A Slice of the Good Life: A Trip to The Orange Peel Social Aid and Pleasure Club in Asheville

by Raleigh Cody

for Advanced Composition, ETSU, Spring 2011

Raleigh Cody is an undeclared freshman at ETSU and has lived in and around the Johnson City area since 2001. Asheville, North Carolina, however, was his first home and is only sixty or so miles from Johnson City. Coming from a family of avid music lovers, The Orange Peel S0cial Aid and Pleasure Club in downtown Asheville has never been a foreign idea to him and has in fact become one of his places to be.

*****

An experience every true music fan longs for is seeing their favorite band live at the best venue they can without bankrupting themselves. From personal experience, The Orange Peel, at 101 Biltmore Avenue downtown Asheville is the best music venue within about an hour's drive. With a calendar of events filled by acts of varying genres, The Orange Peel has something to offer for every music lover. I have seen four shows total at this venue, and each has been worth every cent. Back in December of 2009, I saw Pelican at the Orange Peel, then MuteMath during MoogFest Halloween 2010. As of the end of March and beginning of April this year, I have witnessed The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group accompanied by Cedric Bixler-Zavala (the singer from an associated project, the Mars Volta) and The Easy Star All Stars Reggae Dub band debuting their newest album, Dubber Side of the Moon. These four experiences at the "Social Aid and Pleasure Club" have almost put all other live music shows I have seen to shame.

The Feel of the Peel

The Peel is hard to miss on Biltmore Avenue with a sign on the side sporting the full name of the club and a list of upcoming shows and another large, colorful, arrow shaped sign, out front. This arrow points to a small alcove where you will find the ticket booth, entrance, and exit. Once you're through the line and door, the Peel's security crew, Krewe, will check ID's and apply X's to your hands accordingly. Now across the threshold, you move to forward and then down the small hallway to your right; on either sides of this hall are the bathrooms and at the end is what appears to be another wall and a fork in the road. To your right lies the a bar with drinks and merchandise for whatever band you are there to see, in addition to some Peel merch that is always available. The left holds a larger bar and a seating area in the back left corner where band members have access to the stage.

Now, no matter which way you went, you have made it to the large standing area and the stage seems to stand right in front of you. This stage is around four to five feet off of the ground and only divided from the standing area by another three to five feet. Being this close to a band provides a highly personal experience because no matter where you are in this room or how full it is, you can always see the performers.

Hanging above this stage to the back of it are two large rigs lined with lights. These lights include bright white, blue, red, green, yellow, and of course, Orange. There are two of each of these large lights and at the sides of these racks, there is one small light that can cycle through a number of other colors in the rainbow. Hanging high at the front of the stage are non-colored lights that illuminate the performers and a few of these lights are turned towards the audience. All of these lights are used together to create an atmosphere for each song and evolve as the song progresses. At the Easy Star All-Stars show, these lights made the perfect Rasta environment with only the red, yellow, and green shimmering down on the band and out into the audience. During songs where the band asked for crowd participation, the lighting crew shined the stage lights facing the crowd when they would call out their response, making the entire audience feel involved in the performance.

The Peel's Sound

One of the most notable things about this club is the sound mixing and engineering. A major problem with some venues is inadequate and poor mixing. Many bands try to compensate for this by having their own equipment and playing as loud as they can, which can be painful and damaging to listeners’ ears. An example of a venue that falls prey to this is The Hideaway, a local venue in downtown Johnson City that hosts both local and larger rock acts from around Tennessee and up and down the east coast. This venue can be fun and a bargain most of the time, but most bands play too loud in there and leave your ears ringing for days following the show.

At the Orange Peel, however, this is never an issue. They have sets of grounded and suspended speaker stacks at the opposite edges of the stage that create a wall of sound that that you can feel from the floor to your chest but don't leave you with ringing ears. Each aspect of the performance is clearly audible and the overall mixing is spot-on. In 2010, I saw MuteMath here. This band has a sophisticated sound on their recordings that I thought couldn't be recreated in a live setting. The night of the show, however, debunked these preconceptions. I was standing up as close to the front as I could and to the right of the stage. This put me directly in front of the speakers for the right side. At any other place, I may have gone deaf, but here I was able to hear every little improvisation each of the artists in this band included. The mixing of each element was superb and it was as if the recordings were set free.

How Much?

Show prices at The Orange Peel are based on the notoriety of the group performing. The prices can be varying from two to eight dollars for local events and anywhere from around fifteen to forty bucks for headlining events. Surprisingly enough, many nationally recognized bands come through this venue. March and April's calendar of events really summed how many different shows work in that venue. On Wednesday March 23rd, Queens of the Stone Age, a band that has been on radio charts for years, played a sold out show at thirty dollars per person containing their entire first album and some of their hits. Then the following Saturday, The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group and Omar's brother's group, Zechs Marquise, put on a show for twenty dollars a head. I was at this show and it brought a variety of people there to see it; the collective audience included families with young teenagers, hardcore fans, and Orange Peel goers just there for another good show. I had never even heard the band for myself but my expectations were met and exceeded by both of the bands that played.

*****

According to Rolling Stone Magazine, the Orange Peel is in the top five American music venues. It has attained this status because of its environment, the quality of the show, and the bargain you are getting for the experience. The live music scene in Johnson City hardly has anything that compares to the Orange Peel and more people in this area should take advantage of this place because of its proximity. With a lineup that is always expanding and evolving, why not check out what shows are coming up and pick one to go and see? With the show you get for the price you pay, why not make affordable live music one of your hobbies?