Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 40

W8 MONDAY. DECEMBER 8, 2003 ASHEV1I.LE (CITIZEN-TIMES BUSINESS PROFILE Orange Peel gives area music scene a juicy twist Oh a "Our mission here in Asheville is to make Asheville a music center. And when Asheville is a music center, then everyone is going to do well." Lesley Groetsch, co-owner of the Orange Peel Social Aid and -Pleasure Club, on working with other music clubs and festivals in the area. I J) By Paul Clark STAFF WRITER ASHEVILLE Jamie McCIendon couldn't believe the Flaming Lips were coming to the Orange PeeL One of the country's best rock bands was making its only North Carolina appearance at the Asheville club, and McCIendon drove several hours from Graham to see the show with friends in ApriL The Orange Peel is my new favorite club," he said. "A person could assume that any midsize act of indie-rock nature will normally play Chapel HilL and only on occasionally branch out to Winston-Salem or Greensboro.

With the presence of the Orange Peel, another wealth of possibilities now exists." The Orange Peel Social Aid and Pleasure Club recently celebrated its first-year anniversary, and though it's had to make significant changes in the way it operates, it's doing better than expected, co-owner Lesley Groetsch said. "We've had positive cash flow," she said. "We don't expect to make much money in coming years, because it's such an expensive endeavor to renovate a building and put all the equipment ia" Investors, primarily Public Interest Projects have $2 "million invested in the building renovations and sound and lighting equipment, said Pat Whalen, president of Public Interest, a for-profit investment company that the late philanthropist Julian Price set up to better Asheville. Public Interest Projects is the investor in the limited liability company, and Lesley Groetsch and her husband, Jack, are the managers of both the club and the LLC. Public Interest is also involved with Zambra and Salsa restaurants, as well as the old Asheville Hotel building and Carolina Apartments, among other investments.

Whalen said the Orange Peel's gate receipts are 30 percent higher than the LLC's projections for the first year. The Orange Peel fills and improves upon the "big venue" niche that former clubs Be Here Now and the Asheville Music Zone provided. Orange Peel gets the large, big-name national traveling acts such as Guy Clark and Bruce Cockburn. Places like Vincent's Ear, a coffeehouse on North Lexington Avenue, get national acts as welL But those bands are likely to be traveling in vans instead of tour buses. "They (the Orange Peel) pretty much redefined the circuit (for) a lot of the bands," Rick Morris, daytime manager at Vincent's Ear, said.

"The fact that King Crimson kicked off their tour at the Orange Peel is pretty impressive. "Many bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor! and the Buzzcocks (both of which the Sam Roberts photossTAFF photographer The Thanksgiving Homecoming Jam attracted large crowds something the Orange Peel has been doing throughout its first year of business. IIIAf Or The Orange Peel Social Aid and Pleasure Club has: 5 full-time employees About 30 part-time employees $2 million in its building and sound and lighting equipment A Web site: www.theorangepeel.net 1 visual arts and theater production, which we've done." The club's second year should see a wider variety of shows, she said. There will be more dance, theater and visual arts. Last June and July weren't great months for the club, so this summer, the Orange Peel will likely be doing more with outdoor festivals and events, which did well attendance-wise, she said.

The Orange Peel fills a historic gap in Western North Carolina's music culture, Jay Gragg said. Gragg, 36, lived in Boone from 1985 through 1993, and the big shows were in the Triangle area, which sometimes meant a long drive through foul mountain weather. "Western North Carolina was a wasteland, as far as we were concerned," he said. Now, he's in Shelby. "I'm only one hour away from seeing Wilco, the Flaming Lips, The Cramps, Jonathan Richman," he said.

"I've been to more shows (at the Orange Peel) this past yearthan I have in the previous four years, and it's high-quality bands that I get to see. I plan my social life around their calendar. "I've missed as many shows as I wanted to see just because it was too much. That's a great problem to have." Contact Clark at 232-5854 or Orange Peel hosted) have always gone around this area. It pleases me no end that they are here." It used to be that club owners did their own booking.

But with competition from media and music giants Clear Channel and House of Blues clubs like the Orange Peel have to rely on the logistic and buying power of regional promoters such as AC Entertainment. AC Entertainment of Knoxville, which books many of the acts that appear at the Asheville Civic Center and Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, also offers up most of the shows that come to the Orange Peel. The club does its own promotion. "For a long time, we really had a problem," Ashley Capps, president of AC Entertainment, said, "in that, the capacity for a lot of clubs (in Asheville) was 500 or less, and the next venue we could go to was 2,300 seats, which is Thomas Wolfe. We found ourselves taking shows into Thomas Wolfe that really didn't belong there yet.

The Orange Peel offers artists that midrange point." Having the Orange Peel "allows us to take a few more risks with the booking," Capps said. "The new electronica acts like Prefuse 73 and Kid Koala, this is the type of show you would typically see only in a bigger city. Godspeed You Black they sold out the Orange Peel in advance. That would have been unimaginable before." Asheville has what it needs to support this kind of club, people in the local music industry noted. It has so many good musicians that many play for free.

It has an appreciative and growing base of fans. It has a variety of venues such as Green Eggs and Jam, Asheville Community Resource Center, Emerald Lounge and Stella Blue that gives bands places to launch, mature and move up to the Orange Peel and Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall. "We knew from the start it woulJ take at least a full year to understand the economic and music cycles of Asheville," Lesley Groetsch said. "We said from the beginning we wanted to be a community center, wanted to be a place where people from all walks of life would feel welcome. We wanted to integrate other art forms, like the Larry and Jenny Keel open the Thanksgiving Homecoming Jam with Acoustic Syndicate at the Orange Peel.

Concert-goers swarm the bar for something cool to drink..