Don’t call it a crawl: The Asheville Area Arts Council (formerly the Arts Alliance) has lined up a decidedly lively array of galleries for its first City Center Arts Walk of the year. The practically named 16 Patton (guess where it’s located?) will show 69 paintings by local artists working in the tradition of the […]

It’s been said that the formula for success is Opportunity + Preparation = Triumph. Or, in layman’s terms, luck plus work equals sold-out shows with screaming fans, and food platters with fancy hors d’oeuvres in the green room. That formula, elementary though it may be, seems to be working for Karl Denson. Take, for instance, […]

Protean bassist Meshell Ndegeocello entered the world as plain Michelle Johnson. Born in 1969, she got her introduction to music from her father, who played jazz saxophone. As a teenager, Johnson assumed her current moniker (pronounced n-day-gay-o-chello) — Swahili for “free as a bird.” Most familiar to pop audiences for her duet with John Mellencamp […]

During one interminably smoldering small-town summer in the mid-’70s, a scruffy guy from Jersey changed my life. No, he wasn’t some renegade biker or vagabond hippie prophet, come South to make all the girls swoon. He was a poet, though — one who seemed to be speaking directly to me: “Baby, this town rips the […]

If you think elderly women are way beyond an acceptable age for sporting dirty mouths, ostentatious outfits and spontaneous flings with younger men, then Bermuda Avenue Triangle is definitely not the play for you. Breaking down age-old stereotypes, this comedy — now running at Asheville Community Theatre — proves that, “You’re never too old to […]

For her latest column, roving A&E columnist Allison Frank highlights Bob Moog. While the synth wizard’s contributions to our modern soundscape obviously require no electrification, many might not realize that Moog is based right here in these hills. For more, read on: When I was in college, my grandmother dragged me to see Stanley Kubrick’s […]

Four friends got together for an impromptu jam session in Jacksonville, Fla. on March 26, 1969, launching a legendary band that’s stayed true to its raw, bluesy, brilliant original vision, to this day– despite the death of two of its founding members (in chillingly similar motorcycle crashes) bouts with ravaging alcoholism and drug addiction, numerous […]

“Start on the path, and the helpers will arrive.” For writer Michael Rumaker, speaking from his home outside New York City, this maxim recalls the simple truth of his own experience as a Black Mountain College student in the 1950s. But the school — situated just outside its namesake village, 15 minutes east of Asheville […]

The music may be changing, but the message is the same. So pop in the Indigo Girls’ latest CD, last year’s Come on Now Social, and let the first track rip. Yes, rip. Fans who discovered the Georgia duo through melodious, earnest — and, of course, acoustic — tunes like “Closer to Fine” and “Southland […]