Live Music w/ Tellico & Pirates Canoe

Firmly planted in Asheville NC’s thriving roots music scene, Tellico is well schooled in bluegrass but with an unbridled organic “Appalachiacana” sound, combining some of the finest voices, songs and instrumental prowess in western North Carolina and beyond. Anya and Stig’s committed, authentic vocals are alloyed with Aaron’s flowing and soaring dobro and Jed’s textured and expressive mandolin, rooted in the mountain music they grew up with while pushing tradition into a modern Americana sound aesthetic.
Storytelling is at the helm of Tellico’s music. All of the songs on Relics and Roses were penned by Hinkle and Stiglets with the exception “White Line-River of Pride,” a Neil Young and Crazy Horse medley of two dirty electric rock tunes buttoned up bluegrass-style. The leading track, “Backstep Blues” [Hinkle] has a “backstep”, a rhythmic hiccup that is typical of old time music, telling the story of a man’s successive retreat from his wife (with the refrain “hey where did your daddy go wrong?”), leaving her with the “backstep blues.” “Calamity”, written by Stiglets, is a tale of disaster sparked by a combination of Hurricane Katrina and Japan’s 2011 tsunami, and the destructive and terrifying images of those events.

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Kicking off the show will be Pirate’s Canoe “Even the hippest of SXSW hipsters probably haven’t heard of Pirates Canoe, but with a sound that’s Alison Krauss-meets-Ry Cooder-meets Alan Toussaint, they’re the skinny jeans from Japan that are destined to be fashionable stateside soon. The sometimes trio, other times sextet, mixes a dollop of Irish folk with a helping of fiddle, mandolin, guitar and percussion that beautifully complement — but never overwhelm — the singers’ ethereal harmonies. Though based in Japan, the members met in a very Americana way; the story of Pirates Canoe’s inception involves a bar, a violin case and a few adult beverages. That’s not to say that the band has completely shucked its Asian roots for Nashville though. Consider “Gull Flying North,” an uptempo mandolin romp that has just enough delicate tones to bring the Far East to mind.” – Rolling Stone Magazine