Admittedly, Canada’s Barenaked Ladies weren’t always in the best position to be taken seriously. First of all, there’s that name, one of several tossed about when founding members and school chums Ed Robertson and Steven Page first conceieved the idea of forming a band. And then there’s those early songs…
Remember all the varied cowboy hats and sandy boots of this past April’s Tortuga Music Festival? How the bikinis clung to sweaty bods and cozies hugged those LandShark brews so tightly! Even the mere memory of those two springtime days sends you into waves of beachy concert ecstasy. The fest…
My name is Matthew. And I am a hoarder. Some chose to remain in fervent denial. “I’m an archivist,” they’ll Tweet @ you. Or maybe the stuff-obsessed subject at hand refers to his stuff as a “collection” and the compulsive act of acquiring more stuff as “collecting.” As a self-loathing…
As October barrels toward All Hollow’s Eve, the desire to be spooked grows and grows. You don’t need to read up on Aleister Crowley or the Amityville house to get your scares, though; you can just dig into your record collection. Some of the musicians in there are false monsters,…
Dr. Dog has built a cult following over the past decade. On its current tour opening for hugely popular folkies the Lumineers, the Pennsylvania band is introducing its brand of indie, neo-psych, jam sound — or what it likes to call rock ‘n’ roll — to a whole new audience…
Austin Mahone is a teenaged dreamboat. The perfectly adorable 17-year-old pop sensation went from YouTube cutie to VMA winner in almost record time. Signed to Cash Money Records, he was voted 2013’s “Artist to Watch” by the formerly musical channel and named the new Justin Bieber by everyone else. Mahone…
People, unite! Miley Cyrus is coming to Broward County, tongue wagging, with Robin Thicke in tow! And who do we have to thank for the future presence of this most controversial duo? Y100. That’s right, the Clear Channel radio station went (jingle) balls to wall this year, headlining its annual…
Frightened Rabbit With Augustines Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale October 12, 2013 Better than: The vast majority of indie rock. Indie rock is such a vague musical umbrella. But perhaps that is because “indie rock” has grown so very vague? It feels as if everyone wants to be Death Cab for…
The future of music is bleak. Our monstrous culture of free downloads has resulted in the Spotify-ification of the last few remaining outlets trading sound for currency. Which is to say, if you’re a songwriter today, your music will either be sold for Nothing or Next to Nothing. Those two…
Moonfest promises three different stages throughout Clematis Street in West Palm Beach on which 25 bands will mark their territory; now that’s a block party you can enjoy without fear. Headliners Reverend Horton Heat are getting lots of buzz, but it’s the local lineup that has us all fired up…
John McEuen is a true traveling troubadour. He’s a musician whose spent the better part of the past 47 years making music on his own and as a member of the seminal Americana outfit the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, demonstrating his prowess on guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle. Residing on…
To get the skinny on his upcoming gig at Davie’s finest, Cowboy Saloon, I spoke with country artist Aaron Lewis. If you can’t quite figure out why this name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because this musician was the former frontman of the angsty, postgrunge band Staind. Yes, you read that…
I can’t fight this feeling any longer, and yet I’m still afraid to let it flow. The year is 1985. The place: a South Florida suburb. My perennial battle with acne vulgaris is breaking bad. I sit alone in my four-cornered room listening to Madonna’s Like a Virgin LP, playing…
Did you feel that? No it wasn’t another almost-hurricane. It was a shift. While you were busy Snapchatting indie rock shows, something happened in South Florida. A wave of actually good folk-bluegrass-finger-picking bands have emerged and taken up stake as another local music subculture. Who woulda thunk, there are even…
New folk, roots, Americana – whatever name you wish to affix to the genre, it’s certainly an unprecedented time for emotional people with acoustic guitars. Every generation has had their share of heartfelt folkies, sure, but the current crop of young people strumming and humming is displaying a serious passion…
Two years along and still choogling, artist and impresario Rolando Chang Barrero’s adventurous alternative arts gallery ActivistArtistA is throwing a three-day birthday bash this weekend. The event includes live music, visual arts, food, and performances of the unexpected sort that we’ve come to expect from him. This includes fire acts,…
We’ve been noticing plenty of Glam-a-THON events around town in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Fort Lauderdale org, which hopes to “kiss breast cancer goodbye” celebrated the prohibition era preview opening of Stache (formerly Green Room), and last Friday, it was all pink and glitter at Passion…
Back in the early ’90s, there were two guitar heroes blazing strings from the wilds of Southwest Miami-Dade: Subliminal Criminal’s Ed Matus and Pontious Pilot’s Juan Montoya. As just about anyone who has walked into a club in South Florida (not to mention the rest of North America, Europe and…
Portugal. The Man, with Crystal Fighters Revolution Live, Fort Lauderdale October 9, 2013 Better than: Taking acid and watching Yellow Submarine. If your idea of a wicked Wednesday night is tripping balls to some psychedelic indie rock, then chances are good that you were among the sweaty, sore-throated masses at…
There’s more than enough reason to have the blues these days, with the government shutdown, bickering between politicians, and the continuing absence of Twinkies on our local store shelves. So we figure we might as well just celebrate the feeling and sound, and get into the grove at the second…
When people argue about genres, it’s usually on the basis of authenticity. Pop-punk deviates from that tendency in a big way. Not only is it rare to find anyone parsing hairs over what does or does not qualify as catchy, melodic punk rock but the term is shared among a…
Better than: Anything Jerry Only or John Christ have done in years. It’s nearly impossible to read anything regarding Glenn Danzig these days that isn’t either a mockery of the man’s entirely polarizing personality or bits of cynical repartee. Truth be told, Danzig welcomes the attention with his complete inability…
