Monday, May 18, 2009
Here I go again, on my own, walking down the only road I’ve ever known. Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone. And I've made up my mind. I ain't wasting no more time.
- Whitesnake
It’s not easy to know where to begin describing the recent lives of Now You See Them. On Thursday, we gained a new friend and a new perspective on our lives when we were visited by a girl named Marley. She came to us from UNC Chapel Hill on recommendation from our friend John Elliston at the Mountain Xpress. She was looking for a street band to do a story on, and she found us! From that moment on, Marley was one of us. She went to our show, she took our pictures with our friends, she interviewed us each separately in our bedroom, she basically took note of everything we did (or didn’t do), and caught most of it on camera. This was weird. As someone who does not enjoy having her picture taken, ever, really, it was difficult to get used to a camera around every corner…especially at times when I felt less than camera-ready. The interviews were pretty funny too, as I had never really thought of the questions she asked or how I might answer them if someone wanted to know. I found myself thinking, “What if she was a hard-hitting journalist just looking for some dirt?” and “What if I just unknowingly sabotaged myself and my band?” Then I re-realized that she is a genuinely cool girl, just looking to do a story on the awesomeness of Asheville and the people who inhabit it. The thought of being involved in something so scandalous was exciting for a moment …if only in my mind. Like I said, she gave us a new perspective on our lives, and I think we were able to provide her with a pretty solid dose of how our band exists in this somewhat-storybook life of ours.
Friday night, we played an outdoor concert at a really well decorated house in West Asheville for a wonderful group of people who didn’t let the rain stop them from dancing to our tunes. Ben Gradison opened up for us with some bluesy harmonica moments (http://www.myspace.com/theoreticalbluesharpboy), a 7-year-old girl got on stage and sang “somewhere over the rainbow”, and we had a taste of some of the best banana pudding pound cake ever! Our favorite local artist Julie Armbruster was there (juliearmbruster.net). She designed our logo, and she’s always really positive about our music and our future. It’s a treat to see Julie at our shows. Ryan, it was an honor and a pleasure, and we hope to play the stone porch series again someday soon!
Saturday was rainy and depressing during the day, so Marley got a lot of shots of us on our computers and drinking coffee. However, Saturday night was a different story all together! It was our friend Zach’s birthday! I feel like a lot of really awesome people were born in May…. Anyway, we went to Hookah Joes, where RBTS Win was playing (http://www.myspace.com/robotswin). Upon entering, I immediately felt like the plainest, lamest Jane ever to enter that smoky room. Everywhere I looked, there were exotic hipster looking boys and girls; tattooed from head to toe and sporting eyeliner like it was their career. The girls were beautiful, and the boys were mysterious, and with RBTS Win and hookah smoke swirling in the background, the scene was rich with pulp and film-noir vibes. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, someone announced that there would be a “fire performance” outside in the parking lot. There sure was! A beautiful man and woman, both with blonde dreadlocks, twirled fire batons and swallowed flames with style right in front of our eyes. Their performance was stunning, beautiful, and an “only-in-Asheville” moment.
Sunday was sleepy and full of more rain (blah), so again, we got a lot of pictures taken in the tree shack while sipping coffee and checking our email…a lot. Finally, we got restless enough to get motivated enough to get up and go! We realized that our good friends, Taylor Martin and friends were playing at the Charlotte Street Pub, and that it would be great for Marley to see more of the musical diversity of Asheville (http://www.myspace.com/taylormartinsmusic). We got there late (of course), but still with enough time to hear a few songs like “Engine” the title track from Taylor’s new cd, and three or four others. Woody Wood was sitting in with them this week, so that made it even more special (http://www.myspace.com/woodywood33). If you’ve never been to the Charlotte Street Pub on a Sunday afternoon, you should make it a priority in the future. It’s like a sweet little secret, where great musicians get together to play, and other great musicians get together to listen. Marley was really impressed, and we were really proud.
Now it’s Monday, and we still have Marley. We’re thinking about keeping her! Shane promised to feed her, and Jason said he’d make sure she’d get her baths, so it seems like a pretty good deal! Having someone around to observe our lives and ask us questions with the intent of listening to the answers has been really refreshing. Marley has reminded me that we do lead an interesting lifestyle, where we’re lucky to be doing what we want to be doing. She’s reminded me that we have great support from people who believe in us, and we have extremely talented friends to provide us with inspiration and good laughs. Marley has also lit a little fire under us to get back into the habit of practicing new songs, and as a result, we’ve got a couple of new ones on the way! Who could’ve known that having a complete stranger plop down in your life could make you appreciate it so much? I guess I do now.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
LEAF weekend!
Monday, May 11 2009
As some of you may know, this past weekend was tough competition for the local music scene in Asheville with LEAF going on in Black Mountain and great music happening in town. For us, Saturday night at the garage with the Baker Family Band and Peace Jones was as packed as we’ve ever seen it….
Baker Family Band opened up with an awesome set that fell upon too few ears, but those who were there were on a mission to enjoy the colorful, whirlwind experience BFB had to offer. I know I did! We had a decent set and a great surprise when our friends Neil and Rochelle from Tennessee showed up! Super-fan Susie was there too, and she always makes the crowd look better! After us, Peace Jones set the tone for a dreamy, jammie, dancey night, a
nd what we caught of it was a great mix of all of those things. They even rapped! We had to bounce early, though, because we knew we’d be up at the crack of dawn (like, 10:00am in nyst land) to head to LEAF!
Ours was the 1:00 opening show on the waterfront, which we won our way into by playing on the back of a pickup truck in 20-degree weather in the Asheville Mardi Gras parade. Did I mention that Shane and Jason were both wearing dresses in that parade? They have great legs, so that could have swayed the judging in our favor….
LEAF was beautiful. As my first festival (ever! I know!), I can say that it was packed with positive energy and happy people, and it ran the musical gamut all the way from folk to old time; Latin, jazz, and blues to indie-quirk-pop (sh
ameless plug). Everywhere we looked there was another group of people gathered to play their instruments and sing their stories, and moms and dads got to relax and enjoy while tons of kids ran wild and barefoot over the muddy grounds. One of the highlights of my LEAF experience was, without a doubt, David Wilcox, a local singer/songwriter whom I had not had the pleasure of experiencing live until Sunday at LEAF. Seamless story-telling lead into beautiful, insightful songs that lulled everyone in that steamy-hot barn into a blissful, romantic state of mind that made it easy to sing along when the time came to do so. We missed The Space Heaters (which was a bummer), but we’re trying to get them to play with us at Fred’s Speakeasy on the 23rd (of May), so look out for that! Tired, hot, and sunburned, now you see them piled into our little clown car and headed on home to our tree shack in Oteen.
That night, Jason and
I attended our friend Grace’s surprise birthday party in West Asheville. Surprise parties are nerve-wracking, aren’t they? We were so scared that we were going to ruin it somehow! When we arrived, Grace’s roomie came out to tell us to move our car down the street, and that she’d be there any minute. So we rushed down the street, found a good spot, and SPRINTED back to the house, the whole time adrenaline pumping through my heart like I was on CSI or something. It all worked out fine though, and Grace was as happy as could be when she came home to a dark house full of friends ready to attack her...really, she was! It was a lot of fun, and an honor to be among some of Asheville’s finest musicians, like the birthday girl herself (from Silver Dagger), Moses Atwood, Paul Johnson (Johnson’s Crossroad), Taylor Martin, Chris Michael (Tennessee Hollow), Ty Gilpin (High Windy), and Amanda and Pete from The Honeycutters! There were plenty more talented musicians there, but pbr and multiple jams prevented me from either meeting them or maintaining their names. Any way you slice it, it was an awesome weekend, full of nature, music, friends, and new experiences.
As some of you may know, this past weekend was tough competition for the local music scene in Asheville with LEAF going on in Black Mountain and great music happening in town. For us, Saturday night at the garage with the Baker Family Band and Peace Jones was as packed as we’ve ever seen it….
Baker Family Band opened up with an awesome set that fell upon too few ears, but those who were there were on a mission to enjoy the colorful, whirlwind experience BFB had to offer. I know I did! We had a decent set and a great surprise when our friends Neil and Rochelle from Tennessee showed up! Super-fan Susie was there too, and she always makes the crowd look better! After us, Peace Jones set the tone for a dreamy, jammie, dancey night, a
nd what we caught of it was a great mix of all of those things. They even rapped! We had to bounce early, though, because we knew we’d be up at the crack of dawn (like, 10:00am in nyst land) to head to LEAF!Ours was the 1:00 opening show on the waterfront, which we won our way into by playing on the back of a pickup truck in 20-degree weather in the Asheville Mardi Gras parade. Did I mention that Shane and Jason were both wearing dresses in that parade? They have great legs, so that could have swayed the judging in our favor….
LEAF was beautiful. As my first festival (ever! I know!), I can say that it was packed with positive energy and happy people, and it ran the musical gamut all the way from folk to old time; Latin, jazz, and blues to indie-quirk-pop (sh
ameless plug). Everywhere we looked there was another group of people gathered to play their instruments and sing their stories, and moms and dads got to relax and enjoy while tons of kids ran wild and barefoot over the muddy grounds. One of the highlights of my LEAF experience was, without a doubt, David Wilcox, a local singer/songwriter whom I had not had the pleasure of experiencing live until Sunday at LEAF. Seamless story-telling lead into beautiful, insightful songs that lulled everyone in that steamy-hot barn into a blissful, romantic state of mind that made it easy to sing along when the time came to do so. We missed The Space Heaters (which was a bummer), but we’re trying to get them to play with us at Fred’s Speakeasy on the 23rd (of May), so look out for that! Tired, hot, and sunburned, now you see them piled into our little clown car and headed on home to our tree shack in Oteen.That night, Jason and
I attended our friend Grace’s surprise birthday party in West Asheville. Surprise parties are nerve-wracking, aren’t they? We were so scared that we were going to ruin it somehow! When we arrived, Grace’s roomie came out to tell us to move our car down the street, and that she’d be there any minute. So we rushed down the street, found a good spot, and SPRINTED back to the house, the whole time adrenaline pumping through my heart like I was on CSI or something. It all worked out fine though, and Grace was as happy as could be when she came home to a dark house full of friends ready to attack her...really, she was! It was a lot of fun, and an honor to be among some of Asheville’s finest musicians, like the birthday girl herself (from Silver Dagger), Moses Atwood, Paul Johnson (Johnson’s Crossroad), Taylor Martin, Chris Michael (Tennessee Hollow), Ty Gilpin (High Windy), and Amanda and Pete from The Honeycutters! There were plenty more talented musicians there, but pbr and multiple jams prevented me from either meeting them or maintaining their names. Any way you slice it, it was an awesome weekend, full of nature, music, friends, and new experiences.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Now You See Them's first blog ever!
Well, it was a hell of a weekend, starting on Wednesday, April 29th, when we played on the LaZoom Bus in 
Jennifer and Jim (who own/run the bus biz) are amazingly nice and fantastically entertaining, and the people on the bus went up and down all through the town laughing, learning and enjoying the tour and our music. We met a coupla ladies from
Thursday, we played our first show out at Pisgah Brewing Company in 
Now you see them played in the back yard, which is lush and green and has a pretty little stream running through it. There weren’t THAT many people there, but there were definitely a few of our favorites: john and barb and ryan, Claire and her gaggle of pretty friends. Rumor had it that we had competition with the Asheville Toursists’ first “Thirsty Thursday.” All in all, it was a great show, and we got to drink awesome beer while playing outside! We really hope to play there again soon, so if you’re in the neighborhood, drop our name into someone’s ear, and, hopefully, they’ll listen!
Finally Friday rolled around, and we were all set to play at our friends Ana and Claire’s plane crash-themed house party. We knew it was going to be a good one when we were looking for costume ideas at Goodwill
and a random woman approached us saying, “I’m sorry, but are you all planning to go to a party tonight where you’re supposed to 
dress up like something from a plane crash?” We each worked out our costumes: Jason rigged up an oxygen mask looking thing to a wire hanger around his head and dressed as a tourist in a Hawaiian shirt with a camera around his neck. . I was someone who was pulled from some wreckage…either out of water or some trees…I had a white mesh laundry bag as a net over me, strewn with foliage and sea-creature sponges. Shane was a gay, never-nude terrorist. “How would you ever convey that?” you may ask. Well, with style, I guess.
Shane sported extremely short denim shorts and a cutoff white T-shirt with a giant letter T on it which he then wrote “terrorist” underneath in sharpie. He fashioned a turban from some seersucker material found at goodwill, and the rest, as they say, was history.
The party was lots of fun, and there were tons of people there. Ana met us in the driveway with jell-o shots, and Robot Baby’s band (http://www.myspace.com/themysterycult) played amazing music in the garage while an organ (like, a pipe organ) burned in the front yard. Our set went well, and we had a new experience when an adamant female fan approached Shane from behind to unbutton, unzip, and almost unveil his manliest parts! Good thing I talked him into wearing undies with those short shorts! What would they do without a girl in the band?
So now it’s Sunday, and it’s rainy and breezy outside. We’re all tuckered out from our long weekend of fun, and we’re looking forward to the next couple of shows we have lined up. I’m going to try to keep this blog thing going, even though I’m not a huge fan of blogging in general. So why don’t you show up and give me something to talk about?
Check out our upcoming shows at our myspace page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
