As part of my post on Rob Walker’s Letters from New Orleans, I added a Letter from New Orleans of my own. It was therapeutic, so here’s some more that should have been in that post.

In our quick lap around the French Quarter, we found ourselves on the sidewalk outside of the House of Blues listening to the band Cowboy Mouth rehearsing inside. Looking up on the marquee, we saw that they were playing with Dr. John palying the following night. We seriously considered extending our stay for another two days to work the shows in, but we just couldn’t pull it off. My sister, however, was all over it. I didn’t realize it, but the bills were the HOB’s limited re-opening shows. Dammit.

Cowboy Mouth has a new album coming out that has at least two Katrina-related songs on it. You can listen to “Home” and “The Avenue” at their MySpace site (St. Charles Ave is the avenue in question). I think that “Home” is the better of the two. In the opening lines that rhyme “hard” and “St. Bernard” you can get a good idea of what a real New Orleans accent sounds like. My sister says that both songs brought the house down live. The production values of the recorded songs are a little overly slick for my tastes. However, Cowboy Mouth is a force of nature to be reckoned with live. So add “going to see Cowboy Mouth when they visit my town” to your list of things to do.