Friday night, the Stranahan House Museum was transformed into a 1950s dance fest. At 6 p.m., Rockabilly band Slip and the Spinouts were playing music made for greasers and pre-auxiliary cord cars were displayed out front in all their shiny glory. The reason for these festivities was not an interactive…
When IWAN’s (Independent Working Artists Network) Concept Production Facility opened in 2009, it was a signal that Fort Lauderdale was beginning a climb toward gaining equal cultural footing with post-Art Basel Miami. Named the Bubble after its first event, the venue — an amalgam of gallery space and meeting ground…
5. The Fort Lauderdale Beach Fall Music Fest Noon, Saturday, November 22 to November 23, at Da Big Kahuna, 17 S. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., Suite 308, Fort Lauderdale. Free with online registration or with a food donation. Visit Facebook. The boys of Beach Place music festivals are back. Dave…
This was a brutal year for fans of the 1996 box office smash The Birdcage. There will be no Dumb and Dumber, twenty-year-later sequel for the movie that showcased South Beach as a whimsical American Riviera. This August, the film’s star Robin Williams passed away and just yesterday, its director…
A team of South Florida filmmakers are gearing up to shoot an independent documentary on Planet of the Drums, the longest running electronic dance tour headed up by four DJs who, at the millennium, were intent on bringing drum ‘n’ bass out of the underground into the world. The four-person…
There’s a rebirth of old school drum ‘n’ bass and purist-friendly dubstep happening in a particularly unlikely place: West Palm Beach. Friends Alex Gerhardt (DJ Depth), Kevin Kocak (DJ Bownce), Landon Yerby (Dcypher), Bradley Brown (Rok Is Dead), and Rene Aguiar (The Reazin) are the five-strong beatmakers behind the collective…
It’s not often that a band breaks up amicably. But Winter Haven-bred rockers Anberlin are consciously disbanding on good terms after 12 long years. Touring currently to promote its album Lowborn, the guys told fans well before the group took to the road that this would be its final one…
We’ve said it before, and we’re sure we will say it again: John Wylie is almost without peer when it comes to the sort of tangible contributions he’s made over the years to South Florida’s music community. Between the man’s early days playing guitar for a laundry list of seminal,…
1958 wasn’t a year known for cultural sensitivity. While Jim Crow laws were still in effect in much of this country, director Kent MacKenzie filmed a movie called The Exiles. MacKenzie gained the trust of three Native Americans as he documented their struggle over whether they should stay on their…
By Michelle de Carion Five years ago, a friend invited me out to swing-dance in downtown Chicago. Though I’d dreamed of learning to dance as a kid, watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers twirl about, I was honestly terrified and had never taken a lesson. She assured me, “Come anyway…
Harmonica player Rockin’ Jake has spent years spreading the blues around the nation. The five-time winner of Off Beat Magazine’s Best of the Beat award hails from Connecticut, but he’s lived in New Hampshire, New Orleans, Texas, and St. Louis and finally settled in the great State of Florida. Rockin’…
Wynwood during a Second Saturday art walk might poetically be described as a veritable Dionysian bacchanal of now sound and inner vision. Or, less poetically, as the loudest party in the largest outdoor street museum in the world. This night is unlike any other night anywhere ever, thanks to the…
What’s the most popular musical in Broadway history? It’s not Cats. It’s not Les Miserables. It’s not even the Lion King. Who’s the sexiest sewer-diving, mask-wearing music geek? It’s the Phantom of the Opera, obviously. The old Andrew Lloyd Webber classic has been performed more than 10,000 times, but when…
Vampires are passé these days; it’s zombies that are all the rage. With the popularity of AMC’s Walking Dead series, the prevalence of city-sanctioned zombie walks in every major town across the country, and the recent 2013 remake of the cult classic Evil Dead, the wobbling undead are experiencing a…
It’s a bittersweet tour for alt rockers Anberlin. Though on the road promoting its latest album, Lowborn, this will be the band’s final tour after 12 years together. “We got to this place because we’re older. We’re not in our early 20s anymore,” says guitarist Christian McAlhaney. “Some of us…
It feels like just yesterday that Stache opened its doors to downtown Fort Lauderdale. The 1920s-themed lounge has dazzled patrons with plenty of live bands, DJs, and burlesque shows since. Of course, its variety of craft cocktails help keep people coming back for more too — seriously, don’t leave without…
Going to see Phillip Phillips for the first time, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect other than a lot of acoustic guitar and his hit songs “Home” and “Gone Gone Gone.” I knew he was an American Idol winner so I was expecting a certain “type” of singer. But…
“Do you want to see some titties?” With a rebel yell, the SuicideGirls let everyone know, this is not your grandma’s burlesque troupe. Most of the ladies we know who engage in the tasteful strip are quick to point out the French art of tease’s higher level of class and…
One of the more offensive things you can ask a female comic is: “What is it like to be a woman in comedy?” The question itself looks innocent enough at first glance, but its subtext screams something different. What you’re really asking is: How can you — with your cumbersome…
Brazil has been getting all the good gigs lately. It got this past World Cup (even though the team was brutalized by the German squad, the nation still reaped in the bucks) and are looking forward to hosting the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. And now, for the third year in…
Last night in South Miami, the preview screening of Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater was attended by me, my parents, three of our friends, and just about a dozen other people. Rushing there after work, I assumed the place would be packed and I’d be sitting on the floor with…
The Cast of Lucky Stiff at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival from Voice Media Group on Vimeo. If you grew up in a household where required viewing included the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies and Auntie Mame, then you’ll be glued to the screen and giggling with delight watching…
