Review: Scott Stetson + Dust Fuss at AVLFest
Scott Stetson had two venue options to play his AVLFest set on Aug. 5 — The Grey Eagle between two hip-hop acts or Fleetwood’s between two punk bands.
“I chose punk,” said the Asheville-based artist. “I’ve always loved punk. And it feels cool to play at Fleetwood’s because my style is not usually what they book. But the audience can still relate to both genres.”
True, there was not a strain of punk in his set’s ethereal minor key, mournful vocals, or its broody pedal steel played by talented bandmate Shaun Nicklin. But the emotional rawness and cathartic impulse of his lyrics, as well as Stetson’s anti-establishment sensibilities, make Fleetwood’s punk scene a fitting home.
Stetson’s music takes you out of your mental myopia and into a psychic space as expansive and lonely as a Montana prairie at sunset. “I like my songs to take people places, like out West,” he said. His song “Rhyme of the Buffalo” does just that.
The song reads as a ballad of the buffalo’s plight of migrating in winter, but it also offers a metaphor for existential loneliness: “Born from the dirt / Rambling through the plains / Trying to find a way / The snow has gotten deep.” The ballad foregrounds the symbiosis between the bison and the Plains Indians who relied on herds for their survival. “You’re looking my way / Do you need to eat / My hide can keep you warm / Pray this weather keeps.” At the same time, the ballad offers a scathing indictment of the greed of European colonizers who drove them to the brink of extinction. “Trust me to live a hundred lives or more / Next time I’m here, I’ll try to help some more.”
Melancholy and soulful, Stetson’s vocals invite you to travel on a solo journey into the dark canyons that grief and loss etch into the human heart.
“I don’t intentionally write a certain way. I just feel something bubble up inside and I have to write,” he said. “It comes out instantaneously and then it’s done. I go with my gut — I don’t overthink it or worry about if it sounds cool.”
It is this rawness and authenticity that make his set a welcome breather between punk bands.
You can catch Stetson and his full band, Stetson’s Stink Bug Bourban Band, at Shiloh and Gaines on Saturday, Sept. 23.
Dust Fuss delivered an unforgettable, energetic short set on Aug. 3 at The Grey Eagle, earning them the status of a band to keep on your watchlist for AVLFest 2024.
Lead singer/guitarist Taylor Olin announced that the group had flown in from Los Angeles to perform as the “fastest band in the world.” But the show also served as a homecoming for Olin, who lived in Asheville for three years in the mid 2010s and started the “thrashabilly” band The Squealers.
Plugging their new album Motorsigh, and dressed head to toe in vibrant red that matched their intensity, Dust Fuss was rounded out by Jerry Delk (drums) and Zac Eng (bass). The trio’s onstage synchronicity erupted into a fast and fiery explosion of sonic bliss with clangorous guitar riffs, punchy basslines, and angsty lyrics. Songs like “I Don’t Even Know Her” invoked the art pop quirkiness of pre-punk bands like The Talking Heads, while other songs like “Machine” and “Sneaky One” were fast and chaotic crowd pleasers reminiscent of riot grrl bands of the ’90s.
Olin, who described herself as “a calm person,” claimed that her angsty punk vibes come out in her music as a way of dealing with the firebombs life throws her way: “It’s just me, it’s who I am,” she said.
Watching this trio riff off one another proved contagious for the audience, eliciting remarks like “Don’t stop now!” when Olin announced they were going to “slow it down.” And in a way, she didn’t: next up were The Squealers, who followed Dust Fuss’ performance with matching dynamism, featuring Olin herself as guest drummer.
Check out Dust Fuss’s Grey Eagle performance on YouTube.
(Photos by Heather Burditt)
