Locate your picnic basket, air out your tent and dust off your lawn chair. Oh, and while you're at it, better ready your favorite tie-dye/sundress/pair of moccasins/straw cowboy hat/bottle of SPF 45, because it's that time again: Festival season. And WNC is the place to be if you're into festivals. A rich local music scene, […]

There's no question that Teen Dream — the third effort from Baltimore keyboard/guitar duo Beach House — is the mark of a new era for the band. But don't call it a definitive album. They're just getting started. Life's a beach: "Imaginative is where we are and have always been," says Beach House's Victoria Legrand. […]

Working counter to the popular theory that each and every appearance must be doggedly promoted to make a name in the local music community, Asheville's Boys of Summer have been quietly but steadily building a dedicated following over the last couple of years. "We rarely make fliers," says lead songwriter Cale LeFevre, "When we play […]

A group of eight art students are at work with hushed intensity brainstorming ideas for papier-mâché sculptures. Ms. Violet confidentially renders a multitude of pigs, while Judy Jones draws a very imperial-looking bear. Their colleague, Nancy, is drawing birds and a horse for Hannah Montana — her favorite celebrity at the moment. Photo by Jonathan […]

It's time to get your poetry on again — because Asheville's Wordfest wants to bring poetry to the people, all of us, rather than leaving verse in a dusty college closet where it's only accessible to a few. Their slogan is "poetry changes things": Renowned translator Coleman Barks reads at BoBo Gallery last year (top). […]

The tag line for Project Green Runway, organized by local high-school student Ariel Betancourt, was "Saving the Earth One Fashionista at a Time." Fashions sent down the catwalk at Tressa's Downtown Jazz and Blues for the Wednesday, April 21, event were repurposed, recycled and upcycled works of local designers and boutiques. And funds raised from […]

Despite the rain, the inaugural All Go West festival was carried off in style. Held behind the Rocket Club and in front of Harvest Records in West Asheville, the new festival presented a stellar (and strictly local) lineup including The If You Wannas, Do It To Julia, Kovacs & the Polar Bear, Uncle Mountain, RBTS […]