird but cool sounds. It’s like going through movies and dreams or nightmares. The first song, “Right Brain (Left Brain),” starts off with a dialogue. It makes me feel like I’m going through one of my nightmares. “As Per Request” sounds like Indian music. It’s going very fast like I’m on a rollercoaster. “Bosun’s Mate” starts off like a scary movie. It’s like an alien weird squiggly sound. It starts fast then slow then fast then slow. The fourth song, “Tuk Tuk” sounds like a Mario game, then an alien-like sound. Now it sounds like it’s raining in the spring. “Metal Swiss Cheese Overdose” starts off with drums. It has this weird feeling like you are going through an alien smackdown, or like a bad signal on a walky-talky. “Professor John Plays the Harmonica” feels like a sad black-and-white movie with no dialogue and he is in jail. “Advent of Technology” starts of with a jazzy beat and I feel like I’m in New Orleans. It’s deep and slow but still jazzy. The final song, “Brain Folds (Left/Right),” really sounds like your mind is being folded and weird things are happening. It’s like you’re in the hospital and you’re dying. It sounds like he is screaming because it really hurt. There is a drumbeat for the heartbeat. It totally felt like I went on a weird adventure through my mind.

-Sequoia

Michael Patrick Welch is a New Orleans musician, journalist, and author of books including The Donkey Show and New Orleans: the Underground Guide. His work has appeared at McSweeney's, Oxford American, Newsweek, Salon, and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter here.

The classes Michael teaches are brought to New Orleans by Community Works.