In a city as musically diverse as Asheville, it’s easy to be picky about what bands and musical genres you pay to see. Seldom does a concertgoer find a crowd as diverse as the one that came out to The Orange Peel for Youtube-sensation-turned-touring act Scott Bradlee and Post-Modern Jukebox.
Brevard native and best-selling YA novelist Megan Shepherd, the author of the Victorian Gothic Madman’s Daughter series, recently announced that she had sold The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, a middle-grade fantasy in the vein of The Secret Garden. The book had sold at auction, meaning that editors at several publishing houses bid for the chance to take it on.
Organizers say Mountain Sports Festival is a come-one-come-all event and that attitude is echoed in the multitude of nonsports attractions — in addition to extensive athletic programming — for participants and spectators of all backgrounds.
The group’s debut album, Dead End Road, will be released during a celebratory performance, complete with special-edition pint glasses and koozies up for grabs at Pisgah Brewing Co.
After years of recording music and playing with roots band Red June, Natalya Zoe Weinstein and her husband, guitarist John Cloyd Miller, are “excited to present some of our favorite original and traditional duets that we have been playing together for years.”
For years, the standard burlesque picture has been a fully clothed man in a suit surrounded by women who are nearly nude. But as the industry evolves and new voices take charge, that image is now in flux.
When a mysterious sickness surfaces and sea horses begin to disappear, a colorful crew of aquatic fauna must band together to identify and tackle the problem. It’s not the newest PBS Kids series; it’s the latest production from Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre.
In some respects, the sound recalls the musician’s early records as Portastatic, his longtime side-project away from Superchunk. That outfit saw him experimenting with four-track home recordings that made ample use of keyboards and drum machines.
The self-guided, art-themed block party takes visitors on a 15-location stroll and features the paintings, sketches, ceramics, wood crafts, tiles, sculptures, clothing, jewelry and other works of two dozen makers.
That production incorporates projected visuals, live music and vocal impressions. He takes content from a variety of disparate sources and reprocesses it through his own sensibility, creating something new and unique, yet oddly familiar in the process.
At his best, Scott embellishes simple, dissonant guitar parts with spacey effects that leave the ears squinting for answers. His more melodic songs are at once disturbing and attractive, chaotic and elegant.
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger is an indie-psyche-rock outfit fronted by Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl. The GOASTT was also the opening act for Beck at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium last summer.
“Throwing money at it to stop it does not seem to be working, but instead, why not offer rewards for anyone that can provide a picture of anyone doing graffiti?”
The three-day festival, which runs Friday-Sunday, May 22-24, is named for the town’s signature bushy-tailed critters. It fills downtown Brevard with food vendors, crafts booths, a Memorial Day parade and wreath presentation, kids activities and a street-wide stage for lots of live music.
Singer-songwriter Drew Holcomb had a recent tour stop at The Orange Peel with his band, The Neighbors. Ahead of the show, he performed two songs exclusively for Mountain Xpress and Acoustic Asheville.
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features local designer Rich O’Keefe’s artistic t-shirt company, activist Jennifer MacDonald’s gift baskets for Syrian refugees and a masterfully mixed album for Brevard hip hop artist Joe Trufant.
The story follows a car named Sangria that is stolen for fun by a group of teens. But even though some of the film’s characters surmise the car will be found, stripped and up on blocks somewhere, what actually happens is wholly unexpected.
How to Talk to Rockstars follows main character and music journalist Bryn Thompson as she attempts to navigate the rocker-writer symbiosis (or antibiosis at times).