Follow Me to Pie Land: Andrew Holmes

Join Andrew Holmes for the talk ‘Follow Me to Pie Land’, as he discusses his current exhibition ROAD WORK. The show brings together 16 large-scale prints from a series of 1,000 polaroid photographs that he took in 1980s Los Angeles. The song Stack o' Bricks, performed by Holmes’ band Alabama Chrome, will be heard in recorded form for the first time. 

‘I don’t like to be lectured. I like to be told stories and to listen to songs. I like Texas country, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Townes Van Zandt, Ray Wylie Hubbard. I like repetition.’
– Andrew Holmes

‘Can you play an E ninth chord?’
‘Yes, of course’, came the reply.
‘But can you play an E ninth chord all night?’
– Extract from an interview by James Brown and guitar player Jimmy Nolen.

David Greene says Andrew Holmes is a monk, but a monk in a car. He is assembling his equivalent of The Canterbury Tales. He is doing it in the form of images and messages. The messages are song lyrics, themselves the equivalents of Polaroids, brief snatches of glimpsed graphics on the sides of trailers, advertising on the car radio, the voice giving directions on Google maps, announcements over the PA and overheard conversations in truck stops.

Take the 405, Follow me to Pie Land,
Ripon, take the five, Travel Stop Colony Road,
Take the shade, Get out damn slowly,
Put on straw Stetson, no breeze, ninety degrees,
South West Motor Freight, Tri State Motor Transit,
Refrigerated, World Wide Moving Arrowhead,
Any comments please call, Young Blood Truck Lines Scheduled,
Great Dane Bama Pies, Wanted Moving Systems.
– Extract from Stack o’ Bricks 
by Alabama Chrome.