The music of New Orleans has always been a boiling cauldron of everything—mixing elements like a batch of good gumbo. The raw ingredients tossed into the pot include American roots music and the classical tradition, which together gave birth to ragtime, Dixieland, jazz, Creole, blues-rock, and much more.
For the leader of the band Peculiar Pretzelmen, Kevin Incroyable, New Orleans made a huge impression on him as a person, and especially as a musician, he told the Sun.
“The culture is like pea-soup thick down there and it’s impossible to not get it stuck all over you,” he said. “And that’s beautiful. It’s something that you don’t find all over the world, let alone the United States.”
Incroyable is a Los Angeles-based musician who began the Peculiar Pretzelmen with longtime collaborator and drummer Deacon. The duo wanted to do something funky and weird, with roots burrowing deep into the New Orleans tradition. Early cuts by Dr. John were the kind of thing they began performing, with the voodoo influence laid in thick. Incroyable’s vocals are also very raspy, like Tom Waits and other growlers.
They also came up with wacky instrument combinations, like drum kits with bicycle wheels or cigar box ukuleles. This brand of uncommon assortment is something anyone who’s visited New Orleans will recognize, Incroyable explained.
“I think it’s part of the fact that it’s a super old port city, and so everyone’s very accustomed to people and ideas coming and going real freely,” he said. “I travel a lot, and I do feel that any place that is sitting on an old port kind of situation, it usually has the deepest roots of exciting culture.”
The Peculiar Pretzelmen are performing a Mardi Gras Kick-Off concert at the Standing Sun Winery in Buellton on Jan. 30, but the ranks of the Pretzelmen will be more than just the founding duo.
Just like a boat leaving a port city, when the Pretzelmen go on tour, they may bring any variety of crew before shoving off. Because their current tour is a Mardi Gras bash, they’re bringing the “Big Band.” The seven-piece group includes brass players, an upright bassist, and a returning Pretzelman called Riverboat, Incroyable explained.
Everybody’s got a nickname in the Pretzelmen. Incroyable is the King Pretzel, of course, but names like Riverboat or Deacon keep the band members shrouded in a swamp fog of mystery. The legion of Pretzelmen are united for one reason though, Incroyable said, to ring in the Mardi Gras season with a bash as the tour leaves Los Angeles and ends in Seattle.
“We want to be having a party on stage. To be the jump off to get everybody in the crowd partying too,” he said. “We’re playing lots of old standard stuff, which even if you don’t know it, it will feel familiar.
“It’s basically an old timey, jazzy dance party,” he added. “Though, because the Pretzelmen are at the helm, it’s a little grimy and it’s a little dark, but it’s very fun.”
And that’s what Mardi Gras is all about. The uninitiated might not realize it, but the Mardi Gras celebration begins after Three Kings Day, weeks before Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. The day is nicknamed Fat Tuesday because of the traditional consumption of rich foods given up during Lent.
All the time that passes before then is a chance to join in the celebration, which the Peculiar Pretzelmen hope to bring to a rolling boil and leave at a steady simmer up the West Coast.
“We just want to keep it going,” he said. “We just want to have a big party on stage, and have that party extend out to the audience, so everybody can just get in touch with their inner freak that they don’t always get to let out.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne has gumbo on the mind. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 4, 2016.