OUTPOST: Frances Eliza, AJ Buchanan, & Clara Blyth
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLY- RAIN OR SHINE Frances Eliza Asheville-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Frances Eliza blends her love of songwriting with her passion for jazz, folk, and pop music. Performing around NC and SC for over a decade, Frances has been described as “An intimate storyteller who invites the listener into her private life as she shares and explores experiences of love, loss, and pain.” Influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell, The Cranberries and Taylor Swift, Frances has performed solo and with many talented musicians at hundreds of venues over the past decade, and has released 2 original EPs thus far. AJ Buchanan AJ Buchanan is a singer/songwriter based in Asheville. Her music focuses on love, her loved ones, memories, and weaving images of these themes with the feelings to which they are tied. Her sound is soft and powerful with attention to finger picking and folk/country inspired strumming on the acoustic guitar. Clara Blyth Clara Blyth is a vocalist, cellist, guitarist and alternative folk singer/songwriter based in Asheville, NC. Clara’s music is driven by crippling sentimentality and lyrical imagery, and she is currently working to release her debut EP later this year.
The Vandoliers
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYVANDOLIERSVandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever. Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Eric Delegard at Reeltime Audio in Denton, TX, The Vandoliers is an album interrupted. The band’s original two-week recording session ended abruptly in March 2020 as shutdowns began across the globe. The band didn’t get back into the studio until November, at which point they realized that, like many of the best-laid plans, their original strategy for the record had to change. “We wanted to make an album that had the same power as our live performance — a tight, big sound,” Fleming says. “Through trial and error, label closure, fatherhood, sobriety, relapse, the album grew on its own stylistically. After the hardest two years of my life, we created a collection of songs that push us as musicians, songs that reaffirmed my place as a songwriter and a faith in ourselves as a band I don’t think we had before.” Amid all that uncertainty, Vandoliers did what they knew best: they made music. First came “Every Saturday Night,” a pandemic-era appreciation of all the rowdy, late-night shows that we all missed while stuck at home. “I thought for sure that this would be the last song I would ever write. I missed all the little things about the life I lived up until that point,” Fleming says. “I missed the smells and tastes of a smoky dive bar, the long overnight drives listening to our favorite bands.” Those thoughts clearly struck a chord with listeners, earning the song heavy rotation on the radio, especially Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country, and jumpstarting the band’s plans to head back into the studio to encapsulate their electric live shows into the album that would eventually grow into The Vandoliers. MYA BYRNE Mya Byrne is a celebrated country-punk Americana rocker, singer-songwriter, and firecracker guitarist, combining influences from countrypolitan to glam-pop, blues, and ghostly incantations into a singular voice and vision. It’s been a banner year for Mimi. In 2023 she released “Rhinestone Tomboy”, produced in Nashville by Grammy-nominated songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan. CURTIS McMURTRY Curtis McMurtry is a singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Austin, TX. Influenced by Fiona Apple and Tom Waits, Curtis’ songs combine sinister lyrics with sophisticated orchestration. His new album, The Pollen & The Rot (May 2024) delights in depicting characters that are at once rebellious and seductive. Curtis specializes in writing “sad songs and mean songs” and considers his catalogue to be “music for people that like to read.” He frequently performs as a duo with cellist/singer-songwriter Diana Burgess.
Daniel Nunnelee
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYCLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE ARTIST PRESALEDANIEL NUNNELEEWith the arrival of his self-released breakout single “Pick and Choose” in 2022, Memphis-born singer/songwriter Daniel Nunnelee introduced the world to his sweetly offbeat and soul-baring form of folk/indie-rock. An instant viral sensation that amassed over a million streams in just ten days, “Pick and Choose” soon led to the making of June, Baby: a strangely enchanting debut album revealing both his old-soul sensibilities and wide-eyed perspective on finding your way in the world. With its title nodding to his birthday month and to the duality he embodies as a quintessential Gemini, June, Baby explores such emotionally heavy matters as anxiety and anticipatory grief, endlessly showcasing the graceful musicality he first developed by playing guitar in church as a kid. A lifelong nature lover who wrote much of June, Baby at his favorite park and at remote cabins in Mississippi and Colorado, the Nashville-based artist also sets his self-reflection to a one-of-a-kind sound matching its homespun charm with the unbridled energy he’s brought to the stage opening for artists like Madi Diaz and Shakey Graves (in addition to headlining his own tours). A truly gifted vocalist who brings an undeniably playful spirit to his existential questioning, Nunnelee ultimately hopes that listeners might take whatever they need from his songs — whether it’s a deeper communion with the natural world that incessantly inspires his music, or a monumental shift in their own outlook on life. Izzy Heltai Izzy Heltai creates moments you could hum to yourself in a moment of introspection or scream off the top of a parking garage at 2am – either would feel like a catharsis. His music is as nimble as it is grounded – walking the seam between confessional lo-fi musings and raucous basement rock. Sonically unpretentious and lyrically relatable, Izzy invites you into his world like a conversation with a best friend over a cigarette on the back porch – the moment of clarity you didn’t know you needed.
Charlie Brown Superstar
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYCHARLIE BROWN SUERSTAR Charlie Brown Superstar (Brett Fuller) is a DJ, producer, remixer, and artist from Huntington, WV. A veteran of the West Virginia DJ scene, playing at such clubs as Gumby’s, Gyrationz, and the V Club since the mid 90s, Fuller is known for playing a wide range of music with a focus on Nu Disco and house, and is also known in the Nu Disco/Disco Edit scene as a producer. He has released music with labels across the world, including Candy Beach Records in Spain, Thunder Jam Records in Israel, and Sound Exhibitions Records and Boutade Musique, both out of Italy, as well as American labels, Bent Ant and Fresh Farm Records. Fuller’s songs have charted on all three major DJ music sites: Traxsource, Beatport, and Juno Download. His track “Never Gonna Stop” with Alpaca Edits (England) spent weeks at #2 on Traxsource Lounge/Chill Out chart. Several of his songs have also been included on the Traxsource “Essential List.” In addition to his solo work, in the early 2000s, Fuller also released 2 full-length records and toured with the band Hyatari, and was also a touring member of the 90s band Chum. Currently, Fuller concentrates on what he calls Mountain Funk, an eclectic blend of jam, funk, and electronic, with elements of local flavor, that he has showcased at festivals such as Mountain Music Fest, Brew Skies, and Kickin’ It On the Creek, and, more locally, Huntington Music and Arts Fest and Funktafest. Fuller has played clubs across the Midwest, including in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, and is part of the Rust Belt Alliance, which features DJs based in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Huntington.
SUMMER RADIANCE: FEATURING THE JASPER AND OPAL STRING QUARTETS
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW Asheville Chamber Music SeriesCelebrate the laid-back mountain lifestyle this summer with a chamber music takeover at this iconic River Arts District venue. Bring your friends, grab a drink and bites from the on-site taqueria and enjoy a liberated listening experience with works from Dvorak, Bloch, Wiancko and Mendelssohn, among others.
Anya Hinkle & John Doyle: “Oceania” Album Release Celebration
ALL AGESSEATED SHOWLIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEANYA HINKLE & JOHN DOYLE Asheville, NC-based Appalachian-Americana singer/songwriter Anya Hinkle and renowned Irish guitarist John Doyle team up for a celebration of OCEANIA, Hinkle’s new album released in 2024 on Red Parlor Records. OCEANIA, produced by Kevin Moloney (U2, Sinéad O’Connor), features Hinkle’s award-winning songs supported by Doyle’s celebrated sense of groove and melody on guitar. The result of their collaboration is a collection of songs that uses the vastness of the great Pacific as a metaphor for how our lives are often quite uncertain–uncertainty as wide and deep as the ocean itself–requiring more courage to voyage across it than we think we have at times. Expect an evening of songs and stories from across the globe from two master storytellers and musicians. Anya Hinkle tends to her craft with both personality and purpose. Based in Asheville North Carolina, she shares her songs with exacting detail, superb storytelling and an emotional honesty that reflects her rural roots in Appalachia and its surrounding environs. Nevertheless, she’s consistently expanded her musical parameters through regular touring throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, soaking up the diverse influences of the sounds and cultures that she’s encountered along the way. With her new album, Oceania — due for release on Red Parlor Records this spring — Anya brings that inspiration to full flourish. Recorded at Citizen Vinyl studios in Asheville, and overseen by veteran producer Kevin Moloney (U2, Sinéad O’Connor), the album features an impressive group of players, including renowned Irish guitarist John Doyle on guitar, bouzouki, and mandola; acclaimed slide guitarist Billy Cardine on Dobro, lap steel, and chaturangui; Daniel Kimbro on bass; River Guerguerian on percussion; Mary Lucey sharing harmony vocals; and special guests Michael McGoldrick contributing Uilleann pipes and whistle; Mick McAuley on accordion; and Clark Rinard on organ and electric piano. Lauded as “a darling of the Americana scene” by Bluegrass Today, and described by PopMatters as “…a burgeoning force behind the Appalachian roots revival…,” Anya has reached a new peak in her career, one that’s yielded ten albums to date — including those on her own and several in collaboration with others. Oceania also marks the latest triumph in a trajectory that’s yielded a first place win in the 2019 MerleFest Chris Austin Songwriting Competition (courtesy of her song “The Ballad of Zona Alston”), a win at the 2023 USA Song Competition, and runner-up status at the International Acoustic Music Awards in 2022.
Wizard Fest Asheville
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYLIMITED NUMBER OF VIP TICKETS AVAILABLE: includes priority entry at 7pm when doors open, wizard fest scarf, wizard fest beanie, wizard fest t-shirt, custom wizard fest wand and miscellaneous wizard themed swag all in a wizard fest tote bag!WIZARD FESTYou may not be a wizard but this year, you’ll get to party like one! Wizard Fest is an interactive fantasy themed party that celebrates all things magic, witches & wizards, cosplay along with themed drinks (hard and soft!) and Wizard Games all spun into one spectacular event
Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards
ALL AGESSEATED SHOWLIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLELAURA CORTESE & THE DANCE CARDS“Everything is so heavy in the world right now,” Cortese says, who’s been living in Belgium the past two years. “When someone comes to our show, listens to this album, or hears one of the songs, I want it to feel like relief and release.” So how does one begin to chip away at walls of self-preservation and shame that create social confinement? For Cortese and company, one word came to mind: dancing. “When you dance, you let it all go,” she says. With that in mind, Cortese set off on a personal creative journey like none before — no rules, no restrictions, just the desire to create music that makes you move. Kassirer helped her sift through her cache of over 40 songs and encouraged her to form songs from her snippets, riffs, and ideas. For the first time, Cortese opened up the songwriting process to The Dance Cards collective. She exchanged ideas and songs with her bandmates remotely, and then enticed a few with the promise of Belgian delicacies to cross the ocean and flesh out arrangements. From recordings of the players beating on all sides of their instruments, Kassirer fashioned loops and created bass lines with members of the band. Lyrics were honed through group examination, with the goal of framing each story in the most impactful way possible to inspire empathy in the listener. The work was quick, but it was deep. Cortese explains that the song that inspired the album title, “Treat You Better,” is about the complexities of long-term love, obligation and healthy versus unhealthy dynamics. “I started writing this a few years after I got divorced and was pretty disillusioned about finding a partner. I was asking some older friends — couples that from the outside seemed to have healthy and lovely long-term relationships — questions about their relationships. I found this coincidental link between many of the couples. The morning person gets up and makes the other one coffee and brings it to them in bed. Ultimately the song is about examining personal barriers to treating your partner better—how critical and cynical we get, juxtaposed against images of your partner doing nice things for you.” “Belgium, my new home, is #1 for suicide in Western Europe. They keep a lot of distance socially,” she says. “People meet up with friends in bars instead of their homes. It takes a long time to make real friendships. Trying to integrate gave me new perspective on what it feels like to be an outsider”. CAROLINE COTTER Caroline’s Cotter’s sunlit songs honor the countless ways of being human. With her honeyed voice and disarmingly honest lyrics, Cotter sings about connection, nostalgia, gratitude, loss and wanderlust. Lyrics like, “Find me somewhere out on the road / Take me into your heart and into your home,” make perfect sense from a touring artist who has played over 1000 shows in 45 states and 16 countries. Cotter has released three records, Dreaming as I Do (2015), Home on the River (2018) and Gently as I Go (2023). Under the Radar magazine says her music, “brings forth an abiding sense of warmth and welcome, offering an uplifting reminder to make the most of every moment.” Everywhere she goes, her oracular songs elicit emotion and spark insight—medicine for our collective longing.
Erik Koskinen Band
ALL AGESSEATED SHOWLIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEERIK KOSKINEN BAND He’s a lights-out guitar (player) and his band is as good as any band in the country. But he’s also a top-shelf writer, with a blade-sharp wit and love songs so real and tender they seem to transcend the form. I know of few writers whose relationship to their own landscape, in this case the rural north, is so elemental, and so integral. His songs feel like weather. People know him in Minnesota, where most bar bands seem to cover at least one of his songs, but otherwise he’s still one of the best kept secrets in the country. He sings about an America that doesn’t get much play anymore, the one where the people at the bottom can’t quite get ahead, and where working people aren’t cartoon props in a culture war, but shrewd human beings living hard lives, and hard loves. His songs have the diamond-hard clarity and simplicity of Tom Petty, and like Petty, Koskinen can sing a literal statement without metaphor or ornament, and make it move like poetry. The spiritual hunger in rock ‘n’ roll that came from blues and gospel is still a hunger in these songs, and if you listen hard, you can hear that lean coyote voice – wary, feral, full of fierce delight – lighting up the wee hours from somewhere out on the prairie. ~J Foucault CAROMIA AND RAHMRahm & CaroMia had a close musical friendship for many years through the lens of R&B, Funk and Neo-Soul before discovering a shared deep love of singer/songwriter music. This is a side of them seldom seen outside late nights on front porches. Over the last handful of years, they have crafted their own homage to their roots- Lush harmonies carried across dreamy soundscapes, songwriting that shines in this simplicity.
An Evening With Vanessa Collier
– ALL AGES- SEATED SHOW- LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEVANESSA COLLIER “There’s a young lady [Vanessa Collier] came onstage with me, I forget where I was, but she’s playing an alto saxophone, and man, she was amazing.” Those are the words of Buddy Guy in a recent issue of American Blues Scene, describing an impromptu performance with Vanessa Collier on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. If you haven’t been fortunate enough to meet Vanessa and witness one of her head-turning, fiery, and passionate performances, you should definitely make sure you do. As a master musician and multi-instrumentalist, Vanessa Collier, weaves funk, soul, rock, and blues into every powerful performance and she is downright impressive. With soulful vocals, searing saxophone, and witty songwriting, Vanessa is blazing a trail, racking up an impressive arsenal of honours, and has already singled herself out as an artist of distinction and one we would all do well to watch. It’s not simply the accolades she has accumulated so far, although they’ve been many — two Blues Music Awards for “Horn Player of the Year”, and a third BMA for “Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year”, eight Blues Music Award Nominations (BMAs), a Blues Blast Award nomination, the Jammingest Pro Award bestowed by the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, First Place for lyrics in the International Songwriting Competition, Best of 2014 Blues Breaker on Dan Aykroyd’s BluesMobile — it’s the fact that she has accumulated all these honours even while her career is still in its infancy. A 2013 graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she’s toured nationally and internationally, released four critically acclaimed albums (2014’s Heart, Soul & Saxophone, 2017’s Meeting My Shadow, and 2018’s Honey Up, 2020’s Heart On The Line. Honey Up spent 9 weeks atop the Billboard Blues Album Charts Top 15, 3 months on the Living Blues Charts at #10 and #23, and continues to be spun on Sirius XM’s B.B. King’s Bluesville radio station! It’s not surprising that the press has been quick to commend her efforts as well. Blues Blast Magazine affirms, “Vanessa Collier is a fresh face on the American blues scene, and in addition to her soulful vocals, she brings a mighty sax to the table…” Blues Music Magazine proclaims, “Collier is a fresh face who comes to the blues stage carrying her reed instruments, a dual degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston, a major label debut, almost two years of touring with Joe Louis Walker, and a mature musical vision…Collier commands center stage with her vocals, soloing, and stage presence.” Midwest Record exclaims, “This bluesy singing sax player knows how to bring the slinking funk to her captivating, award winning sound that has echoes in young Bonnie Raitt/Maria Muldaur vocal sounds…Killer stuff on every level, this sounds like one of the reasons you first became a music fan. Killer stuff.” and AXS.Com declares that she “might as well go ahead and add another shelf to her trophy case because clearly, she’s going to need it. With a voice that often recalls that of blues-rock stalwart Bonnie Raitt, Collier turns up the heat…”
