Lydia Loveless
– ALL AGES – STANDING ROOM ONLY LYDIA LOVELESSEndings are messy. Falling in love is messy. Change is messy. Perhaps, change is the messiest of them all. Especially when eyes are on you; when you blast out of adolescence onto stages across the country, then into your twenties, onto more stages and, finally, into your thirties—all on those same stages. The stages that Lydia Loveless has sung her heart out on, has collapsed on, and laughed on, all mirror the stages of her life thus far for the world to see. When Loveless released her first album over a decade ago, she was still a teenager whose songs of debauchery, guzzling alcohol and doing cocaine were an audio wet dream for a certain type of listener who not only wear their music tastes on their (tattooed) sleeve, but in the lifestyle that they emulate: “outlaw” music with brains – akin to Steve Earle, Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams, vintage country heart with a heartland rock soul. In the end, the music industry is still sadly a man’s world and, as such, Loveless grew up in the spotlight (or perhaps, more accurately, the bar lights) while she was placed on a pedestal. Her voicemail greeting is a tongue-in-cheek ode to this: “Hi, this is Lydia Loveless, savior of cowpunk. Please leave a message and I will get back to you.” The time between their late adolescence to now is defined by a shelf full of records, hundreds of thousands of miles on the road, and a ribbon of heartbreaks pockmarking their trail. Loveless is a fiercely brave writer who bluntly assesses their life in song: their struggles with alcohol and depression, and the uncertainty of not only the future, but what piecing together the past will mean for the present. In 2020, they put out their excellent fourth full-length Daughter on their own label, Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late Records, with encouragement from their friend Jason Isbell, but could not tour behind it; the one consistent throughline in Loveless’ life was impossible due to the pandemic. They were living in North Carolina with their boyfriend at the time, stuck, away from the stages they grew up on, isolated from their family, and going stir-crazy. As the world came undone and then back together again, Loveless returned to Columbus, where their career first began. Starting anew, Loveless found part-time work at a recording studio (Secret Studios) and began processing the last two years of their life. The title of their new album, Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again, came easy—like a mantra from the heavens. REESE McHENRY
Western Carolina Writers
– ALL AGES – SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEWESTERN CAROLINA WRITERS Western Carolina Writers was established in 2019 by Nick McMahon, along with Jesse Frizsell and Thomas Yon, as a traveling “Songwriters-In-The-Round” style show. The idea was to take turns performing original songs with fun moments of collaboration at venues all over Western North Carolina. After about a dozen increasingly successful shows, McMahon started inviting other area songwriters to participate. And now, after around 150 shows featuring close to 80 different local artists, the concept has become even more popular, fun and diverse. Last year, Mcmahon and current project partner, Stephen Evans, decided to take this show into the listening rooms and out of the noisy bars and breweries so the songs could really be heard and appreciated. With three recent magical & successful songwriter showcases at The Grey Eagle and at Ayurprana Listening Room in Asheville, NC, this decision has proven to be the right move. This show will be another stellar display of wonderful local songwriters while featuring Amanda Platt, Morgan Geer of Drunken Prayer, Laura Blackley, Kate Thomas of Dirty French Broads, Kevin Smith of Planefolk, Keith Minguez, Thomas Yon, Mike Hollon, and Ryan Price!
OUTPOST: Velvet Truckstop
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLY- RAIN OR SHINE From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, Velvet Truckstop is a seasoned musical powerhouse that delivers a high-energy mix of Southern Rock and jam-fueled Cosmic Americana every time they take the stage. VT has recorded/performed live with many notable musicians, including: Tom Constanten (Grateful Dead), Ike Stubblefield (Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia Band), Artimus Pyle (Lynyrd Skynyrd), and John Keane (Widespread Panic). Following the success of their first full-length album, “Sweet Release” (voted No. 5 on WNCW’s Top 20 regional charts), they went on to command stages at top events, including multiple performances at SXSW in Austin, Texas; the Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam (2009- 2019); and the French Broad River Festival (2019). After extensive touring throughout the East Coast, the band cut their second album, “Southbound and Down”, produced by Johnny Sandlin (Allman Brothers/Widespread Panic) in Muscle Shoals Alabama.Velvet Truckstop is pleased to announce their third album “Reckless Abandon” will be released in 2022. Band Members are: Jamie Dose (guitar/vocals); Josh Gibbs (lap steel/guitar and vocals); Will Nicholson (bass); and, Jor Sutton (drums).
Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters Holiday Spectacular IV
– ALL AGES- PARTIALLY SEATED SHOW- SEATED AND STANDING ROOM ONLY TICKETS AVAILABLE AMANDA ANNE PLATT & THE HONEYCUTTERSAfter staying close to home for most of 2023 and woodshedding some new material, Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters can’t wait to hit the road and spread some holiday cheer! The band will play new and old favorites, featuring songs from their 2019 EP “Christmas on a Greyhound Bus” as well as a selection of familiar holiday classics and original material from their six studio albums.
PATIO: The Tallboys
– ALL AGES- LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED THE TALLBOYS The Tallboys are an Asheville, NC band that writes original songs and performs throughout the region. Their songs feature vocal harmonies and strong rhythmic play between the instruments. Each player is an experienced veteran: Bill Melanson, vocals/guitar/bass, toured throughout the country with The Billys, a duo with the great Billy Jonas. Jeff Mooney, lead guitar/vocals, toured with Electric Monkeywrench out of Birmingham, AL, a top-notch jam band. James Fisher, bass/vocals/guitar, has been in numerous Asheville bands and has roots in the DC music scene. For this show, The Tallboys will have Elzy Lindsey, veteran drummer originally from New Orleans on cajon. And Eric Ciborski will debut as our new keyboardist! The Tallboys are currently working on their debut album and continuing to write new material.
PATIO: Laney Jones & The Spirits
– ALL AGES- LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVELaney Jones & The Spirits Press play on Jones’ mesmerizing new album, Stories Up High, and you’ll find yourself transported there, too. Recorded at East Nashville’s famed Bomb Shelter studio with producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Langhorne Slim), the collection is lush and immersive, with rich, elegant arrangements that ebb and flow beneath Jones’ velveteen vocals. The performances here are graceful and timeless, evoking a faded, old Hollywood glamor full of longing and melancholy, but dig a bit beneath the surface and you’ll find that Jones is actually an optimist at heart, a believer in the relentless beauty of this mixed-up world. She wrote the album in what she describes as a “flow state,” surrendering herself to the creative process the way a monk might approach meditation, and the result is a captivating, cinematic work that’s equal parts stream-of-consciousness and careful introspection, an honest, intuitive record that hints at everything from Angel Olsen and Judy Garland to Brandi Carlile and Andy Shauf as it reckons with growth, change, and the very fabric of life itself. “Strange as it sounds, I found myself sitting there crying while I was writing some of these songs because they came with such deep realizations about myself,” Jones confesses. “The music was there for me when I needed it most.” Jones earned widespread acclaim with a string of early releases, drawing comparisons to the likes of Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver for her majestic take on organic roots music. Her 2013 debut, Golden Road, landed her a nationally televised performance at The Kennedy Center alongside Alison Krauss, Sara Bareilles, and Ben Folds, while her 2016 follow-up, Laney Jones, prompted Rolling Stone to hail her as an Artist You Need To Know and praise her “penetrating hooks” and “Seventies-era flourishes.” Tracks from the albums, meanwhile, racked up millions of streams on Spotify and turned up in films from major studios like Disney and Pixar alongside commercials for Google, Netflix, New Balance, Toyota, and Red Bull. “I’m really proud of those first couple records,” Jones explains, “but they were the result of going into the studio for a week or so and coming out with a finished product. They were these little snapshots of wherever I happened to be at the moment. This time around, though, I wanted to give myself the time and the space to go beyond that, to work without any kind of limitations.” So Jones let Stories Up High unfold at its own pace, capturing the record over the course of several years and multiple recording sessions. The new songs she found herself writing bore less of the rustic, folk-inspired imprint of her previous work and instead drew on a hazy, more abstract palette of airy indie-rock textures reminiscent of Big Thief or Sharon Van Etten. Leaning into all the radical change going on her personal life (most notably her engagement and marriage to drummer Brian Dowd), Jones embraced the new, more self-assured versions of herself that emerged each time she shed her skin and allowed them to guide her on her creative path.
PATIO: Turkey Buzzards
– ALL AGES- LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED TURKEY BUZZARDSMuch like the duo themselves, the songs range near and far. From the sticky humidity of North Carolina to the dusty cellars of the West, The Turkey Buzzards tell simplistic stories that unravel through gritty vocals and thoughtful harmonies. The carefully crafted guitar riffs set against a solid bone bass stretch out across an American landscape with enough depth to sink well beneath the skin.
Vincent Neil Emerson
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYVINCENT NEIL EMERSON Vincent Neil Emerson is a torchbearer of the Texas songwriter tradition. He channels the straightforward truth-telling and resonance of his songwriting heroes in Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle into something fresh and distinctly his own. Where his 2019 debut Fried Chicken and Evil Women proved himself as one of the most reverent students of country and western musical traditions, his follow-up LP, the masterful Rodney Crowell-produced Vincent Neil Emerson, which is out June 25 via La Honda Records/Thirty Tigers, is a brave step forward that solidifies his place as one of music’s most compelling and emotionally clarifying storytellers. His songs are cathartic and bluntly honest, never mincing words or dancing around uncomfortable truths. Raised in Van Zandt County in East Texas by a single mother of Choctaw-Apache descent, Emerson’s world changed when he first heard Townes Van Zandt’s music. “To hear a guy from Fort Worth say those kinds of things and make those songs was pretty eye opening,” the now 29-year-old songwriter says. “I had never heard songwriting like that before.” He’s spent the better part of the past decade honing his songwriting and performance chops playing bars, honky-tonks, and BBQs joint across the Fort Worth area. His first album Fried Chicken and Evil Women, which he wrote in his mid-twenties and came out on La Honda Records, the label he cofounded that now includes a roster of Colter Wall, Local Honeys, and Riddy Arman, is a snapshot of his growth as a songwriter and stage-tested charm with songs like “Willie Nelson’s Wall” and “25 and Wastin’ Time” expertly combining humor and tragedy. These marathon gigs and the undeniable songs on his debut introduced Emerson to Canadian songwriter Colter Wall, who quickly became a close friend and took him on tour. With Wall’s audience and sold-out theater shows on runs with Charley Crockett, Turnpike Troubadours, and many others, Emerson found his niche. “It took a guy from Canada bringing me on tour for people to actually start paying attention,” says Emerson. “Before that it was a grind like anything else just trying to make a living.” Crockett is another staunch early supporter of Emerson’s and covered Fried Chicken highlight “7 Come 11” on his 2019 LP The Valley. Like every working musician, 2020 pulled the rug out from under Emerson. With the pandemic shuttering live music and cancelling promising tours, he processed the upheaval the only way he knew how: by writing his ass off. “At the beginning of quarantine, I was really frustrated with everything else going on,” says Emerson. “Everything was falling apart around me, and I didn’t know what to do.” He took to his writing shed and came up with the single “High On Getting By,” a gorgeous song full of self-reflection and resilience: the most autobiographical thing he’s ever written. He sings, “I got my first child on the way / And the bills are all unpaid / I should have finished high school / Got a job and learned to save / But the words keep on fallin’ / And the highway keeps on callin’ / To my pen.”VALLEY JAMES Nurtured by the golden hills of Star, Idaho, Valley James grew up riding horses through cheatgrass and sagebrush, unknowingly searching for more beyond the confines of her life. Music was in her veins, and over time, she realized that articulating her depth through song was her lifeblood.
Mason Jennings at Asheville Masonic Temple
ALL AGES – FULLY SEATED SHOW – AT ASHEVILLE MASONIC TEMPLE (80 Broadway St, Downtown Asheville) MASON JENNINGS When Mason Jennings started writing songs for his new record, Songs From When We Met, he was in a setting he had never written in before. “I was living out at a farm for a month and walking through some old woods on the property every day. There was a river. And each day an owl would come find me, and then perch above me, day or night. I saw lots of snakes. Songs just came to me there. They were coming in so fast they just about took my head off. It was unlike anything I’ve experienced before,” recalls Jennings. In Native American animal medicine snakes symbolize rebirth, owls symbolize seeing what others cannot and turning darkness into light. Both are themes throughout the album and the music has a clear hopeful feeling. Songs From When We Met pulls you in from the start, with Jennings telling the listener, “Get into my car now…let’s leave the city”. “Cursive Prayers is the first song I wrote for the album. I hadn’t written anything in a long time and any time I tried writing things I wrote were very dark. This song is so hopeful and full of love it surprised me. I think it was the beginning of things getting better in my life, like a message from another dimension.” “The last record was made in a real dark time for me. I was battling a lot of dark energy. Since then I’ve healed a lot and a lot of changes have taken place. I got divorced. I’ve been healing from agoraphobia. It’s been a rough patch but thankfully this record is about healing and hope. I fell in love and got married so it is mostly about love.” A great ambassador for the album is the slow grooving “I Know You”. The album features Mason on guitar, piano, bass and drums. He is accompanied by one of his favorite bands The Pines. “They are magic. They got inside these songs and really brought them to life. I produced an EP for them last year and it reminded me how good we worked together. It is always a pleasure working with them. They are Great humans”. The album was recorded with Grammy winning engineer Brian Joseph (Paul Simon, Bon Iver). “His studio has tons of windows. It is an old renovated barn in Eau Claire Wisconsin. He’s got tons of amazing wasp nests, bones, books, hanging lights. The walls are covered in ropes. It’s so beautiful. He’s got bees out back. The studio sits on beautiful land and lots of natural light. Very helpful”. Then the recordings went off to Los Angeles to be mixed by another Grammy winner, producer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, The War On Drugs.) “He’s an amazing person and sound engineer who has mixed three of my albums. He’s another magic being. He brings out the essence of a recording and makes it hit so hard. He’s a rare guy. I’m happy for him that he’s winning Grammys now. He deserves it”. SILVIESilvie is an indie-pop artist based in Nashville, TN. Although the project began more than five years ago, her sound and story have evolved as she herself has transformed in the last few years through pain and healing. With her poetic lyrics, honest story-telling, and unique pop-rock sound, it’s hard not to feel connected to the stories she’s telling as you listen. Her latest EP, Eleven Twenty-Eight, is a deeply personal journey through Silvie’s adulthood, divorce, and identity that only leaves you wanting more of her stories.
Jeffrey Martin
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- LIMIITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEJEFFREY MARTIN On a small corner lot in southeast Portland, Oregon, Jeffrey Martin holed up through the winter recording his quietly potent new album Thank God We Left The Garden. Long nights bled into mornings in the tiny shack he built in the backyard, eight feet by ten feet. What began as demos meant for a later visit to a proper studio became the album itself, spare and intimate and true. Recorded live and alone around two microphones, Jeffrey often held his breath to wait for the low diesel hum of a truck to pass one block over on the busy thoroughfare. During the coldest nights, he timed recording between the clicks of the oil coil heater cycling on and off. Martin’s fourth full length album, Thank God We Left The Garden comes out on Portland’s beloved Fluff and Gravy Records Nov __. He produced and engineered it himself, recalling, “There was a magic quality to the sounds I was getting in the shack with these two cheap microphones, some lucky recipe of time and place that allowed my voice and the way I play guitar and the shape of these new songs to come together with the kind of honesty I was craving.” So much has happened in the world since the release of his previous album One Go Around (heralded by No Depression as ‘the poetry of America’), and Jeffrey has filled the time doggedly, but happily, touring the US and Europe, watching it all unfold in a stream of small town conversations and city sprawl. In a moment where depth is so often traded for the instantaneous, where tech billionaires are building rockets to escape the planet, where the dead-eyed stare of artificial intelligence is promising to existentially upend our world, and where divisiveness in our culture is breeding delusional levels of certainty, Jeffrey Martin’s new record feels like a hopeful and fully human antidote. TOMMY ALEXANDER Tommy Alexander has never quite known where he was going, just to keep moving. In 2015 something undeniable was pulling the 31-year old DIY musician, self-made entrepreneur, and college dropout to the Pacific Northwest, where he quickly become a core part of their close knit songwriting community. While continuing to refine his own songwriting and performing skills, Alexander would go on to found Pilot Light Booking, which initially focused on that very community, but soon expanded to nearly 50 artists nationwide. As he began to delve into the art of tour booking, Alexander cold called one of his favorite venues and was soon the talent buyer at Bunk Bar. With little to no experience booking a dense concert schedule, Alexander dove in. His plan was simple: offer Bunk Bar to the community as a home for local showcases and touring bands alike. Bunk’s concert schedule thrived, on average hosting more than 20 shows a month. In April of 2022, Alexander was offered a job to book tours at Wasserman Nashville, one of the most respected music booking teams in the world. As hard as it was to let go of Pilot Light Booking and the idea of a dense touring schedule of his own, Alexander knew this was something he needed to pursue.
