September is starting off the fall music season (is there such a thing?) right, with a couple of CD-release shows and the promise of a bunch more coming.
Here's an abbreviated rundown, and our suggestions for where the music might be most appropriate.
Bring along Americana singer/songwriter Dave Desmelik's new CD, Onlooker, on your next road trip. It's got the right mix of shimmery, breezing-across-the-countryside sounds and a distinctly-Southern feel to keep you truckin' as far as you need to go. His voice is calming and steady. Stuck in Piedmont traffic? You may not even mind. Desmelik will have the official CD-release show at Westville Pub on Saturday, Sept. 5.
Desmelik has been making fine rootsy-music with alt-country leanings for a while now: Onlooker is his sixth CD. For a taste, listen in to WNCW 88.7 Studio B on Thursday, Sept. 3, at 11 a.m. Check out www.davedesmelik.com for more on one of WNC's favorite players.
Jazz-fusion group Wayfarers All celebrates its new CD at the Boiler Room on Friday, Sept. 4. Husband-and-wife team Lee and Tom Stanford boast mastery of the violin (Lee) and MiniMoog Voyager (Tom), among other instruments. Anthony Dorion and Dug Karq round out the group with bass and percussion, and all bring a myriad of effects to the mix. The new self-titled CD shows off their complex skills. Plenty of dynamism to be had here, and Asheville's not home to many jazz-fusion bands so it's something of a rare show. Opening for Wayfarers All are their Chicken Alley neighbors, the surf-rock band Shark Knife.
Play the new CD at your next adult event. Or while you're cooking up a dish that takes several pots and pans to create.
Also with a new release is the so-lucky-they're-based-in-Asheville-even-if-they-don't-play-out-enough Reigning Sound. Music writers are smitten with the band's new Love and Curses album from the garage-rock powerhouse foursome. (Although who cares about music writers, really). Where would Love and Curses be most appropriate? Naked housecleaning. Or on the record player at the speakeasy at 2 a.m. Or when you're full of emotion and fury and want to shake it all out.
And soon, my friends, the venerable, white-hot, barely-fathomable Ahleuchatistas will unveil its new CD Of the Body Prone (release date Sept. 29; CD-release show at the Grey Eagle on Oct. 30). Also listen for the literary Appalachian songwriter Angela Faye Martin's new album Pictures From Home, a collaboration with Mark Linkous of indie-darlings Sparklehorse. Her CD-release show is Sept. 30 at the Grey Eagle.
Others: Malcolm Holcombe brings For the Mission Baby on Sept. 29. Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band recently released Greatest Hips Vol. II. And psych-pop outfit SeepeopleS will have its fourth full-length album, Apocalypse Cow Vol. 2, available for download on Sept. 4. The show is Sept. 18 at Stella Blue. www.seepeoples.com.
Please contact your local record store for details about how you can own some terrific local music, or get in touch with the artists directly.
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