Carolina in My Mind 1: Wish I was in the land of Dixie...

Let's just pretend these next few entries from a recent trip to North Carolina and environs were actually posted on the days they occurred--that was my intention, but Blogger didn't seem to want to play along.

New Orleans haunts me. Even here, in Fredericksburg, VA (the eleventh most misspelled city in the US), we find a quaint-looking restaurant called Cafe New Orleans:



Standing outside, we hear an impressively loud noise, sounding something like Sonic Youth circa 1985 or so. Where's it coming from? And how can we get closer? Don, his brother Dave (a new Fredericksburger, as of 2 weeks ago), and I circle the building, looking for clues. Eventually we figure out that there's a club on the second floor of the Cafe, and we make our way upstairs, where we find...



... a very, VERY loud band called (I think--it was hard to hear the bartender over the racket) the Offering. Vintage goth/synth/noise in the high 80s mode. Squint real hard and maybe you can make them out in the picture. Vocals impossible to decipher, and they seem beside the point--the wall of sound is the whole point, and it's a great soundtrack for such chaotic times. Don and I both like them a lot, Dave not so much. I count eight people in the club (two of whom are playing pool) and four more onstage. The bar itself actually looks very French Quarter-y, which is to say it's a bit of a dive, but in a good way, with a nice colorful mural on the wall and air conditioning and lots of darkness. The actual Quarter is closed for the time being, but its spirit lives on.