Thou hast seen nothing yet

Tapping time-management skills and Don Quixote, Los Gatos Negros releases a record

With all that local musician Jeff Santiago has going on in his life, it’s a minor miracle that his new album, Rolling Towards the Moon, exists. On Saturday, April 12, the singer/guitarist and his indie rock band Los Gatos Negros celebrate that achievement with a record-release party at Asheville Music Hall.

Smart Bets: Dean Ween Group

Experimental rock band Ween formed in the mid-’80s and, after a remarkably long tenure, broke up weirdly and publicly in 2012. But all was not lost. The band’s founding members, Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo (aka Gene and Dean Ween, respectively) went on to pursue solo projects. These days, Dean Ween runs a charter boat […]

Jobs implosion: In Graham County, Stanley Furniture announces closure, layoffs

Buncombe County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in North Carolina’s 100 counties. But other parts of Western North Carolina aren’t faring as well. On April 3, Carolina Public Press reported this news about one of WNC’s poorest counties — Graham. For the full story, go to carolinapublicpress.org. Story by Gwen Albers Billy Davis […]

The fire within: Asheville Writers in the Schools hosts slam poetry competitio­n

“I was initially intimidated by slam,” says Kimbi Mullins, also known as Kimbi the Goddess. With a stage name like that — not to mention her magnetic stage presence — it’s hard to picture the Greenville, S.C., poet as anything but confident. “What it did,” she continues, “was bring out a fire in me and my writing through the true spirit of a poetry slam. This is the same advice I give to others who may fear it or be against it for whatever reasons: It allows you to tap into that fire within.”

Asheville City Council: Housing Trust Fund, ordinance adoptions and circus ban considerat­ion

On April 8, Asheville City Council members voted unanimously to pass a resolution to adopt a Housing Trust Fund recommendation to fund Biotat LLC’s Oak Hill Commons Project, as well as an ordinance adopting the new 2014-15 Fees and Charges Manual. Council also considered a request that city officials ban circuses that use exotic animals from […]

Herb party

The American Herbalist Guild may be celebrating its 25th anniversary with its Silver Jubilee event, but the nonprofit moved its headquarters to Asheville from Boston just over a year ago. The organization is a hub for educational resources for herb enthusiasts, from providing herb school listings to offering training webinars to promoting professionalism through a […]

Sound off

  Spoken word events around Asheville The Asheville spoken word scene, vibrant since its ’90s-era heyday, has continued to grow steadily over the years. Between several ongoing reading series, there’s now a network of vibrant, recurring events where a large rotating cast of local poets (from polished veterans to earnest students) strut their stuff and […]

All Souls gets grounded

Pig roast event supports Carolina Ground Flour Mill’s wheat-seed expansion project

Jennifer Lapidus, owner of Carolina Ground Flour Mill, was on a mission to find locally grown, soft white wheat seed to stone-grind at her mill. When she called Paul Murphy, professor of crop science at N.C. State University in Raleigh, she found what she was looking for. Murphy had in fact developed a soft white wheat seed, but he advised Lapidus that there was no market for it. “I told him we are the market,” says Lapidus.

Small loans, big impact? Commission­ers approve $50,000 for Mountain Bizworks microloans on party line vote

Buncombe commissioners voted along party lines April 1 to give Mountain Bizworks $50,000 toward a new microloan program that will help small local businesses get needed capital. The local business nonprofit will leverage the county funds to receive an additional $300,000 from the federal Small Business Association Microloan Program. “The funding will help local entrepreneurs […]

Versify

An ode to the poems and poets of the region

Western North Carolina’s connection to poetry may have crystallized during the 1990s, at the height of slam and spoken word poetry: The National Poetry Slam was held in Asheville in 1994, and the local team won that competition in ’95. The green door, a since-closed venue on Carolina Lane, was home to performers like Allan Wolf, Glenis Redmond, Christine Lassiter, James Navé and Laura Hope-Gill. The venue’s […]