Local indie-rockers Comet West (Samuel Robbins, Shane Bennet, Nick Rodriguez and Britt Benson-Greer) are set to release their new EP, Weaker Things. The six tracks range from the ardent "Strong Gust," on which Robbins pushes his vocals to their ragged edge, to "Busy Work," with its intricate percussion and jangling layers of guitars. (Look for […]

Comedian, singer, actor and author Sandra Bernhard has spent most of the last 40 years answering interview questions about women's rights, gay rights, politics, fashion, pop culture and her friendship with Madonna. So what could Xpress possibly ask the woman behind I Love Being Me, Don't You? and the first openly-gay TV character? Turns out, […]

Here's a show that's been a looooong time in the making: Luzius Stone (the music project of WNC-based artist Justin Miles) finally performs songs from new album Electric Dream. Miles spent a year in Regensburg, Germany, working with producer Nicholas Balachandram of Elephantom Studio before returning to Asheville to complete this record (an EP that […]

In 2008, local singer-songwriter Jimmy Landry was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and given six months to live. That’s the bad news. The good news is that he’s beating the odds and commemorating each milestone — a tradition that began after that first frightening pronouncement. “When my birthday came along in October, I thought about […]

“Layers of acrylic, crudely scratched lines and deftly drawn/painted detail construct his figurative images,” says the bio of local artist Spencer Herr. It’s a description that barely scratches the surface of the painter’s haunting work. Men and women, seemingly culled from long-forgotten nursery rhymes, emerge from dark canvases and swirls of thick paint. Vivid pinks […]

Local psychedelic/indie-rock trio Doc Aquatic is no stranger to recorded music: The group’s Bandcamp page boasts three EPs — Memories, Distance Means and, most recently, three-song offering Tombs. The band (brothers JC and Zack Hayes on guitar and drums respectively, and Charles Gately on bass and synthesizers) has expanded Tombs to nine tracks for its […]

No need to survive a tornado or follow a yellow-brick road or battle a wicked witch: The Emerald City is well within reach. Well, at least the Emerald Ball is. This year’s iteration of the Asheville Area Arts Council’s annual Color Ball fundraiser takes place in Pink Dog Creative (including the AAAC Gallery, Randy Shull’s […]

Local singer-songwriter Alex Krug has been having a big year. With her band (Kevin Lampson on upright bass, Rachel Gramig on harmonizing vocals, Kyle Samples on electric guitar), she's opened for Donna the Buffalo and Erin McKeown, and released new album, Divers. Krug, a Maryland transplant, grew up in a family of blacksmiths. "This unique […]

Local hardcore and thrash outfit Just Die! was voted best punk band three years in a row by Xpress readers. The quartet (vocalist Steve Shell, drummer Dave Reinhardt, Jay McBones on bass and guitarist Matt Evans) posted this simple Facebook bio: "Encouraging High Fives Since '06." Those happy high fives will be missed: The band […]

Self-described "ground-shaking, soul-driven powerhouse" collective The Broadcast has not only been busily playing shows around the area and across the country (140 dates last year!), they've also been at work on sophomore album Dodge the Arrow. "The blood, the sweat, the tears, the touring, the van breaking down," writes the band in a recent blog […]

Aoife O'Donovan grew up outside of Boston but spent her summers in Ireland. Even still, she ended up not in a trad music group but in bluegrass outfit Crooked Still and all-female folk-trio Sometymes Why. But O'Donovan is a solo artist, too: Alison Krauss covered her song, "Lay My Burden Down;" other songs have found […]

Scottish music quartet Battlefield Band got its start in 1969, taking its name from the Battlefield suburb of Glasgow. Founding member Alan Reid recently bowed out after 40 years of recording and touring, but as the band's bio points out, though lineup changes have been a part of the group's history, what's remarkable is the […]

Singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster is no stranger to Asheville, having already played a number of venues and a couple of Christmas Jams. Not many women make it onto the Christmas Jam roster, either, but Foster has the kind of chops that warrant hubris, and the kind of good-natured makeup that keeps her humble and relatable. When […]

Asheville's Ahleuchatistas is an expertly wrought aggregate of mechanical and organic, structural and free-form, art and math, sweet and bad-ass. Guitarist Shane Perlowin and drummer Ryan Oslance are, according to their bio, "on a musical odyssey of pure imagination, limitless in influences, combining tight-knit composition with improvisation, and delivering powerful live shows." Their journey has […]

Headway and Orbit DVD are teaming up to bring Umberto (the project of L.A.-based recording artist Matt Hill) to Flood Gallery. Hill rarely performs on the East Coast, making this event even more special. Among the aesthetics informing Umberto's work, a press release notes, "faux horror soundtracks inspired by Fabio Frizzi, John Carpenter, Claudio Simonetti […]