The patron saint of South Park is coming to Gilly’s next Wednesday, Aug 26. (8pm) If you aren’t familiar with Buckwheat Zydeco, aka Stanley Dural Jr. you are in for a treat. Nominated for four Grammys, Buck and the band put on a show that guarantees you’ll be jumping out of you seat and dancing.

Back in 1995 or so, I went to hear him at Bogart’s in Cincinnati, just as we were embarking on doing the video “South Park Soliloquy” for the neighborhood as a marketing piece. It seemed to me that if Buckwheat could make people get up and dance, he’d energize potential home buyers as well. After the show, I got back to the dressing room and asked if he’d be interested in letting a neighborhood use his music for the soundtrack. He gave me the number to his manager and off I went.

We worked a deal, if The Next Wave would do Buck’s website (and parts of it still exist today) – they’d let us use songs that Buck wrote and owned the rights to. However, we’d still have to clear this with the record labels. The day before the debut, we got our final letter in granting rights- and the video was a huge success.

We also worked on the poster and postcards you see at right- which was later used as the basis for a cover to a later album.

The last few times Buckwheat has come to town, at the Fraze and Canal Street Tavern, I could always count on seeing a whole bunch of South Parkians dancing their butts off. Most of them, all fell in love with the music about the same time they fell in love with the neighborhood, and that’s why Buckwheat Zydeco will continue on as our patron saint of good times.

Hope to see you there. Advance tickets are available at Gem City Records– so get them while they’re hot.