Smart bets web extra: Eric Sommer

Athens, Ohio-based musician-composer-author-poet-bandleader-troubadour Eric Sommer has the sort of Facebook page that one would expect of a musician-composer-author-poet-bandleader-troubadour. His photo albums are filled with snapshots of cool guitars, roadside diners, coffee cups, battered amps, tattoo parlors, vinyl collections, fans and pumpkins wearing sunglasses (?!).

He also has this cool paragraph in his bio: “Sommer, who paid his guitar dues on the streets of Boston during high school, left for Europe and played in Amsterdam and Hamburg before settling in Aarhus, Denmark where he toured with Danish bands and held steady gigs at Den Hoyle and De Gaverit, two very popular clubs for American ex-pats in Europe, and then moved to Amsterdam, lived on a houseboat and worked the Netherlands music clubs, the Amsterdam scene and German concert circuit.”

Currently touring in support of his latest album, Rainy Day Karma, Sommer (with bassist Dave the K) makes two stops in the Asheville area. He’ll play Black Mountain Ale House on Friday, Dec. 28 at 9:30 p.m. and Root Bar on Saturday, Dec. 29.

Sommer tells Xpress that, from Karma, his tracks “Red Queen” and “Sunny Afghanistan” have been getting a lot of interest, the latter on the college circuit, according to PRWeb.com. “The song describes a college Ethics professor who gave up tenure and a teaching position at a Mid West College, moved to Kabul, Afghanistan to become an arms dealer as a way to support the innocent Afghan civilians who are defending themselves with whatever they can find,” says a press release.

Listen to “Europe Europe”:

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About Alli Marshall
Alli Marshall has lived in Asheville for more than 20 years and loves live music, visual art, fiction and friendly dogs. She is the winner of the 2016 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and the author of the novel "How to Talk to Rockstars," published by Logosophia Books. Follow me @alli_marshall

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