A dozen years ago, I was hanging out in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park at a Ben and Jerry’s Fest — one of those hippie wet dreams with free ice cream and a day’s worth of live music. At one point, the smoke cleared enough to reveal a rowdy group of New Orleans horn players … Read more
Sometimes, there’s more to be learned outside the classroom. The Steep Canyon Rangers, now in their mid-20s, emerged as a cultural lesson for some rock-loving buddies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A year ago, they graduated with honors, so to speak, when they won the bluegrass competition at the local Mountain … Read more
Under a scorching glare of stage lights, a band is going nuts. Members toss their instruments across the stage and furiously knock over a small set of kick drums. One guy, overwhelmed, begins to trash his instrument. It’s a banjo. And the banjo’s abuser is none other than Scott Avett, the brother of guitarist Seth … Read more
Playwright, actor and Eastern North Carolina native Andy Corren opens his latest work — a patchwork of short stories and character sketches — with an a-cappella version of the traditional tune “Dixie” merged with Loverboy’s manic ’80s hit “Turn Me Loose.” Sounds disconcerting — but the bizarre medley accurately forecasts the mood of Corren’s semi-autobiographical … Read more
Mark Pirro is a little fuzzy on the number of people in his band. There are 27 members listed on the Spree’s debut album, while the current band photo includes 25. But Pirro hazards that it’s actually 22. Or is it, he wonders, actually 23? “You know what?” the Spree’s bass player confessed by phone … Read more
In Larry Brown’s new book, The Rabbit Factory (Free Press, 2003), the characters multiply faster than, well, you know. There’s Arthur, an old, wealthy guy who suspects that his younger wife Helen might be having an affair. There’s Helen, who knows she’s cheating. And there’s Eric, a confused young runaway (and pet-store clerk) who ambles … Read more
If the dashing Count Dracula is impossibly slick, the verminous Count Orlok is impossibly sick. Orlok, aka the vampire Nosferatu, was the first screen representation (albeit an unauthorized one) of the blood-sucking gent immortalized in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The Orlok incarnation crept into the public consciousness in 1922, in German director F.W. Murnau’s … Read more
“I’m not much of a critic but more an enthusiast,” Robert Birnbaum wrote Xpress. Be that as it may, book “enthusiasts” everywhere should check out identitytheory.com, a literary Web site that counts as its chief attraction a trove of author interviews Birnbaum’s conducted over the years with writers as diverse as Julian Barnes, ZZ Packer, … Read more
Of note Two years (and a few weeks) of Random Acts It’s been just over two years since Random Acts first appeared here, and my CD collection now overflows with music you simply can’t find outside Asheville. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Still, it’s high time this reviewer took a few weeks’ … Read more
