Amidst the Mardi Gras beads and zydeco, the grumbling of doom and gloom echoes a block away in a music hall just a stone’s throw from the celebration.  There’s a dark cloud hovering over 4th & B and all inside are embracing the rain.

            If you’ve never heard of Those Poor Bastards, you’ll either be vulgarly repulsed or have an uncontrollable desire to see what bleach tastes like.  Either way, that’s fine and dandy with them and all their Bastard Fans.  Lonesome Wyatt and Vincent Presley (on tour), spin their melancholy trance with songs spitting from their latest release “Satan is Watching.”  Well then, Satan be praised as if Mr. Cash were drunk at his own funeral and laughing up a storm because Joaquin Phoenix was in the casket!  Their rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” made the man in black stomp and holler proudly in his grave. . .and same went for the crowd.  Fans raised their bottles and cried out like injured wolves because Bastard songs you don’t sing along to.  You shut the fuck up and let Lonesome’s voice takeover your soul.  Yes, it’s a two-man band and no, they are nothing like the Black Keys or White Stripes—I don’t think there’s anything like them on this unholy earth.  Afterwards you feel dirty and sick, and I like it that way.