Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows frontman Scott McCaughey has been blurring the distinction between his two bands for a while, to the point where many of the songs on either group’s LPs would be appropriate for the other. Both return this week with new efforts: the Minus 5’s Killingsworth and the Fellows’ I Think This Is. The tunes are more divergent, with Killingsworth featuring a heavy alt-country vibe and I Think This Is being a typically funny garage-pop workout. When he’s not fronting his own combos, McCaughey is a sideman for R.E.M. and Robyn Hitchcock, the latter of whom produced I Think This Is. McCaughey is guest-editing magnetmagazine.com this week. Read our Q&A with him.
McCaughey: New Orleans is not the place to go to lose weight. I actually still haven’t found that place yet, not even at the gym. But the food in New Orleans is so unique and special that I just forget about it and have fun while I’m there. At the Future Of Music Coalition/Air Traffic Control retreat in May, we started off with a huge crawfish boil outside Ernie K-Doe’s. The critters were brought down fresh from Lafayette, and man, that was a feast. Then there’s Dooky Chase’s, where your octogenarian host Leah Chase will take the best care of you, with classic down-home fare and world-famous fried chicken. But watch it, she gave President Obama a real tongue-lashing when he put hot sauce in the gumbo before he tasted it. (She and Mr. Chase currently live in a FEMA trailer across the road from the restaurant.) Then you can go real simple, from the amazing po’ boys at P & G Restaurant in the Central Business District or the totally majestic BBQ shrimp po’ boy at Liuzza’s by the race track, to the high-end marvel of Cochon, the latest from big-time chef Donald Link. Man, all this “editoring” is making me hungry!
