Soundcheck AVL: Tongues of Fire, a post-punk Asheville band with a purpose
Also, a WNC music emissary's bullish outlook for the region's music industry
Note: This story is sponsored by Citizens Fuel Co., a family-owned Asheville company.
Here’s some of what’s happening on the Asheville music scene. This one is dedicated to Caleb Calhoun, a former contributor. Miss you on the music scene, man.
Tongues of Fire ready to burn at Grey Eagle show
“Yup, we’re back on our bullshit.”
That’s lead singer Lowell Hobbs, sitting on an Asheville porch stoop with drummer and bandmate Eli Raymer, offering a self-effacing summation of the work ahead for their band, Tongues of Fire, which they founded more than six years ago: prepare for upcoming Grey Eagle show; finish new album; tour.
There’s nothing better than a young band with ambition and talent. Tongues of Fire has both, and despite several changes to the band membership (Maddie Kendrick on bass and Brett on guitar currently fill out the line-up), they’re more than ready to get back out in front of live audiences.
Their first big foray comes Sunday at the Grey Eagle with a fantastic bill that includes Nordista Freeze, Cry Baby and Daddy’s Beemer. These indie rockers are DIY all the way, winning over fans one house show at a time and making some really great music.
While the “post-punk” descriptor seems to have stuck with Tongues of Fire, Lowell says the band is simply “taking punk roots and expanding on them.” Sure, bands such as Nirvana and IDLES are influences, but Lowell and Raymer say they’re always keeping an ear to the ground. Bands like Soviet post-punkers Molchat Doma and Utro, as well as ssshhhiiittt and Human Tetris, pop up on current playlists, they note.
Raymer, who’s a driving force on the drums, recalls meeting Hobbs at a house show he was hosting at an old transmission shop. As songwriter and frontman, Hobbs, who grew up in Old Fort, has an undeniable charisma. The two have kept Tongues of Fire moving forward.
While Asheville’s post-punk scene is relatively small, they say they’re deeply grateful to what they consider their home venue, the venerable Static Age Records downtown. And they add that they’re excited the Grey Eagle is hosting a group of bands who play music that isn’t necessarily the tourist-friendly fare an Asheville music venue might fall back on.
As for the new record in the works, Hobbs says “this is me coming to terms with the death of my mother.” Anne, a bubbly extrovert, passed away from cancer a couple of years ago. The writing has been a cathartic experience, he says, adding that he’s gone so far as to ask the artist Victoria Arnish, who is working up a drawing for the “Burn My Body Clean” album cover, to mix some of his mother’s ashes into the charcoal medium she’ll be using.
Look for the album to be released around August. Until then, check them out Sunday at the Grey Eagle, find them at a house show and/or follow them on Instagram, and Bandcamp and Facebook. Oh yeah, YouTube too.
Garret K. Woodward’s unrelenting love of WNC’s music scene
Garret K. Woodward, Western North Carolina’s music emissary, keeps one busy schedule.
Here’s a recent example from a May week: Attend the sold-out Charley Crockett show at the Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre in Asheville on Thursday; emcee the inaugural Power & Soul Revival, a new one-day music festival at Piedmont Dragway in Julian (between Burlington and Greensboro) on Saturday; and on Sunday, emcee a Maggie Valley drive-in concert featuring Galactic.
That’s all while holding down his duties as the arts and music editor for the Smoky Mountain News newspaper, a job he’s held since 2012. Over that time, Woodward has conducted countless interviews with musicians, compiled his writing into a self-published book (If You Can’t Play, Get Off the Stage: Bluegrass in Western North Carolina and Beyond), added show hosting appearances and grown into an important voice for Western North Carolina’s music scene. He’s an ambassador, a cheerleader really, with a wide audience.
When I talked with Woodward earlier this spring about the region’s rebounding music scene, he exuded a palpable sense of excitement. He was starting to get wind of a growing list of great shows returning after the Lost Pandemic Year of 2020. And he had a bold forecast: “As someone who is journalist and music freak, I really feel this is the calm before the storm,” he tells me.
Several trends are converging to make 2021 perhaps the biggest year ever on the WNC live music scene, Woodward says. Here’s some of what he’s seeing:
The region’s amazing music history is just beginning to be tapped, with new ventures such as Citizen Vinyl shining a brighter spotlight. “Bill Monroe and Jimmie Rogers got their start here,” he says, pointing out their historical significance to Citizen Vinyl’s location in particular.
Asheville, once a “buffer city” that bands would use to fill in tour dates between stops such as Charlotte and Atlanta, has climbed up to become more of a top-tier city for music tours, Woodward says.
Contributing to that previous trend: more bands are starting and ending tours in the region, Woodward says, then sticking around. “They’re hanging out. Maybe they take a day off and play in the Smokies,” he says, or schedule an Echo Mountain Recording session.
The ongoing marketing efforts of the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, which launched a campaign focused on promoting Asheville and Buncombe County’s music scene in 2016, are paying off, he says. (A much-cited economic development survey at the time stated that the county’s music industry supported 3,000 jobs and that the Western North Carolina’s regional music industry contributed $171 million to the local economy.) As just one example, Woodward points to a 2019 Rolling Stone story headlined “Why Asheville, North Carolina, is the New Must-Visit Music City.”
The fact that more and more people are moving to WNC, Woodward says, noting skyrocketing demand, and prices, for real estate. “It feels like we’ve jammed five or 10 years of inevitable growth into one year,” he says.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Woodward, there’s this pandemic effect: “Having live music taken away really showed people that it’s not only entertainment, it’s a healing power. I spend my life around live music because it does something for me on an intrinsic level. You connect with people, and the music, on an emotional level.”
In short, more folks have come to the realization that "their yearning for live music was much deeper than a surface-level desire, he says. “I think that’s been a big message.”
Thanks for reading.
-jason