Arizona Shines with Glowing Bird
Asheville band to perform free concert at ASU Student Union Tuesday

By Jeff Eason

For the past few years something interesting has been happening with the music scene of North Carolina. While it has long been a bastion of bluegrass, Americana and neo-swing bands, a new clutch of power pop groups have emerged, many of them gaining national attention in the process.

The Asheville indie-rock band Arizona (originally from Brooklyn, go figure) is, along with Velvet, The Annuals and The Rosebuds, one of those North Carolina pop acts that defies genre categorization.

Arizona will perform a free show at Crossroads Coffee House in the Plemmons Student Union at Appalachian State University on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. The show is open to students and the general public alike.

Arizona’s first show in Boone comes on the heels of a nationwide tour to promote the band’s second album, Glowing Bird. With crunchy guitars, shimmering keyboards, and gorgeous harmony vocals, Glowing Bird is poised to make Arizona the next big band from North Carolina. Songs from the album have been featured on magazine compilation CDs from Paste and Relix, and the album is being played on alternative and college radio stations across the country.

“We first got together as a studio band to record the songs for the first album, but we’ve evolved into a touring and live band,” said guitarist, singer and songwriter Nick Campbell. “The songs on Glowing Bird seem to have two lives: the one when we created them in the studio and the second when we present them live to an audience.”

Joining Campbell in Arizona is guitarist and vocalist Ben Wigler, bassist and vocalist Alex Hornbake and drummer and vocalist James DeDakis.

For the creation of the band’s latest album, the four musicians moved into a rural farmhouse outside of Asheville. There they found inspiration in their beautiful natural surroundings as well as in Asheville’s intrinsic bohemian funkiness. The songs themselves are a bewildering collection of stories about balloon salesmen, ghosts, eels and mythical beings.

Campbell wrote the song “Balloon” based on his experiences working in a balloon factory in Brooklyn and a co-worker named Myron.

“He was the oldest salesman at the balloon company,” said Campbell. “He worked there for decades.” The song’s soaring French horns and warm string section “evoke the youthful spirit of Myron and balloons.”

Said the Internet site My Old Kentucky Blog, “Arizona is for those who enjoy musical twists and turns, texture (and) sweet harmonies.” And the reviewer for I Guess I’m Floating wrote, “Arizona has a sound that recalls some pretty fine Beatles-esque instrumentation and Modest Mouse style freak-outs, paired with great vocals and a light dusting of a Decemberists-like alt-folk-country twitterpation.”

Glowing Bird is the third release from Asheville-based Echo Mountain Records, a label that also features Tyler Ramsey and Malcolm Holcombe.

For more information on Tuesday’s free concert featuring Arizona, call the Plemmons Student Union at (828) 262-3030.