A Sort of Homecoming: How AVL Sounds Fest landed Dr. Dog as its 2026 headliner
Jeff Whitworth, the talent buyer behind AVL Sounds Fest, didn’t have to look too far to find his lineup-topping national act for the Thursday, Aug. 6-Sunday, Aug. 9 event.
Scott McMicken, co-frontman of Dr. Dog, moved to town in 2021 after the veteran Philadelphia indie rockers and longtime Asheville favorites decided to stop touring.
“I didn't really move here as a musician. I moved here to not be a musician,” McMicken shared during a July 23 media roundtable event at the Funkatorium hosted by the festival. “But within no time, I felt like more of a musician than I’d ever been.”
He quickly formed The Hypos with Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound and coalesced with a cast of local talent — from pianist Steve Okonski and saxophonist Jacob Rodriguez, to bassist Kevin Williams and drummer Ross Montsinger — to record and perform with his amorphous solo project, THE EVER-EXPANDING.
The 10’x16’ home of McMicken’s Press On Records label, a converted shed on his property packed with instruments and gear, became both a fertile laboratory for improvisational songwriting and a no-frills studio for tracking music without expectation.
“In that mix, so many things were born for me in terms of understanding a new kind of process and the beauty of collaboration,” McMicken said. “After having been in one band with five of the same dudes since I was teenager, it was a kaleidoscopic kind of shift for me on so many levels.”
The voices of Dulci Ellenberger, Alyse Baca, and Becca Nicholson gradually emerged as core ingredients in THE EVER-EXPANDING recipe. The singers appear on the collective’s second (When It’s Happening) and third (New Purple Dress) albums.
“After a series of accidents, they kind of stumbled into an identity as this backing singing group,” he explained. “Their vibe slowly birthed this really beautiful instrument because the three of them have such great chemistry and sound so great together.”
Around that time, the gears in the Dr. Dog camp started to once again turn after a long hiatus. “We hadn't done a single thing for three years,” McMicken said. “We were even telling our manager, ‘I don't care who calls — no shows!’ Like, let's really live out this change.”
But the songs kept flowing, interstate. The band convened at a cabin in rural Pennsylvania in August 2023 to record what would become its self-titled album. McMicken packed up the essentials from his shed — eight-track tape machine, preamps, mixing console — to essentially recreate the recording aesthetic he’d curated in Asheville. His peers seemed game for the pivot away from a bells-and-whistles studio.
Riding the adrenaline of this well-received record release in 2024, Dr. Dog began to entertain offers for one-off gigs.
“Our manager was like, ‘You guys could sell out Red Rocks [Amphitheatre outside Denver],’ which was not at all true before we’d stopped touring,” McMicken recalled. “It became impossible to ignore the opportunity.”
Asheville, meanwhile, continued to subconsciously seep into the Dr. Dog universe. McMicken approached his bandmates with the pitch to add Ellenberger, Baca, and Nicholson to the live ensemble.
From left, Alyse Baca, Scott McMicken, Dulci Ellenberger, and Becca Nicholson. Photo by Ashli Jaden
“The other guys were all aware of the music I’d been making with them and were very much into it,” he said.
The foursome got to work arranging parts for 30-plus songs from the Dr. Dog catalog, starting out with staples like “The Breeze”, “Shadow People”, and “Jackie Wants a Black Eye” before digging into deeper cuts. McMicken shared rehearsal recordings with the rest of the band. Somewhere along the way, the singers picked up the “Lil Frankies” nickname as an homage to Dr. Dog guitarist Frank McElroy, who writes most of the group’s harmony vocal parts.
That July 2024 show in the foothills of the Rockies signaled the start of a new chapter for the band — not just via the onboarding of the Lil Frankies but in getting together in the summer months to celebrate the songs they’d written over the prior three decades with families, friends, and fans.
Dr. Dog 2.0 returned to Red Rocks last summer for another sold-out concert, headlined Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, opened for The Lumineers at the 40,000-cap. Citizens Bank Park in Philly, and landed a high-profile slot at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. In January of this year, they joined the stacked bill of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky destination festival in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
“The closer a show is to a vacation for us, the better,” McMicken said. “It’s not like the old paradigm of constantly trying to get to the next thing. We’re old dues just cruising at this point.”
Back home, McMicken and the Lil Frankies have played Dr. Dog-centric sets at Eulogy and The Old Marshall Jail, as well as on a live broadcast for Radio Bristol.
“When Jeff generously reached out about [AVL Sounds Fest], I mentioned that as a possibility,” McMicken said. “He was like, ‘Well, what about Dr. Dog?’ And I thought, well, why not? We didn’t have any shows on the calendar and thought it would be cool to hang. Only one of the band members has been here to see where I live. So, I hit everybody up, and they were immediately excited. Everyone’s bringing their families. It's gonna be awesome.”
The laid-back logistics of playing in McMicken’s newly adopted hometown sweetened the deal.
“It takes a lot to get Dr. Dog to do a show these days,” he said. “We’ve recognized the need to do things that are not totally nuts in terms of gear and crew to put on, and that create an opportunity to be loose. Alyse, Dulci, and Becca have spent an enormous amount of time working with the rest of the guys. Everybody's close, which adds even more draw to come and play here.”
Dr. Dog band members will also showcase their side/solo projects during the festival, with The Hypos, bassist/vocalist Toby Leaman, drummer/vocalist Eric Slick, and keyboardist/vocalist Zach Miller playing individual sets. Check out the full schedule here.
Dr. Dog at The Grey Eagle in May 2007 (Photo by Sandlin Gaither)
The band’s AVL Sounds Fest-closing set at the new Hellbender outdoor venue is its only headlining appearance currently on the books for 2026, and first local appearance since a 2019 co-bill with Shakey Graves on the New Belgium Brewing Co. lawn.
Asheville has been a steady fixture in the Dr. Dog touring docket, from its early-career gigs at The Grey Eagle to a 2012 Bele Chere appearance to packed shows at The Orange Peel and Pisgah Brewing Co. McMicken says he’s eager to continue blending elements of his more calculated creative past and his less-scripted, more intuitive present.
“Something I've enjoyed about this community, which has really enhanced my music-making experience, is the combination of skill and talent with casualness,” he said. “This notion of, ‘Let’s throw a few things together and make something badass’ happens all the time here. But it’s new to me. I now realize you don't need structure. You just need the desire and the will to do so in the right company.”
He concluded, “When I moved here, it essentially marked an end to Dr. Dog's previously existing operating system. Now, I’m excited to bridge my life in Asheville and what I think this festival and area represents to me with Dr. Dog, because I view the merging of those things as a healthy component for the future of the band.”
IF YOU GO
What: AVL Sounds Fest
When: Thursday, Aug. 6-Sunday, Aug. 9
Where: 15+ venues across Asheville, avlsoundsfest.com
Four-day passes: $150 plus fees, purchase here
(Photo by Lisa Schaffer)
