Listen to the NPR piece on this and it'll really get you in the mood for Mardi Gras.
My dad lived in NOLA for five years or so and I was lucky enough to visit several times. I'll never forget the first time he said, when we were getting ready to go out and listen to some fabulous live music, that we were going to a bowling alley.
A bowling alley? I was highly skeptical.
So we drove away from the French Quarter to Mid-City, my skepticism building in strength, out to a bowling alley in a strip mall. A strip mall. I'm in New Orleans for the first time and my dad is taking me to some weird strip mall bowling alley?
But I did not know how cool it would all be. The place was Mid City Lanes Rock and Bowl and from then on it was my favorite place to go in all of the great, big, huge, awesome city. The place rocks. It rolls. It bounces. It sweats. And the music never stops.
That night it was Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers who became in one quick instant my alltimefavorite zydeco band. Nobody does Zydeco like Beau Jocque. And the dancing! I'd never seen anything like it before. Have you seen Zydeco dancing? If you haven't all I can say is that you can't even imagine it. It's fast. It has an extra four counts (12/4). And it requires a partner so you just can't wait for someone to ask you to dance (and hopefully they know what they're doing). It's like a jitterbug on spanish flies.
I was hooked.
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