GREAZY ALICE
TAKE IT EAZY
Join us in the Ninth Ward – the vibrant New Orleans enclave that is home to the city’s thriving downtown mid-fidelity scene. There, among a colourful cast of bohemian scenesters, we find Alex Pianovich and his superlative country-blues band, GREAZY ALICE. “I try to do things a little slower and a little less,” he tells Kevin EG Perry. “Except sometimes, you’ve just got to freak out and get a little wild.”
Strum of their parts: Alex Pianovich and Jo Morris
Photo by PAUL COSTELLO
ON a wintry night in New Orleans, a frozen wind blows past BJ’s Lounge. This dive bar sits on a shabby corner in the Bywater, offering shelter and sanctuary to all who seek it. Here in the Upper Ninth Ward, just a bend of the Mississippi away from the neon cocktails of the French Quarter, a small cluster of venues and watering holes provide cheaper thrills without the tourist trappings. Alex Pianovich, the easy-going, sharp-witted singer-songwriter behind superlative country-blues band Greazy Alice, is ordering a round of Miller Lites. “They call this area the bar-muda triangle,” he says. Meaning: it’s an easy place to lose yourself.
Outside, a cart decorated with a Buddha sporting a cracked skull serves steaming bowls of ramen. Inside, Polaroids of regulars cover the walls, Dr John and Bobbie Gentry are on the stereo and a muted television shows William Shatner trapped in The Twilight Zone. A pool table, already converted into a makeshift merchandise stall, has been pushed back against one wall in anticipation of the crowd gathering for tonight’s show. For now, the stage remains hidden behind a red velvet curtain. Indie rockers pass the time swapping tour war stories with jazz drummers and brass band trumpeters. A wooden sign hanging from the rafters sums up the general ambience: “BJ’s: Your 9th Ward Living Room”.
In recent years, BJ’s has become the heart of a thriving upstart Americana scene in which 36-year-old Pianovich plays many roles. Back in the pandemic-hit doldrums of 2021, he was one of a group of friends led by fellow musician Ryan Scully who took over the bar as part-owners. They extended the stage area and invited a broader swathe of bands to perform. “We wanted to facilitate art, music and community,” says Pianovich. “But there’s always a darker element that comes with alcohol.”
Putting the piano in Alex Pianovich…
BRYAN SCHUTMAAT
Pianovich sold his interest in 2023, not long after the death of a regular. “He wasn’t the first,” he says. “It became an endless parade of death, this dive bar thing, but I knew him a little better. He was a younger guy and it was a suicide. It was all kind of sad. It shifted my outlook on the bar.”
When Pianovich heard the news, he picked up a guitar in the back office and started writing “Circles”, the prayer-like meditation on mortality that opens Greazy Alice’s remarkable debut LP As Time Goes By. In the bar they made an altar for the dead man, until five days later another regular died from a heart attack and they had to start over.