The Reverend Jeff Mosier and his merry band of bluegrass brethren are taking the stage with an all-new bag of tricks. They’re calling their sound psychedelic hick-hop bluesgrass and their band BlueGround UnderGrass. It’s music laced with sudden shifts in an attempt to “urbanize the rural and ruralize the urban,”…

Many people think of poets as quiet wallflowers who occasionally drum up the nerve to read their own prose on stage. Wrong! The days of poetry being seen but barely heard are over with this weekend’s Palm Beach Poetry Fest, which brings renowned writers to town for non-stop jibber-jabber during…

John Hammond is just like every other blues musician. He’s happily married, white, and like all blues stars, he’s from New York City. Okay, so he’s nothing like the rest, but Hammond delivers a finger-pickin’ and thumb-slidin’ set that will take the word “stereotypical” out of your vocabulary forever. For…

How many more to go? THU 12/8 You know the gods of mainstream rock are smiling down on you when your band makes it onto a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. The CDs, sold in grocery-store checkout lines across the country, have now spawned their 20th sequel —…

Feel the wrath of Lewis Black SAT 10/1 Listening to an angry 57-year-old white guy shout obscenities about his discontent with pretty much every aspect of Western civilization sounds more exhausting than entertaining, more frightening than funny. It definitely does not seem like an activity someone would partake in by…

Against the dying of the light SAT 9/24 How many DJs does it take to unscrew a light bulb… or at least help shut off the lights? Apparently, 65. Club X-it (219 N. 21st Ave., Hollywood) is being forced to close down by October 1 because of a city ordinance…

Cowboys and cowgirls strut their stuff at the South FRI 9/16 Boot, scoot, and boogie on down to Manhattan South (6890 Powerline Rd., Fort Lauderdale) Friday if you really want to learn to take a bull by the, uh, horn. Loosely translated, this predominantly gay bar is hosting Rodeo Night…

Four cool exhibits at FAU FRI 9/9 There’s a running joke that FAU stands for “Find Another University,” not Florida Atlantic University. But it would be hard to find another university — in these parts, anyhow — that’s so bent on proving its dedication to the arts. Its league may…

Jack Johnson stars in The Accidental Rock Star TUE 9/6 Why this dopey little, monkey-headed, acoustic-guitar-playing guy is selling gazillions of records is anybody’s guess. Is it because he’s just so damned likable, with his bare feet and his beach vibe? Or because he’s just so damned cool, having grown…

From Havana to Miami THU 8/25 When director Lisandro Pérez-Rey was 5 years old, Fidel Castro opened Cuba’s harbors, and 130,000 Cubans fled to Miami. This six-month-long event in 1980 was known as the Mariel Boatlift, chronicled in the opening scene of Scarface and elsewhere. Twenty years later, Pérez-Rey began…

Bring cash, show skin FRI 8/26 This weekend, you might want to put on your South Beach best and roam Collins Avenue with your cell-phone camera. Of course, plans will shift and updates will be Blackberried across Miami, starting with Friday’s BMI Awards at the Fountainebleau Resort and continuing through…

Vampire games at Rose & Crown FRI 8/19 For the past two years, the walking undead have gathered together at Sonar Nite Club in Hollywood to dance, drink, and be dark. But now tanned, bureaucratic big shots have decided to keep Goth and fetish fanatics from having any fun. Recently,…

Hamilton gets you all misty-eyed THU 8/11 Mountain Dew doppelgänger Sierra Mist knows a little something about cracking a joke. As part of the company’s new ad campaign, it enlisted comedians like Nicole Sullivan and Michael Ian Black and recently held a standup competition to find the best young comic…

Tequila Ranch has one for ya THU 8/11 Until now, Thursdays were reserved for your weekly escapade with a bottle of domestic beer and a private screening of Urban Cowboy in your living room. Maybe it’s the dream of falling in love while two-stepping at a honky-tonk that gets you…

Oakerson’s no Winnie the Pooh comic THU 8/4 When “Big” Jay Oakerson dropped out of college to pursue a career in standup comedy, his mom’s response couldn’t have been harsher than if he’d taken a job bouncing for strippers at bachelor parties; she kicked him out of the house until…

Enter cheek-to-cheek competition FRI 8/5 Your chiseled body is poised like the mighty Atlas — glutes glistening, calves clenched. At this moment, your shimmering shoulders could bear the world’s weight, but that burden is not yours. You have been chosen for a different task: You must model men’s biker shorts…

Respectable Street hits the big 1-8 SAT 7/30 Local promoter and Closer magazine co-founder Steve Rullman has been drifting around Clematis Street for more than a decade, stirring up bands to play at club-king Rodney Mayo’s many venues, which include Respectable Street (518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach). Rullman has…

Adolescents bring in the kids FRI 7/22 Orange County, California, punk veterans the Adolescents were gearing up to record a new album last year, O.C. Confidential, when guitarist Rikk Agnew’s penchant for tossin’ ’em back got him tossed from the band. Meanwhile, Frank Agnew — Rikk’s brother and the band’s…

Local authors inspire you to get your pens a-pumpin’ TUE 7/26 Sometimes, a short conversation or a little quote will inspire you to get off your bum and pursue your dreams. Fort Lauderdale-based novelist Christine Kling, who writes about the adventures of a female tugboat captain, has said, “I’ve spent…

Wormhole turns 2 WED 7/20 It’s hard to imagine that ten years ago, downtown West Palm Beach wasn’t full of torn-up sidewalks and half-built condos. Even stranger is that alternative culture existed east of the train tracks — that live music, poetry, and philosophical discussions were as common to Olive…

Festival of made-in-Florida films FRI 7/8 Lots of unholy things have come out of Florida in the past decade or so (hanging chads, Marilyn Manson, Carrot Top). But now we have an export of which we can be proud — “The Best of Florida: Made in Florida” video competition. Showing…

With a lover’s wish THU 7/7 Those paper-crazy folks at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens (4000 Morikami Park Rd., Delray Beach) must have stock in Georgia-Pacific. If they’re not creating giant origami animals to raise awareness about Florida’s endangered species, then they’re hanging paper cranes from Christmas trees in…