Joystick Band

[Olowookere Devost]

Iremember once we were hanging out with [Alternative Tentacles owner / former Dead Kennedys singer] Jello Biafra and you surprised him with a split seven inch your old band Better Than Nothing did with Wesley Willis. How did that record come about?

The show is at the Heartwood, an outdoor venue with only Ska bands performing that night. About 10 mins before they go on at 5:40, a downpour causes everyone to run for cover. Bands scramble to grab gear out of the rain. In classic Florida fashion, the rain stops almost as fast as it started, just in time for Joystick! to take the stage.

I made my way up to the front and got to witness the madness. The guitarist was dressed as a hot dog. One of the front people had on only boxer briefs and looked like William Murderface from Metalocalypse. The other front person wielded a saxophone while wearing a red bathrobe with something tucked into her pants to make her butt look big.

Somebody pulled the fire alarm right before Taking Meds took the stage to perform their Talking Heads cover set. A monotone voice asking people to evacuate the building could barely be heard under the blaring music and chatter. Bright lights flashed white from the ceiling, and no one left. We were prepared to burn down the house.

We are bobbing our heads along as if it was an imaginary drum we all could hear. As the epic 8-min track comes to a close, the crowd cheers and claps. Ceschi then puts away his guitar in favor of a few traditional hip-hop tracks showing off how fast he can rap. He moves around the basement venue engaging everyone from the small crowd of 30 or so people. With members of Zeta, he sings a folk song in Spanish.

I apologize again for breaking my weekly rule. I\u2019ve been crazy busy the last week but plan to continue the regular schedule soon. I also realize I haven\u2019t been focusing as much on New Orleans as I have in the past. My musical interests have brought me away from NOLA for the time being, but I will be returning to my regularly scheduled programming soon.

After a great deal of whining and moaning about not being able to go to Fest 19, the universe decided to shut me up by gifting me the wonderful NOLA ska band Joystick! During my shift at a local record store, Kyle the drummer for Joystick! showed up for some last-minute fest supplies (papers, tote bag, etc.). We got to talking about Fest and he invited me to join the crew as a photographer.

What started as a plan to shoot only Joystick! and go back home turned into a weekend adventure seeing friends old and new. I still haven\u2019t gone home as of writing this (My truck broke down and I\u2019m trapped in a random town in Florida). Here are some of my favorite sets I caught this weekend:

Soundcheck is at 4:20 p.m. (nice) and half of Joystick! is still missing. I\u2019m waiting by the stage awkwardly out of place. Around me are people I previously only admired from afar through the internet like JER of Skatune Network, Mike Sosinski of Kill Lincoln and all these Bad Time Records folks. When the rest of the band rolls up at around 4:30 for soundcheck, clouds start rolling in from the North.

The grass lawn quickly turned to mud as people came out of the shelter to skank and dance to Joystick! I\u2019m taking photos, anxiously not trying to get in the way of anyone or ruin anybody\u2019s fun. Then the drum and horns for \u201CParallelograms\u201D ring out like an invitation. Lead singer Duck sings the lyrics so fast with tons of raw energy. People are ripping up the muddy turf as Duck sings out the lyric \u201Cdancing in the rain!\u201D

\u201CParallelograms\u201D is about a fictional character named Julie, an ordinary girl from New Orleans with fun-loving interests like sipping coffee, reading books, and even dancing in the rain. But Julie also loved her cocaine and oxy. At the end of the song, she overdoses on the sidewalk in a New Orleans neighborhood called Treme. It\u2019s named \u201CParallelogram\u201D because it parallels Duck\u2019s struggle with drugs.

For anyone who has seen the effects of addiction on people they love, it\u2019s a hurtful song while also simultaneously joyful. Duck is still here, unlike the fictional Julie. He and Joystick get to celebrate with punk kids muddying up their converse. That\u2019s what Fest is all about. That\u2019s what Ska is about, dancing in the rain.

Saturday morning on the second day of Fest, I remember asking Duck who he was planning to see that day. He said Hans Gruber and the Die Hards and I jokingly said \u201COh, the other Ska band.\u201D Duck being the kind person he is said he wants to support other Ska bands but Hans Gruber isn\u2019t just another Ska band.

I originally planned to see Orgimai Angel\u2019s whole set but decided to cut it short to see what Duck meant for myself. I\u2019m glad I did. The show took place in the upstairs of Fox Lounge, a long music hall. When I got there, the crowd filled the room from the stage down to the hall's front entrance, some 40 feet at least.

It was pretty easy to see what Duck meant. They used some elements of Ska (like horns, occasional guitar chops, offbeat rhythms and keys), but their music was harsh and shameless. From the anthemic \u201CIt Just Doesn\u2019t Matter\u201D to the combative \u201CThis Flat Earth\u201D taking on NASA, Hans Gruber captures a critical element of third wave Ska that\u2019s sometimes missing from other modern Ska bands, dumb fun.

Hans Gruber is fun, nihilistically fun. Nothing matters, so why not stop caring what others think of you and have a good time. That\u2019s what their live shows encourage. They threw out sock puppets for the audience in the middle of their set before performing their PSA \u201CBrontosaurs Do Not Exist.\u201D It was probably the most fun I had all weekend.

Taking Meds is an upstate New York punk band that has earned attention from the DIY scene. Not just for their music but also for the lead signer Skylar Sarkis\u2019 dead-pan humor in music videos, show banter, and interviews. The band has been told time and time again that their name is way too close to Talking Heads.

Skylar told me in an interview that they didn\u2019t think about the 3-letter difference between the names until well after they established themselves. Since then, anyone wearing Taking Meds merch has probably been told, \u201CI thought that was a Talking Heads shirt.\u201D The band always joked about doing a cover set but I don\u2019t think anyone actually expected the day to come.

Adorned in an oversized grey suit, Skylar pulled off a shockingly good David Byrne impression. He would even mimic vocal effects from the originals. Hearing Skylar say \u201Cwater\u201D repeatedly while also adding those ad-libs was a bit painful but also so funny to watch. By the time they got to \u201CBurning Down the House\u201D the firetrucks were outside with sirens ready to put out the fire.

Their first year at Fest, Zeta performed at the small pub stage at Loosey\u2019s. The following year, the band volunteered at Fest. The year after that, they moved to the club-sized stage at The Willow and this year, they performed on their largest stage yet at the outdoor venue Heartwood.

Every year there seems to be more and more converts to the Venezuelan avant experimental punk band. They use Latin rhythms that entrance the listener and keep your attention fixed on 8+ people on stage. Drums of all shapes and sizes litter the stage. There are keys and synths, and lead singer Juanchi\u2019s vocals are haunting. There\u2019s even a dancing dragon on stage. If you ever get the opportunity to see this band, take it.

There is no music playing, just the hush murmur as people make their way inside. A normal speaking voice breaks the quiet, saying \u201CI feel like I just walked into a church.\u201D It\u2019s by far the most intimate venue at Fest, where most stages have fans frothing at mouth shouting the lyrics to their favorite bands. This room feels more like a funeral home.

The hush acoustics bounce off marble tiles and catacomb-like pillars as Ceschi sings out \u201CWe were hiding our faces long before pandemics arrived,\u201D and \u201CWe\u2019ve been glorifying wealth and greed and sociopathy / It is packaged and sold to us as the American dream.\u201D

He commands the crowd like a preacher in a pulpit singing, the subjects of his songs demanding that much seriousness. At the end of his set, he prompts the audience telling them to sing a sample for him. \u201COh my God,\u201D is all we have to sing and when he tests it, almost everyone jumped on board to sing. We sounded like a rag-tag choir.

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