Culture Watch

New Album, Dead Band

When last we heard from badly named local band Autumn Rising, they were in the process of putting together their first studio demo. The Christian-oriented group released Starting Over (an ironic name for a band that’s been around a whopping total of 2 years) in late 2006, and then immediately announced that they’d be “on hiatus” for the foreseeable future. Further blog posts indicate that this time off saw several members permanently relocate out of the area—one as far as Phoenix, Ariz.—which would pretty much spell out the end of any band. Surprisingly, AR has bucked the odds. In spite of being thousands of miles from one another, the group managed to finish recording on their full-length album earlier this month. They’re soliciting pre-orders for the yet-to-be-titled album through their Web site and MySpace page. According to their MySpace blog, the band has no plans to reunite after the album’s release. For more information, visit www.AutumnRising.com

What Price Glo-Art?

You know, it’s hard to put a price on great art. Oh, wait … maybe it’s not. Asheville Art Museum recently spent a lot of money—at least $16,000—on Plants The Glow in the Dark, Tra-La, a painting by Roger Brown. The noted painter, usually placed in the Chicago Imagism movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, often worked high-art themes into folk-art-inspired paintings. The AAM raised the cash for the painting from private donators and a grant from the Chaddick Foundation. But what’s so special about Plants? It turns out that with the lights turned down low, the painting’s plants do actually glow in the dark. Trippy.

Asheville: The Movie Finally Gives An Update

It’s been almost a year since any official news was released about the long-awaited and already over-hyped locally produced film Asheville: The Movie. Just when it seemed that everybody else in local filmmaking had left one-name director Chusy in the dust—Moon Europa is getting ready to debut, Golden Blade III hits screens this week, and Buried Pictures is already in pre-production on their third feature—the team behind the picture that’s supposed to sum up our fair city finally gets around to giving us some info. According to the film’s recently reworked Web site, Asheville is finished except for the sound editing. And, to the filmmakers’ credit, they seem well aware of the town’s growing impatience for a finished product. From their site: “A quick answer to the question ‘What’s taking you so long?’ Wait until you see the film.”