On Saturday, July 15 and Sunday, July 16, Appalachia Rising will headline Catalyst, an arts, education and music festival at Salvage Station. The band’s original members, Leah Song and Chloe Smith, organized the event.
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On Saturday, July 15 and Sunday, July 16, Appalachia Rising will headline Catalyst, an arts, education and music festival at Salvage Station. The band’s original members, Leah Song and Chloe Smith, organized the event.
“Culture is the closest to my heart,” says Fleming, who plays steel guitar, of activities at the second biennial Get Off the Grid Fest . “The best way to build the culture of a community is through music and dance, and we have an incredibly strong line-up. It’s an empowering and joyful event.”
“We were activists before we were musicians,” says Chloe Smith. “So there’s always been a natural instinct for us to be aware of what’s going on in our surroundings and take part in movements and missions to make the world a better place.”
The spring festival — held Thursday, May 10, to Sunday, May 13 — features more then 20 percent women-led acts, including its headliners and the entire Lakeside main stage schedule for Friday.
The Appalachian-inspired sounds of Tina & Her Pony are increasingly abstract in new album Champion, which was inspired by “dreams, the subconscious and death,” according to the local duo.
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features a new album by local duo Tina & Her Pony, a body movement and pole dancing studio and Eliada’s on-campus hydroponic gardening project.
Since the group’s start in 2006, sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith have positioned Rising Appalachia as both a musical project and a vehicle to express their social justice concerns, and to help foster a community with like-minded interests.
Each song was recorded with various configurations of 40 symphony musicians and each song selected for the recording was arranged by a professional composer. The Asheville Symphony Sessions, will be released on Thursday, May 26, with a celebration at The Orange Peel.
From October: Dr. Dog, Trampled By Turtles, Drive-by Truckers, Rayland Baxter, Grace Potter, LEAF Festival, Colonel Bruce, Unspoken Tradition, Widespread Panic and more.
Each month concert photographer David Simchock of music news and reviews blog Front Row Focus shares some of his favorite images, captured on stages in and around Asheville.
Rising Appalachia’s eighth album, Wider Circles, has just been released, and the group (also featuring percussionist Biko Cassini and bassist/guitarist David Brown) will appear onstage in its current hometown, at New Mountain’s amphitheatre on Saturday, June 13.
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features a traveling activist band’s sixth studio album recording and a community-building playground campaign in Hendersonville.
After a two-year hiatus, local volunteers are resurrecting the TEDxAsheville conference for 2015. Featuring a diverse lineup of Asheville speakers, they hope to take the national TED slogan of cultivating “ideas worth spreading” and apply it at the local level.
This weekend brings everything from antique shows and wolfdogs to fishing and folktales. So whatever you’re looking for, we’ve got it cheap. While you’re here, check out Clubland for a complete schedule of weekend entertainment.