18.08.2012 – 18.08.2012  29 °C

We got going a bit later this morning because I was keen to have a look in Macy’s which just happened to be next door. We turned up just before 9 expecting to wait about ten minutes or so and then I could jump in get what I wanted and get out. Great plan, but one flaw, the shop doesn’t open til 10. I decided I wasn’t that desperate so we kept going but did do a detour down town to see what downtown Roanoke is like.

Roanoke is another cutsey old town that has really sprawled out over the years. The suburbs are pretty standard affairs but the downtown area is still largely preserved with old gorgeous buildings. Roanoke is also a Coke town (there’s a big factory here in town). There are literally hundreds of Coke ads in the town. The ads actually don’t in anyway detract from the town. I found it actually quite refreshing to see that the big employer in town was spending so much money on the town to keep up the preservation. I was chatting to one shopkeeper and she said that Coke pours money into the town. Anytime there is some sort of community project, Coke will heavily sponsor the project. I’ll be straight up and say that I’ve never seen this sort of active community involvement by a big multinational anywhere else anywhere in the world.. If only BHP would spend some of its massive profits on some of these sort of projects in AU….

Ok off my hobby horse and back to the blog.. Our trip today actually wasn’t that far, just Roanoke to Galax Va. It might not have been far, but it was pretty special for D. Today we followed the Crooked Road, which is famous because it is the Blue Grass trail. So we kicked up our heels and headed out for a day full of banjos, fiddles, double bases and giii-taaars to hear the local tunes! After a few false starts we finally found the right road to get us to the heart of Hillbilly music in Virginia. Our first stop was in the town of Floyd where we stopped for morning tea. It’s a little town nestled in the hills. It’s a bit of old corn piping Virginia meets new age hippies, an interesting mix! We grabbed ourselves an undrinkable cup of coffee from a hippy style establishment (coffee was the bitterest coffee I’ve ever tasted) and wandered around til we found ourselves a spot to eat it. Our spot was actually the amphitheatre for the town, where every summer weekend the town puts on free Blue Grass concerts. Sadly, we are too early today to hear the concert but it was a nice shady place to have some morning tea. Straight after our break I headed into this old store (you know, the old counter style shop?) to just soak up the Hillbilly-ness. It was chocked with everything that’s tacky about Blue Grass but it also makes its own icecream and lollies so it can’t be all bad! It is also one of the shops in town that has a weekly concert. Everything in the shop is pushed against the walls and the whole store is turned into a big hall. The great Blue Grass acts all come to play at this venue. Unfortunately, the show occurs on a Friday night and today being a Saturday…

We chatted to the shop keeper and he recommended we go and try up at the Blue Ridge music centre up on the parkway as they always have a show on the weekend. We had planned on stopping in so we headed up to the parkway to try and find us some music. Sadly, the Blue Ridge music centre also did not live up to expectations (the main concert was being held tonight at 7pm) but it did have a small act playing so we did get to hear some banjo action! It also had a small exhibit show casing the story of Blue Grass music.  The roots of the music are a mixture of African American and European and are all based around the use of a fiddle. This area of America was in many ways geographical isolated for quite a long time and the music therefore was sort of petrified until the advent of mass communication. As country music took off the style of music started to change, but here in Va the style didn’t modernise but stayed truer to the traditions of the regions music, today, making it slightly distinctive to straight up country. (To me, it feels like the main difference is the banjo… but I’m definitely no expert!)

Our last stop of the day was back off the parkway down at Galax Va. We stopped into this other music town and found out that there was a “picking” contest occurring not too far away so we headed out to Fries (yep that’s the name of the town) to hear the “small Fries” (pretty lame huh?) playing Blue Grass. We caught the end of their competition and some of them are really good. I was pretty impressed with one little band.. the kids were all teenagers and they were pretty damn good!

I was feeling slightly out of my depth here at the picking contest. I’ll describe my surrounds to give you an idea why.. The picking contest (pronounced pickin’) occurred in the local show ground. Stage is set up in front of us, we are sitting on hard metal benches up in the stands. Behind the stage is caravan central (or should I say trailer central), many of which are sporting differing flags. Next to trailer central is a small line of shops, tacky shirts and a shop sporting all of your confederate battle flag requirements.. My neighbour is a tattoo clad, bald guy (with discoloured teeth) who is chain smoking and chatting to his girl (short shorts, big boots, small top with her boobs hanging out, cigarette dangling from red rouged lips) about ceelll phones with the strongest southern accent imaginable. Stetson hats, short shorts and cowboy boots are all the rage amongst the girls and the boys are wearing not much (shirt wise), shorts and thongs. Think Kempsey Rodeo and you’re pretty close to the kind of crowd here at the Fries Pickin’ Contest.

For all of its “rural-ness” it was actually a pretty good afternoon out. The music, although not my usual cup of tea, was pretty hypnotic and the surrounds was something straight out of a Dukes of Hazard show.. Can you get any more Red Neck America than this? I just wish I had a video camera so that I could have captured some of the images and sounds of the Pickin’ Contest better!

We ended our day by having one of our now infamous BBQ’s motel style on the porch of our daggy, but well priced, Mumbai run country motels. Aahh… you’ve gotta love the American countryside.

Song of the Day– Steve Earle, Copperhead Road