Category Archives: ain't dere no more

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840 North Rampart-Rock n’ Roll history

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum designated Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studio as a historic Rock and Roll Landmark, one of 11 nationwide.
A few J&M recordings, including Fats Domino’s single “The Fat Man,” Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin Tonight” and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” have sometimes been called the first rock n’ roll record.
Now a launderette, you can still hear Fats Domino at the piano if you listen closely enough when the rinse cycle comes on..
Then stop by and see the Matassa boys at the family store at St. Phillip and Dauphine and get some red beans for later…
from Frank Etheridge’s 2006 (?) Gambit story:
Matassa then opened a studio in a larger space on the 500 block of Gov. Nicholls Street in a former cold storage space for avocados — “great sound there,” he says — and then later expanded further when he moved to the 700 block of Camp Street in a building that also housed offices for his Dover record distribution business as well as a studio. Matassa also had a plant in Jefferson Parish to manufacture the records.

“I was trying to be a factor on the national level,” Matassa explains of his expansion in the years leading up to the mid-’60s. “But every time I went to a bank for a loan, they’d throw me out. Unfortunately, people in New Orleans with money at the time were only interested in real estate deals or oil deals. That’s why Nashville made it with the music industry, because the city had a couple of sympathetic banks.”

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Garbage in, garbage out.

One of my favorite historical sites in the Quarter:
Garbage chutes designed (supposedly) to hold garbage from FQ homes, making it easier for garbage men to collect.
I remember these problems:
1. Bags did not fit. So, you shoved it down as far as you could and either broke the bag or you left it stuffed over the top (kind of like how some women wear tight shirts that show the rolls above their pants).
2. Rain collected in them. A lot of rain.
3. Garbage men left them open. People fell in.
4. Tops were broken or stolen. See above.
4. People threw some crazy stuff in there. Just imagine.
So, quietly they were cemented closed or torn up as soon as the sidewalks needed to be repaired. A few enterprising people used them to plant trees, some still are growing.
These are amazingly intact and found on Chartres.

What a boondoggle

Starting in the 1980s, these were placed in the French Quarter

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A Better Mousetrap

If you were ambling down Royal Street back in the early 1970s, you probably went into a store that was owned by Roger Simonson on Royal Street. Closed around 1974, A Better Mousetrap sold posters, cards, and any hot new item of the time..  Roger was raised in Peoria, moved to New Orleans in the 1960s (following his older brother to the area) where he went to UNO and happily found his forever home.  Roger went on to own other businesses after ABM, but spent most of his remaining years as a high-end kitchenware salesman and then as a cab driver. His uniform was usually jeans and a button-down shirt with a snappy tie during the day (and short shorts and clogs in the summer!), a leather-booted lighter peeking from his pocket and after 5 pm,  beer or a gin and tonic in his hand (cheap gin was always the choice). Roger was seen throughout the 80s and 90s at The Steak Pit, Sloppy Jim’s Bar (much more on that place sooner or later), Rawhide, and Mama Rosa’a among other Quarter places. Some may also remember him during his time running the Persian Boy Gallery on Decatur in the 1990s, until PB owner Roger Bogle’s murder shut all of his businesses down.

A Better Mousetrap didn’t last long, but it foretold the trend to fun kitsch/card shops in the Quarter. Roger was one of two longtime Quarter characters that came from ABM: Sooner or later, you’ll meet the other in an interview here with ABM employee Sam, who continues to work in the French Quarter.

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Once it was part of the fun but no longer

I remember that building before it was fixed. The people seemed to always be around it, coming in and out at all hours and had lots of bikes. It had flowerpots and those things that whirled around in the wind. Music and laughter (not always when appropriate) floated around.

It was cordoned off in the 90s and dust and noise came out of the back between 7 am to 3 pm with a generous break for lunch. A dumpster ate up a bunch of stuff and neighbors fed that dumpster their stuff too but only at night.

When it was all over, it looked better but really blank. Like a facelift on a really old woman.

No interesting people stopped there any longer, and certainly bikes were no longer welcome.

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Excerpt from “A Friend in New Orleans” 1992

A great memory from an unusual travel book:

“Kaldi’s Coffee House and Coffee Museum

941 Decatur Street     568-8989

Open Sunday-Thursday 7 am to midnight

Friday-Saturday 7 am to 2:30 am

One of New Orleans most aromatic experiences is the stimulating fragrance of roasting coffee beans. Read the paper and rest your feet in this slightly counter-culture haven, while sampling an inspiring array of pungent brews. Their museum of coffee memorabilia is worth a look.”

I miss it still, but am glad for offspring Fair Grinds in MidCity!