The Bikes play country music that Gram Parsons would be proud to listen to. The Deerfield fourpiece started out as an indie-rock band, but after the 2006 album Get Stolen, the Bikes took a twangy turn. The group's music has an Americana vibe reminiscent of great alt-rock bands like R.E.M., Drive-By Truckers, and Built to Spill. It's full of sullen vocals, rusty guitar licks, and assertive backbeats that you'd never confuse with contemporary pop country. But there's definitely a classic country bent to the group's lyrics: Lead singer Rick Ambrose delivers with the sort of resigned drawl that sounds as if he's sipping on a whiskey bottle midsong. And even when the Bikes do get to fiddlin', like on the track "Fumes," you never get the feeling things are headed for a hoedown — just a country-infused, slightly trippy jam session. Bands like the Bikes are the reason the alt-country genre has grown over the past few years. Let's just hope this group finishes its long-awaited follow-up album soon.

"Chainsaw Blues" from The Bikes:

No doubt about it: The Seafarer was a great production. It was a fantastic script paired with an almost perfect set and interpreted by maybe the best cast Mosaic Theatre has assembled since Glengarry Glen Ross in 2007. But it was a delicate job. Really, The Seafarer is nothing but the Christmas Eve banter of a bunch of severely impaired drunkards, and it worked only because the rhythms of the drunkards' banter were so natural and fun. Now, "nature" and "fun" are not automatic bedfellows — plenty of nature is boring as shit. And though it is impossible to know what innovations came from The Seafarer's actors versus its director, one must assume that Richard Jay Simon was responsible for the extreme coordination of his assembled thespians. Their conversation flowed as smoothly and easily as the whiskey they imbibed, and McPherson's panoply of emotions whizzed across their faces and through their voices in balletic synchrony. There was true collaboration happening, at dazzling speeds. It was as good as South Florida theater has ever been.

Not since Mr. Reese introduced peanut butter to chocolate has there been such an inspired pairing as this show of more than 40 O'Keeffe paintings and more than 50 Adams photographs. The two met during their first extended stay in New Mexico in 1929, when she was 42 and he was 27. She eventually settled there, while he continued to visit. "Natural Affinities" refers not just to the friendship they maintained for the rest of their lives but also to their connection with the distinctive landscapes of the desert Southwest. The results were documented in the often-wonderful juxtapositions of this exhibition, which enhanced our appreciation of both artists in equal measure.

Why We Have a Body is a zany impressionistic play that ought to be monstrous fun for the actresses who tackle it. And indeed, the actresses of the now-deceased Sol Theatre seemed to be enjoying themselves last summer as they juggled Claire Chafee's endless witticisms with her bottomless reflections on the natures of gender and fate. Ambar Aranaga, Erynn Dalton, Monica Garcia, and Phyllis Spear were fast-moving and quick-thinking, tearing through Chafee's script in an athletic way that somehow suggested they were trying to achieve liftoff. Momentum was nurtured and sustained, from Aranaga's lusty portrayal of a quirky, incurably violent, and gun-toting history buff to Spear's infinitely dour turn as her mother, boating in reflective solitude down some primeval canal in the Yucatan. It really was like juggling: a mass of words and ideas kept afloat by nothing but sheer enthusiasm, losing not a single watt of its energy as it passed from actress to actress. Why We Have a Body featured the kind of punch-drunk interplay that comes around only every few seasons, and we'll probably have a good long wait before we see its like again.

True musicians cannot be tethered. They can't be made to sit still on a stage and dutifully blend in. Besides, that's not what you're looking for with live music: You want danger and experimentation. You want Kenny Millions<. A proven player of many instruments, Kenny refuses to settle for just one. He prefers to have several, from saxophone to guitar to clarinet, strapped to his person at any time during Radio-Active Record's monthly experimental night, PunkJazzNoise. He is also partial to fondling them all, in unison, while twitching and pawing his way through the crowd. Creating cacophonic dissonances of spastic proportions didn't happen overnight for this musical maniac. He got his start in New York's bustling early '70s gig scene. From there, he traveled to Europe, kickin' it with even more of the world's great players before putting down roots in Hollywood in the late '80s. You can catch his jazzier side on weekends at Sushi Blues Cafe, the swank sushi bar owned by Millions and his wife. But to see this man's most cheese-grater-to-the-ear experimental side, you'll have to dip into PunkJazzNoise on the third Thursday of every month.

Kenny Millions live at Radio Active Records in Fort Lauderdale in May 2008:

It's easy, when confronted with Boynton Beach-based electro-glam trio Kill Miss Pretty, to get wrapped up in the group's theatrics. Taking a page from the Bowie how-to book, the band makes each of its shows a costumed spectacle. The three have performed dressed as a ringleader with circus clowns, a race-car driver with pit crew, and a cop and muggers — to name just a few get-ups. The musicians even appeared in their birthday suits on a recent New Times cover. What all this might distract from, though, is that frontwoman Alicia Olink boasts an enviable set of pipes. On the group's latest album, Permission for Strange, Olink slithers through one slippery range. She might move from a bratty schoolgirl sing-speak to a subdued coo to an all-out wail. It's as explosive as her onstage antics and just as exciting.

"Drawing Pictures of Haunted Houses with You" from Kill Miss Pretty:

As in-house curator at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale, Jorge Santis brought more than 30 years of curating experience, not to mention his own story as a Cuban exile, to bear on this thrilling survey of Cuban art, and it showed. No other South Florida museum show this year had the historical and political sweep of "Unbroken Ties." Not even MoA/FL's own "Breaking Barriers" exhibition of Cuban exile art a decade ago could compare. Santis' secret was to include the work of artists still living on the island alongside that of their exiled compatriots — a move no other South Florida museum would have had the cojones to attempt. The move paid off with a rich three-act saga that captured, in roughly 80 works by 60 artists, the breadth and depth of the 20th-century phenomenon that is Cuba.

Raised in the Boogie Down Bronx, the MC born John Joseph Cullen left his gritty native borough for the sunnier climes of Coral Springs in 1993. To our benefit, he brought his hometown's reverence for true hip-hop culture and dove into the break-dancing scene at now-defunct spots like the Sugar Shack and Club Boca. He soon discovered, though, that his real gift was for rhyming — he scored his current nickname in honor of his easy-gliding delivery. Eventually, around the turn of the millennium, one of his demos landed with Maseo of De La Soul. That led to Butta V's closest thing to a big break: a guest spot rapping on De La's track "Oh No" and a release of his 2004 debut album, Brand Spankin', on Maseo's Bear Mountain Recordings imprint. He's continued a steady grind since then, and if a quality hip-hop act has rolled through town — KRS-One, Boot Camp Clik, Wu-Tang Clan — Butta Verses has probably opened for them. A follow-up full-length, Reality BV, followed last September and raised the bar, showcasing Cullen's slow-burning narrative technique, crafty wordplay, and a flow as smooth as... well, you know.

"Work" off of the debut album "Brand Spankin'" from Butta Verses:

Born in rural Wyoming, ramblin' singer/songwriter Jesse Jackson got his start around Miami Beach, busking on the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall and charming the pants off anyone who crossed his path. Several years and more than a few one-night (musical) stands later, Jackson brought his show a little north to Broward and Palm Beach counties, where he has recently and frequently held court at Dada in Delray Beach on Thursday nights. Though his actual music is based on the best, time-honored traditions of the Great American Songbook, everything else about his live show is unpredictable. Perhaps Jackson will invite a friend to play tuba. Perhaps he will invite several friends, some of whom might play even more seldom-seen instruments like the sousaphone. Perhaps it'll just be him in one-man-band mode, singing, strumming, and keeping rhythm however else he can. Whatever happens, no two Jesse Jackson performances are ever alike — and none is less than spell-binding.

"If Wishes Were Horses" from Jesse Jackson:

For a while there, Charlie Pickett's story was one of South Florida's greatest tales of almost-was. In the '80s, the Dania Beach native was a local powerhouse, playing all over South Florida as leader of his punky, roots-inflected outfit the Eggs. Eventually he and his merry band toured from coast to coast, gaining a cult following and critical respect but never really reaching national liftoff. The frustrated Pickett gave up music and became a lawyer and now maintains a practice in Palm Beach County. Still, in ensuing years, thanks much to the internet, Pickett's star slowly rose until he was hailed as one of the unsung early heroes of the so-called alt-country movement. A retrospective reissue, Bar Band Americanus, was released on Chicago-based Bloodshot Records last year, and Pickett hit the road once again. What's all the fuss about? Largely, it's his slightly rough, blues-polished croon with dashes of Chuck Berry, Johnny Rotten, and Lou Reed. Pickett's singing style is slightly flat and wavering but swells with a distinctive, bittersweet emotion, an appropriate instrument for professing undying love before telling you to kiss off.

"Overtown" from Charlie Pickett & the Eggs: