Serving up a heaping helping of theater: A scene from the Raleigh Ensemble Players’ Killer Joe, one of 29 shows to play as part of the Stoneleaf Theatre Festival. “The western part of [North Carolina] is really a center of gravity for theater in the state,” claims Terry Milner, executive director of the NC Theatre […]

Stoneleaf: A Festival of North Carolina Theatre happens in Asheville venues Friday, May 27 through Sunday, June 5 and includes comedy, drama, musicals, improvisation and children’s theater presented by more than 20 of the state’s theater companies. Friday, May 27 2 p.m.: The Quest — YMI Cultural Center 4 p.m.: The Witch & the Magic […]

Of all the things Theatre of a Thousand Juliets’ latest production has going for it — and there are many –location (as in location, location) hits really close to the top of the list. Set in the River District’s Wedge Gallery, there’s the perfect Dark Angel-cold, industrial ambience. The play begins when the gallery’s garage […]

“I’ve written over fifty books. … None of them has ever given me the problems of this book,” admitted Robert Conley in the afterword to his latest work, Cherokee Medicine Man: The Life and Work of a Modern Day Healer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005). “Some people have said … that it’s because this book […]

Akron, Ohio-based rockers the Black Keys are either the most unlikely act to ever sell out a concert hall, or the most genuine rock stars to grace a Rolling Stone. Not the cover, mind you. But the magazine did peg the underdog duo’s 2002 debut The Big Come Up (Alive) as “a righteous choice for […]

photo by Chuck Green In all airness: Becoming a “successful” air guitarist is harder than it sounds. Admit it, you’ve gotten all Risky Business in your skivvies and sung into your hairbrush/polished off an amazing drum solo on the dashboard/strummed an imaginary set of strings in the vicinity of your groin. You probably used to […]

“I was learning to play my bass sideways to accommodate my prenatal curvature,” writes rocker Lisa MaeRae Hinzman in her memoir “My Rock and Roll Pregnancy.” The story — and other adventures by moms and mothers-to-be — appears in Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts (Soft Skull, 2004). Editors Bee Lavender and Maia Rossini […]

Athens, Ga. is roughly the size of Asheville, and they managed R.E.M. — so when will Asheville produce an indie-flavored band with such explosive potential? (After all, the once-rigid barrier separating Top-40 pop and its po-mo counterpart is subtly coming apart, a point proven this week by the Shins’ two-night engagement at the Orange Peel […]

“The closest I’ve come in recent times to expeditions into the wilderness are day hikes off the Blue Ridge Parkway or hours of stealth on the herony banks of Beaver Lake, a ten-minute walk from my front door,” says local author David Brendan Hopes in his latest book, Bird Songs of the Mesozoic: A Day […]

On a sunny spring day in West Asheville, eight musicians are busting out of the garage where they’ve been practicing for the last six months. Not busting because of their sheer numbers — I’m talking about wailing solos, fierce grooves and a funkified dreamscape of sound. They play saxophone, French horn, guitar, bass, keys, wood […]

External play: Informal jams are as much a part of Shindig on the Green as the singers and dancers who perform on stage. Construction at City/County Plaza this summer may threaten this portion of the decades-old event. “There’s a reason why Asheville is a center of mountain music,” reveals historian and Grammy-winning musician David Holt. […]

Asked what future plans he has, Sandip Burman simply replies, “Nothing but playing the tabla.” And, for once in the course of our phone interview, I’m sure he’s not joking. “For the last 10 years I didn’t have a booking agent. No father-uncle, no big brother helping me for my back,” he says in accented […]

“When the official notice came out, the phone was ringing off the hook — it was crazy,” exclaims Cullowhee-based writer Kathryn Stripling Byer. The longtime Western North Carolina resident calls herself a “stay-at-home person,” but all that’s about to change: Byer has just been named North Carolina’s Poet Laureate. Nice work if you can get […]

“My husband had this, but if you’re like me, everybody gives you their war stories, so I’ll save you mine,” a waitress tells the often cantankerous Prate Marshbanks in Tommy Hays’ new novel, The Pleasure Was Mine (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). The waitress adds, “I will say this — it wasn’t all bad.” Which is […]

I have this idea for a female-action-figures line. It includes such high-power babes as Betsey Johnson (with changeable floral body suits), Mother Teresa (her habit would second as a cape) and German heroine Lola from Run Lola Run. Not to harp on the need for positive female role models, but Barbie is hardly an action […]

In a 1997 interview with Goldmine magazine, aspiring cowboy and folk aficionado Ramblin’ Jack Elliot recalled his mentor Woody Guthrie this way: “I picked up a lot of good things from him and one or two bad habits.” These days, a lot of musicians are picking up good things from Guthrie — namely his songs. […]

For most of us, the finer points of litigation only grow interesting in human form. Or so says Australian author John Bailey, who recently told Xpress by e-mail, “If the injustice of the law is brought home to an individual case, then it becomes interesting and vital. “I saw myself as writing not so much […]

Georgi 2005, by Ben Betsalel The oversized heads on the walls at Ananda take over even that vast space. Rising Asheville artist Benjamin Betsalel, known for his murals, titles his exhibit Dynamic Lines Within Us. Just so: The works are spontaneous, alive with energy — the paint is swathed onto the paper with a fearless, […]

Country singer Sherri Lynn Clark, an Asheville native, has built up a following slowly but surely over the course of more than 20 years. Country and bluegrass performer Sherri Lynn Clark tells a story about how her dad used to take her along when he played the Grand Ole Opry. When Clark, a toddler, fell […]

[PLEASE NOTE: Information listed here was accurate as of March 16, 2005. Please call the venue to verify information.] So you can play a solo like Hendrix, your singer is the love child of Tom Waits and Siouxsie Sioux, and you’ve been rocking out in your mom’s garage for the past six months. Now all […]