asheville Archive
24 Jun 2020
Echo Mountain Recording Responds to Pandemic Challenges
This story is the first of three this week in which I connect with Asheville-based companies serving the music industry. — bk Any musician in Asheville can tell you the […]
15 Jun 2020
30 Days Out, June 2020 #2: Hearts Gone South, Angel Olsen, Natural Born Leaders, The Get Right Band
If you’re at all like me, you may have noticed this phenomenon: when you take on a new task, you stumble as you learn your way through it. And by […]
08 Jun 2020
Brushfire Stankgrass: Making Up for Lost Time
“We’re not a bluegrass band,” insists Will Saylor, co-leader with brother Ben in Brushfire Stankgrass. Instead, the popular Asheville quartet uses bluegrass as the launching point for its musical excursions, […]
31 May 2020
Busker Abby ‘The Spoon Lady’ Roach Brings Out the Fine Silverware
Train-hopping hobos are part of America’s cultural fabric. From the late 19th century through the 1940s, hundreds of thousands of itinerant people in America made their lives on the fringe […]
11 May 2020
Ben Phantom’s Music Meets Modern Dance
Some artists’ strength is expressed as consistency: listeners know what to expect, and they appreciate that familiarity. Other artists, however, chart a circuitous path, with each project quite different from […]
10 May 2020
Zoe & Cloyd: Looking Out for the Future of Appalachian Music
This story appeared previously (in 2019) in Bold Life Magazine. The duo has since released another album. Zoe & Cloyd are wife-and-husband musical team Natalya Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd […]
09 May 2020
Ryan RnB Barber: Can’t Hold Him Down
Ryan RnB Barber is one of the busiest musicians in Western North Carolina. He does it all: singing, rapping, songwriting, producing and arranging. And he stays busy with several bands […]
22 Apr 2020
Pimps of Pompe: Hot Jazz Meets Hip-hop
Asheville-based Pimps of Pompe has a unique musical approach. The band takes inspiration from modern hip-hop and rhythm and blues, bending those forms into the style of pre-World War II […]
21 Apr 2020
Up Jumped Three’s Implied Rhythm
Rhythm is traditionally a key component in music. But especially within the jazz idiom, some groups craft a sound that doesn’t include a drummer. In the tradition of trios led […]
17 Apr 2020
Album Review: Death Nebula — Ghost of Cassiopeia
If one were to make some sweeping generalizations about doom metal, first among those might be that the artists making it build a sound around a core of guitar/bass/drums, and […]