The all-New Orleans collaboration known as Dragon Smoke (Robert Mercurio, Stanton Moore, Ivan Neville & Eric Lindell) announced this week a December West Coast tour of a few of California’s NOLA music hotspots. But before they set out on the run, they will be hunkering down in Tipitina’s for a Friday night funk-out to appease both their biggest fans and those of us who just can’t seem to make the Tuesday night thing in May. For those of you not familiar with Dragon Smoke, they have been holding down a spectacular gig at One Eyed Jacks on the Tuesday in between Jazz Fest weekends for the last couple of years and have become a sort of pop-up supergroup of the New Orleans music scene (with Jazz Fest and Jamcruise as their phonebooth). They are a mix of Galactic‘s rock solid rhythm section, the smooth organ-funk of Ivan Neville , and the Gulf Coast-meets-California country-soul of Eric Lindell (the tie that binds NOLA to the left coast) – making for one of my absolute favorite side projects in the city and one helluva show.
