01.23
What does The Happy Gigster’s Guide To Late Night Check-Ins have to say? Yep! You’ll get a crap room. This is the second room of my already short residence at our second hotel since arriving somewhere-near Knoxville about an hour ago.
We made good time from Chatanooga to a Courtyard Marriot on the other side of the freeway, on an industrial park for modest accommodations. Our reservations for two nights had been misinterpreted, our rooms were not booked and there was no room at the inn. I would not have believed that every room in a Courtyard Marriot, on an industrial park next to a freeway near Knoxville, would be sold; were it not for the completely full parking lot. But we were happy to leave – this was not a place to spend two nights – and went in search of a hotel with unbooked-but-available rooms.
Our first try was accommodation so modest that it had no internet access, although it was next door to a Starbucks. We arrived here on the second try, a short walk from the Starbucks, and with a night manager who set new standards for eccentricity at check-in, whatever the time of day or night. He was also a smoker and smoke hung in the lobby from his puffing in the office.
My first room was right by the freeway. The appalling view I might handle, by closing my eyes and putting a pillow over my head, but the level of ongoing noise would have kept me awake all night. So, here in the second room and directly opposite John and Biff, I am a happy boy.
Bathroom…
Look top left…
Right now, I’m not sure I need my reality refreshed; and quite sure I need a clean and quiet room for the night.
11.34 Morning View…
The Starbucks is over there, behind the larger building on the left…
… and where I set off for morning reading and vanilla soy latte. Noise Cancellators were necessary to deal with both in-house Noise Pollution Unit and customers.
Returning from Elgar and Elgar, I note that the Mirror Men of Chapel Hill have been working in Knoxville too (cf this diary for February 21st. 2006)…
… bringing with them the electrical side of their company. Perhaps none of them own a spirit level. Alternatively, one: their sense of vertical and horizontal planes are somewhat subjective. Alternatively, two: they don’t have any care whatsoever for their work, nor for the repercussions that flow from it. Like, every time I go into the bathroom I am in the presence of absence.
Currently, a sunny day.
19.32 The Orange Peel, Asheville.
We set off at lunchtime from Knoxville-ish for Asheville…
If one page won’t work, why not try three?…
Boring postcard or what? This is our hotel…
… and a nearby Best Buy! But we don’t have time to go in for the CSI Las Vegas Fifth Season box set…
A 2.5 hour drive through the smoky mountains and we have arrived at the back door…
… of the Orange Peel, where KC played on February 28th. 2003.…
While Biff and John were setting up, I strolled the town. Up the hill I…
II...
III...
A rare find: a living general store: I…
II...
III...
The centre of Asheville has been almost completely removed and largely replaced by two buildings: a bank and Merrill Lynch. This is the best view of what’s left and opposite the two bland horrors…
How could anyone remove the heart of a town and replace it with two slabs of concrete and glass, utterly devoid of any noticeable character? Who would perpetrate such an act of cultural and social vandalism? Well, one name that springs to mind is Merrill Lynch.
I had lunch in a restaurant that looked towards Merrill Lynch’s slab. A young male busker was singing a Bob Dylan classic, with a tin for tips. The best tip I might have offered was tune your guitar. But life is hard enough already and unsolicited advice usually best kept mute, particularly where the recipient of such is prepared to sing over an accompaniment that almost qualifies as an altered tuning.
Returning to the venue, All Quarters’ Maintainer Hell Boy Tom was parked behind the Eddie, on his cellphone. Tom is a significant addition to our on-the-road Team.
22.46 John tells me that the venue is used as a church on Sundays. Venue I…
"The audience is mother to the music."
