When Gavra Lynn was a kid, her family doctor jotted down a note about her that she still remembers. “Odd voice,” it said. “I have a tape of myself from when I was 5,” the singer noted following a recent show at Broadways. “It’s like Demi Moore.” Lynn’s eponymous seven-song CD, recorded last year at […]
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13 strings to heaven
Robert Randolph can bend a guitar note to where it seems to cry, like some broken soul’s voice shattered by a sob. But because he is at heart a believer in both the human and the Holy Spirit, Randolph prefers that most notes be twisted in the opposite direction, to where they seem to shout […]
Gonna be an artist/activist
In her upcoming concert, “Hard Times: Good Songs,” Peggy Seeger will perform working-class tunes written during the 1930s and ’40s. But don’t expect a romantic slant on that troubled era. “These songs are not about pride in work,” the celebrated folk singer pointed out in a recent interview. “They are songs that complain about wages, […]
Random acts
Front-row reviews What: GFE w/Ironfist Where: The Orange Peel When: Monday, March 3 Until recently, I considered GFE one of the most overrated acts in town. I found their music unnecessarily jammy, their mind-expanding rhymes awkward. So if you’d have told me I’d eventually have a near-complete change of heart, I would have asked you […]
Daffodils Return to the Mountains
Those bright little trumpets that herald the onset of spring will be the focus of a national show that’s returning to the Carolinas for the first time since 1964. The National Daffodil Show, to be held Thursday, March 27, 3 – 6 p.m., and Friday, March 28, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., at the Holiday […]
The Wild Gardener
If acidantheras had another name, they would undoubtedly fare better in the marketplace. Each spring, when the bins at local home-improvement stores are loaded with bulbs to charm and lure the eager gardener, acidantheras (or, as they’re sometimes called, peacock orchids) are there among their fellows. And almost without fail, when the rest of the […]
Asheville City Council
For more than 40 years, the Flynn Christian Fellowship Home in Montford has been giving homeless, recovering addicts a second chance at life. In that time, the home has helped hundreds of newly clean and sober folks regain a foothold in society, providing shelter, counseling and support. Most residents, says Director Laurie Tollman, are referred […]
Deep roots
For some mountain folk, it was a gift of god … a bounty so generous that people were stirred to awe — almost reverence. — Richard C. Davids, The Man Who Moved a Mountain For some early settlers of the Blue Ridge region, nature’s bounty included both the apples and the “tumbling streams” they exploited […]
Restoring an Appalachian tradition
The loss of the American chestnut meant the loss of an entire way of life — especially here in the Southern Appalachians. “The resident in the heart of the tree’s historic range could go through life with the chestnut, from cradle to casket,” notes Regional Science Coordinator Paul Sisco of The American Chestnut Foundation. The […]
Spit and polish
It was the myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran that galvanized the sentiments of the American people sufficiently to discredit peace activists and give George Bush [Sr.] his war.” — Sociologist Jerry Lembcke, The Spitting Image A couple of months ago, says Asheville photographer Kermit Sprinkles, a pair of soldiers wearing dress uniforms came into […]
Notepad
Forum explores African-American contribution to the railroads The latest installment of the YMI Cultural Center’s ongoing educational-history project — “Ties That Bind: Local, Regional, and National Railroad History Told from an African American Perspective” — will focus on the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the nation’s first black labor union. The forum happens Saturday, March […]
Rally redux
photos by Heather Erson Where else in America could you have two rallies espousing fundamentally differing viewpoints while ostensibly promoting the same concept (support for U.S. soldiers), staged simultaneously within 100 yards of each other — a formula fraught with the potential for ugly confrontation — and have the whole day come off without a […]
Second fiddle to none
In the world of Celtic music, ’twas the Irish who discovered America. So pity the poor Scotsman, then, his pipes a-blazin’? “We’re kind of in the slipstream of the Irish in a way,” Jim Malcolm of celebrated Highland band the Old Blind Dogs noted by phone recently from a tour stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. […]
The guitar speaks Braille
What does God look like? “A guitar,” asserts Leo Kottke. Such an answer, Kottke concedes by phone from his Minnesota home, might strike some as blasphemous. Yet if you’re a disciple of the acclaimed guitar innovator, a believer in his six- and 12-string channeling of the holy ghost of John Fahey, you accept his pronouncement […]
Hunting down a message
Considering the newly created U.S. Department of Homeland Security and our current climate of war hysteria, it seems appropriate that Blue Ridge Community College’s Belfry Players chose The Crucible as their latest production. Then again, if they’d done the play five years ago, when then-President Bill Clinton was impeached for sexual dalliances with a young […]
Beating public-art enemy No. 1
The Rev. James M. McKinley rose one recent winter morning to deliver his Sunday sermon not on the evils of drink, drugs or gambling, or even on the sins of the flesh. Instead, McKinley lifted his voice in praise — preaching the gospel of public art. The leader of Hendersonville’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship talked to […]
Organic Growers School a mountain treasure
By the time March rolls around, I am generally in the thick of getting the garden whipped into shape, with seedlings busting out on every windowsill. This spring, however, has been different. Fact is, I hesitate to call it spring at all. My kids have been reveling in the many snow days, and I’ve burned […]
Reality show
Shea Davies and Todd Weakley play the lead roles in Highland Repertory Theatre’s three-day production of Romeo and Juliet, which will feature players in modern dress. Recently, Xpress grilled the pair — in and out of character — and learned more about understanding Shakespeare, the play’s deepest message and why naughty double entendres will never […]
Oral exam
MC Paul Barman — the Brown-educated, New Jersey-native, Jewish entrant in the rap pantheon — comes from the classroom, not the streets. “I wouldn’t trade anything for a gun shot,” Barman said in a recent interview when asked if he’d consider a Faustian bargain a la criminal-cum-rapper 50 Cent. “I was thinking [of the] Memphis […]
Film-school spirit
Applying description to instrumental music instantly lessens the music’s effect. Nevertheless, Xpress recently approached several local avant-rock aficionados with that very challenge in discussing the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Yanqui UXO (Constellation Records), the latest release from the Canadian group/band/orchestra/collective — formerly exclaiming themselves as Godspeed You Black Emperor! — is a beautiful, […]
Training for the Trace
I spent my first year in WNC exploring more than 3,000 miles of backcountry. From Deep Creek to Bent Creek, I ran single track in cove forests, cycled car-free Forest Service roads, and hiked along the folds and ridges of the Smokies. One of my most adventurous solo excursions included a half-day ramble down Coffee […]