This is somewhat derivative of the last poster I designed for Firecracker Jazz Band, but we needed one for our weekly performances at Olive or Twist so I came up with this design. Whipped this out in about an hour.

A few months ago I was playing piano at a house party in West Asheville (the notorious Montana House) with Reese. We were trading places at the piano bench and mixing it up with some four-handed stuff and really just having a blast playing and entertaining the folks that crowded around the swaying, rocking old upright. We beat that piano to a pulp for five hours, and my old friends Mike Belleme and his girlfriend Kristen were there for much of it.

A few weeks later, Mike asked me to be a part of a skate video featuring the skaters of Asheville’s PUSH Skate Shop that he was going to be in. He’d filmed all his parts and there was a rough edit but no music yet. Inspired by the music that he had heard Reese and I play, he asked me to play the soundtrack. So we met over at World Coffee, where they have a beat up old Wurlitzer spinet in the back, RJ Hess (the filmmaker) set up some recording equipment and I improvised some music while I watched the rough cut. I treated it like I was playing to a silent film, trying to accentuate action. After about six takes and some great ideas from Mike, the above is what we got. Damn it was fun. Mike said we made history — he didn’t think any skater had ever had a live piano track before.

In exchange for musicking his video, Mike took some professional head-shots of me. Here they are:

I even got a shout out in the MountainX. Kind of weird seeing my name listed next to the Rolling Stones. I love a good collaboration, and though the output is unique, what made it work was not. Can’t wait til the next project.

Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time.

I was sitting over at Izzy’s several days ago laptopping away, occasionally taking my pulse to see if I needed further espressos when my old friend Mike McBride of Sonmi Suite walked in. Mike was there meeting a local group of electronic producers, beat makers and DJs that had just collaborated on Asheville Beat Tape, a project he was involved with through Skew Records. There was about 15 of these guys that had gotten together and somehow all made time out of their busy schedules for a photo-op, but there were two problems. 1) No camera. 2) No photographer. “Well, I’ve got my Canon Rebel with me,” says I, “I’ll take the photo, though I’m far from a pro.” Twenty minutes later we’re on the roof of a parking deck shooting photos. The light was poor, so I herded them into a stairwell and got onto the landing above and that’s where the above shot came from.

Photography is a new hobby of mine, but early results are promising. It was really fun to do, and I didn’t mind doing a favor for a friend and helping to make something cool happen for everyone. I’m going to keep it up.

You should listen to the music they made. 100% local and organic. Plus, it’s a free download.

UPDATED: Mountain Xpress, the Asheville Citizen-Times and Ashvegas all covered this as well. I feel special.

But Pam stopped teaching and I entered the world of work and school and having a social life and music became less important for a while. My grandparents bought me a piano so I always had something to play, but I’m sorry to say there was a couple of years where I didn’t regularly knock the dust off of it. Around this time, a new guy moved to town. Now, you have to realize something here. I was 19 years old, living in a small town (pop. 1,800) and I didn’t know any one else like me. I was the weird kid who wore a fedora and an old topcoat and played the piano at the coffeehouse for people double and triple my age. Sure, my skills really didn’t surpass the level of a few parlor tricks and mangled Beethoven sonatas interspersed with Star Wars themes, but that was my shtick, and it was my shtick. One day I hear about this guy who moved into town, a few years older than me. I hear he wears a fedora and plays the meanest piano anyone had seen in this town. I’m thinking, “Who is this guy? This is my town and this is my shtick! How dare he!” After a couple weeks of reputation preceding him, I finally met him and saw him bust out a couple of tunes and whoa, I was blown away. I’d never seen anybody play piano like that. I think he played the Tiger Rag. His left hand was a blur and his right hand always knew where the melody should go. I immediately decided that we were going to be friends. That’s how I met Reese Gray.

He opened up the world of early jazz to me, got me listening to greats like Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, J. P. Johnson, King Oliver, Wingy Manone, Spike Jones, the Hoosier Hot-shots, so much more. And man, I really dug that music. Some people call it Dixieland, Hot Jazz, Traditional Jazz, or just Trad Jazz. It wasn’t like the elevator, Barnes & Noble jazz, the Kroger jazz or John Tesh that you hear so often but can’t whistle a single bar of after hearing it your whole life. It had power and youth, spontaneity and vigor, melancholy and passion, played by humans using all their humanity. But mostly, it was just fun. That’s how I got into 1920s jazz.

Reese got me off the sheet music, but first he found some written copies of tunes that he thought I should learn. W. C. Handy’s Memphis Blues was the first one he showed me. After I’d gotten the hang of the first couple sections I played it for him and he picked up his banjo-uke and tried to play along. Now, I’d never played ensemble in any fashion and had no clue how. I played a few bars and he stopped me. My rhythm was so bad he couldn’t play along with me at all. So he made me tap my feet when I played. Taught me the importance of rhythm. Pretty simple, but it was the missing element I needed. After a few years, my sense of rhythm increased, while I’m still working at it, I’m steady enough to play with folks. Meanwhile, instead of improvising being a side act, improvisation became the main attraction. That’s how I started to become an ear musician.

With my new skills, music became more and more important to me. I used it to purge emotions that I couldn’t talk about, or didn’t have anyone to talk to about. I used it when I needed a way to be angry but not destructive. I used it to purge unrequited passion. I used it to stimulate my mind. I used it to feed my inner human.

Or did the music use me? Psh — semantics.

Back in January, the Firecracker Jazz Band was in need of a piano player because Reese was leaving town for a couple months. With trepidation, I accepted. With about two weeks notice to learn 30 songs, I stepped up to the plate and practiced hard. After two rehearsals with the band I had my first real, professional experience playing music with them on Valentine’s Day, 2010. Took me almost 17 years to get there, but man was it worth it. I was nervous all that day, but as soon as I stepped up to the piano I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Since Valentine’s Day, I’ve played around 25 gigs total, and every one I play is a hell of a lot of fun, but playing May 14 at The Orange Peel was the highlight so far. The Peel was nearly packed as we opened for the very talented Carolina Chocolate Drops. The sound booth recorded our show. You can listen to it below. (Turn up your speakers — the gain is low.)

Playing music has been the best, most fun, most fulfilling thing I’ve done with the energies of my life. Thanks to all who helped me along the way, who made me love the music, who vouched for an amateur, who believed that I had music in me that had to come out. And to those that didn’t believe in me, you too pushed me forward to prove you wrong.

Good friends Screaming Js, the house band at MoDaddy’s, needed a poster to help with some promotion. So they asked me to put something together, and this is what I did. I tweaked the type (I used Blackmoor) and stole the piano from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. They liked it, I liked it and I think it represents their music pretty well.

You can catch them, and often me, tonight at MoDaddy’s and every Wednesday. They put on a kickin good show, and you owe it to yourself to catch these guys. And it’s free. See you there!

I’m very excited to have my Andrew Bird tickets (Orange Peel, $25) already purchased. He is one of my absolute favorite musicians and songwriters out there right now, and his live shows are spectacular displays of his musicianship and uniquely melancholy heart, proudly bruised and bandaged in esoteric words that make me reach for a taxonomic glossary. His lyrics recall the most flowing lines of Tennyson’s work, without the classical allusions. I saw him in 2007 with Reese, who played with him briefly in the early 2000s in the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and I got to shake his hand and speak to him briefly, but in rare form I was star struck and couldn’t think of a single bit of conversation. I’m not familiar with the opening act — has anybody seen St. Vincent?

He’s just as good live as in the video. I’ll see you at the show.

So this weekend I’m going to the Trinumeral Music and Arts Festival at Deerfields. It’s just outside of Asheville, abotu 20 minutes past the airport. Should be a great time, a few days out in the wild with some friends and excellent music will be a nice break from the grind. I’ve been working everyday for three weeks in some capacity, as well as a 15 credit hour load at school. It keeps me stimulated and engaged, but I’ll be glad to go rusticating for a few days. I’ll be back Sunday night.

Photograph by Lydia See

Transfigurations for me was all diamonds and no rough, and I only saw six of the acts. One of the highlights was being there last Friday at Diana Wortham Theater for Will Oldham / Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who played a long set with lots of rare gems, including this song written by Gayle Caldwell and recorded as the title track by Frank Sinatra on his 1968 Cycles LP. I’m going to be on the lookout for that on vinyl, but until then this will have to do. He introduced this as a ‘recession song.’

Check out all the other recordings I made at Transfigurations. By the way, these awesome photos were taken by Lydia See. You should click on them and see her other work. You’ll like it.

Photograph by Lydia See

]]> http://blog.afletcher.net/2009/08/bootleg-will-oldham-bonnie-prince-billy-performs-cycles/feed/ 0 http://blog.afletcher.net/2009/08/bootleg-bonnie-prince-billy-will-oldham-performs-a-chris-knox-cover/ http://blog.afletcher.net/2009/08/bootleg-bonnie-prince-billy-will-oldham-performs-a-chris-knox-cover/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:13:28 +0000 Andrew http://blog.afletcher.net/?p=644 I’m desperately trying to figure out the name of this song. Any help? Thanks to @aidanz and @bentmatches for coming up with the title! It’s a Chris Knox cover called “My Only Friend,” performed by Bonnie “Prince” Billy / Will Oldham, and it’s going to be on a forthcoming compilation to benefit Chris after a stroke he had last month. You heard it hear first.

This was recorded at Diana Wortham on August 14, 2009 during the Transfigurations music festival.

Oh — and if you like these bootlegs, you should really buy the records from Harvest Records. Asheville should thank those guys for bringing such great music and presenting it so well. Thank them by spending money at their store.

Here’s the official video and the studio version of the song.