Unofficially Asheville

A girl riding her bike around downtown last night said she had extra tickets to see The Avett Brothers at the Civic Center. We didn’t take her up on the offer, but we would have seen Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside open the show if we had.

If you missed that show as well, you can check out Sallie and her band at Harvest Records on Saturday night. She’s originally from Asheville, but moved to Portland, OR a few years back. I think her laid-back old-timey jazz stylings will suit an in-store much better than an arena show.

As with most Harvest in-stores, it’s a $5 donation at the door and you can get some tasty brews at Gas Up across the street. (We’ll have to talk about how a gas station has it’s own website on another day.)

Remember how your prom was suppose to be a magical night that you would remember forever?

…I know I’m certainly like to write over those memories and tonight you can. Quite possibly the most awesome prom line-up ever.

Reigning Sound

Floating Action

and DJ Rob Castillo (if you ever woken up on Thursday morning with a slight memory of dancing to 80s tunes at Broadways, it’s probably his fault)

Floating Action

Spinto Band

Generationals

Remember last week when that Park the Van showcase was at Grey Eagle. That was fun. Floating Action, the Spinto Band, and Generationals.

Megafaun

The Ruby Suns

The Dodos

The Dodos last migration to AVL was a year ago March where they played a pretty full Harvest in-store. This year they got upgraded to The Grey Eagle and the show was packed. It’s nice to see great bands gain a local audience that quickly. Yeah, we <3 our town like that.

First up was the Durham band of brothers, Megafaun. Brothers Brad and Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund used to be in a band with Justin Vernon (you know, that Bon Iver dude). Now that Bon Iver has gone on hiatus, we hope that Megafaun gets the spotlight. They’ve got awesome harmonies reminiscent of Fleet Foxes and a dynamic live presence often jumping into the crowd to finish their songs. I preferred the live show to the record and even then preferred when they left the electronics out of it.

Indie pop New Zealanders, The Ruby Suns, were up second and they gave me a good opportunity to get another PBR and some delicious bread pudding from Twin Cousins.

The crowd swelled and welcomed The Dodos. It was hard to get anywhere near the front, but standing on our toes on a chair in the back, we could see that they expanded from a minimalist two-piece to a stage busting three-piece with that addition of a second percussionist, Keaton Snyder. There is a complete lack of pretension with these guys who were just rocking the t-shirts and hoodies and I mean rocking. High energy, killer show. See them next time when I’m sure they’ll be headlining at The Orange Peel.

If you missed the Short Street Cakes preview at the East West Asheville Artwalk, you better get down to the Mardi Grad Opening Day Celebration. That’s Sunday, February 22 from 10am - 4pm. 225 Haywood with the cute pink and white awning (not pictured). Jodi does mind-blowing things with her cakes.

Top 10 Albums of 2008

After being nudged by Matt from Harvest, I finally came up with my top album from 2008:

Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
The Dodos - Visiter
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
Why? - Alopecia
The Felice Brother - The Felice Brother
Ratatat - LP3
Thao Nguyen - We Brave Bee Stings and All
Dosh - Wolves and Wishes
These United States - A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden
Daedelus - Love To Make Music To

I could link to the albums and get money back from Amazon, but I’d prefer if you went out and bought them locally.

Did you know you can listen to WPVM on your iPhone? Download SHOUTcast Radio from the iTunes Music Store and then search for “wpvm”. Listen to the 128k stream by enabling hi-bit streams in the Settings app.

You can also listen to WNCW using the Public Radio Tuner. Both the apps are free and work on your iPod Touch too.

Ash Pab must have caught wind that Rocky Horror was having its Asheville premier this week and came up with another high school goth favorite. Labyrinth (Jim Henson and David Bowie’s, not Pan’s) will be showing every day at 1 and 4pm at our favorite discount brew & view.

Blue Barnhouse made some beautiful new coasters for The Admiral. It’ll be almost a shame to put my drink down on them…

Haven’t we been through enough? The layoffs, the gas crisis, crooked cops, Tiger Woods.

And now this: The Hollywood Theatre will start showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show every month complete with actors from the Montford Park Players. I thought it was a misprint in the Mountain Express, but Fandango confirms it.

The memories of those countless high school cast party showings had just started to fade…

However, if you want to get your cherry popped, read up on your first time because it can be scary.

Does anyone know of a good local lingerie shop where I can get fitted for an extra-large bustier and fishnets?