PATIO: Bluestreak
ALL AGESLIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVEBLUESTREAK Bluestreak is a 5 piece rock ensemble who started their musical journey together working through the classic and southern rock staples, throwing in blues and funk jams, and entertaining fans from many generations with their amazing sound. As they are currently working on their debut album of original songs, their music only continues to broaden and stretch to reach new horizons. Their music is an homage to the classics they love, an expression of their evolving views on the world, and a dive into the pure joy they are obviously having as they create music together. Bluestreak draws from the classic sounds of Grateful Dead, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, REO Speedwagon, Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels and more, and will be sure to delight with some old favorites at their shows as well as introduce you to their new work. When not performing live at various local venues, these teens from Western North Carolina can be seen around the Asheville area volunteering with kids, working jobs, running track, playing ultimate frisbee, marching with the band, rock climbing, and oh yeah- going to high school.
PATIO: The Discs
ALL AGES LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVETHE DISCS Conceived years before their debut album was finally released in October 2020, The Discs officially formed in summer of 2021in Asheville, NC. The power trio is Allan Day (guitar, vocals), Mike Comparetto (bass, vocals), and Greg Radz (drums, vocals). All members are veterans of their respective music scenes. The Discs fuse the best elements of power pop and late 70’s new wave with the urgency and socially-conscious themes of early punk for a concise, compelling live experience. Having released their second collection “Bitter, Sweeter” in June 2023, the band is currently configuring brand new material to their set – more angular and melodic in their musical evolution – for a 2024 full-length release, and will be premiering some of these exciting new songs at this special performance.
Twin Tribes
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYTWIN TRIBES Hailing from Texas, Twin Tribes is an emerging force in the darkwave scene, turning heads in 2018 with the release of their debut album “Shadows” that featured dark melodic sounds, synthesizers, lyrics about the undead, and the occult and parallel universes. They returned in 2020 with the ten-track album “Ceremony” with an evolved sound that explored love and loss while showcasing their progression as a band. With songs that are both dynamic and introspective, they balance the darker shades of the emotional spectrum with an energy and momentum that gifts their music a powerful sense of urgency and drama. Their lyrics dig deep into the personal turmoil of love, life and loss, and have forged a new aesthetic that fuses the gothic with the romantic, viewing emotional themes through a darker lens. As their second LP gains increasing critical and commercial attention, these pillars of the independent music scene continue to re-define what genres such as darkwave and post-punk mean in 2023. URBAN HEAT Urban Heat is poised to break nationally in 2023. In March Urban Heat joined TikTok darlings Vision Video for a 3-week tour, taking them to the East Coast and Canada. The success of the tour led them to extend the joint run to the West Coast in August, where many shows sold out. Their official SXSW performances had them playing to packed crowds at Stubb’s Outdoor Ampitheater, the Austin Chronicle’s day party, and a SPIN party, who of frontman Jonathan Horstmann wrote “The star power is there, more so than any Austin musician in recent history.” In May Urban Heat delivered a powerful set at Cruel World Fest in Pasadena California, joining a lineup that included Siouxsie, Iggy Pop, Gary Numan, and other genre icons. They are following up with a national headline tour in November, beginning with a performance at Darker Waves in Huntington Beach. After winning an Austin Music Award for “Song of the Year” for “Have You Ever”, they graced the coveted cover of the Austin Chronicle and topped Austin Monthly’s list of “8 Austin Acts Poised to Break Out at SXSW 2023”.2022 was already a year of exponential growth for the band. Before winning “Song of the Year”, their single “Have You Ever” had a viral moment on TikTok. This propelled them into their first national headline tour after playing at the Austin City Limits Festival. They were selected as Sonic Guild grant recipients and featured as KUTX 98.9’s Artist of the Month in July.”A lightning rod of dark electro/proto-punk/new wave/synth wave/part goth/part industrial sound that is all the things but… simultaneously transcending them into something fresher.” – Laurie Gallardo, KUTX 98.9DANCING PLAGUE
Fat Tuesday Fiesta ft Tuxedo Junction
-ALL AGES-MIXED SEATED and STANDING SHOW with DANCE FLOORTUXEDO JUNCTIONCalling all music lovers, dancers, and supporters of a worthy cause! Celebrate Mardi Gras during a singular evening benefitting the Asheville Breakfast Rotary Foundation! Tuxedo Junction covers a HUGE variety of danceable hits from Swing Jazz to Classic Rock, Pop, Funk, Motown, Beach, Country, and Rockabilly! All proceeds go back into the community for charitable organizations and scholarships.
Allah-Las
ALL AGES STANDING ROOM ONLY ALLAH-LAS Are you tired of that same old song? Tune into any alt-rock robo-jock frequency on the FM dial and you’ll know what I mean. Somewhere along the way, nostalgia curdled, and it feels like we’re doomed to hear the same boring souls for eternity. But don’t ask California sons Allah-Las—they wouldn’t know a thing about it. “The Stuff,” which opens the band’s fifth LP, Zuma 85, lays it out: “I don’t listen to the radio/They keep playing that song again/And the deejay’s a computer.” As the glammy, electronic strut of the song indicates, Zuma 85 signals the start of a new era for Allah-Las, and finds the band reinventing itself in defiance of the algorithmic categorization and robotic sterility. Recorded in the midst of the shift from the Old World to whatever branch of reality we’re on now, it’s a return, too: The album will be released via their own label, Calico Discos, in partnership with Innovative Leisure, which released early defining statements like Allah-Las (2012) and Worship The Sun (2014). For the last 15 years, Allah-Las have alchemically melded surf rock washes with folk rock jangle and rock, building up their lauded music podcast, Reverberation Radio, and record label, Calico Discos, in the process. But a lot has changed since Matthew Correia (drums/vocals), Spencer Dunham (bass, guitar, vocals), Miles Michaud (guitar, organ, vocals), and Pedrum Siadatian (guitar, synth, vocals) first bonded over psych rock vinyl in the back room at Amoeba Records in the late aughts. Zuma 85 finds the quartet facing a new world with a wealth of new sounds, drawing from an eclectic mix of progressive rock, prog, kosmische, and Eno-esque art rock, scuzzy Royal Trux riffs, and detouring into tones and textures that call to mind ‘90s and 2000s pop. The album was born, like so much else these days, out of the downtime of 2020-2022. For most of the band’s existence, Allah-Las adhered to a year to album year/tour year schedule, logging serious hours on the road. When the shutdown of 2020 put everything on hold, it opened up space for each member to focus on their own lives and interests, and time to re-envision what creative processes could look like. When it came time to reconvene, that sense of looseness proved pivotal. Instead of bringing finished songs to the studio, they entered the picturesque Panoramic House recording in Stinson Beach (a space co-owned by John Baccigaluppi of Tape Op magazine) with sketches, ideas, and riffs. Working with co-producer Jeremy Harris (White Fence, Devendra Banhart, Sam Gendel) they shaped and crafted the new songs in real time over three sessions, which were then mixed in Los Angeles by frequent collaborator Jarvis Taveniere. Sharing a name with that song is a photo of an abandoned house by California photographer John Divola. Selected by Correia, the band’s resident photography head and album art designer, it juxtaposes a visage of man-made chaos against the natural beauty of the West Coast. It served as an unspoken reference point for the album, a symbolic totem indicative of a new era. A decade and a half into their run as Allah-Las, Correia, Dunham, Michaud, and Siadatian continue on an evolutionary path. Are you tired of the same old songs? So are they. So blow it up and let it rip. MASTON REVERBERATION RADIO
Bendigo Fletcher
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYBENDIGO FLETCHERFREE RANGE Sofia Jensen make considered folk rock under the name Free Range. The Chicago-based artist is releasing their debut album Practice on February 17 via Mick Music, and it’s sure to be one of the early highlights of 2023. Today, they’ve shared the album’s third single “Growing Away” and a music video for it directed by Robert Salazar. Free Range’s music makes mature confessionals feel as simple as flicking on a light switch when the sun starts to set. Jensen’s delivery is gentle, even when their lyrics are untangling stormy thoughts. It’s a kind of openness and ease heard in Jeff Tweedy’s or Ben Gibbard’s writing, unveiling comfort in dark truths. Here, Jensen discusses memory loss as a consequence of self-destruction rather than lack of attentiveness. “I let you think that it was accidental,” they sing in the first verse. “When I stopped caring about being careful.” Loss of time and events indicate a loss of something much more—a sense of self. “‘Growing Away’ was written a few months before I ultimately did get sober, and it deals with the realization that I was losing track of who I was,” Jensen says of the new single. “The things I was doing were all controlled by the lack of compassion I had for myself. I felt really disoriented in this haze of memory loss that was becoming a huge part of my life, and I was still at a point where I had no idea how to talk about it with anyone. It was really important for me to write this song I think, because it served as an exercise in acceptance for me for the things I needed to do to finally take care of myself.”
Scott H. Biram
ALL AGES STANDING ROOM ONLY SCOTT H. BIRAM Scott H. Biram, a proud Texan raised on the outskirts of Austin, is a maverick in the tradition of Doug Sahm, Roky Erickson (13th Floor Elevators) and Gibby Haines (Butthole Surfers). Shortly after releasing his third record (2003’s Lo-Fi Mojo), the 28-year-old’s life was nearly cut short after a near-fatal head-on collision with a big rig semi. He was still bedridden when he made his Rehabilitation Blues EP, the predecessor to his 2005 debut for Bloodshot Records, The Dirty Old One Man Band. Flash forward to 2022. After almost thirty years of tirelessly writing, recording and touring the front and backroads of America as a solo bluesman, collecting a wide array of critical accolades, Biram found himself suddenly stopped cold by the pandemic. Once again, unwilling to allow outsized forces slow him down, he took advantage of the shutdown to write, record and produce nine new songs and two traditional covers for his new album, The One & Only Scott H. Biram, his 13th overall and 9th for Bloodshot Records. The music on The One and Only Scott H. Biram has the down home, in-your-face feel that Biram is noted for. “No Man’s Land” opens with a blues turnaround played on a twanging electric guitar, backed by a stomping bass and drum backbeat. Biram growls out a lyric, describing the hazards of growing up poor in a small Texas town, breathing the fumes from oil wells and brush fires. “I was remembering a bumper sticker I saw as a kid that said, ‘Oil Field Trash and Proud of It!’” “My music has a lot of aggression to it. I express myself without holding back. If you mixed Muddy Waters, Bill Monroe, Jerry Reed, and Black Flag, you’d have a good idea of my sound. It’s punk, blues, country, metal, bluegrass and dirty.” ABE PARTRIDGE Abe Partridge is a heralded musician, singer/songwriter, visual artist, and podcaster based in Mobile, Alabama. His 2018 debut, Cotton Fields and Blood For Days earned him rave reviews, with Tony Paris saying in The Bitter Southerner: “He plays guitar the same way he writes lyrics, bashing the strings with abandon until they are just about to come loose, then beautifully picking the notes until every last word falls into place. More to the point, Partridge writes to make you sit up and think. He wants to jar your reality. Sometimes, his lyrics are sly and subtle. Sometimes they come at you with a roar and thunder, as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were approaching, and the heavens were opening up to herald a warning.” Since the release of his debut, Partridge has toured relentlessly, including several tours of the Netherlands and the U.K. developing a reputation for moving, passionate, and sometimes comedic, performances at prestigious songwriter festivals such as 30A Songwriters Festival, Frank Brown Songwriters Festival, and Americanafest. He is a regular at the Bluebird Café in Nashville and Eddie’s Attic in Decatur. He has performed on the syndicated radio programs, Mountain Stage and Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. He has shared the stage with Morgan Wade, Paul Thorn, Steve Poltz, Dan Bern, Jerry Joseph, Glen Phillips (Toad The Wet Sprocket), Tommy Stinson, Shawn Mullins, John Fullbright, and more.
Dead Poet Society
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLYDEAD POET SOCIETY Asked what it is he wants audiences to take away from “FISSION”, the forthcoming second album from Dead Poet Society, Jack Underkofler offers eight small but powerful words: “We want to leave them with the truth.” The affable and engaging 30-year-old delivers these words with the forthrightness that marks his discussions about the band he fronts, completed by Jack Collins (guitar), Will Goodroad (drums) and Dylan Brenner (bass), and the art this collective of college friends have exhaustively dedicated themselves moulding, too often to their own detriment. It’s an answer that epitomizes the dedication with which the quartet approach their craft, and the search for its purest, most meaningful form. “It’s not as simple as saying we want our music to leave people with a positive outlook,” Underkofler explains. “You want music to speak to wherever you find yourself. We want to leave people feeling that whatever they are experiencing is valid, no matter what place they are at in their lives.” After a decade defining, redefining and perfecting their art, where Dead Poet Society find themselves on the eve of their sophomore release is much clearer. Make no mistake: Dead Poet Society are a uniquely captivating group, rock’s next great breakout act, with “FISSION” set to capture the hearts and challenge the minds of fans old and new on the journey ahead. Following on the heels of their acclaimed debut full-length “–!–“ (2021), “FISSION” seeks to unpack the personal journey its creators have been on during that ride to date. “FISSION”, as its title hints, is a 13-track study of personal change and the turbulence of growth that, as Underkofler attests, takes “a microscopic and broad look at the events that changed who we are.” To that end, there are deep rakings over the coals of relationship breakdowns, examinations of addiction in all its guises, ruminations on the responsibilities and challenges of adulthood, and struggles with the evolution, loss and continual search for self. “In a lot of ways this album is about unpacking those emotional pains that come with being an adult,” Underkofler says. To some extent, through “FISSION”’s creation Dead Poet Society have become a different band, too. A more attuned one; more accomplished, certainly. “We were really trying to define our sound more on this record,” Collins nods. “We worked a lot more on guitar tones, bass tones and drum sounds, and paid close attention to melody. The aim was to make our sound bigger – we wanted a more dynamic record, where you could hear the best representation of us live. I feel like the evolution is us maturing a little bit, and wanting to create a sound that was less an obvious reflection of our influences – Muse, Queens Of The Stone Age, Nothing But Thieves, Royal Blood – and more definitively our own. We don’t control where the inspiration comes from. We just had to obey the songs and what they were telling us to do next.” ANDRES
The Get Right Band: Summer in the Winter Beach Bash w/ Rockstead
ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLY THE GET RIGHT BAND The Get Right Band is a psychedelic indie rock band committed to relentlessly following their muses to honest self-expression, to whatever excites them and pushes them into unexplored territory, to capturing some version of truth. American Songwriter writes that the Asheville, NC based group, “filters 60’s/70’s psychedelia and 90’s alternative rock through a modern lens–as if Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Nirvana co-wrote an album produced by Danger Mouse and Dan Auerbach.” The Get Right Band formed in 2011, built around the musical brotherhood that guitarist/singer/songwriter 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, with a charismatic swagger as frontman and singer. Gentry’s virtuosic bass playing “catapults from elastic to nasty” (The Mountain Xpress). Completing the team is drummer extraordinaire, Jaze Uries, who is also a singer, songwriter, producer, photographer, and DJ. Over the years, GRB has defined their sound through constant evolution, building to the hook-driven, synth-heavy pop/rock/psych band they are today. The Huffington Post writes, “their songs are infectious and take you immediately to a place. The lyrics are smart and bear weight.” The Get Right Band has shared the stage with Dr. Dog, Everclear, Cracker, UB40, Rusted Root, Smash Mouth, and Lifehouse; been featured on NPR’s World Cafe, Paste Studio, and WTF with Marc Maron; and performed at major venues and festivals including The Fillmore, Brooklyn Bowl, Theatre of the Living Arts, The Orange Peel, FloydFest, Bristol Rhythm & Roots, and Riverbend Fest. They have released four studio albums and a live album, and their latest LP, iTopia, dropped on April 7, 2023. The Get Right Band has been compared to other modern indie rock bands with a psychedelic bent such as The Black Keys, My MorningJacket, Gorillaz, Tame Impala, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and MGMT. ROCKSTEAD The Get Right Band is back with their annual “Summer in the Winter Beach Bash” at The Grey Eagle on Saturday, Feb 17th with special guests Rockstead. This show is the perfect ticket to make you shed any Winter blues away. Beachy/tropical attire is encouraged! We’ll have tropical decorations, a themed drink special, and more!
Mama and the Ruckus (Album Release Show)
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOWMAMA AND THE RUCKUS The Ruckus is led by powerful vocalist, Melissa McKinney who writes songs about the trauma and pain that every person inevitably experiences in their lives. She sings these songs as a cry for hope, healing, and inspiration to others. This intergenerational Roots Rock/Blues project features original music that they hope will ignite healing, spread joy, and shine up your soul. Melissa McKinney is a resident artist at LEAF Global, the co-founder of WTF Music Festival, a board member of AVL FEST, as well as a small business owner. Her drive and passion are evident in her songwriting and her performance. With dual guitars, wailing vocals, screaming harmonicas, and some funky bass, keys, and drums, the Ruckus hopes to shake you up, make you dance, and cry at least one tear. On January 5th Melissa’s daughter McKinney will open the night with a short set of brand new original music. McKinney is a funky bass player and incredible vocalist with a spirit and artistry that will move you. McKINNEYK McKinney is a 22 year old bass player, singer/songwriter living in Asheville, NC. Since moving to AVL in 2018, McKinney has been mentored by a plethora of Asheville’s finest. McKinney is a resident artist with LEAF Global Arts and has a been a regular performer at the LEAF festivals for the past 6 years. She grew up touring with an empowerment concert tour that educates youth about mental health resources. K continues to infuse her shows with a genuine vibe the lifts her audience and truly makes them feel seen and heard. She released her debut solo album in 2021 entitled “Stay,” produced by Josh Blake at Echo Mountain. With McKinney on bass and vocal, Thommy Knowles of the Fritz on keys, Derrick Johnson from Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band on trombone, Alex Bradley of Empire Strikes Brass on trumpet, Isaac Hadden of IHP on guitar and backing vocals, and K’s drummer of 13 years Aryan Graham on drums, you can feel the desire she has to create new music that reaches into your soul and feels like an old friend. With new music, coming early 2023 produced by Ted Marks & Thommy Knowles, this young woman is ready to take her place as the next powerhouse female coming out of Asheville.
