Band the Joke

Many people love the visceral, passionate explosion in contemporary music that’s been called emo, screamo, post-hardcore, and any of a million and one hipster catch phrases. Many of these same people grew up with the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Many of these people love comedy. Enter Horse the Band,…

Peace, Jammit

C’mon, folks, give it up for the Earth. I mean, stuff like mountains, sunsets, dolphins, and shooting stars are totally cool, not to mention cheeseburgers and sex in tall grass. For all you do, Earth, the least we can do is give you a day. For the seventh straight year,…

Cinco de Mayhem

Atlanta’s Family Force 5 creates a dubious first impression at best. Much like the mustachioed, pudgy crooner Har Mar Superstar, it’s hard to tell if the act is a colossal, ironic joke the rest of us might not be getting. After all, the slogan of this group of five, pasty,…

Ga-Rager

A little over three months into its swanky, swinging existence, the Jetsetter Lounge has hit cruising altitude and seems to be settling in for a long, leisurely ride. Owner/alpha-jetsetter Mike Jones is like a lava lamp of great ideas: new theme nights, happy — check that — “ecstatic hour” parties,…

Chipmunk Pie, Anyone?

Perhaps you haven’t had the pleasure of taking part in the fried-chicken-eating, boogaloo-dancing, good ol’-fashioned hoedown that is a Southern Culture on the Skids show. Maybe you haven’t heard the Appalachian surf-punk, mud-soaked guitar playing of Rick Miller. There is an off-chance that the incredible power of the beautiful, bouffant-clad…

1Up

Gamers know him as the sword-wielding, anime ally of Nintendo hero Mega Man. But to local hip-hop heads, Protoman is one of South Florida’s new crop of talented underground rappers. Part of the close-knit Audio Thrift Shop posse, Proto slings intensely articulate rhymes over jazzy, old-schoolish boom-bap and forward-leaning distorted…

Dude, Where’s My Tape?

Just the other day, an old friend called me out of the blue and confessed his part in the fate of my UB40 “Can’t Help Falling in Love” cassette single that vanished during my junior year of high school. Of course, he didn’t call only for that — he wanted…

The Siblings

Since 1973, the Pointer Sisters have been making waves in the pop world, surviving the twists and turns of stardom and longevity. Ruth, Anita, June, and Bonnie Pointer started singing gospel songs in their family home, having been warned off the devil’s music (i.e., rock ‘n’ roll and R&B) by…

The Iconoclast

Matt Pike has known label bullshit and what buckling to it means to a musician. It’s no secret that when his former band, Sleep, a stoner-metal doom-machine trio, recorded its magnum opus, Jerusalem, for London Records and promptly got dismissed as being too weird, Pike was pissed. That Jerusalem would…

The Teacher

From his founding role in ’80s icons Boogie Down Productions to his latest solo LP, 2004’s Get Right, KRS-One has always sought to make people think. The Brooklyn-born and -bred MC coined the term edutainment to describe the street-level wisdom — a mix of self-knowledge, anti-corporate awareness, and intense distrust…

The Throwbacks

The British indie-rock quartet Editors is constantly compared to Joy Division and Interpol, and justifiably so. But what they lack in innovation, Editors makes up for in absorbing anthems that remind us why the new-wave revival happened in the first place. Editors’ debut album, The Back Room, blasts vigorous drumbeats…

Waking Up With …

Morningwood plays with the Sounds and Action Action at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at the Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Hwy., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $12. Call 954-564-1074.

The Pitter Patter of …

Little Feat plays at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at the Harriet Himmel Theater, 600 S. Rosemary Ave., West Palm Beach. Tickets cost $36. Call 561-966-3309.

… On My Trail

The Hellhounds play at 7 p.m. Friday, March 31, at South Shores, 502 Lucerne Ave., Lake Worth. The show is free. Call 561-547-7656.

… On the Comeback

Lee Roy Parnell performs at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 5, and Thursday, April 6, at the Bamboo Room, 25 S. “J” St., Lake Worth. Tickets cost $39. Call 561-585-2583.

Scissor Kickin’ Good

What the Darkness is to Queen and Electric 6 is to AC/DC, Diamond Nights is to Cheap Trick. That is, unabashed revivalists who self-consciously ape their idols, putting tongue in cheek, cock in rock, and volume in stratosphere. But like their ’80s-lovin’ peers, the Brooklyn-based Nights are more than mere…

Welcome to Jewrock

The flack that religiously oriented music gets from secular camps generally lies within acceptance and “mass appeal” parameters. So it’s strikingly refreshing when a rambunctious teenager discovers the meaning of his parents’ G-d in the wilderness and sets out to mix that with his past rebellions. Matisyahu’s reggae might not…

A Fleck of the Wrist

Once a feral, reviled thing, the genre known as fusion — blending jazz with funk/R&B, rock, etc. — had by the 1980s been absorbed into the mainstream. ‘Round the same time, there was a parallel, though less-high-profile movement, thriving. Musicians established in bluegrass and traditional country circles were branching out…

Scratch That Glitch

Barcelona-based Prefuse 73, the many-monikered man otherwise known as Scott Herren, is about to drop a triple whammy on South Florida. With Security Screenings, his new “mini-album” in tow, Herren is sure to wreak havoc on his laptop and decks after being burned by haters of 2005’s Surrounded by Silence…

In from Outer Space

Straight outta small-town Texas, not the Star Wars cantina, Eisley sounds more like the house band of a verdant magical forest or Rilo Kiley’s ambitious babysitting charge than an alien juke joint combo. The five-piece group fulfills the whimsical indie-rock promise of its early EPs with its first full length,…

Elemental

There’s a power to Earth, Wind, & Fire and it’s a power that transcends the obvious comparison to the elements. I remember many years ago as a young man being confronted by a classmate who could’ve sworn her parents had been “making it” to “some damn Earth, Wind, & Fire…

Soggy Bottom Boy

Are you a Dapper Dan Man? Now before you go searching the mind log for that reference, I’ll quit pussyfooting and just give it to you: O Brother, Where Art Thou, the Coen Brothers’ hilarious rip through Homer’s Odyssey, a great film which also featured a terrific collection of vintage…