Hastings Mardi Gras

Sean O’Shea talks to Bob Tipler of the Cajun Dawgs about his plans for developing the increasingly popular Hastings Fat Tuesday Festival (Mardi Gras), the origin of Cajun music and his band the Cajun Dawgs.

There is a tradition in Hastings of evoking or reviving ancient festivals and celebrations. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, referring to the practice of music making and merriment before Lent when, according to the Christian calendar, people bade a provisional farewell to the flesh and undertook forty days of penitence.

The festival dates back to pagan times. During mid February there would be feasting, dancing and music making which lasted several days, costumes and masks would be worn and the ordinary constraints and boundaries governing social existence would be temporarily suspended.

Hastings’ Mardi Gras, as described by Bob Tipler with characteristic understatement, has its own history and ethos and has already proved to be a popular and successful event (HOT, Fat Tuesday, Cathy Simpson, 26^th January 2013). Moreover his development plans for the festival will extend the currently available programme and be a boost to the local economy.

We can also expect a continuing link to the collective unconscious, populated as it is by myriad demons, symbols, spooks and archetypal images, and plenty of  opportunities for Hastonians to engage in one of their favourite  pastimes – dressing up and adopting various disguises from the alluring to the grotesque. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

You are very much involved in the Fat Tuesday festival. What was the background to this event?

Well I started running a Hastings’ Mardi Gras at The Brass Monkey seven years or so ago,  initially just as a way of promoting our new band The Cajun Dawgs – we did the support slot to a number of the most popular Hastings bands of the day and that way we started to grow a bit of a local following. Five years ago I teamed up with my friend Adam Daly who has a background in event management and who brought a whole bunch of people with him to grow the show into a multi band, multi venue night out. We changed the name from Mardi Gras to its English translation Fat Tuesday and over the last few years have been developing both the Tuesday night and the weekend leading up to it into a five day festival of music.

 Could you tell us about the developing aims of the festival and how you intend to implement them?

The idea behind Fat Tuesday is to celebrate and promote the vibrant Hastings music scene and progressively grow the festival into a major regional event. It’s only a short step from there for us to look to help disadvantaged musicians, promote younger bands, struggling venues and so on. With these aims it makes sense for us to become a charity – it also helps us to attract the corporate sponsorship and funding we require to grow the festival.

Another string to our bow will be the launch of The Stinger Magazine in February which will act as a local music guide to Hastings, St Leonards and 1066 country; we will also have a comprehensive online gig guide available from the end of March. The Stinger will also carry this year’s Hastings Fat Tuesday programme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cajun Dawgs

When did the Cajun Dawgs come into being?

As the Cajun Dawgs since 2007 – we were previously The Dawgs which was a six piece, old time, blue grass, Cajun mix band, and before that we four members from that band were a folk band called Spot the Dog. We’d all got rather bored of playing folkie sort of stuff – nothing against the music we had just been doing it too long. So we thought we would go all Americana and throw away our entire set. The Dawgs was a great band but rather difficult to mike up and play in pubs and bars. Some of the members were playing with other bands and mainly for that reason the band folded. My brother Jim and I decided to set up The Cajun Dawgs specializing in Cajun and Zydeco music of Louisiana which we knew would go down well. We could add drums and electric bass and produce a much harder bluesy sound.

You are now one of the most popular bands in Hastings. Could you say a bit about your local connections and background?

Two of us live here and the other two are just across the swamp in Eastbourne. Andy on drums we brought out of retirement. He’d played previously with number of rock bands but didn’t actually own a full drum set when I asked him to join us – largely on a tip off from Alan, the landlord of The Stag Inn who thought he would be a good fit. A good call. Darren on bass plays in a band called Pocketsize with his wife Liz – they actually had a  number one hit in the States back in the 90s – a fact I only found out a couple of years ago. Jim is my brother and knows me better than just about anyone. We don’t argue and between us write seventy per cent of the bands material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What have been some of your musical influences?

ACDC, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Beausoliel, Mama Rosin (Swiss bluesy Cajun people).

Could you say a bit about the nature and origins of Cajun music more generally?

Well it’s a right old mixture, essentially deriving from dispossessed French settlers thrown out of Nova Scotia by the Brits in the eighteenth century. They settled in Louisiana which was still a French colony. The music they played was largely based on old French tunes – two steps and waltzes. But over time blues influences crept in from the black population, cowboy songs from the prairies and so on. Many of the songs are sung in a French patois which is almost impossible to understand by French people – fortunately for me as I don’t speak French and have to learn the songs phonetically. But in a typical set there is something for everyone, Rock And Roll, traditional tunes, blues, New Orleans type Mardi Gras songs  – all very upbeat and danceable plus some tear jerkers. I think that’s why we’re so popular because it’s a sound audiences haven’t heard before and sometimes they like it in spite of themselves.

Death, devils and clowns

You seem to enjoy dressing up, using symbols and donning masks. What is the significance of this aspect of the band’s presentation?

Well just a gimmick really – our logo features a devil, a clown, a baby and death’s head – symbolizing temptation, sadness masquerading as fun, innocence and death – all themes covered in many of our songs. Cajun music works on many levels, there is a melancholy underpinning to even the most upbeat numbers which touches people in strange ways.

You aren’t a raging extrovert but you engage really well with audiences. To what do you attribute this ability?

I don’t know maybe they connect with my joy of performing and my inner pain. I have to sing from the heart and can only sing stuff that means something to me or that I can find something that means something – even if it’s just the sound

 I’ve heard many traditional Irish tunes played on the accordion but you seem to take the instrument to an entirely different level. Could you describe your relationship to the accordion and how you achieve these fantastic sounds?

I don’t think I’m a technically brilliant player but I try to make the thing scream if I can – the accordions which are made by Mark Savoy in Louisiana are tuned in well-tempered tuning, an old fashioned method which flattens the thirds and the fifths which make the chords particularly poignant.

How about hopes for the future, for yourselves, for the band?

More of the same really – we have been asked to do some festivals across the UK and Europe so hope to do much more of that. Carry on letting the good times roll.

• Fat Tuesday will run from Friday 28 February – Tuesday 4 March 2014. More information @ www.visit1066country.com
  
• Pictures of the band & logo courtesy Bob Tipler @ www.cajunrockers.com
• Also refer to above website for further information regarding Cajun Dawgs, gigs, events and cds.
• To view a promotional film for Hastings Fat Tuesday made by Cajun Dawgs in full attire Google – Cajun Dawgs Les Flammes D’enfer (The flames of hell) or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQVqp2Ia_4

SOS, February 2014

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