This is a news item from my hometown paper, the Mobile (Ala.) Register, about a Mardi Gras parade scheduled for next Sunday. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up:
“The Mystic Order of Dead Rock Stars will present`A Salute to Ronnie Van Zant’ when they take to the streets at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in Downtown Mobile as part of the Joe Cain parade.
The society will present its salute to the rock-and-roll icon in a procession that features a massive float with a black background festooned with a skull, skeletons, tombstones and portraits of Mr. Van Zant. J.D. Crowe will serve as grand marshal. A selection of the greatest hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd will be played at an extreme decibel level…”
Woo-hoo. The best part is I’m Alabama-bound next weekend for Mardi Gras, so I can go to the Skynyrd parade. I think I’ll wear my Neil Young concert T-shirt.
10 replies on “Turn it up!”
I suspect the people on the Skynyrd float will be far more dangerous than the float itself. I’m thinking the wife-beater and tattoo count will high on those maskers.
This is hilarious. Where can I join this Mystical Order of Dead Rock Stars? It would be a lot more fun if the goal were to lampoon the subject, but I suspect, sadly, that this is meant as a true tribute.
Now I gotta go get my T-shirt and tattoo. This Freebird is heading to Mobile …
I’m trying to track down Mr. J.D. Crowe this very moment, to ask him that same question. I want in this krewe, and I also want to do a story about them.
Lampoon Lynyrd Skynyrd? Blasphemy, Bob! Say 25 Hail Ronnies, listen to “Pronounced” and “Second Helping” two times each and thou shalt be forgiven, child.
I’m guessing these guys are a bunch of drywall hangers who take their Skynyrd very seriously. Guys who would beat me like a red-headed stepchild who belongs to the ACLU if they read the essay on Skynyrd I wrote for that book.
I’m going to that parade, so I’ll get the scoop.
actually, i probably know the lyrics to at least 75% of skynyrd’s songs… blame it on growing up in pennsyltucky.
“ooh ooh that smell, can’t ya smell that smell? ooh ooh that smell, the smell of mess around you.” they just don’t write ’em like that anymore!
‘reminds me of a party that i attended recently where folks started doing a lennon versus mccartney thing. “imagine” versus “band on the run”… “working class hero” versus “silly love songs”, “god” versus whatever… duh! sadly (surprisingly and frighteningly), i was in the minority.
I know all lyrics to all Skynyrd songs. It’s scary, but this is what happens when you grow up in Alabama. No amount of college and merlot can eliminate the redneck roots.
maybe we should start a 12… no make that 3 step program?
Linda Lu can be our sponsor. And to distract ourselves from our desire for music we should know better than to like, we can go down to the swamp and watch a hound dog catch a coon.
what’s the most embarrassing music that you can admit to liking? the cd that you keep hidden away from scrutinizing eyes? for me, it’s probably a jimmie buffett cd. while there are some tracks that i absolutely cannot listen to, i occasionally (once every few years) get a hankering for a few of his songs.
Jimmy Buffett albums comprise a large portion of the embarrassing section of my CD collection. I still like to listen to his “Changes In Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” LP of 1977 about once a month. Buffett is a Mobile kid, like me, and I can hear the Gulf Coast’s never-delivered but always tempting promise of exoticism in his songs about running off to someplace where there are no Southern Baptist churches. Skynyrd’s “Second Helping,” again because it reminds me of where I come from. Van Halen albums because it’s still fun to turn up “Unchained” until Diamond David and Eddie make the walls shake.
After listening to any of these guilty pleasures, I atone by promptly putting in Buena Vista Social Club or Radio head or Camper Van Beethoven.
my husband still likes to shake the walls with zepellin occassionally. that’s fine with me for a song or two but he likes to binge. on one of our trips to knoxvegas, gwen and i rode in one vehicle while he and dave had a zeppelin-fest in the other for the entire trip! i admit that it’s good music but it puts me on edge after more than 1/2 dozen songs.