West Asheville’s newest bar, The Admiral, got more attention during its first week of business than its owner expected. Located at 400 Haywood Rd., it replaces the former B & D Bar. Love on the rocks: Drew Wallace slings drinks at the new West Asheville bar The Admiral, which he co-owns. Photo By Jonathan Welch … Read more
The holiday gift-giving season is bearing down on consumers, staring them in the face like a loaded .44 Magnum. If you’re one of those shoppers who is able to rein in the impulse to max out your credit at this time of year, you’re lucky. Millions of other shoppers nationwide will incur billions in holiday … Read more
A push to incorporate Swannanoa has gathered speed—and petition signatures—over the past year, but some community residents aren’t happy about it. A new town: A map of the proposed town limits of Swannanoa. “There’s a sense among a lot of people that yes, this is a good thing,” says Swannanoa native Dave Alexander, one of … Read more
Every year around this time, Mountain Xpress receives many bags of mail from readers who don’t know what to buy their loved ones for the holidays.* This is understandable, as each person has his or her own wants and desires, interests and peculiarities, and it is hard to satisfy all of these with just one … Read more
Like most local musicians, Angela Faye Martin has a day job. In her case, it’s at a library—which, upon listening to Martin’s music, seems an obvious fit. Authors and literary allusions pop in and out of her songs, which are often played and sung with a certain hush that simultaneously suggests an uncommon intimacy and … Read more
The holiday season is an interesting one for art galleries. Many of the commercial spaces in the area see it as a last chance to make enough cash to get them through the winter, when there are few visitors and fewer buyers. This can lead to an exhibition of a conglomeration of items that are … Read more
“There was not any one point where I had an epiphany and decided to [form] a jazz swing band,” insists Christa DeCicco, the voice of Knoxville, Tenn.-based Christabel and the Jons. Instead, she says, the group’s sound evolved over the two years the band has been together. Vintage vantage: Christabel and the Jons blend retro … Read more
Once upon a time, Fisher Meehan was Asheville’s great hope: a barefoot, scraggly-faced rocker with a gravelly voice on the verge of nationalizing a local community of musicians centered around the tiny basement dive off Lexington Avenue known as Vincent’s Ear. Holiday homecoming: Fisher Meehan returns to Asheville to perform at the Twin 22 Christmas … Read more
Remember the hideous reindeer sweater foisted on Colin Firth’s character in Bridget Jones’s Diary? The ultimate badge of dorkiness, these layering pieces boasting appliquéd holiday themes (snowmen, Christmas trees, Santa Claus) are now regularly ridiculed with “Seasonal Sweater Soirees” (look it up on YouTube). But maybe the ire is misplaced and, with a sense of … Read more
2007, it’s been nice and all, but we’re moving on. A whole new year is on the horizon, and with it, a slew of new locally produced calendar. Some of them hold universal appeal, but others, to be frank, are not for everyone. So here’s an overview of the ones Xpress learned of during a … Read more
