An AVLFest Odyssey: Day 2
FRIDAY
Day 2 of AVLFest started early for me with a trip back to The Orange Peel for a 1:30 p.m. show by local singer/songwriter Lo Wolf. Thanks to a tip from a friend attending the fest, I was aware that this set has been pushed up half an hour, but not everyone may have gotten the memo as there were not that many people there when Wolf first took the stage. Turns out it didn't matter much because she has a fire for performing that doesn't require much kindling. All she needed was her guitar and her gritty perspective on her past experiences, singing lines like, “Just because I’m broke don’t mean I need fixed” in “Kill No More.”.
I’d seen Lo Wolf before as part of an alt-country evening, but she was more than I remembered. Raw yet relatable, she sang and played her personal narrative songs with purpose. She’s not a towering figure, not much taller than a standard mic stand, but she confidently held the center of that large stage, standing alone in her long shirt dress and practical pinned-up black hair. She was not there to make us feel better, but to make us feel — singing songs about dead boyfriends and mercy killing a rabbit. She emotes plenty, but her stage persona was not morose. She had a hop-stomp style to her guitar playing that somehow made her music seem even more immediate. Toward the end of her set, more people started streaming in, surprised to find her finishing up, some with a “Crap, did I miss it?” expression on their face. You did. You missed it. You should definitely catch her some other time if you can.
Next, I dipped just south of downtown to the South Slope to see another Asheville female singer/songwriter, Ashley Heath, at The Funkatorium (one of sponsor Wicked Weed Brewing’s entertainment and imbibement establishments). I left the darkness of The Orange Peel’s interior and Lo Wolf’s worldview for the brightness of Funkatorium’s light-wood backroom stage and Heath’s “happy you’re here” amicable Americana musical energy. I prefer the darkness, but I am quickly reminded that many who come to Asheville in search of music and more do not.
The larger-than-I-remembered back room was packed with people happy to be drinking a beer and drinking in delightful music (not atypical in Asheville). And Heath is and was that. She was delightful in her red-in-that-light hair and red shoulder-strap jumper that she shared she was happy to get to wear for their event. She plays out a lot all over the region and it showed. She charmed the gathered crowd with her bluesy country rock songs and her banter in between, even cracking herself up a few times. She reminded me a bit of Bonnie Raitt with her soulful voice and not-to-be-taken-for granted sweet guitar licks on her own songs like, “Something To Believe,” or on can’t miss covers like country standard, “Tennessee Whiskey.” Most sets at music fests have attendees eyeing the schedule and creeping toward the exits toward the end, but no one seemed in any hurry to be anywhere else, and Heath’s likability and talent for making music that goes down easy had a lot to do with that.
I took a few hours off and, instead of seeing the big separate-ticket event, Kurt Vile & The Violators on The Meadow at Highland Brewing, I went to Fleetwood's to see my friends and one of my favorite Asheville bands, Rond. Before I get to them, let’s just take a second to acknowledge how awesome Fleetwood’s is, evident in their subheading: rock-n-roll wedding chapel. You pass classic cars and hearses out front on your way in, then find a legit vintage clothing shop filling the entryway. You walk past the well-stocked wood bar, step past an open upright casket, and move into the oddly decorated music room that doubles as a wedding chapel (or vice versa). This is the perfect venue for Rond, who are equally unexpected and exceptional in their own way.
For the uninitiated, it is hard to describe Rond, except to say imagine The Pogues but instead of Shane McGowan at the front, it’s music funnyman Stephen Lynch. Rond plays spirited indie rock songs that sound on the surface like they should be loudly sung in a pub somewhere — and they should be, just as long as you know the lyrics are likely making fun of some of the clientele. Much of Rond’s music is born from the mischievous mind of frontman Rod Murphy, who plays guitar and provides raspy lead vocals for his lyrics that can make you chuckle but also make you squirm from social discomfort. He’s backed by the tall slink of water Todd Lester on bass, the seen-and-heard Sean Moore on drums, Jay Hartwig riding sidecar on keys, bendy straw Daniel Clelland on backing vocals, and the musical multitasker, Forest Tate, on trumpet, flute, and fiddle, plus the incomparable Gina Buscaglia Murphy adding unconventional vocals and sprinkles of spoken word. I could watch these merry musical pranksters play all day, every day.
On that day, they did not enjoy the same turnout that Kurt Vile commanded, but they still tore it up for their tiny chapel congregation, which grew as they got deeper into their set. They rolled out some choice cuts from Rond’s musical library, with songs like “Boston Face Guy” (about a poser pretending to be much more Irish than he is); “Trashed” (about a house party gone horribly wrong); and “Leicester” (which argues the correct pronunciation of our neighbor city to the north).
They closed with a couple of rousing songs that reveal Murphy's great storytelling talents and how much of himself (and his family) he inserts into his verses. There was “Ball,” the cautionary tale of what happens when you wear shorts that ride too high and show too much when meeting your girlfriend's country club parents for the first time, and “Steve Larochelle (My Oldest Sister’s Great),” about bursting into her bedroom to see the cool football helmet his sister had made for him, only instead to see her boyfriend’s naked butt bouncing up and down. But these are not novelty songs, more terrific folk country indie rock tracks, like if Mojo Nixon had made the soundtrack to the movie American Pie. And Murphy ratchets up the crowd to sing along to his slightly bawdy lyrics. As folks spilled in toward the end, perhaps to see the next band, Seismic Sumatra, some were initially taken back by what they heard. But soon enough, they were drawn into Mr. Rond’s Wild Ride. Now that I’d buy a separate ticket for.
Then it was back to the Sovereign Kava for what I hoped would be a repeat of the pleasant experience of the Poetry Showcase, this time via the Hip-Hop Showcase with Eaze Dogg. As I mentioned, I’m always hoping to find some quality hip-hop in this town and a sampler platter at Sovereign might possibly serve that purpose. I only knew of Eaze Dogg, but from what I had heard from festival organizers, he’s a free spirit. Story has it that he was invited on a podcast that profiles up-and-coming artists. As part of his appearance, he was offered a recording contract, something they sometimes do to give an artist a leg up, but he declined, not wanting to sell out. Too bad and yet good for him, I guess.
I was excited to hear what Eaze Dogg and the other selected acts were going to do. The scheduled start time clicked on the clock and yet Eaze Dog did not take the stage, instead pacing off to the side. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes passed, and still Eaze Dogg was not on the mic, but rather on his phone. After 22 minutes, an eternity in music fest time, he hopped up on stage to welcome us to the hip-hop showcase, but some of us were already halfway to our next show. We wanted his spirit to fly free, but with a crowded curated schedule, we needed him to start on time.
I did stay long enough to hear him drop a few of his tracks. He rapped over pre-recorded versions of his songs that seemed to include all his vocals. His beats were solid, his raps were legit with a distinct vocal flavor, if at times hard to tell what was live and what was Memorex. I was somewhat frustrated by the Eaze Dogg experience, but also fascinated. That dude is different. More interesting even off stage than some are on stage. I want someone to do a reality TV show about him, one that I don’t mind is prerecorded, edited, and delivered on time. That is if he would ever accept such an offer.
A hurried walk up the hill brought me to the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts. Having once worked there, I was quite familiar with this beautiful 500-seat venue with orchestra and balcony seating that’s perfect for modern dance, opera, and even stand-up comedy. For those, it makes sense to be seated. But for me, seeing lively music live should not be a sedentary experience. A lap does not suit the rock’n’roll lifestyle. Plus, if Chet Baker falls in love too easily, I fall asleep too easily.
I was willing to overlook all of that because I was there to see the equally lovely Eleanor Underhill & Friends. Backing up Underhill on her banjo was Silas Durocher of The Get Right Band on guitar and bass, Matt Lane on bass and guitar, Paul Gladstone on drums, and omnipresent saxophonist Jacob Rodriguez, who popped up all over this festival. Underhill is one half of the accomplished Americana duo Underhill Rose (with Molly Rose Reed). I met them many years back on a weekend retreat when someone was looking to make a documentary about the Asheville arts scene. The feature film was eventually whittled down to little more than a trailer that aired on PBS — an interesting unintentional statement.
Underhill Rose has enjoyed success both in the U.S. and abroad, but Reed chose to take some time away to start a family, so Underhill started a solo career on the side. She released two albums of original songs, Land of the Living and Navigate the Madness, plus a collection of her signature covers, Got It Covered. Her set at AVLFest was filled with her sweet, atmospheric music. Her songs like “On the Way To Engelhard” and covers of such tunes as “Red Red Wine” fall across you like a slight shift in the breeze that makes you feel the fullness of your skin, but also at times an unsettling chill. As it washed over me, I did find myself comfortably settling into my chair. A little too comfortably, if you ask me.
As Heath did earlier in the day, Underhill knows how to deliver melodious music that most discerning adults find delightful. Those are not typical colors on my punk rock/hip-hop palette. I needed something to perk me up, another component that could add some pop. That’s when Amanda Hoyte and her tap shoes stepped out on stage. Hoyte is an amazing African-American dancer and educator that Underhill invited to join her band to provide additional percussion in the form of her feet on a laid-down tap board. The two songs that they teamed up on, “And She Said” and “Beautiful Colors,” were terrific, with a wonderful dueling banjos dynamic between Hoyte and Gladstone on drums. It was a sensational set that found a cool crescendo toward the end that had me rising up out of my seat to applaud instead of being shaken awake by an usher.
I continued to feast on the banquet of fantastic female artists that AVLFest was featuring when I returned to The Orange Peel to see western import Nikki Lane. She is originally from Greenville, SC, but after stops in LA and NYC, Lane now calls Nashville home. She was more country/western than the Americana I had heard from Underhill or Heath, and her show had more of a rowdy roadhouse vibe. She’s known as the First Lady of Outlaw Country, after all.
At the kickoff event for the fest earlier in the week, a reporter from Rolling Stone declared that Lane was the show to see. She gave me no reason to disagree. I would not necessarily say that she’s much more talented or more interesting than the other acts I had seen or would see; she’s just more seasoned. While others may know how to work a crowd, she knows how to work a concert hall, maybe a benefit of making her way up in Music City instead of Beer City. She had the packed house at the Peel hopping with her full honky tonk band behind her. She played songs you’d expect to hear at a country western show, like “Denim & Diamonds” from her 2022 album of the same name, but she also brought a rock ‘n’ roll roughness to her set with the likes of “Black Widow.”
She was smart to start with “700,000 Rednecks,” the song that put her on the country music map back in 2017, but she wasted little time in letting us know that she’s not living off that lone single by following up with the punchy pop offering “First High.'' . Lane has drawn the attention of more than just us music fest attendees, having recorded with the likes of Lana Del Rey and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Her songs are quite good, but she was not satisfied to just rest on her laurels, instead giving each one her all, moving back and forth across that stage like she needed to get her steps in. And then she guaranteed that she would get a good rating from me when she played “I Just Wanted to See You So Bad” by Lucinda Williams, who I think does the gritty country cool rock chick routine better than anyone. While I don’t tend to like anything that feeds the Nashville vs. Asheville confusion, I was so glad they got her on board to help raise the bar.
I finished my Friday night at AVLFest with another of Asheville’s fabulous female-fronted acts by going back to The Grey Eagle to be in the company of Abby Bryant & The Echoes. Bryant exists in many of the categories that I have covered here: bluesy soul Americana country rock, but the experience is not exactly the same. I may have been swayed by her standing on stage in front of those sunken-den drop curtains, banging on a tambourine with her tousled blonde hair and golden Gaia goddess dress that screamed the ’70s and made this show feel from a different era, putting me in the mind of Fleetwood Mac. Maybe not quite the kind of music, but the commitment to the music, the fullness of female vocals at the center of stirring rock songs that have defined FM radio for decades.
Bryant opened with a cover of My Morning Jacket’s “Anytime,” which was a great choice and a cool nod to a local major-label connection with MMJ’s Jim James having recorded Asheville’s Floating Action, set to play the fest on Saturday afternoon. She then moved on to her own music and owned the moment with “Not Your Little Girl,” her song that announces she doesn’t need your advice to advance in this scene. She ripped through the rest of her heartfelt set, seeming invincible as she shared her vulnerability on songs like “Better Now,” “How Can I Trust You,” and “Say The Word,” then sent us home happy after a long day with “Happily Ever After.”
It would have been understandable if some of us had been too full from so much music to not find room for Bryant and her band. But there’s something classic about her that doesn’t feel like yet another perfectly fine festival act, but rather part of the lineage of legendary lady rockers that wring every last drop out of whatever lyric they sing.
(Nikki Lane photo by Fiasco Media)
