This weekend on a shoestring

Thursday, Sept. 30

• BoBo Gallery (22 Lexington Ave, 254-3426) hosts Carol Cleveland Sings, the pop-friendly, indie-electro solo project of the Spinto Band’s Thomas Hughes. The band’s Myspace is currently void of any music, but it does offer this charming description. “Carol Cleveland Sings is a newlywed musical group full of hope and positivity.” If you like what you hear, dig out your old Walkman because the band is offering a tour-only cassette. ROAR opens.

• Portland’s The Quick and Easy Boys is “an amalgamation of funk, psychedelic rock and garage-soul with a slight pinch of honky-tonk,” says the band’s website. “Imagine the Minutemen, Funkadelic and Willie Nelson rolled into one.” Intrigued? The band takes the stage at The Boiler Room (11 Grove St., Asheville, 505-1612) at 10 p.m. $5.

Friday, Oct. 1

• Don’t miss your chance to take in all that Asheville’s downtown galleries have to offer. This is the last Asheville Art Walk until December, and you’ll probably be less apt to rove the streets of downtown in the frigid cold. Guides are available at any participating gallery, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce or Pack Place. 5-8 p.m. Free.

• If you’re feeling harmonious The Land of the Sky Chorus performs “popular music in the ‘barbershop’ style — four-part consonant a cappella harmonies featuring dominant seventh chords” at the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Stage of Pack Square. Confused? Not to worry. “If you don’t know what any of that means, just know that the thrill of harmonizing cutting-edge barbershop arrangements simply defies description — sing them and feel it!” urges the group’s website. 7-8:30 p.m. Donations accepted to benefit the Skip Hotchkiss Fund, which provides support to music education in local schools.

• Drone Valley Music and Art Festival kicks off with $5 shows at The Boiler Room (11 Grove St., Asheville, 505-1612) and West Asheville’s The Get Down (1045 Haywood Road, 505-8388). The two-day festival will showcase local and regional rock talent alongside performance and visual art.

• Due to recent competition with Mela Indian Restaurant‘s new Friday salsa-dance, the Xpress recently reported that Salseros 828 is waiving the usual $10 cover charge for their long-standing salsa-dance at Eleven on Grove (11 Grove Street, 505-1612), presenting the perfect opportunity to get your dance on and get your budget on. Born with two left feet? Admission includes an introductory salsa lesson at 11 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 2

• Take in the beauty of a misty mountain morning in Pisgah National Forest with The Cradle of Forestry in America‘s Forest Festival Day and Intercollegiate Woodsman’s Meet. “More than 50 traditional craftsmen, exhibitors and entertainers gather at the Cradle of Forestry to celebrate our forests and forest heritage,” reads the event’s website. Activities at the family-friendly event will include demonstrations in open-hearth cooking, weaving, whittling, basket making and live music. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. $6 adults, $3 youth. For more info call 877-3130.

• In celebration of national Banned Books Week, Spellbound Children’s Bookshop (19 Wall Street, 232-2228) hosts a Banned Books Read-A-Thon. Says the website, “Local celebs, including local artists, government officials, media personalities, educators, and other community leaders will celebrate our freedom to read by reading out loud from children’s books that, according to the American Library Association, are among the most frequently challenged.” Donations will be accepted to benefit the Asheville City Schools Foundation. 12-5 p.m.

• Asheville transplant Chelsea Lynn La Bate takes a break from work on her forthcoming release, Picking Through the Pawn Shop, to share her haunting acoustic folk with the French Broad Chocolate Lounge (10 South Lexington Avenue, 252-4181). “Her ghostly ballads combine an intricate finger picking style with a warbling voice that captivates and stuns,” reads La Bate’s bio. “Inspired by the works of Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Billie Holiday, Rickie Lee Jones, and Nick Drake, Chelsea Lynn has been prolific in her writing, and has composed and recorded dozens of songs since picking up the guitar in 2003.”

• If you couldn’t make it to free Friday salsa, don’t hang up your dancing shoes just yet. Ghost Mountain Rhythm and Blues gets the Root Bar (1410 Tunnel Road, 299-7597) hopping with classic R&B covers and “original mountain mambo.” According to the band, “Ghost Mountain is an imaginary musical centerpoint in a triangle between New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, Chicago and the Piedmont. The group plays rhythm and blues you want to dance to, the feel-good music of the roadhouses and the chitlin circuit, and also the uptown jive and jazz changes that polish up the form. But make no mistake, this is the blues, no matter how you dress it up.” 9:30 p.m. $5.