Calendar of Events

Come enjoy an afternoon of singing and storytelling! Josh Goforth grew up in Madison County, surrounded by the music and stories of his ancestors. He is a highly accomplished storyteller and old-time, bluegrass, and swing musician playing close to 20 instruments. His fiddling was featured in the movie Songcatcher, both onscreen and on the soundtrack, and he was nominated for a Grammy for his 2009 release with David Holt, entitled Cutting Loose.

From the local favorites to new regional acts, all live from the river banks of the Nantahala. Raft, dine, then jam with us with Live Music every Friday and Saturday from 5pm-8pm between Memorial Day and Labor Day!

Wanna hear the best local music ​and​ drink the best local beers? Hop aboard LaZoom’s Purple Bus and rock out with a local band while we take you on a journey to Asheville’s premiere local breweries.

The 57th season of Shindig on the Green, a free event in the heart of downtown Asheville with a stage show and informal jam sessions, takes place on Saturday evenings July 1 through August 26, 2023.

Locals and visitors alike come together at downtown’s Pack Square Park “along about sundown,” or at 7:00 pm for those who wear a watch, and continues until 10:00 pm. Concessions are available! The remaining Shindig on the Green events will be held on July 1, 8, 15, 22 and August 12, 19, 26, 2023.

The stage show takes place on the Bascom Lamar Lunsford stage, named for the founder of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Since the outdoor event’s inception in 1967, hundreds of thousands of individuals from across the region and throughout the world have shared and enjoyed the rich traditional music and dance heritage of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in this outdoor setting.

Shindig on the Green remains a free event due in part to net proceeds from ticket sales to the nation’s longest continually running festival, the granddaddy of all festivals, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.

Join us for a very special, mystical and enchanted evening with vocalist, composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist, Marya Stark.

Marya Stark is a discoverer of archetypes, storyteller, bard, and muse. As a multi-media enchantress, she creates the way she breathes; without choice or hesitation. She is a carrier of myth, mystery, and medicine songs with which she embarks to create a ceremony of the human experience, taking her audience on lucid journey’s through the caverns of the soul. In addition to her solo work, Marya is also a member of the all female band Starling Arrow, along with Rising Appalachia, Tina Malia, and Ayle Nereo.

Tickets are $25 online, $30 day of show.

BMC PRESENTS: BELA FLECK’S BLUE RIDGE BANJO CONCERT
Saturday, August 19 – 7:30 PM | Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium

Curated and hosted by 15-time GRAMMY winner Béla Fleck, the Blue Ridge Banjo Concert is our celebration of “all things banjo.” Hear banjo legend Béla Fleck and more at the most beautiful outdoor concert hall in Western North Carolina.  A BMC Presents event in partnership with Mountain Song Productions.

Polly O’Keary is today’s blues woman, rooted in tradition, but informed by the 21st Century. Pulling in influences from zydeco, country, funk, jazz, rockabilly, surf, and rock and roll, she and her trio, Polly O’Keary and the Rhythm Method, bring a searing and joyful performance of today’s blues to audiences across the U.S. and Canada.

The band includes Polly on vocals and bass, Tommy Cook on drums, and David Miller on guitar.Tommy cut his teeth in blues as a drummer for the house band at Blues Central in Anchorage Alaska, where he eventually became a first-call drummer who played all over the state before moving to Seattle in 2005. Today he is endorsed by several drum equipment companies and is an instructor at the prestigious Seattle Drum School.Guitarist David Miller grew up listening to blues in Texas. At 17, then living in California, Miller met a piano player who was then working for Tommy Castro. The older musician recruited Miller to come to play at several bars and assured the young man that he could get him in, underage though he was. Miller became a regular in clubs in the Bay Area, sitting in with local and touring acts night after night.

At 25, then living in San Luis Obispo, he assembled The Dave Miller Band, and for the next 18 years, he and the group went on to become one of Southern California’s most popular blues bands, leading one reviewer to describe his “jaw-dropping guitar licks” and praise his “extraordinary mixture of inspiring virtuosity both vocally and instrumentally.Since forming as a trio in 2014, the band has been steadily building success. Every year brings another national tour (with the exception of 2020). The 2017 album Black Crow Callin’ was an International Blues Challenge finalist in the best self-produced CD category, earned high praise from critics, and spent all summer on blues radio charts.

In 2018, the band won the LA Music Critic Best Blues Band award and represented Washington at the International Blues Challenge, where they were semi-finalists. The band released As Live As It Gets” in 2019, which won the Washington Blues Society Best Blues Album award. In 2021, the year each band member turned 50, the band released the album “50,” and the single “You Better Think” debuted at #1 on the contemporary blues radio chart. That album also made the Living Blues chart and the Cashbox chart and stayed at the #1 radio position in Washington state for more than two months.

And the band has racked up an impressive haul of Washington Blues Society awards, including Drummer of the Year (3x), Guitarist of the Year (2020), Best Female Vocalist (6x), Best Songwriter (6x), Best Blues Bass (3x), Best New Band, Best Album (3x) and more

Visit the POLLY O’KEARY website

Listen to the music of POLLY O’KEARY

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Shades on and shirts unbuttoned, Magic City Hippies generate the kind of heat that could’ve powered a high seas yacht party in the seventies or shake a Coachella stage next summer. If the trio — Robby Hunter, Pat Howard, and John Coughlin — stepped off the screen from some long-lost Quentin Tarantino flick in slow-motion (instruments in hand), nobody would question it. Embracing everything from AM radio rock and poolside pop to nimble raps and salsa, they lock into an era-less vibe with no shortage of psychedelic funk or hooks. The three-piece deliver the kind of bangers you can play on the way to the party, during the party, and to smooth over the comedown as the sun comes up.

As the guys so eloquently describe it, they “give people a choice to enjoy this on the surface level, feel funky in their bodies, and dance…or go deeper into the music.“

As legend has it, the origin of Magic City Hippies can be traced back to Robby’s days of permit-less busking in Miami. Eventually, Pat and John proved to be better accompaniment than his loop pedal, so the trio played regular bar gigs and built an audience locally. They formed as Robby Hunter Band, released the Magic City Hippies album, and adopted the title as their name. That LP gained traction in 2013 with syncs on The CW’s iZombie and Showtime’s Ray Donovan. On its heels, 2015’s Hippie Castle EP catalyzed their breakout as “Limestone” piled up over 21 million Spotify streams followed by “Fanfare” with another 20 million Spotify streams. They toured endlessly and moved crowds at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Hulaween, Okeechobee Fest, Electric Forest, and Austin City Limits, to name a few. Along the way, the band also picked up acclaim from Relix and OnesToWatch as they dropped the fan favorite Modern Animal in 2019. When the world shutdown, the boys settled in different parts of the country (Rob “doing his Johny Mayer thing” in Bozeman, MT, Pat in Los Angeles, CA, and John still in Miami). Remotely, they wrote what would become their third full-length album, Water Your Garden, out January 2022. As things opened back up, the musicians put it all together in person.

Armed with singles such as “Queen,” the falsetto-spiked “High Beams” [feat. Nafets], “Diamond,” and “Ghost On The Mend” Magic City Hippies are ready to heat up their next chapter now.

Jack of the Wood : Sunday-Irish Session 

Sundays

1 till who knows when?

Traditional Irish music is kept alive at Jack of the Wood with our unplugged Sunday session.

Jack of the Wood

95 Patton ave

Asheville, NC 28801

(828) 252.5445

http://www.jackofthewood.com/

Fun for All Ages!

The Billy Jonas Band loves to engage and delight both young and adult audiences. Whether performing for adults, families, school groups, faith communities, or a mix, they strive for a musical excellence that inspires, entertains, and moves people literally and figuratively. With “wild winded word magic” (Dirty Linen Magazine), homemade “industrial re-percussion” instruments, exquisite 3 and 4 part vocal harmonies, plus guitar and bass, they love to create community through song and story. Their specialty: finding and pushing your “wonder” button.

In 2010, the Billy Jonas Band was honored with a performance at the White House!

Join us for Black Mountain’s original Sunday Jam! Hosted by Spiro and Friends, this jam features original jams and favorite covers. Bring your instrument! Sign-ups at the stage starting at 6 PM!

Pisgah Beer, Gluten Free and N/A options available. Family and dog friendly venue.

The taproom is open from 2:00 to 9:00 PM with music beginning at 6:30 PM.

Some ask: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Billy Jonas asks: “What is the sound of 600 sets of keys jingling on the downbeat?”

Music enthusiasts of all ages are in for a treat as The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile Sounds join forces to bring a sensational pairing: BJ & BJ (Billy Jonas & BJ Leiderman) to Grey Eagle Music Hall on Sunday, August 20. The doors will open at 7:00 PM, and the show will begin at 7:30 PM. Additionally there’s a 4pm back-to-school “family show” with the Billy Jonas Band, bidding farewell to Sherman Hoover, The BJB bassist for 14 years.

Billy Jonas, an acclaimed performer, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator creates a soul-spelunking, heart healing, and joy-filled journey. With his captivating blend of voice, guitar, and “industrial re-percussion” (found, foraged, and homemade instruments), Jonas inspires audience participation and invites an atmosphere of ecstatic connectedness.

BJ Leiderman shares the evening stage, and is the award-winning composer, renowned for his unforgettable theme music on Public Radio. With his debut album “BJ,” BJ Leiderman will serenade the crowd with original songs and cherished cover tunes. His crowd-pleasing medley of beloved Public Radio themes promises to delight listeners of all ages.

– ALL AGES

AJJ Tickets | Asheville, NC | Grey Eagle Music Hall (etix.com)

– STANDING ROOM ONLY

AJJ
AJJ frontman Sean Bonnette can summarize the band’s new album, Good Luck Everybody, in a single sentence: “Sonically, it’s our least punk record, and lyrically, it’s our most punk record.”

And indeed, Good Luck Everybody (January 17, 2020), the Arizona band’s seventh album, stands out in their already diverse catalog. While still rooted in the folk-punk sound AJJ has become known for, the album is unafraid to delve into new territories that test the limits of what the band is capable of.

“I think it explores some of the weirder sides of AJJ, the more experimental leanings that we’ve had in the past,” says bassist Ben Gallaty. Good Luck Everybody draws from a wealth of sonic inspirations, from Laurel Canyon folk-rock of the 60s and 70s to avant garde artists like Suicide, as well as some orchestral pop. There is even a piano ballad, the tragic “No Justice, No Peace, No Hope.”

Lyrically, Good Luck Everybody is a change of pace from the idiosyncratic songwriting style Bonnette has honed over more than 15 years fronting AJJ. It still features his wonderfully weird turns of phrase and oddball word pairings, but this time, his thematic lens is more directly focused on the inescapable atrocities of the world around him. Longtime fans will recognize the album’s social commentary as a return to their 2011 release, Knife Man, but this time it’s fueled by a more radical urgency.

“I usually try for a timeless effect in songwriting, so that you can hear a song and generally not think about the context under which it was written,” says Bonnette. “But for this one, I was trying to write, and all the bad political shit just kept invading my brain and preventing me from writing that way. So I decided to fully embrace it and exorcise that demon.”

Much like Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs pulled their songs straight from newspaper headlines, Good Luck Everybody feels like a long scroll through social media feeds on a particularly volatile day.

with special guests….

OPEN MIKE EAGLE
SAD PARK
FOOT OX

Silverado’s, located between Swannanoa and Black Mountain at 2898 U.S. 70, is hosting Family Movie Night under the stars every Monday night through August 21. Tickets are $5 per person, and are only available for purchase on the day of the movie. All movie nights are dependent on weather.

Bring your friends and family, and enjoy a blockbuster outdoor movie on a 24 foot screen. Concessions will be available for purchase. For more info, check the Events tab on the Silverado’s Facebook page.

LEAF isn’t just for kids! Join us in the Mezzanine while you wait for your youth to finish their class or just to hang out!

Nina Rao and Aditi Sethi are both practitioners on the path of Bhakti Yoga where chanting of Sanskrit mantras is an expression of longing for the Divine in all hearts, and celebrating the One Love!

Nina Rao learned traditional chants from her grandfather in a village in south India when she nine years old. The chants quietly stayed with her until she rediscovered chanting with Krishna Das in New York in 1996. In 1998 she met her guru, Sri Siddhi Ma in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent time with her regularly for 19 years. For many years Nina has been Krishna Das’ business manager and accompanies him musically as well. She has released two albums Antarayaami and Anubhav and regularly leads kirtan, workshops, and retreats in her hometowns of Brooklyn & New Paltz, New York. She is also founder and chairwoman of non-profit Saving Wild Tigers which supports conservation of wild tigers and all species in their natural habitat in India. In addition, she hosts a podcast series on the Be Here Now Network exploring spirituality, practice, and conservation of wilderness and Nature. NinaRaoChant.com

As a child under the guidance of her parents and grandparents from India, Aditi began offering devotional music from the Sikh and Hindu traditions to her community. More recently, she studied Indian devotional and classical music with her teacher, Krishna Kant Shukla, who lives in Varnasi, India. She has been living in the Asheville area since 2008 and has offered kirtan to her local community with Jojo Silverman, Scott Sheerin, and others. As a hospice physician and end-of-life-doula, she values the power of mantra to focus the mind, open the heart and expand consciousness. aditimusic.com

Tickets are: $25 Advance. $30 at door

We view our Open Mic as a service to the community, providing performance opportunities for musicians who rarely get to play on a nice stage. We like to provide opportunities for community members to come enjoy live music for FREE at least once a week, and sometimes more than once a week.

You’ll hear a variety of wonderfully talented folks on their way up. You never know what you’ll hear… original songs, covers, guitar, piano….. and often something quite surprising.

Each performer gets 15 minutes or three songs.

Our Open Mic has been so popular that we typically have more folks wanting to perform than we’ve had room for. After consulting with some of our regular attendees and participants we want to make sure that everyone has a fair chance to perform on stage.

So we are trying out a new process and it seems to be very popular.

We’ve expanded the number of available performance slots to 10 per night.

• Note: There are actually 12 spots on the list each night. . The host of Open Mic is spot 1, and the owner of White Horse (Bob Hinkle) is spot 3. That leaves 10 available spots to be drawn from the hat.

In place having folks lineup in advance for the signup list, we now pull names out of a hat.

We suggest that those desiring to perform on stage arrive prior to 6:30pm.

When you arrive, check in with the bartender and they will give you a piece of paper where you will write your name and drop it into “the hat”

Sometime between 6:30 and 6:45, the bartender will announce that the names are being drawn.  You must be present when the names are drawn to confirm your participation. Participants will be added to the nights performer list in the order in which they are drawn.

Any names left in the hat that do not make the performer list for the night , are automatically put first on the list for the following week. PLUS…. they get a free bottle of beer or soft drink “on the house” as a thank you for their patience and support of fellow musicians.

Cole Ritter & The Night Owls + Vaden Landers Tickets | Asheville, NC | Grey Eagle Music Hall (etix.com)

You don’t know Jai Wolf like you think you do. After hundreds of millions of streams on indie-dance anthems like “Indian Summer” and “Starlight,” blockbuster festival sets from Indio to India, and co-signs from the likes of Skrillex and ODESZA, it’s clear from the opening notes of Jai Wolf’s long-awaited debut album The Cure to Loneliness that he sees the expectations around his name as an opportunity to challenge convention.

The Cure to Loneliness finds Jai Wolf completing his evolution from upstart bedroom remixer to future bass DJ to builder of lush musical worlds. While still very much dancefloor-focused, some tracks on the LP conjure the angular riffage of The Strokes and Phoenix, weave melodies through the sugary happysad of M83 and CHVRCHES, or build up walls of sound like Explosions in the Sky — all while maintaining the melodious polish and evocative groove to which fans have grown so close.

“In my heart, this album is me,” says Jai Wolf. “From the sounds to the lyrics, it’s everything that I’ve always wanted to do.” Taking a different approach to many of his contemporaries under the wing of indie darling label Mom+Pop (Courtney Barnett, Flume, Jagwar Ma, Alina Baraz), Jai Wolf largely eschewed singles over the course of two years to patiently craft The Cure to Loneliness. The result is a thoughtfully framed, confidently expressed musical vision that will tug at heartstrings in 2019 and long beyond.

The Cure to Loneliness is available everywhere now.

Students will receive a solid foundation in beginner Ukulele skills for vocalists. Chords, Rhythm patterns, and basic theory will be introduced through songs with an uplifting message. Students will also learn to play the song that the Songwriting Class will be writing and get to record it in the One Mic Studio.

Queer Music Exploration – Students will explore guitar, bass, drums, singing and piano with a focus on learning music by artists from the LGBTQ+ community. Students will have the chance to interact with their peers and share their experiences through music.

We’re celebrating 40 years of setting the table together and invite you to join us! Each ticket includes: 

• A MANNA-through-the-decades dance party with DJ Molly Parti spinning tunes from the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s
• Special recognitions for the people and partners that have made our work possible for 40 years
• A snack bar filled with goodies from WNC’s iconic brands like Poppy Popcorn, Asheville Pretzel Company, and Hickory Nut Gap
• The best handcrafted popsicles in town from Buggy Pops
• The joy of knowing that your ticket helps provide 160 meals for neighbors facing food insecurity right now

– ALL AGES
– LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

WILL OVERMAN

Making a living in music isn’t easy, especially when it seems like listeners’ tastes change with the wind and algorithms are updated constantly, teasing artists with catching the elusive dollar. Central VA based singer-songwriter Will Overman however; has found a way to thrive in a seemingly constant state of transition.

Will Overman’s music can be best described as Country-Americana, but it’s not your typical Country-Americana sound. Sonically it is restless by nature, always searching for something new, and with Will’s heart-worn lyrics and dynamic vocal delivery, it makes for a memorable mixture that is hard to place but easy to love.

Born and raised in Virginia Beach, Will began writing songs after picking up the guitar in high school. He quickly built a regional following, and despite taking time to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail and move to Vermont for a semester of college, he capitalized on his move back to Virginia the following spring by forming the Will Overman Band. The Southern Rock ‘n Roll influenced Americana project released two EPs and an LP, playing bar gigs and festival slots (Merlefest, Appaloosa Music Festival, Rooster Walk) up and down the East Coast until in the spring of 2017, when Will graduated from UVA and the band decided to go their separate ways.

Although he was unsure what to do next, Will began working on his first solo release – 2017’s Crossroads EP with a studio band of some nationally known musicians (Johnny Stubblefield – Parachute, Sam Wilson – Sons of Bill) and good friends from the central VA music scene. Though proud of the final product, following its release, Will took a step back from music for over a year as he re-evaluated whether he could build a sustainable career as a writer and touring musician. Even while putting distance between himself and music, Will couldn’t keep himselffrom writing new songs, and following a return to Virginia in mid-2019, Will went back into the studio to record the songs that would form his debut LP The Winemaker’s Daughter.

Following the successful and well-received release of the debut single “Something to Hold” from The Winemaker’s Daughter on February 14, 2020, Will hit the road on his first major solo tour two weeks later – just as the pandemic started shutting down the world. Canceled and indefinitely postponed gigs quickly piled up, but rather than stop making or releasing music Will continued on, dropping singles from the album while garnering international media attention and radio play. Since breaking the ice on his own return to live shows in April 2021 to celebrate the release of The Winemaker’s Daughter in February 2021 (almost a year to the day after the release of the initial single), Will has put tens of thousands of miles on his van while traveling from shows anywhere from Savannah to Minneapolis to Boston and everywhere in between.

Armed with a powerful voice and powerful convictions, Will Overman is slowly but surely building a name for himself performing throughout the east coast at venues and festivals such as (The Jefferson Theater, Fall for Greenville, The Basement) and supporting artists like (Joe Pug, Christian Lopez, Dead Horses, Grady Spencer & the Work, etc.). Regardless of whether you get a first listen of Will at the next show or song on shuffle, you can be sure that it won’t be long before you know his songs by heart.

• Live Music, 6:00 p.m. and $8 specialty martinis all day at Leo’s Italian Social

Nicole Witt is a nationally-touring, award-winning Nashville songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for the soaring melodies and clever turns of phrase that have brought her national acclaim in the country, bluegrass, and Christian music scenes. With a voice that’s part Adele, part Patty Griffin, she conveys a level of emotion and sincerity scarce in modern music. Whether she’s behind a piano or upfront with her guitar or fiddle, Witt delivers live performances led by that gorgeous voice and anchored by her charm.

Our jazz trio with Thommy Knoles on keys, Felix Pastorius on bass, and Paul Gladstone on drums will perform an opening set from about 7-8:15 pm.

An open jam session follows. Drop-ins are welcome and encouraged for a suggested donation of $10.

Jazz Jam will feature a diverse array of music from jazz’s rich history, ranging from 1940s bebop up to 1970s jazz fusion, as well as material from prominent present-day composers. Bring your instruments and jam with us, or just come and enjoy!

Steve Simon & The Kings of Jazz are Brevard’s newest and most exciting and entertaining jazz band with a sound that combines the funkiness of George Benson, the soulfulness of Ray Charles and the smoothness of Diana Krall all wrapped together in big Count Basie style arrangements of American and Latin jazz classics. If you are looking for an amazing live jazz experience then check out the hottest jazz band in the coolest city in North Carolina performing every Thursday at The DFR Lounge from 7pm to 9pm