LAAFF street style
Photos from the Xpress photo booth at this years’ Lexington Ave. Arts & Fun Festival. Brooke & Ryan Juggler with The Runaway Circus & the Loose Caboose Kim & Nathanael Sam & Aja
Something for a rainy day: Questions for a Trinumeral ticket giveaway ***update: Tickets won!***
Win a pair of tix for the massive Trinumeral music and arts festival this weekend at Deerfields, featuring a huge lineup of world music, electronic artists and much more!
C’mon and LAAFF with us one more time
Did we immortalize you in photos or video at the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival? Check here.
This weekend on a shoestring
Electronica and indie pop to country-punk and good ol’ soul. Stick to downtown Asheville or head for the Mountain State Fair — either way you can dance your booty off without coughing up more than five bucks.
“When I heard the banjo, bingo”: Steve Martin trades comedy for clawhammer
Steve Martin (yes, the comedian) comes to Brevard’s Mountain Song Festival, touring his album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo.
The midway escape
All the details • Friday, Sept. 11. Free admission until 6 p.m. for students grades K-12. noon Grand opening ceremonies — Entrance C 6:30 p.m. Hands on workshop: Children's soap carving by W.N.C. Woodcarvers (Expo building) 6 p.m. District junior feeder calf show (Livestock Sales Arena) 7 p.m. House Autry Mills "Make it quick and […]
World beat to breakbeat
This year's Trinumeral Music & Arts Festival boasts a heady lineup: World beat trio Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer headline, along with experimental jazz collective Sun Ra Arkestra, "new funk" act The New Mastersounds and Asheville's own rock/Afro-beat quintet Toubab Krewe. But, before you start comparing Trinumeral's extensive long-weekend lineup to that of […]
Cleared for takeoff
"It's a big world out there," says Harrison Stafford, the vocalist/guitarist of roots-reggae outfit Groundation. Stafford should know: Already this year the nine-member group has toured South America and Europe and headlined Tel Aviv's Open Air Festival in July. But it's not all jet-set vacation for Stafford and company. "We call ourselves road warriors," he […]
Just the right amount of raunchy
In the name of comedy, there isn't a subject that's off-limits for Margaret Cho. Her stand-up routines plow over sensitive topics like race and sexuality, G-spots and drugs, with just the right amount of raunchiness. She also does a hilarious impersonation of her mother and her ode to being a fag hag brings me to […]
Breaking into Mountain Song
Think "bluegrass festival," and immediately the images appear: Rowdy cloggers, fiery fiddlers, hoedowns and hootenannies. That's all good, but the Mountain Song Festival — now in its fourth year at Brevard Music Center's Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium, puts a refined twist on all the pickin' and grinnin.' Sharing the stage: The Steep Canyon Rangers have been gigging […]
Spork: Come celebrate Asheville FM
It started with a group of dedicated volunteers with a massive amount of radio skills, talent and tech savvy betwixt them. Add to that a generous lease of studio space from the owners of Izzy's coffeeshop in West Asheville. Mix with a heaping of organizational know-how and an eager willingness to collaborate with radio folks […]
Enter-Surprises doorway
Walnut Street
Edgy Mama: BPA in bottles is bad, bad, bad
Here we go again. We’ve cleaned out the “bad” plastics from the cupboard. We’ve taught our kids not to use plastics or plastic wrap in the microwave. We’ve replaced sippy cups and plastic water bottles with metal drinking bottles. But wait. Those metal drinking bottles that have been marketed as eco-friendly and non-harmful? Not safe, either.
Pritchard Park
Kip Veno of Rubber Cushions. Photo by Jon Elliston.
Book Report: A Fortunate Age
Joanna Smith Rakoff’s debut novel the sort of book that presents characters who feel like friends and who the reader will sorely miss after the final chapter.
This weekend on a shoestring
This weekend is somewhat of a free festival sandwich. You’ve got Apple Fest beginning Friday, LAAFF rounding out Sunday and in between… bluegrass, punk rock, a house party, a couple CD releases and some excellent singer/songwriters playing for tips.
LAAFFing all the way to the weird
Speaking of fun, the best way to get into the spirit of LAAFF is to come in costume. Yeah, Asheville is pretty open to all manner of dress. Jeans and flip-flops are de rigeur, dresses are paired with boots, dudes wear skirts, wings and horns are perfectly acceptable accessories. Even so, why pass up a […]
Meet the freaks
Here's one for the annals: The first-ever Freaks of Asheville calendar, set to debut at LAAFF this year. Photographer Michael Traister (Sock Monkey Dreams, Faces of Izzy's), known for his stunning portraiture, turns his deft lens to some of our town's "cultural creatives," creating portraits of some local eclectic personalities. Sister Bad Habit, aka LaZoom […]
Blue Rags revival
Three years since their last performance together and 10 years since the release of their much celebrated album, Eat at Joe's, local legends The Blue Rags are reuniting this weekend to revive their trademark brand of 'rag 'n' roll' with a pair of shows at the Grey Eagle and the LAAFF festival. "We want to […]