While the band name of one of Asheville’s best-kept secrets touts the group’s jazz leanings, Vertigo Jazz Project is not just a frenetic platform for show-off musicianship or tired standards. Instead, the band’s songs are built around the members knowing when not to play, and the sonic space created in those moments. At a recent […]
Edgy Mama: Are you ready to have a baby?
For those of you who are hoping for a baby, thinking about it, or even, possibly on the journey, here’s a quiz to help you figure out how ready you really are (non-breeders can go ahead and start laughing gleefully).
Friday afternoon music news
Lucinda Williams changes venues, Rodrigo Y Gabriela cancels, Buckerettes change dates, and Cake is announced as Loki Festival headliner.
Pat & Alli’s Weekly Winners
Each week Xpress reporter Alli Marshall and WOXL DJ Pat Ryan team up to bring you their entertainment suggestions.
Book Report: September roundup
Autumn is almost here (four more days to be exact)—the perfect time to break out pithy novels, lengthy biographies and meandering memoirs. Something about cooler days and longer evenings makes reading that much more attractive. Looking for a good book? The next several weeks bring a wealth of literary events sure to inspire readers (and writers, too).
Brewville, U.S.A.
Hordes of beer lovers will gather this Saturday, clamoring for cold brews and hot bluegrass at the 12th annual Great Smokies Craft Brewers Brewgrass Festival. Happy tastings: Brewgrass attendee gets in the swing of the festival. Photo by Anne Fitten Glenn If you have a ticket, good work: For the fourth year in a row, […]
Fast track, youthful optimism
“To this day, I’m still not sure why I’m doing what I’m doing,” admits Rob Teter, singer/songwriter and guitarist for the Austin, Texas-based roots-fusion collective The Belleville Outfit. Generation Why Not? Young, talented and motivated, The Belleville Outfit parlayed one good gig into a career. What Teter and the other five members of his band […]
Blizzard of one
When Betty Holden first met future poet laureate Mark Strand some fifty years ago, he was tending bar for a party at a Yale professor’s home. Photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders “He was very delightful to talk to,” says Holden, a poet herself and a longtime advocate and benefactor of WNC’s arts community. Holden and Strand […]
Image maker
One gets the distinct impression that Gabriel Shaffer enjoys the path of visual exploration so much that he hates to quit working on each piece of art. Shaffer finished six of the show’s 18 canvases days before the show opened. Pictured here is the show’s poster: From left to right, With Nine Knights, sold; Bless […]
Woodcuts, serigraphs, photo etchings, oh my
The word “print” could be one of the most confusing art terms. And with the advent of digital processes, the question of what constitutes an authentic print threatens to become even more muddled. “Perfection Salad:” A serigraph from Melissa Harshman. The Southern Graphics Council’s Traveling Print Exhibition, currently on display at Warren Wilson College’s Holden […]
Byrne and Eno bring it all together again
Brian Eno: Founding member of ‘70s glam-rock band Roxy Music. Wearing chainmail and feather boas, he could be seen tweaking knobs and swatting synths before knob-tweaking was cool. Says he’s not a musician, and he doesn’t write lyrics. Well, how did I get here? David Byrne finds his way to Asheville. Photo by Danny Clinch […]
SoundTrack: Local CD roundup
(from Echo Mountain’s oasis of high-end equipment to home setups powered by Garage Band) cutting tracks and polishing their sound. Xpress checked out four recent releases. • Brian McGee & the Hollow Speed On this superb debut, Brian McGee seamlessly blends the attitude and angst he honed as front man of the punk rock trio, […]
Edgy Mama: I need a new baby
You see, once my maternal instinct turned on — once my hormones conspired to convince me that my primary role in life is “mother” — I haven’t been able to rid my subconscious of that conviction.
Pat & Alli’s Weekly Winners
Each week Xpress reporter Alli Marshall and WOXL DJ Pat Ryan team up to bring you their entertainment suggestions.
Book Report: Matrimony
Joshua Henkin, a writing teacher at Sarah Lawrence College, presents a local reading of his second book, Matrimony. The novel follows the lives of college sweethearts Julian and Mia over the course of 15 years.
From bubble gum cards to survivor stories
In 1986, a big deal was made about a graphic novel featuring mice. The story was titled Maus and the book and its author, Art Spiegelman, were about to break out of the underground comics world they had previously inhabited. “Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!”: A new edition of Spiegelman’s 1978 anthology, […]
Sunshine and darkness
In the 1960s and 1970s, groups like The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers explored the common ground between rock and country. Their best work in this hybrid genre showed that pedal-steel guitars and country-based song structures could find a home with rock audiences. Don’t be fooled: “The lyrics are pretty dark, but candy-coated by […]
Sea change
The music of Xavier Rudd—full of pulsing didgeridoos and happy-hippie ditties like “Better People” and “Let Me Be”—has long been aligned with all things sunshine-y and beach-y. Not that the Australian multi-instrumentalist and pro surfer is penning new millennium versions of “Surfin’ Safari”: His reggae grooves have always underscored messages of humanity and environmentalism. Still, […]
The Berman conversion
A few years back, circumstances suggested that the Silver Jews’ David Berman take a deeper look at the second half of his band’s moniker, chosen in 1992 mostly out of a contrarian impulse. But delving into Judaism was no celebrity-gets-bored-explores-Kabalah whim for Berman. A daily truce with his darkest inclinations: Silver Jews’ David Berman comes […]
Let it begin with me
After reading an e-mail from her nephew stationed in Iraq, Kathy Meyers decided that she needed to do something in Asheville to combat her feelings of helplessness and take a stand for peace. At Pritchard Park: From left to right, Katherine Abbott, Erin Braasch, Jenni Cockrell Oldham and Kathy Meyers. Photo Courtesy Moving Women “Despite […]
SoundTrack
Though the first soulful strains of world-music quintet Ba Man Bia are recognizably passionate and raw, their instruments—other then the upright bass plucked by Trevor Stoia—are a far cry from the guitars and drum kits of typical bands. But Ba Man Bia, formed in January of this year, is anything but typical. The group, a […]