Playing music in a parade looks like fun, but while it is, it’s also hard, sometimes thankless work.OffBeat spoke with members of four nightclub bands who, during Mardi Gras, transform into street bands. Sue Ford fronts Mardi Gras’ first rock band, Pink Slip, once an all-woman group that now includes her husband, drummer Jimmy Ford. Ben Schenck, clarinetist of Panorama Jazz Band, has for 12 years guided a flock of 12 musicians, some of whom come into town for Carnival to play inPanorama Brass Band. Geoff Douville (banjo) and Eric Belletto (trumpet) of Egg Yolk Jubilee take their feet off the Zappa pedal once a year to play sing-along trad standards, and Michael Hurtt returns from Detroit to front his Haunted Hearts, who, for the parades, add a drummer and more electric guitar to Hurtt’s well-curated selection of hillbilly music, swamp pop and rockin’ R&B covers. These musicians discussed the highs and lows of parading and how they survive the parades.

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