There’s something disturbing about small towns. Think Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Children of the Corn, or any number of horror films. (Sure, people sometimes hate on big cities as if evil lurks behind every tall latte at Starbucks — but that’s a totally different kind of evil.) Yet what makes hillbilly…
How much do you really know about Turkey? (The country, not the bird.) You’ve probably heard about the Trojan Wars, that the country is an archaeological goldmine, that it was the site of the Ottoman Empire, and, well, that belly dancers are sexy. But what about the food? The culture?…
As more and more details come out about the widespread devastation and the desperate conditions in Haiti following the earthquake, local venues, promoters, and bands have been teaming up to answer the call for help. One of the quickest to respond in this way is Propaganda’s Steve Rullman, who put…
Miami’s oldest bar, Tobacco Road, will team up with Ploppy Palace Productions to advance the cause of one of humanity’s oldest medicinal herbs. Marijuana — that ever-controversial weed that’s done nothing bad but inspire interesting musical arrangements, food concoctions, and sleep — has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Mind-bending puzzles and painstakingly trippy constructions have secured M.C. Escher as a household name. Posters of Relativity — the print that animated baby genius Stewie Griffin once referred to as Crazy Stairs — are as ubiquitous among the college set as Jim Belushi’s College. So it’s no surprise that parodies…
The song title “Eating, Drinking, Shitting,” a single off Murderous Rampage’s recent self-titled album, doesn’t inspire much, at least at first. If anything, it has the opposite effect, bringing to mind back-to-the-basics, Jurassic-age living. And it’s a pretty tame title as far as the genre goes (think Embalming Theatre’s “I…
Is it possible to start out a blog on Gloria Estefan without some sort of allusion to rhythm and its getting you? Is it even possible to avoid aforementioned allusion when the place is called Bongo’s? Considering how inescapably annoying that song is, probably not. But here’s an attempt: In…
If environmentalists have their way, the post-modern condition, in all its nihilistic abandon, is so over. Tree-hugging do-gooders say that the future of life on our rock depends on whether the masses choose right or wrong. So far, they’ve made small strides — communities have incorporated green agendas, architecture and…
Any historically significant time period is usually described as an era. When the tastes change and the fashions change, it’s the end of said era. The Beatles were so culturally significant that they not only dominate an era of music history but they have eras within their own era. There’s…
The disco inferno burned out long ago. But if there’s ever a time to relive the all-night parties when disco balls acted as the sun and people were not too cool to dance, it’s in these final hours of the Gregorian calendar. You want to start the year out right,…
Jam bands are invading South Florida this week (see Phish, Particle, EOTO, the Heavy Pets), and their minions are outnumbering our native scenesters as they swarm in bearing hula hoops, patchouli oil, hemp garb, and epic amounts of glow sticks. These, they throw aimlessly at one another during the Phish…
Are holiday musical favorites getting you down? Do you hate the holidays? Celebrate a punk rock Christmas with Margate’s the Shakers, a band that formed in 1994 and whose blend of punk and hardcore would have been an appropriate addition during the Warped Tour’s early years. The band’s latest effort,…
Sex, power, and money are key for juicy storytelling. And the story of Queen Victoria has those three things in droves. Victoria became queen at 18, stayed in power for 63 years, oversaw an era of tremendous progress as well as one of the greatest expansions of the British Empire,…
Naughty By Nature, scheduled to perform at Revolution this past Saturday, had to postpone their show due to weather conditions in New York City. Reportedly the group’s flight out of La Guardia airport was among the thousands canceled due to the intense snow storm that blew across Washington D.C. and…
EOTOPhish is in town for another New Year’s Eve. And with the jam giants come some truly epic parties that not even the most fervent Phish hater can deny are glorious. In addition to the makeshift shindigs that will inevitably pop up on the beach, the White Room will host three afterparties…
Do you watch Broward County’s most arresting guilty pleasure Police Women of Broward County? Well if you’re single Detective Julie Bower and Detective Andrea Penoyer will be at Seminole Casino Coconut Creek’s Sweet Dream Singles Party Thursday, signing autographs and posing for pictures with Singles Party guests. Julie Bower will…
Miami duo Raffa and Rainer — made up of Raffa Jo Harris and Rainer Davies — plays the sort of wistful folk that makes your heart leap. Romantic and beguiling, Harris floats her jazzy vocals over bluesy, understated guitars and syrupy saxophones on the pair’s latest, No Mercy. The 11-track…
DJ Baby Anne started her career as the Queen of Bass in, where else, Orlando, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t made a gazillion appearances in South Florida over the last 17 years. A major draw for the underground electronica community, the foxy producer belongs to the break beat generation…
Palm Beach writer James Patterson, who’s authored or co-authored a ton of works including the Women’s Murder Club, Alex Cross, and Daniel X series, will be signing his new book Witch and Wizard at Classic Bookshop Saturday. If you’re into Alex Cross, his most famous series that follows psychologist protagonist/FBI…
He expected his mother to have reservations, but it didn’t matter. So Surfer Blood’s 23-year-old frontman, John Paul Pitts, broke the news in his parents’ kitchen this past August. Instead of enrolling as planned for fall classes at Florida Atlantic University, he would be hitting the road with his band…
In a world of Facebook, Skype, and text-messaging, old technology fades and new innovations emerge before you can say XBox. We write e-mails instead of letters, our exchanges as impermanent as the technology we use. (Except for, say, that unfortunate picture of you from Mardi Gras — it was one…
DJ Baby Anne started her career as the Queen of Bass in, where else, Orlando, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t made a gazillion appearances in South Florida over the last 17 years. A major draw for the underground electronica community, the foxy producer belongs to the break beat generation…
