Tag: north carolina

Caster covers “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me”

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Caster performs the Bo Carter tune “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me” in front of the Iron Sculpture in downtown Asheville, NC.
Recently unearthed from the Busk Break archives, Caster covers this classic “dirty blues” tune in 2011!

At the time of this recording, banjo-playing busker Caster had yet to write a song he felt comfortable playing in front of a camera. So I asked him, “Do you have a cover that you feel you really love? A song that you’ve truly made your own?”

He paused, stroked his thin chin beard, and thought. Then with a smile that seemed to indicate he was a little embarrassed, he said “I’ve become rather attached to a song called ‘Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me'”
Continue reading Caster covers “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me”

Balkan Death Grip perform “Men Trinkte Mashke”

Balkan Death Grip
Matt Heckler, Trevor Grassi and Jeff Loops, with unseen members of Balkan Death Grip, perform near Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville, NC.
Matt Heckler and Trevor Grassi lead this incarnation of Balkan Death Grip to hell and back. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a melodramatic way of putting it, but this is a highly melodramatic song. After all, it’s about a man who pays his way by shoveling coal in hell, who plays music that smells of gasoline and who, they say, is around “every time a ship goes down.” It’s also one of the most entertainingly over-the-top tunes ever performed in front of the Busk Break camera. Continue reading Balkan Death Grip perform “Men Trinkte Mashke”

Sparrow performs “Walt’s Waltz”

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Accordion-playing busker Sparrow performs in front of the Woolworth Walk on Halloween weekend in 2010.
I met Sparrow the weekend of the first MoogFest in downtown Asheville. Even on an average weekend, the city could be mistaken for a costume party that had somehow spilled out onto the streets, but add Halloween weekend and a major, national-level electronic music festival to the mix, and the experience began to border on the hallucinatory. Continue reading Sparrow performs “Walt’s Waltz”