Better than: Watching stumbling variations on the theme of the skank crawl around Downtown Ft. Lauderdale’s monthly Splatter-Rama event has been a pretty successful taste of blood, guts, and booze since its inception, but, as one might expect, the Halloween edition was another beast altogether! A costumed, dancing, drunken beast, it…
Aging rockers face a unique challenge, one to which the rest of us can only sort of relate: growing old with relevance under the cruel, critical gaze of the public eye. Some survived the 1950s, like once brash young men Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and continue…
With a romantic band name like Astari Nite, your ears get get the music they might expect. There are the emotional, poetic lyrics, the Peter Murphy-esque voice of Mychael Ghost, and an overall dark New Wave, ’80s sound. Though we’ve been anticipating their debut full length for quite some time now,…
Bet you can’t even count how many times you’ve screamed out at the TV, the DJ, the person in the passenger seat next to you, in response to the words A1A, “Beachfront Avenue!”In 1989, Vanilla Ice, AKA Robert Matthew Van Winkle, made it big time with his debut album, Hooked…
“Around the house we always had music,” Justin Bieber’s mother, author Pattie Mallette told us in a back room at Books and Books in Coral Gables. She’d just arrived from the Women of Faith event in Fort Lauderdale. “I would sing and play the guitar and have people over. And…
There are an bundance of musical celebrities that call South Florida home. Perhaps none of them is more famous worldwide while still teetering on the edge of irrelevance than Yanni. The composer makes his home in Manalapan (that’s Lantana to us poors) just a stone’s throw from the Ritz Carlton…
There hasn’t been a show quite so peculiarly memorable as the Goddamn’ Hustle’s …Ruined My Life CD release party in the recent history of the South Florida music scene. Besides dozens of sexy cat (in bread?) costumes, nearly naked men and women, a scooter, there was fan-fucking-tastic live music.See also- Q&A: The Goddamn…
All too frequently, a musician’s image becomes more integral in the public psyche than his or her music. Can you imagine the Cure’s Robert Smith performing without his shambolic hairdo or smudged lipstick. How about Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav throwing down rhymes on stage sans his customary large neck clock?…
Russell Simmons on President Obama, Politics, and Hip-Hop
Here at County Grind we thought it wise to refrain from overt political leniencies during these electoral times. And we know how some of you think, that we’re too flung one way or the other, and according to some elderly gentlemen outside of our favorite cafecito window, we’re “un periodiquito…
With the constant stream of live shows and aspiring musicians in South Florida, Stuart, Florida, is one of the last places a local would think to turn to for a music fix. But one very determined believer of the Treasure Coast is taking a grassroots approach and attempting to turn…
Given his spectacular 35 year career that’s placed him at the pinnacle of international rock ‘n’ roll success, it’s easy to forget that Tom Petty is a proud Florida boy whose personal and professional roots were first nurtured in Gainesville. Born October 20, 1950, Petty’s budding interest in music came about…
Born under the most milquetoast moon ever, Winston Hubert McIntosh on the 19th of October 1944, would never play game to bullshit and/or bullshitisms. Christened Peter Tosh after a horrific accident, after a tenureship with Bob Marley. His untimely death in 1987 at the age of 42 is proof positive that no good deed…
The Haitian music industry has been rocked by the suicide of promoter Joseph Kernizan. The 49-year-old agent was a rep for megapopular Haitian konpa band NuLook, until he tragically took his own life Tuesday night. But this lurid story doesn’t stop there. Kernizan’s self-snuffing occurred in the midst of a…
Our interview was supposed to be scheduled with David Brockie, the mastermind behind long-running theatrical rock outfit GWAR. But when we called the number given to us by the band’s manager, the phone rang one and a half measures before we heard the booming voice of a used-car salesman moonlighting…
Rap music and pornography go together like love and marriage, which, in turn, go together like a horse and carriage. Try playing 90 percent of hip-hop for your parents and, almost immediately, the genre’s persistent obsession with the world of quiver-inducing carnal delights will either gravely offend them or make…
Racism in America?! Pshaw. We have a black president. Remember? Doesn’t exist. And domestic abuse? Can you joke about that? Well you can in the small town west of Binghamton, New York, called Waverly. See also – Rihanna and Chris Brown Together Again Is Seriously Confusing- Leave Rihanna and Chris Brown Alone…
Cash Money mogul Birdman (aka Baby), has purchased a 9-bedroom, 17-bath mega-mansion complete with 25-foot ceilings, in-house spa and gym, a theater and a fucking cabana. All this a week after we at County Grind heard thirdhand that he was crashing at the Diplolmat on Hollywood Beach. The intense luxuriousness…
If you missed the premiere of The Walking Dead last night, we’re bringing you some brain eating, membrane covered zombie realness from Friday’s Fort Lauderdale Zombie Walk to make up for any unsatisfied blood lust ya got. See also- Slideshow of Fort Lauderdale Zombie Walk 2012Swarms of rotting souls invaded the Green…
Followers of the local music scene will have no trouble recalling the echoes of West Palm Beach’s Doorway 27. Embracing an eclectic sound that was alternative, indie, surfer, and mainstream all at once, the band had a far-reaching fan base. Although they have since parted ways, lead singer Bryan Wohlust…
It’s been a pretty decent past few years for the gay community. You guys got silver fox Anderson Cooper for sursies and young buck Frank Ocean too. Don’t ask don’t tell was overturned and you can get married, sort of, in like 16 states. Sure, shooting for 50, but you…
History shows that it can take a good long while to really break through in the hip-hop game. This is true, even more so when rapping is your second attempt to claim some fame in this lifetime (#YOLO gone wrong). Though you may be a natural at wrestling, basketball, or…
