Greetings from Niagara Falls, New York!

That’s it. I’m going to have to start my own postcard publishing company.
I threw these together for a photo class I’m taking…

Free Draft Beer

I found a handful of these in a pile of leaves and garbage outside of a boarded-up bar in the Falls. Thinking about holding onto it just in case they re-open. Just in case…

Guntown Mountain and the Slalom of Doom

Cave City, Kentucky is my favorite town on i-65 that boasts a life-size, road-side tyrannosaurus. Perched over the walls of the Appalachian interstate, the faded tan Jurassic giant earns Cave City the prestigious honor of being the only town on i-65 with a replicated reptile acting as rather unorthodox member of the highway patrol. Be that as it may, the watchful eye of the tyrannosaurs, a destitute dinosaur well in need of a paint job, is just one item on the kitsch-list that cites a peculiar kind of charm you’ll find only in Cave City.

I don't shoot photos while driving unless 20-foot-tall dinosaurs are around, I swear.

The name itself, Cave City, is kind of an overstatement. The U.S. Census Bureau cited a population of only 1,800 in the year 2000, and until four years ago, you couldn’t order liquor in any restaurant in town. At a 90 minute drive from Nashville (and even closer to the pseudo-civilized Bowling Green, Kentucky), Cave City is far from cut off from modernity, even taking into account the dinos and dry-spell. You won’t find any Applebees or Hard Rock Café in Cave City. For the small mountain town that depends on tourism, their number one industry, commerce depends less on the commercial than the curio.

Capitalizing on the introduction of the interstate, coupled with the National Park movement and the post-war revival of the great outdoors, Cave City quickly became a hit in the middle of the twentieth century. As the link that connected Nashville with the north, the small mountain town was a perfect pit-stop. With nothing but hills for miles, Cave City wasn’t as much a diamond in the rough but more of a stalactite in the cavern, as it were. Though the city didn’t offer much on the surface, the hype surrounding the commemoration of their subterranean cavern (which encompasses some of the longest cave system in the United States) in the 1950s as a National Park drew many people to the rural mountain town in hopes of taking in beautiful Kentuckian scenery and the prehistoric cave. As more people flocked, the town was epitomized as the genuine American tourist trap. While there was little augmentation to make to the natural majesty of Mammoth Cave and its underground labyrinth of limestone, the influx of curious travelers allowed a rather opportune moment for Cave City residents to capitalize on a proverbial gold mine.

Today, Mammoth Cave National Park in Cave City still receives a fair share of travelers: camp-happy families and budding geologists alike. It’s the tacky tourist spots though that lend a peculiar charm to Cave City.

Dinosaur World, nestled just off of exit 53, boasts over 150 life-like dinosaurs in a “realistic” setting just a quarter mile from the A & W, adjacent to Shell Diesel. At 12 dollars a pop, you can pose for a photo alongside a stegosaurus and still make it to Nashville before the last tour of the day at the Opry. Down the road, Guntown Mountain offers an “authentic re-creation of a wild west town from the days of the frontier,” according to their website. On my last visit, the parking lot resembled more of a deserted ghost town than 49er gold mine. Entry requires a five minute trip up a staggering ski-lift to the pinnacle of what I assume is the Guntown mountain itself. There’s a similar lift just down the street that, while lacking cowboys and bronco ropin’, does maintain a petting zoo on the premises, and, in what was perhaps the most terrifyingly unsafe tourist attracting I’ve ever seen, an unkempt, concrete track that meanders back down the bluff in what best defined as a horrifying slalom of doom.

Bourbon, whiskey, candy and crap. Only a small offering of what Cave City gift shops have to offer.

Some attractions, like Big Mike’s Mystery House, are indescribable. “You will sense things that will baffle your mind,” is the only information listed on the city’s tourism website. The attraction has been around since the 70s.

Around the corner, evidence exists of the few landmarks that couldn’t make the jump into the twenty-first century. Golgotha Bible Mini-Golf is now a mere relic of what it once was, and the wax museums that once dotted Mammoth Cave Rd are long since boarded up and gutted out.

A few attractions, like Wig Wam Village, have stood the test of time. The teepee-themed budget motel has allowed passersby to rest in air-conditioned, free-standing rooms, modeled after the Sioux reservations of South Dakota, for over 70 years. Maybe if Noah had built a longhouse you’d still be able to land a birdie on a par four. As they say, nothing lasts forever.

Fortunately for the residents and entrepreneurs of Cave City, that’s sometimes just not so. Human remains inside the cavernous walls of Mammoth Cave date back to 4,000 B.C. Clearly, this destination-spot, while not necessarily the Cancun of Kentucky, has been a big hit for quite some time.

Over the course of the last few years, I’ve managed to detour through Cave City every time I’m en route to Manchester, Tennessee. Nothing new has sprouted up since my initial excursion in 2006, and, in fact, the landmarks leftover seem to be deteriorating most rapidity. Even still, the shoddy gaud of yesteryear remains far from gone in most cases. Drawing a parallel between Cave City in actuality and the fading boomtown of Guntown Mountain seems almost too literal, and I hope is unfortunately not the case. A Cave City gone the way of the Wild West is something I wouldn’t care to see.

As long as Americans are cave-curious, and until flying cars eliminate the need for i-65, Cave City will seemingly always exist as a perfectly placed pit-stop in the hills of Kentucky. As tourism booms come and go, some landmarks, like Wig Wam Village, will most probably remain. As far as the odds of Guntown Mountain beating the recession, I don’t just darn tootin’ know. But for every Golgotha Mini-Golf the closes down, there will hopefully be a bumper-boat pond on the horizon.

The Generation Sack

Geoffrey Antsey at Artvoice name-dropped me in an article he put together last week about the on-going troubles we’re having with Generation. Go give it a read when you can.

Jane’s Addiction – June 10, 2009

Perry Farrell in Burgettstown, PA - 6/10/09 - click for full gallery - apblake.com

The last of four Jane’s shows during the month of June was a Wednesday night gig outside of Pittsburgh. Like the rest of the tour, it rained all night. Once the last chord of “Jane Says” finally faded out I hopped in the car and headed South. I had a 12-hour-drive ahead of me to make it to Bonnaroo.

Nine Inch Nails – June 7, 2009 – Jones Beach

Trent Reznor at Jones Beach, 6/7/09. Photo by apblake. Click for full gallery.

Click above for photos of Nine Inch Nails at Jones Beach, New York from this past June. This was the second of five NIN shows I caught in the span of ten days. Hearing “I’m Afraid of Americans” live while the sun was just coming down, feet from the ocean–it was all pretty nice. Check out the archives for the rest of the tour photos.

Lou Reed – Lollapalooza 2009

Lou Reed at Lollapalooza 2009 - apblake

We were nearly to Buckingham Fountain, the half-way marker at Chicago’s Grant Park, when the last “beyotch” reverberating all the way from Snoop Dogg’s set on the south-most stage finally dropped to an inaudible whimper and the iconic chorus of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” started drifting our way from the north. By the time we got to the stage, and around ten rows from the front, we managed to still catch a good forty minutes of Lou Reed sucking. Sucking hard. If anyone has license to do 20 minutes of noise, it has to be Reed, but by God, you would think he could pull it off, no? Sadly, not the case. “I’m Waiting for My Man” and “Walk on the Wild Side” couldn’t even help him.

Jane’s Addiction – August 9, 2009 – Lollapalooza

Perry Farrell on the closing night of Lollapalooza 2009 - apblake.com - click for full gallery

It is going to be a few days before I have everything up (I think it actually took me months after summer’s festival), but let’s start things off right with a few shots of Jane’s Addiction on the final night of this month’s Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois. The fifth Jane’s show of the summer for me and by far the best.

Setlist:

Up The Beach
Mountain Song
Ain’t No Right
Three Days
Whores
Been Caught Stealing
Then She Did…
Ocean Size
Ted, Just Admit It…
Summertime Rolls
Stop!
Jane Says

Shellac – August 10, 2009 – Chicago

Steve Albini of Shellac at Millenium Park, Chicago. Photo by Andrew Blake

After three days of braving the neverending mile-long jaunt between the main stages at Lollapalooza, we got to relax (if that’s possible) to a free outdoor show by Chicago legends Shellac on Monday night. After hour an hour of navigating through downtown for parking that wouldn’t break the bank (even with the cost of admission being zero, there is something sinister about $20 parking, no?) we managed to make our way to the ampitheatre at Millenium Park while the opener was still on and even landed some cushy stage-side seats.

Albini and company put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t know where to begin, but here is a nice review of the show by Greg Kot of the Tribune.

Lauren Ministero shared my camera for a handfull of shots so she receives co-credit for these.

NIN – 6/5/09 – Camden

NIN - 6/5/09 - Camden NJ

NIN – 6/5/09 – Camden, NJ