Message from Pete
Jun 29, 2006 General, Pete Sturman, Pistol Pete & Popgun Paul
Dear Friends,
It is June of 2006 and there have been many changes in our lives. In February of 2005, Paul was crowned “Pop Pop Pop, Empress XVI of the New Orleans Faeries” at the Country Club. We had made a secret pact that if one of us were crowned, we would share the crown and imperial responsibility. The Empress called a Lammas ritual circle on August 2, 2005, and surprised and delighted the community by passing his crown to Pete, dubbing him “Empress 16-1/2 , Monkey Wrench.” The crown, after all, has gotten heavy with the yearly addition of more and more trinkets, and it’s nice to share the weight.
Only a few weeks later, Hurricane Katrina came to New Orleans. We each managed individually to evacuate before the storm hit, and were re-united eventually in Tennessee, where we spent most of September and October. We got involved in Idapalooza Festival, where Pete did a set of all new post-Katrina songs, and Paul performed numbers from a gospel album he hopes to make available one day.
We returned to New Orleans in time to plan and put on the Ball, which happened on February 2, 2006 at One Eyed Jacks, where the crown was passed to Marcus Fraser in a ceremony that featured the music of “The Brigideers” (Pete, Paul, Jay Tombstone and Galen Marquis). On February 5, we held a tearful and bittersweet going away party for Pete, who decided to move to New York City after his building was sold to developers.
Pete now lives in downtown Manhattan and does occasional NYC gigs when he gets a chance. Paul still lives in New Orleans and is currently involved in a number of theatre projects there, in addition to being one of the curators of the Sidearm Gallery on St. Roch Ave. While we have no plans to tour in the foreseeable future, we see this as merely a geographical separation. Whenever we are in the same city, we will find a venue in which to play together.
Stay in touch!
Love, Pete and Paul
