bele chere – Busk Break

Erin Brown performs “Killer Bee”

Asheville’s Bele Chere festival is a swarming, sprawling mass of sights and sounds, and it’s easy for busking musicians to get drowned out in the chaos. But that didn’t stop Durham-based singer-songwriter Erin Brown from giving it her best.

Here, she performs her original tune “Killer Bee” at the corner of College St. and Lexington Ave. to a small crowd of festival goers. Continue reading Erin Brown performs “Killer Bee”

SolStar performs “Reaching Forward” at Bele Chere 2012

What can you say about Atlanta’s genre-crossing band SolStar? How many bands can you think of that feature an electric violin and African dancing as key elements to the performance? Having only encountered the band by accident before, and having only a cellphone camera to capture the performance, it was a great turn of luck to run into them again.

Here, the five-piece version of the group performs to a packed crowd in front of the Woolworth Walk in Asheville, NC, during the 2012 Bele Chere street festival. Continue reading SolStar performs “Reaching Forward” at Bele Chere 2012

Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos mashup “Take a Whiff on Me” and “Tell It To Me”

You might not think that a half-dozen clean-shaven young men belting songs from the 1930s about cocaine addiction would be a natural crowd pleaser in a street festival, but you’d be wrong. Maybe it has something to do with their mashup addition of the thematically similar Old Crow Medicine Show tune “Tell It To Me,” which certainly seemed to please many in the audience.

Or maybe it was the brigade of mostly female fans, many of whom made it very clear that they were enjoying the testosterone on display at least as much as the music. That, or cocaine use is just a heckova lot more popular these days than I realized.

Here, the guys from Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos perform the American folk song “Take a Whiff on Me” (covered by everyone from Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie to The White Stripes and Old Crow Medicine Show) to the passersby during Bele Chere 2012. Continue reading Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos mashup “Take a Whiff on Me” and “Tell It To Me”

Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos perform an Irish medley at Bele Chere

What do you get when you combine Asheville’s most high-profile busking boy band with the largest street festival in the region? You get a great performance, that’s what. Playing this medley of Irish tunes “The Foggy Dew” and “Come Out, Ye Black and Tans,” Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos had drawn a crowd to rival acts on the actual Bele Chere 2012 stages.

For those of you who aren’t aware of Asheville’s Bele Chere festival, it’s very much like many street festivals across the world. There are vendor booths, activities for kids, tons of food (with heavy emphasis on local eateries in recent years) and several stages of live music. Continue reading Tomb Nelson and The Stillwater Hobos perform an Irish medley at Bele Chere

Blind Boy Chocolate & The Milk Sheiks cover “Jackson Stomp”

With their high-voltage style, musical saw and general whimsy, novelty jazz band Blind Boy Chocolate and the Milk Sheiks may be one of the most easily recognized bands in Asheville’s street music scene. Here, the group perform their version of the Mississippi Mud Steppers’ tune “Jackson Stomp.”

This video also shows the value of checking your battery before you start recording. Approximately 30 seconds into filming, my camera stopped recording due to a low charge. As a result, there isn’t a video of this memorable performance. Instead, we’re setting the separately recorded audio to a funny cartoon from yesteryear called “Accidents Don’t Just Happen,” courtesy of the public domain Prelinger Archives.