The hardest balance for a rock band is to straddle the line between honest emotions in your lyrics and also simply being able to get people to groove along to what beats and tones swirl around the wordplay. 

In a day and age where everything that glistens and captures society’s short attention span is seemingly a smoke screen blurring the lines between appearance and reality, one of the most intricate and sacred of human experiences remains pure and untouched — live music. 

Coming into seven years together, the members of Porch 40 continue to hold steady and elevate each other’s craft, with a constant motto of “all for one, one for all” echoing loudly through the band’s purpose, passion and performance. 

Last November, the Cullowhee-based quintet rolled down to New Orleans, Louisiana. They headed into the studio of musician Robert Mercurio, bassist for legendary funk/rock act Galactic, whose personal collaboration and professional influence on Porch 40 is not only evident, but clearly bountiful. 

In a search that is now entering its second year, Western Carolina University’s Chancellor Search Committee is preparing to interview the top candidates applying for the job left vacant by the late Chancellor David O. Belcher. 

Adjusting his baseball cap, Graham Sharp leans forward and takes another sip of coffee. It’s late morning at the Tastee Diner in West Asheville. The constant traffic buzzes by the small restaurant bordering Haywood Road. 

Banjoist/singer for the Grammy-winning Steep Canyon Rangers, Sharp is part of one of the marquee acts in string music today. The Western North Carolina group isn’t bluegrass. It isn’t Americana. It’s isn’t folk or indie, either. It’s all of the above, which is something Sharp and his bandmates have purposely set out to present to the listener.

Following a second “Entertainer of the Year” award from the International Bluegrass Music Association this past September in Raleigh, the members of Balsam Range went immediately back into the recording booth. 

Hunkered down in the Crossroads Studios in Arden, the quintet burned the midnight oil far into the foliage season, which has resulted in the band’s eighth album, “Aeonic” (out Jan. 4 on Mountain Home Music Company). The record is a testament to the hard work and determination Balsam Range not only possesses, but radiates to inspire those around them, onstage or off. 

The core of any sincere and determined musical circle is a simple formula: camaraderie + compassion = musicianship. 

Anyone who tries to find footing at all in this haphazard organized chaos of creating and recording music, of booking and promoting shows, can can surely attest to the madness felt — onstage and off. You’re chasing a dream that can seem further and farther away each day you get up and try again, a recognition and stability you fight for with a reckless abandon.

Though part of the scene most of her life, singer/mandolinist Sierra Hull has been making some big waves in the world of bluegrass in recent years. 

There was something so cozy about that navy blue 1992 Toyota Camry.

With my mother behind the wheel of her new car, I was a 7-year-old kid cruising along to the sounds of 105.1 FM. The radio station call letters were WKOL (aka: KOOL 105) and the tunes were golden oldies from the late 1950s to early 1970s. All the good stuff, you know?

Just about a decade ago, on a school bus somewhere on the back roads of Black Mountain, four teenage boys sat together and conversed excitedly about their mutual love of music. 

Two of them were twin brothers, Kyle and Eric Travers. The other two were friends Ian McIsaac and Josh Clark. Though the siblings had been playing music since they were kids, Kyle on guitar and Eric on drums, talk surfaced to start jamming out in their parent’s garage.