With Edwin McCain at the Orange Peel, 8/20

No Judgment In Asheville Past Midnight: Welcome to the Orange Peel

Plenty of jumbled, garbled notes from Asheville this weekend. I’m transcribing from a water-logged notepad that acquired the majority of its punishment by my apartment complex’s pool Sunday afternoon. I’ve ignored it for long enough. Sundays poolside have become a standard part-recovery, part note-scrawling ritual since I fled the Caribbean in April of 2009 and got mixed up in this music game. The Wooded Oasis in Greenville, as it will hereinafter be referred, is no Cane Bay, USVI, but it’s workable for now. When I need a break from The Work, I simply pin the notepad to my bare, sun-scorched chest with a Bud Light, and watch the pages flutter in the wind to no particular rhythm. Unfortunately, The WO has also become a similar retreat for my recently divorced, mid-forties neighbors who all seem to have the same Nascar-styled sunglasses pinched onto their heads. Folds of skins bulge out from behind their frames.  They’re somewhat of a distraction, but I can’t help but eavesdrop as they bellow and chuckle about their weekend benders at failed swingers bars, or louse-infested strip clubs. But alas, if we’re ever to get any of The Work done, we must get started…

The notion of headquartering The Music in Asheville, NC, has crossed my mind countless times. It’s a Music Town. An Artist’s Den. I’m completely comfortable with the once-peculiar lifestyles that have become the norm around town, and I’ve never been bothered much by the stench of patchouli oil. Of course, the warm, receptive nature of the crowds there cannot be ignored. I don’t think there are two territories in closer proximity than Greenville, SC and Asheville NC that have such enduring and differing viewpoints. Maybe Israel and Palestine. Then that makes Spartanburg, SC, what, Jerusalem? But due to vicious, inclement weather this winter, I had three shows that were canceled in Asheville. If I can’t make it in, Lord knows I’ll never be able to make it out.

Regardless of headquarters, I’d had my sights honed in on performing at the Orange Peel — a venue whose stage has been stomped by the Smashing Pumpkins, My Morning Jacket and Bob Dylan — since blitzing through the smaller clubs in Asheville this time last year. Joining Edwin McCain for an unplugged session on Friday, August 20, I — with my trusty cellist Sarah Clanton Schaffer and vocalist Gwyn Fowler in tow — was able to scratch playing this 1,050 capacity club off of my “To Do” List. Unfortunately, Megan Fox and several other names still remain untouched. Feeling this to be a pivotal point in my career, I needed documentation. In addition to my own tried and true ability to jot down manic notes, I felt employing the lens of Chelsey Ashford was essential. I mean, I could jabber and rant about the crowd, Edwin’s set, heartfelt moments in my performance that will never be attained again, gripping backstage realizations, etc., but I’m sure you’ll have fight back the vomit rising to your mouth.  As anyone, anywhere who has ever been to a concert can attest too: “Hey, you just had to be there.” That’s what we have Chelsey’s sharp eye for.

Leo Rosten said it first, and I agree that every artist — be it a writer, a musician or a painter — is driven by a distinct need to communicate. Getting these thoughts, emotions, ideas and stories across, this is the obvious drive for any artist, but more specifically us performers who can’t help but chase down these dim stages. Aside from this warped, innate need, another drive and particular source of enjoyment, for me anyways, is navigating the terrain after a show. Once all the house lights have been turned on, the drunks have all been shoved into the streets and the techs have loaded the bus, where’s one to go?  Shake some hands, say your goodbyes, and then wing it, I suppose…

There were no more than a hundred or so of us in the Garage at Bilmore by 3 a.m. — a 300 capacity room in East Asheville where I played a doomed Blues Festival this summer. The Garage is rapidly, rabidly becoming one of my favorite hipster communes in the mountains. It’s amazing that you can catch a gritty, raw blues act like Hill Country Revue — side project of Cody Dickinson, of North Mississippi Allstars fame — one night, and then wander into some dreamlike, trance-inducing electronica orgy the following. The latter is where we found ourselves early Saturday morning. This is a place where you’re free to jerk and gyrate violently in failed dance movements, as if imitating a loss of motor function and bone structural support. Can’t get at that in Greenville without getting whipped with a barstool. Crouch to the ground and let loose a sort of John Wayne-swaggered epileptic seizure. But no one so much as juts an eyebrow. Likely because they’re intensely focused on doing something far more bizarre. My photographer and team of musicians were right at home.

And then, BOOM, you wake up to a fine sunrise over the mountains of North Carolina. A hell of a thing. Demand a rescue, find your car, slam some water, coffee, then race back to the hotel to wake up your cohorts before check-out, only to find two strangers asleep in your hotel bed. Jerk the curtains open, bring in the daylight. That’s when you recognize it’s just two friendlies from the show. Names omitted to protect the guilty. No rest for the weird. Get back to South Carolina before dusk for the next one. Ah, yes, and that’s one of the calm nights.

But hey, I suppose you just had to be there. So make sure to come out sometime.

TM

Blistered nights in the French Quarter...

Bourbon Street, New Orleans. 12:15 a.m. It’s become a high-octane, two-thousand horsepower version of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A neon-soaked wasteland, travailed by every stumbling, wheezing, blank-eyed loser from Ann Arbor to the good Charleston. All looking for a story to tell back home…

“Hot titties and cold beer!” shrieks some bankrupty-laden pimp, a gun-for-hire at the Deja Vu strip club. Probably a down and out, former high-profile security agency thug. He jams a free pass into my shirt pocket. “Have at it, fella. Girls are all over in there.”

Mutter something to him unintelligibly. Explain why you can’t go inside, push past the pusher, and there’s another neckless, heavy-fisted bruiser trying to shove you into a cheap Coyote Ugly knockoff. “Two-for-one, man! There’s the party!” he shouts. “Just look at ‘em!”

Slip an elbow into his kidney. Push on. ”Hey, whad’are ya? Some kind of homo!?” he bellows, takin’ at a swing at you. “There’s chicks in there man!” Curse him, just keep moving. What’s happened here, anyways? This used to be Tab Benoit’s stomping grounds. I’ll never forget my first trip to Bourbon Street, last year, after the first day of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. As I trotted toward the action after getting dropped off at St. Charles and Canal by a friend – grinning violently – I could hear the wails of a Second Line. Throngs of frothing drunks, clutching “Hand Grenades” and rum-heavy Hurricanes, swaying to the authentic beats of a small horde of fresh-faced brass players. They’re all blistering the dream of being the next Rebirth, or Dirty Dozen as they stomp along the gin-soaked streets. But after that killer supporting act ‘neath the beaming ”Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club” sign, it’s seven blocks of full-fledged regression. From most of the hustle joints off the main drag, you can hear washed-up regulars doing a spot-on Steve Perry or Bret Michaels – a nod, perhaps, to lost nights in Daytona Beach, circa 1981…

“Hey man, you gotta pay the bills,” the heavy-breathing, balding guitarist, “Joe,” says, rolling a burning Marlboro gently between his thumb and forefinger. The singer, “Larry,” won’t even acknowledge me. “I used to jam down there with the best of ‘em. But not anymore… no money in it… leave that shit for the Wolf…”

Even the one drink minimum blues joints leave something to be desired, short of the occasional Bryan Lee slot. It’s Frenchman Street that’s the shining beacon; Bourbon Street’s become the arduous, festering corridor you’ve got to claw your way through to reach it. But it’ s a hell of a run-through. You can’t deny that. It’s Bourbon where you can see a five-foot-three, heavyset mother from Wichita flash her pasties for seven shrieking frat boys atop the bar balcony floor, while her husband scrambles for the beads strewn across the rain and booze-drenched asphault. It’s here where you get to see the unlit cigarette-chewing drug fiend who took the laid back, Bayou-swinging lifestyle just a little too seriously dance rabidly with a brick wall. Left hand claps his right, right elbow jams the wall, quick “Johnny Chin Spin” into roundhouse kick, left elbow into the wall, and so on and so forth, until one of the trombone players starts scoldingly flapping his hands at him and he scurries, giggling, back into the obscurity of the crowd.

But it’s Frenchman Street, at clubs like the D.B.A. and the Blue Nile where you sink in your teeth and let the real Cajun-fried grease of New Orleans seep out over your tongue. Clubs like the Howlin’ Wolf and Tipitina’s just off the main path know how to deliver the goods — Louisiana cult favorites like Galactic, the Neville Brothers, Anders Osbourne or Benoit until dawn, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. But it’s Frenchman where you can catch Walter “Wolfman” Washington, or Vinyl — acts who’ll change your whole outlook on the scene for just $10 or $20. Acts who have endured the record business, yet spent an upwards of thirty years floating ‘neath the radar, on a national level anyways, and almost seem to prefer it that way. Nearly every day (and especially during Jazz Fest) in New Orleans an act like the Monophonics — a young, roadrunning friendly band of Vinyl’s, both from the San Francisco Bay area – will have you stoned beautiful, reevaluating everything you thought you knew about The Jam. A horn section four-strong — bari, alto and two trumpets – jammed in tight quarters, weaving in and out of melodic and atavistic runs, answering that steady pulse of Korty’s Hammond organ. Before you know it, he’s lashing out in a savage round of his own. A relentless smile across his face says, “Oh shit, really?!“ Lean on the crowd. Test the bartender’s sense of humor. A margarita. Extra ice.  And bring on Eric Krasno, the Hanna-clad guest guitar player from Soulive. He’s grappling with his own eyelids and what appears to be mild psychosis, yet manages to coax notes out of the thing that makes the layman think his own teeth are bleeding. Casual Saturday night. Nothin’ but good times with good people in the French Quarter. Pass it on over. Makes the South Carolina music landscape seem like the Badlands. And Jesus, if that’s happening right now at the Blue Nile, what the hell’s going on down the street? And at Tipitina’s? What about the Maple Leaf? And that’s what keeps you going. The idea that you’ve missed something along the way. And then a sunrise.

And that’s what keeps you coming back.

Neon-soaked Bourbon Street...

Highballs from Communications Director for the Tayla’ Mo’ Band, Capt. Chet L. Sexington, Esq…

PR4272010

PRESS RELEASE: Tayla’ Mo’ Announces Sat. June 5th, 2010 Handlebar Fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

DONATE SECURELY HERE: https://secure.wish.org/ourfriends/034-000/taylormoore.htm

Annnnnnd… welcome to Round II!

How’s about we kick off the summer in style, and jam as many hoods into Greenville’s premier concert hall as we can, eh? Blitz some guitars, belt out some of ‘dat greasy, Cajun-Caribbean blues-rock. And we’ll even be shredding banjos too (that’s right, we’ve got two-time National Banjo Champion and Late Show with David Letterman Alum Charles Wood on the show — he freakin’ tore the place down last time) all for one of the country’s most beloved charities — the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

An eclectic array of musicians are showing up for the cause too, from Wood and Greenville’s own pop-rockin’ The Will, to the funked-up horn maestro behind The Work, Craig Sorrells, not to leave out the freakin’ acoustic guitar virtuouso/phenom Jacob Johnson. We’ll be havin’ a singer/songwriter sesh with Taylor as well, ropin’ in the soft, Ingrid Michaelson-esque tunes of songwriter Gywn Fowler and the girl-driven outfit, O Mello Cello Tree.

 It’s going to be for ‘da ages.

Since 1980, Make-A-Wish has granted gifts of “hope, strength and joy” to more than 185,000 children with serious illnesses — wishes that can bring precious moments of respite and joy to the children, their families and even entire communites.

From Taylor’s time living in the Virgin Islands, he knows people peppered across the globe, and if you can’t come in person on June 5th, we’d love for you to participate from afar, by donating through this page. Should it be $5 or $500, you know it’s all going toward one of country’s finest causes. Let’s, ah-do it.

Cheers,

CLS, Esq.

Photo Courtesy of BOOTZ Photography http://www.djbootz.com/

I remember high seas at dusk; a rare thing in the relatively calm waters between Christiansted harbor and Buck Island National Park. Shrill voices were screaming, crying and whimpering as waves crashed violently against the bow of the 47 ft. Beneteau, blitzing salt water over a horde forty-strong of jabbering, teeth-gritting, swaying pirate-wannabes — and about four small, out-of-place, terror-stricken children. Their fear was partly from the treacherous waters, yes, but I know why they were really sobbing. It was because of the large, bellowing half-Korean, part German, part Dutch and part Cruzan fellow… ambigously nicknamed: “Bootz.” 

For the majority of the sailboat trip that day, Bootz was laid out flat on his back, unconscious from what I suspected was a rum-induced coma and general Sunday fatigue. But he’d pop up just long enough to screech out, “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!”  before burying his chin in his neck and retreating behind his sunglasses, cackling. Sometimes he’d whip up straight, and make terrible vomiting noises while miming throwing up a bowline.

You see, the blue-eyed, curly blonde-haired Capt. Jack Gorman — who had just a year or so prior burned all his work suits, fled his nine-to-five corporate gig in Maryland and sold everything he owned to buy the boat we were all cruising on — was wrestling with the wheel at the helm, trying to catch the wind just right to gain an optimum speed.

He always caught it, and the boat would jerk up on one side, sounding off a harmonious and sickening ”OHHHH!!!” followed by more crude laughter and yelling as the entire starboard side nearly pitched overboard. Fun for a bunch of rum-soaked goons? Absolutely. But the children were petrified. And I suspect Bootz’s often-garbled, shrieks of doom didn’t help. Then again, neither did Capt. Adam “Scaddoms”‘ own boat jammed full of howling, scum-ridden weirdos missing us by a few feet on a violent, high-speed pass.

But I digress. All I’m tryin’ to get at is making a personal nod of thanks to ’ol J.R. “Bootz” Greer made public. A keen-eyed photography specialist and all-around madman, who self-proclaims his ”life is your dream vacation.” Just got the final prints from our Caribbean photo sesh the other day, and I must say, he does incredible work.

Just know well, the ”Legend of the Bootz” lives on. He may be on a boat somewhere, or he may be spinning tunes as the Caribbean’s top DJ. Right now, he’s likely coming off a boozing frenzy, stomping around in either a Wendy wig, or some half-chicken, half-Asian costume, probably waltzin’ into a K-Mart en route to some pristine beach. Just stopping off to buy eight bars of soap, a gallon of mouthwash and a value pack of Trojan Magnums. All paid in one dollar-bills.

T’Mo’

Legend of the Bootz.

Mr. Moore's memory has unfortunately lapsed regarding what was said here

PR3272010: PRESS RELEASE FROM THE TAYLA’ MO’ CAMP

FROM: Tayla’ Mo’ Communications and Publications Guru, Chet L. Sexington

SUBJ: A Sensational Inquest

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Mr. Moore is reaching out to all persons who may have been present at the October wedding of Matthew and Laura Holmes, more so at the time this photograph was snapped.

The attempt to touch his nose with his jutted out bottom teeth — as well as the vague recollection of the wretched and crude laughter which erupted shortly thereafter — almost assuredly suggests something most foul and offensive was uttered as this photo was taken.

Unfortunately, Mr. Moore has no memory of what was said, probably due to the wedding reception and quite frequent ”dance offs” in downtown Greenville which took place afterward. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were reportedly “preoccupied” that day, and too suffer a lapse in memory.

Your help is immensely appreciated.

- Chet

 I remember jerking the cell phone from my ear and flailing it across the room when the news had settled in. “You scum!” I screamed. ”You heartless bastards!” As with every spring, I was suffering from bronchitis, so I immediately fell to the floor in a coughing fit, pounding my fist helplessly against the living room carpet in my apartment, back in the Carolinas.

My neighbor’s dog a floor below began barking as he always does when I’m loud upstairs. “Shut up… (cough) you evil… (cough, cough, hack)… you can’t possibly understand (catching breath) this time…”

I’d left my beloved ‘01 Cavalier in the hands of the wrong person. Some schmuck friend-of-a-friend had run “Harvey Dent” hot, burned him out somewhere along St. Croix’s north shore. Don’t you know you have to be gentle with him?! Don’t you know you have to watch the temperature gauge?

Jesus. I sat down at my kitchen table, poured myself a Cruzan Rum and orange-strawberry-pineapple juice to ease my cough and just buried my face in my hands. What now? Nothing. Just take the pain. Deal with it. You’ve got a Jeep Cherokee now.

My primary mode of transportation for barreling around island – one whose countless warning lights I could never comprehend – had been given the name Harvey Dent for the asthetic qualities on the driver’s side. Not simply for a “dent,” per se, but for the villain Harvey Dent in the ”Batman” series was destined to become: Two-Face. I had just happened to see ”The Dark Knight” in the Sunny Isle theatre a few days prior to the incident responsible for the car’s naming. One side of the car — much like Two-Face – became all knarled and battered, with the other fairly presentable. Seemed to work. Right? Righto.

This incident, of course, was largely due to human error. I was taking a dear friend of mine visiting from St. Thomas, we’ll call him “Andrew Bennett,” back to the University of the Virgin Islands campus, which is nestled right in the middle of St. Croix. It’s approximately a twenty to thirty minute ride — depending on speed and hour of the day – back to my harborview, hilltop cottage.

I remember listening to Ryan Adam’s “Tennessee Sucks,” a soft, breezy 4 a.m. kind of tune that always reminds me of my nine-month stint living in Daytona Beach.  ”There goes Johnny B., weird and tall. He says ‘the band, they’ve got good songs, they just don’t draw.’” Ah, yes. An apathetic smile grew on my lips… and I put a warm Heineken to ‘em.

Then all of a sudden my sideview mirror launched away and I could hear tree branches whapping and snapping through my open window, and what felt like claws digging into my face. ”Sweet gypsy hell!” I screeched, nearly jerking the steering wheel out of the column. A slight over-correction. “GOOOAH!!!” I bellowed, grappling with the wheel. Back left, then again right… then back left again. “I GOT IT! I GOT IT!!!”  Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic that early in the morning to lurch into. All of a sudden back on the left side of the road. Totally in control. Bug-eyes. And Adams still crooned softly from the CD player, unaffected.

The Cavalier had begun rattling somewhere a mile or so after the incident, and as I pulled up to the brick wall which lines my cottage, I leaned out the window and began assessing the damage. Of course, this took my attention away from the wall, and I quickly and quite easily popped the mirror out of the passenger side mirror against the brick. I squinted my eyes, pursed my lips and jerked the parking brake into the locking position. “Son of a bitch, ” I thought. I thrust my boot into the driver’s side to ensure it shut all the way. The jolt caused the hubcap to fall free, which had been dangling like a loose tooth on its last root.

But the ol’ block still ran. Ran hard for the next six months or so, too. Had a couple incidents where I had to routinely stop every six minutes or so to let ‘er cool down, but nothing ever too serious. Every now and then, a couple of jerkhole friends — usually in a rum-induced frenzy – would climb up top and dig their heels into the roof with a Riverdance, or jump onto the hood all wild-eyed with their teeth grinding and start whacking away on it. So Harvey and I would peg the gas, run heavy steam, high-speed through the town of Christiansted with them screeching and then tumbling off the top, or clutching to the windshield wiper blades for their lives.

But now, Harvey’s laid out in H&H Tire mid-island, I hear. Dead, burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail. Poisoned in the bushes, blown out on the trail. Who said that? Well, ol’ boy, we’ll just have to see you on the other side. At least there’s plenty of weird, fond memories that come back to me when I think of ya.

I’m sure they’ll be posted soon.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine

Well, I’ve decided to update this “Blog” on a more frequent basis now (God, I hate that word with a passion – it seems everyone’s a “Blogger” these days), I mean, after all, it’s here; I suppose I should get some use out of it. And in the spirit of general weirdness, and kicking this thing off right, I suppose rather than ”Blog” about something music-related, I’ll touch on a particularly life-scarring incident from my youth, and one of the “Top 25 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Tayla’ Mo.’”

The time I hacked a squirrel to death with a dull, rusted pickaxe.

Whoa, whoa (nervous laughter) easy… I know that sounds a little bad! Perhaps I could have used more thought-out wordage. Well, maybe not… you’ll just have to read on. But all you animal lovers just remember I had the best of intentions at the time! That clumsy little fella had crippled himself either falling  several hundred feet scurrying pointlessly across treetops at unheard-of speeds, or had somehow been maimed by my perpetually winded, overweight dog “Daisy.” This detail I can’t be sure of, but regardless, it was unable to move it’s hind legs, and was just kind of scrambling around – a kind of nervous, wild-eyed clawing right through the lawn and into the dirt – hopeless, and desperate to get somewhere, anywhere but that doomed square-foot of Bermuda Grass.

So like any good Southern-born teenager, I decided I had to put the little wretch out of his misery. Of course, my family has always been opposed to keeping firearms around the home (I don’t feel this is a bad thing, perhaps if it wasn’t the case, this little piece could be titled: ”The Great Scrotum Ricochet Wound,” or something along those lines ), so I had to track down the only tool I could find to get the job done — a splintered, weather-worn pickaxe. This is kind of why I feel the need to use a verb like ”hack,” as opposed to, I don’t know, “euthanize.” So, I dragged the rusty tool from the garage, around the side of the house and across the backyard, all the while trying to swallow down that bulbous lump that nestles firmly in your throat when you know a deed’s got to be done.

There’s a brief moment shared between man and animal right before a job like that; a kind of a squinty-eyed, Larry David-esque staredown. A battle of the wills. I’m sure Travis toward the end of ”Old Yeller” can attest to it. Some men handle it by shedding a single tear. Some by pursing their lips, and saying something for closure, like: “See you on the other side, pal,” or, “Hey, nothing personal.”

I, instead, let out a war cry, jerking the pickaxe back between my shoulder blades and then hurling the sharp, needle-like end somewhere in the vicinity of the squirrel’s head. This first thrust was a misfire, of course, but now the little guy was really bugged-eyed, screeching and digging into the ground in a frenzy. To his credit, he was actually making some progress this time, frantically dragging along his paralytic lower body maybe an inch or so, looking almost like a snarling Pug having a go at a rectal itch by dragging himself across the living room carpet. So, I continued my wild swinging and screaming until I finally connected with him a time or two, finally putting a stop to his overall mobility — and subsequently, his suffering.

I suppose at this point I should mention that a dear friend of mine, Matt Holmes, who currently serves as my manager, booking agent and chief confidant, was stationed on my parents’ back porch during all of this, laughing uncontrollably at what would become one of the most scarring moments of my young life. But just as I began to walk back to scold a hunched over, teary-eyed and wheezing Matt Holmes – thinking I had done some good in taking this struggling creature out of commission – I looked back and saw the bugger had begun flailing wildly yet again, and I had to charge back, bellowing, to finish the job with the pickaxe’s wider, more blade-like end.

Indeed, this tale of massacre (a massacre out of compassion, though) seems to be a suitable kickstart to this “Bl…,” er, “Series of Weekly Columns.” It’s entitled the “Last of the Caribbean, Guitar Czar Crooners: Notes from a Strange Era.” So I suppose one can expect plenty of bizarre and weird anecdotes, such as this one, from both past and present, rum-addled or not, musical or non-music related, Stateside and Caribbean misadventures alike.

We’ll just have to wait and see how weird it gets.

- TM