Walking from midtown (the nickname I've tried and failed to give the land between Merrimon and Broadway, but it never catches) to downtown has gotten a lot different over the years. Used to be, you'd walk past punk/art houses and under the blandy I-240 overpass into what was really just prime hobo territory. Now you've […]

Even though craft is integral to both the heritage and economy of WNC, it wasn't too long ago that “craft sale” smacked a little too much of church basement bazaars, spray-painted pine cones and crocheted tissue box covers. At the “debutante ball for Asheville craftisans”: More than 3,000 people came to the last Big Crafty, […]

Cary Fridley was steeped in music as a child, studied music in graduate school, worked as a music teacher and played professionally in bands for more than a decade. But when it came to writing her first album of original songs, she did things the old-fashioned way: She sang to herself in the shower. Naturally […]

“For two guys who aren't siblings, we really mesh very well. I'm really big on two-part harmonies,” says Peter Holsapple, talking about the new record he's made with longtime musical collaborator Chris Stamey. Best known as the acclaimed songwriters of the dB's, the two have returned some 18 years later with a new album, hERE […]

Three new CDs by three very different bands (country-rock, Southern Gothic, jam-rock) prove (as if there was every any question) that the Asheville music scene remains as eclectic as ever. Joshua Singleton's self-titled CD Recorded at Asheville's Landslide Studio as well as studios in Jackson and Franklin, Tenn., singer/songwriter Joshua Singleton's self-titled disc has a […]