Depending on how long you’ve been reading this rag, you may have wondered by now why Xpress places on its cover each December yet another chapter in the Chronicles of Christmas Jam. To put the story in proper perspective, it’s worth noting that this particular fantasy saga has now eclipsed the total installments thus far […]
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Surface tension
“Bird Seeds Flora,” Alena Hennessy Local collective Plenish Projects numbers nine emerging artists — and women comprise only a third of their ranks. Member Lauren Gibbes admits the men in the group growled when the three women announced they were having an all-girl show — but, she says, they’ve since come around and are being […]
What it looks like
Adding himself anew to the surprisingly populous ranks of local Grammy winners, Al Petteway picked up this year’s Best Pop Instrumental Album honors for his work on the Pink Guitar compilation (with Ed Gerhard, et. al.), a tribute to composer Henry Mancini. But Petteway is only half the story — literally. His wife and collaborator […]
Earful
CD reviews The Makeout Room, The Makeout Room EP: Four Stars • Genre(s): Garage rock, punk, indie • You’ll like it if: You like to be punished. • Defining song: “All The Time” — The opening number snarls more than a kennel of Rottweilers. Unwary listeners may draw back one less ear. Ah, the EP […]
Cartoons
Narrow Earth Bridge to the future
Ex-Western Carolina University art-department head Robert Godfrey has always defended the place of women artists in the establishment. He began 15 years ago to collect paintings for a women’s-studies collection — works by largely ignored, or at least undervalued, artists. Along with the current efforts of Martin DeWitt, the first director of WCU’s new Fine […]
Scattered, smothered, covered … and spanked
“You don’t know what Waffle House is?!?!,” asks an incredulous Wammo, leader and co-lead vocalist of the calamitous all-acoustic Austin ensemble the Asylum Street Spankers. “It’s basically the IHOP of the South,” he explains. “We have one song that has a joke about Waffle House, and sometimes that joke doesn’t fly in the North. That’s […]
Earful
Skeletons in the jukebox “Skeletons” provides a forum for local musicians, artists, record-store owners, etc., to erase cool points by expressing their unseemly affection for an unhip album from their past. Sandy Nelson, by David Holt “As a young 14-year-old drummer in 1960, I loved the records of Sandy Nelson. He got right to the […]
Cartoons
Who’s in charge?
With the Buncombe County commissioners’ recent appointment of a local oil-company executive to the board of the Western North Carolina Regional Air Quality Agency, candidates promoted by the Council of Independent Business Owners now hold all three county-appointed seats — a voting majority — on the five-member board. The highly visible and often controversial agency […]
Letters to the editor
Terrorism by any other name … On Nov. 19 and 20, I joined 19,000 other concerned citizens in protesting at the gates of Fort Benning, Ga., to demand an end to U.S.-sanctioned terrorism by closing the School of the Americas (SOA) — recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It took five hours […]
The Other Side of the Mountain
For far too long, the need to feed the family forced me to live in a distant place. Although it was south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it wasn’t the real South (which my wife and I moved back to as soon as we could). In that distant place, however, we learned many lessons. One was […]
Letters to the editor
Christian “pride” day would be redundant In response to Petros Rex’s suggestion that the Christian community band together for a “Christian Pride Day” [“Let’s See a Christian Pride Day,” Nov. 16], I’d like to respectfully point out several fundamental problems with the concept. First, I suspect that many Christians would have trouble with the term […]
Pining for the past
When the game is on the line, this familiar cheer simultaneously rises from the throats of tens of thousands of screaming fans. But how many of them have any idea where the name comes from? It’s not the exclusive property of UNC-Chapel Hill, either; the term properly applies to any state resident. Still, the odds […]
The end of Eden
“At times I think there are no wordsBut these to tell what’s trueAnd there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden.” — Bob Dylan, “Gates of Eden” It’s the end of October as I write this, and I’ve still got tomatoes on the vine. Native, June-blooming rhododendrons are flowering again. Hummingbirds are still here […]
Earful
CD reviews Dice Fly High, Thank 7: Two Stars • Genre(s): Indie rock • You’ll like it if: You don’t mind the occasional sensitive-guy stanza residing amid full-throttle chord structures. • Defining song: “Freeeda” — Full of spitfire lyrics and lightning-quick licks, this song is Dice Fly High at its cagiest. The trio of experience […]
Cartoons
Yours, Mine and Ours
Little kids are like puppies. They make a lot of mistakes before learning how to behave properly, and they know that being in a group is a lot more fun than facing the scary world alone. That’s why little kids like movies about little kids acting like puppies. Adults who grew up in large families […]
Letters to the editor
Kennel Club still follows giant footprints The Asheville Kennel Club is the oldest kennel club in this area, chartered in 1936. As a club, we feel need to get out the word that we are still working with animal owners as far as our influence can reach. Our charter admonishes us to “promote, protect, teach […]
Buddhism for thought
All beings, great and smothered: Meticulous copies of 15th-century Chinese scrolls show the various misfortunes (floods, infernos, etc.) befalling those who remain “worldly bound.” A papier-mache sentinel posted at the entry to Warren Wilson College’s Holden Gallery ushers viewers into a magnificent facsimile of another world. Forty years ago, art historians discovered a set of […]
Earful
Jamming with a double-edged sword In an attempt at well-roundedness, this week is dedicated to jam bands. By braving the improv waters, my problem is twofold: 1) If I report favorably, I’m considered sub-cool. Jam music was once a fringe assortment of roots-based artists who shunned pop-song formats in favor of free-form musical virtuosity. Currently, […]