“I gotta get my Asheville fix!” writes Shimshai on his own concert’s Facebook page, where several giddy fans have already responded with victorious tales of acquiring admission tickets. The California-based mantra musician, a self-described “seeker of truth,” sends lyrics into the crowd on gentle waves of finger-picked guitar, leaving plenty of inspired devotees in the […]
This September marks the 34th year for Heritage Weekend, a free festival that explores traditional Appalachian customs like beekeeping, coopering, heritage toy making, broom and furniture making, spinning and natural dyeing, all sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Both Saturday and Sunday offer a full lineup of crafts, dance and mountain-inspired music with fare […]
If it sounds massive that’s because, when it comes to book arts, creativity incubator Asheville BookWorks is a really big deal. The West Asheville-based center hosts BookOpolis — three days of exhibits, demonstrations, talks and workshops. An opening reception, held on Friday, Sept. 19, at 6 p.m., showcases books by local and international artists and […]
Sure, vocal tracks often have an intelligible rhythm, but frontman Damian Kulash nearly drives the drum set to obsolescence with his staccato vocals in OK Go‘s latest tune, “Turn Up the Radio.” The pop number, from the band’s 2014 EP Upside Out, drifts into a stripped-down interlude only fleetingly before the Los Angeles rockers steer […]
It’s tricky to find a clique of electronic musicians whose message resonates as much as the bass it’s dubbed over. A Tribe Called Red, composed of three like-minded Canadian DJs, tours the country on a quest to promote empowerment and reverence for native culture. DJ NDN, Bear Witness and 2oolman juxtapose chants and drumming samples […]
The 2014-15 season of the Asheville Chamber Music Series opens with a program by pianist Bradley Martin and violinist Justin Bruns. The two musicians come with impressive resumes — Martin, an associate professor at Western Carolina University’s school of music, has appeared with the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and the Bolshoi Theatre in Russia. […]
Asheville four-piece The Tills could absolutely call their music “grit-pop” if they didn’t live in a region where fans might confuse that label with a culinary term. The group’s latest tunes venture from the safety of ruggedly upbeat pop phrases to less charted punk yelps and back again before the refrain, all while conveying the […]
The sweet sounds of Portland quintet Fruition will be ripe for picking when the band’s national tour stops to soak up some vitamin D at Asheville’s RiverMusic festival. And there’ll be pickin’, indeed. Fruition’s bounty of stringed instruments (including several guitars, banjo and mandolin), paired with sporadic harmonica and piano parts, creates a roots hybrid […]
After three years of local shows, two album releases and a third recording in the works, the indie-rockers in Antique Firearms are about to take a really big step — they’re moving to Los Angeles. But the band will not go quietly into the night. Nope. They’ve got a massive sendoff planned, in the form […]
Painter Julie Armbruster uses mixed media to create human-animal hybrid characters . Armbruster’s latest show, Puddles and Projections will be featured in the F.W. Front Gallery at Woolworth Walk for the duration of September
Mutual Benefit are currently on tour in support of the re-release of the 2011 EP, The Cowboy’s Prayer, and will appear at the Mothlight on Friday, Sept. 5.
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is proud to demonstrate its artistic legacy by presenting the work of alumnus and former teacher Dan Rice. According to the exhibit’s press release, Rice, who died in 2003, was an underappreciated painter who paid his rent by stretching canvases, mixing paints and building frames for his more acclaimed […]
If you’re going to check out Creepoid at the band’s Odditorium show, plan to spend at least half of the concert attempting to identify all of the ’90s rock icons conjured by the group’s most recent releases.
Gather ’round, folks — it’s story time. Asheville Community Theatre’s monthly storytelling series, Listen to This: Stories in Performance, closes its fourth season this week.
If you’ve ever approached a synthesizer, stared into the abyss of knobs and then retreated without extracting a single sound, Moog Music may have the triple-dose antidote you need — a single-day, hands-on workshop series.
Comedian Duncan Trussell might be based 3,000 miles from Western North Carolina, but he’s got serious ties to the region.
Western North Carolina native Malcolm Holcombe plays a rare local show at The Grey Eagle on Saturday, Aug. 30.
The Colorado-based jam-grass nomads of Yonder Mountain String Band log more than 100 live shows per year, so the musicians have to keep performances eclectic if only to preserve their own sanity. The band has an extensive catalog of rock-infused bluegrass to draw from, and rest assured that string-laden Hendrix covers are not off-limits. A […]
Fans of Asheville quintet Town Mountain will be familiar with the concept of podorythmie — not because they are well-versed in French Canadian percussive techniques, but because it’s nearly impossible to listen to the band’s jaunty bluegrass without adding your own toe-tapping beat. The self-described “hard-drivin’ Carolina string band” is in the running for an […]
If cat art, cat videos or “What kind of a cat person are you” quizzes seem just a little bit hokey, what about feline-themed poetry? Former North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell has authored more than 30 books, including fiction and nonfiction. But for his latest collection, he’s taken a page from T.S. Eliot’s Old […]
“The Tall Pines are equal parts soul and twang, molasses and moonshine, sass and skill,” says NPR. Christmas Davis writes gritty swamp rock tunes, which his wife, vocalist Connie Lynn Petruk, keeps soulfully smooth around the edges. The duo’s country rock is extremely accessible — even for those wary of a little twang — but […]
