Culture Watch

Metabolism Productions Becomes Enigmatic

Upstart local theater group Metabolism Productions announced themselves with a roar last summer, presenting Dizzy, a collection of one-act plays by (then) local playwrights Jaye Bartell, Chall Gray, David Hopes and Devin Walsh. The group has spent much of the last year prepping for their upcoming season, but not without a few hiccups along the way. They’ve lost founding member Devin Walsh, and they’ve had to change their name to avoid confusion with UNCA-based arts magazine Metabolism (to which they were once connected). The newly redubbed Enigmatic Theatre Company is still sorting out what it wants to be. Last year, the group announced an open call for one-act and full-length plays, and they’ve spent the winter wading through the submissions for something that fits their style. Thus far, they’ve announced nothing. In fact, their only confirmed performance is a series of one-act plays by female writers that “will feature double-crossing secretaries, crazed housewives, naive rednecks, and murderous mother-in-laws.” Even that production remains mysteriously free of a name or performance date. Still, the group is worth keeping tabs on, and if you’re interested in finding out more, it couldn’t hurt to drop organizer Chall Gray a note at challgray@yahoo.com

AshevilleRock: Arise from your grave!

Four years ago, the Asheville hard/heavy-rock scene was having an identity crisis. Many of its seemingly stable bands (such as Estedy and MiniVoid) had either imploded from internal drama or simply fizzled out. And yet, well after the deaths of these bands, there seemed no shortage of people who still wanted to talk about them. Hence, the wonderfully misunderstood message board AshevilleRock.com. Founded by Sean Stevens of the now-defunct emo-laden rock group A Kiss Before Dying in 2003 as an alternative to the surprisingly active MiniVoid message boards (which had somehow, perhaps through the power of sheer scene-drama, survived the death of the band), AshevilleRock.com had an all-too-brief moment in the sun as a place for people to get serious about the local rock scene. And, since people do tend to take their music rather seriously in this town, it was only a matter of months before the high-minded discussions devolved into a highly entertaining maelstrom of in-fighting, character sniping and all-around scene-based ego-dueling. (Sure, there were plenty of intelligent people having meaningful discussions, but they tended to get lost among the howling morons.) The recent surge in notable local hard-rock acts—like Secret Lives of the Freemasons and Sanctity—appears to have inspired the relaunch. New features include an easier-to-navigate message board and, as inadvisable as it may seem, a local-music wiki. (In case you’re a bit behind the times, a wiki is an online resource that allows users to edit content collectively. Great in theory, but often terrible in execution.) Still, as far as local music Web sites worth keeping an eye on, AshevilleRock.com boasts the best odds to be entertaining, if not actually informative.