Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s seemingly randomly titled song “West Palm Beach” has long been a County Grind fascination. Released in the early ’90s as a one-off single under the “Palace Music” moniker, the sleepy, midtempo song is both specific, and not very much so. The four opening lines of the song…

Is this year’s Honda Civic Tour lineup the best ever? The annual late-summer run sponsored by the car company just announced its 2011 artists and dates, and it’s achieved a rare feat — the acts on the bill are massively crowd-pleasing while still enjoying critical acclaim.  Headliners this time out…

The one-man powerhouse born Jeff Baker but known in musical circles as King Django is one of the most influential Americans ever in ska, full stop. In the ’80s and ’90s, he — along with a handful of other figures like Rob “Bucket” Hingley of the label Moon Ska and…

A native of Richmond, Virginia, and occasional resident of South Florida, singer/songwriter Christian McGee picks up many of the musical threads let out by the millennial neosoul movement. Songs like “Give Me Your Love” hark back to the vintage sexy soul crooning of artists like Teddy Pendergrass. Others, like “Like…

As founder of the iconic futurepop act Icon of Coil, Norwegian sound terrorist Andy LaPlegua showed an early penchant for the darker, harder sounds of the industrial music fringe. However, it was with his current outfit, Combichrist, that he fully realized his caustic musical dreams. Unapologetically eardrum-splitting, brutal, and even…

Panic! at the Disco — yes, the exclamation mark is back — long ago outgrew the post-emo bombast of the height of the decaydance era of pop rock. Still, the Las Vegas act, helmed from the beginning by pinup-worthy Brandon Urie, has never been successful in fighting its penchant for…

​Florida sure screws up a lot of stuff, but here’s one random example of how the state is occasionally responsible for a few wins. And it explains why Phil Collen and his band, Def Leppard, might be super-stoked to play the Cruzan Amphitheatre on June 15. Turns out, our sun-bleached peninsula…

At this point, Taylor Swift is only nominally a country artist. Though the country world likes to claim her as a success story, and she was certainly initially processed in the Nashville machine, her vision has always gone beyond the genre’s limits. (As a Pennsylvania native, she’s a Yankee anyways.) …

In a musical world in which even supposedly “brutal” bands are often considered family-friendly heartthrobs, Combichrist is one of the last acts standing that will totally still piss off your parents! The now-four-member act, led by Norway-born noise terrorist Andy LaPlegua, has made an international career out of exploring the…

​DeftonesWith Dillinger Escape PlanSunset Cove Amphitheatre, Boca Raton Sunday, May 22, 2011There are few towns in the tricounty area less metal than Boca Raton. So last night’s show there by Deftones, supported by the even more berserk Dillinger Escape Plan, was unlikely to say the least. The venue, Sunset Cove Amphitheater,…

Tonight, Respectable Street revives the spirit of good ol’ sleaze-rock with a performance by Sunset Strip staple Faster Pussycat. It’s been almost 20 years since the group’s last charting album — that was 1992’s Whipped!, so no, contrary to legend, Nirvana did not instantly kill the L.A. scene dead.  Still,…

Fans taken in first by Toronto duo Parallels’ sweet take on retro synth-pop might be surprised at the band’s musical pedigree. Most of the original songs, in fact, were written while founder/drummer/composer Cameron Findlay was touring with electro-noise terrorists Crystal Castles. As a kid raised on punk rock, Findlay fit…

Despite trials and tribulations and times in and out of the public eye, the pioneering West Coast rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony technically has never broken up. This year marked its 20th as an intact quintet — until some unexpected turmoil hit. Late last year, Bone Thugs successfully toured the country…

At the height of the ’90s ska craze, the scene’s fans embroiled themselves deep in an internal battle: the so-called “traditional ska” faction versus the ska-punk crossover aficionados. A decade later, that genre-rule bean counting seems laughable. There aren’t too many groups other than the Slackers holding it down for…

Fun, highly bloggable fact: One-half of Parallels, Cameron Findlay, was originally the drummer for electronic-noise terrorists Crystal Castles. On the road with that act, though, when Findlay wasn’t providing skittering blast beats, he was busily writing more-melodic material. The resulting frosty, New Romantic-style dance-floor anthems were meant for a solo…

My Chemical RomanceWith the Architects and Circa SurviveTuesday, May 17, 2011Revolution, Fort LauderdaleClick here to see a slideshow from the My Chemical Romance show.My Chemical Romance may have long ago graduated to the arena and mega-festival circuit, but the band did get its start in the punk scene. So mid-size…

No one could accuse Deftones of resting on their laurels, even though the band certainly deserves a little R&R. It’s been a whopping 23 years since the sextet first formed in Sacramento. And nearly all of those since the band’s debut album, 1995’s Adrenaline, have been spent doggedly on the…

​Read our review of My Chemical Romance’s performance at Revolution.If there’s one common thread running through the career of My Chemical Romance, it’s that the New Jersey-bred foursome has always zigged when doubters have expected it to zag. When the band started out playing tristate-area basement shows ten years ago,…

What the hell is frat rap, you ask? Congratulations — this means you are (1) likely of legal drinking age, and (2) spend your spare time doing things other than wiping away spittle as you click through yet another Tumblr page. (Um, when we do it, it counts as research,…