Hot 8 Rock the Guardian

While in England, The Hot 8 performed "Ghost Town" live for the newspaper.

This year, The Hot 8 Brass Band were scheduled to play South by Southwest and The Oxford American's Louisiana party (which I helped organize). Unfortunately for us - good for them - the British tour they were on was extended so they were held over an ocean away and unable to make their Austin gigs.

England isn't simply another destination for The Hot 8. Their label, Tru Thoughts, is based there, and their labels suggested two very British covers for the recent The Life & Times of ... album - Basement Jaxx's "Bingo Bango" and The Specials' "Ghost Town." The label thought the latter song's central thought - "This town / is 'coming like a ghost town" - could be heard as a comment on post-Katrina New Orleans, and the band agreed. "It was still like a ghost town there in the Ninth Ward," Bennie Pete recently told My Spilt Milk. "The French Quarter's all fixed up, but the community's still like a ghost town."

While in England, The Hot 8 performed "Ghost Town" live for the newspaper The Guardian, which posted the video today. 

To help feed the interest in The Hot 8 while they were in England, Tru Thoughts posted a free mp3 of a radical remix of "It's Real," done by Lack of Afro. It's ridiculously funky, with great acid guitar. The track first appeared on 2008's Hot 8 Remixes, an album of remixes of songs from 2007's Rock with The Hot 8.