The A-List: My picks of arty things to see + hear around WNC, Oct. 29-Nov. 1

My memories have a really hard time connecting to definitive timelines, but I dropped by Harvest Records one day in 2019 (I think), where a few members of the band Wednesday were lazing in the small lounge area, ostensibly letting people know about their new recording. I hadn’t heard of the band yet, but asked the main singer-songwriter, Karly Hartzman, if she’d be open to my doing a story about them (this was during my BPR days). She scrawled her email address in blue pen on a tear of white-lined paper.

The story never materialized, but Wednesday certainly didn’t need that attention. They (Karly, really) soon became darlings of the Pitchfork mafia and one of alt-rock’s tried-and-true. Nobody can twang up a soft-hard-soft tune like Wednesday. Their Orange Peel appearances, rare as they are now, sell out quickly—including their Halloween night show this weekend. So if you don’t already have a ticket to that (and even if you do), their co-headlining show Friday at Hellbender, with Mannequin Pussy, is a must-see.

Did any of you, like me, catch Mannequin Pussy in 2019 (I think) at the dearly departed Mothlight? They were a force raw expression then and a greater force now.

Asheville’s newest jazz room, Hotel Eve, has brought in a number of Latin jazz artists since opening earlier this year, but none with the cred of Cuban-born guitarist Jorge Garcia. Never mind that he’s performed alongside the likes of Tony Bennett, Patti Page and Andrea Bocelli over his diverse career, Garcia has a staple of original compositions spread across a half-dozen acclaimed albums.

Here, Garcia has brought in drummer and Ivory Coast native Yakou Daniel N’Guessan and bassist Zack Page, an anchor of Asheville’s jazz community. When I last checked, very few reserved seats remained for the second set and fewer still for the first. Get in while you can!

Nobody in Western NC is more active and varied in the improv space than Misfit Comedy. Not one to let Halloween go by without a scare, Misfit is staging a grab bag of short-form and musical improv inspired by things that go bump in night (or other spooky suggestions coming from the audience).

Personally, I’m allergic to short-form improv no matter how adept the troupe, but Misfit puts on consistently memorable musicals which, alone, are worth the price of admission. Come in costume if you want.

Palimpsest Productions' Third Annual Gothic Cabaret features an evening of Appalachian horror story and song. Anchored by a live performance of a brand-new episode of the audio drama Palimpsest—written by Jamieson Ridenhour and performed by Hayley Heninger—the program also features a reading by Jen Julian from her new Appalachian dark fantasy novel The Winter Folk, and the haunting sounds of traditional ballad singer Eleanor Chen.

As if Friday couldn’t get more packed, the avant garde duo Charming Disaster chooses the perfect night for a rare Asheville appearance. The Brooklyn duo write murder ballads and love songs involving death, crime, science, folklore and the supernatural.

I first learned of them when Asheville painter Julian Davis contributed one of his epic story landscapes as the cover art for Charming Disaster’s album "What Remains.” If I weren’t already committed to the show at Hellbender, I would be all over this.

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