MUSICMARAUDERS

Maggie Valley Festival Grounds Maggie Valley, NC Words by Jason Mebane Photos by John A. Zara About halfway between Asheville, North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park sits a sleepy little vacation town called Maggie Valley. Normally the only reasons to visit Maggie Valley are to ski at the nearby Catalooche ski area or to test your luck picking through the myriad of antique shops located there. However, this past Sunday night Western Carolina live music lovers were given another reason to make the trek out to Maggie Valley. Along the main drag, amongst the kitschy motels, miniature golf courses, and souvenir stores sits The Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. Normally this property is used for things like car shows, and craft fairs, but during a global pandemic it is also a quintessential venue for socially distanced drive up concerts. It's tucked away, barely noticeable from the road, and the way it is surrounded with hills makes it feel as if it was tailor made for ...

Words by Jason Myers ( Memorandum Media ) Atlanta live-tronica act Space Kadet wants you to know that COVID-19 isn’t slowing them down. In fact, the funky quartet have shown that, even in such uncertain times in the music world, they can be just as productive and creative as ever. Fresh off the release of their new EP, Human Being , the band is brimming with energy. MusicMarauders recently sat down with the group to chat about the EP and what it’s been like navigating the music world during COVID-19...  Jason Myers: Thanks a bunch for doing this interview guys! Let’s start with a quick introduction. Can you give a brief history of Space Kadet that includes a description of your sound?  Rohan: Space Kadet started as a 5 piece band in Alex and I’s hometown of Auburn, AL in early ‘15. Eventually Alex started making more moves to Atlanta around 2017 and Thomas joined the band in late 2017. From then on, we took this project very seriously and treated it like our baby. Not that w...

The Grey Eagle Asheville, NC Words by Jason Mebane Photos by J. Scott Shrader Photography Back in early March when the entire world was thrown into chaos by the arrival of the Coronavirus, we as humans were forced to learn how to adapt to a world we never could've imagined. Like everything else, the live music landscape was drastically altered. If you were at all like me, you initially turned to the plethora of live streams our favorite musicians began broadcasting. Bouncing around between Facebook Live and IGTV we were able to find some semblance of normalcy while acquiring the live music fix we needed to soothe our souls as we attempted to navigate our strange new world. Perhaps at some point you stumbled upon "The Travis Book Happy Hour," a bi-weekly series of streams presented in the vein of an old school variety TV program. If you haven't tuned in to any of these unique streams let me set the scene for you...Travis, best known as the bass player and sin...