Rock Academy Mixtape
-ALL AGES-LIMITED SEATING (FIRST COME FIRST SERVE) + STANDING ROOM ROCK ACADEMY Rock Academy is a Year-Round Rock Band Performance Program that take our bands out of the classrooms and into Asheville’s music scene. Students learn to perform a wide variety of musical styles and songs of various genres including blues, classic rock, hard rock, punk, surf, americana and more. Our music students grow into skilled musicians and take their band “on the road” to play in front of live audiences at some of the top venues in the area. The Asheville Rock Academy’s talented students have played some high-profile gigs, including the Main stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Academy bands have also played with Cliff Williams of AC/DC and American Idol’s Caleb Johnson. Join us for this year’s “Mix Tape 2025” show!
Bendigo Fletcher
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYBENDIGO FLETCHER Shapeshifting on an axis between folk, alternative, country, and soul, Bendigo Fletcher’s lofty melodies soar above earthy instrumentation on their 2022 Wingding EP [Elektra Records]. Charmed with psychedelic flourishes, yet tightly rooted in tried-and-true songcraft, the Louisville quintet—Ryan Anderson [lead vocals, guitar, banjo], Andrew Shupert [backing vocals, lead guitar], Evan Wagner [backing vocals, keys, guitar, percussion], Conner Powell [bass], and Chris Weis [drums]—continues to instantly transfix across the EP’s four tracks. “More than a few times, I’ve explored the Wingding font universe as an entertaining break from more pressing tasks. I like the name ‘Wingding’ for a fictional creature, like the Mothman of West Virginia folklore. It’s also another word for party,” Anderson says. “This EP is a collection of distractions we built over the last few years when gatherings and adventures felt pretty unattainable.” After crisscrossing paths in the Louisville scene and life in general (“Chris is my brother-in-law’s childhood best friend,” notes Anderson), Bendigo Fletcher initially formed in 2016. The group organically built an audience across their native Kentucky one gig at a time. During 2018, they made waves with the independent Consensual Wisdom EP highlighted by fan favorites “Wonderfully Bizarre” and “Soul Factory.” Following a tireless grind, the band signed to Elektra Records and unveiled their debut album, Fits of Laughter in 2021. Beyond amassing millions of streams, the album earned widespread critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, and more. Music Connection dubbed it, “Alt-rock, country-flecked folk-rock soaked in LSD,” while Atwood Magazine praised the collection as “a record of reverie, celebration, and true to its name, laughter: music made for good times and bad, that promises to leave us all a little more elated.” Along the way, Bendigo Fletcher captivated crowds on tour with the likes of Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Hiss Golden Messenger, Mt. Joy, Nathaniel Rateliff, Anderson East, Rayland Baxter, and Shakey Graves. In 2022, Bendigo Fletcher returned to Nashville, TN’s Cartoon Moon Recording Studio to track their Wingding EP. Once again, the band teamed with Fits of Laughter producer and original Wilco/Uncle Tupelo drummer Ken Coomer in the studio. For the first time, the band enlisted Grizzly Bear bassist and producer, Chris Taylor, as a mixer. “In addition to the brilliance of Ken’s ear as a song maker, I appreciate the environment he maintains,” notes Ryan. “All ideas are considered, and we try to just have fun trying new sounds. I think that mentality lends to a unique blend, keeping the band outside of any one box. And I’ve found constant inspiration in Chris’ work as a soundscaper since a friend introduced me to Veckatimest in high school. Having him on the project was really exciting, and I think his mixes present the band’s ethos in a beautifully natural way.” PRODUCING A KIND GENERATION
The Stews
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY THE STEWS After releasing their debut album, What Was, in April of 2022, The Stews have been a non-stop touring machine. Playing hundreds of shows a year has allowed them to hone in their musical and songwriting skills alike. With 2023 summer tour sellouts ranging from Washington DC’s 9:30 Club, Charleston’s Windjammer, New York City’s Bowery Ballroom, and countless more, The Stews have proven that they are a musical force to be reckoned with. The summer tour even featured a venue record-breaking 800+ day-of-show tickets sold at Avondale Brewing in Birmingham, AL. In addition to the aforementioned legendary venues, The Stews played to packed out, ravenous crowds at Bonnaroo, Sweetwater 420Fest, and Roosterwalk. The band drove straight from their summer tour finale at Appleton, Wisconsin’s Mile of Music to meet up with Moon Taxi to support their fall tour. After months on the roading supporting Moon Taxi, the band returned home to Charleston, SC to finish up their second studio album. With thousands of tickets sold across a three night NYE run in Charlotte, Savannah, and Atlanta, the band capped off a record breaking year. In July of 2024, The Stews released their second full-length LP, “Chicken Fight”. The album is a daring body of work that can’t be confined to one genre, as fans will find songs reminiscent of The Allman Brothers, Audioslave, Pink Floyd, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise to name a few.
EARLY SHOW: David Lowery
ALL AGES FULLY SEATED SHOW LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE DAVID LOWERY David Lowery is a highly accomplished songwriter, performer, producer, and advocate for artists’ rights based in Athens, GA. He began his career in the early 1980s while studying mathematics at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he founded the critically acclaimed ensemble Camper Van Beethoven and the associated record label, Pitch-a-Tent Records. With these two entities, he played a pivotal role in jump-starting the indie rock movement. Camper Van Beethoven released six albums before going on an extended hiatus in 1990. Afterward, Lowery formed the ensemble Cracker in 1991, which produced five top-ten alternative/rock radio tracks and three platinum albums. During this time, he also produced and recorded albums for other artists such as The Counting Crows, Magnolia Electric Company, and Sparklehorse. In 2004, Camper Van Beethoven reformed, and since then, Lowery has been recording and touring with both bands, often playing together on a double bill. In 2005, Lowery and his wife (a concert promoter of some note) started the Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout festival at the iconic Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace. The festival ran through 2019 when the venue changed ownership. In 2019, Lowery began releasing a series of loosely autobiographical albums, including In The Shadow of the Bull (2019), Leaving Key Member Clause (2021), and Vending Machine (2023). These albums are currently only available in physical formats or via Bandcamp and are not available on streaming services. Originally intended as an experiment, the limited release strategy generated revenues that far exceeded what would be expected from a streaming release. Thus, Lowery has continued in this manner, as apparently in the streaming age, less is more. Lowery is currently touring in support of these three albums.
PATIO: Riyen Roots & Kenny Dore
– ALL AGES- LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE RIYEN ROOTS & KENNY DORE Roots and Dore are an acoustic blues, roots and soul duo from the music rich mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. With their unique style and captivating original songs and covers from some of the best in blues and soul history, they are one of the busiest acts in the US. Having toured Europe and their shows in New Orleans the first week of JazzFest annually and playing 150-200 shows a year at clubs and festivals for over fifteen years. They have shared the stage with some of the biggest names in the blues business including Bobby Rush, Eric Gales, Cedric Burnside, John Dee Holeman, Bob Margolin, Maria Muldaur, Mac Arnold, Guitar Shorty and many more. They’ve even opened for Billy Bob Thornton’s band The Boxmasters twice. Always a great time!
Golden Folk Sessions
ALL AGES 6PM DOORS / 7PM SHOW FULLY SEATED SHOW LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE GOLDEN FOLK SESSIONS Golden Folk Sessions (formerly Open Folk AVL) offers an intimate, carefully curated listening experience that celebrates the art of original music. Each event showcases six handpicked artists, performing three-song sets in a quiet, seated environment where the music takes center stage. To add a sense of surprise and discovery, the lineup is revealed only when the show begins. Running from 7–9 PM, these early shows create the perfect evening for music lovers who value live performances and a good night’s rest. With over 100 shows hosted and extraordinary artists from around the globe gracing our stage, Golden Folk Sessions is entering an exciting new chapter. Under a new name and with a new home at The Grey Eagle—one of the Southeast’s most iconic venues—we’re thrilled to continue fostering community through music. Staying true to our values of accessibility, we aim to make music available to everyone. Presale tickets guarantee your seat and support both Golden Folk Sessions and The Grey Eagle. For those attending on the day of the show, our “pay what you can, if you can” option ensures that all are welcome to be part of this unique and meaningful experience. • $25 for Priority Seating (first three rows) • $10 General Admission (presale) • $0-$25 Day-of-Show (no minimum) We can’t wait to see y’all there
Golden Folk Sessions
ALL AGES 6PM DOORS / 7PM SHOW FULLY SEATED SHOW LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE GOLDEN FOLK SESSIONS Golden Folk Sessions (formerly Open Folk AVL) offers an intimate, carefully curated listening experience that celebrates the art of original music. Each event showcases six handpicked artists, performing three-song sets in a quiet, seated environment where the music takes center stage. To add a sense of surprise and discovery, the lineup is revealed only when the show begins. Running from 7–9 PM, these early shows create the perfect evening for music lovers who value live performances and a good night’s rest. With over 100 shows hosted and extraordinary artists from around the globe gracing our stage, Golden Folk Sessions is entering an exciting new chapter. Under a new name and with a new home at The Grey Eagle—one of the Southeast’s most iconic venues—we’re thrilled to continue fostering community through music. Staying true to our values of accessibility, we aim to make music available to everyone. Presale tickets guarantee your seat and support both Golden Folk Sessions and The Grey Eagle. For those attending on the day of the show, our “pay what you can, if you can” option ensures that all are welcome to be part of this unique and meaningful experience. • $25 for Priority Seating (first three rows) • $10 General Admission (presale) • $0-$25 Day-of-Show (no minimum) We can’t wait to see y’all there
The Arcadian Wild
ALL AGES FULLY SEATED SHOW LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE THE ARCADIAN WILD The Arcadian Wild is a four-piece indie folk/pop group from Nashville, TN. Led by songwriters Isaac Horn and Lincoln Mick and Bailey Warren on fiddle, The Arcadian Wild confidently inhabits and explores an intersection of genre, blending the traditional with the contemporary. Combining elements of progressive bluegrass, folk, and formal vocal music, The Arcadian Wild offer up songs of invitation; calls to come and see, to find refuge and rest, to journey and wonder, to laugh and cry, to share joy and community and sing along. The band’s 2023 album Welcome marks the start of a captivating new chapter for the genre-bending trio, who returned to the studio with renewed purpose and insight after devoting the last few years to a series of critically acclaimed singles and EPs. Like much of the band’s catalog, the album blurs the lines between chamber folk and progressive bluegrass, drawing on everything from country and classical to pop and choral music with lush harmonies and dazzling fretwork, but this time around there’s a rawness to the writing, an embrace of candor and simplicity that cuts straight to the heart of things like never before. The result is perhaps the most arresting collection yet from a band known for its ability to stop listeners dead in their tracks, an exquisitely beautiful celebration of community, connection, and the power of belonging that feels tailor-made for these challenging times. DALLAS UGLY Nashville’s Dallas Ugly are an indie rock band of truly trusted friends who – after a decade of playing together – return with their best work yet. Beautifully produced in collaboration with Grammy winning engineer Justin Francis, their sophomore album See Me Now is contemporary, crisp, and alive, a fiddle-filled entry in the current band-with-guitar renaissance that puts them in conversation with acts like MJ Lenderman, Big Thief, and Allegra Krieger while still channelling the sparkly sing-along heights of late 90s radio. The growth of heartache, finding footing in an unstable world, and modern anxiety resonate out in soaring harmony.
Florry
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY FLORRY A far cry from the cool, calculated distance and reserved posture that is all-too-familiar to the indie-rock sphere, Florry, the Philly-bred septet and songwriting vehicle of bandleader Francie Medosch, are marking their territory as a band resolving to do something very different: they are having a really good time out there. Cutting her teeth in the Philadelphia DIY scene starting in 2019 as a student at Temple University, the early days of Florry found Medosch at the end of her teenage years releasing a slew of singles and EP’s in a familiar idiom of lo-fi bedroom recordings tinged with country melancholy. A lot has changed since then. Most importantly, perhaps, the project snowballed into a barn-burning seven piece rock band in the proceeding years; and without sacrificing any of the emotional immediacy that’s come to define Medosch’s brashly earnest, bleeding-heart lyrical style, you’re unlikely to find her lingering as much on the melancholy these days. Or, as Medosch plainly puts it in regards to Sounds Like… , the band’s forthcoming LP. “The Jackass theme song was actually a really big influence on the new album” The release of their 2023 formal full-length debut The Holey Bible (via Dear Life) found Medosch now flanked by six bandmates and trafficking in a wider, more rock-oriented approach with the bravado of someone with a new lease on life. With Jon Cox (Sadurn, Son of Barb) on pedal steel, John Murray on electric guitar, Colin Dennen on bass, Will Henrikson on fiddle, Katya Malison (Doll Spirit Vessel) on Vox, and Joey Sullivan (Bark Culturr) on drums, Florry 2.0 had arrived. The retooled seven-piece embraced a lengthy run of tours dialing in their new kinetic sound and freewheeling chemistry including runs with Fust, MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman, and Real Estate. Greeted to critical acclaim upon its release, with positive notices from outlets including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan, the album quickly introduced Florry to an expanded audience and pointed a way forward for Medosch and the band at a time when the future wasn’t so clear. “I had a job lined up selling insurance, I guess I figured that was that, you know?” As it turns out, that was not that. A few days went by, and then the phone started ringing. From managers, from booking agents, from indie-rock elder statesman Kurt Vile, who took the band on the road in support of his 2023 Back to Moon Beach LP. On the winkingly titled Sounds Like… , the band’s second full-length release via Dear Life, Florry is picking up right where they left off in 2023. Again upping the ante with a bigger, brighter, more abrasive sound that resembles something closer to Rolling Thunder Revue-era Bob Dylan than their humble DIY roots. Across ten tracks, the band wear their influences on their sleeve while carving out a space that is distinctly their own, blending raw honky-tonk grit and rich instrumental textures with the disarming sincerity and intimacy of the group’s lo-fi beginnings. It’s a record about searching—searching for home, for love, for meaning, and for a sound that captures it all. As Medosch croons on the red-hot opening track, First it was a movie, then it was a book Last night i watched a moviethe movie made me sad‘cause i saw myself in everyonehow’d they make a movie like that?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY FRANKIE AND THE WITCH FINGERS Los Angeles psych-punk shapeshifters Frankie and the Witch Fingers have spent the last decade mutating their sound into bold, electrifying new forms. Their latest release, Trash Classic (via Greenway Records and The Reverberation Appreciation Society), plunges into a sewer-slick fusion of proto-punk venom, fractured new wave, and industrial grime. Brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies, and grooves that squirm and bite, it’s all delivered with a sly, playful wink. Fueled by relentless global touring and a fierce DIY ethos, the band has shared stages with OFF!, Ty Segall, Oh Sees, Cheap Trick, and ZZ Top, cementing their place as one of the most unforgettable live acts around. Frankie and the Witch Fingers continue to morph, dragging listeners into whatever warped direction their experimental journey takes next. Hooks so infectious they rot on impact. Trash Classic marks a feral mutation for Frankie and the Witch Fingers—a record that snarls with proto-punk venom, angular melodies, and electronic textures that cough and sputter like dying neon lights under a poisoned sky. This record pushes the Witch Fingers’ sound to a razor’s edge. Wiry and twitching, it bends into synth-punk and fractured new wave, with fragments of industrial grime caked under its nails. Guitars detonate and slice like cinder blocks through glass, while gnashing basslines slither through the sludge, alive and seething. Buzzy synths take the forefront, driving relentless rhythms that crack and pop, drenched in a chemically saturated sheen—part bug-eyed speed-freak pogo, part dance-floor delirium. The vocals cut through like static-laced transmissions—balancing both smirk and sneer—layering playful unease over themes of escapism, decay, and overindulgence. The songs were born in the grime of Vernon, Los Angeles—a wasteland littered with gutted RVs and rusting machinery, where the air tastes like asphalt and dog food. But the real alchemy happened in Oakland, at Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus (La Luz, Spacemoth) helped transmute the tracks into their final forms. Unhinged tones, unconventional recording experiments, and wild sonic detours transformed the songs into something alive and unpredictable. Every day of recording began with cartoons blaring at full volume—a Looney Tunes ritual that turned the madness of the recording process into something child like. Late at night, sugar-fueled candy binges kept the energy spiking, pushing the sessions into a fever dream of jittery, spastic playfulness. The result is a raw, twisted monument to rot and excess—toxic glamour and nihilistic salvation. Trash Classic isn’t just a record; it’s an auditory dumpster bible—a gutter gospel for those ready to dive into its filth.
