ampersand seven: #37

Friday, February 6, 2009

#37

#37, Asheville, North Carolina

It was a hot summer day and we were driving through Tennessee listening to Bob Dylan's Love and Theft. Ahead of us lay Asheville and the back of Pascal's van. Behind us, near Gatlinburg, we'd passed a gas station with a teepee and a sign advertising "rat cheese homemade jams & jellies". We'd passed billboards for Cowboys Seafood and the truly dubious-sounding Flyaway Indoor Skydiving (Annie: "That doesn't sound safe." Michael, in drawl: "Now you be sure to pull that cord before you count to one. That floor comes fast!"). Josh, with an air of bewilderment and awe, was pondering the merits of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk ("This album was mixed by a mad scientist. There's no songs, but they're all great songs."). And then, legs cramped and stomachs full of gas station squirrel food, we rolled into Asheville.

We had a few hours before our gig at the BoBo Gallery with hopeful, hypnotic Hope and Anchor and the incredible "Ragtime, Steam Boat Blues, Holes in My Shoes" Woody Pines, so I grabbed an iced coffee from a coffee stand inside a defunct London double decker bus and wandered. Along narrow Carolina Lane, I found this gingerbread purple and red house. Its neighbor, 27, was also decked out in bright finery. I love the odd rockery carefully arranged beneath the window sill.

The townsfolk of Balthrop, Alabama may or may not get to roll into Asheville again soon (we loved it there), but we are happy to be playing tomorrow night at Union Hall in Brooklyn with both Woody Pines and Josh's own Rocketship Park. Check out the amazing, ransom-note collection of typography in their banner; stay for the pretty music.

6 comments:

Pierre said...: Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac. That represents quite a spread. But then I like ABBA and Canned Heat. There's also Beatles, Blues, Bluegrass and Beethoven; Joplin, Celine and Etta James. I suppose drummers like most anything with a beat.
Good eye on the photo.; February 6, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Michael Arthur said...: Yeah, the Balthrop tour playlist is as eclectic as the townfolk. Don't fence us in.; February 6, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Ray Gunn said...: I think my rods and cones are going on strike as of right now. What a hideous color combination!

annical (A Broadway show that's been through more than one revival in ten years); February 6, 2009 at 4:03 PM
Pierre said...: Michael,
Perhaps I didn't word it correctly. I wasn't trying to fence one in. I was refering to my own eclectic tastes.; February 6, 2009 at 9:33 PM
Therese Cox said...: Ha! Considering we tote around massive white picket fences to each Balthrop gig and then prop them up on either end of the stage while trying to squeeze 10 people & their instruments & amps in between said fences, that's pretty funny.

Eclectic taste is a thing I always try to appreciate in others, even though I myself can be very narrow-minded in my own aesthetic preferences. Though Ray, I do agree that my rods & cones may have a hard time accepting the eclectic red/purple for more than a minute or so at a time.

Thanks for the feedback, all.; February 6, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Julie said...: If that is the exterior, what must the interior be and fancy waking up to it.; December 7, 2009 at 2:52 AM