KLSU alumni.net

A couple years ago, I had heard that there was a fire in The Bayou. The place was closed for some time after that (might still BE closed for all I know), but I never did find out how much damage there was inside. Does anyone know? Did they ever re-open? Is it still the Bayou?

-barry (sorry if this is in another thread, but I didn't see it)

Barry,

I was in from Dallas, visiting my dad the weekend it burned down. It was pretty much gone. I stopped by the morning after b4 I left town. It was gutted, and young punks were looting it. My dad sent me an artical on that as well, they caught them selling the stolen booze and beer.

Anyways, it looks like it reopend as some reggae - fern bar - bistro - kind of thing, so the Bayou as we knew it is no more. Boy - the stories I can tell................ RIP Bayou

Scott

Ahhh, shit... that's really sad to hear. Not long after the fire, Jenni and I took a look around the area and it looked to me like the Bayou was just closed; but we couldn't tell anything about the inside of the place. I had actually heard that it burned down to the ground but when we saw the outside it looked like it was okay. I guess it was a lot worse that we thought. Damn...

Thanks for the info, Scott.

-barry

My anxiety dreams seem to come and go and I keep finding myself behind the bar(and seem to be the only one behind the bar on a DD Wednesday nite). There is about 5000 people and they're all pounding on the bar with their empty cups! Dammit man.....It's so nice to wake up as I'm yelling F*********K all of ya'll! I"m outta here--

Just thought I'd share that after reading Leslie's dj anxiety dreams( I also have a few of those where I'm not ready for a segway and the "album" skips...)

love to all
jeana

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Jeana (used to be Lewis) Esser

Here's the inside scoop on the Bayou Fire.

The Bayou burned down Memorial Day weekend, 2002. It was a very intense fire, completely consuming the Bayou interior, attic and roof. The exterior cinderblock walls held fast -- kind of like a big BBQ firepit -- so if you drove by in the weeks after the fire and did not look too closely, it would have appeared that only the roof was missing. However, the Bayou essentially burned to the ground within the cinderblock walls. The interior was devastated and burned completely in most places. The only thing not completely destroyed was the big, metal-hulled, walk-in beer cooler, which street punks were looting in the hours after the fire cooled down.

The flames also caught Highland Coffee's roof, damaging their building and shutting them down for awhile.

The Bayou landlord salvaged and reinforced the cinderblock walls and the entire interior is now completely new. It is a Jamaican bar and restaurant called the Reggae Cafe. It sucks.

Life goes on.

Dez

Surely that men's room could not have possibly burned!

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roar like a tiger!

Even the presumably indestructable men's room was consumed, my dear.

However, the urinal survived.

The fire was so hot, the big metal gates between the pool tables and the entrance were warped and bent over like so much spaghetti. Pool balls melted. The stage burned, and all the wood walls burned clean out to the cinderblock. The roof was completely gone, having fallen into the center of the building. Only a few large supports were not completely burned up. Out in the alley, there was windowpane glass where the windows behind the bar exploded out into the alley -- didn't know those windows were there, did ya? For decades, they were covered by the barback and by painted plywood on the outside.

Among the sadder losses, the entire collection of vintage beer cans, including Old Frothingslosh, were destroyed.

Probably more roaches died in that fire than have ever died in one place in history.

Dez

As do all of the fond memories of The Bayou I have. The countless nights drunk on Guinness spent on the sofas. Jim Bradford slinging drinks. Hanging out on Chimes street watching the street punks lolligag around. Being annoyed when some hotshot movie director had the nerve to close the bar and film a scene from a movie called "sex, lies, and videotape." The always buzzing freak scene. The graffiti.

And, of course, the live music.

TSOL, with 86 opening. Glass Eye. Das Damen. Thelonious Monster (and the fist fight the band got into during the performance). The Meat Puppets. And so on.

I could toss back a buncha brewskies, interview a band on-air, see them perform two feet in front of me, and then walk two blocks to get home. Man, those were the days.

And slightly before those bands, REM... who was there? I know it was the most packed I'd ever seen the Bayou up to that time. People were vertical, up the walls, standing on every available surface.

I will admit now, for the first time in a public forum, that I actually used my position at KLSU to get The Noise the opening slot for that gig. Well, really, we had the night booked and they tried to bump us for this basically unknown band called "Rim" - at least that what Bill Davis told me when he called me at the station one Sunday afternoon. Coincindentally, I had just played Wolves, Lower from REM - it was new, new, new. I told Bill to call RIGHT AWAY and get us back on the bill to open!

Come to think of it, I also used my position at KLSU to get an audition for The Noise - instead of reading the classified "singer wanted" on air, I set it aside and called Bill myself. For those of you not familiar with The Noise, let's just say that Bill is still playing music and I'm not! Those who can, do. Those who can't... er, manage!

Cathy Hendrix
Michael Dixon Management

I have a visual.........The Meat Puppets were performing and the lead dude's pants were painted on. His "meat" popped out and they left. I'll never forget that night and others like those. Oh and one night Firehose ate "crayfish" at Dave and I's home and Ed (from Ohio) played guitar and I sat on the arm of the chair he sat in. I miss those days................
jeana

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Jeana (used to be Lewis) Esser

Damn... should have stayed in BR awhile longer, though I did get to see Firehose here in Dallas, have a pic for Alien, signed by the guys, only a dozen or so showed up for the show - dumb ass dallasites.

ah... memories....

of course I burned so many brain cells at the B. both behind oand on the customer side of the bar.

spawn

AND THE RECORD COLLECTION!!!

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I miss all my KLSU buddies! Would love to have a reunion! At The Big Top!

Yes me laddos, the ENTIRE evening wasted by staying until closing for years and being wasted when toddling off homeward. Burke Murray bellowing to get get the "f*** out" (did big Dick Cheney cop his style?), and we'd just ignore the lug.

The bands, so many to remember that I don't remember many. Plan 9 was fun as I recall, LMNOP, and a host of others that are locked in a room in my mind that I canna open. The faces of the people over the 12 or so years I inhabited that place have faded a bit, but I remember many of them. Overall many good times and a few not so good, but the place had a certain kitsch and odor to it.

Yeah...it was smoky dog farts and toe cheese

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Jeana (used to be Lewis) Esser

more like vomit and beer...

Miles hanging at eth abr, signing along ..... ahhh those were the days matie...

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spawn

"I'm the bad thoughts inside your head"

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