Of note The Buzz from Off Centre: Local acoustic-rock outfit Off Centre is in the studio finishing their yet-to-be-titled, debut full-length. Although there’s no word yet on the album’s release date, the band expects to have it available at shows by early fall. A video for “Carry On” (the album’s first single), directed by Evan […]

The next — and last — show of the Stephanie Morgan Quartet really ought to be a poignant thing. But you wouldn’t know it from the band’s excitement. Their farewell gig is scheduled for Tressa’s Downtown Jazz & Blues, the downtown venue that SMQ front woman Morgan credits for nurturing the group into something no […]

Of note Second time around: According to Senatobia‘s Web site, these locally based alt-rockers will be taking the rest of the summer off from touring to complete work on their first full-length follow-up to Surprise, their 2001 debut. No word yet on a release date or the new album’s title. See www.senatobiamusic.net for more info. […]

Of note • Secrets From Space: Not satisfied with their self-titled The Alien Music Club, the band has announced plans to release a new album, Top Secret, later this summer. For more information, visit www.alienmusicclub.com. • Unleashing the ‘core: Asheville’s emo-hardcore rock unit Secret Lives of the Freemasons plan to release their debut CD on […]

Jascha’s last stand No matter how you slice it, Jascha Ephraim is an unlikely local-music icon. Far from embracing the over-earnestness so common to members of the singer/songwriters’ club, Jascha is a self-mocking lyricist, his songs covering such vaunted themes as his ex-bandmate’s whistling (“Chompers”) and the dubiousness of his own rock-star daydreams (“Hebrew Screw-Up”). […]

“I’m not trying to start a new identity or anything,” protests Woody Wood on the other end of the line, his voice shifting from a relaxed conversational clip to an excited twang like an old transmission struggling between gears. Even though Wood and I live in the same city, we’ve been having an awful time […]

Front-row reviews What: The Telling TreeWhere: O’Henry’sWhen: Sunday, June 27 “You know, I used to be gay,” says Seamus, his voice shifting slightly between an Irish lilt and a Scottish brogue. “Then, they changed the meaning of the word. Now, I just have to be happy.” And the crowd dissolves into laughter. This group has […]

Sidney Barnes is a genial man, thoughtful and full of laughter. Yet even though everything coming out of his mouth when we talk is apparently true, his stories seem too fantastic to have ever possibly taken place. “We got a call from these people in New York,” Barnes says, absentmindedly playing with his sunglasses, as […]

Front-row review: the anticlimax blues Who: Michelle Malone & Kevn KinneyWhere: The Grey EagleWhen: Sunday, June 20 Michelle Malone is a lit-and-sparking dynamite fuse of a musician. She burns through songs, her vocals rising from the glowing-red embers of folk into white-hot, crackling explosions of bluesy bar rock. She’s also a fantastic guitarist, blazing through […]

Of note • SinDependence Day Liberation After waiting more than two years, fans of the Asheville-based raw-rock orchestra The SexPatriates finally have a date for the release of the group’s first official recording: Double Live will hit local-record-store shelves early next month, following a July 4 release party at Emerald Lounge. According to front man […]

Ann Taylor doesn’t look like a geek. There’s her fashionably slender build, her tailored-dress-suit-evoking name. Her autumn-red hair is set against startlingly pale skin, her voice is confident and her manner completely at ease as she glides through the meticulous notes she keeps together in a well-worn three-ring binder. Nothing geeky about her at all. […]

Somewhere in rural Arkansas — smack dab between Branson, Miss., and Nashville, Tenn. — is a town called Success. It’s the kind of place you’d blow through when you’re long-hauling cross-country. There’s no reason to stop there — except for the Cowboy Cafe. Every night, country-singin’ mama Billie Joe and her three grown-up daughters stop […]

Catching up with Descolada (while they can still be caught) Tony Plichta isn’t listening to us. He pounds the air, phantom sticks thundering on imaginary drums. He doesn’t even seem to know he’s doing it. It’s as if he’s forgotten where he is — what he’s supposed to be doing. A few feet away is […]

Listening room (CD reviews) 99 Years, 99 Years (99 Years, 2004) Giving bad reviews to people with good intentions sucks. Just because you respect a group’s goals, though, doesn’t mean you can stomach their music. But let’s back up. 99 Years, you see, was once a cover band. They played the typical WNC bar circuit, […]

You can’t accuse Jed and Boyd of dreaming small. Their vision involves condensing the history of the world into a sweeping musical epic, starting with the Big Bang and winding up somewhere in the 20th century, and hitting all of history’s highlights in between. A few snazzy dance numbers thrown in will be just the […]

The winners! Democracy in action is a beautiful thing. For the past month, Random Acts has been holding an online battle of the bands, a contest with no prize save for bragging rights. Of course, we couldn’t have been expected to judge something this important all by ourselves. So we called upon you, the reader, […]

“He looks like the kind of guy that would knock over the water pitcher to get to the potatoes … “ — Philanthropist Henry Rollins on Thomas Wolfe “I remember reading a chunk of Wolfe’s Of Time and the River on stage in Asheville,” Henry Rollins recalled by phone recently. No one at that bygone […]

For the record In the rhinestone jacket that is WNC, West Asheville’s escalating hipness is the newest synthetic ruby. And neighborhood entrepreneurs are apparently hoping that everyone west of the French Broad dresses exclusively vintage, drinks only espresso and microbrews, requires exceptionally funky hairstyling and budgets at least $30 a week for music. So before […]