Nolan Taylor
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYNOLAN TAYLOR Nolan Taylor is a singer-songwriter based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. His voice ranges from the soft fall of rain to a heavy crack of thunder, underlining songs of hard times, wild nights and heartbreak. The emotional impact of his sound is not only heard, but felt, in the bones and in the blood. Themes of longing, desperation, joy and sorrow ring true and genuine from his lips. When Nolan sings, it will make you feel like all of the heartbreak you have ever experienced found a voice and learned how to play guitar. His passion and his energy are contagious and will draw you into his stories.LOGAN HALSTEAD “Logan has that mystic quality that every songwriter seeks to harness each time they put pen to paper, and he’s just getting started. ‘Dark Black Coal’ is a striking lamentation on growing up in coal country, and he takes you there.”- Hippies and Cowboys Podcast “A talented lyricist whose song content authentically revolves around his experiences growing up and living in the heart of Appalachia, Halstead is one of the driving forces in the scene of young artists hailing from the Appalachian region.”- Whiskey Riff “There’s a starkness and a wisdom in this guy’s voice that is way beyond his years. “- Grady Smith
The Resonant Rogues (Album Release Show)
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYTHE RESONANT ROGUES The Resonant Rogues’ dark Appalachian folk paints a picture of their lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina and on the road. Anchored by the songwriting duo of Sparrow (banjo, accordion) and Keith Smith (guitar), they’ve traveled the byways and highways of America and crossed the oceans with instruments in tow. From riding freight trains to building their own homestead, the pair are no strangers to blazing unconventional trails. At once rooted and adventurous, each song tells a story of real experiences, friendships, and challenges. The Rogues just wrapped up a record in Nashville with renowned producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff), featuring guest appearances from Sierra Ferrell, Benjamin Tod, John James Tourville (Deslondes), and Jason Dea West. “Their intense cohesion is so intertwined that it feels like they’re playing with one pair of hands.” –No Depression “I urge you to get out and hear them” -Lonesome Highway CRISTINA VANE Born in Italy to a Sicilian-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Cristina Vane has always had a tenuous relationship with identity and place. She grew up between England, France and Italy, and was fluent in four languages by the time she moved to her fathers’ native United States for university at 18. Despite this, (and perhaps because of it) she had no sense of belonging to any one culture or country. What she did have, however, was an intense love of music. Powered by her signature take on blues and rock, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cristina Vane’s debut album, Nowhere Sounds Lovely, earned her praise from the likes of American Songwriter and Rolling Stone Country, which deemed it ‘mesmerizing stuff’. The 2021 release was written largely on a road trip across America. Since then, Vane has laid down roots in Nashville and had the opportunity to spend more time exploring internally. On her sophomore album “Make Myself Me Again”, Vane has found a way all the way around the country and right back to herself, both musically and personally. “I’ve been trying to peel back the layers, to understand who I am, and I think that process has translated to this record,” she explains, “The production is straightforward, more minimal, and a bit of a return to my rock roots but still paying homage to the music I’ve explored since then”. After graduating from Princeton with a degree in Comparative Literature, Vane moved to Los Angeles where she worked at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, and spent every free moment working on her music, studying fingerstyle guitar with mentor Pete Steinberg. Those years pushed her into deeper exploration of country blues picking and old folk guitar styles. In the last few years she’s taken a deep dive into old-time and bluegrass music, adding clawhammer banjo to her arsenal of instruments.
Mama’s Broke
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEMAMA’S BROKE Mama’s Broke have spent the past eight years in a near-constant state of transience, pounding the transatlantic tour trail. They’ve brought their dark, fiery folk-without-borders sound to major festivals and DIY punk houses alike, absorbing traditions from their maritime home in Eastern Canada all the way to Ireland and Indonesia. Nowhere is the duo’s art-in-motion approach more apparent than on their long-awaited sophomore record Narrow Line (May 13, 2022 on Free Dirt Records); it’s the sound of nowhere in particular, yet woven with a rich synthesis of influences that knows no borders. It earned them a JUNO nomination for Traditonal Roots Album of the Year 2022. Tinges of Americana stand side-by-side with the ghosts of Eastern European fiddle tunes and ancient a cappella ballad singing, melding into an unusually accessible dark-folk sound. A careful listen of Narrow Line invokes an ephemeral sense of place—whether real or imagined—inviting us to take comfort in the infinite possibilities of life, whether or not we ever choose to settle down. For a group defined by constant touring, it’s not surprising that the two artists that make up Mama’s Broke, Lisa Maria and Amy Lou Keeler, met on the road. As Lisa remembers it, “Amy was driving her old Mercedes from Montreal to Nova Scotia and I was looking for a ride. We spent the 17 hours in the car talking almost exclusively about music. By the time we reached Halifax we started playing together, and within a week or two became a band.” Both coming out of traveling communities that are focused on music and protest, the two owe the way in which they move through the world to the integrated and self-sustaining nature of DIY culture and activism. It was a busy life that took them on a roundabout annual touring schedule running between Canada, the United States, Ireland, the UK, and Europe. In each country, they built grassroots DIY communities to support their music or moved along the pathways of communal organizing that sustained other touring artists. The driving force behind this band is – and has always been – the commitment to challenge borders between people, places, and traditions; while encouraging freedom of expression and community through music.ERIKA LEWISKnown for her lengthy tenure touring and busking with beloved New Orleans jazz band Tuba Skinny, prolific songwriter and singer Erika Lewis has been churning out American originals all her own for the past several years. From classic country to cosmic Americana to dreamy indie folk, Lewis continues to dip her toes more deeply into an ever-expanding pool of roots music styles. Her new record A Walk Around the Sun is a testament to Lewis’ songwriting prowess and exceptional vocal ability. Produced by John James Tourville (The Deslondes), A Walk Around the Sun features 11 all-original songs exploring the gray areas between love and loss, joy and grief, longing and contentment. Though her songwriting shines brightly, it’s never at the cost of melody or arrangement; complete with sweeping strings, pedal steel, and even the occasional fuzz of a psych-rock guitar solo, Lewis’ voice soars with emotion and texture throughout. Beautifully balanced, adroitly performed, and masterfully produced, A Walk Around the Sun brings Lewis’ solo work out from the wings to center stage, beneath a spotlight nearly impossible to ignore.
Seth Walker
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW – LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE SETH WALKER Over the last decade, Seth Walker has become recognized as one of the most revered Americana artists in the United States; a three dimensional talent who combines a gift for melody and lyric alongside a rich, Gospel-drenched, Southern-inflected voice with a true blue knack for getting around on the guitar. In 2022, Walker will release, ‘I Hope I Know,’ his eleventh studio album. Produced by Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers, the collection is a beacon of light, written and recorded during the dark times of the pandemic. Each song burns bright with what fans have come to love about Walker: stylistically diverse influences, pure soul in his delivery, contemplative lyrics, and musical movement both geographic and spiritual. Currently residing in Asheville after stints living in Nashville, New Orleans and Austin, Walker has used those experiences wisely, soaking up the sounds and absorbing the musical lineage of these varied places. With a bluesman’s respect for roots and tradition, coupled with an appreciation for—and successful melding of—contemporary songwriting, Seth sublimely incorporates a range of styles with warmth and grace. All Music declares, “Walker is deft and elegant, weaving together sounds and stories in a way that has a quiet, lasting impact,” but perhaps Country Standard Time said it best: “If you subscribe to the Big Tent theory of Americana, then Seth Walker –with his blend of blues, gospel, pop, R&B, rock, and a dash country—just might be your poster boy.” BEN K. LOCHENBen K. Lochen is a songwriter from Asheville, North Carolina. His debut album, Ingrates, is his attempt at making and honoring the kind of music he loves. He hopes you’ll enjoy it.
OUTPOST: The Old Futures
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLY- RAIN OR SHINEThe Old Futures are an indie rock band based in Asheville, NC. Their live show consists of a deep catalog of original material with a few classic covers to keep everyone groovin’! The quartet is a versatile group that draws inspiration from Indie, Blues, Pop, and Americana stylings to name a few. Don’t miss out on this exciting fun new band in the Asheville Scene.
Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad: “All Bad Tour”
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYNICK SHOULDERS AND THE OKAY CRAWDADAll Bad, the latest album from Nick Shoulders, ultimately encapsulates everything that makes Shoulders’ inimitable form of country music so vital: a heady balance of dazzling musicianship and punk defiance, coupled with gritty eccentricity and a generational connection to the roots of the genre. With a singing style inherited from his family’s vocal lineage, Nick’s songs achieve the rare feat of imparting difficult truths while inciting a certain joyful abandon, balancing a sound forged by years of hard travel with a heartfelt reverence for the origins of country music. In the spirit of Hazel Dickens and Jimmy Driftwood, the incisive yet wildly jubilant All Bad vocally objects to the reckless destruction of the natural landscape and development run rampant, while still offering plenty of joy and dance-ready rhythms. Spanning a variety of early country styles, the album’s infectious harmonies shine alongside everything from jangling cajun waltzes to surf-rock infused bluesy ballads–all tied together by a voice seemingly out of place in this century, yet ever ready to speak up about its problems.Released via Gar Hole Records (a label founded and co-owned by Shoulders), All Bad marks the first LP made with his longtime band, the Okay Crawdad, since 2019’s premier full-length Okay, Crawdad and their subsequent pandemic-imposed hiatus. After writing most of the album from the front seat of a tour van, the Fayetteville, AR-based musician and bandmates Grant D’Aubin (harmonies/bass), Cheech Moosekian (drums) and Jack Studer (lead guitar) recorded the album in a home studio on the banks of the Mississippi River with New Orleans collaborators Ross Farbe and Sam Doores.Surrounded by a singing style passed down from a time before microphones, Nick’s childhood of bird call whistles and an over-exposure to southern gospel music eventually steered him toward an adolescence drumming for metal and punk bands, and subsequent years as an active illustrator and member of Arkansas’s heavy music scene. After numerous personal calamities and a growing obsession with the rural musical traditions of his lifelong home, Shoulders left the Ozarks and lived out of his van, singing on the street corners of the west while slowly being drawn to the vibrance of the New Orleans dance and busking world. After forming in early 2018, the ‘Okay Crawdad’ band flourished briefly in the wildly talented south Louisiana alt-country scene, culminating in the release of ‘Rather Low’ by the popular YouTube channel Western AF, catapulting Nick’s songs to a vastly wider audience right as Covid-19 and lockdowns ensued. Since then, a rapid ascension into the world of touring music has seen Nick playing alongside the likes of Sierra Ferrell and at major festivals such as Stagecoach. With the hard rhythms and heavenly melodies of their newest release, All Bad, the band manages to concoct a body of work that is at turns sublimely freewheeling and profoundly illuminating, yet primed to permanently warp the listener’s perspective to glorious effect.RIDDY ARMANArman has traveled across the country — from the farmlands of the Midwest to the bustling streets of New York City — writing songs, working as a ranch hand, and practicing an Agrarian lifestyle.
Back to School Family Show with The Billy Jonas Band
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- EARLY SHOW BILLY JONAS BAND Fun for All Ages! The Billy Jonas Band loves to engage and delight both young and adult audiences. Whether performing for adults, families, school groups, faith communities, or a mix, they strive for a musical excellence that inspires, entertains, and moves people literally and figuratively. With “wild winded word magic” (Dirty Linen Magazine), homemade “industrial re-percussion” instruments, exquisite 3 and 4 part vocal harmonies, plus guitar and bass, they love to create community through song and story. Their specialty: finding and pushing your “wonder” button.In 2010, the Billy Jonas Band was honored with a performance at the White House!
BJ & BJ (Billy Jonas & BJ Leiderman)
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEBILLY JONAS Some ask: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Billy Jonas asks: “What is the sound of 600 sets of keys jingling on the downbeat? And how shall we inspire the audience to do it?”For over thirty years, Billy Jonas — performer, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator — has perfected the art of the neo-tribal hootenanny* with audiences around the globe. Using voice, guitar, and industrial re-percussion,* each concert is a soul-spelunking, heart healing, joy-filled journey.“It began around an evening campfire in the summer of 1972 — Leaving on a Jet Plane and Blowing in the Wind rising with the sparks into the darkness… communal singing, guitars strumming, and a bucket thumping the back beat. 40 summer campers and 8 counselors became one big, glorious, harmonizing being. I remember thinking: wouldn’t it be great to carry this ecstatic connectedness, and musical magic out into the world?” – BillyBilly developed his craft in the late 1980‘s as a founding member of the Oberlin College Big Bang Theory performance art collective. He refined things further in Chicago during monthly “Bangalong with Billy” shows at the No Exit Cafe, and subsequently in the 1990‘s as a co-founder (with Bill Melanson) of the funky folk* duo The Billys.He currently tours with the Billy Jonas Band, with Abraham Jam (Muslim-Christian-Jewish trio), and solo. The Billy Jonas Band was honored with an invitation to perform at the White House in 2010.Jonas has received numerous honors and awards, including an American Federation of Independent Musicians 1st place/Gold, multiple Parents Choice Golds, and a New York Times “Best” listing.*BJ LEIDERMANBJ Leiderman is the award-winning composer of some of the best known theme music on Public Radio. For over five decades, Leiderman’s melodies have graced programs including Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Marketplace, Science Friday, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! and the “Stump The Chumps” theme from Car Talk. Leiderman, who now lives in Asheville, has been touring the country on behalf of Public Radio member stations.BJ will be performing original songs from his debut album entitled “BJ” as well as some of his favorite cover tunes. As always, he will include the crowd-pleasing medley of his most popular Public Radio themes. So be sure to reserve your tickets now. “A splendid time is guaranteed for all!“ PLUS… Billy Jonas After Dark BandThe FunDadaMentalists
PATIO: Dirty French Broads
– ALL AGES- LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVEDTHE DIRTY FRENCH BROADSAuthentic and endearing with a little spice, The Dirty French Broads pick a few shades apart from the established Americana and Bluegrass scenes. Born in the mountains of Western North Carolina, this lively crew brings smoky ballads and boot stomping cut-a-rugs with the energy of a thousand golden retriever puppies seeing their first snowfall. With a phenomenal ability to connect with every room, fireside, and barn they play, they always bring the party and never leave without a few dozen new friends.
ONDARA: THE REBIRTH TOUR at Asheville Masonic Temple
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- AT ASHEVILLE MASONIC TEMPLE (80 BROADWAY ST) ONDARA Ondara’s new album, Spanish Villager No: 3, was predominately produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with contributions from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. The new collection of songs features a much more full, electric sound. Of the album, Ondara states, “This collection of work and the work that lies ahead in presenting it to the world, is a metaphor for my spiritual path. There is death and resurrection in it, a peeling of layers, a pursuit of the truest form of the self in the universe. Ironically, the adaptation of the Spanish Villager character has made me more acquainted with myself. By creating an obvious demarcation between the art and the artist, I have charted two paths of maturation. One path is the maturation of the Spanish Villager as a work of art, as a character in a narrative, as a commodity partaking in the mandatory sport of capitalism; The other is my own personal maturation into a spiritual, integrated, and useful member of society.” The namesake behind the new album is The Spanish Villager: a mysterious man with a potent message who has proven to be a versatile guy: he’s the subject of a short story Ondara wrote and turned into a graphic novel, and now a new album. Spanish Villager No: 3 follows his 2020 sophomore album, Folk N’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation, and his 2019 debut album, Tales of America, which received a nomination for Best Americana Album at the 62nd Grammy Awards. Ondara also received a nod for Best Emerging Act at the 2019 Americana Awards. Ondara grew up in Nairobi, Kenya listening to American alt-rock and making up his own songs for as long as he can remember. At an early age he fell in love with the music of Bob Dylan and was granted a visa through the immigration lottery system. He chose Minneapolis as his home to pursue a career as a singer and songwriter with Dylan in mind. He began making his way in the local music scene, continually writing songs about what he saw, felt and experienced in a place far different from home. KATACOMBS Katacombs is the name Katerina Kiranos landed on after years of building sculptural furniture of bone and wood. Born in Miami to a Spanish mother and Greek father, she spent the majority of her early life bouncing between multiple cultures and wanting to adapt. The common thread anywhere she landed was her love for music. Piano lessons as a child led to days on end of writing and recording from her makeshift bedroom-studio as a teen, which turned into years of collecting songs- all just to store them away. Though she took a detour career-wise, she continued to play where she could and could never escape the urge to spend every day honing her first true passion.
