According to legend, the blues was born along the Mississippi River Delta when Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads and sold him his soul. Five generations later, Fort Lauderdale’s New River is a far cry from the Mighty Mississippi. But this weekend, it’s ground zero for all things…

Winter is over. Okay, winter isn’t officially over, but those three days in January when you can wear a leather jacket without looking like a Joey Ramone wannabe have already passed. That means it’s time for spring, or at least, The Rite of Spring. If you have even a layperson’s…

The Canadians are coming, and we’re not talking about Rush’s 30th Anniversary tour. We’re talking snowbirds… French Canadian snowbirds, to be exact, the ones who’ve become so numerous in South Florida that portions of Broward County have earned the nicknamed p’ tit Quebec. Canadafest is South Florida’s premier French Canadian…

Complain all you want about Florida’s hurricanes and oppressive humidity. In January, while most of the nation is freezing its kabushkas off, we’ve got perfect outdoor festival weather. And guess what? We’ve got the perfect festival to go along with it. Boca Fest is among Boca Raton’s most popular seasonal…

Whoopi Goldberg’s done so much in her career that calling her an overachiever is like saying Bill Clinton is merely a politician. She’s got an Oscar, a Grammy, and two Golden Globe awards. She’s got a Nobel Prize. OK, Goldberg doesn’t really have a Nobel Prize, although some would say…

Kathy Griffin has a vicious mean streak. God help the celebrity who finds himself or herself on the receiving end of one of her barbed zingers. But her sharp tongue is what makes her so funny, and truth be told, many of her targets probably deserve the abuse. You can’t…

When the late Robert Johnson first sired the blues with songs like “They’re Red Hot,” he couldn’t have known the extreme to which his influence would one day be taken by Florida’s own Bill Wharton, a.k.a. “the Sauce Boss.” In Wharton’s world, it’s not just the blues that are red…

What’s it take to get the attention of a fire-breathing, blood-spitting, groupie-humping, Polaroid-collecting rock god? If said rock god is Kiss’ Gene Simmons, you don’t need to be a big-breasted female (though that would help). You just need to know where his funny bone is. It sure worked for comedian…

How many more to go? THU 12/8 You know the gods of mainstream rock are smiling down on you when your band makes it onto a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. The CDs, sold in grocery-store checkout lines across the country, have now spawned their 20th sequel —…

Danny Diablo takes on Fort Lauderdale THU 12/1 Fred Durst and his ilk of rap-metal frontmen know how to go through the motions, but c’mon, who are they kidding? Those dudes are about as street-tough as Michael Jackson. Now, Danny Diablo — there’s a guy who ain’t front- in’. Having…

He’s trying his best, at least FRI 11/25 Judging from the play’s name, one might assume that a solo performance titled The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron? is full of the revenge-seeking rantings of a disgruntled divorcée. But alas, the person behind said performance is a full-fledged carrier of the Y…

It may appear to be named after a Beatles song, but Huntington Beach, California,’s HelloGoodbye claims its name was lifted from an episode of the inexplicably popular kiddie-sitcom Saved by the Bell. That’s about as far off the Magical Mystery Tour as you can get. And it’s the sort of…

¨Worship Jeff Spicoli, not Chris Cornell/Get a pair of Vans or God´ll send you to hell.¨ No, this isn´t an advertisement for the DVD release of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, nor is it about the Warped Tour; it´s a lyric from ¨Vans Song,¨ from the Suicide Machines´ 1996 debut,…

Everything’s better with garlic FRI 11/11 Hurricane Wilma may have had some potent breath, but she’s got nothin’ on this weekend’s Seventh Annual Delray Beach Garlic Festival at the grounds of Old School Square (51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach). You name it and there’s a recipe for it that…

There isn’t much to say about Bruce Springsteen that hasn’t been said a billion times. The thing is, that for perhaps the only time in rock ‘n’ roll history, those hyperbolic, prophetic statements turned out to be true. When rock writer Jon Landau famously said, “I saw rock ‘n’ roll’s…

FRI 10/28 God created the heavens and the Earth over the course of six days, they say, and on the seventh day, he rested. Somewhere around the 20 millionth day, he created screamo music. And in the year 2005, he created the Grab Your Guns Tour, headlined by the apostles…

Is that you? WED 10/26 When Rob Thomas learns that Bat Boy: The Musical will be in town the same night as his show at the Hard Rock Live (One Seminole Way, Hollywood), his competitive spirit comes out. “Actually,” he confides, “my producer and I have a few songs that…

Our Lady Peace heads south for the fall SAT 10/15 Rock is a dying genre. Not rock ‘n’ roll. Not hard rock, punk rock, alt rock, folk rock, prog rock, post rock, or any other variation of the genre. Just plain rock. You know — grandiose-gesturing, lighter-waving, arena-playing, message-disseminating, larger-than-life…

Neo-prog shores up at Dada SUN 10/9 A million years ago (OK, so maybe more like 30), ambient instrumental rock was poised to take over the world (OK, maybe just the record stores). Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, and even Pink Floyd were using emerging technologies to weave electronic…

Feel the wrath of Lewis Black SAT 10/1 Listening to an angry 57-year-old white guy shout obscenities about his discontent with pretty much every aspect of Western civilization sounds more exhausting than entertaining, more frightening than funny. It definitely does not seem like an activity someone would partake in by…