“Are You Ready For It?”: A Taylor Swift Inspired Dance Party
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYReady to dance? LET’S PARTY! Brought to you by Le Petite Fete
NIGHT TWO: Watchhouse (Special Duo Set) at Asheville Masonic Temple
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- AT ASHEVILLE MASONIC TEMPLEWATCHHOUSE Over a year after Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange) reintroduced themselves on their 2021 self-titled LP, the pair shared a special surprise release: Watchhouse (Duo), a self-produced recording of Marlin and Frantz performing the most elemental possible arrangements of all nine songs from Watchhouse. It’s a project that captures the fundamental power of Watchhouse: Two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life. Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. They’ve sold out iconic venues (Red Rocks, Ryman Auditorium) and attract hundreds of millions of streams while producing exploratory music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post). 2022 was filled with many endeavors including the American Acoustic Tour with Punch Brothers, headlining shows across the US, collaborating with Planet Bluegrass on Mabon, an autumn equinox concert series, and of course Watchhouse (Duo). In 2023, Marlin and Frantz will celebrate the release of Watchhouse (Duo) with a short run of shows that will feature just the two of them, harkening back to their earliest days of performing.SAMANTHA CRAINSamantha Crain is a Choctaw singer, songwriter, poet, producer, and musician from Oklahoma. She is a two-time Native American Music Award winner and winner of an Indigenous Music Award. Her genre spanning discography has been critically acclaimed by media outlets such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, Paste, No Depression, NPR, PRI, The Guardian, NME, Uncut, and others. She has toured extensively over the past 15 yearsnationally and internationally, presenting ambitious orchestrated shows with a band and intimate folk leaning solo performances. She has toured with First Aid Kit, Neutral Milk Hotel, Gregory Alan Isakov, The Avett Brothers, The Mountain Goats, Brandi Carlile, Langhorne Slim, The Staves, and many other bands and artists. With her new album, “A Small Death”, and newer EP, “I Guess We Live Here Now”, she continues her traditionof keeping things close to the heart and the ground by leaning into the fulfillment of affinity with an audience and the satisfaction of a song with a memorable melody and an honest story.
The Heavy Heavy
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYTHE HEAVY HEAVY The Heavy Heavy create the kind of unfettered rock-and-roll that warps time and place, immediately pulling the audience into a euphoric fugue state with its own sun-soaked atmosphere. Led by lifelong musicians Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, the Brighton, UK-based band began with a shared ambition of “making records that sound like our favorite records ever,” and soon arrived at a reverb-drenched collision of psychedelia and blues, acid rock and sunshine pop. As revealed on their gloriously hazy debut EP Life and Life Only, The Heavy Heavy breathe an incandescent new energy into sounds from decades ago, transcending eras with a hypnotic ease.SHANE GUERRETTEIt’s the old way of doing things that inspires a new sound for upstate NY based artist, Shane Guerrette. Drawing influence from classic soul and roots rock genres, Shane has only just begun to craft his own retro flavored sound. With a recent self-released debut album called “Here’s Hoping” and plans of touring in the near future, you’ll want to keep an eye out for what’s to come from this rising star.
Joshua Ray Walker w/ Vandoliers
– w/ VANDOLIERS- ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYJOSHUA RAY WALKEROn his new album See You Next Time, Texas-bred singer/songwriter Joshua Ray Walker shares an imagined yet truthful portrait of a brokedown honky-tonk and the misfits who call it home: barflies and wannabe cowboys, bleary-eyed dreamers and hopelessly lost souls. His third full-length in three years, the album marks the final installment in a trilogy that originated with Walker’s globally acclaimed 2019 debut Wish You Were Here and its equally lauded follow-up Glad You Made It (the #5 entry on Rolling Stone’s Best Country and Americana Albums of 2020 list).“The whole idea with the trilogy was to use the honky-tonk as a setting where all these different characters could interact with each other,” says Walker, who drew immense inspiration from the local dive bars he first started sneaking into and gigging at as a teenager growing up in East Dallas. “In my mind, this album’s taking place on the night before the bar closes forever—the songs are just me taking snapshots of that world, and all the moments that happen in it.”VANDOLIERSVandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever.OLD HEAVY HANDSOld Heavy Hands is a Southern Rock band from Greensboro, NC. The band name pays tribute to their roots and conception. Many of their songs started on acoustics at Legacy Irons Tattoo in downtown Greensboro where three of the members earn their living. They blend together nostalgia from the golden era of Muscle Shoals and their adolescent years of punk rock influence to create a unique brand of Rock music for the modern age. The upcoming record “Small Fires” was tracked at The Fidelitorium and Earthtones Recording studio.
An Evening With Ben Sollee + Scott Mulvahill
– ALL AGES- FULLY SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE BEN SOLLEE Over the last two decades, Kentuckian Ben Sollee has distinguished himself as multi-faceted creative, blurring the lines between music, tech, and activism. A graduate of the Univeristy of Louisville School of Music, he holds a BFA in cello performance. Since his debut record in 2008, Mr. Sollee has released 6 studio records and nearly 10 EPs garnering praise from the New York Times and NPR. His music has been featured in tv shows such as Weeds and Parenthood. In addition, Sollee has a growing career as a composer for film, tv, and interactive media earning a Emmy Award in 2018 for his score on the ABC special Base Ballet. Beyond music, Mr. Sollee is known for his social and environmental advocacy working with organizations like Oxfam America, The Nature Conservancy, and Canopy KY to protect people and the land. He currently lives in Louisville, KY with his wife and three children.SCOTT MULVAHILL Frontman. Singer-songwriter. World-renowned upright bassist. Multi-instrumentalist. Scott Mulvahill is leaving his unique mark on the intersecting worlds of Americana, bluegrass, folk, jazz, rock & roll, and roots music. Raised in Houston, Mulvahill cut his teeth as a member of Ricky Skaggs’ acclaimed band, Kentucky Thunder. The group toured internationally for five years, backed by the bottom-heavy pulse of Mulvahill’s upright bass. Along the way, he also composed music of his own, shining a light on the genre-jumping influences — Paul Simon’s sophisticated pop, James Taylor’s folk, Jaco Pastorius’ innovative jazz, and more — that would eventually inspire the material on his 2018 solo debut, Himalayas. His performances as part of Skaggs’ nightly shows laid the brickwork for Mulvahill’s transition from hotshot sideman to compelling frontman. Encouraged by musical mentor Bruce Hornsby, Mulvahill developed a unique approach to his songwriting — one that mixed his chops as an upright bassist with hook-heavy melodies and compelling narratives. A true “musician’s musician,” Mulvahill fills his solo debut with complex fingerwork and innovative progressions. At the same time, Himalayas is a song-driven record that focuses its attention not upon Mulvahill’s virtuosity, but upon the sheer listenability of his material. This is acoustic-leaning roots music of the highest caliber, shot through with elastic vocals, dobro, fiddle, and the honest, biographical lyrics of a songwriter who gave up an enviable position in Skaggs’ band to pursue his own muse. “I wanna go over where I’ve never been,” he sings during the sparsely-decorated title track, one of several tracks to deal with the universal themes of facing one’s fears, taking leaps, and chasing down new horizons. Those messages are reflected in Mulvahill’s own career, as he pioneers a sound centered upon his voice and upright bass. “As important as the bass is to the sound of my music, it’s not a crutch,” he says. “To me, the songwriting, the voice, and the message are what really matter. 2020’s “Creative Potential” and 2021’s “Surrounded” EPs have found him taking those leaps while keeping true to the core of his musicianship, songwriting, unique concept of artistry. For a lifelong musician like Scott Mulvahill, the climb is never over.
The Get Right Band: Summer in the Winter Beach Bash w/ Random Animals
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYTHE GET RIGHT BAND “The Get Right Band are the type of performers that you just know will break out. Their songs are infectious and take you immediately to a place. The lyrics are smart and bear weight.” -The Huffington Post The Get Right Band is a psychedelic indie rock power trio from Asheville, NC. They are a band focused on following their muses to honest self-expression, to whatever excites them and pushes them into unexplored territory. The Get Right Band proudly carries the torch for a long line of genre-bending power trios from Cream to The Jimi Hendrix Experience to The Police to Violent Femmes to Primus to Green Day to Nirvana to Sublime. It’s the space between the notes, the rawness and the maneuverability, that makes a power trio, well, so damn powerful. “An ass shaking good time.” -Relix Magazine The Get Right Band’s career highlights include shows with Everclear, Rusted Root, Dr. Dog, Smash Mouth, Ozomatli, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Victor Wooten; appearances on NPR’s World Cafe and Nashville’s Music City Roots television show; and performances at major festivals and venues including FloydFest, StrangeCreek, Riverbend Fest, The Orange Peel, Brooklyn Bowl, and The Hamilton. “I love this song!” -Marc Maron, of WTF podcast The band is built on the musical brotherhood that guitarist/vocalist Silas Durocher and bassist Jesse Gentry have formed playing music together since middle school. Durocher, who is a trained composer and has been commissioned to write for symphonies and chamber groups, has guitar chops that can soothe or rage and a charismatic swagger as a frontman and a singer. “Durocher has an impressive range and rich clarity to his vocals—think a more soulful Dan Auerbach” (Connect Savannah). Gentry’s virtuosic bass playing “catapults from elastic to nasty” (The Mountain Xpress). With the addition of Jian-Claude Mears, a drummer with “precision, passion, and an inescapable momentum” (Live For Live Music), the group’s sound has become an unstoppable force. They have been wowing audiences around the country and the Caribbean since their inception in 2011 with an unparalleled live show and a relentless tour schedule. “Tight and diverse jams and a distinctive, intellectual but accessible worldview.” -Live For Live Music RANDOM ANIMALSRandom Animals is an Asheville, North Carolina based Indie-Soul quintet formed in 2016.
Lee DeWyze
– ALL AGES- FULLY SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF VIP MEET & GREET TICKETS AVAILABLE- VIP TIX INCLUDE: A Ticket to the show, early entry into the venue, a 2 song acoustic performance by Lee, a polaroid photo with Lee (VIP takes place 45 minutes before doors open)LEE DEWYZEWith an earnest ability to create a delicate balance of harmony, melody, deep emotion and subtlety, Lee DeWyze’s depth as a songwriter call to mind some of his earliest influences like Simon and Garfunkel, Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) and Johnny Cash. His last 4 releases Victims Of The Night (April 2020), and the EP Castles (Oct 2019), have garnered over 1M streams, while his latest 2 singles, Weeds (Oct 2020) is currently highlighted on the largest folk playlist Chill Folk, streaming 3500x per day, and Horizon (Apr 2021) was featured in the motion picture The Secret: Dare To Dream starring Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas.Over the last 10 years, Lee has released five albums, including his critically lauded Frames (Vanguard Records, 2013), which included the top 40 Billboard Hot AC hit “Fight.” In 2014, his song “Blackbird Song” (20M streams + ) was placed in the show “The Walking Dead.” After signing with Shanachie Records in 2016, Lee released the album Oil and Water, which hit Number One on the iTunes folk and singer/songwriter chart, followed by Paranoia (2018), which hit Number One on the Alternative chart.As the winner of American Idol Season 9 in 2010, he made his major label debut with Live It Up (RCA).Lee’s songs have appeared in over 70 movies, TV shows, and commercials. His latest synch was for his song Castles, which highlighted the season finale of Station 19 (#1 show on ABC). His video for Castles won 11 awards world-wide (Los Angeles, NY, and London) for best animated video with TIFF (The International Film Festival). FRANK VIELE Up until now, Frank Viele has been something of a regional secret throughout New England. His quadruple-threat reputation as a singer, guitarist, songwriter and performer is unrivaled there, as recognized by the New England Music Awards for Album of the Year, Male Performer of the Year, and Live Act of The Year he has stashed somewhere in his Connecticut home. Of course, musically tuned-in folks throughout the world have been hearing reports of Viele’s prowess for several years. No Depression might have piqued their curiosity with its praise for his “vivid storytelling.” Or maybe they read about his singing in The Alternate Root, which observed that his “street growl” could rivet passersby. Howl Magazine even called his shows “transcendent” and predicted that his music “will rattle your bones and penetrate to the core.” Truth be told, audiences around the country have begun taking notice as Viele plays in further-flung venues. Since his first album, Fall Your Way, dropped in 2015, he’s been called to open for Will Hoge, Blues Traveler, Lee DeWyze, Zach Myers of Shinedown, The Marshall Tucker Band, and in his somewhat wonderstruck words, “artists who have been on my personal playlists for years.” So all the pieces are in place to establish Frank Viele as a musical phenomenon far beyond his home base. All that’s needed is a spark to launch this rocket.
13th Annual Django Reinhardt Birthday Celebration
– ALL AGES- LIMITED SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED13TH ANNUAL DJANGO REINHARDT BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FEATURING: Russell Welch & the Champaigniacs “Russell is not only the most sought after guitarist in New Orleans, he is also one of the finest Django style players in the world!” – Django a Gogo Festival 2022 RUSSELL WELCH is a jazz guitarist/composer based in New Orleans, and a native of Jackson, Mississippi. Russell is a New Orleans’ “Best Traditional Jazz Artist” and “Best Traditional Jazz Album” 2019 nominee. He was New Orleans’ “Best Guitarist” nominee, 2016. Russell’s first, all-original album, “Showarama Hot Trio,” was also a New Orleans’ “Best Traditional Jazz Album” 2012 nominee. Russell’s second album, “Pour Vous” featured original arrangements of traditional New Orleans jazz classics. His third, all-original album, Russell Welch Hot Quartet album “Mississippi Gipsy” (2015) was reviewed as “masterful” and a “tour de force” by Offbeat Magazine. Russell was recently asked to teach and perform at two of the most prestigious Django festivals in North America – Django a Go Go (2022), and Django in June (2022). Russell’s fourth album, “Acetate Sessions” is a New Orleans’ “Best Traditional Jazz Album” 2019 nominee A mix of originals and classics, It was recorded using acetate masters and vintage recording equipment, to recreate vintage recording sounds, which, according to an Offbeat Magazine review, “crackle with the energy of youth discovering someplace magical…(and) sound as fresh as tomorrow.” Gustav Viehmeyer Gustav Viehmeyer Is an international Composer, musician and guitarist. Gustav has the rare gift of merging soulful pleasures through music. His playing is free spirited, wild, intensely passionate and executed with skillful precision. Gustavs guitar music is rooted in the style of Django Reinhardt, The Sinti Virtuosos and a love for film composition. Daniel Coolik & Jim Tanner Quartet A consummate musician’s musician, Daniel Coolik, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, swept into the Lafayette, LA scene in 2009 and quickly added his name to many respectable rosters, loaning his talents to such groups as Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, Les Malfecteurs, The Red Stick Ramblers, and helped found the GRAMMY nominated band The Revelers. Daniel was already an adept multi-instrumentalist in the Asheville, North Carolina scene where he focused on playing swing and jazz on guitar & mandolin as well as old time Appalachian traditional music, and has since emerged as a violoniste extraordinaire here in Acadiana. His abilities have taken him all over the globe, including Haiti, Thailand, most countries in Western Europe, and Canada. He is an in demand session musician who has played bass, guitar, mandolin, steel guitar, and fiddle on numerous recordings including the most recent release by Shovels and Rope (By Blood 2019).
John Craigie at Asheville Masonic Temple
– w/ GRACE ROWLAND (OF THE DEER)- ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW – AT ASHEVILLE MASONIC TEMPLE – 80 BROADWAY ST (downtown AVL) JOHN CRAIGIEPortland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer John Craigie adapts moments of solitude into stories perfectly suited for old Americana fiction anthologies. Instead of leaving them on dog-eared pages, he projects them widescreen in flashes of simmering soul and folk eloquence. On his 2022 full-length album, Mermaid Salt, we witness revenge unfurled in flames, watch a landlocked mermaid’s escape, and fall asleep under a meteor shower. After selling out shows consistently coast-to-coast and earning acclaim from Rolling Stone, Glide Magazine, No Depression, and many more, his unflinching honesty ties these ten tracks together. The album comes from the solitude and loneliness of lockdown in the Northwest. Someone whose life was touring, traveling, and having lots of human interaction is faced with an undefinable amount of time without those things. So, he began writing new songs and envisioning an album that was different from his past records. The sound of everyone playing live in a room together was traded for the sound of song construction with an unknown amount of instruments and musicians—a quiet symphony. Rather than steal away to a cabin or hole up in a house with friends, Craigie opted to set up shop at the OK Theater in Enterprise, OR with longtime collaborator Bart Budwig behind the board as engineer. A rotating cast of musicians shuffled in and out safely, distinguishing the process from the communal recording of previous releases. The core players included Justin Landis, Cooper Trail, and Nevada Sowle. Meanwhile, Shook Twins lent their signature vocal harmonies, Bevin Foley arranged, composed, and performed strings, and Ben Walden dropped in for guitar and violin plucking parts. “Instruments were scattered around the theater and microphones placed in various spots,” he recalls. “It’s hard to say who all played what exactly.” Craigie had reached a series of watershed moments in tandem with Mermaid Salt. Beyond headlining venues such as The Fillmore and gracing the stage of Red Rocks Amphitheater, his 2020 offering Asterisk The Universe earned unanimous tastemaker applause. Rolling Stone noted, “tracks like ‘Don’t Deny’ and ‘Climb Up’ bridge a Sixties and Seventies songwriter vibe with the laid-back cool of Jack Johnson, an early supporter of Craigie,” while Glide Magazine hailed it as “one of his best records.” Perhaps, No Depression put it best, “For many weary and heavy- listeners hearted, the album might be exactly what they need.” Along the way, he generated over 40 million total streams and counting, speaking to his unassuming impact. In the end, Craigie offers a sense of peace on Mermaid Salt.
DURRY
– w/ PINK BEDS- ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYDURRYFormed in 2020 in the depths of the pandemic, quarantined siblings Austin and Taryn Durry joined forces to make music together for the very first time. In 2021 their careers were launched by their tiktok viral track Who’s Laughing Now. Quickly gaining notoriety on social media and beyond, Durry is poised and ready to take on the music scene with their unique brand of Nostalgic Indie-Rock.PINK BEDS Pink Beds is a cerebral indie pop band formed in 2020 at the cusp of the initial lockdowns. Composed of four friends from Asheville, NC, they’ve cultivated a strong bond through a shared passion for lush soundscapes, artfully crafted tunes, and rhythms you can’t help but be moved by. The mélange of dream pop, new wave, lounge, and disco aims to create an ethereal listening experience with a combination of low-end groove, velvety guitar, silky keys, gritty synth, and catchy melodies. Making good use of isolation, the group combined their songwriting abilities and production chops to manifest a lush, warm, and evocative sonic environment with their December 2020 debut LP, All I Have. From tracking and production to mixing and mastering, each stage of the process was kept entirely within the group. The essence of Pink Beds, like its namesake, should be enjoyed with your own senses and a group of good friends. Along with two singles in 2021, the band released a live album in 2022, Live From Echo Mountain, from the fabled Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC. After a productive 2022 securing a foothold in southeast markets, becoming a FloydFest On-the-Rise artist, and a Relix Magazine Sonic Showdown Finalist, the band is releasing a new album in the Spring of 2023. Pink Beds comprises Aaron Aiken (Vocals & Guitar), Jackson Van Horn (Keys & Guitar), Ryan Sargent (Drums & Percussion), and Logan Hall (Bass). “What started out as a casual jam to entertain a keg party has morphed itself into one of the most intriguing new musical acts in Western North Carolina.” Aiken, a Brevard native, now fronts an Asheville group that stands at the intersection of indie rock, psychedelic folk and cerebral pop. It’s a seamless blend, more so a vibrant flow, that harkens back to the sounds of early 2000s indie icons The Strokes and Keane, with a thick thread leading to the melodic camps of Tame Impala and Snow Patrol.” — Garret K. Woodward, Rolling Stone Contributing Writer
