On Friday afternoon, Hogs for the Cause founders Rene Louapre and Becker Hall unveiled the music lineup and official plans for the 4th annual pork cook-off music festival in City “Pork” at a press conference held at NOLA Brewing Company.
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue will headline and will be joined by Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars, Austin’s alt-country band The Gourds, Marcia Ball, Stooges Brass Band and Mississippi Rail Company.
What started as a charitable cook-out at The Fly amongst friends has grown into a staple event on the New Orleans spring festival calendar after last year’s event raised more than $100,000 for the families of children fighting pediatric brain cancer at a festival headlined by The Radiators and Anders Osborne on a sunny spring day in 2011.
Louapre said the festival’s goal this year is to triple that figure, setting a $300,000 fundraising goal for the 2012 event. Sixty teams will compete for the pork cook-off trophy and funds will be raised through participant fees, merchandise and concession sales and donations. Get out there in March, bring the family, a big appetite and support this worthy cause at what is one of the premiere outdoor events of the spring.
The festival will take place on Saturday, March 24; gates will open at 10:30 a.m., advance tickets are $10 and they will be $20 at the gate. For more information on the event, visit hogsforthecause.org.
Wesley Hodges writes about music for Live Music Blog: NOLA and NolaVie.
NOLAbeings Multimedia artist Claire Bangser created NOLAbeings as a portrait-based story project that marries... 
Voodoo in New Orleans: Reviving history: New Orleans fortune telling This article takes a deep dive into the history of Voodoo in New Orleans, its hybridization with Catholicism, and its present-day place in the city's culture. The author visits fortune-tellers in the French Quarter, using their guidance as a tool for introspection rather than a deterministic predictor of the future. Through her experiences in New Orleans, the author feels a mystical connection to both the past and the future. 