Lost Bayou Ramblers

PARK SLOPE: Multi-instrumentalist record producer/mixer Dan Romer (Ingrid Michaelson, Jenny Owen Youngs, Jukebox the Ghost) is now officially a film score composer to watch out for. His first feature film – Beasts of The Southern Wild – picked up the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, and the Caméra d’Or award at Cannes 2012. It premiered in the U.S. via Fox Searchlight this week.
Beasts is an epic folktale – an end-of-the-world story set at the edge-of-the-world (coastal Louisiana), and poignantly told from the perspective of a 6-year-old named Hushpuppy. Directed by Queens, NY-born Behn Zeitlin, a Weselyan grad who moved to New Orleans post-Katrina, the film looks wide-eyed at some of the biggest questions, tackles huge themes of global warming and poverty and the future of our civilization.
Zeitlin told the LA Times, “I wanted to make a film about holding on to things that are important. You have to stand by the things that made you.”
It’s an epic, sweepingly cinematic story set in a somewhat fantastical world but based on issues that are very real, and told through organic performances by Southern Louisiana local, non-professional actors. The score – co-written by the director with Romer – also seems to reflect the epic/personal and fantasy/realism story dynamics. A blend of big-and-small film-score orchestral, with Cajun jams, and frequent flourishes of brass and jazz, the score brings you – movingly, chills-inducing-ly – into the world of the Southern Wild, known as “The Bathtub”. Watch the trailer here:

The film is getting all kinds of accolades, and given its score was quite unconventionally created by the director with a popular indie record producer/mixer – using entirely live instrumentation – we needed to know more. And put a call into Romer…
How was the Beasts score produced? I know you do a lot of your record production work out of your own studio in Brooklyn…is this where the film music came together?
Benh Zeitlin and I wrote, arranged, recorded and did the basic pre 5.1 stem mix all in my home studio, Drawing Number One Studios in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The one part of the score that was recorded elsewhere was a part of “The Bathtub” which contained a performance of “Balfa Waltz” played by The Lost Bayou Ramblers. We recorded them in Lafayette, Louisiana at a studio called Electric Comoland.
Benh and I had learned from previous work that if you need a recording of a genre that is very much specific geographic location-based, it’s really best to go to that place to get it. And the Lost Bayou Ramblers are awesome. So.
Who else played on the score? Featured musicians, vocalists, etc.?
The score is 100 percent live instruments, no MIDI. And the musicians included:

In select U.S. theaters as of June 27, 2012
Jonathan Dinklage – Violin and Viola
Dave Eggar – Cello
Pete Donovan – Double Bass
Kenny Warren – Trumpet
Dave Nelson – Trombone
Dan Romer – Accordion, Guitar, Piano, Celesta and Banjo
Alan Grubner – Fiddle
Seth Faulk – Toms, Percussion and Dulcimer
Elliot Jacobson – Bass Drum and Cymbals
The jazz band is:
JP Schlegelmilch – Piano
Adam Schnelt – Saxophone
Sean Moran – Guitar
Adam Christgau – Snare Drum
The Lost Bayou Ramblers are:
Louis Michot – FIddle and Vocal
Andre Michot – Accordion
Cavan Carruth – Guitar
Andrew Austin -Peterson- Upright Bass
Paul Ehteridge – T-fer/Percussion
My additional engineers were Mike Tuccillo, Saul Simon MacWilliams, Jon Samson and Soundtrack mastering engineer Devin Kerr.
What was the director’s hope for the music: what did he want it to do / sound like? And how did this translate in your process and instrumentation?
Benh is part of a film collective called Court 13 whose mission is “to tell huge stories out of small parts.” Huge stories have orchestras playing their soundtracks, right? So we made an orchestra out of eight people. All of the orchestral string parts are only three musicians, doubled and doubled and doubled again, which we knew would be the case and would end up being part of the sound. In fact, our violin/viola player Jonathan Dinklage played for over 30 hours on this score. 15 of those hours were in one session. He is a warrior.
We thought that the emotions we wanted to evoke would be best brought through simplicity. We used a lot of basic repetitive rhythmic patterns and a lot of melodies that could just as easily have been sung by a pop singer as played by a trumpet.
We actually didn’t pre-arrange any of the percussion, guitar, accordion or banjo parts. Once we finished recording the score, we went back through it and tried those instruments everywhere we thought they would fit. Some of it stuck, some of it didn’t.
It’s rare that a film score composer would also be such an active record producer/engineer, with lots of artists and musicians coming through the studio regularly…how did this contribute to the score?
Benh and I are both lovers of pop music. I would say at the end of the day that the film score, co - Sonic Snoop: Beasts of Southern Wild Soundtrack

There’s fast and there’s fast: seven minutes into this release and you’re on the fourth song. That’s because the Lost Bayou Ramblers put punk into Cajun music. Originally, the brothers Michot (Andre on accordion and lap steel, Louis on vocals, bass and fiddle) despised the genre, seeing it as just a style to keep their old folks happy. But once they caught the way that its rhythms get people moving, they took it on and made it their own.

Anyone who doubts their authenticity and innovative spirit might want to ask how they can get guests including Dr. John, the Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano, Scarlett Johansson and French actress/singer Nora Arnezeder to join in.

This collection is a mix of several traditional songs mixed with half a dozen of their own – not that it’s easy for non-specialists to tell: it’s all sung in French, often with a definite local-yokel accent. Those who can appreciate the lyrics will find original songs that range from celebrating daily life to lamenting a BP oil spill. The enormous range extends to the bookenders: opener "Le Reveil de la Louisiane" is a nineteenth-century celebration of Cajun spirit and Daniel Lanois’ ”O Marie” closes the main block, the only track not trying to race a train.

"Blues de Bernadette" puts a boogie spin on Cajun music; "Bastille," which features Gano on joint vocal and fiddle, has a definite hoe-down feel; while the danciest track is probably "Croche," a three-four time song with a hip-hop spirit that has enough space to let the programming shine through behind the accordion's riffwork.

Just as strong is “Coteau Guidry” (so nice they played it twice), the work that features Johansson and her vocal that lifts the sometimes dense sound out of the swamp. First time round, she adds backing vocals to the chorus, but on the reprise she takes lead.

If you want 21st century Cajun music, full of spirit and fun, you probably won’t get anything more impassioned than this. Its underlying respect for the genre gives it extra depth. If they come near you, catch them. They'll be a good live act. - Tollbooth

The Lost Bayou Ramblers from Pilette, Louisiana have been delivering authentic Cajun music with a modern twist for the past 10 years. With Mammoth Waltz, they take on a bit more of a rock and roll edge, but stay strongly rooted in traditional bayou music. The swirling fiddles and accordion added to the guitars, lap steel, drums, and bass provide a solid wall of sound to back up the raw, powerful vocals to get your feet moving and your heart pounding.

There's also an eclectic group of special guests joining the band on this CD. Dr. John on "Le Reveil de Louisiane" is not much of a surprise, but French actress and singer Nora Arnezeder on that same song is unexpected. So is Scarlett Johansson on "Coteau Guidry," but both ladies add a very special touch to the songs, the first a traditional Civil War anthem which translates as "Wake Up, Louisiana," and the second an original number about hanging out at a friend's house on the river bank.

I never really pictured Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes singing in French with accordions and fiddles either, but he gives a great punk edge to the song "Bastille, " which was written by Gano's sister, Cynthia. She uses the original French spelling of the family name, Gayneau. Suddenly the connection becomes clearer.

It doesn't really matter if you understand the French lyrics of the songs.You will still enjoy the great dance numbers like "La Jolie Fille N'en Veut Plus de Moi" and the title tune, "Mammoth Waltz," which is a very heavy, fast waltz.

But there is also Louis Michot's "Maree Noire" about the BP oil disaster, the contemporary piece by Daniel Lanois, "O Marie," which is 6 and a half minutes of drawn-out introspection, and the completely different and rocking "Blues de Bernedette."

The core of the Lost Bayou Ramblers is Andre and Louis Michot, who grew up playing in a traditional Cajun family band, Les Freres Michot. They love and honor the Cajun tradition and want to keep it alive. But they also want to bring it into modern tradition as well. They succeed in doing that on Mammoth Waltz, which is pure Cajun rock and roll.
- Seattle PI

LOUIS MICHOT could have built his house without ever tramping into the Louisiana bayou to wrangle 600 pounds of Spanish moss out of the live oak trees. But the plan — and Mr. Michot enjoys an open relationship with plans — was to fabricate the south wall out of moss and mud.

Old-timers called this Acadian building method “bousillage,” a country cousin to wattle and daub. And his wife, Ashlee Michot, said, “Everyone used to know how to do it.”

At least they did in the 1800s. Born a few years later (1979, to be precise), Mr. Michot is the fiddler and frontman for a riotous Cajun rock band, the Lost Bayou Ramblers. And he did not know how to construct a bousillage wall, or much of anything else, when he decided to raise his homestead on a sweet-potato field here.

“The only thing I had ever built before was a rabbit cage,” Mr. Michot said. “For one rabbit.”

He got some practice remodeling the grottiest parts of the 1970s camper that was his home for two years on the building site. “It had little air plants — bromeliads — growing from the shutters,” Mr. Michot said.

“We had some good times in that camper,” Mrs. Michot, 31, added.

It’s easier for the Michots to say that now, sitting over a pan of crawfish étouffée with their two little boys, Julien and Louis (Baby Lou), on a recent Friday afternoon. Their home today is like a piece of folk art that also happens to have air-conditioning and Wi-Fi.

Mr. Michot only slept in the camper intermittently anyway, because he was dragging his fiddle to 150 gigs a year, two-stepping across the United States, Canada and Europe.

The Lost Bayou Ramblers, with his brother, Andre, on accordion, are touring again this summer. There are shows this Friday night at the Pleasure Lounge on Shelter Island; Saturday night at Sullivan Hall in Manhattan; and July 13 at Yale University in New Haven.

Mr. Michot’s primal yawp also resounds from the opening scenes of the swampland fantasy “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which won the Sundance grand jury prize in January, and rolls into theaters this month. He possesses one of the great keening voices of Cajun music — “an old man’s voice,” said the band’s former guitarist, Korey Richey — and a loose-limbed fervor.

“It’s kind of rare for a fiddle player to pop a string,” Mr. Richey, 25, said. “And he’ll pop two a show.” Mr. Richey, who recently left the band to help engineer a project with the rhapsodic Montreal band Arcade Fire, also produced Mr. Michot’s new album, “Mammoth Waltz.”

On these raucous tracks, the Lost Bayou Ramblers sound Cajun in the same way the Pogues once sounded Celtic. Which is to say, they do and they don’t.

“Everyone calls us Cajun punk,” Mr. Michot said. “I don’t know what that means.”

WHEN he started work on the house in 2004, Mr. Michot already knew, “We can’t hit the road forever.” He added: “As a single musician, I wanted a place to rest my bones between touring.”

“Then it became a mansion, because he met a woman,” Mrs. Michot said.

On their very first date, she recalled, he asked her to pick him up at a gas station in Milton, La., a rumor of a town largely defined by having a gas station. “He said his truck was in the shop,” she said. When she pulled up, “he was on his bike with a six-pack of beer, eating a boudin breakfast” (a pork sausage).

They drove off to collect a song from an old Cajun sorcière, or medicine woman, named Ethel Mae Bourque, who had recently sung it to her dying father as a kind of musical palliative. Mr. Michot ultimately gained a few important things from the visit: a wife, for one; a collection of field recordings with Mrs. Bourque; and a pile of cypress beams that now run through his house.

With $100,000 to spend, and some sketches on graph paper, Mr. Michot was already imagining a different kind of house: a piece of bayou bricolage made from sunken cypress logs and salvaged shacks, architectural heirlooms and family junk.

And all that Spanish moss. For the first 400-pound load, Mr. Michot went to see a man in Catahoula. Under a brush tree, a mountain of moss was retting — a process that to the untrained eye looks a lot like rotting.

To build the wall, a gang of friends and family came over for the equivalent of a barn-raising. This is a quintessentially Cajun way of getting things done, said Mr. Michot’s friend Erik Charpentier, a scholar with a doctorate in francophone Louisiana studies.

“Little clans stick together and help each other out,” Mr. Charpentier, 44, said. “It’s very old school. Nobody does this anymore, it seems.”

Having toured with the band and flopped in the “funky” camper, he has concluded, “With Louis, there’s always some heavy lifting involved.”

What the Michots provided in exchange was home-cooked Cajun food and hospitality. For the friends who visit from New Orleans or farther afield, the house can seem like an outpost from a distant country, said his fill-in bassist, Taylor Guarisco, 25, now with the band - New York Times

On their latest record Mammoth Waltz, New Orleans outfit Lost Bayou Ramblers continue to push their Cajun-roots tunes into grittier, new rock-based realms, scoring some assistance from special guests including Scarlett Johansson, Dr. John and the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano. Now they're offering an inside look at the making of the record, which was recently released on 180-gram vinyl.

"Mammoth Waltz sort of taps into the ethos of where we come from," says fiddle player and singer Louis Michot. "We've taken different parts of who we are and mashed them into this one place. The process of getting to that place was like magic – all of these amazing people coming together from all over, well, the world, to help us raise the Mammoth from within." - Rolling Stone

Beyond the headliners, the Voodoo 2011 line-up was as diverse as the city where it takes place.
On the Red Bulletin Stage, fans of electronic music were given a powerhouse line-up featuring the likes of Fatboy Slim, Girl Talk and Major Lazer, while just across the lawn an ongoing showcase of blues, jazz and bluegrass took place on the Preservation Hall Stage, which hosted most notably the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with The Del McCoury Band and Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes with Lost Bayou Ramblers. - The Birmingham News

I still wasn’t convinced Gordon Gano, singer of my favorite band of my youth, Violent Femmes, was really going to play with my favorite Cajun group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, until the fiddles started playing the “Blister in the Sun” riff right there before me at the Blue Moon in Lafayette. Those quarter-century-old folk-punk tunes mix surprisingly well with the even deeper antiquity of Cajun music when filtered through the Lost Bayou Ramblers, now in their 12th year of rattling the preconceptions of how Cajun music can sound. Louis (fiddle) and Andre Michot (accordion) started the Lost Bayou Ramblers in 1999 after years of playing in their father and uncle’s group Les Freres Michot. “It was a thing we did, playing with the family band,” says Louis Michot. “I didn’t really know what Cajun music was or what kind of place it has until I was a teenager.”

A prevalent notion is that Cajun music is a continuum that chugs along defiant to the times, but like anything else, it goes in and out of style. Michot explains, “We all played and knew Cajun music, but we didn’t necessarily like it or not like it. We all liked Metallica and Guns N’ Roses and that’s what we played when we played music. The Cajun music was a thing we did with the family and saw it as old people music. We’d kinda make fun of it.”

An epiphany occurred when one of his rock drummer friends sat in with the band on triangle and then on the kit. “We saw how much rhythm it had and how it would make people dance,” he says. “We started to realize how powerful it was. “

That experience sent Michot into Cajun music’s past to find its feral side, citing a late-in-life recording of Joe Falcon, who recorded the first Cajun single “Allons a Lafayette” in 1928. Cajun Music Pioneer (Arhoolie) captures Falcon live in 1963 at the Triangle Club in Scott, Louisiana. “It’s one of the most nasty, awesome things you’ll ever hear,” offers Michot. “When we started listening to those old recordings, we wondered why no one was covering that old, raw, throwdown music where you can tell they don’t give a shit about anything; they just throw it down. It’s not so clean or pretty. It doesn’t have that ‘folk music’ quality. It’s more like punk rock or rock ‘n’ roll.”

Michot recalls, “We were at d.b.a. one night about three years ago, we had been doing ‘O Bye’ from our first album (Pilette Breakdown). When we’d get to the breakdown part we’d do different songs, like this one White Stripes song and sometimes ‘Blister in the Sun’. We were doin’ that, and suddenly this guy climbs up on stage and he’s like, ‘You mind?’ and I said, ‘I guess not.’” Enter Gordon Gano.

“I was in town and had played a show with the Ryans at Tipitina’s and I kept extending my stay,” says Gano.

“I definitely recognized his voice,” Michot says. “We did the first part and then we were lost. We’d never tried to play the whole song, and he goes ‘Okay, first thing, you’re in the wrong key. You gotta get in G.’ So we do that and he tells us the chords and we work through the whole song, right there, live. That’s how we met Gordon.”

When Gano joined them at the Blue Moon Saloon, the packed house knew the numbered list in “Add it Up” as innately as they did the two-step. The rattling hormonal longing of the Violent Femmes’ early songs and the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ rambunctious take on their fathers’ music both have that same nervous joy.

The thing that stuck out the most that night at the Blue Moon was how well Gano hung in there on the fiddle. An orchestra student in high school, Gano’s fiddle made the occasional appearance throughout the Violent Femmes catalog. “Usually it was very specific to a couple of songs,” he says. “And then, through the years I was a member of an amateur chamber music group in NYC. I’d always hope I’d get that second violin part because I pretty much couldn’t really do the first violin part.”

Michot has nothing but praise for his accidental band mate. “He’s one of my favorite fiddle players to play with because I don’t do much of the Cajun twin fiddle thing with all the harmonics and counterpoint and all that. He plays it so raw and plays exactly what he wants to play, which works great with me. It’s what I do.”

Michot also waves off any suggestion of cultural dissonance in this phase of the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ development. “I’m a firm believer that Cajun music is not so much a manifestation of a bunch of people isolated out in the country but something that comes from a worldly people that are tapped into the times and are always renewing what they do to match what the rest of the world does. A lot of people want to romanticize and say that it’s some guy who can’t read and write up on his porch, which is nice and romantic, but the reality is much more interesting. It is American music, and when we play ‘American Music’ with Gordon, it hits the nail on the head.“

Michot does, however, point out concession to his heritage. “You know Gano is a French name,” he s - Offbeat Magazine

I still wasn’t convinced Gordon Gano, singer of my favorite band of my youth, Violent Femmes, was really going to play with my favorite Cajun group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, until the fiddles started playing the “Blister in the Sun” riff right there before me at the Blue Moon in Lafayette. Those quarter-century-old folk-punk tunes mix surprisingly well with the even deeper antiquity of Cajun music when filtered through the Lost Bayou Ramblers, now in their 12th year of rattling the preconceptions of how Cajun music can sound. Louis (fiddle) and Andre Michot (accordion) started the Lost Bayou Ramblers in 1999 after years of playing in their father and uncle’s group Les Freres Michot. “It was a thing we did, playing with the family band,” says Louis Michot. “I didn’t really know what Cajun music was or what kind of place it has until I was a teenager.”

A prevalent notion is that Cajun music is a continuum that chugs along defiant to the times, but like anything else, it goes in and out of style. Michot explains, “We all played and knew Cajun music, but we didn’t necessarily like it or not like it. We all liked Metallica and Guns N’ Roses and that’s what we played when we played music. The Cajun music was a thing we did with the family and saw it as old people music. We’d kinda make fun of it.”

An epiphany occurred when one of his rock drummer friends sat in with the band on triangle and then on the kit. “We saw how much rhythm it had and how it would make people dance,” he says. “We started to realize how powerful it was. “

That experience sent Michot into Cajun music’s past to find its feral side, citing a late-in-life recording of Joe Falcon, who recorded the first Cajun single “Allons a Lafayette” in 1928. Cajun Music Pioneer (Arhoolie) captures Falcon live in 1963 at the Triangle Club in Scott, Louisiana. “It’s one of the most nasty, awesome things you’ll ever hear,” offers Michot. “When we started listening to those old recordings, we wondered why no one was covering that old, raw, throwdown music where you can tell they don’t give a shit about anything; they just throw it down. It’s not so clean or pretty. It doesn’t have that ‘folk music’ quality. It’s more like punk rock or rock ‘n’ roll.”

Michot recalls, “We were at d.b.a. one night about three years ago, we had been doing ‘O Bye’ from our first album (Pilette Breakdown). When we’d get to the breakdown part we’d do different songs, like this one White Stripes song and sometimes ‘Blister in the Sun’. We were doin’ that, and suddenly this guy climbs up on stage and he’s like, ‘You mind?’ and I said, ‘I guess not.’” Enter Gordon Gano.

“I was in town and had played a show with the Ryans at Tipitina’s and I kept extending my stay,” says Gano.

“I definitely recognized his voice,” Michot says. “We did the first part and then we were lost. We’d never tried to play the whole song, and he goes ‘Okay, first thing, you’re in the wrong key. You gotta get in G.’ So we do that and he tells us the chords and we work through the whole song, right there, live. That’s how we met Gordon.”

When Gano joined them at the Blue Moon Saloon, the packed house knew the numbered list in “Add it Up” as innately as they did the two-step. The rattling hormonal longing of the Violent Femmes’ early songs and the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ rambunctious take on their fathers’ music both have that same nervous joy.

The thing that stuck out the most that night at the Blue Moon was how well Gano hung in there on the fiddle. An orchestra student in high school, Gano’s fiddle made the occasional appearance throughout the Violent Femmes catalog. “Usually it was very specific to a couple of songs,” he says. “And then, through the years I was a member of an amateur chamber music group in NYC. I’d always hope I’d get that second violin part because I pretty much couldn’t really do the first violin part.”

Michot has nothing but praise for his accidental band mate. “He’s one of my favorite fiddle players to play with because I don’t do much of the Cajun twin fiddle thing with all the harmonics and counterpoint and all that. He plays it so raw and plays exactly what he wants to play, which works great with me. It’s what I do.”

Michot also waves off any suggestion of cultural dissonance in this phase of the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ development. “I’m a firm believer that Cajun music is not so much a manifestation of a bunch of people isolated out in the country but something that comes from a worldly people that are tapped into the times and are always renewing what they do to match what the rest of the world does. A lot of people want to romanticize and say that it’s some guy who can’t read and write up on his porch, which is nice and romantic, but the reality is much more interesting. It is American music, and when we play ‘American Music’ with Gordon, it hits the nail on the head.“

Michot does, however, point out concession to his heritage. “You know Gano is a French name,” he s - Offbeat Magazine

The Grammy nominated group, Lost Bayou Ramblers, were the talk of the festival at this year’s Merlefest. The Louisiana band drew large crowds on both Thursday and Friday of this years festival. While listed as a cajun band, the Lost Bayou Ramblers draw influences from traditional cajun, western swing, rockabilly and even punk rock. In previous years of Merlefest, you may have seen cajun influenced bands such as the Duhks or The Red Stick Ramblers. But the LBR bring something unique to their shows. Energy. Ever see a guy stand on his upright bass while playing it on a table?

The Lost Bayou Ramblers were one of the best finds of this year’s festival. They will continue their tour through Texas and back home to Louisiana. With such a great response this year, we can only hope that they will be included on the 25th Merlefest lineup for 2012.
- Flying Rooster

The Lost Bayou Ramblers walked onto the Fais-Do-Do Stage at the New Orleans Jazz Fest looking like an indie rock band: a bunch of young guys sporting hipster Mohawks, electric-blue pants, large tattoos and giant sunglasses with thick turquoise frames.
But as soon as the Lafayette band started warming up, their fiddles and accordions began producing the unmistakable sounds of classic Cajun music, the kind of sounds some bayou dwellers associate with only the oldest generations.
Yet the band infuses these "old" sounds with fresh, rock-influenced life. The Lost Bayou Ramblers specialize in a high-energy, raucous brand of traditional Cajun music that combines electric guitars and heavy drums with fast-playing fiddles, accordions and lyrics in Cajun French.
In other words, these guys ripped through a series of hardcore Cajun songs like bayou rock stars.
If a fiddle can be shredded, front man and lead vocalist Louis Michot was seriously shredding one. Bassist Alan LaFleur kept his bass everything but upright. He spent the show manhandling the instrument, dipping it to the side, tipping it near horizontal, twirling it as he slapped and plucked its strings at a furious pace, while head-banging to his beat.
The catchy sounds had people dancing within seconds of the opening chords. The show included a range of Cajun sounds: a blues song with a hard-rock feel, an upbeat tune dedicated to Texans, a waltz off the band's CD "Vermillionaire."
"These guys aren't lost," a Jazz Fest staffer told the crowd. "They find their way back to the Fais-Do-Do Stage every year, and we're grateful for it."
The audience did not seem lost either. Crowd members arrived with purpose, wearing Lost Bayou Ramblers T-shirts and talking about previous shows by the band. The group performs at various clubs and festivals throughout Louisiana, including One Eyed Jacks in New Orleans and Festival International in Lafayette. The Lost Bayou Ramblers also perform in spots across the country.
Near the end of one song, Michot climbed atop the standup bass and continued working his fiddle as LaFleur kept plucking. LaFleur then tipped the bass to the side, allowing Michot to lounge across the side of the bass for the song's finale.
"If you ever get a chance to take a nap on a standup bass, it works pretty well," Michot told the crowd.
"I wonder how many of those he goes through a year," one crowd member thought aloud.
That number could be growing, as the Lost Bayou Ramblers continue exposing more audiences to their high-voltage brand of Cajun rock. - The Times-Picayune

The new wave of young Cajun bands coming out of Lafayette, La. was well represented at the festival by the Pine Leaf Boys, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Feufollet, the Red Stick Ramblers and Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy and the Country Cajun Revival, who all delivered fine sets. But the best showing from this movement was the Sunday set by the Lost Bayou Ramblers, who demonstrated how Cajun music and punk rock could be fused without violating the spirit of either.

They did it by sticking mostly with acoustic instruments (fiddle, button accordion, upright bass and drums were joined by an electric guitar) and by putting real Cajun and real punk side-by-side rather than watering each down. So the fiddle and squeezebox might play the original melody and syncopation of “Pine Grove Blues,” while the guitar struck up a drone and the drums hammered out a staccato stomp. It shouldn’t have worked but it did.
- Paste Magazine

We capped Thursday night at the Dance Tent, where we sashayed and two-stepped to the tunes of the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a spunky Cajun band that springs from the swamps of south Lousiana. The group is driven by brothers Louis (fiddle) and Andre Michot (accordion), who learned to play Cajun from their fathers and uncles.

I’d crossed paths with the Ramblers six years ago, in Richmond, Virginia. Since that time the band has added a more rock and roll edge to their sound, while still maintaining their roots. Thursday night they delivered a cover of Old 97s’ “Four Leaf Clover.”

The band closed the night with a Cajun lament, dedicated to the people who lost their lives in Wednesday’s tornadoes. The Ramblers had eaten lunch in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, getting out of town just before the storms touched down.


- American Songwriter Magazine

Among the collaborations at the Voodoo Experience is what may seem like an unlikely pairing of former Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano — a pioneering figure of the post-punk era — and The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Louisiana natives who began playing Cajun music and are modernizing and evolving it. But it's not an off-the-wall experiment. Listen and you'll hear a genuine affinity between the godfather of post-punk adolescent angst and a pioneering Cajun band playing a leading role in a developing music scene centered in Lafayette, La., where a handful of ground-breaking bands born into the local traditions also have been raised on progressive rock flavored with dub and techno.

The Saturday appearance at Voodoo will serve as the official release of the Ramblers' "Bastille," a 12-inch vinyl single featuring contributions by Gano. "Bastille" is one of the genre-busting tracks on The Lost Bayou Ramblers' forthcoming album Mammoth Waltz, which also features performances by actress/singer Scarlett Johansson and Dr. John. The B-side offers a total-makeover remix of "Bastille" by indie-rockers GIVERS. - Gambit

The youthful sweethearts of the Lost Bayou Ramblers have spent 2011 evolving in leaps and bounds. The band’s high-energy, no-quarter live performances have always revealed the punk-rock possibilities of traditional Cajun stomps. With their most recent recordings, they’ve veered from their regular, old-school strategy of bare-bones live recording into adding more contemporary rock 'n’ roll studio effects – to great effect.

It wasn’t the case at all; more fans were dancing at Preservation Hall than at the Le Plur raver’s stage across the way. Gano, far from being a "celebrity guest," fit in easily, like a fifth band member.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers released a new vinyl LP today (Oct. 29) split with the band Givers. - The Times-Picayune

The making of "Mammoth Waltz, " due out early next year, was a rambling process full of such strange encounters and serendipitous partnerships. "Reveil de la Louisiane, " from "Mammoth Waltz, " features piano tracks from Dr. John, whom the band met while working on a benefit.
While recording at Dockside Studios in Maurice, the band made another surprising acquaintance: actress Scarlett Johansson, who was there mixing her own new album with "TV on the Radio" producer Dave Sitek. The Ramblers apparently are pretty easy to make friends with -- Johansson also wound up contributing vocals to "Mammoth Waltz."
All in all, "Mammoth Waltz, " with its audible effects, is a significant departure in the studio for the band, which normally records live and analog.
"We've always recorded out albums in the style of, we go into a room, play what we know, press go, press stop, and it's finished, " Michot said. Not on the "Mammoth Waltz" sessions. "Vermilionaire, " which was produced by Chris "Frenchie" Smith (who had worked with Motorhead's Lemmy and Jet, among others) was already "further than we'd ever gone, " Michot said. "Mammoth Waltz" takes it a step (or a two-step) further, layering on studio effects.
Cynthia Gayneau's "Bastille, " with Gano playing fiddle and singing (in French), is all bayou-punk bluster, shifting from a shuffling two-step beat to one to which you can pogo and headbang. One new song ends with a fading guitar-buzz coda that sounds like The Who. "Reveil de la Louisiane, " with its layered echo, brings to mind Dr. John's own "Sipiana Hericane" EP. "Coteau Guidry, " which has Johansson's vocals (also in French), is enveloped in a light cloud of fuzz that paradoxically makes the song, even as it takes advantage of contemporary gear, sound as if it's broadcasting on a staticky radio tuned to the past.
The band has gone through some other changes. Longtime bassist Alan LaFleur, whose rock 'n' roll antics (he crowd-surfed with his bass at Jazz Fest this past year) has left the band; Andrew Austin-Petersen now handles the low end. The band also is making its feature film debut in the new Sylvester Stallone flick filmed in New Orleans this year. With the Lost Bayou Ramblers picking up such creative steam, you would think they'd be bummed out that the Grammy award for Cajun and zydeco music has been taken off the table. (They were nominated for the award in its first year, 2008, for "Live a la Blue Moon; " Terence Simien took the honors that year.) But according to Michot, ca ne fait rien.
"I basically feel the same as I did before they created it, " he said. "It was good for all of us while it was there, and we almost all got a nomination before it was over. But you get wrapped up into this box of a category, Cajun/zydeco, and it's really hard to get out of."
After "Mammoth Waltz" drops, critics will be hard-pressed to put the Lost Bayou Ramblers in any box.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers play Tipitina's Free Friday series tonight; they'll preview tracks from "Mammoth Waltz" as well as play favorites from their decade-old catalog.
. . . . . . . . - The Times-Picayune

Saturday: Hurray for the Riff Raff making me care about Americana by connecting to the lyrics’ emotions instead of their historical roots (download their version of “My Sweet Lord”); the Revivalists opening the main stage with “Concrete (Fish Out of Water),” Boots Electric perplexing everybody at the main stage with a show that was as much gesture as music; Mastodon being ridiculously heavy; Lost Bayou Ramblers owning the crowd and their increasingly interesting rock/Cajun synthesis before Gordon Gano walked onstage; Katey Red‘s voice having so much reverb on it that she created her own polyrhythms rolling on the consonants on “Ugly Buggin’ Me”; Z-Trip working the theme to Halloween into his mix, then breaking up Vincent Price’s opening narration for “Thriller” until it’s actually disturbing; X being as punk as ever, but with better musicianship that made their songs’ odd starts and stops even more dynamic; and Girl Talk tailoring his mix to the occasion, also using “Halloween” and “Thriller,” as well as “Ghostbusters” and “Monster Mash.” In the latter case, he juxtaposed Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s backing vocalists singing, “He did the mash” with the Three 6 Mafia singing, “but I’d rather get some head.”
- Offbeat Magazine

Saturday: Hurray for the Riff Raff making me care about Americana by connecting to the lyrics’ emotions instead of their historical roots (download their version of “My Sweet Lord”); the Revivalists opening the main stage with “Concrete (Fish Out of Water),” Boots Electric perplexing everybody at the main stage with a show that was as much gesture as music; Mastodon being ridiculously heavy; Lost Bayou Ramblers owning the crowd and their increasingly interesting rock/Cajun synthesis before Gordon Gano walked onstage; Katey Red‘s voice having so much reverb on it that she created her own polyrhythms rolling on the consonants on “Ugly Buggin’ Me”; Z-Trip working the theme to Halloween into his mix, then breaking up Vincent Price’s opening narration for “Thriller” until it’s actually disturbing; X being as punk as ever, but with better musicianship that made their songs’ odd starts and stops even more dynamic; and Girl Talk tailoring his mix to the occasion, also using “Halloween” and “Thriller,” as well as “Ghostbusters” and “Monster Mash.” In the latter case, he juxtaposed Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s backing vocalists singing, “He did the mash” with the Three 6 Mafia singing, “but I’d rather get some head.”
- Offbeat Magazine

Chile Pepper Fiesta celebrates cultures of spice, including hurricane-ravaged southwestern Louisiana

NEW YORK -- Louisiana musician Chris "Oscar" Courville lost just about everything when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. His house will likely be bulldozed. His drums, submerged in the trunk of his car, were covered in a vile mix of mud and sewage _ and that's the good news.

The gunk added a "new depth of funk" to his band's sound, fellow musician Louis Michot said. New Yorkers can hear for themselves this Sunday, when the Lost Bayou Ramblers perform their irresistible Cajun music at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's 12th annual Chile Pepper Fiesta.

The festival celebrates spicy cultures from Mexico to Thailand, with cooking demonstrations and tastings, drumming and dance performances and activities for children. Several of the participants hail from southwestern Louisiana, where a vibrant culture is struggling to adjust to a landscape transformed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"Southern Louisiana is one of the most complex cultural landscapes in North America, if not the world," anthropologist Ryan A. Brasseaux said from his home in Lafayette, La. "I think (the hurricanes) will have some serious cultural implications, as folks are displaced across the country. It's a natural disaster, obviously, but it's just as importantly a cultural disaster."

Brasseaux and his father, who together co-wrote "Stir the Pot: The History of Cajun Cuisine" with cookbook author Marcelle Bienvenu, will discuss the cultural fallout from the hurricanes at the festival on Sunday.

Of course, a discussion of Cajun culture is, on some level, a discussion about food.

"The first complaint I hear from people who are displaced is, 'Boy, the food's bad,"' Ryan Brousseaux said. "I think that cuisine is going to play an enormous role. It may have a Creolizing effect on America.

"Food is how we celebrate each other," he added. "If anything gets us through this it will be at the dinner table."

Music is also playing a role, say members of the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Besides Courville and Michot, who is the band's lead singer and fiddler, the troupe consists of Michot's brother, accordionist Andre Michot; guitarist Jon Bertrand; and Alan LaFleur on upright bass. Their third album has just been released; ironically, its title is "Bayou Perdu," or "Lost Bayou."

The reaction to their music has been better than ever from people "who are just glad to be alive," Louis Michot said. The band, which is donating 10 percent of merchandise sales to the Red Cross, jokes that its current tour is for the "Oscar Relief Fund."

Also performing at the festival will be Ashlee Wilson, who will demonstrating waltz, two-step and zydeco dance steps with Ryan Brasseaux, Andrew Suire and Frederique Lamy.

Lamy is a Quebec native, but the others grew up in and around Lafayette, a city bursting at the seams with Katrina evacuees. Some have relished having loved ones closer to them. But deadlocked traffic, emptied grocery aisles and overwhelmed schools are taking a toll, said Wilson, a teacher from Ville Platte. "There's no city that's been untouched" in Louisiana, she said.

"I think we're all kind of stunned," she said. "We just have to keep truckin."'

With flights rerouted and phone service disconnected, just getting the band and dancers to New York has been challenging, said Anita Jacobs, director of public programs for the garden.

Judging by the passers-by who stopped to clap and dance Friday when the Lost Bayou Ramblers offered a short preview, it was worth the effort. Members of a local wedding party sashayed down the garden paths, smiling and nodding their heads to the lively rhythms. Wilson kicked off her shoes as Courville twirled her around, and several other members of the band hopped onto LaFleur's bass after he propped it on its side.

"It's not about impressing people or making something fancy," Louis Michot said afterward.

LaFleur smiled, agreeing.

"If it doesn't feel like you're at our house, having a good time, it's not working." - NY Newsday, New York City

LOST AND FOUND
Young Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers is winning over fans from Acadiana to New York City
When the Lost Bayou Ramblers stepped onstage at a bar high in Colorodo's Rocky Mountains earlier this summer, singer/fiddler Louis Michot looked out at a stone-faced audience.
“The place was full of these hard-looking Colorado cowboys,” says Michot. “They didn't know if they were going to like us or not.” According to Michot, he could barely sing that night because of the altitude, but nonetheless he and his bandmates proceeded to belt out their set of unforgiving traditional Cajun music. A Denver Broncos win that night may have had something to do with it, but the leery crowd soon warmed to the band.
“This guy went from straight-faced and hard one second, then the next thing I knew he was sitting by my side,” says Michot. “And it sounded like he knew the words. His buddy came up and said, ‘I don't know what you guys are singing about, but he sings like this every day at work, and he finally found someone he can sing with.'”
As a young ban trying to make a living playing Cajun music in the 21 st century, the Lost Bayou Ramblers often find themselves in this scenario. Singing in a foreign language about places nobody has ever heard of, playing fiddles, accordions, and lap steel guitars and driving around the country in vehicles of questionable reliability, there are a lot of gazes to turn away from the TV screens at the other end of the bar.
The Ramblers have proved capable of overcoming those challenges. In a way quite different from their contemporaries, they've managed to puncture the veil of language an culture, attracting an enthusiastic following that includes city dwellers, zydeholics, New Orleans hipsters, and a growing pack of music journalists. While attracting the interest of local fans of Cajun music, they've also become an attraction in Austin, parts of California, French Canada, and the East coast. They're even making inroads in New York City, where they've earned press raves in the New Yorker magazine and an unexpected and devout following in the Bronx.
In the words of folklorist Ryan Brasseaux, the Ramblers' friend and sometime triangle player, “They're so old-timey, they're avant-garde.”
Andre Michot, 29, is a soft-spoken, dark-haired young man whose restrained on-stage demeanor belies an intense musicality. A sought-after musician known for his rock-solid rhythm guitar playing, Andre primarily plays accordion with the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Shying away from the onstage gymnastics and posturing employed by some Cajun accordionists, Andre sits down when he plays and bears down on his instrument with calm focus, like most older Cajun musicians.
Louis, his 26-year-old younger brother, is a different story. Attacking his fiddle with long, furious bow strokes, and singing in a high, raspy cry, he seems perpetually infused with kinetic energy. When he sings, the sinews in his neck leap out in sharp relief, and the veins balloon like an oxbow river. Louis is an old soul in a young, wiry frame.
The two brothers – sons of research biologist Thomas Michot – form the core of the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Both grew up exposed to Cajun music, as their father and uncles Mike and Rick Michot make up Les Freres Michot, one of the mainstays of the local French music scene.
Louis first started on the fiddle after receiving his grandfather's instrument as a gift, and he started building a small repertoire of Cajun tunes while roaming around the country in his early 20s. A summer trip to Nova Scotia to study French at St. Annes University furthered his desire to become a Cajun fiddler.
“Going to Acadie and learning French kind of gave me a boost,” says Louis. “When I started speaking French, I started singing. From that point on the fiddle kind of helped me get around.” Armed with about 12 Cajun French songs an his grandfather's fiddle, Louis stayed in French Canada for another three months, busking the street corners of his ancestors' homeland.
Louis returned home to find that Andre had been playing the accordion, and the two brothers started playing together for fun. Before long, they started jamming with other friends, including Matthew Doucet (Beausoleil fiddler Michael Doucet's son). The loose configuration of musicians played its first gig at the former Café Rue Vermillion in downtown Lafayette to a small crowd of friends.
They began to refer to themselves as the Lost Bayou Ramblers at the suggestion of a friend, the late enigmatic Ryan Domingue. According to Ryan Brasseaux, Domingue was a scientific genius who spent his days listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs and counting dolphin brain cells at the New Iberia Research Center.
The rotating cast of characters who backed up the brothers in these days includes clarinetist Gary Hernandez, Matthew Doucet, and various Michot cousins an uncles. The band's first professional gig as the Lost Bayou Ramblers was for a wedding at a plantation house in Bald - The Independent Weekly, Lafayette, LA

The Lost Bayou Ramblers can't help it if they have one foot in tradition and one in rock 'n' roll.

After the Shop Boyz recorded "Party Like a Rock Star," doing so became a bit of a cliche (if Motley Crue, Aerosmith and Def Leopard hadn't already made it so.) That didn't stop the Lost Bayou Ramblers from giving it their good-natured shot on the rooftop bar atop Los Angeles' Standard Hotel, but by hair metal standards, they were rank amateurs.

They were hanging out with their wives and girlfriends, and only one member got to the point where he had to know the waitress' name, then had to use every time she came around. Staff dressed in 1970's high school pep squad attire kept bringing them beer. At the same time, other members of the Louisiana contingent in L.A. for the presentation of the first Cajun-Zydeco Grammy were visiting a guitar maker. Productive, maybe, but hardly living it up.

The afternoon was emblematic of the Lost Bayou Ramblers' place in Cajun music. They're traditional in many ways, but not dogmatically so. They explore their South Lousiana roots, but in addition to Cajun music, they include elements of western swing that the Hackberry Ramblers touched on.

Instead of treating the music as recovered remnants from the past, they're showmen, presenting it as something vital enough to make drummer Chris Courville stomp out the introduction to songs, something that animates guitarist Cavan Carruth and bassist Alan LaFleur to jump and swimg like they were playing rock 'n' roll, and something that prompts fiddle player Louis Michot to climb LaFleur's upright bass and play while standing on it.

"We're singing in French," Carruth says practically. "We've got to help people get into it."

But in the middle of the motion and post-modern looks onstage - LaFleru's rockabilly haircut and armful of tats, Michot's Beau Chene 4-H baseball undershirt - Andre Michot wears a clean white guayabera and sits still on a chair onstage as he plays accordion and lap steel, just as it was done a hundred years ago. "I play better that way," he says, but the juxtaposition with the rock 'n' roll feel marks the band as one with one foot in the past and one in the present.

Louis Michot acknowledges that today, it would be weird if not impossible for young men to make music untouched by rock 'n' roll, and it's as much a part of his background as Cajun music is. He, brother Andre and Courville have all played triangle with Les Freres Michot, but he also played in a rock band in high school with Courville.

"Everyone is traditional, but you can't keep out your influences unless you practice it. They come through naturally," Michot says. "That's the great thing about Cajun music - it changes with the time."

Besides the presentation, the modern world shows up in the rhythm. "We can never say enough about how important the triangle is," he says. "That has set the rhythm. We don't progress the melodies, but we believe in the rhythm. That's where we can be innovative and give dancers something new. It's all about what we call the 'chock,' the one-drop - chockin' on the one. From there, we can expand."

The Lost Bayou Ramblers, like the Pine Leaf Boys and many contemporary Cajun and Creole artists, are part of a new generation exploring their cultural heritage. Beausoleil, Zachary Richard and others undertook a similar project in the 1970s, but with some significant differences.

"People were scared the culture was going to start fading out so they made a conscious effort to play Cajun music," Michot says. "Now, it's alive and well, so people are taking more liberties and expanding on it. In the 1930s, '40s and '50s, there was all kind of different stuff going on. Cleoma Falcon, I don't thin she was thinking, 'I've got to preserve this music.' I think she was being totally radical and making a new statement and trying to be more worldly. She played jazz standards in Cajun French. Now it seems traditional, but back then it was probably punk rock."

The Ramblers' Live a la Blue Moon is traditional but worldly, and it was nominated for the Grammy. "When I heard them say, 'And the winner is, Live,'" Courville says, "I thought for a moment we'd won."

"We all skipped abreath," Michot says, but Terrance Simien's Grammy-nominated album was titled Live! Worldwide, and it was his album title they called. For Michot, though, the experience was worth it.

"It was amazing, and it's going to help Cajun and Zydeco musicians of today be a lot more confident of their abilities to be professional musicians and take care of themselves through music. All of a sudden, you're legit, no matter how much money you make." - Offbeat Monthly, New Orleans

Lost Bayou Ramblers present the Mello Joy Boys - Une Tasse Cafe

Not often does a Cajun swing album appear in these here pages. In fact, one never has. However, the contents of the Lost Bayou Ramblers' third album are such that I just can't help myself - and oh my, don't it feel good. Donning the personas of the "Mello Joy Boys", the Ramblers traverse the rocked up, jazzz rag sounds of Cajun swing, the dominant form of Cajun music during the 1930s and 40swhich served as one of the first national exports of the Cajun genre. Departing from the material on their first two albums which kept to the traditional form - bare acoustic playing, accordian dance tunes, lyrics a la Francais - the latest tracks are full-bodied piano-banjo-steel guitar numbers that are sometimes bilingual but always retain the distress of the Cajun voice. The tracksThe tracks include both Cajun swing standards and original material, making this album an exercise in musical preservation as well as development. Although the music is very "old" in a sense, there is something very novel about what the "Mello Joy Boys" are doing. In all meanings of the word, this is foremost a concept album...and a Cajun swing concept album at that. Acting as purveyors of the Lafayette-based coffee company (Mello Joy), the Boys seem to make clear the commercial history of the music that they are playing and the (healty/unhealthy?) cultural exportation of the genre. These are not a bunch of unwieldy twenty-somethings we're dealing with here, but a band that is very much aware of its musical past. Sure, some of the conceptual components are a bit kitschy, such as the "Mello Joy Boys are on the air!" announcement at the begining (and the scratchy sound of needle-meets-record that precedes it), but the purpose of the album stays true throughout. Also, listening to these Great Depression-era melodies that are so filled with raucousness, anticipation and an underlying sorrow, it's as if these tunes are expressively tailored for present day southern Louisiana and all its loss and anger and anxiety. Some songs will especially strike a chord with those who feel ddeply and feel often, like the renditions of "Blues D'Hiver" and "Louisiana Breakdown," and the last track of the album which offers guest Wilson Savoy on piano and vocals is simply heartbreaking - no matter if you understand the language or not. The Ramblers' enthusiasm for playing both traditional and original tunes, combined with an immediate place and audience that seems ripe for reconnecting with its cultural and historical past, makes Une Tasse Cafe mofe than just pertinent, it makes it very new. - AntiGravity Magazine, New Orleans

Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu - Swallow Records
Purists are going to grumble when they hear the lap steel and maybe begrudge the precedent for a dobro in a Cajun ensemble, but they'll get over it quick once they spin this platter. The young men of the Lost Bayou are very much part of the tradition and this album actually gets in a plug for a side project of theirs, backing Ethel Mae Bourque, a 72 year old denizen of remote Vermilion parish who sings the songs her granpere taught her! How deep can you get? LBR is headed up by the Michot brothers, who have their own, very deep roots and a commitment to keeping the old sound and spirit alive. Louis sings that high, screechy sound to match his delightfully rude fiddling, while Andre makes the sound move and flow, alternating between the more traditional accordian and the aforementioned lap steel. This new effort marks the LBR's concern that the music stay close to its original purpose as dance and party music, hence the addition of drummer Oscar "The Train" Courville and wild man bassist Alan LaFleur, who not only keeps things chuggin' but astonishes the crowd with his acrobatics. Plays it under his chin - got the pictures to prove it! This is a very fine record by a maturing and increasingly important band, taking Cajun music into the new century without comprimises. - Victory Review, Tacoma, WA

Lost Bayou Ramblers: Bayou Perdu (Swallow) Garage-rockers, eat your hearts out: This album of 14 Cajun songs (some old, some new, some borrowed, some blues) has the loudest, dirtiest drum sound I've heard all year. Better yet, instead of overwhelming the surrounding rough-hewn francophone racket, the big bam boom focuses it and gives it that rarest of qualities where contemporary Cajun CDs are concerned -- an identity. Rating: Four well-rattled woofers out of five. - Times of Acadiana, Lafayette, LA

Lost Bayou Ramblers - Bayou Perdu

After an independent recorded CD (“Un Tit Gout”) and a great first nationally distributed CD (“Pilette Breakdown”) another one couldn't stay out long for the Lost Bayou Ramblers. The name of this brand new jewel (on 'Swallow Records') is “Bayou Perdu”, which means “Lost Bayou”. The Ramblers again bring a fantastic combination of good ol' Cajun and Western Swing to keep the music style of Harry Choates and early Hackberry Ramblers alive.
Opener is the great “Pine Island” from J.B. Fusilier & Miller's Merrymakers. This beauty is pretty much alike Shirley Bergeron's “Quel Etoille”. “Hot Shoes” is a short instrumental where the brothers Louis and André Michot play the pure Cajun sound from Octa Clark and Hector Duhon. Hackberry Ramblers' joyful Cajun Swing is perfectly honored with “Faut Pas Tu Brailles” and “Une Piastre Ici, Une Piastre Là-Bas”. It's real hard not to dance on the fantastic David & Louis Michot original “Bayou Perdu”. No doubt this will be a real Cajun dancefloor hit! Louis Michot also put his creative pen on “Mexico One Step” (another very danceable highlight), “Chers Yeux Bruns” (an up-tempo waltz), “Le Blues de la Ville Platte” (a Cajun waltz) “North Louisiana Blues”, “Papa Lou Hop” (2 great instrumental Cajun Two-Steps) and “Blue Moon Special” (based on Austin Pitre's “Flammes D'Enfer”). Lost Bayou Ramblers demonstrate their Western Swing and Cajun Swing influences on “Pilette High Society” and “Tite Fille de Lafayette”. “Les Temps Après Fini” could be a perfect background track for a documentary about South West Louisiana…
A wonderful CD by a wonderful band!

- BillyBop.be, Belgium

April 2005 Jazz and Heritage Festival - New Orleans, LA
The Lost Bayou Ramblers had a sparkle in their eyes as they played Jazzfest Thursday afternoon. It was the sparkle of youthful exuberance and tomfoolery. The quintet of twenty-somethings from Lafayette played with a passionate fire that one doesn't normally find in traditional Cajun bands.

That's why they're one of the best around. They're not jaded, yet. They approached Cajun-inflected swing from the '20's and 30's with the bravado of rock stars. They didn't take themselves too seriously, though. They smiled, made fun of each other, and made up names for two-steps on the spot. The name depended on whom the song was dedicated to. When a song got particularly hot, drummer Chris Courville breathed an affirmation into the mic.

They fit in one accordion-driven waltz, but the rest of their one hour set consisted of fast-paced dancing music propelled by bass and drums. Alan Lafleur used black gloves to pick fat notes out of his upright bass, while Chris Courville played an amazing variety of syncopated rhythms with snare brushes and a kick drum.

Jon Bertrand lifted the neck of his acoustic guitar into the air vertically, but unfortunately he was too low in the mix. Fiddler and lead vocalist Louis Michot was rightfully high in the mix. His fiddle solos were impressive, and his French lyrics and Cajun yoddle added an authentic spice to the concert.

The crowd was diggin' on the music big time. People were dancing and responding with their bodies to the band's energy. - LiveNewOrleans.com

Lost Bayou Ramblers find their way in the old-time sound
Cecil Doyle of KRVS Radio said the Lost Bayou Ramblers “play like they have dentures.” Such words are a bouquet of compliments for MTV-era musicians trying to capture an FDR sound.
But “Pilette Breakdown,” a CD of the young Ramblers playing the western swing Cajun music of the 1930s and ‘40s, is working. Through a public poll, Offbeat Magazine of New Orleans named the CD one of Louisiana’s Top 50 CDs of 2003.
Reviewer Dan Wilging places it in his top 10. The Ramblers were even nominated as Best Emerging Cajun Band in Offbeat’s annual Best of the Beat awards.
Brothers Louie and Andre Michot of Lafayette say they’re only doing what they know best. Their father, Tommy, and uncles, Les Frères Michot, have traveled the world playing unplugged, traditional Cajun music for almost 20 years.
“We just do what we’ve been brought up with,” said Louie, the band’s fiddler and vocalist. “It’s all French music, but we definitely pull on the bluesy aspects of it. We do some of that stuff from the ’40s with no accordion.
“Andre picked up the lap steel and we do a lot of Cajun swing standards. That aspect is nice because some people just don’t like the accordion.
“When we can play some swinging Cajun stuff, we can reach people that might have never listened to it before.”
The newfound fans are hearing the Ramblers resurrect gems like “La Valse Criminelle,” first recorded by Leo Soileau and Moise Robin in 1928 and later redone by Octa Clark and Dewey Balfa. They put their own spin on Lawrence Walker’s “Happy Hop” and “Les Bon Temps Rouler,” which they call “Holly Beach.”
It’s appropriate that the CD includes two tunes, “O Bye/Bluerunner” and “Louisiana Boogie Woogie,” recorded live in Brooklyn, N.Y. at the Botanic Gardens. The band has done two tours of New York, including one trip to Brooklyn and Manhattan in which they played seven gigs in nine days.
A trip to the Bay area of California yielded 11 shows. The Ramblers are currently on a return trip to New York, Maryland and Virginia where they are playing restaurants, night clubs, schools and theaters.
“In New York, they kind of look at us like, ‘Where are you from?’ but they like it,” said Louie. “We end up getting our own gigs, so we end up playing at places that are not your normal Cajun venue. We expose the music to a lot of people that didn’t know about it.
“We end up playing a lot of punk clubs and stuff.”
“We play a lot on the street and all of a sudden, there’s a big crowd and people start dancing,” added Andre.
The Ramblers hope to have them dancing in Nashville when they play during the keynote address at the International Country Music Conference. The educational experience follows a similar workshop they did last year at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
In a session titled “From Country to Cajun and Back,” the Ramblers played songs showing the roots of Cajun music, from its European origins to modern, country-influenced sounds and zydecajun. Folklorist Ryan Brasseaux of UL Lafayette was the keynote speaker and will perform the same duties in Nashville.
“He’s been a good friend for a long time and he’s been helping us out a lot,” said Louie. “Hopefully, the country music people will take a liking to us. They like to think of Cajun as subcategory of country music. It could be. I’ll go for it.”
(Listen to Herman Fuselier’s radio show at 10 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday on KRVS 88.7 FM. His TV show airs at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KDCG-TV 22.) - TIMES OF ACADIANA, Lafayette, LA

It's not every day you see the Brooklyn Federation of Black Cowboys dismount their horses en masse, tie them up and head into a bar to jam. But that's what happened one night in August, when the troupe descended on the Dumbo spot Superfine. They were there to catch the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a high-energy Louisiana French band that was playing that night to a full house. The group is back in town this week to toast its new self-released debut CD, Un 'Tit Gout (A Little Taste), with a heap of shows.
The Lost Bayou Ramblers, who formed in 1999, are "roots Cajun" musicians: They play a swampy, foot-stomping, traditional Deep South style with a rhythmic blues flavor. Headed by a magnetic lead singer, Louis Michot, the band often gets compared to '30s Cajun musical pioneers such as Dennis McGee and Amédé Ardoin.
In concert, the band is high-spirited and soulful, and its moves, closer to Devo than to Hee Haw, encourage dancing—dorky, spirited, jumpy, partnered dancing. The whole experience is somewhere between country and cool, a postdork evening (or afternoon) to remember. - TIMEOUT NEW YORK, New York, NY

Lost Bayou Ramblers: Bayou Perdu (Swallow) Garage-rockers, eat your hearts out: This album of 14 Cajun songs (some old, some new, some borrowed, some blues) has the loudest, dirtiest drum sound I've heard all year. Better yet, instead of overwhelming the surrounding rough-hewn francophone racket, the big bam boom focuses it and gives it that rarest of qualities where contemporary Cajun CDs are concerned -- an identity. Rating: Four well-rattled woofers out of five. - Times of Acadiana, Lafayette, LA