Troubled Men Podcast

A founding member of Galactic, the Grammy-winning drummer and educator has also been a member of Garage A Trois and the N.O. Klezmer Allstars, and is an owner of the legendary Tipitina’s. Even with the new “Book of Queens” record from his Krasno/Moore Project to promote, he still finds time to develop lessons for his online Stanton Moore Drum Academy. Stanton is a busy guy who always looks crisp a...

The British master photographer and MBE recipient started off shooting friends like the Pogues and the Clash when he was a touring musician. Renowned for intense, intimate closeups, his portraits of celebrities, philosophers, moon landing astronauts, WWI veterans, and Holocaust survivors have graced elite editorial publications and museum permanent collections worldwide. Now residing in New Orlean...

The singer and multi-instrumentalist with Vapors of Morphine, the Deltabilly Boys, and the Busted Jug Band cut his teeth in street bands in the French Quarter, playing old-time acoustic blues and folk music. A post-Katrina relocation to Cambridge, Mass., led to meeting Dana Colley and Jerome Deupree of Morphine and being invited to front a reformed version of the group after the tragic passing of...

The irrepressible singer, guitar player, and radio host celebrates the release of “The Mojo Manifesto: The Life & Times of Mojo Nixon,” the hilarious bio doc covering the southern-fried maniac’s career. From the early days with Skid Roper menacing the MTV bigwigs to his unhinged stage antics with the Toad Liquors and his Outlaw Country and NASCAR radio shows on SiriusXM, Mojo always goes in wh...

The drummer, singer, and songwriter with the Hellcats, the Alluring Strange, and the Chiselers was a longtime provocateur and facilitator on the Memphis music scene. She crisscrossed the country with the shambolic Panther Burns/Hellcats circus before relocating to Toulouse, France, to marry and pursue a solo career. Widely known as the mouthpiece for the notorious White twins, she’s never been afr...

The Norwegian blues guitar titan, record producer, and songwriter returns to the musical center of the universe to soak up some 3rd world charm and record a new record. After days of productive sessions and a whirlwind survey of local hot spots and luminaries, Arne joins René and guest cohost John Papa Gros at divebar mecca Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge to pause and reflect. Topics includ...

The award-winning photographer and screenwriter’s work has appeared on the covers of every major newspaper, Time, and Newsweek. Renso recently turned an artistic self-help exercise into a collection of street photography, “I Saw You In New Orleans.” Having worked in war zones around the world, the nine-year Navy veteran once again demonstrates courage under fire as he sits down with the Troubled M...

The award-winning DJ, radio programmer, and host of the NOLA County show on WHIV 102.3 FM and Country Du Monde on Gimmecountry.com digital radio backed into the music biz almost by accident. Being in the wrong place at the right time, he threw away a career in law to hang out on air with established Americana music stars and highlight up-and-coming artists. Tonight Jimi rolls into the Christmas Cl...

The transcendental pedal steel guitar virtuoso, composer, and singer is comfortable in just about any musical setting, be it jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, or pop. An in-demand session player, he’s recorded with Brian Blade, Joni Mitchell, Peter Rowan, Ruthie Foster, Papa Mali, and Coco Robicheaux. Releasing both the jazz record “Byways of the Moon” and the singer/songwriter project “Easley Ride...

The monster tenor sax player with Walter Wolfman Washington & the Roadmasters began his tenure with the hard-partying ensemble in 1987, logging countless late nights at the Maple Leaf, Benny’s Bar, and festival performances around the world. His history includes work with stars like Johnny Adams, Snooks Eaglin, Kirk Joseph, Smilin’ Myron, and Alison & the Distractions, as well as playing a...

The singer and songwriter with the Song Dogs has been playing club dates since she was a teenager on the Maple Leaf stage. She’s spent years living in NYC and Paris doing business consulting by day, performing by night. Now Alison has returned home, working on a Song Dogs reboot featuring a record release and festival gigs. Tonight she crosses the parade route to take her chances with the Troubled...

The London-born music photographer came up in the thick of the ’77 punk explosion, shooting bands like the Clash, the Specials, the Damned, and the Jam, and developing close friendships with the musicians along the way. A recent move to New Orleans and the opening of his Mostly Rock ’n’ Roll Gallery, which exhibited many pieces at the recent International Clash Day celebration, have accompanied a...

The screenwriter, filmmaker, and college professor broke into Hollywood by selling his first spec script to a major studio. That led to a decade spent working as a script doctor for Fox, DreamWorks, and New Line Cinema. Then he returned to New Orleans to make indy films including “Mutiny” starring Nicky Katt and “Tortured By Joy” narrated by John Lurie, with Narcissy mastermind Jay Holland as the...

Effervescent record producer/podcaster John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dream Syndicate, Dinosaur Jr., Drive-By Truckers) and Tony Award-winning actor/musician Michael Cerveris (The Gilded Age, Fun Home, Tommy) join us in the Feral Zone as we take a break from recording to chat. John has seen a lot since his start in 1979 as an intern at the famed Record Plant recording studios in NYC. We discuss John’s...

The affable guitarist, sound engineer, tour manager, and studio builder with Gatemouth Brown, George Porter Jr., Ultrasonic Studios, and Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway studio has been involved with every aspect of the New Orleans music scene for decades. As a Jazz Fest stage manager, he’s a friendly face you’re always happy to have on your side. Cool as a cucumber in any situation, his good humor is put...

The quintessential New Orleans trumpet player and singer, along with brother Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, comes from a long line of musicians going back to Louis Armstrong’s band and the early days of jazz in the city. Shepherded as a youth by grandfather Jessie “Ooh Poo Pa Doo” Hill and brass band mentor Danny Barker, he grew up around Fats Domino as well as Allen Toussaint and Dr. John, who p...

On the final show of the year, a guest goes missing in action on the mean streets of New Orleans, and the Troubled Men turn on a dime to deliver an impromptu free-associative howl into the void. Fellowship and frivolity abound in the Christmas Club Lounge. Topics include a missing guest, a hard freeze, bubble wrap, double zippers, a theme menu, deep-fried Christmas trees, a party trick request, ju...

The electrifying frontman, vocalist, and rub board player spent years as his father Rockin’ Dopsie Sr.’s onstage foil and righthand man in the Zydeco Twisters, playing on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and Bob Dylan’s “Oh Mercy” records along the way. Leading the band since his father’s passing, Dopsie Jr. mixes tradition with James Brown-style showmanship that wows crowds from his hometown of Lafayette...

The Grammy-nominated piano player, organist, and singer wowing crowds at a Monday night Saturn Bar residency has also toured and recorded with EDM star Pretty Lights, the Iguanas, Bonerama, and the Maelstrom Trio, with Skerik and longtime co-conspirator Simon Lott. A classically-trained pianist, he’s equally comfortable with the James Booker/Dr. John/ Allen Toussaint canon or the Hammond B3 organ...

The celebrated author, poet, singer, and L.A. cultural historian is the co-founding publisher and editor at Punk Hostage Press and a true Hollywood Punk Rock luminary. A founding member of the all-star Ringling Sisters collective, she also collaborated and performed with the Dickies, the Flesh Eaters, the Lame Flames, and Pink Sabbath. During her time bartending at the famed Cathay de Grande and D...

The Australian experimental techno and electronic music artist is actually a New Orleans native and Charity Hospital baby who fled the city as a child in advance of Hurricane Katrina. Suffering bi-continental culture shock and longing for connection, he found succor in the hip hop and DJ community of his adopted homeland. Gus may be a slave to technology, but he’s as free as a bird as he samples k...

When a scheduled guest falls ill at the eleventh hour, it’s once more unto the breach for the Troubled Men. Fulfilling the foundational axiom of showbiz, they open their notebooks, fall back on their instincts, and talk up a storm. Snake & Jake’s head honcho Dave Clements makes an early cameo, but this episode is Double Troubled, stem to stern. You asked for it. You got it. Don’t say we didn’t...

The writer, educator, and author of "They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans" has lived on the thin strip of land on the Mississippi River-side of the levee since he stumbled onto the hidden enclave after a chance encounter at the Maple Leaf Bar decades ago. Now he chronicles the history, folkways, and legends of the area with a personal memoir of his life on the marg...

The lovable frontman, singer, songwriter, and musician with Concrete Confetti, the Gutter Brothers, and Sonny Schneidau’s Fortifiers started out busking on the streets of London with a jacked-up jug band-turned-skiffle outfit before moving indoors and getting signed to Elvis Costello’s Demon Records. Coming from a legendary New Orleans family, he grew up among bohemian royalty. Tonight he climbs b...

He’s the baritone and bass saxophone ace with Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, Roger Lewis’ Baritone Bliss, and the N.O. Klezmer Allstars. An in-demand session man (Mark Ronson, Eric Clapton, CeeLo Green), he’s also involved in the free jazz/improvised music scene with performances in the Open Ears series and the Instigation Festival. Dan’s always interested in going low, so when he joins the T...