Fringe benefits

“Asheville Fringe Festival is an invaluable resource for performers and writers,” says playwright and actor Julian Vorus, whose full-length show The Bog will premiere at The Bebe Theater during Fringe 2014. The organizers, he notes, say, “Try anything: We’ll not only support you, but we’ll make a big deal about it. The Fringe Festival pushes […]

Smart Bets: Blu-Bop

“Bela [Fleck] was very supportive when I told him what we were planning and essentially gave it his blessing,” says Blu-Bop band leader and banjoist Hank Smith. “He said those were some of the best years of his life and he was happy that someone else wanted to take up the music and have as […]

Mountain Mobility can do more

I have never been to any of your cultural events, small restaurants, craft fairs, films, etc. You name it, I haven’t been there. Ditto for places and events in Asheville Citizen-Time’s The Scene, or anything in the Mountain Xpress’ Go Local Guide. I have lived in Asheville for just over a year. Unfortunately, I can […]

Smart Bets: Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt

Austin-based songwriters Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt’s poetic-yet-relatable lyrics and raw-but-sweet vocals are a match made in country-folk heaven. The Austin Chronicle calls Elkin “an earthy combination of strength and compassion … reminiscent of the winsome beauty created by a young Nanci Griffith,” while Schmidt is lauded as a “timeless troubadour in the tradition of […]

Doing the work

It didn’t work out that way, but the songs on Southeastern would have made for a fine acoustic album. Jason Isbell’s fourth effort since departing the Drive-By Truckers is all about raw and desperate emotions: loneliness, confusion, dejection. Intense feelings that would have contrasted powerfully with spare strums and an unadorned croon, a power apparent […]

Voice on transit

My name is Tyshaun Johnson. I am a senior at Asheville High School, an employee at Ingles market and a part of the youth staff of the amazing nonprofit organization known as Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!). In addition to these things, I am also among the numerous ART transit riders calling for a reform to […]

Smart Bets: Djangofest

Far be it from The Grey Eagle to let an important birthday go unnoticed. For the fifth year running, jazz fans will put on their party hats, lace up their dancing shoes and pay tribute to the musical genius that was Django Reinhardt. And because this is the birthday celebration for one of history’s greatest […]

One novel, two journeys

When Sarah Addison Allen sat down to write Lost Lake, her first novel in three years, she began with an image: Spanish moss. “I knew I wanted to go someplace swampy and wet,” Allen says, and so Lost Lake was born — a fading resort on the outskirts of a small Georgia town. For the […]

A legacy of local

Elaine and Harry Hamil will soon move away from the Black Mountain community that they have devoted their lives to nourishing. In their wake, they leave a ripe legacy of local food, including the Black Mountain Tailgate Market, an endeavor that flourished under the couple’s loving guidance, and their store, the Black Mountain Farmer’s Market, […]

‘Transport­ation with representa­tion’: Activists push for overhaul of Asheville transit s

A citizens' activist group, People's Voice for Transportation Equality, presented an agenda for an overhaul of the Asheville Transit System to make it more responsive to its riders at a rally Jan. 14. The group is calling for late-night and Sunday service, more representation in the decision-making process and more accountability, among other changes.

Smart Bets: RBTS WIN, Comet West and Bulgogi

RBTS WIN (pictured) is a chillwave, electronic and pop-influenced feast of synthesizers, beat machines, guitars and smooth-as-silk vocals. The two friends and musicians, Javi Bolea and Cliff Worsham, released full-length album Palm Sunday last July. The duo’s latest offering is an ethereal, swirling exploration of beats and melody with clear themes of love, spirit and […]

State of the arts

The term outsider art is most commonly used to describe visionary, untrained and self-taught artists. More specifically, those artists deeply rooted in a regional vernacular and operating “outside” of the world of art museums, criticism and arts education. So it may come as a surprise that an exhibition stocked with outsider works by the likes […]

Fika Files: Biltmore Coffee Traders

Blogger, minister and globe-trotting coffee aficionado Elizabeth Reynolds McGuire spends her downtime checking out local coffee shops and promoting the idea of fika, a Swedish custom of relaxing and savoring a cup o’ joe. Her regular series examines Asheville-area coffee culture one cup at a time. I first visited Biltmore Coffee Traders’ cozy red cottage […]

Big twang theory

What Kristian Bush remembers from playing The Grey Eagle 10 years ago was that the green room was so cold, his mandolin kept going out of tune. He’d started playing mandolin because there were two other guitarists in the band — a then little-known project called Sugarland. Bush’s Wednesday, Jan. 29, revisiting of that (now […]

Taste of Opera Winter Gala

Asheville Lyric Opera’s annual Taste of Opera Winter Gala happens Saturday, Jan. 25, at the Crowne Plaza Resort’s Exposition Center, beginning at 6 p.m. “The audience will be presented with great appetizer and wine offerings,” says General and Artistic Director David Starkey. “They’ll have reserved seats at tables of eight surrounding the stage.” Volunteer Mark […]