Looking out the window of the Holiday Inn Express, I couldn’t really tell if it was snow or rain, but the forecasters on the Weather Channel were calling it a Nor’easter and lots of folks up and down the East coast were getting walloped by a February snow storm.
I guess it was too warm in Winston Salem to snow, but there was plenty of rain. In my slumber (recovering from The Garage), I thought I heard a blow dryer from the room next door, but it turned out to be a wet-vac that ran nonstop through the morning. I later found out it as a roof leak at the hotel and Alan and Greg were effected the most as water was pouring down into their doorway. The maintenance people were very busy that morning clearing out the water in the hotel.
We didn’t take long to get out of our rooms either. Greg, Kevin, Alan and Jason looked a little worse for wear since the the last time I saw them they were nursing a tequilla bottle. Nevertheless, after a quick coffee at the WaffleHouse (again? – 2 times in 12 hours), The Reagan Boggs Band were off to Black Mountain, NC and The Town Pump Tavern.
As we drove West on Interstate 40, the rain began to turn into large snow flakes and by the time we made it to the Black Mountain exit, a wet snowfall was turning the ground white.
Downtown Black Mountain is surrounded by 2500 to 3000 ft mountains on all sides and reminds me of of a mountain outpost. There’s an old caboose memoralized by the railroad tracks that skirt the business district and there are about five or six blocks of various art and outdoor shops that speckle the small city streets- each with its own special character.
Earlier, Tony Maggard called us and said, ‘this place has plywood on the front of the building.’ Tony had made it over from Tennessee and was celebrating his 40th birthday. When we arrived at the Town Pump shortly behind him, he was right. This place looked like it was one of the last of the great vintage bars and nothing much had changed about this place for close to 50 years.
One of the old-timers referred to the place as originally, ‘The Cherry Street Tavern’ and that’s where it’s located, but an even older veteran commented later in the night that it was called Moes.
It seriously looks like an old saloon and as you creak the door open, the stage is immediately to the left. The Town Pump is a long narrow room with an old vintage Jukebox playing a dark mix of roots and folk music, a long bar and a wood facade that ran the length of the wall that looked like it came out of 20th century pharmacy. There were 4 dart boards along the left wall too and several tables and chairs littered between the stage and the tournament area.
The stage was kind of cool and as we set up our gear with our backs against the front of the room we could see all of the stuffed animals staring back at us from this vintage room.
I was talking to Alan Gamble trying to come up with adjectives for the green/black carpet that was plastered on to the stage. I’m certain this rug had not been cleaned since the Nixon era and it made me dizzy to consider the beer, sweat, DNA and other creatures that might be lurking here. It was tight quarters too, but somehow we managed and I had the fortune of sitting my rig right in front of a larger-than-life picture of George Washington.
We had a few beers all around and decided to go ahead and try to find a room because the snow looked like it was going to get worse. We didn’t have to play for several hours. At first, we tried a Comfort Inn and their Internet connection was down and couldn’t accept credit cards, so we settled for the “luxurious” Super 8 Motel on the east side of town.
A quaint little place stuck back in the 70’s. You know the ones. You drive right up to your motel room and pray the heater will catch up with the cold. Alan and Greg were telling me they spoke to the Indian man in the lobby and asked for a late checkout and he responded – ’30 minutes.’
We settled into our rooms and made it back into Black Mountain for a great lunch at The Black Mountain Bistro. Unfortunately, not many places were open on this Saturday afternoon and this little place nestled back in the trees looked empty as we drove by, but what a great restaurant.
We made our way into a cozy dining room with a fireplace and we really felt like a band of band gypsies by now, with Knoxville, Winston Salem and Black Mountain now in our travel log and we settled into some more of those ‘High Gravity Beers’ that had become so popular among the band over the past few days. My personal favorite came from this little Bistro and if I can find Three Philosophers Belgian Style Blend Ale, I’ll be sure to have a couple of more bottles. It’s a great complex beer that deserves another round.
The food was surprisingly affordable too at this bistro. I looked around the table and everything from steaks to ribs, so noone was practicing their diet, except of course Reagan who may have had a pasta dish.
After our late lunch, some of the guys decided to take a nap, but I went back to the Super 8 changed clothes and prepared with Greg to go back down to the Tavern and start to setup. The downbeat was 9 and we felt we would have plenty of time if we arrived at 6.30.
It didn’t take long to set up the stage, but after we were more than ready and had quaffed a few more beers, we kept waiting for the soundman to arrive. It was close to 8.30 before someone told us he wasn’t coming. The snow wasn’t that bad by then, but it would have been nice to have known this earlier.
Tony immediately began working with the little Peavey PA system. I think there were 12 channels and a couple of stage monitors (not conducive to a great piano tone). It was not the best arrangement, but we worked it out all the same and started the show around 9.30.
Earlier in the week, Reagan had received some excellent press from Carol Mallett-Rifkin with the Asheville Citizen Times. She was an attractive woman that was joined by someone that had connections back into my life in Kingsport.
Tony Kiss is the Entertainment Editor for The Asheville Citizen Times (he’s also The Beer Guy) and he had joined Carol tonight in a thick snowstorm to come hear Reagan and they sat just inside the door. After the first set, I had an opportunity to talk to Tony and track back our history.
Tony used to work at The Kingsport Times-News back in the mid-seventies. I had seen his name on an old article he wrote about The Tennessee Midnight Rambler and he described the times he spent there at the newspaper and recent resurrection of the legendary East Tennessee Rock and Roll disc jockey.
Several years ago, I work with Tony’s mom at the newspaper in the mid-eighties and also graduated high school with his sister Mary. Mary has a beautiful smile and evidently lives in California now and I was delighted to remember the time I worked with her on stage at a product of Bye Bye Birdie. She was a wonderfully talented person and her family obviously share a creative gene.
The crowd seemed to really enjoy our sets at The Town Pump. Tony was having a good time in the audience and there were some firefighters in the crowd having a good time too. I met one those guys and he was intrigued by the Sony MiniDV that I was using to shoot video from the stage in between sets. He evidently was a helicopter pilot and was doing video work from the air during fire seasons and we shared a lot of video chat between each other before he offered to shoot for me while I was on stage.
It’s not often that I give a camera to someone in the bar, but if you can’t trust a fireman….
He did a great job too! It’s rare that I see myself in videos and photos and it’s a treat to have this special limited edition Town Pump performance video of the Reagan Boggs band. (Check out the video here!)
Around midnight, the snow had blanketed the road outside and the Town Pump was toasty and we still had a good crowd. We played an extra set and Reagan surprised me by wrapping up the show with one of our old Bonnie Raitt ballads we used to play with the duet. I was a little rusty, but ‘I can’t Make You Love Me’ sounded really nice that night and she always does a great job.
I took the video camera outside to record this terrific snowstorm and got carried away with one of the old guys that was coming out with the late night crowd and he had some interesting things to share about the Town Pump and it’s history and you can check out the video here (coming soon).
It was a little tough tearing down our gear and hauling it through the snow, but it wasn’t long before we were headed out to Dennys for a late night snack. Jason stayed behind with an adoring fan and as we finally made it back to the Super 8, Alan was without a room, so he had to bunk in one of the beds in my room.
Around 9.30 or so, I headed back over the mountains to Kingsport. The snow wasn’t that bad in the morning light in Black Mountain and as a matter of fact, it got a little worse by the time I got to Sam’s Gap. It was the first snowfall of the season and I got some wonderful pictures from this pristine view.
A wild and wintery weekend in North Carolina is a memory now, but we played a couple of great rooms this weekend. The Town Pump even was a stop for Arlo Guthrie many years ago and has one of the most natural, wild west roots vibes of any room we’ve played so far and it would be great to find our way back again someday.