MY LOST ASHEVILLE
Finding Peace and Community at PopAsheville, 2008, 2009
I first became aware of Asheville, N.C. in 2007 when Billboard's associate publisher, Brian Kennedy, asked me if I had heard the Western North Carolina singer-songwriter, the musician Malcolm Holcombe.
I was working at Billboard magazine and its radio publishing division (first Billboard Radio Monitor, then Radio & Records) as the third-string copy editor from 2004-2009. Kennedy was one of the few people in upper management who really loved music, and knew that I did.
Kennedy invited me to his office and played me some advance tracks from Holcombe's album, Gamblin' House, and I was hooked on his gruff, hard-life country-folk songs, a little like Steve Earle pulling a gospel plow, rough at the core. I saw that the Holcombe album was recorded at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, and released on Echo Mountain Records. I called Echo Mountain's majordomo Jessica Tomasin, a Detroit Red Wings superfan who had migrated to Asheville.
The longer I spoke to Jessica, the more curious I got about Asheville. I told her I had just had a book published, A Brief History of Rock...Off the Record, and she immediately invited me to Asheville on the MLK Jr. holiday weekend in mid-January 2008, to be on the industry panel of a new event, PopAsheville. The festival, led by Stephanie Morgan of what was then the band Stephanie's Id, showcased the booming Asheville music scene that was in its own zone. (Stephanie now has a sometimes improvisational band called Pink Mercury and also does voice-over work as Chloe Taylor.) I once wrote a lyric based on a story Stephanie told me. I called it "Pakistan," and I'm particularly proud of the rhyme "Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan" and "Steely Dan."
I imagined the festival would feature bluegrass, mountain music, and other folk and country styles. The reason it was called PopAsheville was to emphasize the large community of rock bands, alternative and otherwise, thriving in a city that was evolving so quickly into an entertainment industry mini-hub that locals began calling it "AshVegas."
Jessica got me booked to promote my book and my appearance at PopAsheville on the influential local public radio station WNCW/88.7 in nearby Spindale, NC. Stephanie Morgan was very encouraging and delighted I was coming. In fact, it was downright weird the way everybody I called, when I introduced myself as "Wayne Robins" acted like they already knew who I was. Man, I said, these folks sure are friendly.
Then someone let me in on what I didn't know. One of the best bands in Asheville was called Wayne Robbins & the Hellsayers. They were a really savory, hard rocking band with really smart songs. Wayne also had a day job as an English professor at the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg (not far from Asheville, NC), a potential foreshadowing of my own college teaching career. People thought it was him calling, I guess.
I had a brainstorm. I emailed the other Wayne Robbins and introduced myself. The idea was that I would come to Asheville and we could do a some promotions for my book and his band: We'd set up some readings at some of the area's many independent book stores and Barnes & Noble shops. We'd call it the "Wayne Robins and Wayne Robbins 2008 Tour" (or the "Wayne Robbins and Wayne Robins Tour--I wasn't going to argue about who got top billing), in which I'd read some from my book while the Other Wayne played some tasty licks behind me. Or we'd alternate words and music, with Other Wayne Robbins playing some acoustic songs.
Unfortunately, Wayne Robbins was going to be out of town the weekend of PopAsheville 2008, though we did meet when he and the Hellsayers played during PopAsheville 2009, the final year of the festival.
PopAsheville 2008 came at an opportune time for me, for my spirit. My younger brother David, my only sibling, had died in August 2007 of glioblastoma multiforme, after a bold three year battle with that incurable brain cancer. Being in Asheville, meeting new people, hearing new music recharged me. I was almost 50 years old, I'd go to clubs filled with people older than me . . . or my age, anyway. It was the first time the gloom over my brother's passing lifted. Going out to see live music in clubs was what people did in Asheville, usually visiting a microbrewery or dining on regional cuisine. I liked the mountain air: I felt like Walker Percy recovering from tuberculosis in the Adirondacks in the 1930s.
The next year was even better. I was on the industry panel again, with Hugo Burnham or Dave Allen of Gang of Four, record producer Rick Scott, and a bunch of others I don't recall amid the flowing bloody marys comped to the panel. I also gave an afternoon class on the history of rock, based on my book, and there was a story about it with pictures of me in the Asheville Citizen Times.
Today's Citizen Times tells a different story altogether. The River Arts District, kind of the waterfront Soho of Ashevillle, is "a shambles." I had met an interesting spiritual woman who lived on the other side of the mountain in Eastern Tennessee. She told me yesterday, and the local paper in Asheville confirmed, that the over-mountain highway, I-40, collapsed, and people were wondering how to get there from here, or to get anywhere from any place.
My friend Molly, who had been working for a management and production company but who now focuses on her DJ life as "Molly Parti," sent me a photo of a bear rummaging through all the spoiled food. The microbreweries, which thrived on the clear water in the three rivers that roll through Ashville, including the delightfully named French Broad, are on the ropes because the water is full of sewage and will be for some time.
One more thing about PopAsheville 2009: I almost didn't make it. I left LaGuardia Airport around 9 am on January 15, 2009, heading for Charlotte, NC, where I'd rent a car and drive to Asheville. There were two choices: Delta and Jet Blue. Same time, same destination. I flipped a coin and picked Delta. The Jet Blue Flight 1549 was the one that made the emergency landing on the Hudson River after geese caused a dual engine failure after takeoff. The pilot, "Sully" Sullenberger, was played by Tom Hanks in the Clint Eastwood movie, "Sully."
But the Delta flight did not go directly to Charlotte. Because of the emergency, my flight was diverted to Cincinnati, where I waited for many hours for a flight to Raleigh or Charlotte or Atlanta, then a commuter plane to Asheville. It was a 14 hour journey. The Jet Blue flight took about four minutes until it ditched in the Hudson. To this day, I waver on which flight I might have preferred to be on. Maybe I could have gotten a book out of being on the Sully flight. For the moment, I'm safe on Substack. I wish I could say the same for my Asheville posse, who never expected life changing hurricane floods in the mountains.
Jessica Tomasin’s Facebook page has real time information on aid to Asheville and sites where water, wi-fi, food, and shelter might be found. The people there are in for a long recovery; I suggest checking the usual charities and aid organizations.
The last time I was in Asheville the big local gripe was that it had become so popular you couldn’t find a parking space. It really was Edenic to me. The whole region will take years to recover, and there are small towns and cities in these hills, valleys and mountains whose beauty is matched by their vulnerability. The extreme is now the everyday, as you well know where you live.
Thank you, Wayne. Over the years I've experienced two basement floods where I lost a lot of "stuff" but the thought of losing entire communities is beyond staggering.