The Band - specifically Music from Big Pink and their eponymous second album. Tends to be seasonal- every time summer rolls around, I need one of those two albums in my car. But to a greater degree-Talking Heads. Started listening to my dad's cassette of Remain in Light when I was eleven or twelve, and since then I keep coming back to some iteration of Talking Heads every year or so. On top of that, Remain in Light keeps on resurfacing and teaching me something new and fantastic about how to listen to/make music. Minimalism, maximalism, West African-styled guitar patterns, screeching abstract guitar solos, hooky refrains, chanted group vocals, hypnotic circular themes, sharp lyrics, Brian Eno- that album's got it all. And more generally, you can listen to Talking Heads (and to some extent Byrne's more recent stuff) and find new music to listen to in their trail of influences, their contemporaries, and the people that they in turn influenced. Talking Heads (in conjunction with Paul Simon) got me into that aforementioned West African guitar work. Their earlier stuff got me into Television and the CBGB punk movement. Byrne and Eno got me into more experimental sampled stuff through "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts." Tangentially, Tom Tom Club is a great way to get back into the birth of hip hop in the early '80s, and a fantastic way to keep in mind how closely hip hop and rock (more specifically indie/DIY rock) feed off of and inspire one another. So yeah, Talking Heads and all of their offspring. Cannot walk away from that.
That's right, sorry I had forgotten that. I'm not in Asheville too often but my in-laws live in a small town called Waynesville near Maggie Valley which is pretty close. Asheville is a great town, I can see the appeal.
Yeah, the trick is finding a place out east (which is where my wife's family is centered) that feels like a place out west (where I grew up and where my heart is). Out of all the places we've looked, Asheville just fits the bill. Although we do have some friends in the Raleigh-Durham area who swear by it. I hear NC in general is just a great place to live.