For seven months, coronavirus restrictions have kept Tipitina’s closed but not entirely quiet.
The Hey! Cafe team serves coffee out of a side window daily. The club hosts webcast performances. Recently, the staff has embarked on a sprucing-up campaign, checking off numerous “as soon as we get the time” projects.
“There’s no better time than now,” said Tip’s general manager Brian “Tank” Greenberg. “Money’s tight, so we’re doing it on a budget, and it’s not as quick. But we have weeks to do it. We’re chipping away at the entire building.”
Rotted wood siding has been replaced. The exterior has been repainted in what Helm Paint has designated “Tipitina’s Yellow.” The 15-foot metal Tipitina’s logo affixed to the Napoleon Avenue side of the building was taken down and refurbished.
“It doesn’t come down or go up easily,” Greenberg noted. “It took four of us.”
Tipitina's in New Orleans, photographed on Friday, November 30, 2018. The Dixie Beer-branded sign above the entrance was removed during a 2020 renovation.
Another exterior sign won’t be going back up: the Dixie Beer-branded square that hung above the club’s entrance for decades. The club’s owners, the members of Galactic, will ultimately decide the cracked and faded historic relic’s fate. It may end up decorating an inside wall or be sold as a fundraiser auction item.
Overall, Greenberg said, “the building has never looked better than it does right now. I wish more people would be able to come see it.”
At present, the public can only see and hear performances at Tipitina’s via the webcast series Tipitina’s TV. The subscription series’ first season ran this summer. Season 2 premieres Saturday at 8 p.m. with a Halloween show featuring Galactic and special guest Harry Shearer as his “Spinal Tap” alter ego, bassist Derek Smalls.
Season 2 continues with Dumpstaphunk on Nov. 7; the “Save Tip’s” benefit, a multihour program featuring archival and new performance footage, interviews and other extras, on Nov. 14; the Soul Rebels with Big Freedia on Nov. 21; Marc Broussard on Dec. 5; and the all-star ensemble Dragon Smoke on Dec. 12. Additionally, the postponed Season 1 performance by the Radiators will air Nov. 13.
The trumpet gave Kermit Ruffins away.
Individual shows are $15 via tipitinas.com. A subscription for the full, six-show season is $60.
Tipitina’s has also launched an interview series, “The Alright, Alright Broadcast,” on YouTube. In each episode, Greenberg and a musician or member of the music community sit down on the Tip’s stage for an extensive conversation.
Greenberg, who first started working at Tipitina’s in college and became general manager in 2010, has a background in broadcasting. He worked at alternative radio station 106.7 The End before it changed formats soon after Hurricane Katrina, and he later produced a radio morning show in California.
Joe Krown can finally climb down from the bed of that pickup.
His “Alright, Alright” interviews run an hour or longer; the idea is to build an oral history archive. Featured guests so far include Samantha Fish, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and bassist Rob Mercurio, “Big” Sam Williams, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, guitarist Pete Murano of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, drummer Derrick Freeman, pedal steel guitarist Ed Williams of the Revivalists and New Orleans Jazz Museum music curator and WWOZ deejay David Kunian.
Subscribers to the Tipitina’s YouTube channel can stream episodes of “The Alright, Alright Broadcast” on demand for free.
“We didn’t want to rush” into webcasting early in the pandemic, Greenberg said. “We were very cautious. We didn’t want too many people coming and going from the club. We wanted to be comfortable with the work situation, where people could be safe and we could put out a product that would be good.”
To that end, six or more cameras are used for each Tipitina’s TV webcast, including a camera on a jib crane that captures swooping, fluid shots of the action.
Hey! Cafe opened a pop-up shop in 2020 that serves coffee from a window at Tipitina's. At the time this photo was taken, the 15-foot-long metal Tipitina's logo on the side of the building had been taken down during a renovation.
Such a production isn’t cheap, especially for a club whose main sources of income — ticket and liquor sales — have been cut off since March.
That Crystal Hot Sauce has returned as the Tipitina’s TV title sponsor means production costs are largely covered. Thus, subscription revenue goes directly to the bands, the club and the streaming service nugs.net.
“It was a big risk,” Greenberg said of Tipitina's TV. “We knew how much it would cost to produce, but we didn’t know if we’d get enough subscriptions to cover those costs. But Crystal believed in (the series) and Tipitina’s.”
Years ago, Maple Leaf Bar owner Hank Staples had a brilliant idea: What if shows at the classic New Orleans music venue could be broadcast onl…
So did music fans. More than 1,000 viewers subscribed to the full first season, with hundreds more paying for each individual show.
Such support is testament to the quality of the production, the appeal of the bands and the goodwill of the Tipitina’s name.
“We’ve held to the standard that we’re a premiere music venue,” Greenberg said. “We want to be a premiere online music venue as well.”
