Dan River Drifters at Soul Infusion

We had a fine weekend of live music to celebrate my birthday. On Friday night, we went to the groovy and quaint Soul Infusion Tea House in Sylva for a fun bluegrass show featuring some powerful picking by the Dan River Drifters. This was our first time seeing this group of young musicians and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Many thanks to bassist bad ass Adam Bigelow for inviting us out.
I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing lots more from this band in the near future.

New Years Eve 2011

We rang in the New Year this weekend at The Grey Eagle in Asheville with two of our favorite bands, Town Mountain and Acoustic Syndicate. It made for a fun time spent with good friends and great live music. 

So we happily ended 2011 and started 2012 just how we prefer to live our lives by savoring the moments and smelling the flowers along the way. Here's hoping that the New Year brings health, happiness, and lots of good love and music to you and your families in 2012!

Black Betty and Hometown

Your Hometown Hiker's Live Band List 2011

It's New Year's Eve and Black Betty and I are going to celebrate tonight at The Grey Eagle in Asheville (our favorite music venue) with Town Mountain and Acoustic Syndicate (two of our favorite groups).

The following is a list of many of the bands that we saw in 2011. We were fortunate indeed to see most of them numerous times. As I said last year, "There were so many incredible shows, so much inspiring music!"

Once again I would like to thank all the outstanding musicians who helped to make our year so incredibly fun and filled with great tunes.You know that we love you! I'm hoping for a repeat in 2012!

Hometown and Black Betty

Cooking With Quanta @ Soul Infusion Tea House

Last Friday night, Black Betty and I caught our favorite local band at the Soul Infusion Tea House in Sylva.
It was a jammy night of original music and some pretty groovy covers by our friends in Cooking With Quanta. The fab four (Neil, Scott, Adam, and Greg) rocked the house. We boogied till we dropped!

We love Quanta and we love the Soul Infusion. What a great venue for this group, it really feels like a house party with all your best friends. It was another "mighty-fine" night of live music in western North Carolina.
You really should try to join us next time!

Town Mountain and The Freight Hoppers @ The Grey Eagle

                                                                                                                                                                     Two of the finest String Bands in the mountains came together on Friday night at The Grey Eagle in Asheville.

The Freight Hoppers are from Bryson City, NC and play Old Time and Traditional tunes from the 1920's and 1930's. David Bass (fiddle) and Frank Lee (banjo, guitar, vocals) have been together since the Freight Hoppers started their Great Smokey Mountain Railroad gig in 1993. After a hiatus of seven or eight years, the band regrouped in 2007 with Issac Deal (guitar,vocals) and Bradley Adams (bass).  www.thefreighthoppers.com/
                                                                                                                                                                     
Town Mountain is, without a doubt, our favorite Asheville area bluegrass band. Black Betty and I try not to miss a local show with this smoking hot, bluegrass band. Their rawness and grit manages to get under your skin, and you become a convert after one Town Mountain show. Their rough around-the-edges sound fueled by Robert Greer's outstanding vocals and the band's skilled licks keep us coming back for more.

Town Mountain's strength and appeal lies in their ability to keep it real and gritty while refusing to allow their sound to become a polished out white-bread Nashville caricature of bluegrass music. This is working man's grass, it's the real deal!  They feature outstanding original tunes penned  by banjo player Jesse Langlais and mandolin player Phil Barker; they also do some great covers, including Bruce Springsteen and John Anderson. If you are extremely fortunate, you may even hear Robert Greer sing a heart-wrenching version of the Grateful Dead's Brokedown Palace. Their newest CD is Steady Operator. http://townmountain.net/blog/




                                                                                                                          

No Knead Dutch Oven Bread

I thought I would try my hand at some Dutch oven bread last week and have really been impressed at how easy it is to make.

Looking online I found the widely disseminated Jim Lahey recipe and followed it pretty close. There are numerous discussions and websites on the topic of this simple bread. It does make a perfect loaf with very little effort. I've been using a whole wheat variation by substituting one of the 3 cups of flour with whole wheat. This is great slicing bread and is as beautiful to look at as it is tasty to eat. I haven't tried cooking it outdoors with coals as my heat source yet but will get there I'm sure.

You will need to mix this dough the day before you bake it so it does take a little planning.
The recipe yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
wheat bran for dusting

Equipment:
parchment paper
6 -8 quart cast iron, Pyrex, enamel, or ceramic covered pot.


1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add 1 5/8 cup of  warm water and stir until blended. Dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 12 to 18 hrs. at warm room temperature.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. At this point I dust a sheet of parchment paper with wheat bran (you can use flour or cornmeal) and put the dough seam side down on it. Dust the top of the loaf with wheat bran and let it rise for 2 hrs. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4.At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put your covered dutch oven in the oven as it heats. When dough is ready, slice a slit or two across the top of it and carefully (using the parchment paper) place it into the hot pot. Cover it and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for about 15 minutes longer until the loaf is brown. Cool on a rack.

The Asheville Fall Charity Jam

Black Betty and I had the pleasure of attending the 1st Annual Asheville Fall Charity Jam in Arden on Saturday.

The Asheville Fall Charity Jam is dedicated to raising awareness about local heroes in our community.  
This year the benefit was held for the family of Asheville Firefighter Captain Jeff Bowen who lost his life while fighting a massive building fire this summer.  A few words from Stacy Bowen about her husband.

The line up included The Southern Lights, East Coast Dirt, Ras Alan, Chalwa, The Whitewater Bluegrass Band, Phuncle Sam, and Snake Oil Medicine Show.

The location was great, the crowd was friendly and intimate, and the line-up was stellar. We had a wonderful time, made several new friends, visited with old friends, and listened to some really talented local musicians.
I sincerely hope that lots of money was raised for this great cause. We can't wait to see how this event will continue to unfold in the future.

Here's a little video of Ras Alan and friends performing during the afternoon.