Builders are always happy to construct million-dollar "green" mansions for the wealthy, and the government is already helping low-income families with weatherization projects, but what are middle-class homeowners and renters to do if they want to go green? Let the caulking begin? The middle-class needs some help with weatherization and energy-efficiency projects, such as the … Read more
Dress up or just slap on a mask, grab your biggest trick-or-treat bag and head out — there are entertainment options for every age and persuasion of Halloween-celebrating ghost, goblin or fairy princess. Xpress tracked down four days' worth of plays, parties, bike rides, concerts, tours, carnivals, family-friendly gatherings and adult-specific indulgences. Start noshing on … Read more
Here it is, the eve of Hallows Eve, and you don’t have a thing to wear. But never fear, your friendly neighborhood vintage and costume shops are rife with possibilities — and not just your typical witch hats, vampire fangs and fairy wings, either. Xpress challenged some of downtown Asheville’s most alter-ego ready boutiques to … Read more
Elvis once asked why every day can't be like Christmas. We'd like to know the same about the Halloween season. A zombie record, a zombie author, a haunting release, some wild art and a Dias De Los Muertos celebration to keep you in the spirit. • Zombie boogie is the latest craze, indeed. Ukeabilly dynamos … Read more
When award-winning author Barbara Kingsolver was searching for the perfect place to set the American scenes of her new novel, The Lacuna (Harper, 2009), she considered D.C. and Virginia. Then, "It hit me that Asheville was perfect," she tells Xpress. Photo by Annie Griffiths Belt. Because of its long history as a tourist town, Asheville … Read more
"I certainly thought that would be it for the band," Ahleuchatistas frontman Shane Perlowin says matter of factly. He's referring to the loss of drummer and founding member Sean Dail last year, weeks before the band was scheduled to leave for tour. Ironically, as he talks about the band's near demise, Perlowin is preparing to … Read more
I see them all the time in the record bins at the thrifts or in the dollar bins at record stores – in the '50s and '60s there was a subgenre of LPs designed as incidental music for specific activities. "Music to study by," "music for dining," music for "that special feeling" (a subgenre dominated … Read more
What is it about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald that continues to inspire the Asheville imagination? Is it that their contradictory love of money and rebellion, glamour and destitution, beauty and darkness, says something peculiar about the Asheville of the past and the present? Similarities also are apparent between our ability today, as much as … Read more
