An 8-year-old kid gapes from the stands as the great George “Meadowlark” Lemon stomps over courtside to hurl a bucket of water on the ref — that intolerable striped-shirted thorn in Meadowlark’s side! The ref promptly ducks. And then that wide-eyed boy — and all the other expectant spectators in those San Antonio, Texas, bleachers […]

When Irishman Michael Leahy landed on Canadian shores in 1825, he brought with him a well-worn fiddle and a long memory for jigs. But surprised he might be if he knew that five generations later, his DNA would spawn the band Leahy — the Canadian Celtic group made up entirely of Leahy brothers and sisters. […]

One of the Asheville music scene’s best-kept secrets happens not in a funky unmarked alley behind an art gallery, but on top of a prominent hill just south of downtown. Go past the National Historic Register plaque outside, walk through the cheery red wood doors, pass rows of gleaming wood pews, approach an altar carved […]

British artist Andy Goldsworthy, who sometimes works in clay, has observed that a finished piece of pottery embodies a combination of the four elements. When the clay (essentially, earth) is initially shaped by the artist, it’s malleable because of the presence of water. After the desired form is achieved, the air dries the clay and […]

Innovation and originality often go unrecognized and unrewarded in their time. From Van Gogh to the Velvet Underground, those bold enough to break new ground have frequently incurred the indifference (if not outright wrath) of their peers — only to achieve significant fame years later. Granted, the creation of “Starry Night” or “Venus in Furs” […]

In its latest offering, Plaeides Productions stays true to its mission of teasing the limits. Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is a fact-based account of the trials and subsequent downfall of the brilliant, egotistical late-19th-century wit. The play draws from the transcripts of the trials, as well as from Wilde’s […]

Once you’ve seen him in the 1998 Farrelly Brothers hit There’s Something About Mary — as the daft crooner who appears randomly in scenes, singing in treetops, at hot-dog stands and with a can-can troop — it takes effort to separate Jonathan Richman’s songs from the boobish schtick. There is, though, a certain undercurrent of […]

This is the New South in song, an increasingly diverse society reflected in the music and makeup of Atlanta band Mandorico. The eight-piece group tours nonstop (close to 250 dates a year), hell-bent on sharing the musical melange heard on its first full-length CD, the self-explanatory collection of horn-laced funk and Latin sounds called afrocubanhiphopcaribbeanrock […]

There’s love for sale at Semi-Public Gallery — love in all its edgy and sweet permutations. And it’s for a worthy case: Gallery commissions on works sold during The Love Show will benefit two printing concerns connected with Semi-Public and its owners, Gary Byrd and Tony Bradley: Sotto Editions (which Bradley now runs out of […]