FOLIO
Bilingual New Orleans Rockers at 1904 Music Hall on July 2
Sweet Crude, a young, bilingual New Orleans 7-piece, has created a sound that sets Louisiana’s native French dialect to decidedly non-Cajun music. On Thursday, July 2nd, Sweet Crude will perform at 1904 Music Hall with Chasing Jonah. This will be Sweet Crude’s first time playing in Jacksonville.
Sweet Crude premiered in Spring 2013. The band, boasting surnames like Marceaux, Arceneaux, and Chachere, seeks to reconnect with their lineage in the context of 4-part harmonies, tribal rhythms, and pop hooks. “We’re making the pop music that we’d otherwise come up with given our influences. We’re just singing a lot of the time in Louisiana French. We want to show that the language is still alive and kicking, and that it sounds great in any genre,” says primary lyricist Sam Craft, “Our grandparents learned French, but our parents never really communicated with it, so now I feel it’s on the youth to preserve the tradition. It’s wonderful that there are so many Cajun bands singing in Louisiana, and we wanted to do the same thing but with our original music.”
“Over the past two years, Sweet Crude has managed to take the music and language of Louisiana and produce a completely fresh music that thrusts century-old traditions into the present. The seven-piece band consistently delivers some of the most exciting shows in town featuring enough drums for a small marching band, exuberantly bellowed harmonies and lyrics that jump from English to French in a single verse.” – NolaVie
In just two years as a band, Sweet Crude has had an amazing ride. The band won the 2014 Big Easy Award for “Best Emerging Artist”, was nominated for “Best Rock Band” at the 2015 Best of the Beat Awards, and won the 2015 Big Easy Award for “Best Mixed Bag”. Even more compelling is that they have already headlined and sold-out One Eyed Jacks, a 450 capacity venue, and on December 12, the band headlined New Orleans’s Joy Theater for a crowd of over 900. They appeared on the main stages at both BUKU Fest in March and French Quarter Festival in early April. Additionally, the band made their New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival debut in late April. Beyond such notable bookings, Sweet Crude’s music has been featured in FX’s American Horror Story.
“Sweet Crude has emerged as one of New Orleans’ most intriguing modern rock bands.” –The New Orleans Times-Picayune
Sweet Crude has tested their frenetic sound on the road, packing venues from New Orleans to NYC. The band has already performed for several prestigious festivals in 2014, including Louisiana’s Festival International and the World Acadian Congress in New Brunswick, Canada, among several others. Expect the band to be on the road in a big way in 2015, taking their music and their mission of preserving Louisiana tradition far and wide.
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