Greetings from beautiful (and warm) New Orleans! This place is amazing -I knew five minutes after I crossed the city lines that I wanted to live here and that was before I found out that there are no laws banning public drinking. As a New Yorker with Pavlovian conditioning against drinking in the streets, each time I walk outside with a drink I still half expect to be tackled by 15 cops.

But enough about the city. What is Foburg Festival?

Foburg is a small, brand new music festival in New Orleans, featuring mainly bands from this region, but with a fair amount of out-of-towners sprinkled in. New Orleans is starting to come on the map in the indie rock world (you’ve heard my raves about mynameisjohnmichael here in the past) so a festival like Foburg was an attractive option to see a lot of bands I’ve heard about but rarely (if ever) get to see coming through NYC.

The great thing about NOLA and it’s indie music scene is that the bands from here are so seeped in the town’s musical traditions – traditions deeper and more vibrant that probably any other place in America – that it inevitably shows in their music. The town is a musical marinade, taking otherwise great (and tasty) bands and just giving them greater depth and that extra wallop of flavor.

More on Foburg and pictures, after the jump.

This is a SXSW style festival, which means that it’s held at a number a venues in the city, all within a few blocks of each other.

A special note about the venues. They’re all incredible old bars, well worn, laid back, and with lots of space; the complete opposite of NYC. A much better environment to watch a band. Did I mention that I love it down here?

The other pleasant thing about Foburg is that every band we saw here has been at least really good. Not a single dud. Here is a brief run down of who we saw:

Sun Hotel (from New Orleans) – Pavement-y guitar rock with big Arcade Fire choruses. One of the highlights of Foburg this year.

mynameisjohnmichael (New Orleans) – Played a lot of new material from an upcoming, to-be-recorded soon album which got me psyched with anticipation.

Mon Khmer (Brooklyn) – Never heard of this guys, despite living in their borough but they played a really enjoyable take on the typical Strokes/Television blend of New York City rock.

Vox and the Hound (New Orleans) – This sure didn’t sound like the debut gig for this band, which impressively (and deservedly) played to a packed room.

Jeff and the Brotherhood (Nashville) – Drums and three string guitar, Sabbeth meets Ramones. Tons of fun. This is what rock and roll should be.

Sadly, I didn’t to see Caddywhompus, who went on during mynameisjohnmichael’s set and who I’ve heard loads of great stuff about. Besides for that, Foburg was a great experience and it should be fun to watch this festival grow in the coming years.

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