Many artists have been inspired by the bleak sterility of the modern hospital, with its conflicting roles as place of healing and prison—among them Dalton Trumbo, Ken Kesey, Lars von Trier and Susanna Kaysen (perhaps better known as the author of Girl, Interrupted). In 2001, local guitarist and singer Jason Smith added his name to […]

There is a constant rumble at one end of the French Broad River Park from the endless jumble of traffic crossing the bridge over the river into West Asheville. Evidently, the noise was not enough to drown out Wayne Kirby’s pointed message coming from the eight small speakers spread across a small wooden bridge on […]

It’s not exactly a news flash: The “reason for the season” isn’t about fundraising for major credit-card companies. But, as local author James Cox points out in his satire The Christmas Curmudgeon: A Christmas Story for Guys (Infinity Publishing, 2007), plenty of people spend the holidays racking up massive debt, working themselves into a stupor, […]

For those who sleep in on Saturdays, Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, National Public Radio’s weekly news quiz show, keeps an appropriate tempo. Wiseacres such as Paula Poundstone and Mo Rocca riff on current events while host Peter Sagal walks contestants through three-question rounds of quizzes, with the prize being the voice of Carl […]

“My whole life, I’ve been kind of an outsider because of this dual citizenship,” says Jimmie Griffith, front man of Boone-based bossa nova-influenced trio, Banana Da Terra. Easy listening: This Boone-based trio makes groovy Latin music for the masses. Just imagine: As the child of a Brazilian mother and an American father, the musician grew […]

It’s the plight of the local musician: always wanting a chance to show their talents to a hometown audience, yet always being relegated to bar scene. It’s the out-of-town bands that tend to get the spotlight and the best slots at the biggest clubs. And in a scene where where you’ve played can mean nearly […]

Imagine a theater company that’s thrown its script out the window: Ensemble members hear a story for the first time and act on impulse to create a show right before your eyes. For most companies, this kind of challenge would result in chaos. But the Asheville Playback Theatre welcomes it. Stories seldom told: Asheville Playback […]

Almost 30 years into her career, Deborah Harry had a choice to make when recording her latest album, Necessary Evil (Eleven Seven Music): Go the safe route and record songs that sounded like the hits from her heyday with her band Blondie, or do something less familiar. Heart of glass, career of steel: Deborah Harry […]