Smilefest 2006

Smilefest 2006

“A jaw harp chipped my tooth,” my friend said to an older lady who was playing the jaw harp.  The lady explained how the jaw harp was easy and safe to play but she quickly contradicted herself by telling us about the time she played the jaw harp so much that it cut her lips and she bled all over it.  Smilefest performances are great but the people you meet are better.  
I arrived around 8 p.m. on Friday night in Lake Toxaway in the middle of nowhere (which is Brevard, NC), many miles southwest of Asheville.  Ten minutes from the festival there was a DWI checkpoint and we passed way too many police for a small town.  As great as Smilefest was, I cannot get over the over abundant amount of security.  Sheriffs dressed in black hid in the rhododendron waiting for hippy-looking kids to get high.  I heard one could tell the undercover police from the regulars by looking at their feet, if they are clean they might be narks, but don’t quote me on that.  Of course, security is necessary; as soon as I arrived at Smilefest there was a lady whaling about her stolen duffel bag.  I also heard that some guy fell off a waterfall and hurt himself badly and the waterfall had to be secured.  
    Sam Bush took the stage late on Friday.  He covered two Bob Marley songs and a Bob Dylan tune called “When You Gonna Wake Up”.  Sam Bush had the crowd rocking.  My friend thinks Sam Bush is novel for starting the genre of New Grass (before Bela Fleck hit the scene) but he also thought Sam Bush was a conceited prick for not drinking a beer with him.  Someone else mentioned that Bush is a recovering alcoholic, so maybe he is not so much a conceited prick but rather trying to keep his life together.  
    Parents can bring their kids to this fest, it is age appropriate.  But please don’t be that wasted and trashed jackass I saw out with his little boy in a stroller at 1a.m.
    Some Christians gave us free grilled cheeses.  These Christians were great; they didn’t try to shove any religion down our throat, just grilled cheeses with garlic powder.  
    On Saturday morning we checked out Sugar and Spice, a band that starred Caroline Pond of the late and now deceased Snake Oil Medicine Show.  Pond reminds me of Betty Boop but with more duration in her vocals, and she can play a wicked fiddle style.  They played a tribute to Desmond Decker(1), one of the founders of ska who just passed away.  
    Later, I heard Jeff Coffin’s Mu’tet.  Jeff Coffin is the sax player for Bela Fleck.  This Mu’tet has major talent.  Futureman played drums and the bassist was funky and could easily pull off a five minute solo while keeping the rhythm.  Coffin played intensely with finesse.  He was jumping around and he made playing a funky sax look fun, but I could see it took incredible throat muscle and a hell-of-a lot of talent.  He is the best saxophone player I have heard live.  
    I had seen the Avett Brothers play at Floydfest in 2005 and I thought they were unique and decent.  The set they played at Smilefest however, was remarkable.  Take the energy and attitude of punk and thrash rock, the sincerity of Bob Dylan or Kurt Cobain, and the down-to-earth lyrics of country music and you have the Avett Brothers.  I bought their new album “Four Thieves Gone” and while it’s a good album, this is a band you have to see live to fully appreciate.  
    At 11 p.m. the Everyone Orchestra performed.  This was audience participation taken to a whole new altitude.  A man directed a group of about 12 to 15 musicians on stage and he wrote directions on a magic-board for the audience to follow.  Normally, I despise it when people demand for audience participation, because it seems like bands would not have to ask for involvement if the musicians are doing their job right. However, this time the audience was making the music with the musicians; it was an inventive and clever twist on an old technique.
    On Sunday, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge performed.  Mike Shmick played mandolin and he sounds like he is close to the same level as Chris Thile of Nickle Creek.  Larry Keel has a strong gut voice of his own unique timbre.  Keel can make his acoustic sound like a tornado of notes from his quick bursts of energy.  His gestures compliment his enthusiasm and he strikes me as authentically insane.  
    Afromotive hails from Asheville and is a ten piece band with a full horn section and a driving, upbeat rhythm that people had to dance to.  These guys are funky and sound like Antibalas Afrobeat, but Antibalas has been together for 8 years and Afromotive has only been together for about one.  Considering the time frame, Afromotive has made a huge leap in the world of Afrobeat(2) Funk.  
    Keller Williams didn’t play his usual set of loops - running from one instrument to another in his one-man-band fashion.  Instead he played with Larry Keel and many others for a more eclectic set.  Keller’s soft, easy-going voice matched well with Keel’s strong, deep, edgy tone vocals.
    At this point I said goodbye to my friends and went to my car to leave.  My brother called me and told me my Granny was in the hospital and basically brain-dead and on her way to those pearly white gates.  So this article is dedicated to Frances Penny Davison; a modern day Mother Theresa.  She is the reason I am confident and she helped make me the man I am today.   So all y’all go home and kiss your mothers and embrace your lovers.

Best known for his hit ‘Israelites’, which was banned from being played during the Gulf War.   Desmond Decker was actually the guy Paul McCartney was singing about in “Ob La Di Ob La Da” and Rancid mentions him in “Roots the Radicals”.
Afrobeat – A style derived from Yoruba, jazz, funk and African beats.  The music is energetic, repetitive, improvisational and often political and controversial in its message.  The genre was started by Fela Kuti who had 28 wives and had frequent assassination attempts in Nigeria in the 1960s.  
 
Photos and Review by Kent Kessinger
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