Finds

Finds 12.01.10

LOADSTONE
Here's to the loadstone of the Dude Chalice of mod-rock. It goes up. It goes down. But always hangs around. Local rockers Destination Sanity traffic in modern rock, pop punk and traditional metal on their new self-titled EP. Yearning vocals give way to sugared power hooks and scooped-mid guitar crunch. Destination doesn't reinvent the wheel on this disc, but not everybody wants a revolution every time they put a CD in the player.

December 1, 2010
Written by The Independent Staff

LOADSTONE
Here's to the loadstone of the Dude Chalice of mod-rock. It goes up. It goes down. But always hangs around. Local rockers Destination Sanity traffic in modern rock, pop punk and traditional metal on their new self-titled EP. Yearning vocals give way to sugared power hooks and scooped-mid guitar crunch. Destination doesn't reinvent the wheel on this disc, but not everybody wants a revolution every time they put a CD in the player. Tight playing and calculated songwriting, and even the occasional harmony, give way to some classy riffage, filling this six-song effort. Most of these tunes would not be out of place on modern commercial rock radio. Bands have done worse. If you drink your modern rock straight with a pinch of pop punk and metal, this might be your thing. To buy it, hit the band up on Facebook. - Dege Legg

MUDDY WATER
Thirty-seven years before the tragedy at Ford's Theatre, a lanky, 19-year-old Abe Lincoln set out with a friend on a flatboat from Rockport, Ind., following the current of the Ohio River to the mighty Mississippi for a laborious journey south to New Orleans. A right of passage for many young Midwestern men of modest means, flatboats were assembled up north, could only travel with the current, picked up loads of cotton and other products along their journey to the Crescent City and were disassembled and sold for scrap when the journey was done; flatboat workers would then take a steam-powered boat back north. The young Lincoln made two such trips - in 1828 and 1831 - and, as Tulane geography professor Richard Campanella details in Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History ($35, UL Lafayette Press), these journeys had a lasting impact on Lincoln's world view and moral compass. They provided his first exposure to slavery, to a major urban area, and were the farthest he had ever ventured from his Midwestern home. In the backdrop is New Orleans at the height of its antebellum power and influence as a port and an urban center where American, European and Caribbean influences collided and coalesced. Campanella, who has written five previous award-winning books on New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta region, brings a remarkable balance of scholarship and prosaic clarity to this mostly forgotten chapter in Lincoln's biography. - Walter Pierce

AINTS NO MORE
We indeed gave thanks for Malcolm Jenkins' season-saving strip and fumble recovery in Dallas last Thursday, but it's just the latest sprinkling of powdered sugar on the beignet fans have feasted on since the Black and Gold's ascendency to the top of the NFL heap. If you just can't get enough of the New Orleans Saints' remarkable post-Katrina history, From Bags to Riches: How the New Orleans Saints and the people of their hometown rose from the depths together ($24.95, Acadian House Publishing) is a great reminder of what character players in a city that loves its football team can do on and off the field. Written by longtime Times-Picayune sports columnist Jeff Duncan, From Bags to Riches chronicles the Saints' - and the Crescent City's - remarkable return from despair, both on the gridiron and in the streets of a storm-ravaged city, since head coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees rode into town. Told at the lively clip of a post-game report, with the perspective of someone who lived through it all, Duncan's recap of an unforgettable era in an otherwise forgettable history is a great Christmas gift for the Who Dat on your shopping list.  - WP