Widespread panegyric

The soundtrack on Golden Gate Gallery’s MySpace page is from Dead Can Dance and sounds for all the world like Jim Morrison. Dead.

Tour art is for everybody: Jay Blakesberg doesn’t just photograph jam bands, but has also captured the likes of Ani DiFranco and Emmylou Harris.

Scroll down. Jerry Garcia, deadx2. Neil Young, pending (surely no longer young). Dylan, ancient, even when he sings “Forever Young,” and given his motorcycle wreck and flirtation with Christianity, perhaps dead and resurrected.

Better still, stroll down to the spare and well-lit gallery on Asheville’s Patton Avenue just off Pritchard Park. The photos are to die for.

Golden Gate opened in Asheville a year ago in the store-back space at 70 College St., which formerly housed Terra Diva clothing. But, “Nobody noticed us,” and GG moved to a storefront three blocks west at 85 Patton. In between, the proprietors created the Night of the Dead benefit for Manna Food Bank last October and raised a ton of money. Like I said, the photos are, hmm …

The “Dead” that night were Grateful, and the art in Golden Gate features rockers, rollers and midnight tokers. (Mumpower, take note, some of this art has almost certainly appeared in Amsterdam.) There are Garcia and Young for starters. And the Dead. And Grisman … Dylan … Cantor … Lesh … Hart. The gallery also features computer art from Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann (still alive) and psychedelic artist Stanley Mouse (ditto).

But there’s more. In its first show at the new location—Traveling at a High Frequency—Golden Gate is featuring work from fantasy artist Richard Biffle and photographer Jay Blakesberg. Biffle and Blakesberg will both be on hand for an opening on April 13.

Biffle has produced art for T-shirts, posters and album covers for many bands, primarily the Grateful Dead, but also for Santana, Blues Traveler, Keller Williams, The Dead, Crosby Stills & Nash, Phil Lesh, Gov’t Mule and The Black Crowes. He has gained a reputation as one of the most prominent rock ‘‘n’ roll artists, and in Asheville his work is familiar from his poster designs for Warren Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam. More recently, Biffle has begun to produce whimsical fantasy and canvas impressionistic artworks, and has designed labels for Terrapin Beer Company in Athens, Ga. (Serious art aficionados, take note: Terrapin will provide beer for the April 13 opening. This adds a certain effervescence to “opening” and is the place where art taps life, or vice versa.)

Blakesberg is the photographer of the Grateful Dead, and is considered by cognoscenti to be one of the top rock photographers in the world. His work has appeared on hundreds of magazine covers, including Rolling Stone, Guitar World and Guitar Player. He’s captured what have become iconic images of Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Dave Matthews, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Suzanne Vega and the Barenaked Ladies, to name just a few. Golden Gate Gallery offers autographed copies of Blakesberg’s books Between the Dark and Light: The Grateful Dead and To Defy the Laws of Tradition, copies of which are also signed by Les Claypool (of Primus), the subject of the volume.

Like any other rational newbie gallery owner or artist in Asheville, proprietors Keith Reynolds and Jacqui Bradley haven’t quit their day job, in this case custom framing—which one has to admit fits pretty comfortably with merchandising of poster art and photos. The April 13 opening starts at 4 p.m., just a few hours before Widespread Panic takes the stage at the Civic Center.

Hopefully someone warned Terrapin. They’re gonna need a couple of extra six packs.

Traveling on a High Frequency opens at the Golden Gate Gallery (85 Patton Ave.) on Friday, April 13. 4 p.m. 254-5444. Free.