Photo by Cameron Ingalls
The Smoking Flowers
November 10, 2013
Northside Tavern
4163 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati, OH
$10 presale at Shake it Records or http://www.cincyticket.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=
$13 day of show
doors at 8pm, show at 9pm
Plato wrote “Rhythm and harmony find their way in the inward places of the soul.” The music of the soul should be steeped in a fiery, firmly held love, and the classic mingling of singing souls like Johnny and June Carter, Ike and Tina, and X’s John and Exene have become the voice of love for generations of music fans. Now add to the canon Nashville, Tennessee’s The Smoking Flowers, led by vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Kim and Scott Collins, married 14 years, who are just as red-hot soulful and sweet as those legendary duos. This duo simply has a musical and relational love as strong as aged rare bourbon.
Tales of the road have it that when Kim and Scott are touring as a duo, they pull-up in their Volvo wagon stuffed full of gear, and crowds are amazed by all the instruments they pull out of the vehicle for the show. Kim dances between accordion, acoustic guitar, drums (full kit), mandolin, harmonica on “White Flags”, lots of banging shimmering tambourine and her own sensual, simmering country-soul vocals. On the album and live, Scott plays acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, and delivers his vocals with the voice of a feisty, gin-battered, heart-on-sleeve, hardscrabble troubadour.
The story behind the cover of the bands latest album ‘2 Guns’ is as wild as everything else about the band’s history. It’s a real ghost town on Route 66. It exemplifies the gritty wanderlust of Kim and Scott. “We love to get in the car and just drive with no plan, and one time we rented a convertible and headed out on Route 66 into Arizona on a spontaneous trip. The cover of our album was a photo I took from the hood of our convertible, when we found the original dirt road of 66. It was deserted and surreal.” Kim says. “When we saw the ghost town of ‘2 Guns’ I had to stop to take photos and we ended up having quite a Quentin Tarantino-type experience! There was a man squatting in a Winnebago and a true hermit with a beard to his waist squatting in a nearby abandoned barn. They were the only two people in this ghost town. They told us stories of all the history of the land, how it had been cursed between the Navajos and the Apaches, involving lost gold. It made Tombstone look like Disneyland! We were invited inside the Winnebago to view a knife collection. That was a little scary, but ultimately they were beautiful characters, we actually didn’t want to leave.” Several of the songs on 2 Guns tell tale of this Western adventure. While other songs paint a picture of the other big adventure in their life… the adventure of a couple that lives together, writes together, plays together and simply loves life together.
