Call it what you will: roots rock, alternative country, or slightly dusty rock ‘n’ roll. It’s hard to slap a label on Farmer Not So John. But it’s easy enough to listen to them grub into their second album, Receiver (Compass, 1998). Marked by baleful, scraping steel guitar that dredges underneath the introspective vocals, Receiver […]
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Deconstructing assumptions
It’s tempting to look at David Dawson’s “Untitled Four Letter Word,” an oil-on-plywood series from his upcoming Zone one exhibit composed of four large, black rectangles, and say, “So what? It’s four pieces of wood painted black.” Even the artist responsible for the black rectangles admits, “People have been giving me s••t about this show.” […]
Sowing seeds of community
“I’ve never seen him get up that close to people he doesn’t know,” remarked Marilyn Woodby, activities director at Yancey Nursing Center, sounding both shocked and delighted. “He’s a bit of a recluse.” Sitting on the garden bench outside the nursing home, Woodby looks on as the thin, elderly, stooped man shuffles over to watch […]
On love and war
It’s the summer of 1864, and a Confederate soldier lies in a military hospital in northern Virginia. His war wounds are healing, and he stares longingly out the window, gathering the strength and courage to begin a journey, alone and on foot, to his home at Cold Mountain, high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Thus […]
Welcome Pride ‘98
Asheville broke the mold in 1992 when N.C. Pride came to town — the first time a Pride march had occurred outside the Raleigh-Durham area. Now, six years later, Asheville welcomes N.C. Pride ’98, running June 5-7, and the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender Pride event in the state (more than 6,000 people are expected […]
Notepad
Adoption rally Twenty-two children in Buncombe County are legally available for adoption, according to a press release from the county Department of Social Services. The DSS, through its Families for Kids program, is looking for a few good homes. You might not consider yourself qualified to adopt or provide foster care — but think again. […]
Buncombe County Commission
In one short year, a private company promises to do what Buncombe County social services couldn’t do in four: Turn a profit while enforcing the county’s child-support laws. This was the guarantee that Calvin Underwood, director of Buncombe’s Department of Social Services, made to commissioners at their May 26 meeting. Commissioners voted to enter into […]
Union troops sack Asheville!
It was April 26, 1865, in Asheville. Seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant, 17 days after the beginning of the end of the War Between the States. The Union troops passing through Asheville had agreed not to harm the town, in exchange for three days’ food and three days’ forage for their horses. The […]
Letters to the editor
WNC’s people are its best natural resource My wife and I have been residents of Asheville for the past 11 months. During that time period, we have had more house guests than we experienced throughout 28 years of living in Stony Brook, N.Y. While I continue to take our visitors on the obligatory drives along […]
Letters to the editor
Don’t let this be ‘the Truckstop of the New South’ Like most TV watchers, I have some commercials I love and some I love to hate. The good ones are so clever, the jingles are catchy, and the punch lines are funny. The creativity of humans never ceases to amaze me. Have you noticed the […]
Still in the saddle
Their music ushers you to a blissful spot beside a cool stream, shaded by a grove of cottonwood trees in high desert country. Your trusty horse, probably named Dusty, grazes contentedly by your side. Oh, yeah. Then a gaggle of tap-dancing rodeo clowns arrive. Riders in the Sky (a.k.a. “America’s Favorite Cowboys”) have managed to […]
Cajun fire in the blood
Seventeen-year-old accordionist Chris Ardoin is nervous. But it’s not what’s been called the “jealous game” of the South Louisiana/East Texas zydeco circuit that has him worried. It’s a plane ride to London — his first international flight. The success of his third album Gon’ Be Jus’ Fine (Rounder, 1997) — recorded when Ardoin was only […]
The Moonlight scoop
The Asheville Downtown Association’s sizzlin’ Mardi Gras-style celebration starts at noon, with tempting and spicy Cajun food served all day at Pack Square. At 5 p.m., a Strive-Not-to-Drive bike parade (with merchants marching alongside) will snake through downtown streets, winding up at Pack Square. And at 5:30 p.m., Moonlight Over Downtown officially kicks off. Get […]
A steady diet of the blues
“I must have been about 17 years old when I really got the hot-pants to play guitar,” reminisces bluesman Phillip Walker. “Yeah, I got a chance to hear Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and B.B. King together, down in Beaumont, Texas in ’53. They had seven- and eight-piece bands then, horns and all that stuff. … That […]
Buncombe County Commission
Ask, and you still might not receive. In a particularly tight budget year, there’s a chance that Asheville and Buncombe’s public schools won’t get the fiscal year 1998-’99 budget funds they requested during the May 12 meeting of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. Buncombe county schools, Asheville city schools and Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College […]
Notepad
Alliance calls for prosecution of DOT Somebody “knowingly and willfully” directed two North Carolina Department of Transportation employees to dump 65 gallons of hazardous materials into the ground at the DOT’s maintenance shop on Old Charlotte Highway, says the Western North Carolina Alliance. Now, the Alliance is calling for prosecution. In a May 15 letter […]
Clearer consequences for air polluters
Air polluters may soon have a better idea of just how big a fine they’ll face if caught: The agency that monitors Buncombe and Haywood counties’ air hopes to adopt a new, more detailed civil-penalties policy soon. Polluters now have a a good deal of negotiating room under the Western North Carolina Air Pollution Control […]
Notepad
Leave your car at home May 29 is Strive-Not-to-Drive Day in Buncombe County. You are urged to plan in advance ways to travel that day without driving yourself around alone in your car: Bike to work, walk to the store, or carpool into town. Consider asking your boss if you can telecommute that day. “We […]
Divorce for a three-parent agency?
When Buncombe County Manager Wanda Greene asked the city to withdraw from the agency that protects regional air quality in Buncombe and Haywood counties, “It came as a surprise,” Asheville Mayor Leni Sitnick told Mountain Xpress. “I’m very reluctant to give up appointment power for a board that essentially gives permits to pollute.” On May […]
Letters to the editor
Mixing bad philosophy with bad economics After reading Ralph R. Reiland’s May 6 commentary, “Bill Gates vs. the bureaucrats,” I wondered how the Mountain Xpress acquires its editorials. I was particularly curious to know whether Mr. Reiland had relocated to western North Carolina from his Pittsburgh teaching position, or instead, the Mountain Xpress editors just […]
Gotta whole lotta Love
It must be a huge hassle to move an event the size of the Black Mountain Music Festival, but it looks like they’ve done it: Having averted all potential disasters, the festival is now securely ensconced — for the second year — in its new home at Flat Rock’s Camp-Ton-a-Wandah. The lineup this year is, […]