I don’t have a single photo from this party, but it was such a good time, one of the best parties I’ve ever attended.
At this time I was playing in a band that had no name with Tom Beeman and Mike Winter (who I have not seen since that day). Our first (and it turned out only) gig was at this party. We put a coffee can at the front of the stage and solicited name ideas from the crowd. As we played, Tom, the front man, would select a new band name for each song. The best one, and the only one I remember, was Rubber People. So that was the band name in retrospect.
It was a beach themed party, so people were encouraged to come in bathing suits and bring kiddie pools or the like. It was so hot, of course, so this worked. There were about half a dozen kiddie pools full of adults, and the water slopped out everywhere, so things got really muddy.
After we played we just hung out in these lukewarm pools and when I tell you it was fun you might not believe me, but it was. Unfortunately the booze etc. began to ran out. Tom and I went in the host’s house to see what we could find, and Tom camy up with a big jug of Gallo product. He held it up in triumph, and at that same moment he slipped on the wet, muddy tile floor. The jug, the last of its kind, exploded on contact. The floor, at first just muddy, filled with a swirl of yellow wine and red blood that was coming from a wide cut on Tom’s elbow. Instead of fainting, I wrapped a t-shirt or towel around Tom’s arm and sent him back outside.
That was the last fun night I remember before Hurricane Katrina/the breach of the levees happened five days later, and I moved away from New Orleans for five years.