Of note Local bar-rockers 99 YEARS have recently finished recording their new six-song EP. Fans of the group can expect the album to be released later this summer. For more information visit www.99years.net. Regional funk-rock favorites Gran Torino recently signed a deal with The Redeye Label to release their new album. Although some details about … Read more
While cultures clash across the world stage, the local stages in Waynesville and across Western North Carolina are set for a higher purpose. Since 1984, Folkmoot USA — formally known as the North Carolina International Folk Festival, Folkmoot USA — has brought performers from around the globe to share their music, history and heritage with … Read more
Sometimes you have to forget everything you’ve learned in order to move forward. For Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Kevn Kinney, shedding the experiences of a career that’s spanned more than two decades, 12 albums and 6 record labels proved to be the best way to tap the youthful honesty and wide-eyed wonderment that characterize his latest release, … Read more
“One time I saw this woman drive her car right over the back of a beautiful long blacksnake,” recalls local Native American writer MariJo Moore. “And blacksnakes are good snakes; they protect us from poisonous snakes. Then she backed up and drove over it again, and roared away. The snake lay there in the street … Read more
My mother was raised on a large farm in northeastern Iowa. Until she left, to attend secretarial school in Des Moines, my mother, her mother, and her three sisters spent much of each summer feeding as many as two dozen farm hands who spent long hour in the fields. They fed this army the veggies … Read more
Pick up a glove left in the garden overnight, move a pot from its spot on a wall, or change the position of a neglected garden hose, and you will find a world of little gray crawling creatures, running from the light and trying to hide as quickly as they can. What are they? In … Read more
Celebrating all that’s Scottish If you feel inclined to don a kilt this month or flip a heavy wooden pole (called a caber in Scotland) as far as you can, you’re not the only one — there’s definitely something Gaelic in the air about now. Last week, it was the 47th Annual Grandfather Mountain Highland … Read more
Rumor has it that a member of the Asheville City Council has a tattoo branded on his or her butt. Remember, you read it here first. Asheville resident Gabriel Ferrari raised the specter of decorated government derrieres during the public-comment portion of Council’s July 9 formal meeting. He used most of his allotted three minutes … Read more
On a warm afternoon in early May, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue told a room full of Western North Carolina leaders that by 2025, biotechnology is projected to generate $24 billion in annual revenues in the state. “Do you not want some of those billions up here?” she asked the group, adding, “I do.” The possibility … Read more
While prominent figures in the local business and university communities eagerly pursue biotechnology, another group is charting a less flashy path toward economic self-sufficiency that, philosophically, is miles apart. A cadre of state, academic and private-industry leaders is hatching a nonprofit called the N.C. Natural Products Association, says Greg Cumberford, senior resources manager at Gaia … Read more
