Lately, it seems like the only news we hear about pop megastar vocalist and international muse, Beyoncé Knowles, is that which screams a bloodthirsty cry of “Domesticity!” Is Queen B. pregnant? Where did she and Jay-Z travel last? And what was she wearing when they went there? She even named…
By now, all of South Florida is familiar with the ambitions of Renda Writer. For years, the aspiring local artist was striving to get on the Ellen DeGeneres Show to read one of his spoken word pieces entitled “Half Hearted.” We have to hand it to the guy, his persistence…
OK, it’s time to get real. With buying gifts for Christmas or Chanukah or Festivus (well, not really Festivus, as that would be a contradiction), our bank account is as empty as our consumerist souls. Whether it’s picking up shitty $10 Starbucks gift cards for people we don’t even like…
For a quarter century, the ever-youthful, heck-no-I-don’t-need-hair-dye singer/guitarist Jim Camacho has rocked South Florida’s stages with a cheerful vigor and a melodic knack. His mother, the ever-present “Momma Camacho” nurtured the Goods — the band Camacho led with his brother, John between 1987 and 1999 — to the point that…
Genesis 6:4 hints, in that cute, sci-fi Biblical manner that giants might’ve once roamed the earth. The Cardiff Giant turned out to be a pretty good hoax back in the 1860s, but make no mistake, Holly Hunt’s Gavin Perry is neither hoax nor Biblical prophecy — and he’s giant through…
In an example of ethical consumerism, and aligned with the same thinking that fires the locavore movement, two of Palm Beach County’s most visible alternative arts entrepreneurs are urging aesthetically adventurous, socially conscious holiday shoppers to “Shop Small, Shop Creative” this Saturday. They ask we patronize “the various art hubs,…
Despite all the tours and T-shirts declaring otherwise, pop-punk is now officially dead. New Found Glory, a band that has often prided itself on maintaining all of its original members over 16 years of recording, has fired its guitarist and songwriter. In a Facebook post this morning, the Coral Springs…
Was 2013 a banner year for heavy metal? Not exactly. Relative to the incredible bounty 2012 yielded — in terms of high caliber and high profile heavy releases — 2013 was quiet and produced a small crop of remarkable headbangers that rise above the din of mediocrity. While the year…
Being a stand up comedian is one thing, but being a stand up comedian on a nationally televised reality competition show is an entirely different level of standup-ness (cause we just made that a thing). Tom Cotter jumped into the spotlight as the runner up during the 2012 season of…
The holiday season gets a little hectic for everyone. Maybe you’ve got people visiting, or you’re traveling to see family and friends. Perhaps you’re utterly alone in this world and have to spend time lamenting your absolute and unending aloneness. Or it’s possible you work in retail, and are so…
As Miami’s reigning lords of volume, Holly Hunt spent most of 2013 bludgeoning, crushing, and rearranging the molecules of people and places at home and across the country. The band, comprising guitarist/fuzz-wrangler Gavin Perry and drummer/human-sledgehammer Beatriz Monteavaro, has had its sound analyzed and extolled by plenty of high-profile metal…
We’ve all witnessed the meteoric rise of indie-rock starlets and West Palm natives Surfer Blood. Starting out like most local bands do, they spent time begging promoters for a shot and hustling for gigs, but this quartet rode a lightning bolt of success that ultimately landed them on Universal Records…
From what I gathered from our half-hour conversation, Huey Lewis is a neat guy. He laughs a lot and talks to you, not down or at you. He mumbles funny stories and name-drops totally unpretentiously and has sort of an accepting and easygoing attitude. He’s cool like the Dude, but…
Pop culture cognoscente Andy Warhol is often quoted as having said: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” It’s an expression that delves into the public’s fascination with celebrity and the fickle fortune of fame. It still rings true today as much as it did in the…
There’s the age-old argument: which is better: the oldies of yesteryear or the untz of today? When you stop to think about it, music is always getting better. Not only do we have access to all the classic songs that influence current music but also to the newbies fighting to…
When most scholars study a subject, they write a book about what they learn. For Colombia’s Totó la Momposina, that was not enough. Instead, in 1968, she chose to embody her area of expertise: the folk music of the Mempos Falls in the Atlantic coastal region of Colombia. For more…
Tortuga Music Festival took the salty life to the next level by planting a beer-, boob-, and beach-friendly festival square on the sand in Fort Lauderdale. The inaugural event brought in waves of music lovers in cowboy hats and flip-flops. The lineup was country-heavy, but there was some folk, blues,…
Thirty-three chapters of the epic “hip hopera” Trapped in the Closet are evidently not enough. The song that never ends, written and performed by R. Kelly, where he sings every character’s dialogue and action in E major, endures with new chapters coming in 2014, according to IFC. To celebrate, the…
An image from Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath lingers in Phyllida Barlow’s imagination. It is that of a single tree amid the storm’s debris and a storm’s survivor who noted it as the mark of where his home once stood. “‘Home,’ he said, not house,” she explains. “Maybe it was insensitive of…
When Miami heard that the legend, the fashion (and karma) chameleon, and now comeback kid, Boy George, would be coming to play a DJ and an acoustic set during Art Basel Miami Beach week, every mouth was yapping about it from Hialeah to Wilton Manors. There’s no one quite like…
Photo by Marco Torres Fool’s Gold Day Off With Trick Daddy, A-Trak, Danny Brown, and others Mana Wynwood, Miami Sunday, December 8, 2013 They called it a Day Off, but that shit was lasted from early in the afternoon till way after dark. The insta-midnight feel inside Mana Wynwood’s warehouse…
Photo by Ian WitlenGon’ Basel Castle surfing with Travis Scott. Basel Castle 2013 Grand Central Park, Miami Saturday, December 7, 2013 In the past, the setting for The Overthrow’s Basel Castle extravaganza had been a slightly cartoonish, sort of fragile-looking fortress in Wynwood. But that shit is dead, son. Last…
