The next two weeks offer a couple of unconventional opportunities to connect with local culture and influence. From an art exhibit featuring folk-heritage takes on seasonal spirit to a film focused on the German-born Bauhaus movement in America (and, specifically, Western North Carolina), it’s an insider’s perspective on regional art and craft. The spirit of […]
“In some ways I feel like I’m a translator, not a writer,” says Marisha Pessl. The Asheville-raised, New York-based author managed to “translate” two Moleskine notebooks full of thoughts, ideas and photos into the darkly suspenseful, wonderfully addictive new novel, Night Film. Clocking in at just under 600 pages, the dreamy (sometimes nightmarish), thriller winds […]
Here’s the press release from Asheville Regional Airport: From abstract oils on canvas to more realistic oils focused on views of the sky, as well as vibrant and bold aviation photography and clay pot sculptures of expressive and active figures, the eighteenth Art in the Airport exhibit at Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) has officially opened […]
This weekend, mark the official start to summer with guided hikes, outdoor celebrations, local music and handcrafted art, all for less than the cost of parking downtown. As always, Xpress brings you the best in low-cost local entertainment.
Western North Carolinians may not don foam cheese hats at Tourists’ games, but we’re a cheese-loving and cheese-making region all the same. That’s why Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project is putting the focus on local farmstead cheese this month in its Get Local initiative, which brings together farmers, chefs and community members to celebrate a single […]
“I haven't shown it to my father yet,” director David Kabler tells Xpress. “I don't want to upset my father, because it's definitely a story about fathers.” A dark fantasy: The film is part gory horror flick, part art film, part Grimm’s fairy tale and part allegory. The story in question is Wanderlost, Kabler's recently […]
The annual Swannanoa Gathering is an ideal locale for interviewing the Twilite Broadcasters. Here, on the campus of Warren Wilson College, Adam Tanner and Mark Jackson are surrounded by fellow musicians obsessed with the myriad forms of archaic Americana. A killer multi-instrumentalist and mainstay on the Western North Carolina folk scene, Tanner is scheduled to […]
In the battle to stop mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Grammy Award-winning singer Kathy Mattea is firmly entrenched in the center of the dialogue. Answering the call: While "singing is like breathing," the challenges of advocacy and activism are "much more involved," says Mattea. Photo by James Minchin. "I'm living in the question of how we […]
How many artists, besides the late Johnny Cash, open with a prison song? Roots and blues musician Woody Pines probably found himself in an exclusive club when he started off a recent Orange Peel set with the song “99 Years.” The thing about Pines (whose band borrows its front man’s stage name) is that he’s […]
When autumn arrives, I can’t resist chrysanthemums. I place them in container pots on my porches, in baskets in my house, and in even smaller baskets in the bathrooms. Kitty is currently destroying the one on my desk by batting the blossoms around. Live long and prosper: According to folklore, if you place chrysanthemum petals […]
It would take serious effort to miss all the buzz about the collaboration between Led Zeppelin’s front man (turned solo act) Robert Plant and Union Station front woman (turned producer) Alison Krauss. The unlikely duo’s Raising Sand (Rounder) dropped last fall and has been a subject of much philosophizing and rhetoric among music critics and […]
So how does one go about condensing a millennium’s worth of music into a one-evening performance? Well, singer/songwriter Richard Thompson can’t exactly tell us, as by his own description he was “cheating” when he came up with the title “1,000 Years of Popular Music” for the show that he brings to town on Sunday. What […]
At its heart, Southern food is a tapestry of flavors, the result of a complex weaving together of the various cultural and regional cuisines that developed throughout the South’s elaborate history. Consider, for example, the food of the Southeastern Lowcountry, a region of lush estuaries and marshes and generous expanses of coastline. The distinctive cuisine […]
When staffers at the Health Adventure wanted to lure a more mature audience to its family-friendly halls, they decided to host a traveling exhibit steeped in 1970s nostalgia. After all, a museum can’t just tap a keg and blare loud music to win adults’ attention. Or can it? For “Retro Night,” a 21-and-over party at […]
They’re bloggers, and they’re everywhere. They’re a new breed of citizen-reporters, net-savvy activists and digital diarists, and through their Web logs, or blogs, they keep journals of their passions, posting them online for all to read. In recent years, they’ve also made blogs a new media force to be reckoned with. Six years ago, it […]
Skeletons in the jukebox “Skeletons” provides a forum for local musicians, artists, record-store owners, etc., to erase cool points by expressing their unseemly affection for an unhip album from their past. Rocky IV Soundtrack, by Kevin Cassels, owner of Good Music and Other Stuff. “If you suddenly smell Velveeta while driving past a flea market, […]
Storytelling goes way back in these mountains, as an oral tradition common to both the indigenous population and the sometimes equally non-literate Europeans who evicted them. The Europeans, of course, brought along the notion of front porches and rocking chairs, which contributed immeasurably to the ambiance of the storytelling milieu. Songwriter and tale-spinner Michael Reno […]
“I’ve heard some complaints about TransFair, but they are definitely taking steps to protect some of these farmers and their families.” — Mountain City Coffee Roasters’ Randall Sluder On a blustery, gray winter morning in downtown Asheville’s Beanstreets Coffeehouse/Cafe, a chilly patron waiting in line shuffles one step closer to her eagerly awaited daily pick-me-up: […]
