Saturday, June 22, is going to be a very musical day in downtown Shreveport. As the 27th Annual Let the Good Times Roll Festival hits full swing, blasting zydeco, hip-hop and R&B out of Festival Plaza, a new live music event called Listen Local will be debuting in the 800 block of Texas Avenue. I couldn’t be more excited about these events, both of which boast incredible line-ups. Here are three performances I’m going to do my best to catch, and a few words about why:
Victor Olston/Ghost Foot
at Listen Local
1:15 p.m., Saturday, June 22
Two of the most talked-about young bands in Shreveport-Bossier, Victor Olston and Ghost Foot will be setting up their gear at the same time, on the same stage, and trading off performances for 90 minutes. That’s the format of Listen Local – two bands share the stage during each performance time slot – and this particular combination should be pretty wild. Citing influences like Drive-By Truckers and Uncle Tupelo, Victor Olston create mellow, country-tinged rock records, but when they perform live it becomes kind of obvious that lead singer Matthew Jamison is a rocker at heart. Their 2012 album, Heritage, is available for free (or any amount you care to pay) on Bandcamp.
Ghost Foot are a duo who play rowdy, fuzzed-out garage rock that can get kind of dark and intense. I’d imagine that these guys – who make a heck of a lot of noise for just two people – are more accustomed to playing at 1:15 a.m. than 1:15 p.m. Their most recent album, Bad Blood, can be streamed for free or downloaded for $5 on Bandcamp. It’s fantastic.
Keith Frank & Soileau Zydeco Band
at the 27th Annual Let the Good Times Roll Festival Main Stage
4:30 p.m., Saturday, June 22
While Shreveport-Bossier residents and visitors can count on Mudbug Madness and a few other regional festivals to provide occasional industrial-strength doses of zydeco, our area doesn’t see many performances by Keith Frank. Frank’s style of zydeco combines the traditional, accordion and washboard-driven sound of Southwestern Louisiana with the influences of modern music styles including R&B and hip-hop. The cross-cultural dialogue captured in Frank’s music is summed up in his 2008 album, “Loved, Feared, Respected”: it’s a two-disc set containing one disc of contemporary-influenced zydeco and another disc of traditional Cajun tunes performed in Creole French.
