The librarian and her guitar

Like most local musicians, Angela Faye Martin has a day job. In her case, it’s at a library—which, upon listening to Martin’s music, seems an obvious fit. Authors and literary allusions pop in and out of her songs, which are often played and sung with a certain hush that simultaneously suggests an uncommon intimacy and […]

Collecting art on a budget

The holiday season is an interesting one for art galleries. Many of the commercial spaces in the area see it as a last chance to make enough cash to get them through the winter, when there are few visitors and fewer buyers. This can lead to an exhibition of a conglomeration of items that are […]

Hat trick

“There was not any one point where I had an epiphany and decided to [form] a jazz swing band,” insists Christa DeCicco, the voice of Knoxville, Tenn.-based Christabel and the Jons. Instead, she says, the group’s sound evolved over the two years the band has been together. Vintage vantage: Christabel and the Jons blend retro […]

Return to MTN CTY

Once upon a time, Fisher Meehan was Asheville’s great hope: a barefoot, scraggly-faced rocker with a gravelly voice on the verge of nationalizing a local community of musicians centered around the tiny basement dive off Lexington Avenue known as Vincent’s Ear. Holiday homecoming: Fisher Meehan returns to Asheville to perform at the Twin 22 Christmas […]

Edgy Mama: Kids giveth and kids taketh away

My book club, along with every other book club in America, recently read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. When we discussed the story, one of my book-club buddies noted Gilbert’s courage in venturing off on a yearlong spiritual search for self. But, she added, for those of us with kids, that amount of time and space for self is fricking impossible (OK, she didn’t say “fricking” — I did).