Ken Klehm and the Rocket Club

ken and rocket club
Originally uploaded by zen

By now you've heard the West Asheville news, the main East West-Asheville music venue will be closing doors this Saturday. I got a chance to talk with Ken Klehm and he said he could "wax poetic for hours" about why it didn't quite work out, and he headed the list with the large number of Asheville venues, including those that had very deep pockets and those that were willing to resort to unorthodox activity. But it wasn't sour grapes for Ken, as he included the downturn in economy and size of the venue, with it's high ceilings and wide open spaces not providing quite the cozy and intimate atmosphere that he imagined.

Ken also talked about what he wanted to do now, and he honestly hadn't thought much about it, but scrunched up his face at the thought of putting together a resume to pitch to the 9-5 workforce. "My favorite all-time job was as a SCUBA dive instructor. I was good at it and loved making it fun and exciting for people." Ken has the kind of self-effacing egoless manner that would make a good teacher and he said that "in the 5 or so years i taught he only got one complaint." Which was why the establishment he worked for gave him free rein to teach his style. Ken also reminisced about cave diving - an activity that would scare the crap out of me. His 'final exam' for cave diving certification was to go 1/4 mile into a cave where no surface exits were and buddy-breath with a partner all the way back to the entrance in darkness and while the instructor messed with the return line and undid fin straps to unnerve him. He loved it and never got rattled. Which is the way ken is - unflappable. I don't doubt whatever he does do he'll do with all his heart and soul.

We'll be seeing Ken around East West Asheville probably at the DeSoto Lounge which was started by one of his protogees and is "a fine bar, indeed."

Tomato Jam Cafe changes owners, farewell party Sat June 26

Tomato Jam Cafe, one of my favorite lunch spots, undergoes a change in management as owners Rebecca and Charlie move their family back home to California.

It's a sad, sad day for Asheville Twitter Nation (who met there frequently for chicken gyros, spoonbread and Charlie's killer cupcakes), for all their Asheville fans, and for me.

The cafe will continue under the same name with new owners Deb and Cory. Meet them and say goodbye to Rebecca, Charlie and Willow at a "Passing-of-the-Spatula" pot luck get-together in the Tomato Jam parking lot Saturday night at 6:30.

The goodbye party even has its own Eventbrite site where you can register your covered dish!

From the Eventbrite site:

Tomato Jam Cafe

Passing of the Spatula Party

Come celebrate with us as Tomato Jam Cafe enters a new era!

WHAT: Meet new owners Deb and Cory and their family, passing the spatula to them with Jose and Mago, Marsa and Daniel. Send off Charlie, Rebecca and Willow Mae on their new adventure to California to live near family.

WHEN: Saturday, June 26th from 6:30 to 9 or so

WHERE: Tomato Jam's parking lot

BRING: A covered dish * what you want to eat on & with * chairs to sit * something to drink if tea and lemonade are not your cup of...tea.

***

Goodbye Charlie and Rebecca (and Willow), and good luck! I wish Deb and Cory well, but it's not going to be the same without you. See you on the Twitter, and thanks for friendship, good times and good food. We are really going to miss you.

YWCA New Choices

Cross-posted from the YWCA of Asheville's blog.

In this video, Jodi Rhoden talks about how the YWCA of Asheville’s New Choices drop-in childcare program helped her when she was starting her business, Short Street Cakes. The YWCA New Choices program supports the economic empowerment of women with one-on-one case management and the “Circles of Hope” support group in addition to drop-in childcare. Find out more about New Choices at www.ywcaofasheville.org.



Video by Sabrina Nizzi, www.sabrinanizzi.com.

New CD in the works from Asheville guitar god Aaron "Woody" Wood

(Aaron Wood photo by Jason Sandford of Ashvegas)

Call him Woody or call him Aaron, the Asheville guitarist Aaron "Woody" Wood (Blue Rags, Hollywood Red, Custard Pie) is generally regarded by local musicians and music fans alike as one of our city's most talented rock guitarists.

I lucked into a copy of his outstanding new solo EP, and it turns out he can sing AND write great songs as well as tear up an electric guitar.

Aaron Wood bio quote: "The skinny white boy from the mountains Western North Carolina carries around more soul in his restless bones and battered guitar than most of us ever dream of." Word.

Check his soulful new self-titled EP out online here: enter the site and click on music to hear the whole thing streamed.

Turns out Wood made some musical connections at HATCHfest, found a new manager and is on the road to recording a new CD. He's doing it in a way I find completely fascinating: he's using kickstarter, a website that calls itself "a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers."

Kickstarter lets fans pledge money towards a pre-stated goal. If the goal is met, the work goes forward. If it's not met, everyone keeps their money. From Wood's blog:

That’s the great thing about the site, you aren’t just asking people to give you money, you create different tiers of what you as an artist will give to them for a certain dollar amount. So, someone can support you for as little as say, $6 and get a download of songs, or they can get something for $25, up to a private show for say, $1000. Here’s the kicker though…It’s all or nothing. You set the budget, the time frame, and the different incentives you’ll give for the different level of money but if you don’t raise your goal by the end of your time then you don’t get any of it.

I don't yet know how much Wood needs to raise, but I listened in to his radio interview this week on WNCW and heard him mention private concerts, recording a cover of a fan-selected song, some neat stuff. He really seems to plan a fan-centric effort with real interactivity with fans of his music -- "You hold my hand, I'll hold yours," he said.

I've been a fan of Wood's since seeing him play the first time and wondering who the hell it was that was shredding the guitar like that. I think I'm gonna pony up.

The kickstarter effort starts this month, and I'll link to it when it goes live. There should be a press release soon for Wood's recording efforts. I'll post it here when I get it.

I work tangentially in the music business as a social media marketer for a local company that provides art and designs to musicians. It's brought me in contact with some new music models that fascinate me utterly: Amanda Palmer and OK Go mindfully and intentionally leaving their labels, Sxip Shirey financing his own CD on kickstarter... OK Go now sells content-filled custom USB drives at concerts, and Amanda Palmer and band have fans cook them meals on the road.

Over at Ashvegas blog, local musician Ami Worthen commented that her own band, Mad Tea Party, did something very similar to Kickstarter with PayPal back in 2006 for their release "Big Top Soda Pop." It's looks like Wood is traveling down the same road.

I'm on board for the ride and I hope it takes him all the places he deserves to go.

***

Twitter: @AaronWoodyWood

Aaron "Woody" Wood on Facebook

Aaron "Woody" Wood blog

Aaron Wood Music website

Great June 22 Ashvegas post on how Wood is using kickstarter to fund his CD

Volunteer group to clear sidewalk to closed Hillcrest bridge, Sat 8:30-noon

(Z-Link volunteers clearing a neglected sidewalk in Montford)

From the Z-Link blog, some information about a community effort to clean the sidewalk leading to the closed Hillcrest bridge. Z-Link calls itself a "volunteer sidewalk clean-up effort kicked off by city council member Cecil Bothwell and Asheville PARC (People Advocating Real Conservancy)":

Upcoming Events

Bring a flat bladed shovel, hoe, rake or push broom if you have one, but PARC and my campaign are providing tools and blue bags.

Saturday, June 26, 8:30 a.m. to noon, Chicken Hill
Can you volunteer ONE HOUR to help recover Asheville’s sidewalks? We’ll be clearing the sidewalk to the closed Hillcrest pedestrian bridge, on the city-side of the span. This sidewalk also connects to a stairway leading down to the River District. We’ll meet at the end of Roberts Street near the church. (Turn off Haywood Road at the east end of the French Broad River Bridge, where all the road construction is going on, continue to the sharp curve where the road heads down to the river again.) Contact me.

***

More about Z-link in this June 22 Ashvegas post that includes a 6-minute video telling more about Z-Link's efforts to clear walkable but hard-to-navigate sidewalks covered by grass and dirt from years of neglect, and to note areas that don't yet have sidewalks but need them.

As Bothwell points out, we all pay our share of taxes, but we don't all get our share of sidewalks.

Pedestrian death/Hillcrest bridge news and info roundup

(Hillcrest bridge photo by Jonathan Welch of Mountain Xpress)

A pedestrian was struck by a car and killed Wednesday as he attempted to cross 240 near the Smoky Park bridge.

Here's a photo, video and news roundup of what happened and what people in our community are saying about a young man's senseless death. Some background: a pedestrian bridge connecting the Hillcrest area and downtown would have allowed the man to cross safely, but was closed down 16 years ago.

According to a 1999 AC-T article quoted on Ashvegas, police sought the bridge's closure because, they said, suspects could slip out over it during drug raids.

The Swannanoa man killed, Anthony Ray Gilmore, was 25. He was not the first person to be killed crossing 240 in this area.

I believe I read that his father has since collected approximately 300 signatures requesting the re-opening of the Hillcrest pedestrian bridge -- can anyone verify?

Here's a roundup of articles, pictures and info.

Citizen-Times, June 17: Man fatally struck near Smoky Park Bridge

Gilmore was running across the highway toward Hillcrest Apartments just west of the bridge around 9:30 p.m. when he was hit by 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier headed west in the far right lane, police said.

Gilmore was dead at the scene.

Ashvegas blog, June 17: In wake of pedestrian death on I-240 near Smoky Park Bridge, a question: Is pedestrian bridge open?

This isn't the first time a person has been struck and killed while trying to cross the highway at this location - generally just on the downtown side of the Smoky Park Bridge, where Patton Avenue turns into an interstate on-ramp, and where drivers exit to take the new I-26 north toward Weaverville.

Gordon Smith, Scrutiny Hooligans blog, June 17: Not To Be Repeated

I’m going to listen to neighborhood residents and the police department in order to make an informed decision, but my initial reaction is that we’ve got to give Hillcrest residents a direct route downtown.

We also need an I-26 Connector that will rejoin Hillcrest to downtown in a permanent and meaningful way. Isolating neighborhoods doesn’t make things better.

Ashvegas blog, June 18: There's no need for closed pedestrian bridge over I-240 in Asheville when people are dying

There's no need to keep Hillcrest cut off from the rest of the world any more than it already is. Surrounded by a tangle of interstate highway, there's only one way to drive in and out of the complex, and if police want to go after somebody there, they can just station a couple of officers at the back, where the pedestrian bridge connects.

Facebook photo album: Hillcrest/I-240 pedestrian bridge

(Hillcrest Bridge photo by Jason Sandford)

June 18, Mountain Xpress: In wake of death, city officials look at re-opening Hillcrest bridge

“When you’re standing right here, it looks like the cars are really far away, then you realize how fast they’re going,” he says, adding that re-opening the bridge and clearing off the sidewalk — after consultations with the Asheville Police Department and Hillcrest residents — would be a temporary measure until a the construction of the Interstate 26 interchange better integrates the apartments with downtown. “Open the bridge, clear the sidewalk and we’re good ... this has been going on too long, it’s time for Hillcrest to be part of the city again.”

June 19: Zen Sutherland's 39-second video of the bridge



An article on lack of sidewalks in Asheville mentioning the Hillcrest bridge appeared in the Citizen-Times 15 days before Gilmore was struck and killed.

My questions: are infrequent pedestrian deaths worth the benefit of cutting off escaping suspects from Hillcrest? (I'm having a hard time seeing any way the benefit could possibly outweigh the cost.) How do the people who live there feel about having the bridge closed, and having it re-opened? What are the community benefits to reopening the bridge, aside from offering safe crossing? Are there other closed pedestrian bridges in town we all need to look at reopening?

Asheville, what do we do now?

***

Added June 20: May 1998 Mountain Xpress article on closing the bridge

Maybin, president of the residents' group at Hillcrest, remembers how things were before the bridge was closed: Drug dealers and gamblers gathered near the walkway and in nearby vacant apartments at night; children found discarded syringes and condoms littering the area during the day; residents discovered apartments vandalized, with feces smeared on the walls; drug dealers paid little kids a couple bucks to carry drugs up the hill to waiting cars.

"You could reassure people here all you want to about reopening this bridge," Maybin said. "But when people are afraid, they're afraid."

Dripolator Asheville first anniversary 6/19: specials, music, art, free coffee

Win $200: Asheville Brewing beer label design contest

An Asheville company, Creative Allies, joins with Asheville Brewing to create a new local artisan beer. $200 contest to design the label (disclosure: I work for Creative Allies). The contest ends June 23, so get designing...

From a press release:

The Creative Allies crew is always hanging out backstage at the best music festivals throughout the year and we've decided to celebrate the next one with our very own creative ale, "Backstage Betty."

We just need you to design a wicked label that epitomizes the perfect Betty hanging out with us behind the scenes. Think "Almost Famous" meets a Vargas pin-up gal.

Download the supplied beer-label template and start your creating your designs for the "Backstage Betty" ale.

Label Requirements
• Creations must be uploaded on the official template (download support files above)
• Must have the name: Backstage Betty Ale
• Use the reference images and description as inspiration
• All beer labels need to be approved by the state alcohol commission - because of this, avoid any offensive language or imagery

Learn more about the contest here.

Fun Late Night Friday Option

Mad Tea Party with Aaron Woody Wood this Friday at the LAB. 10 pm show. Only $5. Poster by Jason Krekel.

Asheville High School, Roberson ranked in top 1,600 schools

...Just 6 percent of public schools nationwide made the ranking.

Asheville High was ranked at 602. The two schools were the only Western North Carolina schools making the list. Roberson, which was ranked 1,351 out of just over 1,600 schools, was one of two local high schools making the recent Newsweek list.

The rankings are based on the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests given at a school divided by the number of graduating seniors, according to the Newsweek website..."


Read the rest of the article.

BlogAsheville goes to Bonnaroo 2010

(Conan O'Brian at Bonnaroo. Photo by Josh Rhinehart)

Bonnaroo looks like this.

(people gathering for the Stevie Wonder show)

It's a portable, break-downable multi-acre tent city with tour buses for musicians and air-conditioned office trailers for staff and VIPs. Golf carts and on foot is how you get around, on dusty dirt roads, avoiding the stench of the porta-johns.

Topless hippie girls with flower-painted breasts mince through the grass. Hoop dancers sway. Sweat and mud and the threat of heatstroke, sunburn, prickly heat and monkey butt surrounds.

Bonnaroo is a feudal city-state powered by pot, beer, pizza, funnel cake and filtered water. There are no police (only security), and billows of weed are always on the wind, day and night. You don't go anywhere without your trusty water bottle.

The crowd is young, the heat hideous and oppressive. And the music on SIX STAGES never stops.

I wandered from Daryl Hall to the Flaming Lips Friday night at about 1 a.m. On Sunday I passed Regina Spektor and Lucero on my way to Jamey Johnson, caught a great Weezer set as an afterthought on the way back. About 150 bands play, and the music lasts from lunchtime to nearly dawn.

(Daryl Hall by Josh Rhinehart)

76,000 people bought tickets this year. Most of the festival's 700 acres in Manchester, TN is devoted to housing tens of thousands in tents. If you look out over the general camping area where most of the attendees set up, I hear there's an endless sea of Easy-Ups as far as the eye can see. A hippie tent nation.

76,000 tickets probably means about $22 million in ticket sales, not including mega-sponsorships from Canon, Garnier Fructis, Vitamin Water, Ben & Jerry's, etc. The festival is put on by the Dave Matthews Band's manager, and I hear it's him in the mysterious helicopter that flies over us on occasion.

There are mist tents to cool you down, water stations, an air-conditioned tent cinema, carnival-style midway vendors selling veggie hot dogs and turkey legs and lemonade in the shadow of a ferris wheel. There's karaoke and comedy and movies and vendors selling paintings and clothing and jewelry and sky chairs.

I bounced like a sweat-soaked pinball from show to show, taking in several years' worth of genre-hopping concert-going in one grueling weekend.

GWAR turned the Bonnaroo center fountain into fake blood at 3 am with Margaret Cho. The Avett Brothers serenaded the crowd in rain that cooled a beastly afternoon, reaching the sweet crescendo of "Perfect Space" along with the weather. Jack Black and Jack White both performed. (The Avetts thanked the crowd for bringing the rain; Jack White said his band had brought it.)

(Jack White playing with his new band, The Dead Weather. Photo by Josh.)

Steve Martin and Conan O'Brien. John Fogerty and John Prine. Tori Amos and They Might Be Giants. Weezer and Ween. Jay-Z and Jimmy Cliff. The Flaming Lips doing Dark Side of the Moon in the sweaty, weed-scented midnight dark as I picked my way through the mud and prone bodies on beach towels. (Yes, Wayne Coyne brought his giant hamster ball and surf-rolled the crowd.)

(Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, photo by Josh)

(Jay-Z, photo by Josh)

IMO Stevie Wonder and Daryl Hall OWNED Bonnaroo -- even my jaded, music-biz co-workers thought so -- with outstanding performances that showed there ain't no school like the old school. Hall teamed with dance duo Chromeo to rock out updated versions of Hall and Oates songs for a new generation.

Stevie left his lame-o easy-listening side behind to rock out with "Don't You Worry Bout a Thing" and "Living for the City."

(Stevie Wonder killing it, by Josh)

I loved Americana act Dave Rawlings Machine (with Gillian Welch), and can't get their song "Sweet Tooth" out of my head. They covered The Band's "The Weight" (to die for, GORGEOUS four-part harmony) and Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer." Swoon.

I sat in the hot shade in my straw hat, drinking the good music in.

Me and my co-workers broke down our tent and loaded up Sunday as Phoenix played at sunset and the Dave Matthews Band played at dusk, and four insane days of sweat, debauchery and music ended as a fleet of fire balloons sailed over the camp in a flaming constellation.

NPR's archived Bonnaro webstreams

YouTube Bonnaroo Channel

Incredible Bonnaroo 2010 Flickr photoset from Josh Rhinehart

2010 Bonnaroo schedule

Critiquing the city of Asheville's growing social media presence

From the Jason Sandford/Ashvegas column today in the Citizen-Times:

Asheville city government has launched an aggressive plan to communicate with residents in cyberspace. The problem: The city's trying to run before it knows how to walk.

The city on Thursday invited a group of about 30 people, including local reporters, bloggers, marketers and social media experts, to City Hall to hear details of its new social media strategy. It's a significant public relations push for local government, which is spending thousands of taxpayers' dollars to boost its online presence.

City spokeswoman Dawa Hitch says the goal is to increase “citizen engagement” by having government workers sending out and receiving information on social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. That's a fine target, but Hitch admitted that the city would concentrate first on getting information out and probably wouldn't be responding much online to residents.

If you're not going to be social on social media, why bother? The benefit of interacting with people online is the ability to provide valuable information quickly and the ability to show people that you're listening. If you don't do that, you won't gain many cyberspace pals.

***

Full column here. May require C-T login.

I sent my own ideas to Dawa Hitch in an email to her. Here's what I had to say as a social media marketer and experienced social media campaign leader:

As for me, I'd love to see the city of Asheville cultivate citizen
partners -- people who are willing to gather info (news, photos, etc)
and use that to engage social media users directly. I know there isn't
a huge budget in place for city social media (a shame -- it deserves
FT attention), but the street team/guerilla way of doing things can be
very effective. An example of a way to engage citizen users might be
to have a team of people livetweeting, webcasting and photographing
city events like Bele Chere, all using a hashtag. I think people would
LOVE to do that.

I would also love to see more meetings like today's, but with an
agenda and structure more clearly defined (I know today's goal was to
start things, and to listen). Maybe even have a networking event,
where local social media people can meet city employees (and each
other), and learn what they really do.

I'd love to see some very specific social media GOALS for Asheville
(use social media to educate people on accessing and understanding
budget data, have a regular schedule of budget data release, with
pre-publicity; post and share minutes from city meetings; create a
city Flickr account, maybe even with citizen access; create an
actionable, assigned social media plan for info-sharing and response
during emergencies/disasters) and it'd be lovely if they were created
in collaboration with citizen social media users.

I've wanted for MONTHS to have a disaster-response forum in which the
APD, Fire & Rescue, Charter, the city, Progress Energy, all got
together and decided how to best leverage social media in times of
disaster. Pre-create hashtags, have action plans in place for power
outages, snowstorms, flooding, you name it...

What else do we bloggers of Asheville have to say to the city about how it's using its growing new social media presence?

Please comment!

Asheville graphic designer creates new BP logos

From the excellent local blog Pollinating Asheville, designs from Jenny Greer of SoundMind Media.

Full post here: