Calendar of Events

Pisgah Legal Services seeks to pursue justice by providing legal assistance and advocacy to help low-income people in Western North Carolina meet their basic needs and improve their lives.

https://www.facebook.com/events/320553248592948/

Our Mission
Pisgah Legal Services seeks to pursue justice by providing legal assistance and advocacy to help low-income people in Western North Carolina meet their basic needs and improve their lives.

What We Do
Pisgah Legal Services is an innovative nonprofit law firm founded in 1978 that:
– Provides free civil legal aid to people who live in poverty;
– Helps more than 15,000 of the most vulnerable people in our communities annually to meet urgent needs such as: housing, safety from abuse, health care and income;
– Partners with dozens of other agencies to make sustainable change for people in crisis;
– Coordinates the services of more than 300 pro bono attorneys in WNC;
– Improves systems and policies that impact the lives of thousands of low-income people.

Our Attorneys
We employ 20 staff attorneys and work with approximately 300 lawyers who generously volunteer their time and talent to help the people of our mountain region.

Area Served
Pisgah Legal Services is the primary provider of legal aid in our six-county service area:
Buncombe
Henderson
Madison
Polk
Rutherford
Transylvania
We provide limited free legal help in a total of 17 WNC counties.
Pisgah Legal has five offices in the region in Asheville, Brevard, Hendersonville, Marshall and Rutherfordton.

https://www.pisgahlegal.org/free-legal-services/

https://www.facebook.com/events/444826399660680/

Celebrate National Scrabble Day at the library! Gather with other Scrabble enthusiasts and enjoy snacks while you play.

https://www.facebook.com/events/443891929486763/

FREE 8-Week Evidence-Based Falls Prevention Program

Registration Required – Spaces are Limited

Many older adults experience a fear of falling. People who develop this fear often limit their activities, which can result in physical weakness, making the risk of falling even greater. A Matter of Balance is a program designed to reduce the fear of falling and increase activity levels among older adults. It includes 8 two-hour sessions for a small group of 8-12 participants led by a trained facilitator. This nationally recognized program was developed at the Roybal Center at Boston University.

Who should attend?

The program is designed to benefit older adults who:

Are concerned about falls

Have sustained falls in the past

Restrict activities because of concerns about falling

Are interested in improving flexibility, balance and strength

Are age 60 or older, community-dwelling and able to problem solve

What do participants learn?

The program enables participants to achieve significant goals. They gain confidence by learning to:

View falls as controllable

Set goals for increasing activity

Make changes to reduce fall risk at home

Exercise to increase strength and balance

https://www.facebook.com/events/391841454714697/?event_time_id=391841474714695

Want to learn basic sign langauage? Register today for this 3 week basic sign language class where you will learn simple signs to communmicate with people who are deaf or nonverbal.
Registration required! Call 828-648-2924.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2188201414571015/

Want to learn basic sign langauage? Register today for this 3 week basic sign language class where you will learn simple signs to communmicate with people who are deaf or nonverbal.
Registration required! Call 828-648-2924.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2188201414571015/?event_time_id=2188201421237681

Join us for a presentation by members of the association in collaboration with Mars Hill University. This series highlights the rich history that the surrounding communities hold.

April’s edition of this series is “ Shiloh: A Historic African American Community in Asheville”.

PLEASE NOTE
This program takes place at the Ramsey Center at Mars Hill University .

We have an opportunity to provide transportation to and from this event, if enough people are interested. Looking for a group of 6-12 people to sign up for this service through the Linwood Crump Shiloh Center coordinated by Tameka. Please call the center to reserve a spot, (828) 274-7739

https://www.facebook.com/events/546729329155289/

Shiloh: A Historic African American Community in Asheville

The Shiloh Community, originally established circa 1865-1870, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited African American communities in the Asheville Area. This talk will explore the community’s origins on a small parcel of land in the area of present day Biltmore Estate and its relocation in 1889 to the current location in South Asheville. The talk will also focus on Shiloh’s relationship to the nearby African American neighborhoods of Rock Hill and Petersburg and the institutional and cultural elements that helped Shiloh grow from a sparsely populated rural area to the vibrant community that it is today.

Anita White-Carter is a retired librarian. She grew up in Shiloh and has spent most of her adult years in the community. She retired from the UNC-Asheville library after 30 years as a Public Services Librarian. She is active in the community and is currently researching the history of the neighborhood. She is a graduate of Allen High School (Asheville), Bennett College (Greensboro), and the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).

Bobbette Kilgore Mays grew up in the Montford District in an African American community known as Stump Town. She attended Rock Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Shiloh. Her extended family also lived in Shiloh. Bobbette graduated from Asheville High School and attended Winston-Salem State University where she studied nursing and psychology. After living in California for 14 years, she returned to Asheville and retired from the American Red Cross as a phlebotomist.

Around Here talks are free of charge and all are welcome. Complimentary coffee and cookies will be provided. The event will be held in the Ramsey Center, which is located inside Renfro Library on the campus of Mars Hill University.

For events that happen before 6pm on a weekday, please park in the lot on Bailey Street just next to the Greenway – across the street from Chambers Gym. After 6pm, visitors may park in any available green or white parking space, even if it is designated “faculty” or “students.”

https://www.facebook.com/events/2135146896810266/

Spartanburg County Council is attempting to legislate away our music scene. This new ordinance, if enacted, would primarily affect music venues that cater to people of color and lgbt folx who may not feel welcome in other spaces. This is a direct affront on our community’s ability to engage with the arts and culture at large, through a thin veil of “safety concerns.” Please plan on attending the county council meeting if you care about people of color, live music, artists, or minority communities. If you cannot attend, please call or email your county council members, which can be found here https://www.spartanburgcounty.org/directory.aspx?did=42
NOTE: I have tried to contact Debbie Ziegler, the county clerk, for more info and will let you know when I hear back.

Y’all, please show up, even if this doesn’t affect the venues you frequent. This a direct attack on our siblings in minority communities.

Ordinance here: http://services.spartanburgcounty.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Documents/ViewDocument/COU%20-%20Ordinance%20-%20PS_ORDINANCE%20RELATIVE%20TO%20NIGHTCLUBS%20-%203_15_2019.pdf?meetingId=415&documentType=Agenda&itemId=3992&publishId=5480&isSection=false&fbclid=IwAR1SD8V5Ud3Qy7x5wd1g7iU-0Y96rpJzpSLZvDSfAlpn1g5MMb1xqnsjQuM

https://www.facebook.com/events/358833714737369/

Looking for something meaningful to get your family involved in? Maybe you’ve always wanted to travel abroad with your family, but this year the timing just doesn’t work out. Why not bring the vacation to your home, and try a little bit of cultural exchange for your family!

Visions USA runs short-term school year programs and all summer long as a home-stay program for students from Spain, Germany, China, even Cambodia, and a Summer Camp for local American students who want to join in the fun! A bit more about the program: we run an ESL immersive program in Asheville, with students visiting April 15-27th, and throughout the summer, from June 30- August 3. Our visiting students participate in English classes a few mornings a week, and explore what Asheville has to offer during the afternoons, from hiking to waterfalls, volunteering with local organizations like Manna food bank and Conserving Carolina, going to Tourist games and more. Students go on one full day excursion a week, to places such as Carowinds and White Water Rafting on the Pigeon River. The goal is to get a fully comprehensive experience of what Asheville has to offer, from exploring and enjoying our amazing local wilderness, engaging in typical team-building American camp games and activities, and giving back to the community through service. It is truly a transformative opportunity for visiting and native students alike.

https://www.facebook.com/events/295862437795346/?event_time_id=295862441128679

As if you needed another reason to come see us, we will have 75 cent wings every Monday from 5pm-close.
We have all of our wonderful flavors of wings available, plus a special sauce of the week.

We also have $4 draft beers on special, so stop in and get your Tiger Wing on!

(This special is dine-in only, not available for takeout).

https://www.facebook.com/events/155915711920833/?event_time_id=155915718587499

Please join the Junior League of Asheville at their April LEAD (Leadership Education & Development) event with the theme, “Clean and Simple Budgeting” presented by Camille Stimach.

Whether single, married or business owner, we all manage money in some way and have financial goals. This event is designed to educate attendees to use money more wisely, to make better spending choices, to budget and save. This event will provide custom, realistic, straightforward methods to develop a unique strategy for achieving those goals.

This event will be on April 15th, with networking at 5:30pm and the talk at 6pm, at MarketingOutpost on Merrimon (behind Green Sage). We will have beverages and snacks for guests to enjoy.

Camille Stimach is a financial leader and budget specialist who assists clients in obtaining financial stability by helping them organize their finances, advise on credit repair, assist with budgeting, future planning, daily money management, debt consolidation, and creating savings plan. Camille has 25 years experience in all areas of the financial world ranging from bookkeeping, mortgages, budget and finance, banking, investing to providing financial workshops for various non-profits. Learn more about the speaker at www.PeridotConsultingInc.com.

https://www.facebook.com/events/338791410084544/

This talk and signing, sponsored by Malaprop’s Bookstore, will be held at The Cathedral of All Souls. Malaprop’s asks that you purchase the books you’d like to be signed from Malaprop’s. Can’t make it to the store for the event? Call the store — (828) 254 6734 — or order the book on their website in advance, and they’ll have the book signed for you! Just make sure to write your preferences in the comments.

https://www.facebook.com/events/431053824319467/

Join us this Monday April 15th for the Beginner Ride. We will meet at the Guion Farm Parking Area in Dupont State Forest at 5:45 the ride will leave at 6:00pm. The trails are very wet so we plan on riding gravel roads on our mountain bikes at a social beginner pace and will take breaks and wait at all intersections. Give us a call at the shop if you have any questions!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1347942648677333/

What if we could create an intentional, simple, and effective approach for fostering greater collaborative learning and coherent thought than is often available in large group settings? Join Transition Asheville and friends at The Block Off Biltmore for collective conversation that matters. The World Café will feature six tables with different themes, so that participants can consider and discuss local responses to concerns around issues such as climate change, clean energy, food resilience, transportation, economic alternatives, and community building.

Potential discussion questions include:
1. What can individuals and organizations do to prepare for and adapt to climate change impacts in WNC?
2. How can we help Asheville and Buncombe County reach their renewable energy goals?
3. What measures can we take to eliminate food deserts WNC?
4. Do you feel that public transportation in Asheville is adequate? How are we doing on
the “Asheville Redefines Transit” slogan?
5. How can we foster local economic growth?
6. What are ways individuals and organizations can contribute to a stronger sense of community in WNC?

Join us as an individual or as a small group.

If we wait for the governments, it’ll be too little, too late. If we act as individuals, it’ll be too little. But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time. -Rob Hopkins, Transition Movement founder

https://www.facebook.com/events/1057946711058160/

ASPIRE: Designing the Future
Sponsored by AIA South Atlantic Region
Keynote Address
April 15, 2019, 6:00pm
Diane Wortham Theater
18 Biltmore Ave.
Asheville, NC 28801
https://aspirexperience.com/ or
https://www.dwtheatre.com/Online/article/sarahsusanka for tickets to Sarah’s talk.
This event is open to the public

https://www.facebook.com/events/306501003385425/

Leon Bridges Live in Asheville, North Carolina! Leon Bridges is back for 2019 North American Good Thing Tour with speciaul guest Jess Glynne. Find tickets now! #LeonBridges

https://www.facebook.com/events/498266817323718/

Curated open mic night featuring some of Asheville’s finest pickers and crooners.

https://www.facebook.com/events/287844478776020/?event_time_id=287844482109353

Hey Y’all!
Come make a fun flower crown or fascinator for yourself (or someone you love), enjoy the company of other crafty people, and imbibe in a beverage at Hillman Beer!

The Details:
-$15 in Advance* or at the beginning of the event.
This will include supplies, glue, instructions, and good times!

*Paying in advance will be helpful in knowing how many projects to supply for*

-If you have a glue gun and/or scissors, feel free to bring them!

-LGBTQ Friendly, All genders welcome!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/372061820053950/

“…this is a heart-warming, imagination-tickling joy”- The Telegraph

PENGUIN HIGHWAY is a charming animated adventure the whole family will enjoy and for a limited time only you can see this critically acclaimed feature on the big screen. You won’t want to miss it so grab your tickets today!

Versions Available:
ENGLISH audio
JAPANESE audio / ENGLISH subtitle

Synopsis: Budding genius Aoyama is only in the 4th grade, but already lives his life like a scientist. When penguins start appearing in his sleepy suburb hundreds of miles from the sea, Aoyama vows to solve the mystery. When he finds the source of the penguins is a woman from his dentist’s office, they team up for an unforgettable summer adventure!

★★★★★
Runtime: 118 Minutes
www.elevenarts.net/penguin

https://www.facebook.com/events/1011520959046423/

Sale Dates and Times:

Public Onsale : Fri, 5 Oct 2018 at 10:00 AM

Artist Presale : Wed, 3 Oct 2018 at 10:00 AM

Spotify Presale : Wed, 3 Oct 2018 at 10:00 AM

Local Presale : Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 10:00 AM

Ticketmaster Presale : Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 10:00 AM

Official Platinum : Fri, 14 Dec 2018 at 01:00 PM

https://www.facebook.com/events/2085006214845502/

Have a terrible case of the Mondays? Got a sick a twisted sense of humor? Come play Cards Against Humanity with us! We have 3 box sets with every expansion. We’re pushing tables together, making new friends, and having laughs every Monday!

https://www.facebook.com/events/371611523634185/?event_time_id=371611560300848

It Takes All Kinds Open Mic Night at Sanctuary Brewing Company!

Calling all singers, songwriters, stand ups, poets and prophets! Come one, come all.

Host Josh Dunkin and Steven Durose of The Gathering Dark want to hear all of your stuff!

No Mimes!

https://www.facebook.com/events/531022364070354/?event_time_id=531022397403684

Yes, our livecast has been moved to Mondays!!!!!

Our special guest will be Christian Justus of 28 Pages. Christian will talk about his awesome bands 28 Pages and Palenium, and also the Rock and Roll Truth Music Fest coming to the Artisan the first weekend in May.

By clicking you are going, doesn’t mean you will be here…. just that you will tune in to our show!!!

Mike’s weekly show, here live on Facebook, where he will talk about shows going on at The Artisan of Flat Rock, Music, Comedy, Dance, and so much more….

Announcements, Questions, Comments, Jokes, Concerns… are always welcome

Plus, tune in live for a chance to win a Meet N Greet pass or tickets to an upcoming show.

The Artisan of Flat Rock livecast will start at 7:30 and The Artisan Entertainment Music Series cast will start at 8:30.

Want to be a guest… or come visit us live? Let us know.

https://www.facebook.com/events/426842378121177/

Do you ever think about something you did or said from your awkward pre-pubescence that is SO EMBARRASSING it sends a shiver of shame down your spine? You may not realize it, but the rest of the world is dying to hear it! We’re taking the format of the international art movement – Mortified!

Dust off that diary! Unearth those letters! Share your awkward and embarrassing childhood journals, artwork, letters, poems, lyrics, home movies, and plays. We are always looking for you like you to join our community. Never been on stage? We love that!

Sign up is at 7:30pm, we’ll start at 8:00pm!

Here is a trailer for the film version of the movement, Mortified Nation, currently on Netflix if you want to take a peek and get some inspiration!

Tips for People who Want to Perform!

DO. Earmark 5-8 excerpts that you’re embarrassed to admit you wrote. That way you have a variety to pull from when onstage

DO. If possible, try to find a theme connecting your excerpts (i.e. being boy/girl crazy, hating your parents, trying to look a certain way, etc.) but if it doesn’t, no sweat, this is about having fun.

DO. Look for entries where your writing was very dramatic– whether you were ultra angry or ultra happy. These tend to be funny.

DO. Bring a photo of yourself from that age if you have one! If you can print it out, even better, so we can pass them around for everyone to see how cute your little awkward face looked ;)

DO. Look for entries where your writing was oblivious to an obvious-to-anyone-else reality. (For instance, a closeted teen writing about their love of Broadway musicals.)

DO. Look for entries that make you react, “I can’t believe I actually thought like that.”

DON’T make stuff up. The fun of our show is that people sharing actual mementos from childhood. If you want to write an essay about your childhood, there are plenty of great projects (like the Moth) that are better forums for that.

DON’T censor yourself, we want to hear it raw.

The Block off biltmore 39 S. Market Street (corner of Eagle & Market) downtown Asheville NC.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2268465060031907/

Robert Earl Keen
plus Pierce Edens
Show: 8pm
Doors: 7pm
$30 – $32
Ages 18+

Tickeets & Info: www.theorangepeel.net/event/robert-earl-keen-2/

“The road goes on forever …”

It’s not always easy to sum up a career – let alone a life’s ambition – so succinctly, but those five words from Robert Earl Keen’s calling-card anthem just about do it. You can complete the lyric with the next five words – the ones routinely shouted back at Keen by thousands of fans a night (“and the party never ends!”) – just to punctuate the point with a flourish, but it’s the part about the journey that gets right to the heart of what makes Keen tick. Some people take up a life of playing music with the goal of someday reaching a destination of fame and fortune; but from the get-go, Keen just wanted to write and sing his own songs, and to keep writing and singing them for as long as possible.

“I always thought that I wanted to play music, and I always knew that you had to get some recognition in order to continue to play music,” Keen says. “But I never thought of it in terms of getting to be a big star. I thought of it in terms of having a really, really good career and writing some good songs, and getting onstage and having a really good time.”

Now three-decades on from the release of his debut album – with eighteen other records to his name, thousands of shows under his belt and still no end in sight to the road ahead – Keen remains as committed to and inspired by his muse as ever. And as for accruing recognition, well, he’s done alright on that front, too; from his humble beginnings on the Texas folk scene, he’s blazed a peer, critic, and fan-lauded trail that’s earned him living-legend (not to mention pioneer) status in the Americana music world. And though the Houston native has never worn his Texas heart on his sleeve, he’s long been regarded as one of the Lone Star State’s finest (not to mention top-drawing) true singer-songwriters. He was still a relative unknown in 1989 when his third studio album, West Textures, was released – especially on the triple bill he shared at the time touring with legends Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark – but once fellow Texas icon Joe Ely recorded both “The Road Goes on Forever” and “Whenever Kindness Fails” on his 1993 album, Love and Danger, the secret was out on Keen’s credentials as a songwriter’s songwriter. By the end of the decade, Keen was a veritable household name in Texas, headlining a millennial New Year’s Eve celebration in Austin that drew an estimated 200,000 people. A dozen years later, he was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame along with the late, great Van Zandt and his longtime friend from Texas A & M, Lyle Lovett.

The middle child of a geologist father and an attorney mother, Keen was weaned on classic rock (in particular, the psychedelic blues trio Cream) and his older brother’s Willie Nelson records – but it was his younger sister’s downtown Houston celebrity status as a “world-champion foosball player” that exposed him to the area’s acoustic folk scene. By the time he started working on his English degree at Texas A&M, he was teaching himself guitar and setting his poetic musings to song. That in turn led to a college fling with a bluegrass ensemble (featuring his childhood friend Bryan Duckworth, who would continue to play fiddle with Keen well into the ’90s) and front-porch picking parties with fellow Aggie Lovett at Keen’s rental house – salad days captured in spirit on the Keen/Lovett co-write, “The Front Porch Song,” which both artists would eventually record on their respective debut albums.

While Lovett’s self-titled debut was released on major-label Curb Records, Keen took the road less travelled, self-financing and producing 1984’s No Kinda Dancer and leasing it to the independent label Rounder Records, which issued it on its Philo imprint. “It was difficult, because I didn’t know what I was doing … I literally opened up the phonebook and looked for studios,” Keen recalls. “I basically put it all together through brute force and ignorance, but I was shocked with how well it worked out and very happy with it. We had a release party at Butch Hancock’s Dixie Bar and Bustop, and Lyle and Nanci Griffith and a lot of those people who were a part of the Austin folkie scene came out.”

Keen himself had already started to make quite a name for himself on that scene, thanks to four years of constant regional gigging and winning the Kerrville Folk Festival’s prestigious New Folk songwriting competition in 1983. After his debut’s release, he began touring more and more outside of the state lines, eventually moving to Nashville in 1986. Keen’s stint in Music City, U.S.A., lasted just under two years, but he returned to Texas armed with a publishing deal, a new label (another indie, Sugar Hill), and a national booking agent. He closed the decade with 1988’s The Live Album and the following year’s West Textures, the album that marked the debut of “The Road Goes on Forever” and, not inconsequently, kicked his career into high gear.

With hindsight, Keen admits he no idea at the time of writing it that his song about a couple of ill-fated lovers running afoul of the law would have the legs it did, but he readily points to the forward thinking of DJ Steve Coffman of San Antonio radio station KRIO for helping to start the fire. “He talked the station into doing sort of a free-form programing format, basically anything he liked, which turned out to be some Texas music along with a lot of cool sort of pop music,” he says. “So all of a sudden, I heard my song back-to-back with the Sheryl Crow song that was popular at the time, and that was the first time that I really felt like I was a real part of the music business, despite having been in it already for a pretty long time. And right after that, I went to a show in San Antonio and there were 1,500 people there – whereas up to that point I’d been playing to, max, maybe 150. That was the real ah-hah moment for me that really got me going and kept me going, because before that I’d been doing this for eight or 10 years and had a lot of rejection but very little success.”

After that, though, success came in spades. Although he continued to steer clear of the Garth Brooks-dominated waters of the country mainstream, the perfect storm of Keen’s literate song craft, razor wit and killer band (more on that in a bit) stirred up a grassroots sensation in Texas not seen since the ’70s heyday of maverick “outlaw country” upstarts Willie, Waylon, and Jerry Jeff Walker. Armed with two more albums (1993’s A Bigger Piece of Sky and ’94’s Gringo Honeymoon) brimming with instant classics like “Corpus Christi Bay,” “Whenever Kindness Fails,” “Gringo Honeymoon,” “Dreadful Selfish Crime” and “Merry Christmas From the Family,” he began packing dancehalls, roadhouses, theaters, and festival grounds with diverse crowds of rowdy college kids, serious singer-songwriter fans and plenty of folks who, like Keen himself, had been around the Texas music scene long enough to remember Willie’s earliest 4th of July Picnics. And the phenomenon was not confined to the Texas state lines. Famed producer and pedal steel ace Lloyd Maines (Joe Ely, Terry Allen) helped Keen and his band bottle lighting on 1996’s No. 2 Live Dinner, a next-best-thing-to-being-there concert document that remains one of Keen’s best-selling albums, and the burgeoning Americana music scene (bolstered by AAA radio stations across the country and magazines like No Depression) embraced Keen as one of its prime movers. In the wake of albums like 1997’s Picnic and ’98’s Walking Distance (both released on major-label Arista), one would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference between a rabid Robert Earl Keen crowd at Texas’ legendary Gruene Hall and those at New York City joints like Tramps and the Bowery Ballroom. Little wonder, then, that when the songwriter-revering “Americana” style was officially recognized by the industry 1998, Keen was the genre’s first artist to be featured on the cover of the radio trade magazine Gavin.

The ’90s may have been a boom period for Keen, but his momentum hasn’t ebbed a bit since the turn of the century – nor has his pursuit of continued growth as a writer and artist. If anything, his output from the last decade has been marked by some of the most adventurous music of his career. “Wild Wind,” an unforgettable highlight from Gravitational Forces, his Gurf Morlix-produced 2001 debut for the Nashville-based Americana label Lost Highway, captured the character (and characters) of a small Texas town with a cinematic eye reminiscent of The Last Picture Show; but the album’s title track also found Keen wryly experimenting with spacey, beatnik jazz. For the freewheelin’, freak-flag-flying Farm Fresh Onions (2003, Audium/Koch), Keen and producer Rich Brotherton (his longtime guitarist) took the band into the proverbial garage to knock out their most rocking set of songs to date – most notably the psychedelic rave-up of the title track. Brotherton also produced the more rootsy but equally playful What I Really Mean (2005, E1 Music), but Lloyd Maines was back at the helm for 2009’s eclectic The Rose Hotel and 2011’s spirited Ready for Confetti (both released by Lost Highway). The later was especially well received by fans and critics alike, with AllMusic’s Thom Jurek raving, “Ready for Confetti is, without question, Keen’s most inspired and focused project in nearly 20 years.” His latest project released in 2015, “Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions” was a straight -ahead “love postcard to bluegrass”. This was something Keen had wanted to do for a long time and it was now or never. Keen is ranked Billboard’s No. 2, 2015 Bluegrass Artist of the year. His current recording, Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions, charted as 2015’s Top 5 album at Americana Radio and Billboard’s 2015 No. 2 album on the Bluegrass Albums chart.

Earlier this year, Keen played three weeks of sold-out theater dates with Lyle Lovett, just two longtime college friends swapping songs on acoustic guitars like they used to do on Keen’s front porch in College Station. But the lion’s share of his concert schedule still finds him playing full-tilt with his seasoned road and studio band: Brotherton on guitar, Bill Whitbeck on bass, Tom Van Schaik on drums, and Marty Muse on steel guitar. “I’ve been with this band for 20 years now,” Keen says proudly. “I used to think that was just sort of an interesting fact, but now it’s almost a total anomaly – that just doesn’t happen much. I always felt like once you lock into the right bunch of people, you try to do the best by them that you can. So we’ve been able to stay together a long time, and I think one thing that makes it worthwhile for people to come see us as an act is the fact that it’s not like we’re trying to work it all out onstage – we’ve already worked everything out.”

REK has had the honor of working with music legends Dave Matthews, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Eric Church, Gary Clark, Jr. among others. He was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012. In March 2015, Robert Earl Keen was recognized as the first recipient of BMI’s official Troubadour Award. Keen is an active member of NARAS and was invited to be a participant in the prestigious “Grammys On The Hill” where he sang the National Anthem at the opening ceremony and was a member of the delegation that lobbied US Congress to support musicians’ rights, specifically the “Fair Pay for Fair Play Act”.

But the road goes on and on, with no time for resting on laurels. Not that Keen’s complaining. “I had a relatively open schedule for 2016 back at the beginning of the year, but it has just filled in like you wouldn’t believe,” he marvels during a rare day off in Kerrville, Texas (where he lives with his wife and two daughters). “I’ve broke my record this year – I’ve packed for five trips at one time, because I wasn’t going to be starting any of them in the same place. It’s been crazy!

It isn’t always easy being Robert Earl Keen, but somebody’s got to do it. And now more than ever, he’s up to the task and loving every minute of it.

https://www.facebook.com/events/642758906155460/

The Bearded Dragons Inn hosts their weekly West Marches game. This is a drop in game for all to join. If you have never played before come and join us. Our amazing community will teach you all you need to know. If you have years, or even decades of experience stop on by as well as you’ll experience a whole new style of play. For more information check out our website:
https://sites.google.com/outlook.com/westmarchesattriskelion/home

https://www.facebook.com/events/377998122745064/?event_time_id=377998169411726

Our Facebook Livecast has been moved to Mondays.

By clicking you are going, doesn’t mean you will be here…. just that you will tune in to our show!!! ;)

This week’s special call-in guest is the lead singer of L.A. Guns, Phil Lewis. Phil is the man, and we can’t wait to host L.A. Guns at the Firmament on April 19th.

Mike’s weekly show, here live on Facebook, where he will talk about shows going on in North Carolina and South Carolina, Music, Comedy, Dance, and so much more….

Announcements, Questions, Comments, Jokes, Concerns… all welcome.

Plus, tune in live for a chance to win a Meet N Greet pass or tickets to an upcoming show.

New times: The Artisan of Flat Rock Live-cast will start at 7:30 and the Artisan Entertainment Music Series cast will start at 8:45..

Want to be a guest… or come visit us live? Let us know.

https://www.facebook.com/events/325141514701242/

Risqué Monday is a weekly burlesque show at The Odditorium presented by Deb au Nare’s Burlesque Academy of Asheville. Come see a mix of burlesque performers from newbies to veterans EVERY WEEK! You will never see the same show twice!

Performances by:
Sue Meringue
Violet Rhodes
Sniickersnee
Feral Cat Kim
and Deb au Nare

Hosted by The Cat Pfish
Our stage kitten of the evening, Ada Pixels

Doors start at 8:30pm and the show will start promptly at 9pm!
$15 for 18 and up!

https://www.facebook.com/events/424658554969184/