| << Back 2/16/05 Over Yonder Jamboree The Great Gordo’s Guide to Music in Asheville By Jay Hardwig Los Amigos Invisibles How to describe Los Amigos Invisibles’ latest album, The Venezuelan Zinga Son, Vol. 1? Romantic, stylish, filled with the Latin tinge. Relaxed, insistent, trippy-techno in a vague and funky sort of way. Disco for the 21st century. Traditional. Contemporary. Alive. Better yet: The Venezuelan Zinga Son plays like the soundtrack for a high-concept car commercial, in which young hipsters who know more about music than you do go out for a drive on a sunny day. The car would be red, I think, and convertible. The drive would take a carefree couple from some dynamic urban pocket out to the rolling countryside, or perhaps to the oceanfront for a bit of surfing. The tone of the commercial would be idle but happy, sophisticated yet accessible ... the sounds of the life you too might have if you were smart enough to buy this car. Oh, and you might be having good sex, too. CMJ calls this album “a wild Venezuelan journey that’s filled with more dirty thoughts than a Lil’ Kim album,” and every promotional blurb for the band suggests that it’s good music for getting your groove on. The word “horny” shows up often, and sweat is invoked more than once. Me? I thought about cars. Perhaps this means I’m older than the target audience, more settled, less likely to have casual sex. Perhaps it means I’m too savvy to be sucked in by self-serving marketing schemes penned by interns who have recently discovered that sex sells. Perhaps it means I don’t understand Spanish very well. Or perhaps it just means that I was driving when I listened to the album, and in the speakers of my 94 Tercel, Los Amigos Invisibles sounded exotic, suave, and a bit beyond my reach. I dunno. But they’re playing this Thursday, and the clubbers will be there. May they get their groove on. And drive safe. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door, and the show starts at 9 p.m.
Opening is La Rua. Call 828.225.5851 for more info. Tift Merritt The Great Gordo realizes you may be tired of reading about Tift Merritt. Just in the last year, there have been concert previews, records reviews, multiple mentions in Top Ten lists. Yup, we’ve done our share of gushing over Tift at our little paper. But what can you expect? Last April, I named Merritt the first recipient of the Smoky Mountain News Arts & Entertainment Media Darling Award, and when your Media Darling plays in town, you’ve at least got to mention it. But here’s a promise: after this here blurb, I’m swearing off any mention of Merritt for at least six months. Honest. So if you believe the hype on our Texas-born Carolina-bred Grammy-nominated country-soul chanteuse, get on down to the Peel for her triumphant return. And if you’re tired of Tift, your time has come. At the end of this paragraph, the official Media Darling Moratorium begins, and this ... paragraph ... ends ... now. Tickets are $12 in advance and $14 at the door and the show starts at 9 p.m.
Hotel Lights open. Call 828.225.5851 for more info. Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, and John Hiatt They’re ganging up on me, folks. If one of these craggy troubadours had come to town, I could have handled it cleanly, waxing poetic about Lone Star nights and throwing in sly references to Longhorn steer, mesquite smoke, and pinto beans for breakfast. (Lovett, Clark, and Ely hail from Texas; Hiatt’s from Indiana.) Heck, if just two of them had come, I could have done nearly as well, providing choice details about their lives on the road, mining their back catalogs for forgotten gems, and devising new ways to get a mention of Willie Nelson into my column. But four at a time? That ain’t fair. I can’t do much but tell you what you already know: on this night, there will be as fine a collection of songwriting talent as has graced an Asheville stage in many a moon. As far as song-swapping goes, this is pretty much the Pro Bowl. A rare opportunity to see four country-folk icons in one sitting. Do what you must. Tickets are $50.50 and $38.50, plus Ticketmaster surcharges. (A pox on them!)
The show starts at 8 p.m. Call 828.251.5505 for more info. Also Playing in Asheville • SeepeopleS w/ Speakeasy, Emerald Lounge, 2/17 • Ribtips, Westville Pub, 2/17 • Spongetones, Grey Eagle, 2/18 • Avett Brothers, Stella Blue, 2/18 • Red Stick Ramblers, Jack of the Wood, 2/19 • Donna the Buffalo, Orange Peel, 2/19 • Yonder Mountain String Band, Orange Peel, 2/20 Three Good Things 1. “Instant Coffee Blues,” Guy Clark, Old #1 (1975) 2. “Honky Tonk Masquerade,” Joe Ely, Honky Tonk Masquerade (1978) 3. “This Old Porch,” Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett (1986) They Said It “They can’t kill music. God knows, they’ve tried. But music always wins. As long as there’s kids coming up that have a passion. All the bean counters in the world can’t kill that ... They can try, of course, to feed you the most puerile, benign horse manure, but some kid’s going to come along and demand something more than that.” — John Hiatt |
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